Legislation

About: Legislation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 62664 publications have been published within this topic receiving 585188 citations. The topic is also known as: law & act.

Open Government Data and the Right to Information: Opportunities and Obstacles

Abstract: This article discusses the relationship between the open government data (OGD) movement and the right to information (RTI) movement. While both movements are closely related, there are some differences that may have a considerable impact on the right of the citizen to access government information. The article argues that the calls for OGD may on the one hand risk limiting the access to government information, while on the other hand they may also provide an alternative source of access to information for existing freedom of information legislation, which is being threatened in some countries.

No shortcuts to power: constraints on women's political effectiveness in Uganda

Abstract: Numbers of women in public representative office have increased dramatically in Uganda since the introduction of the National Resistance Movement's 'no party' system, because affirmative action measures have been taken to reserve seats for them in Parliament and local government. This article offers an assessment of the impact of these measures on women's political effectiveness, examining how far women in Parliament have been able to advance gender equity concerns in key new legislation. The article suggests that the political value of specially created new seats has been eroded by their exploitation as currency for the NRM's patronage system, undermining women's effectiveness as representatives of women's interests once in office. This is because the gate-keepers of access to reserved political space are not the women's movement, or even women voters, but Movement elites. The women's movement in Uganda, though a beneficiary of the NRM's patronage, has become increasingly critical of the deepening authoritarianism of the NRM, pointing out that the lack of internal democracy in the Movement accounts for its failure to follow constitutional commitments to gender equity through to changes in key new pieces of legislation affecting women's rights.

Children of Incarcerated Parents

Abstract: Introduction Most of the over one million persons incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons on any given day and the millions more on probation or parole are parents. Although a considerable body of information has been collected about individuals who have been or are under some form of criminal justice system control, very little is known about their children, particularly those under the age of 18. There are approximately 10 million children in the U.S. who have had one or both parents incarcerated. These children and youth have little or no voice about who, in the absence of the parent who is the primary caregiver, will take care of them, or if they will be allowed to visit or communicate with the incarcerated parent. The children of parents involved in the criminal justice system have no voice because they are invisible to the larger society. The national trend to use incarceration to punish even minor offenses guarantees that children will continue to be adversely affected by policies enacted with no consideration of the harm done to family systems. There are many complex and interrelated contributing factors: the intensification of politically motivated "get tough on crime" rhetoric and the "War on Drugs," public discourse about crime designed to instilled fear, the enactment of increasingly harsh sentencing laws such as "Three Strikes," and the ratings-driven media preoccupation with policing and arrests, leading to public support for a prison-building frenzy. The virtual disappearance of work, along with stores, transportation, and other components of a viable infrastructure, from many inner-city communities has resulted in a concentration of poverty that has devastated neighborhoods and marginalized residents, making them easy first to criminalize and then to dehumanize. The original intent of this article was to examine what is presently known about the children of incarcerated parents. Its scope has been expanded to include the more realistic continuum of parental crime, arrest, incarceration, release, and recidivism that children experience and must contend with as their lives are disrupted, and sometimes shattered. We begin by placing present events into a larger historical and political context. Available information about the children of incarcerated parents is provided, followed by a discussion of caregivers, custody, and visitation issues. The next sections describe what is known about the impact on children of parental involvement in the criminal justice system, as well as observable intergenerational trends, and then look at how law enforcement and social service agencies regard and respond to children of arrested and incarcerated parents. We conclude with interventions that address and alleviate the problems resulting from parental involvement in the criminal justice system. Background In 1990, the United States had the highest incarceration rate in the world, five times higher than France and Germany and over four times greater than Britain's rate (Foote, 1993). California has the dubious distinction of having the largest prison system in the country and the second largest in the world following China (Ibid.). One out of every eight U.S. prisoners is incarcerated in the Golden State. In less than 20 years, California's prison population has exploded by 631%, from 19,000 in 1977 to 139,000 in 1996; over 97,000 persons are presently on parole.(1) An additional 71,000 Californians were local jail inmates as of April 1996(2) and 400,000 former California jail inmates were on probation in 1995 (Criminal Justice Institute, 1994). Changes in mandatory sentencing guidelines enacted during the mid-1970s have led to a significant shift in public policy favoring punishment over rehabilitation. Passage of the "Three Strikes"(3) legislation in the early 1990s has taken a decisive step in making the concept of rehabilitation historically obsolete.(4) To accommodate growing numbers of felons sentenced under the 1,000 new state laws specifying new offenses and increased sentences passed by the legislature (Foote, 1993), California has added 20 new prisons to its original 12 since the early 1980s (CDC, 1994). …

