Access to care has become a key and contentious issue in the Canadian health care system. In this article, I explore the role of Canadian courts in determining rights to access public health insurance, beginning with a brief overview of the Canadian system and its distinguishing features, and then moving to discuss challenges to governmental limits on publicly-funded Medicare using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I argue that the Canadian courts are not, as is often charged, (...) proactive in this area. I question whether the deference exhibited by courts to governmental limits on Medicare is justified given concerns about the fairness of the principles and processes followed by decision-makers. In sharp relief to the judiciary’s conservative approach to applications for better or timely access to publicly-funded Medicare is the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec which upheld a right to buy private health insurance for “medically necessary” hospital and physician services. (shrink)

Access to care has become a key and contentious issue in the Canadian health care system. In this article, I explore the role of Canadian courts in determining rights to access public health insurance, beginning with a brief overview of the Canadian system and its distinguishing features, and then moving to discuss challenges to governmental limits on publicly-funded Medicare using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I argue that the Canadian courts are not, as is often charged, (...) proactive in this area. I question whether the deference exhibited by courts to governmental limits on Medicare is justified given concerns about the fairness of the principles and processes followed by decision-makers. In sharp relief to the judiciary’s conservative approach to applications for better or timely access to publicly-funded Medicare is the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec which upheld a right to buy private health insurance for “medically necessary” hospital and physician services. (shrink)

This book develops a rights-based theory of justice that maintains that genuine repentance creates a right to be forgiven. Examining the nature of rights and theological conceptions of forgiveness, the author shows why such a right is nonrepugnant and produces the most just state of affairs for victims and wrongdoers.

Court D. Lewis, author of Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness, presents a rights-based theory of ethics grounded in eirenéism, a needs-based theory of rights (inspired by Nicholas Wolterstorff) that seeks peaceful flourishing for all moral agents. This approach creates a moral relationship between victims and wrongdoers such that wrongdoers owe victims compensatory obligations. However, one further result is that wrongdoers may be owed forgiveness by victims. This leads to the “repugnant implication” that victims may be wrongdoers who (...) do not forgive. Author Lewis addresses the “repugnant implication” by showing that victims are obligated to work toward forgiveness, if not forgiveness itself. Critic Gregory L. Bock argues that victims are not the only ones who can forgive, that the personal dimensions of forgiveness are overlooked, and that the force of the “repugnancy implication” may be questioned. Instead of rights-based eirenéism, Bock supports a virtue ethics framework. Instead of rights-based eirenéism, Bock encourages virtue ethics. Critic David Boersema raises questions about the binding nature of relationships, the dependency of flourishing upon forgiveness, and the nature of needs or rights. Boersema also questions the wisdom of a rights-based approach to forgiveness. Critic Jennifer Kling asks whether a rights-based approach is necessary to ground obligations to meet the needs of others: why not an ethics of care? If a rights-based approach is taken, perhaps a wrongdoer is obligated to not make forgiveness a life good. By disengaging this obligation, we avoid constraining a victim’s work toward forgiveness, especially when the wrongdoing is oppressive. Author Lewis responds to these objections. (shrink)

The treaty of Lisbon makes European Union (EU) accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) an obligation of result. The issue has been intensely discussed for more than thirty years, arguing that such accession is necessary in view of the need to ensure the ECHR standard of fundamental rights protection in Europe. This question again gains prominence as the EU member states and the institutions seek to agree on the negotiation directives of EU accession to the ECHR. The (...) process brings up the difficulties involved in creating a mechanism which would both facilitate the autonomy of the EU legal order and enable individuals to bring claims against the EU to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This involves the questions how it would be possible to ensure quick access to justice, and whether the ECtHR would continue to apply the doctrine of equivalent protection in relation to EU even after the latter becomes bound by the ECHR. The article argues that EU accession to the Convention is a prominent political step ensuring coherence of human rights protection mechanism in Europe. (shrink)

The establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights was a pivotal moment for the African human rights system. To date, 30 of the African Union’s 55 member states have accepted the Court’s jurisdiction by ratifying the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. This article uses statistical analysis of state action on the Protocol to shed light upon the factors (...) that have led some states to accept the Court’s jurisdiction and other states to thus far decline to do so. The results provide strong support for accounts of the origins of international human rights regimes that emphasize transitional states’ desire to “lock in” new commitments to democracy and human rights. Potential compliance costs, regimes’ ideological orientations, domestic legal traditions, and regional dynamics have also exerted significant effects upon the likelihood of ratification. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, access to healthcare has been guaranteed by social health insurance legislation. But since the introduction of the Health Insurance Act in the 1960s, the health insurance system has been in a state of flux. Numerous reforms have changed the system gradually, of which the latest is the introduction of a competitive health insurance scheme for the entire population.Cutting across the various reforms has, however, been the goal of access to healthcare services as defined by international (...) treaty law, including European Union law. In particular the leverage of Community law in strengthening the patient’s right to healthcare is remarkable. Since the European Court of Justice has accepted that healthcare should be considered as a service in terms of the EC Treaty, rights to healthcare have become inextricably linked with the free movement principles and are no longer restricted to the jurisdiction of the country of origin. (shrink)

The application of the state immunity doctrine with regard to the guarantee of access to court in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights has been proved to be a complicated issue. In the ECHR’s case-law before the case Cudak v. Lithuania, the application of the state immunity doctrine had been considered as a proportionate restriction of the right of access to court even in cases of the realization of the protection of (...) the jus cogens norm which was very much criticized by the scholars of international law. Thus, the referral of the case Cudak v. Lithuania to the Grand Chamber could or should change the ECHR’s case-law in this sphere or at least develop certain criteria which would afford ground for a more effective protection to the right of access to court in cases of the application of the state immunity doctrine despite the fact that this right is not absolute. However, the case Cudak v. Lithuania has not fully satisfied these aims. Contrary, the case Cudak v. Lithuania left much obscurity, giving a strong indication that, what regards the realization of the right of access to court, the state immunity doctrine is more a material than a procedural ban, since the argumentation given by the ECHR in this case does not guarantee practical protection of this right. (shrink)

Medical assistance in dying was legalized by the Supreme Court of Canada in June 2016 and became a legal, viable end of life care option for Canadians with irremediable illness and suffering. Much attention has been paid to the balance between physicians’ willingness to provide MAiD and patients’ legal right to request medically assisted death in certain circumstances. In contrast, very little attention has been paid to the challenge of making MAiD accessible to vulnerable populations. The purpose of (...) this paper was to examine the extant literature and resources that are available on the provision of MAiD in Canada. We found that the provision of EOLC in Canada offers insufficient access to palliative and EOLC options for Canadians and that vulnerable Canadians experience disproportional barriers to accessing these already limited resources. Consequently, we argue that palliative care, hospice care and MAiD must be considered a spectrum of EOLC that is inclusive and accessible to all Canadians. We conclude by imploring Canadian healthcare professionals, policy makers and legislators to consider MAiD as a viable EOLC option for all Canadians. (shrink)

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”. As a result, cultural rights have been understood as inseparable from human rights and require protection mechanisms within particular international legal systems. The European continent is proud to have developed one of the most effective mechanisms of the human rights protection by establishing the (...) Council of Europe and adopting the European Court of Human Rights. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 reformulated many concepts of access to human rights and possibilities to enjoy freedoms. Even if access to culture has been available online for many years, it is the time of globally occurring lockdowns that forced people to stay home and found themselves in a situation when all of a sudden online access to culture became the only way of access to culture. The article aims to analyze the current situation in Europe by asking questions if and how online access to culture is recognized and protected under the Council of Europe’s mechanisms with special emphasis on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in this field. (shrink)

In the name of safeguarding public interests and ethical principles, China’s National Health Commission bans unmarried women from using assisted reproductive technology (ART), including egg freezing. Supported by local governments, the ban has restricted single women’s reproductive rights nationwide. Although some courts bypassed the ban to allow widowed single women to use ART, they have not adopted a position in favour of single women’s reproductive autonomy, but quite the contrary. Faced with calls to relax the ban and allow single women (...) to freeze eggs electively, the National Health Commission refused to amend their policy, partly to protect women’s well-being paternalistically and partly to implement the central government’s policies to boost the birthrate and maintain traditional family structures. While the government’s concerns about elective egg freezing are not entirely unfounded, they have failed to demonstrate that banning single women’s egg freezing is a suitable, necessary and proportionate means to safeguard societal interests and ethical principles. The authority’s assumptions that women cannot make rational decisions for their health even with adequate informed consent procedures, that banning egg freezing by single women promotes a culture of having children ‘at a proper age’, and that egg freezing by single women offends China’s public moralities have not been substantiated. (shrink)

