Demonstrating Access to Public Services Diagrammatically

The Nomogramma di Gandy is a practical analytical tool and presentational method that can be applied to the subject of access to public services, such as universities, prisons, and hospitals. Illustrative examples are provided. It is flexible, requires minimal data, and can compare access across many geographical areas in one presentation. It addresses the need to appreciate the dynamics that can exist behind summary statistical analyses that focus on net changes, and can show trends over time. Such visual scanning of multiple data points and their relative juxtapositions, enables many common thinking errors to be minimized, if not completely avoided.     

Commissioning for Health and Wellbeing: An Introduction

Local government reforms have been carried out in a number of European countries, aiming at both more effective service production and increased citizen participation in local politics. Although extensive research has been carried out analysing the content and background of these reforms, few if any, studies have considered the democratic effects of these reforms at the level of the individual citizen. This article investigates relationship between local government reforms and citizen trust in local government, focusing on individual-level data on local government reforms in Norway in 2008. The analysis shows that it is difficult to find a clear relationship between reform policies and trust in local politicians. These findings parallel other contributions in concluding that it is difficult to find substantial effects from local government re-organisations.     

U.S. counterterrorism policy in the 1980s and the priorities for the 1990s

Abstract

The Department of State's counterterrorism coordinator discusses current patterns in international terrorism and cites three areas of growing concern: radical Palestinian terrorist groups, Libyan supported terrorism, and narcoterrorism in the Andean nations. He explains U.S. Government counterterrorism policy and assesses its effectiveness. The recent trend toward treating terrorists as criminals and applying the rule of law against them is examined. He also emphasizes the importance of pressuring countries that sponsor terrorism and of refusing to make deals with terrorists.     

Rumble in Paradise: The Caribbean Court of Justice Creating Waves in International Law after British Caribbean Bank v Belize

On 25 June 2013, the Caribbean Court of Justice denied a motion to halt the proceedings of an international arbitration between British Caribbean Bank (BCB) and the Government of Belize, and instead granted BCB the right to continue with the arbitration proceedings. The ruling is particularly important as it sheds light on the anti-arbitration principle – a feature known mostly to Common law – and the still troubled area of expropriation in relation to bilateral investment treaties. In this case comment, I will provide an overview of those main points and assess what implications there are under international law. Specifically, this comment also develops a notion of financial property, and asses under what circumstances financial property can be expropriated in light of bilateral investment treaties. The focus on financial property is to both generate a discussion and also raise more questions on problematic clauses in investment treaties.     

Restorative justice and reconviction

Proponents of restorative justice have suggested that its practices have the potential to reduce reoffending by those responsible for a harm. This article examines these claims using the results of two separate studies of the reconviction of offenders dealt with by processes that had restorative characteristics. The first study examines reconviction rates over'a'period'of'six years for a sample of young people who took part in family group conferences. The second study examines outcomes for samples of 100 offenders involved in each of two different community panel pre-trial diversion schemes for adults. One scheme involved offenders and victims meeting together with community panel members to determine outcomes that would repair harm to the victim and contribute to preventing reoffending. The second scheme involved Maori offenders meeting with representatives of their tribe in a setting with spiritual meaning for Maori. Those participating in both the community panel schemes were less likely to reoffend than matched samples of others who had committed similar offenses. There were also economic savings to the criminal justice system when offenders were dealt with by the panels compared to those dealt with by traditional methods. Taken together, these projects indicate that restorative processes and practices can have a positive impact on helping people to avoid reoffending.     

A Bonfire of the Regulations,or Business as Usual? The UK Labour Market and the Political Economy of Brexit

Employment and labour market regulation initially appeared as one of the solid red lines in the UK's renegotiation of the country's place in the EU. The basic argument is that the UK's more deregulated labour market would sit uneasily in the more organised models, based on statutory instruments or collective bargaining, found on the continent. While there is a legitimate problem here, EU employment regulations appear manageable from the point of view of business, while unions see them as important tools for socially responsible economic restructuring. Most of UK employment case law is now deeply entangled with EU law; labour market regulations have, on the whole, become part of the way of doing business in the Single Market; and a simple cost–benefit analysis appears impossible because some costs are not quantifiable and the costs of others are reduced when taken as a bundle. Labour unions agree that transposition of European law needs to be done taking into account local sensitivities, while internationally oriented companies do not see EU regulations on the whole as detrimental to business. Importantly, though, the costs and benefits of EU employment regulations are not symmetrically distributed across different companies: large companies are better able to reap the rewards and accommodate the costs of operating in the Single Market than smaller companies.