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Review of Extraordinary Racial Politics by Fred Lee
Get PDFThe goal of Fred Lee in Extraordinary Racial Politics is to explicate a recurring form of political activity that is distinct from either revolutionary politics that convulse the entire polity or normal politics that yield formal laws and institutions. Between these phenomena, he describes a political experience that can be “unusual, episodic, intensive, decisive, and transformative” yet leaves its mark on a polity (p. 2). Lee is less concerned with the laws on the books than he is with an informal set of potent racial formations that are both sticky and generative: sometimes they are partly codified (as with legal segregation), at other times they are generally unseen but fill gaps in our formal understandings of the law (say, in treaties with native populations and policies demanding their removal), and sometimes they supplant them entirely over time (as with latent notions of citizenship)
Living in Different Cultures
No full textWhy do we need to focus on cultures today? Not many years ago we lived within our communities and rarely traveled, even within our country. We knew our neighbors and their children. Most of us ate similar foods, spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, and found some behaviors offensive. Even though the immigrants to this country acted differently, they did not travel much, just as the American born did not travel much abroad. Today’s world is different. We travel more frequently, both within our country and abroad. We watch and read about different other nations. In school, and at work, we meet people who come from different countries, who have different manners, different sense of humor, and different sensitivities. In sum, we are exposed to different cultures. How do we bridge the cultural gaps? Argue and explain to convince? Make fun of the others’ position? Threaten? Or identify with the other party: Would I like to be treated in this or that way? Or find a compromise when the issue is not worth it and fight when it is? Is my purpose to win or to find a solution with which all parties can live? Living in Different Cultures is a memoir-like collection of keen observations of global culture. Vignettes by the Israeli-born distinguished legal scholar, now 93, guide those from different cultures on how to respect each other and live in harmony.https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1169/thumbnail.jp
The global preclinical antibacterial pipeline
Get PDFAntibacterial resistance is a great concern and requires global action. A critical question is whether enough new antibacterial drugs are being discovered and developed. A review of the clinical antibacterial drug pipeline was recently published, but comprehensive information about the global preclinical pipeline is unavailable. This Review focuses on discovery and preclinical development projects and has found, as of 1 May 2019, 407 antibacterial projects from 314 institutions. The focus is on Gram-negative pathogens, particularly bacteria on the WHO priority bacteria list. The preclinical pipeline is characterized by high levels of diversity and interesting scientific concepts, with 135 projects on direct-acting small molecules that represent new classes, new targets or new mechanisms of action. There is also a strong trend towards non-traditional approaches, including diverse antivirulence approaches, microbiome-modifying strategies, and engineered phages and probiotics. The high number of pathogen-specific and adjunctive approaches is unprecedented in antibiotic history. Translational hurdles are not adequately addressed yet, especially development pathways to show clinical impact of non-traditional approaches. The innovative potential of the preclinical pipeline compared with the clinical pipeline is encouraging but fragile. Much more work, focus and funding are needed for the novel approaches to result in effective antibacterial therapies to sustainably combat antibacterial resistance
Could States Do Single-Payer Health Care?
No full textThe Affordable Care Act (ACA) transformed the US health care system by increasing coverage, expanding federal involvement in private health insurance, and changing public expectations for access to affordable coverage. Yet, the ACA did not provide universal coverage and has proven unstable under political and legal attacks since its enactment in 2010. While proposals for replacing the ACA with single-payer health care have attracted national political attention, discussions of a federal single-payer system such as “Medicare for All” remain light on specifics. At the state level, however, state legislators have drafted and introduced dozens of detailed bills to implement single-payer systems. Our study of state single-payer proposals in the ACA era highlights the extent to which states must contort their health reforms to overcome federal legal hurdles—particularly the threat of preemption by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974—and prompts questions about whether states can actually implement single-payer health care
Marketing “healthy” babies
No full textIn 2011, poet and writer George Estreich wrote about the impact of biotechnology on family life in his first book, The Shape of the Eye. The memoir centers on how his family\u27s life was changed, and enriched, by the birth of his second child, Laura, who has Down syndrome. Laura made his second book possible. In Fables and Futures, Estreich goes beyond the personal to describe the ways that genetic technologies affect society and the stories the promoters of such technologies tell about them. These “fables” affect not only how we view new technologies but also how we view normality and the rights and welfare of humans whom we have labeled as having various “disabilities.
Affordability Boards: The States’ New Fix for Drug Pricing
Get PDFA new Maryland law that creates a prescription-drug affordability board to help the state regulate drug prices may be a harbinger of what’s to come in drug-pricing legislation. The law permits cost reviews when drug prices or price increases exceed specified thresholds. Establishing affordability boards may be a natural next step that more states take to exert a stronger influence over price spikes and still survive legal challenges
Faithful Execution and Article II
Get PDFArticle II of the U.S. Constitution twice imposes a duty of faithful execution on the President, who must take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed and take an oath or affirmation to \u27faithfully execute the Office of President. These Faithful Execution Clauses are cited often, but their background and original meaning have never been fully explored. Courts, the executive branch, and many scholars rely on one or both clauses as support for expansive views of presidential power, for example, to go beyond standing law to defend the nation in emergencies; to withhold documents from Congress or the courts; or to refuse to fully execute statutes on grounds of unconstitutionality or for policy reasons.
