Legal Vulnerability Research Articles

Grandmothering at work: conversations with Sikh Punjabi grandmothers in Toronto

This article sheds light on the work of immigrant Punjabi Sikh grandmothers in the settlement of their adult immigrant children and grandchildren in Toronto. The authors demonstrate that grandmothers face a variety of challenges, but most significantly their dependence on their children, which is a result of official state sponsorship policies that maintain the invisibility of their unpaid work and their legal vulnerability. Drawing on socialist feminist literature, the concept of ‘global care chain’ and 16 life-story-style interviews, the authors highlight the agency of these grandmothers despite all odds.

‘The Law is to Blame’: The Vulnerable Status of Common Property Rights in Sub‐Saharan Africa

ABSTRACTThe context of this article is the surge in large‐scale land acquisitions of African lands by local and foreign investors for commercial food, livestock, oil palm and carbon trading purposes. Involuntary loss of rural lands at scale is not new to Africa's majority rural poor, nor is it driven by a single factor. Historically inequitable land relations within communities, compounded by a century of capitalist transformation, take their toll. This study argues, however, that the weak legal status of communal rights is the most pernicious enabler in their demise, allowing governments to take undue liberties with their citizens’ lands, and particularly those which are unfarmed and by tradition held in common. While international acquiescence to abusive domestic law helps entrench the diminishment of majority land rights, the domestic laws themselves are principally at fault and necessarily the target for change. This legal vulnerability is explored here through an examination of more than twenty African land laws.

The Impact of Detention and Deportation on Latino Immigrant Children and Families: A Quantitative Exploration

Children of Latino immigrants, many of whom live in “mixed-status” families, are a rapidly growing group in the United States. It is widely accepted that their development is affected by multiple and complex factors, including those in their distal context (e.g., laws, institutions, policies). Despite the enormity of the deportation system and its vigorous implementation in recent years, little research has investigated how this particular component of the distal context affects Latino immigrant families. The present survey was designed to statistically explore the impact of detention/deportation on Latino immigrant parents and children ( N = 132). Regression analyses indicated that (1) parents with higher levels of legal vulnerability report a greater impact of detention/ deportation on the family environment (parent emotional well-being, ability to provide financially, and relationships with their children) and children’s well-being (child’s emotional well-being and academic performance) and (2) parents’ legal vulnerability and the impact of detention/deportation on the family predict outcomes for children. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.

Drowning Protection in the Multilateral Bath: WTO Judicialisation and European Agriculture in the Doha Round

The existing literature on the EU's participation in the agricultural negotiations of the Doha Round assumes that EU policy-makers develop autonomous preferences in favour of liberalising agricultural trade, thus going against the preferences of the agricultural sector. This article challenges this view and argues that WTO judicialisation—the strengthened enforcement of rules introduced with the creation of the WTO—affects the domestic politics of trade in WTO members. My key contention is that WTO judicialisation confronts societal interests and public authorities with legal vulnerability, and that this elicits a willingness to co-operate with other WTO members and thus pre-empt foreign challenges to domestic policies. Empirically, the article shows that negotiations centred on offsetting the potentially disruptive effects of foreign legal challenges to EU farm policies.

Factor Structure of the Geriatric Institutional Assessment Profile's Professional Issues Scales

The Geriatric Institutional Assessment Profile (GIAP) is a self-administered survey of hospital nurses, designed to assess a hospital's readiness to implement geriatric programs. A sample of 2,211 direct care RNs in 24 hospitals was randomly split in half to analyze the Geriatric Professional Issues scales of the GIAP, using one sample for exploratory factor analysis and one for confirmatory factor analysis. An exploratory factor analysis of the six Geriatric Professional Issue scales (staff disagreement, staff/family/patient disagreement, use of geriatric services, perceived legal vulnerability, perceived upsetting behaviors, and burden of upsetting behaviors) demonstrated very good internal consistency both as a whole (Cronbach's alpha coefficient = 0.90) and as individual factors (0.94, 0.91, 0.92, 0.89, 0.85, and 0.81, respectively). The six factors were validated in a half randomly selected sample, with a root-mean-square error of approximation fit index of 0.07 and the normed and non-normed fit indices both 0.8, all indicating adequate fit of the six-factor model.