Consent, confidentiality, and the Data Protection Act

Abstract: Overly strict interpretation of the law is hampering epidemiological research. Here, one research team shows why regulators and organisations holding data should adjust their approach

Is the President Bound by the Geneva Conventions

Abstract: The United States is party to several treaties that regulate the conduct of war, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the Protection of War Victims These treaties require belligerent states, as a matter of international law, to accord fair and humane treatment to enemy nationals subject to their authority in time of war Moreover, these treaties are, as a matter of domestic law, part of the Supreme Law of the Land The scope and content of the Conventions have assumed central importance in debates about US policy toward al Qaeda and Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Indeed, several aspects of US policy toward the detainees arguably violate the Conventions In response, the Bush Administration maintains in effect that the Conventions, even if they are applicable and even if US policy is inconsistent with them, are not binding on the President as a matter of domestic law because the President has the constitutional authority to choose to violate the Conventions in the interest of protecting national security This Article evaluates the Bush Administration’s claim The Administration’s position has certain non-trivial virtues Even if the United States has no legal right to violate the treaties as a matter of international law, there are good reasons to recognize an implied power to violate (or supersede) treaties as a matter of domestic law The central question is who should have this authority: the President or Congress We consider in detail three variations of the Administration’s position read in its best light The President’s power to violate treaties might stem from (1) the President’s law-making authority; (2) the President’s law-breaking authority; or (3) the President’s unfettered discretion to interpret US treaty obligations Following detailed consideration of each variation, we conclude that the President has no authority to violate a treaty obligation if Congress has the authority under Article I to enact legislation superseding that treaty obligation Because the rules embodied in the Geneva Conventions address matters within the scope of Congress’ Article I powers, the President lacks the constitutional power (absent congressional authorization) to violate these treaties Building on this claim, we also argue that the President never has the unilateral authority to violate treaties because the existence of international rules empowers Congress to regulate matters governed by the treaty, even if those matters would otherwise be subject to the President’s exclusive power Finally, we suggest that there is some meaningful role for courts to play in enforcing treaty obligations—irrespective of whether the President’s interpretation of any given treaty is entitled to substantial deference In short, we conclude that the President is bound by the Geneva Conventions—as a formal legal matter and as a practical matter † Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University College of Law; Visiting Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School, 2003-2004 JD, Yale Law School; MA MPhil, Yale Univeristy †† Associate Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law JD, Stanford Law School; MPP, Harvard University Thanks to Alexander Aleinikoff, Jose Alvarez, Curtis Bradley, Lori Damrosch, Martin Flaherty, Jack Goldsmith, David Golove, Ryan Goodman, Mattias Kumm, Thomas Lee, Michael Matheson, Gerald Neuman, Eric Posner, Catherine Powell, Michael Ramsey, Beth Stephens, Ed Swaine, Michael Van Alstine, Beth Van Schaack, and Ingrid Wuerth for helpful comments The project also benefited from comments we received at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law Interest Group on International Law in Domestic Courts at the University of Maryland School of Law, international law workshops at NYU School of Law and Columbia Law School, an international law workshop sponsored jointly by Washington University School of Law and Saint Louis University School of Law, and the faculty workshop at the University of Cincinnati School of Law Is the President Bound by the Geneva Conventions? Draft – July 17, 2004 2 We have seen the war powers, which are essential to the preservation of the nation in time of war, exercised broadly in conditions for which they were never intended, and we may well wonder in view of the precedents now established whether constitutional government as heretofore maintained in this republic could survive another great war even victoriously waged