Legal Options Research Articles

Die kommunale Umweltschutzklage

The municipal environmental protection action addresses the question of whether and to what extent municipalities can enforce environmental protection concerns in court. German law does not recognize it in principle. The study showed that although supranational law does not currently require that municipalities be granted the same legal protection options as environmental associations, the Swiss legal system uses the municipal environmental protection action, there called environmental protection complaint, to effectuate environmental protection. Two Swiss models have been identified. The first model contains special legal rights of appeal of municipalities that are linked to their potential impact, so that a general link between environmental impairment and the municipal territory is sufficient. The second model contains the right of appeal created by case law, which allows municipalities to assert the protection of their inhabitants from emissions as well as local natural resources via the right of appeal designed for private individuals, if the community is concretely affected by the environmental impairment as a whole, which is mainly the case if the environmental impact is caused by the municipalities. This is the case, above all, if the project to be assessed has such a significant impact that all or at least a large part of its population is affected. If the second Swiss model is to be introduced in Germany via Section 42 (2) 2nd Vari. VwGO, then a link to the guarantee of self-government is preferable. The use of the figure of procuratorial law is, however, worth considering if the Union jurisdiction should further expand the possibilities for municipal actions in the event of violations of EU environmental law.

Out of sight, out of mind? Terror in the home country, family reunification options, and the well-being of refugees

• Most refugees flee to escape terror and violence. • Terror might still have psychological effects when distance eliminates direct exposure. • We find strong and adverse effects of terror intensity in the home country on the life satisfaction reported by refugees in Germany. • Effects on symptoms of psychological distress indicate that strong emotions could be a relevant mechanism. • The effect is short-lived for most refugees, except when they have family members abroad without options for reunification. In this paper, we ask whether the main cause of asylum migration, that is, violence in the home country, still affects the life satisfaction of refugees even after they reach a safe country. We combine individual-level survey data on refugees in Germany with country-level data on terror fatalities. The timing of the survey interviews generates exogenous variation in the intensity of recent terror activity in respondents’ countries of origin, which we exploit to assess the effect of terror fatalities on the level of self-reported life satisfaction. Our results indicate that fatalities due to terror activity reduce, on average, the level of life satisfaction reported by refugees. We find that this effect is most substantial for events occurring one or two days before the interview, while older events have no effect. However, we observe an effect of fatalities during the four weeks preceding the interview on persons who have a family member abroad. We show that the group of respondents with a rejected or pending asylum application without legal family reunification options mostly drives this effect.

Practical necessity and legal options for introducing energy regulatory sandboxes in Austria

As the legal framework is designed for an established energy regime, innovative solutions for the energy transition often encounter barriers. Since rapid changes in the legal framework may involve uncertainties, testing solutions in the exceptional framework of regulatory sandboxes can be a constructive instrument of innovation policy. Until June 2021, Austrian energy law contains neither an explicit authorisation to grant such exemptions nor custom-made regulatory sandboxes. This paper is the first to investigate the practical need for regulatory sandboxes in Austria (specific fields of experimentation were identified) and elaborate necessary changes for energy law eligibility, taking European law into account.

Аn overview of the ethical issues of optional abortion

Аbortion has been a controversial issue throughout human history and has been determined according to the socio-economic conditions, moral and religious norms of different societies. It has been practiced at all times and by all peoples. The purpose of this examination is to investigate and analyse the literature related to the ethical and legal options for the woman. For the world at large, at the moment the attitude is extremely contradictory - from a total ban to full acceptance. The moderate opinion allows abortion in certain symptoms according to the period of pregnancy, rejecting full liberalisation as unethical. In twenty European states optional abortion is lawful. In the rest seven members (U.K., Finland and Cyprus) is allowed a broad interpretation of the grounds for refusal, (Ireland, Poland and Luxembourg) restrictive interpretation of the grounds for refusal and complete unwillingness or fear of performing abortions, lead to extremely rare (reported) legal abortions if any. In Bulgarian, the attitude towards abortion goes through a ban and upward liberalization. In the 1950s, abortion was banned, except on strict medical grounds. At a later stage, this problem was again discussed, and in the 1990 s the conditions for voluntary abortion were completel liberalised. Conclusion The bottom line is that a dual strategy is needed. In the event of an accident, adequate, accessible, safe and legal abortion services must be provided. On the other hand, every woman should be given the opportunity to prevent unwanted pregnancies by provided information, training, counseling, affordable contraceptive services and the provision of a wide variety of reliable, safe, acceptable methods of contraception.

