The Governance of Terror: Precautionary Logic and Counterterrorist Law Reform After September 11

This article examines how lawmakers respond through law reform to the prospect of further terrorist attacks after September 11. The first part examines ways of conceptualizing the terrorist threat, drawing upon notions of risk, fear, catastrophe, and precaution. The concept of the Precautionary Principle is introduced and explored as a tool for making sense of, and improving, law reform processes in counterterrorism. The second part deploys these concepts through two case studies of counterterrorist law reform: Canada and Australia. What constitutes expertise in this area is considered, as is the capacity of legislators to scrutinize the arguments of necessity and prognoses of dire threat put forward by executive government.     

Pennsylvania's New Limit On Asbestos Liability For Successor Corporations

Pennsylvania recently enacted a law that limits the damages a successor corporation can be required to pay for asbestos liabilities. Senate Bill 216, which the Pennsylvania legislature passed in December 2001, bars any recovery against a qualifying successor corporation in excess of the adjusted fair market value of its predecessor. The act applies to all successor corporations that were incorporated in Pennsylvania prior to May 1, 2001 and that consummated a merger or consolidation with their predecessor prior to that date. Under standard choice-of-law rules, the act should protect qualifying successor corporations in many jurisdictions outside of Pennsylvania. The act survived its first constitutional challenge at the trial court level, and should survive any future challenges in the appellate courts     

FROM PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION TO PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: REASSESSING A REVOLUTION?

Changes to the study of public administration tend to follow those in the practice of the administration of government. The recent shift to public management is characterized and assessed both as a practice and a field of study. The result has been less a revolution in paradigm than the emergence of a vision of government which competes with but does not supplant traditional public administration.