In this essay, I continue Nicholas Wolterstorff’s work of developing a rights-based theory of ethics called eirenéism, which maintains the good life only occurs when justice—as a moral state of affairs where agents enjoy the goods to which they have a right—is achieved. As a result, justice is eirenē (the Greek word for peace). In the process of developing eirenéism I explain how eirenē differs from other conceptions of peace, and I offer several interpretive arguments for how best to (...) understand eirenéism in relation to better-known competing ethical theories, like utilitarianism, virtue ethics, duty ethics, and care ethics. (shrink)

Land is a constitutional issue in Ethiopia. Article 40 of the FDRE constitution enshrines governing provisions about rural and urban land. Legislation power is given to the federal government (Article 51(5) of the constitution) although this power can be delegated to regions (Article 50(9) of the same constitution). In contrast, administration power is allocated to regions (Article 52 (2(d)) of the constitution). The federal government has enacted the Rural Land Administration and Use Proclamation 456/2005. Both federal and regional land laws (...) have Alternative Dispute Resolution clauses. However, the opportunities and challenges of these clauses from the access to justice perspective are not studied very well. The main objective of this paper is to assess the legal framework and practice of ADR mechanisms in the rural land administration system from the access to justice perspective and come up with a policy option. Doctrinal type of legal research is applied where it involves theory testing which deals with studying existing laws (both federal and regional laws). In addition, both primary and secondary sources have been used. Primary qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The study found that there are legal constraints. One significant legal constraint is the requirement for mandatory mediation in certain regional states before seeking recourse in a court of law. Mediation is not clearly and uniformly applied per the law and in practice (often the practice and legal framework confuse mediation with arbitration, inappropriately giving decision-making powers to mediators, and turning them into arbiters). Women and Vulnerable Groups are generally more negatively affected by the overreaching of mediators into decision-making, because the mediators are more easily influenced by the party opposing women and Vulnerable Groups, and/or the mediators are culturally biased. This study recommends that mediation should be made optional, where mediators are chosen by the parties and the legal framework is clear that the role of the mediators does not involve imposing decisions. For Oromia and SNNPR, the legal regime of mediation should be clarified to avoid confusion with the arbitration. It is necessary to train community-level mediators in the law and the protection of land rights of Vulnerable Groups against gender discrimination. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the emergence of online courts and tribunals: digital platforms that enable self-represented litigants to complete electronically the entire court process, from filing through final disposition. This article proposes that the unique nature of online courts as digital interfaces enables them to implement a new strategy—diversity by design—to improve access to justice and procedural justice for a diverse population of SRLs. Reflecting a human-centered legal design approach, and building on research in human-computer interaction and digital (...) choice architecture, this strategy entails embedding diversity accommodating features in the technological design of court platforms. Specifically, building on the empirical relationship between users’ demographic attributes and their digital usability and aesthetics judgments, this article suggests that online courts can dynamically adapt their interfaces according to the attributes of a given user in ways that help diverse SRLs engage with online courts, support their effective participation in proceedings, and improve their procedural experiences. The potential impacts include enhancing SRLs’ confidence and trust in using online courts and ameliorating their ability to process information, deliberate, make informed decisions and communicate them. Finally, the article discusses concerns regarding the desirability and ethicality of dynamically adapting, that is—personalizing, court interfaces. (shrink)

In 2006, a WHO survey found evidence of a substantial increase in patient-led litigation against health authorities and funders over access to medicines around the world. New Zealanders have seldom litigated denials of access to health care. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that New Zealand has a legislated patients' "bill of rights", with enforcement through a complaints mechanism. Although the separate regime does not afford patients substantive legal protection in respect of complaints about lack of (...) access to care, this form of alternative, low-level resolution of health care disputes does condition disgruntled patients not to turn to the courts for legal redress in relation to their rights. But given the increasing need for prioritization arising from serious concern about the sustainability of the public health system, as well as a trend towards greater explicitness when it occurs, increased disappointment on behalf of patients and the public when care is denied or limited seems inevitable. This may well translate into increased patient-led litigation against health boards and funders. Part 1 provides an overview of the New Zealand health system, with a focus on the points at which resource allocation decisions are made, the identity of the decision-maker, and the methods by which priority-setting occurs. Part 1.1 describes inequalities between population groups in New Zealand, both in health outcomes and in access to health care. Part 2 describes the legal framework surrounding the health and disability sector, and discusses the lack of legislated rights to health and the limited right of access to health care in legislation, despite the existence of a legally enforceable Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights. (shrink)

