Legacy Contaminants of Emerging Concern: Lead (Pb), Flint (MI), and Human Health

Abstract

As a heavy metal industrially mined for millenia, lead (Pb) is a legacy contaminant. It is also a contaminant of emerging concern because of its persistence, toxicity, and recent discovery of its resurgence in drinking water serving homes and schools, recently and most notoriously in Flint, Michigan. Concern about lead, however, has reemerged beyond Flint, exemplifying adoption of bad science policy despite availability of relevant good science. Much is known about lead toxicity, and profiled here. Whereas adults chronically exposed to lead may experience peripheral neuropathy, infants and children are more susceptible. They constitute sensitive subpopulations because their blood-brain barriers are immature, making them susceptible to central nervous system effects, most notably reduced IQ, when lead penetrates to developing brains. Failure to protect disadvantaged populations in Flint and beyond despite availability of proven science and inexpensive technology also exemplifies instances of environmental injustice. Emerging concern about lead thus illustrates failure of social as well as science policy. A critical lesson to be learned is that vigilance must be maintained, as knowledge about lead exposure and toxic effects provided by science does not automatically result in consistent and evenhanded legal and regulatory protection provided by government.     

Space–Time Patterns of Risk: A Cross National Assessment of Residential Burglary Victimization

Using epidemiological techniques for testing disease contagion, it has recently been found that in the wake of a residential burglary, the risk to nearby homes is temporarily elevated. This paper demonstrates the ubiquity of this phenomenon by analyzing space–time patterns of burglary in 10 areas, located in five different countries. While the precise patterns vary, for all areas, houses within 200 m of a burgled home were at an elevated risk of burglary for a period of at least two weeks. For three of the five countries, differences in these patterns may partly be explained by simple differences in target density. The findings inform theories of crime concentration and offender targeting strategies, and have implications for crime forecasting and crime reduction more generally.

118例心源性猝死分析

心源性猝死(sudden cardiac death,SCD)在成人猝死的死因中占首位,本文对1998-2005年陕西地区发生的118例SCD案例进行统计分析,结果显示男性是女性的5.9倍,其中冠心病占55.1%,心肌炎占17.8%,心肌病占9.3%,先天性心脏病、瓣膜病、主动脉夹层瘤破裂各占2.5%,其他疾病占4.5%。说明SCD多发于男性,冠心病仍是SCD的主要基础疾病,心肌炎是青少年SCD的主要原因,心肌病是青壮年SCD的危险因素,无结构异常的心脏病也同样严重威胁生命健康。     

重大事项社会稳定风险评估制度的实践与完善

为了从源头上预防和消除各种不稳定因素,保持社会和谐稳定,各级地方政府在重大事项社会稳定风险评估制度建设方面作了不同程度地探索,取得了显著成效。但这一制度在实践探索中存在很多问题,影响了社会稳定风险评估工作的开展。为了更好地推进重大事项社会稳定风险评估工作,需要探讨完善社会稳定风险评估制度的思路和对策。     

追寻对冲基金监管法制路径——嬗变与评述

对冲基金是美国“非银行金融体系”的重要组成部分之一,其长期存在于美国的金融市场中,并且呈现出不断发展壮大的趋势,尽管美国相关金融法制一直在寻求金融监管与金融创新之间的平衡,但在美国金融混业经营模式下,对对冲基金监管的漏洞将可能引发“系统性风险”,尤其是金融危机的出现更加坚定了立法者和监管者必须采取措施填补这一监管漏洞.《多得-弗兰克法案》对对冲基金等私募基金的监管进行了立法改革,采取了相应的监管措施.追寻美国关于对冲基金监管法制改革历程,其充分反映了金融立法中自由、安全、公平、效率等法律价值的动态博弈.     