Driving to distraction — certification of fitness to drive with epilepsy

Assessment of medical fitness to drive can be a sensitive and difficult task, particularly when it involves a condition such as epilepsy, where impairment is intermittent. The patient, their doctor and the driver licensing authority (DLA) each have responsibilities, both to the patient and to the wider community of road users. DLAs in Australia have shifted most of the responsibility for determining fitness to drive to the treating doctor. This creates a conflict of interest and may lead to unsafe decisions, damage to the doctor-patient relationship, interference with medical management and legal vulnerability for the doctor. Australian neurologists have argued for a system in which the treating doctor provides objective information about the patient's condition, rather than an opinion on fitness to drive, and the DLA uses that information to determine fitness. This must be supported by an expert review process. Although drivers are legally obliged to notify the DLA when they become unfit, most people are unaware of this law. However, passing this responsibility to doctors in the form of mandatory reporting is counterproductive to road safety.

Lesbian/Bisexual Mothers and Intimate Partner Violence: Help Seeking in the Context of Social and Legal Vulnerability

Mothers in same-sex relationships face unique challenges when help seeking for intimate partner violence (IPV). Formal helping systems often invalidate their family relationships, leaving them vulnerable and distrustful when help seeking. To better understand their experiences, the authors interviewed 24 lesbian/bisexual mothers who were either in or had left abusive same-sex relationships. Increasing severity of violence, effects of violence on children and families, and "being tired" influenced their definitions of the situation. Decisions to seek formal help appeared to be influenced by their support from informal networks and perceived stigma related to the intersection of IPV and being lesbian or bisexual.

Innovation in Community Corrections and Probation Officers’ Fears of Being Sued

Probation departments are emphasizing a greater level of community interaction between officers and ordinary citizens as an integral part of effective offender supervision. This trend is due in part to the prisoner reentry correctional paradigm, which conceptualizes probation officers as relationship brokers between offenders and their employers, family members, and community stakeholders. Field probation officers are a critical part of implementing this community-oriented approach. Few scholars, however, have evaluated probation departments’ organizational capacities to implement this change in light of the legal vulnerabilities to torts faced by these officers. We use in-depth interview data from a sample of field probation officers in eastern Washington State to understand how probation officers’ concerns about being sued and their trust in the organization may affect its capacity to innovate. The theoretical and policy implications of our findings are discussed.

113. A proposed algorithm to determine fitness to drive in patients with epilepsy

Background: Certification of fitness to drive by the treating doctor may create a conflict of interest which can result in damage to the doctor-patient relationship, inappropriate certification decisions and legal vulnerability for the doctor. The Epilepsy Society of Australia and ANZAN believe that certification is the role of the driver licensing authority (DLA) rather than the treating doctor.

Pervasive Myths in Teacher Beliefs about Education Law

This article explores common misbeliefs and misconceptions that many teachers have about the law of education, focusing on those that have the greatest potential to cause harm to schools, students, and teachers themselves. The myths fall into three categories: Myths concerning the legal vulnerability of schools and teachers, myths concerning the rights of students, and myths concerning the rights of teachers. The major assertions of the article are that many teachers significantly overestimate the likelihood that their school or they personally will be sued by a student; that teachers often fail to recognize the constitutional rights of their students, even as they overestimate the right of parents to control their children's educational programs; and that teachers tend to have an exaggerated view of the protections afforded by academic freedom and “tenure.” The article concludes with a discussion of possible ways to dispel some of the myths.