This article aims to clarify the relationship between human rights and the environment, as it results from the jurisprudence of the two supranational institutions at the level of the European Union. It can be said that, to date, the jurisprudence covered by this article reflects the most important principles that the Court has applied in environmental case law. The article sets out the three most important principles regarding the individual rights that could be affected by environmental damage. On the (...) one hand, the human rights that are protected by the Convention may be directly affected by harmful environmental factors, which may lead to a substantial violation of those rights. On the other hand, harmful environmental factors can lead to procedural violations of these rights. It is important to note here that the procedural aspects of these rights relate to the information and communication duties that national authorities have in the event of any damage brought to the environment. Finally, national authorities may also use environmental protection as a legitimate aim to justify possible interference with certain individual human rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine: Convention on Human Rights and BiomedicineCouncil of EuropePreambleThe Member States of the Council of Europe, the other States and the European Community signatories hereto,Bearing in mind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948;Bearing in mind the (...) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950;Bearing in mind the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961;Bearing in mind the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16 December 1966;Bearing in mind the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981;Bearing also in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989;Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of a greater unity between its members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms;Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being; [End Page 277]Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations;Stressing the need for international co-operation so that all humanity may enjoy the benefits of biology and medicine;Recognising the importance of promoting a public debate on the questions posed by the application of biology and medicine and the responses to be given thereto;Wishing to remind all members of society of their rights and responsibilities;Taking account of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field, including Recommendation 1160 (1991) on the preparation of a Convention on bioethics;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine;Have agreed as follows:Chapter IGeneral provisionsArticle 1. (Purpose and object)Parties to this Convention shall protect the dignity and identity of all human beings and guarantee everyone, without discrimination, respect for their integrity and other rights and fundamental freedoms with regard to the application of biology and medicine.Each Party shall take in its internal law the necessary measures to give effect to the provisions of this Convention.Article 2. (Primacy of the human being)The interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of society or science.Article 3. (Equitable access to health care)Parties, taking into account health needs and available resources, shall take appropriate measures with a view to providing, within their jurisdiction, equitable access to health care of appropriate quality. [End Page 278]Article 4. (Professional standards)Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards.Chapter IIConsentArticle 5. (General rule)An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it.This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.The person concerned may freely withdraw consent at any time.Article 6. (Protection of persons not able to consent)1. Subject to Articles 17 and 20 below, an intervention may only be carried out on a person who does not have the capacity to consent, for his or her direct benefit.2. Where, according to law, a minor does not have the capacity to consent to an intervention, the intervention may only be carried out with the authorisation of his or her representative or an authority or a person or... (shrink)

Russia’s relations with the European Court of Human Rights since the time of Russia’s accession to the Council of Europe have received a lot of attention on the part of academic scholars, practitioners, and media. Research on the ECtHR became especially important in the context of the twentieth anniversary of Russia’s acceptance of ECtHR jurisdiction that coincided with the unprecedented worsening of relations between Russia and the European countries due to the 2014 Crimea annexation. With voices that consistently advocate (...) Russia’s exit from the CoE, we believe it necessary to examine Russia-ECtHR relations as they are presented in the academic narrative. Drawing mostly on Russian-language sources, we want to highlight the variety of overarching themes and arguments relating to the crisis caused by the 2015 Constitutional Court Decision. We would like to examine various dimensions of this “crisis,” in order to be able to conclude whether Russia’s reaction to the Markin case and cases of non-compliance that followed was indeed part of a broader strategy of “backlash against international courts” we are currently witnessing worldwide. In the conditions when Russia’s exit from the Council of Europe is as likely as ever, the possibility of the “snowball effect” on the part of other member states threatens undermine the very raison d’être of the European human rights protection system. (shrink)