知识产权的制度风险与法律控制

在风险社会的语境中,知识产权法是一种制度文明,也是一种可能存在的制度风险。诸如文化风险、生态风险、基因技术风险、网络风险等,主要是知识产权制度的"内生性"风险。如何克服现行知识产权法律制度和法律秩序的先天性缺陷和潜在危机,提高风险意识,增强风险识别能力,寻求风险治理机制,是国际知识产权界共同面临的时代问题。知识产权制度风险的法律治理必须秉持价值理性与工具理性统一、权利观念与责任观念统一、法律控制与技术规制统一等理念,并通过传统知识保护、公共领域保留、开放存取及知识共享协议、知识创新奖励等制度的替代和补充,形成一个应对风险社会的观念体系和制度系统。这是应对知识产权制度风险的法律举措,也是实现知识产权制度价值目标的法律变革路径。     

风险刑法理论的批判与反思

风险刑法理论曲解了风险社会理论,尤其是风险范畴的真实含义,混淆了风险社会的风险与传统社会的风险。该理论针对的是传统社会的风险,它对于传统刑法理论的颠覆是无根据的。风险社会的风险具有全球性、未知性、系统性、两面性,在古典工业社会的背景下,它们被合法化为现代化的"潜在副作用",古典工业社会的刑法无法化解风险社会的风险。风险社会的危机属于系统危机,需要系统性地解决,这首先有赖于科学和政治的制度性反思。面对风险社会的危机,刑法既不应无所作为,也不应鲁莽冒进,而应当是反思性的。     

Taming Risks in Asia: The World Bank Group and New Mining Regimes

Abstract

Despite the admonishments of the 2003 Extractive Industry Review, the World Bank Group (WBG) has continued to promote the expansion of mining activities in resource-rich client-countries. While maintaining its mantra on the economic benefits of the sector in cash-strapped countries, in recent years poverty reduction and environmental sustainability have become the new buzzwords to justify the need for the WBG to remain actively involved in the sector. Building on the cases of the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Lao PDR, this paper analyses this new socio-environmental narrative in conjunction with the highly political nature of the role played by the WBG in the mining sector of its country-clients. The cases demonstrate that the World Bank has played a key role in influencing a wave of new mining regimes in the region. Further, these new regimes, which comprise multilateral social and environmental safeguards, circumscribe the risks faced by industry, rather than by local populations. While successful in stimulating foreign investments in the sector, these regimes might prove ineffective in taming local and national resentment against mining activities. Crucially, the engineering of mining regimes and norm-settings in multilateral arenas raises concerns about the legitimacy of the transformations of roles and responsibilities assigned to local mining stakeholders and the possible subsequent contraction of local political spaces.     

Are Risky Youth Less Protectable as They Age? The Dynamics of Protection during Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Research on recidivism in criminal justice and desistance in criminology are not integrated. Yet, both fields are moving towards models that look at how positive elements in a person’s environment can impact a person’s behavior, conditional on different levels of risk. This study builds on this observation by applying interactional theory and the concept of Risk–Needs–Responsivity to theorize that both Needs and Responsivity will change over time in predictable ways. We then use a novel empirical approach with the Rochester Youth Development Study to show that even in late adolescence, individuals who are at risk for violence can be protected from future violence and risky behavior like gun carrying with positive events in their environment and personal life. In young adulthood, fewer people are still at risk for violence, and those who are at risk are harder to protect from future violence and gun carrying.     

The Politics of Counter-Expertise on Aerial Spraying: Social Movements Denouncing Pesticide Risk Governance in the Philippines

ABSTRACT

In various places in the world, aerial spraying of pesticides has met with resistance from local communities potentially endangered by toxic pesticide drift. Social movements, and the counter-expertise that they mobilise, often trigger changes in state regulations of the practice. This article describes such struggles over risk regulation in the Philippines, where aerial spraying is common in large monoculture banana plantations. It has provoked local activism contesting the socio-economic power of landed and business elites and has challenged the government’s approach to managing pesticide risks. This article develops the argument that different types of counter-expertise must be recognised. The case shows that it can be difficult for movements to articulate these different types of counter-expertise. Furthermore, the weak state characteristics of the Philippine state has shaped the ambiguous responses of risk governance to multiple actors’ divergent knowledge claims. The result is a legal impasse in which civil society has successfully pushed the issue of aerial spraying onto the national political arena, but the state has as yet been unable to develop a comprehensive pesticide risk regulation independent of powerful business interests.