Impact of COVID‐19 on Prescriptions for Controlled Substances for Veterans with Opioid Use Disorder

Research ObjectiveVeterans with opioid use disorder (OUD) are at significant risk of overdose, unintentional death, and a wide range of negative health‐related consequences. While evidenced‐based treatments for OUD exist, including medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) like buprenorphine (suboxone), there are a number of barriers preventing veterans from accessing this care. A potential avenue to increase the numbers of veterans who can access high quality mental healthcare such as MOUD is through telemental healthcare using VA Video Connect (VVC). While telehealth can mitigate this access to care issue, the opioid crisis led to the Ryan Haight Act of 2008, which mandates that the first visit with a prescriber of schedule II‐IV controlled substances be conducted in person. However, due to the public health emergency caused by COVID‐19, the in person requirement for controlled substances is temporarily waived.Study DesignThe aims of this project were to examine temporal changes in controlled substances from September 2019 – August 2020 (6 months before and after the requirement was waived), to understand the impacts of this waiver for veterans with OUD.Population StudiedWe examined prescription information from the VA Corporate Data Warehouse for 42,579 Veterans diagnosed with OUD (91.6% male, 71% white, 16.8% black, 27% rural dwelling).Principal FindingsDuring this 12‐month window, 56.6% of the sample were prescribed suboxone, 53.6% were prescribed sedatives, and 13.8% were prescribed anxiolytics. Monthly an average of 33,323 (SD = 3190) prescriptions were filled, with an average of 1.45 (SD = 0.08) medications prescribed per visit. As expected, the largest dip was seen in April 2020, with only 28,376 prescriptions filled, with an 1.33 prescriptions written per visit. As of August 2020, the rates for prescriptions for controlled substances had not returned to pre‐COVID levels.ConclusionsThese data suggest that while telehealth is a legal option to appropriately prescribe controlled substances, it was not utilized in a way that replicated in person care. Future projects that focus on understanding and addressing barriers providers face when attempting to provide care via telehealth are an important next step. Additionally, there was no dramatic increase in prescriptions for controlled substances as a result of the Ryan Haight waiver.Implications for Policy or PracticeThese data support keeping the wavier of in person appointments in the Ryan Haight Act is one useful avenue to help providers to provide access to life saving MOUDs.Primary Funding SourceDepartment of Veterans Affairs.

To Catch a Joke Thief, or Copyrighting Vaudeville Acts in the New York Clipper Registry

In the early part of the twentieth century, the trade publication the New York Clipper created a way for vaudeville artists to claim priority over acts, songs, plays, jokes, and even concepts. The initiative tells us a great deal about the limited legal options facing vaudevillians at the time period as well as the dubious nature of codifying non-dramatic performance acts as clearly defined, own-able, and protectable intellectual property. Drawing on newspaper clippings from Billboard, Variety, and the New York Clipper, as well as rare documents from the American Comedy Archives, this paper offers a look at the American press’s attempt to intervene. It also provides an exploration of a number of rare jokes, gags, novelty acts over which vaudevillians claimed exclusive rights. Ultimately, if the newspapers could not actually protect the performers, they did manage to preserve acts that would otherwise be lost in history.

Legal Options (and Obligations?) for Enhanced Canada–United States Cooperative Southern Resident Killer Whale Conservation

The critically endangered Southern Resident killer whale (SRKW) population is at a conservation crossroads. The SRKW’s range extends from California to southern Alaska, but the core habitat of the species is the inland Salish Sea. The principal threats to the population are the decline in Chinook salmon abundance, physical and acoustic disturbance, and environmental contamination. Effective management must respond to the cumulative impact of these threats. The SRKW population has been protected as an endangered species in Canadian and U.S. waters for more than a decade, and emergency conservation measures have been produced in both jurisdictions. Unfortunately, these conservation measures have failed to stabilize the population or advance cooperative ecosystem-based conservation. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) legally obligates states to cooperate in marine mammal conservation and, with respect to cetaceans, specifically requires states to work through an appropriate institution for their conservation and management. This article examines ongoing efforts by Canada and the United States to stabilize and recover the SRKW population in view of UNCLOS and the objective of long-term stewardship. This assessment includes ad hoc cooperative mechanisms and possible developments under existing cooperative forums. Although the base legal obligations created by UNCLOS are likely met, the objective of institutionalized cooperative cetacean conservation and management in UNCLOS is not met; moreover, existing cooperative forums are insufficient to effect SRKW recovery. Canada and the United States continue to approve projects without properly assessing the cumulative transboundary impact on the SRKW population or quantifying their contribution to important ecosystem-based thresholds, which reveals the true extent of management dissonance in the Salish Sea. This analysis concludes that enhanced bi-lateral cooperation and long-term co-existence with the SRKW population requires the creation of a new institutional forum, analogous to the International Joint Commission, that coordinates SRKW recovery measures and assesses future projects in view of cumulative effects management.