An issue about the privacy of the clustered groups designed by algorithms arises when attempts are made to access certain pieces of information about those groups that would likely be used to harm them. Therefore, limitations must be imposed regarding accessing such information about clustered groups. In the discourse on group privacy, it is argued that the right to privacy of such groups should be recognised to respect group privacy, protecting clustered groups against discrimination. According to this viewpoint, (...) this right places a duty on others, for example, private companies, institutions, and governments, to refrain from accessing such information. To defend the idea that the right to privacy should be recognised for clustered groups, at least two requirements must be satisfied. First, clustered group privacy must be conceived of as either a collective good or a participatory good. Since these forms of good are of the type from which no member of a group can be excluded from benefiting, the right to them is defined as a group right. Second, there must be group interests on which to base a group right. Group interests can be either the interests of those members that are a result of their being in the group or the interests of the group as a whole that transcend the interests of its members. However, this paper argues that clustered group privacy cannot be conceived of as either a collective or a participatory good because it is possible for some individuals to be excluded from benefiting from it. Furthermore, due to the lack of awareness among individuals that they are members of a clustered group and the nature of a clustered group itself, such groups cannot have the group interests necessary to establish a group right. Hence, the group right to privacy cannot be recognised for these groups, implying that the group right cannot be considered a means to protect clustered groups against discrimination. Instead, this paper suggests that moral principles need to be articulated within an ethics of vulnerability to identify the moral obligations of protecting vulnerable clustered groups. The duty owed to the vulnerable should involve refraining from accessing certain information about clustered groups in specific contexts. This duty is not engendered by the right to privacy of such groups; it is the duty owed to the vulnerable. The findings highlight the need to articulate moral principles regarding privacy and data protection to protect clustered groups in contexts in which accessing information about them could constitute a reason for discriminatory targeting. (shrink)

The article deals with the constitutional right of a person to apply to court. While construing this constitutionally entrenched right of a person, one analyses the doctrine of the right of a person to apply to court, which was formed in the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania. The right of a person to court is entrenched expressis verbis in Paragraph 1 of Article 30 of the Constitution whereby (...) the person whose constitutional rights or freedoms are violated shall have the right to apply to court. The doctrine of the Constitutional Court derives this right also from the constitutional principle of a state under the rule of law. The right of a person to court is inseparable from other norms and principles of the Constitution, which are equality of rights, the right to compensation of damage, the right to a proper court process, etc. (shrink)

Background. South African surrogacy law includes a provision, known as the genetic link requirement, that commissioning parents must use their own gametes for the conception of a surrogate child. As a result, infertile persons who cannot contribute gametes for the conception of a child are prohibited from accessing surrogacy as a way to establish families. The genetic link requirement was previously the subject of a constitutional challenge, but the challenge was rejected by a divided Constitutional Court bench with a (...) seven-to-four majority. The genetic link requirement is again being challenged in a new lawsuit.Objective. In light of the history of the issue, this article investigates the viability of relying on infertile persons’ right to family life in the new lawsuit. Method. The investigation takes the form of a human rights analysis.Results. The right to family life was not considered in the previous case. As such, the right to family life constitutes a new legal issue that falls outside the scope of the precedent set by the Constitutional Court, and can therefore be relied upon. The genetic link requirement is a clear violation of infertile persons’ right to family life, which includes the right to establish a family. Potential justifications for such violation are considered, but found wanting. Accordingly, the genetic link requirement is unconstitutional and should be struck out.Conclusion. The outcome of the previous lawsuit was an injustice towards infertile persons. The new lawsuit presents an opportunity for this injustice to be rectified by vindicating infertile persons’ right to family life. (shrink)

Affecting many spheres of social life, globalization also inevitably affects the functioning of higher education and the legal status of individuals who intend to apply for admission in a country other than the one where they completed a previous stage of their education. The paper considers selected legal aspects of the access to higher education in Poland, primarily in the context of the internationalization of education, and, thus, the internationalization of the recruitment procedure where individual candidates apply for admission (...) to study on the basis of documents authorizing them to pursue higher education in different legal systems. The background for the reflections is the normative content of the right to education and one of its guarantees, namely the principle of equal access to education – in Poland having the status of a constitutional norm. (shrink)

