Market segmentation in child adoption

The system for the adoption of children is not working well. The dysfunction of the adoption system manifests itself in an excess demand for healthy white babies and excess supply of older children, minority children, or those with disabilities. A market solution can increase the number of adoptions for older children, minority children or children with disabilities. Recognizing the heterogeneity of children and taking account of those differences will yield price differentiation in segmented markets. Such differentiation is especially important in the market for adopted children where the lifetime consequences of a poor match can be severe; more information about child attributes can only improve child-adopter matches. Revenues from the sale of adoption rights for highly demanded children could subsidize the adoption of the less desired children. The time to adoption will decrease and more of the less desired children will be adopted; the sum of consumer (adoptive parents) plus producer (biological mothers or the adoption agencies) surplus will rise and eliminate sub rosa markets for the more desired children.     

Institutional sustainability as learning

How organisations and associations can work together over time to develop new norms and practices which enhance the sustainability of development initiatives is an on-going problem. This article looks at how processes of negotiating shared agendas over the meanings of sustainability, exploring assumptions behind proposed actions, establishing means of accountability, and setting up mechanisms for investigating cause and effect in the processes and outcomes of development programmes can be a source of action-learning. It is argued that such processes of action-learning can help lead to institutional sustainability.     

Science and the Death Penalty: DNA, Innocence, and the Debate over Capital Punishment in the United States

The death penalty debate in the United States has recently undergone a fundamental shift. The possibility of executing the innocent has emerged as some abolitionists' most salient argument, displacing debates over such issues as fairness, deterrence, and cost. Innocence has managed to move to the fore of the debate in part because of the success of death penalty opponents in attaching epistemological certainty to one particular category of postconviction exonerations, those vouched for by the authority of DNA evidence. We suggest that such moves are primarily rhetorical because, while DNA evidence may be more accurate and reliable than other forensic science, it still fundamentally probabilistic in nature and is prone to uncertainties at all stages of its production. Yet, because of the certainty attached to DNA evidence in public discourse, it can be used as a lever with which to challenge law's claims to truth-making authority, and to undermine public trust in the death penalty. A few abolitionists and other scholars have expressed misgivings about the abolitionist embrace of the innocence argument. We push this concern further, suggesting that both abolitionists and death penalty reformers, who seek to promote a "scientific" death penalty centered on DNA evidence, draw upon a mythologized notion of "science" as a producer of epistemic certainty.     

Art and copyright: some current issues

Legal context IP lawyers are increasingly having to advise onart-related copyright matters. Current issues include the strongcopyright protection given to images, uncertainty in the protectiongiven to innovative contemporary art works, problems in applyingthe fair dealing exceptions to art works, and the increasingrelevance of other IP rights. Key points Image rights receive strong protection - photographsof public domain art works are protected in the basis of long-standingauthority (although there are arguments against such a view).Whether an artistic work is protected by copyright depends onwhether the work falls into the closed list of categories insection 4 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (painting,drawing, engraving, sculpture, etc). Much contemporary art doesnot fall neatly within these categories. Categorisation willalso be in issue as far as Artist's Resale Right is concerned.There is lack of understanding amongst internet artists aboutthe copyright restrictions that apply to digital works and concernsare raised more generally about the lawfulness of appropriationart. Practical significance Lawyers advising artists and those exploitingartistic works need to be aware of the potentially broad scopegiven in UK law to protecting works of art (including photographsof public domain works such as Old Master paintings) and tothe conflict between copyright and the practice of appropriationart. Where infringement claims are being considered fair dealingarguments and the possible impact of human rights law in guaranteeingfreedom of expression will need to be carefully considered.There has been little reported litigation on moral rights butthis aspect cannot be ignored. Trade mark rights, design lawand passing off may also need to be considered.     

OHIM Board of Appeal applies genuine use criteria to small-scale usage

This decision illustrates the consequences of the European Courtof Justice (ECJ) ruling in Ansul v Ajax [2003] ETMR 85 that,in establishing whether there has been genuine use of the markon the market, the conditions prevalent in the market for whichthe goods are registered must be taken into account.     

Soya thought your patent had been infringed?

This case highlights potential limitations of patents relatingto genetically transformed plants and animals, also providingsome comfort to patentees by confirming that there is no defenceto patent infringement in the UK by virtue of a sample containingonly a trace of potentially infringing material.     

After Government? On Representing Law Without the State

For the greater part of the 20th century, representations of law as state law were dominant in the legal scholarship of the West. But over the last thirty years sustained attempts have been made, notably under the self-conscious banner of legal pluralism, to loosen the conceptual bonds between law and government. Early on, acephalous societies in formerly colonial territories and local groupings within the metropolis were represented as legal orders. Latterly, as attention shifted to orderings at regional and global level beyond the nation state, attempts have been made to delineate a general jurisprudence. It is argued here that these conceptual revisions have for the most part been problematic, made in the face of strong evidence linking the cultural assemblage we have come to call law with projects of government. The lecture concludes with a plea that we should be very cautious in representing what are essentially negotiated orders, whether at local or global level, as legal orders; these remain significantly different from those at the level of the state. Today, under an onslaught of jural discourse and institutional design, the distinctive rationalities and values of negotiated order, while arguably deserving to be celebrated, are effectively effaced.