Bridging the Gap between Rhetoric and Reality: Line Managers and the Protection of Job Security for Ill Workers in the Modern Workplace

In the light of the long‐standing concern in management regarding the gap that can arise between organizational policy prescriptions and line‐management practice, the purpose of this article is to provide insights into the nature and causes of that gap. The particular focus of analysis is the line manager's role in facilitating the employment security of employees who have contracted serious illness, injuries or disabilities. More specifically, the article presents findings from four case‐study organizations in the UK, and identifies a number of factors that militate against the ability of line managers to comply with organizational policies on the provision of workplace adjustments and employment security for ill or disabled workers. These factors include: contradictory policy requirements, weaknesses in training, lack of support from relevant internal and external specialists and various work and budgetary pressures. The authors suggest four areas of action that may begin to reduce the potential for conflicts between management and employees, and minimize the legal vulnerability of organizations in an area of increasing domestic and international regulation.

When the Peace Ends: The Vulnerability of EC and US Agricultural Subsidies to WTO Legal Challenge

Article 13 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, known as the precludes most WTO dispute settlement challenges against a country that is complying with the Agreement's liberalization commitments - until 1 January 2004, when the Peace Clause will expire. This article evaluates the strength of the main legal theories likely to be used in challenges to EC and US agricultural subsidies after expiry of the Peace Clause, and then employs economic techniques (regression analysis and equilibrium modeling) to meaningfully apply the soundest legal theories to economic data about agriculture trade. We conclude that when the Peace Clause expires, many commodity-specific EC and US agricultural subsidies will be vulnerable to legal challenges under Article 6.3(a)-(c) and 6.4 of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The remedy would require that such subsidies be withdrawn or that appropriate steps be taken to remove their adverse effects. Non-subsidizing developing countries can be expected to bargain in the shadow of this legal vulnerability, demanding that the Community and the United States commit to further subsidy reductions and a shift toward tariff-and-decoupled-payments systems, in exchange for extension of the Peace Clause.

When the Peace Ends: The Vulnerability of EC and US Agricultural Subsidies to WTO Legal Challenge

Article 13 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, known as the 'Peace Clause', precludes most WTO dispute settlement challenges against a country that is complying with the Agreement's liberalization commitments -- until 1 January 2004, when the Peace Clause will expire. This article evaluates the strength of the main legal theories likely to be used in challenges to EC and US agricultural subsidies after expiry of the Peace Clause, and then employs economic techniques (regression analysis and equilibrium modeling) to meaningfully apply the soundest legal theories to economic data about agriculture trade. We conclude that when the Peace Clause expires, many commodity-specific EC and US agricultural subsidies will be vulnerable to legal challenge under Articles 6.3(a)--(c) and 6.4 of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The remedy would require that such subsidies be withdrawn or that appropriate steps be taken to remove their adverse effects. Non-subsidizing developing countries can be expected to bargain in the shadow of this legal vulnerability, demanding that the Community and the United States commit to further subsidy reductions and a shift toward tariffs-and-decoupled-payments systems, in exchange for extension of the Peace Clause. Copyright Oxford University Press 2003, Oxford University Press.

Recusancy, Festivity and Community: The Simpsons at Gowlthwaite Hall

This essay analyses one well-known incident of Romanist cultural activity in Jacobean England for the insight it can provide into the nature of the English Catholic community in the early seventeenth century. In the Christmas holidays of 1609, a group of recusant players named the Simpsons performed a play and an interlude with Catholic overtones at Gowlthwaite Hall in Nidderdale, Yorkshire, the home of Sir John Yorke. Yorke was later charged in the Star Chamber with complicity in the Gunpowder Plot, harbouring John Gerard and other priests, and hosting a seditious interlude. The extensive records in this case, though already well mined by literary and social historians, have yet to be examined in the light of recent reconsiderations of Roman Catholicism’s place in the cultural geography of early modern England. In this context, the records become newly significant as an important window into the gentry-based Catholic culture of the North described in the work of J.H.A. Aveling and John Bossy. The case’s prosecutorial history illuminates the true legal vulnerability of these Yorkshire Catholics, suggesting the need to reconsider the belief that the Jacobean stance toward Catholic nonconformists was essentially tolerant. More elaborately, the case suggests that secular revels were used as part of a concerted contemporary effort to re-create a sense of Catholic community–an effort certainly joined by Sir John Yorke, and possibly by other local Catholics and the priests they intermittently harboured. Though the case cannot be taken as representative, then, it can still offer both an intriguing snapshot of an elusive and poorly documented world, and caveats to larger critical claims about the nature of English Catholicisms’ relationship with mainstream culture.

