Expansion Of Rights Research Articles

At the margins of human rights and psychiatric care in North America.

The roots and expanse of the rights of psychiatric patients in North America are broad and diverse. This paper focuses on four rights that are pushing at the contemporary margins of patients' rights. First, the right to treatment, a moral position casting about for legal grounding. Second, the rights of psychiatrically hospitalized patients, articulated in statutes, court decisions, organizational standards and patients' bills of right. Third, patient participation in treatment planning, a process involving both rights and responsibilities. Fourth, the right to involuntary outpatient treatment, a process sometimes viewed as a deprivation of and other times as an expansion of rights for patients. These rights are addressed in the context of the question, are we going in the proper direction?

Neo-liberalism, State Restructuring and Immigration: Changes in Canadian Policies in the 1990s

The essay focusses on recent changes in immigration and settlement policies in Canada and their impact on immigrant women and immigrant families in the 1990s, at a time when Canada has been experiencing a restructuring of the state as well as a restructuring of the economy. In the 1990s several significant changes have been introduced in immigration and settlement policies. On the one hand, the emphasis on global competitiveness has led to increased requirements on the type of independent class immigrants Canada recruits, who not only have to be highly skilled and educated and/or wealthy, but also "up and running" on arrival. On the other hand, fiscal restraint on the part of the state has led to an emphasis on self-sufficiency and individual responsibility on the part of immigrants. In line with this latter emphasis, Canada has introduced several new policies in the 1990s with significant implications for immigrants: more stringent requirements and enforcement procedures for family sponsorship; changes to language training programmes and cuts in other settlement services; and the introduction of the landing fee (the "head tax"). The essay argues that the changes in immigration are parallel with and part of the general undermining of social citizenship in Canada. These policy changes in the 1990s also represent a radical retreat from the possibility of an expansion of rights during the 1980s hi Canada, when the state seemed to be moving towards more social and redistributive justice through the introduction of the equality clauses of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In addition to framing theoretically the changes in immigration and settlement in restructuring of the state, the essay also focusses on the impacts of the changes on women and families. There are reasons to expect that the pressures for self-efficiency on the part of families will increase relations of dependency within families.

Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study

Research on economic growth has exploded in the past decade. Hundreds of empirical studies on economic growth across countries have highlighted the correlation between growth and a variety of variables. Determinants of Economic Growth, based on Robert Barro's Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures, delivered at the London School of Economics in February 1996, summarizes this important literature. The book contains three essays. The first is a survey of the research on the determinants of long-run growth through the estimation of panels of cross-country data. The second essay details the interplay between growth and political freedom or democracy and finds some evidence of a nonlinear relationship. At low levels of political rights, an expansion of rights stimulates growth; however, once a moderate level of democracy has been obtained, a further expansion of rights reduces growth. The final essay looks at the connection between inflation and economic growth. Its basic finding is that higher inflation goes along with a lower rate of economic growth.

Rushcliffe Fifty Years on: The Changing Role of Civil Legal Aid within the Welfare State

The last few years have been difficult ones for legal aid. As the government abolishes the contributory green forms scheme, increases contributions, and holds down pay rates, the President of the Law Society has accused it of crippling a 'once proud public service'.' At the same time, the number of cases dealt with by the scheme and the cost per case continue to increase.2 Legal Action Group has described the current state of legal aid as 'stagflation'.3 Increased use of legal aid and rising costs are combined with decreasing eligibility, morale, and belief. Why is it that each year the legal aid scheme appears to deal less well with the increasing demands made upon it? This chapter looks back over the last fifty years of civil legal aid, to chart its varied fortunes within the welfare state. It argues that the changing philosophies of welfare have shaped both the structure of the scheme, and the demands made upon it. At the same time as governments have confined direct welfare services to the poor to the neglect of those of moderate means they have put greater emphasis on individual 'consumer' action as a means of regulating welfare providers. Thus, the early 1980s saw the expansion of rights enforced through courts and tribunals, though by the end of the decade the emphasis had shifted to internal complaints systems and formal complaints handlers, such as regulators, ombudsmen, and inspectors. Legal aid has failed to keep pace with either development. Private solicitors have traditionally ignored welfare issues; the scheme fails to pay for representation before most tribunals; and the varied advice needs raised by the Citizen's Charter approach have been ignored. The welfare state is a difficult concept, as the meanings attaching to the term have changed markedly since the Second World War. In 1945 it was an aspirational depiction of a new kind of state: by the 1960s it was a label applied to specific, central, public bureaucracies.4 Now it is often used to describe a minor and residual function of a state primarily concerned with other matters. For the purposes of the present discussion, the welfare state