On 26 February 2020, the German Constitutional Court rejected a law from 2015 that prohibited any form of ‘business-like’ assisted suicide as unconstitutional. The landmark ruling of the highest federal court emphasised the high priority given to the rights of autonomy and free personal development, both of which constitute the principle of human dignity, the first principle of the German constitution. The ruling echoes particularities of post-war Germany’s end-of-life debate focusing on patient self-determination while rejecting any discussion of (...) active assistance to die through a lethal injection administered by a doctor. This brief report discusses the ruling in the light of the broader sociopolitical and historical context of the German end-of-life debate. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever-present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine “what is right”. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research (...) paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entrepreneur’s personal world-view. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever-present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine “what is right”. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research (...) paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entrepreneur’s personal world-view. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide an overview of how the outcomes of the Uruguay Round affected the application of pharmaceutical intellectual property rights globally. Second, we explain how specific pharmaceutical policy tools can help developing states mitigate the worst effects of the TRIPS Agreement. Third, we put forward solutions that could be implemented by the World Bank to help overcome the divide between creating private incentives for research and development of innovative medicines and ensuring access of the poor to (...) medicine. Fourth, we evaluate these solutions on the basis of utilitarian considerations and urge that equitable pricing is morally preferable to the other solutions. (shrink)

Many medicines currently available on the market are simply too expensive for millions around the world to afford. Many medicines available in the developing world are only available to a small percentage of the population due to economic inequities. The profit-seeking behavior of pharmaceutical companies exacerbates this problem. In most cases, the price reductions required to make drugs affordable to a broader class of people in the developing world are not offset by the resultant increase in sales volume. Simply stated, (...) in most of the developing world, it is more profitable to sell drugs to the very wealthy at high prices than it is to sell cheaper drugs to a greater number of people. As a result, medicines remain unaffordable for the vast majority of people in many parts of the world. While this might be an acceptable outcome for certain commodities, such as luxury goods, it is completely unacceptable for life-saving medicines. Therefore, in order to effectively address the global lack of access to medicines, the role pharmaceutical companies play in the international intellectual property regime must be critically examined. (shrink)

Private medical aids are essentially non-profit organisations that aim to deliver speedy treatment and should prevent members from unexpected, out of pocket expenses for medical care. However, although the latest statistics show that 16.2% of individuals in South Africa were members of medical aid schemes, making the promise of private healthcare accessible to a small percentage of the population, they are not without their own unique set of challenges. The restrictions that exist within the private sector have a direct bearing (...) on the types of healthcare services patients can access, which in turn impacts on the fundamental right to access healthcare. Using a recent High Court Case decision, this article seeks to explore whether there is justice in the provision of healthcare services, specifically within the private sector in South Africa. (shrink)

The right to health implies, among other things, that individuals and communities must be allowed to have a voice in decisions concerning the definition of their well-being. The article argues for a more active participation of ethnocultural minorities in healthcare decisions and highlights the relevance of strategies aimed at creating a bottom-up engagement of people and groups, as well as of measures aimed at a broader organizational flexibility, in order to meet migrants’ and minorities’ needs. Finally, the article clarifies (...) that these strategies are not simply the outcome of a welcoming attitude of the Western healthcare system but may be interpreted as a specific duty resulting from the notion of “particularly vulnerable groups,” as formulated by the ECtHR in its case law: when vulnerable groups are at stake, every decision about state actions and rules regarding healthcare should start from an a consideration of the specific conditions and needs of people belonging to vulnerable minority groups. (shrink)

The right of a person, who is a victim of a criminal act, to access justice (court) according to the criminal legal order, is analyzed in this article. The right to appeal to a court is analyzed as a constituent part of the principle of accessibility to legal defence. Pre-eminently, the general constitutional fundamentals of the right towards legal defence are estimated. The provisions of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania, i.e. (...) that the right towards legal defence of the infringed rights is absolute, is analyzed while taking into consideration the attitude formed by the international courts, i.e. that the right to justice is not an absolute and can only be restricted by being ruled by the principle of proportionality and the other legal principles. (shrink)

