Five years of the APEC Privacy Framework: Failure or promise?

The APEC Privacy Framework was developed from 2003, adopted by APEC in 2004 and finalised in 2005. It was intended as a means of improving the standard of information privacy protection throughout the APEC countries of the Asia–Pacific, and of facilitating the trans-border flow of personal information between those countries. In 2007 a number of ‘Pathfinder’ projects for cross-border data transfers were launched under the Framework. In the five years since the process commenced, what has it achieved, and what is it likely to achieve? This paper argues that the APEC Privacy Framework has had many flaws from its inception, including Privacy Principles that are unnecessarily weak, and no meaningful enforcement requirements. Since its adoption in 2004, little attempt has been made to encourage its use as a minimal standard for privacy legislation in developing countries (which might have been useful), and it is having little impact on the significant number of legislative developments now taking place.     

Investigation into "normal" background DNA on adult necks: implications for DNA profiling of manual strangulation victims

Others have investigated the role that DNA profiling could play as a method for identifying the perpetrator of manual strangulation. These studies have demonstrated that it is possible to collect offender DNA from the skin surface of a victim following physical contact. It is not known whether nonself biological material is normally present on the skin surface due to adventitious transfer occurring during innocent everyday interactions. To test the hypothesis that detectable amounts of nonself DNA are normally present on the skin surface of healthy adult individuals due to the adventitious transfer of DNA occurring during normal day-to-day social interactions, we designed an experiment in three phases. Phase 1 was used to deduce which DNA collection, extraction, and amplification methods were suited to investigating this question. During phase 2, the neck surface of 24 healthy adult volunteers was swabbed. DNA was extracted using the QIAamp DNA mini kit and amplified using the SGM Plus PCR amplification kit, using 28 PCR cycles. The work carried out during phase 3 involved a simulated assault to investigate primary and secondary transfer of DNA during physical contact. It was found that 23% of neck areas swabbed during phase 2 of this investigation showed nondonor alleles in the resulting DNA profile, with 5% of areas showing six or more nondonor alleles. The results of phase 3 showed that primary, secondary, and zero transfer of victim and/or offender DNA could be observed after physical contact and that alleles from an unknown source could still be detected in this more controlled experiment. The data presented in this paper demonstrate that DNA profiles generated after swabbing the skin surface of healthy adults can include components of an unknown source, present due to adventitious transfer. These components, if present in large quantities, have the potential to interfere with DNA profile interpretation of swabs taken for the investigation of physical assault by DNA profiling.     

Turkey and the IMF: A case study in the political economy of policy implementation

Research into IMF program implementation has usually taken the form of large sample regression analyses. A more detailed explanation is offered in this paper through a case study of program implementation in Turkey between 1999 and 2004. Our research is based on a series of in-depth interviews with policy makers, program negotiators, bureaucrats, interest groups and IMF personnel. Our results reinforce hypotheses that emerge from the theory of implementation and the large sample econometric work, but they also offer new and enhanced explanations. Program implementation depends on a range of factors which interact with one another. These include domestic political economy factors, such as the importance of special interest groups, political cohesiveness and program ownership by the government and the IMF, but also other idiosyncratic factors such as, in the case of Turkey, the existence of a crisis, the desire to join the EU and the role of influential technocrats. Our research has implications for the design of IMF programs.

IMF quotas: Constructing an international organization using inferior building blocks

The International Monetary Fund's structure and rules are based on the quota system that was constructed when the Fund was set up in 1946. Quotas affect contributions and resource availability at the Fund, access to resources, the distribution of Special Drawing Rights, and voting rights. Despite periodic reviews and modifications, the quota system has gradually been eroded and undermined. The fundamental problem is that a single system is attempting to serve four separate and incompatible functions. We illustrate how this erosion has taken place, and how an unreformed quota system will compromise the future operations of the IMF and the international monetary and financial system. Although the difficulties associated with reforming quotas are myriad and complex, the legacy of an unreformed quota system may be profoundly undesirable. We argue that a refined IMF structure must accommodate a clearer separation of a member's contributions to the IMF, its access to IMF resources, and its voting rights at the institution. JEL codes F42 · H79 · H11     

The impact of questioning style on the content of investigative interviews with suspected child sexual abuse victims

Abstract

This study explored the influence of question type and interviewer style on the quantity and quality of responses offered by children in interviews for suspected sexual abuse. The analysis covered 36 investigative interviews conducted by polia officers under the Memorandum of Good Practice with children aged 4–7, 8–11 and 12–14 years. The dependent measures were the temporel length of children's answers and the number of criteria derived from Criteria Based Cornent Analysis (CBCA) they contained. Only 2% of all questions were open-ended, but just 3% were judged leading. Open questions were most effective with 12–14 year olds but not with younger children who provided nose information in response to specific yet not leading or closed questions. Longer answers containing move CBCA criteria were associated with interviews containing many affirmative utterances and verbal affirmations and a brief rapport. The implications of these findings for interview theory and practice are briefly discussed.