This Article is the first to explore the textual roots of these clauses from the time of Magna Carta and medieval England, through colonial America, and up through the Philadelphia Convention and ratification debates. We find that the language of faithful execution was for centuries before 1787 very commonly associated with the performance of public and private offices - especially those in which the officer had some control over the public fisc. Faithful execution language applied not only to senior government officials but to a vast number of more ministerial officers, too. We contend that it imposed three interrelated requirements on officeholders: (r) a duty not to act ultra vires, beyond the scope of one\u27s office; (2) a duty not to misuse an office\u27s funds or take unauthorized profits; and (3) diligent, careful, good faith, honest, and impartial execution of law or office.
These three duties of fidelity look a lot like fiduciary duties in modern private law. This fiduciary reading of the original meaning of the Faithful Execution Clauses might have important implications in modern constitutional law. Our history supports readings of Article II of the Constitution, for example, that limit Presidents to exercise their power in good faith, for the public interest, and not for reasons of self-dealing, self-protection, or other bad faith, personal purposes. So understood, Article II may thus place some limits on the pardon and removal authority. The history we present also supports readings of Article II that tend to subordinate presidential power to congressional direction, limiting presidential non-enforcement of statutes, and perhaps constraining agencies\u27 interpretations of statutes to pursue Congress\u27s objectives. Our conclusions undermine imperial and prerogative claims for the presidency, claims that are sometimes, in our estimation, improperly traced to dimensions of the clauses requiring the President\u27s faithful execution
A Public Health Approach to Gun Violence, Legally Speaking
No full textThe call for a public health approach to gun violence has largely ignored what role the nascent Second Amendment jurisprudence will play in hindering change. Given the state interest for infringing on Second Amendment rights is nearly always public safety, public health law doctrine provides an apt framework for analysis
Data First – Tax Next: How Fiji’s Technology Can Improve New Zealand’s ‘Netflix Tax’ (Part 4)
Get PDFThis is the fourth paper examining the recent amendments to the New Zealand Goods and Services Tax (GST); amendments that are collectively known as the Netflix Tax. These papers assess the effectiveness of the Netflix provisions, and how they could be enhanced if New Zealand adopted the technology and vision of Fiji’s VAT Monitoring System (VMS). The Netflix provisions were effective, July 1, 2017.This final paper considers:(a) the treatment of domestic agents when they are used by remote service providers to facilitate sales to New Zealand customers;(b) how New Zealand intends to respond to resident consumers who supply false information to remote service providers in an effort to induce those providers into improperly zero-rate transactions, and thereby defeat the GST; and(c) the treatment of dual status taxpayers, New Zealand residents whose status allows them to enter into contracts with remote service providers either as individual consumers or as business taxpayers.As before, the primary contrast is the difference between New Zealand’s traditional (statute and regulation) approach to VAT reform, and the technology-intensive approach of Fiji. Both jurisdictions are struggling to deal with the modern economy, but they approach this challenge very differently. These papers come down on the side of Fiji and technology. In the end they observe that what Fiji understands is that code, computer code, is a very effective, cost-efficient, and self-enforcing form of regulation. There is something important to learn about the way that Fiji utilizes “code” in its tax reform.New Zealand’s residence-based GST has visible difficulties trying to regulate the remote services market with the standard approaches to tax reform. New Zealand works well with the data that it has from residential sources, but it simply does not have what it needs to do the job when the supplies are remote. It needs data in real-time, because the consumption is happening in real-time. In some instances, New Zealand has drafted reasonably complex rules to secure more information. But it is clear that something more, something different, something slightly more radical, and very real-time is needed to come to grips with managing compliance in this field
Elite Patent Law
Get PDFOver the last twenty years, one of the most significant developments in intellectual property law has been the dramatic increase in the number of patent cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. That same time period has also seen the emergence of a small, elite group of lawyers specializing not in any particular area of substantive law but in litigation before the Supreme Court. In recent empirical work, I linked the Court’s growing interest in patent law to the more frequent participation of elite Supreme Court lawyers in patent cases, particularly at the cert. stage. Among other things, I found that the proportion of cert. petitions in patent cases filed by elite lawyers has increased more than fivefold since the early 2000s and that, in patent cases, a cert. petition filed by an elite lawyer is 3.3 times more likely to be granted than a petition filed by a non-elite. This article, written for a symposium on Administering Patent Law, builds on that prior work in two ways. First, it shows that elite Supreme Court lawyers are not only handling more patent cases at the Court itself, they are arguing a growing number of patent cases at the Federal Circuit, too. As recently as 2009, fewer than 1 in 100 Federal Circuit oral arguments were delivered by an elite Supreme Court advocate. Today, that figure is 1 in 20. In a similar vein, from 2008 through 2010, less than 10% of all elite Supreme Court advocates also presented oral argument at the Federal Circuit in a given year. Today, that figure has tripled, with one-quarter of elite Supreme Court advocates also delivering at least one argument at the Federal Circuit annually.Second, this article considers the normative implications of having a small, relatively homogeneous group of lawyers play such a significant role in shaping patent law in the United States. The presence of elite advocates—who know well enough to deemphasize the technological aspects of patent cases when litigating before the Justices—could help explain why the Supreme Court has generally shied away from disputes involving the core requirements of patentability, such as nonobviousness, even though doctrinal disruption in those areas would be particularly useful. Ultimately, however, elite advocates’ involvement in patent cases may be beneficial: as non-specialists in patent law, they can help alleviate problems that have arisen due to the centralization of patent appeals in the semi-specialized Federal Circuit