Implications of Cannabis Legalization: A National and International Perspective

Background: Issues related to the legalization of cannabis have significantly increased over the past 25 years. Federal policy has become minimally more flexible but essentially maintains marijuana’s dangerous drug status. Myriad laws and regulations characterize the legal status of cannabis across the US and internationally. Contradictory laws and regulations across states result from a lack of coherent federal policy, thus leaving states to address public health, cannabis industry and consumer pressures. Research prohibition has made public policy development difficult and informed by inadequately supported, restricted science. Objective 1: Consider key issues related to cannabis legalization and distinctions between gradients to access for medical purposes, decriminalization or adult recreational use. Objective 2: To consider the status of cannabis legalization on a state and global basis. Objective 3: Consider implications of cannabis legalization and avenues for mitigating harm. Methods: A review of the background to cannabis legalization intends to provide insight into cannabis’ current legal status and options being considered for advocacy and policy development. The three major classifications of legalized marijuana are detailed; cannabidiol or hemp and synthetic cannabinoids are considered separately. Results: The status of cannabis within the US and globally has often been discordant with reality and science, and rigid with pressures to effect change. The diversity of state and international laws is significant, even within the same designation into one of the three major classes or cannabidiol. Conclusion: Science-based standardized federal and state laws and regulations to meet the special needs of adolescents and emerging adults must be pursued.

Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia and the Dying with Dignity Bill 2020

Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia and the Dying with Dignity Bill 2020 1 Noreen O’Carroll Introduction Dáil Éireann is currently debating the Dying with Dignity Bill 20202 . Everyone would like to die with dignity. Debating this would therefore appear to be an uncontroversial thing to do. But the bill is of particular concern, because it proposes radical legislative, medical and social change in Ireland by making provision for assisted suicide and euthanasia. ‘Assisted suicide’ refers to cases in which, at the voluntary request of a patient with decision-making capacity, a doctor deliberately enables a patient to end his or her own life by prescribing or providing medical substances with the intent to bring about death. ‘Euthanasia’ refers to a doctor deliberately administering a lethal substance or carrying out an intervention to cause the death of a patient with decision-making capacity at the patient’s own voluntary request.3 The scope of the Dying with Dignity Bill 2020 also provides for a nurse to be involved in these practices, where the patient’s doctor authorises this. The present measure was initiated as a Private Members’ Bill by Gino KennyTDon15September2020.TDsprogresseditquicklyanditcompleted its second stage on 7 October 2020, when a majority voted for it (81 to 71).4 A bill has to progress through five stages in the Dáil and be passed before going to Seanad Éireann, where the process begins again from the second stage. Once the Dáil and Seanad both pass the bill, the Taoiseach presents a copy to the President to sign into law.5 When the bill was introduced in the Dáil, the country was weighed down by Covid-19 and as a result it went unnoticed by most people. One commentator observed that the rush to enact this legislation at a time when the country was so distracted by a once-in-a-century pandemic was an act unworthy of a healthy democracy.6 Should Ireland enact legislation for assisted suicide and euthanasia? Studies • volume 110 • number 438 142 Underlying assumptions Two assumptions underlie the Dying with Dignity Bill 2020. The first is that the final stages of terminal illness rob patients of their dignity as human beings and they should therefore be permitted to choose the means and time of their own death with assistance from a healthcare professional, so as to ‘die with dignity’. It is the case that some patients associate the loss of physical and cognitive abilities as a consequence of their illness with a loss of dignity. However, human dignity cannot be lost through illness or disability, because it is inherent in each person. This is affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Such dignity, ‘the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’, belongs to ‘all members of the human family’. ‘All human beings’, it states, ‘are born free and equal in dignity and rights’.7 A patient’s human dignity, therefore, is not something that can be lost through illness and its effects. Some terminally ill patients do not fully understand this and need to be helped to see that they can die naturally with dignity while receiving the best possible medical and palliative care provided by the healthcare professions. The Dying with Dignity Bill 2020 does not provide for a death with dignity; it only provides for the legal option of a premature death by assisted suicide or euthanasia. The second assumption underlying the bill is that a death by assisted suicide or euthanasia is flawless, painless and quick. This is a common belief, but it is mistaken. No medical procedure is flawless; every medical procedure has complications, problems and associated risks. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are no exceptions.8 An analysis of data from two studies of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands based on an examination of 649 cases indicates that technical problems, complications and problems with completion occurred during both procedures. The analysis of 114 cases of assisted suicide indicated that: • Technical problems occurred in 11 cases. In the case of 1 patient, the fluid injected into a vein flowed back out of the vein at the injectionsite.7patientshaddifficultyadministeringtheoraldrug. 3 patients suffered from other problems including inappropriate equipment...