Rights and Structure In Constitutional Theory

Ever since the constitutional revolution of the 1930s, constitutional law and theory have been dominated by questions of civil rights. The expansion of rights under the Warren Court constituted a deep-seated shift in judicial attitudes that has proved remarkably stable over time. Despite protests in some quarters that the Burger Court (1969–1986) and the current Rehnquist Court have undermined civil rights recognized during the Warren Court era (1953–1969), the fact is that the changes have been surprisingly marginal. Even precedents that were widely believed to be endangered species a decade ago – such asMirandaandRoe v. Wade– continue in force, although they have indeed been pruned back. Despite their importance, however, these high-profile cases do not go to the core of the Supreme Court's agenda. The core is epitomized byBrown v. Board of Educationon the one hand, representing an aggressive and interventionist attitude toward government discrimination against discrete minorities, and footnote four of theCarotene Productscase, on the other hand, representing an extraordinarily deference to the political process with respect to economic regulation. The Rehnquist Court's commitment to this core agenda is not dramatically different than that of its predecessors, at least not when the broad sweep of constitutional law is taken into account.

The State in the Bedroom: What Some Adults May Not Do Privately After Hardwick v Bowers

The development and evolution since 1965 of a legally recognized right of privacy through decisions reached by the Supreme Court in the United States may be seen as evidence of one of two things. It represents either the Supreme Court's further usurpation of the authority of legislatures by its expansion of rights — areas never intended by the framers of the Constitution — or it demonstrates the creativity and sensitivity of Justices of the Court in finally making explicit what has been implicit in the broad language of the Constitution, namely, that a right of privacy has always belonged to the citizen. Whichever position one holds, there may be little doubt that the Court's excursion into this previously uncharted territory, with its subsequent “stops” along the journey at questions of contraception, abortion and, of concern in this essay, “unnatural” sexual acts, has given rise to considerable controversy and, in some instances, confusion.

Outgrowing the Compact of the Fathers: Equal Rights, Woman Suffrage, and the United States Constitution, 1820-1878

One aim of this special symposium on the United States Constitution is to depict the Constitution as a historically contested arena. In particular, the history of constitutional demands by popular movements counters the Reagan administration's exclusive focus on the words and intents of the Framers. In the midst of the Constitution's bicentennial celebration, it is especially important for historians to recall the radical tradition of equal that flourished as a part of nineteenth-century republican thought. Women's demands were an important aspect of that popular nineteenth-century republicanism. From its inception to the present, the women's movement has pursued not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and has sought to incorporate them into an expanded understanding of its meaning. From one perspective, the conviction at the heart of radical republicanism, that an expansion of rights would help create a more egalitarian society, reached its peak with the enactmentand its nadir with the judicial disposition -of the Reconstruction amendments. However, from a women's perspective, the radical republican heritage extends much further. Not only did the struggle for political equality for women reach into the twentieth century, but the drive for the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as intense debate about a whole other realm of sexual and reproductive keeps the constitutional issue of women's alive today. In this paper on the nineteenth-century movement for women's rights, I have two concerns. One is to integrate women's and the other equal politics of the nineteenth centurythe abolition and black suffrage movements and labor reform -into a comprehensive history of radical republicanism. My other concern is to specify the place, and the possibilities, of the politics of equal in women's history. Concepts of rights, individualism, and equality have had a distinct impact

The End of Liberalism in the Administration of Social Casework

Problems of administering human service organizations derive from institutional as well as technical aspects of their environments. In contrast to the recent emphasis on the technical problems of "implementation " and "street-level bureaucracy, " this case study of special education and foster care policy emphasizes instead the institutional problems of interest group liberalism. Besides applying the "end of liberalism "thesis to new policy areas, it attempts to extend that thesis by describing behavioral implications for public bureaucrats. P.L. 93-647, the Title XX Amendment to the Social Security Act, and P.L. 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Act, mandate perhaps the most significant expansions of rights and entitlements of the 1970s. Yet these laws are vague in their definitions, contradictory in their related provisions, and inadequate in their funding. They base eligibility for service on categorical rather than universal criteria of need, reflecting the play of organized special interests. Inimical to the rule of law, they honor process over substance, establishing only frameworks for ad hoc bargaining instead of authoritative guides to conduct. This process magnifies political conflict by displacing it away from the center of government to caseworkers down the line.

Implications of Plant Selectors' Rights for herbage seed production - Plant Varieties Office viewpoint

The reason for having a Plant Selectors' Rights scheme and some attendant disadvantages are discussed. The development of Rights both internationally and in New Zealand is outlined. Of the 136 applications for New Zealand Rights received to date only one has been for a herbage cultivar. The advent of Rights has not always been welcomed by farmers. It is argued that a Recommended List would complement the Rights scheme. Reference is made to future expansion of Rights in New Zealand. Key words: Plant Selectors' Rights, herbage seed production, New Zealand.