Rulemaking Amidst Growing Diversity: A Club-of-Clubs Approach to WTO Reform and New Issue Selection

The diverse nature of World Trade Organization (WTO) membershipmakes it highly unlikely that members will all be willing andable to sign on to the full range of agreements that many membersmight find desirable. The paper proposes an approach in whichthe WTO would supplement its core agreements with additional‘clubs’ to which only some members would subscribe.The approach is a compromise in which diversity can co-existwith a more extensive set of commitments for willing members.The paper provides suggestions for how the clubs would be selectedand how they would operate. Clubs would be chosen where theycould help promote the WTO’s central missions: loweringbarriers to trade, reducing the discriminatory effects of domesticpolicies, and enhancing economic development through trade.All WTO members would participate in negotiating club rules,but members would be free not to join. Clubs would use the DisputeSettlement Understanding (DSU) to deal with disputes, but suspensionof concessions in the event of violations would be confinedto the provisions of the same club in which the violation occurred.     

Federal Oversight, Local Control, and the Specter of "Resegregation" in Southern Schools

Analyzing data for the 100 largest districts in the South andBorder states, we ask whether there is evidence of "resegregation"of school districts and whether levels of segregation can belinked to judicial decisions. We distinguish segregation measuresbased on racial isolation from those based on racial imbalance.Only one measure of racial isolation suggests that districtsin these regions experienced resegregation between 1994 and2004, and changes in this measure appear to be driven largelyby the rising nonwhite percentage in the student populationrather than by district policies. Although we find no time trendin racial imbalance over this period, we find that variationsin racial imbalance across districts are nonetheless associatedwith judicial declarations of unitary status, suggesting thatsegregation in schools might have declined had it not been forthe actions of federal courts.     

Color separation in forensic image processing

In forensic image processing, it is often important to be able to separate a feature from an interfering background or foreground, or to demonstrate colors within an image to be different from each other. In this study, a color deconvolution algorithm that could accomplish this task is described, and it is applied to color separation problems in document and fingerprint examination. Subtle color differences (sometimes invisible to the naked eye) are found to be sufficient, which is demonstrated successfully for several cases where color differences were shown to exist, or where colors were removed from the foreground or background. The software is available for free in the form of an Adobe Photoshop-compatible plug-in.     

Accurately assessing elderly fall deaths using hospital discharge and vital statistics data

Historically, fatal injury monitoring and surveillance have relied on mortality data derived from death certificates (DC). However, problems associated with utilizing DC have been well documented. Recently, access to and utilization of hospital discharge data (HDD) have offered a new and important secondary source of data regarding in-hospital deaths. However, studies have shown that discrepancies between the HDD and the corresponding DC often exist. This discrepancy was especially evident when comparing HDD to the vital statistics data (VSD) for deaths by falls among those aged 65 and over in 19 states.This was a retrospective forensic review of elderly (age 65 and over) fall-associated fatalities (E880-E888) identified from HDD and VSD in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, between 1997 and 1998. Seventy-seven cases were identified, with the original manner of death listed as natural (34), suicide (1), and accidental (42) on the DC. Following a forensic review of the cases, the manner of the death on the DC should have been changed from natural to accidental in 28% (n = 12) of the cases, representing an undercount in the VSD. Undercounts were due to a failure of clinicians to account for the significance of a fall event that contributed to subsequent pathology and death. In addition, in that 22% (n = 17) of the HDD fall-associated deaths, the fall did not contribute directly or sequentially to the underlying cause of death, thereby representing an overcount in the HDD.Based on these findings we recommend (1) elderly fall surveillance systems should only count HDD E-coded falls that demonstrate a serious traumatic injury which directly or subsequently results in death, (2) all in-hospital fall-associated deaths should be reported to and reviewed by coroner/Medical Examiner offices for determination of the cause and manner of death, and (3) physicians should be better educated in properly completing death certificates.     

Policy Studies And Political Science

Studies of "policy" and l'policymakingll have proliferated recently. One reason is the serious policymaking difficulties of American and other Western governments. Earlier political science did not address these problems well because of its concentration on political input processes rather than outputs. Most policy studies either evaluate programs 0' explain cases of policymaking, The approach proposed here, called public policy, does both. Analyses of preferred options are played off against the limitations of process, and vice versa. This conception is illustrated and the problems posed by it are discussed.     

The implementation of formal procedures in juvenile court processing of status offenders

Discriminant analysis of both observational and records data from two juvenile court systems is used to assess differences in the type and activities of the people involved in legal processing of status and nonstatus offenders. The analysis indicates that there are differences between the processing of the two categories of offenders; however, contrary to expectations, the most powerful discriminating variables (detention and petitioner) are not those related to the degree in which the justice system has implemented the formalities mandated by the Gault decision. It is concluded that statutory distinctions between legal categories of juveniles have virtually no relevance for the degree of formality with which these cases are processed by the courts.     

THE COURTS AS A SOURCE OF REGULATORY REVITALIZATION: EXTERNAL AGENDA SETTING AND EQUAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS

The authors examine the relationship between the courts and HEW's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), to illustrate the effects of legal efforts to generate more vigorous agency enforcement. Opponents of racial and sex discrimination in public schools won a series of suits against OCR after it had ceased to effectively implement anti-discrimination legislation. As a result of court decisions, OCR has had its discretion over how it will carry out its legislative responsibilities curtailed.