\u201cBetter than having no evaluation done\u201d: a pilot project to conduct remote asylum evaluations for clients in a migrant encampment in Mexico

BackgroundAsylum evaluations are highly specialized medico-legal encounters to collect physical or mental health evidence for use in immigration proceedings. Although the field of asylum medicine is growing, access to these evaluations is still inadequate, particularly for those in United States immigration detention or other forms of custody, such as under the U.S. Migrant Protection Protocols or “Remain in Mexico” policy. Given advances in telehealth in recent years and growing evidence of similar outcomes with in-person management, it seems prudent to examine whether remote modalities may also be effective for conducting mental health asylum evaluations in hard-to-reach populations.MethodsWe analyzed the responses of 12 U.S. clinicians who conducted 25 cross-border remote mental health evaluations with clients in Mexico prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and completed a post-evaluation survey regarding their impressions and experiences of the remote encounter. Data were coded through a process of thematic analysis.ResultsThe average evaluation time was 2.3 h, slightly shorter than might be expected from an in-person encounter. Five themes emerged from the coding process: rapport building, achieving overall goal, comparison of in-person vs. remote, technical issues, and coordination. Clinicians encountered a number of challenges including technical difficulties and a decreased ability to establish rapport. Nearly uniformly, however, clinicians noted that despite difficulties, they were able achieve the goals of the evaluation, including rapport building and diagnosis.ConclusionRemote evaluations appear to achieve their intended goal and may be useful in expanding legal options for hard-to-reach asylum seekers.

Farmer Producer Company: India’s Magic Bullet to Realise Select SDGs?

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) are designed for the betterment of the underprivileged and the marginalised. Some of the sub-goals target doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of the small-scale food producers to realise the SDGs. Access to land, technology, inputs and financial services, opportunities for value addition and markets, non-farm employment and effective and transparent institutions that ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels are assumed to be the means to that end. Based on the Alagh Committee report’s recommendations, to address the voids in the existing form of collectives, producer company as a new legal option was introduced in 2003 by amending the Companies Act. This new form of collective is expected to combine efficiency and professional management of the company form and the cooperative principles necessitating ownership and participation of and governance by producers. This study takes a mixed-method approach. It qualitatively inquires about member’s perception of roles farmer producer companies (FPCs) play in their lives and livelihood. With the help of performance data from five FPCs, this study elaborates on the promises this form holds in realising some of the SDGs and challenges FPCs facing that could make achieving these promises a distant dream.

The Canberra Bubble

The Canberra Bubble

Infringing use as a path to legal consumption: Evidence from a field experiment

AbstractDigitization has transformed how users find and use copyrighted goods, but many existing legal options remain difficult to access, possibly leading to infringement. In a field experiment, we contact firms that are caught infringing on expensive digital images. E‐mails to all firms include a link to the licensing page of the infringed image; for treated firms, we add links to a significantly cheaper licensing option. Making infringers aware of the cheaper option leads to a 14‐fold increase in the ex‐post licensing rate, albeit from an extremely low baseline for the control firms. Two additional experimental interventions, designed to reduce search costs for (i) price and (ii) product information, also have large positive effects. Our results suggest that ex‐post monetization (e.g., licensing after use) may expand the market, and that rights holders can create value by minimizing search and transactions costs.

Forme alternative de gestionare a serviciilor publice locale în Republica Moldova

The paper’s author analyzes several alternative options for local public services management in the Republic of Moldova, based on current legal framework and existing administrative practice. For this purpose, the need to choose an alternative management option was analyzed; alternative options were listed; and an analysis of each option was performed. The paper’s perceived need emerged from an existing situation, typical for the Moldovan local government, where management can only be one of the two traditional ones - direct or delegated, both generating enough problems (studied by the author in other publications). However, local government is often unaware of the fact that it has other perfectly legal alternative options. A reflection chart is included at the end of the paper in order to help local government select the optimum management option when it comes to the public services delivery.