Approximately two billion people lack access to medicines globally. People living with HIV, cancer patients, those suffering from tuberculosis or malaria, and other populations in desperate need of life-saving medicines are increasingly unable to access existing preventative, curative, and life-prolonging treatments. In many cases, treatment may be unavailable or inaccessible for even some of the most common and readily treatable health concerns, such as hypertension. In the developing world, many of the factors that contribute to making the world’s (...) most vulnerable and marginalized populations particularly susceptible to illness also operate to restrict their access to medicines. As a result of dramatic economic inequities and widespread poverty, it is not profitable for most originator pharmaceutical companies to develop new medicines for sale in developing markets or to lower the cost of existing drugs so that they are affordable for the majority of these populations. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide an overview of how the outcomes of the Uruguay Round affected the application of pharmaceutical intellectual property rights globally. Second, we explain how specific pharmaceutical policy tools can help developing states mitigate the worst effects of the TRIPS Agreement. Third, we put forward solutions that could be implemented by the World Bank to help overcome the divide between creating private incentives for research and development of innovative medicines and ensuring access of the poor to (...) medicine. Fourth, we evaluate these solutions on the basis of utilitarian considerations and urge that equitable pricing is morally preferable to the other solutions. (shrink)

Public access to the commons is often restricted, thus leading to implicit regulations. This is relevant toward spatial systems, as an important geographical issue is access to various sites over space, and this paper presents varying degrees of accessibility in different places. There is a dialectic struggle to enhance access to the commons as a fundamental right of the public, with the need to balance tourism and recreational uses of coastal resources with conservation and preservation eff (...) orts. This paper will aid policy makers and those concerned with beach access in Connecticut better understand the nature and complexity of how citizens and officials within coastal municipalities have come to perceive, in a collective sense, their beaches/ municipal parks as common property resources to be utilized for recreational purposes while balancing environmental conservation efforts simultaneously. Various legal frameworks, as well as federal and state efforts in coastal zones in key states, in addition to historically recent court cases in Connecticut resulting in legal enhancements toward increasing public access to nonresidents of specific municipalities, have shaped who can and who cannot access the commons. (shrink)

: In 1998, 39 pharmaceutical manufacturers sued the government of South Africa to prevent the implementation of a law designed to facilitate access to AIDS drugs at low cost. The companies accused South Africa, the country with the largest population of individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the world, of circumventing patent protections guaranteed by intellectual property rules that were included in the latest round of world trade agreements. The pharmaceutical companies dropped their lawsuit in the spring of 2001 after (...) an avalanche of negative publicity. Yet, despite the government's victory, AIDS drugs remain very expensive in South Africa, and the government still refuses to provide antiretroviral therapy to adults. These events have shone a spotlight, not only on the possibilities for coordinated political activism in the era of instant global communications, but also on the tangled social, economic, and political dimensions of AIDS treatment in poor countries. (shrink)

Unresolved disagreements on issues of access, censorship, and privacy within the information profession can be dangerous when entrepreneurial interests outweigh the public good and as corporations anticipate financial gain from placing limitations on information retrieval and use. The information profession can benefit from a grounding of its core values in a robust moral framework that can coherently place demands on interested parties. We argue that grounding the core values of privacy and ubiquitous access to information in a needs-based (...) theory of rights is most suitable within the unique context of the information profession. (shrink)

