A snapshot of legal developments and industry issues relevant to information technology, media and telecommunications law in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific – Co-ordinated by Lovells and contributed to by other leading law firms in the region

This column provides a country by country snapshot of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

Zukunftsf?higkeit des Umweltrechts – Tagungsbericht

Jubil?umsveranstaltung – 20 Jahre Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht (ZUR) und 4. Fachgespr?ch des Vereins für Umweltrecht (VUR) und der ZUR am 12. Juni 2009 in Berlin.     

Pragmatism's contributions to international relations

This article examines the methodological and substantive contributions that pragmatism stands to make in the field of international relations (IR) theory. The methodological advantages that pragmatism offers have been described by many scholars in recent years, but the substantive contributions that classical American pragmatists (1870–1930) made to the study of international order have been largely overlooked. It suggests that a careful reading of this philosophical canon, particularly the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce and Josiah Royce, will provide important resources for today's IR theorist.     

Utility of the Revised Level of Service Inventory (LSI-R) in Predicting Recidivism After Long-Term Incarceration

Assessing an inmate’s risk for recidivism may become more challenging as the length of incarceration increases. Although the population of Long-Term Inmates (LTIs) is burgeoning, no risk assessment tools have been specifically validated for this group. Based on a sample of 1,144 inmates released in a state without parole, we examine the utility of the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) in assessing risk of general and violent felony recidivism for LTIs (n = 555). Results indicate that (a) the LSI-R moderately predicts general, but not necessarily violent, recidivism, and (b) this predictive utility is not moderated by LTI status, and is based in part on ostensibly dynamic risk factors. Implications for informing parole decision-making and risk management for LTIs are discussed.

Whose business is your pancreas? Potential privacy problems in New York City's mandatory diabetes registry

This article examines a recent New York City health regulation that mandates the compilation and storage of individual medical data from nearly all diabetics in a centralized registry. The authors distinguish this novel registry from prior health registries and scrutinize its potential to compromise individual privacy. In order to address privacy and other concerns, the authors offer suggestions for changes to the current statutory framework of the registry that will also be useful when considering the creation of similar public health registries in other cities.