Did I learn enough to practice? Reflections of new nurse practitioner graduates in providing sexual and reproductive health care.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Office of Population Health have published guidelines for providing family planning services. The study explores how nurse practitioners (NPs) perceived their preparation and competency in providing a range of sexual and reproductive health care in their first two years of community-based practice. Qualitative. Thematic analysis used to analyze data from structured and open-ended interview questions. Through snowballing recruitment, 35 NPs participated in interviews. Participants were most confident and likely to provide contraceptive and sexually transmitted infection services. Participants felt less prepared to provide male sexual health and care to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex+ population. Nurse practitioners expressed interest in building skills with discussing healthy sexuality across the life span, specifically postmenopausal sexual concerns, teen sexuality, trauma-informed care related to sexual violence, and early pregnancy decision making. Some participants had little preparation in early pregnancy decision making/options counseling. Faculty need to examine barriers to teaching these skills because the curriculum should address all legal pregnancy options, including discussing the NP's professional obligations. More preparation was needed in the clinical management of erectile dysfunction, polycystic ovary syndrome, herpes, syphilis, abnormal uterine bleeding, dyspareunia, pelvic pain, miscarriage management, and how to discuss prostate cancer screening. The recommendations of the quality family planning, with additions, form a sound basis for sexual and reproductive health care standards, education, and clinical practice, should be part of NP education.

Screening for losers: Trade institutions and information

Trade law scholars have often argued that international institutions can serve a useful domestic political role by providing a constraint against domestic demands for protection. In this paper, I identify a new way in which such institutions and their particular features can be valuable to governments: namely, that they can provide useful information about domestic political groups. While governments are responsible for the administration of most legal trade-related actions, the information that governments need to determine which actions to pursue is often the private information of the firms and interest groups that are lobbying for these actions, and there are significant incentives for such groups to misrepresent this information. This paper uses a formal model to demonstrate that governments can use the multitude of legal options available to them to screen between domestic groups for those with the strongest cases; a selection process which can help to explain, amongst other things, why trade remedies tend to be structured around meeting criteria instead of as “efficient breaches” requiring compensation and why disputes pursued via the WTO have such a high rate of success (approximately 90% for cases that reach the panel stage).

Reporting of Crime Mechanisms and the Interaction Between the EPPO and OLAF as Key Future Challenges

The EPPO and OLAF shall not only co-exist, but also take advantage of their capacities, professional knowledge and the new legal options in order to become a powerful tool for combating fraud.

Viral Sovereignty, Vaccine Diplomacy, and Vaccine Nationalism: The Institutions of Global Vaccine Access

Viral Sovereignty, Vaccine Diplomacy, and Vaccine Nationalism: The Institutions of Global Vaccine Access

Sentencing to Life Imprisonment

Introduction. After declaring a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia life imprisonment has turned to be the most severe of the applied criminal punishments. In order to respect the rights and interests of all parties of the criminal process, the court when passing a sentence shall con¬sider all the characteristic features of this kind of imprisonment. Taking into account the processes of self-organization, the lack of common approaches to the imprisonment for life in law, the use of evaluation categories that are not explained in the prac¬tice of the highest court, as well as the presence of gaps in certain provisions of the criminal law, leads to the fact that the courts in different regions in text justify and substantiate the sentence of life imprisonment form their own experience. The problem of sentencing in the form of life imprisonment has become the subject of the article. The author’s approach is based on the analysis of the first instance courts sentences and the examination of their features. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The work is carried out with the use of such general scientific research methods as comparative legal, dialectical, formal legal, and hermeneutical methods are applied. The above methods are used in conjunction in order to obtain a synergistic effect of the research. Results. When passing a life sentence, it is important to describe thoroughly the exceptional dan¬ger of the defendant. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in the cancellation of the sentence. The author also analyzes the circumstances that are to preclude the possibility of life imprisonment, deals with the features of life verdict in the case of a combination of crimes or sen¬tences in the particular situation, takes up the questions of determining the type of correctional facility for a person sentenced to this type of punishment. Discussion and Conclusion. Based on the author’s research, the article offers legal options for describing the exceptional danger of the person committed the crime, reflecting in the sentence the punishment imposed for a combination of crimes and sentences, one of which is life impris¬onment.

The ICJ's Jadhav Judgment and Its Implications for Pakistan and India under International Law

AbstractThe International Court of Justice [ICJ] delivered its Judgment on Jadhav (India v. Pakistan) in 2019, finding Pakistan in breach of its obligations under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963. Thus, Pakistan is under a continuing obligation to provide, through the means of its own choosing, effective review and reconsideration [ERR] of Jadhav's conviction and sentence. This paper comments on the ICJ's Jadhav Judgment and its implications for Pakistan and India. It also evaluates the legal option if India is not satisfied with Pakistan's implementation of the ERR process effectively. In this situation, India can approach the ICJ again. This paper finds that the possibilities of India's request to be admissible before the ICJ under Article 60 of its Statute are relatively higher than the possibilities of its successful adjudication on the merits.