Legal vulnerability of assessment tools

Legal challenges relating to assessment results are increasing around the world. Until recently such challenges were not possible in the UK. With changes to the law, including the Human Rights Act, it is now possible for an Examining Body to have its assessment process challenged. Defending an assessment tool is potentially easy but not being prepared could lead to embarrassing defeat, with significant costs and damages to pay. Judgement may be made as to what constitutes appropriate methods of evaluating and the levels that assessments must attain. There are more questions than answers as to what will happen and who will be the true beneficiaries of potential and real challenges.

Civil Rights Law at Work: Sex Discrimination and the Rise of Maternity

By the time Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, many employers had created maternity leave programs. Analysts argue that they did so in response to the feminization of the workforce. This study charts the spread of maternity leave policies between 1955 and 1985 in a sample of 279 organizations. Sex discrimination law played a key role in the rise of maternity leave policies. Building on neoinstitutional theory, this article explores how the separation of powers shapes employer response to law. Details of the law are often specified in administrative rulings‐the weakest link in the law because they can be overturned by the courts and by Congress. Yet an administrative ruling requiring employers with disability leave programs to permit maternity leave, which employers successfully fought in the courts, was at least as effective as the identical congressional statute that replaced it. In the American context, the legal vulnerability of administrative rulings can draw attention to them, ...

Vulnerabilities assessment — Part 2. Getting in through the ‘Net’

In the first part of this article we defined a vulnerability and discussed how to determine the importance of vulnerabilities. We looked at many types of vulnerabilities. Most people think of a vulnerability as something that gets exploited by ‘hacking in’ to organizations and systems by strangers on the outside. We looked at several important vulnerabilities not usually given much consideration because of that preconception: legal vulnerabilities, personnel/human resources vulnerabilities, premises vulnerabilities, phone switch vulnerabilities, disaster recovery/contingency planning vulnerabilities, insurance vulnerabilities, policy vulnerabilities, password vulnerabilities, default value vulnerabilities and improper access control vulnerabilities. It was shown that it was neither possible nor effective to remove all vulnerabilities, but that proper analyses were necessary to determine which to treat.

The cold realities of software insurance

Is your company scrambling to assess its legal and financial vulnerability from online transactions or the Y2K problem? If so, you should know that insurance companies are now tentatively dipping into the waters of software liability. Amidst predictions of huge corporate liabilities and despite reports to the contrary, insurers are offering some coverage. Often, however, the coverage either does not completely protect business holdings or comes with hefty premiums. The availability of even limited, expensive coverage is a trend worth watching. To provide insurance, insurers must be able to accurately predict future disasters.

A Federal Appellate Court Puts Colleges on Notice of Their Legal Vulnerability for Racial Harassment

A Federal Appellate Court Puts Colleges on Notice of Their Legal Vulnerability for Racial Harassment

The Links between Legal Status and Environmental Health: A Case Study of Mozambican Refugees and Their Hosts in the Mpumalanga (Eastern Transvaal) Lowveld, South Africa

This article relates the legal status of Mozambicans in South Africa from 1985 onwards to key findings of a demographic census taken in 1992, an environmental health survey conducted in 1993, and in-depth fieldwork in some of the surveyed settlements in 1995. The case study area on the border with Mozambique is typical of South Africa's rural former homelands, with the exception that it has a large and long-standing refugee population. The environmental health indicators for refugees are considerably worse than for their hosts, and in-depth fieldwork suggests that this can be attributed to their legal and political vulnerability. This raises issues for South Africa's Reconstruction and Development Program, as well as conceptual challenges for promoters of human rights.