State universities have grown to become monumental enterprises generating revenues of more than $124 billion a year in the sale and delivery of education and other services. They compete in a marketplace composed of private secular, nonsecular and for-profit higher education institutions. In addition, state universities in their own right engage in a number of traditionally for-profit "business" enterprises competing with the private sector. However, as the enterprise aspect of state universities grows; so too does the impact of a (...) unique competitive advantage enjoyed solely by state universities--that is, the ability of state universities to immune themselves from lawsuit in federal court under the guise of "sovereign immunity" for disputes arising under federal employment laws. Indeed, as a consequence of recent Supreme Court rulings, state agencies, including universities, are the only entities in the United States that are effectively exempt from the enforcement of federal employment laws in federal or state courts. This article reviews the condition of the "two faces" of the state university regarding federal employment law and the apparent new barriers to federal court access of employees to judicial review of employment disputes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Best Love of the Child: Being Loved and Being Taught to Love as the First Human Right ed. by Timothy P. JacksonMary M. Doyle RocheReview of The Best Love of the Child: Being Loved and Being Taught to Love as the First Human Right EDITED TIMOTHY P. JACKSON Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011. 416 pp. $28.00With The Best Love of the Child, Eerdmans adds to (...) an already impressive roster of books on children and families. While previous contributions to the field have challenged the appropriateness of rights in addressing the needs of children, Best Love explores the “best interest” standard that is commonly used by courts and international bodies to adjudicate cases involving children. The book’s fundamental claim is that what is “best” for children involves being loved and being taught to love. Although the essays in this volume acknowledge that the primary locus for the love and care of children is the family, they also engage other contexts including religious communities, courts, and legislative bodies.In a section dealing with social-psychological perspectives on this theme, Peter Benson and Eugene Roehlkepartain make the case that doing the best for children requires shifting from a deficit model that focuses on what children lack to a model that emphasizes their developmental assets. Other chapters in this section highlight the ways parents can pursue the best for children by introducing them to spiritual practices rooted in love for God and compassion [End Page 231] toward others, and by providing them with a narrative-rich environment that deepens bonds between adults and children.A section on historical perspectives continues this trajectory by highlighting the vocations of children from the late thirteenth century on to the early modern period. In his concluding essay in this section, Charles Reid links historical and contemporary concerns by focusing on the right to life and its implications for analyses of war and healthcare access.In a section on philosophical and theological perspectives, Cynthia Willett challenges liberal understandings of rights in view of the experiences of children and argues for an approach that recognizes a central paradox of human freedom: that relationships of interdependence do not weaken freedom but rather enhance it. This paves the way for developing a sense of collective responsibility for children based on shared commitments to justice and solidarity that reach beyond the privatized family. Richard Osmer tackles the concept of original sin in order to advance a vision of a missional church in which congregations work with families to encourage authoritative—rather than authoritarian—styles of parenting that model mutual forgiveness. Marcia Bunge’s contribution is the most practical, offering a list of practices for children, families, and congregations for nurturing children’s vocations.In a concluding section on legal perspectives, Michael Broyde notes that, in the context of custody cases in Jewish law, the primary question is not who loves the child the most but rather who can best meet the child’s needs in an atmosphere of respect. Margaret Brinig and Steven Nock argue that law can, in fact, foster the love of children and the potential children have for becoming loving themselves by promoting family structures that are stable and afforded status in the community. In this way families can model the covenantal relationships of unconditional love in which children thrive. The collection concludes with an essay by Don Browning that emphasizes weaving together love’s affective elements with the very practical activities of caring for children and respecting their emerging selves.By inviting thoughtful reflection on how loving and being loved are central to the well-being of children in families and other institutions, Best Love makes an important contribution to the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies. The book is best suited for graduate students, although the essays by Osmer and Bunge are relevant to pastoral settings. [End Page 232]Mary M. Doyle RocheCollege of the Holy CrossCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Countries that abolished donor anonymity have imposed age limits for access to certain types of information by donor offspring. In the UK and the Netherlands, a debate has started on whether these age limits should be lowered or abolished all together. This article presents some arguments against lowering the age limits as a general rule for all donor children. The focus is on whether one should give a child the right to obtain the identity of the donor at (...) an earlier age than is presently stipulated. The first argument is that there is no evidence that a change in age will increase the total well-being of the donor offspring as a group. The second argument stresses that the rights language used for the donor-conceived child isolates the child from his or her family and this is unlikely to be in the best interest of the child. Finally, lowering the age limit reintroduces the genetic father in the family and expresses the bionormative ideology that contradicts gamete donation as a practice. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical analysis of the premises and arguments put forward by the Ius Constitutionale Commune en America Latina project to ground the image of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as an agent of democratic transformation. It highlights three critical aspects: 1. the profile of the Court is constructed by legal scholars relying on self-validation and self-referentiality, 2. that image validates the idea that lawyers and the judiciary are agents of transformation ruling over local spaces (...) from above, thereby discarding people as the central subjects of change and democratization, and 3. the concept of representative democracy becomes a device that secures the self-validating dynamics of the image of the Court as democracy builder. (shrink)

The introduction of conscience clauses after the 1973 US Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade allowed physicians and nurses to opt out of medical procedures, particularly abortions, to which they were morally opposed. In recent years pharmacists have requested the same consideration with regard to dispensing some medicines. This paper examines the pharmacists’ role and their professional and moral obligations to patients in the light of recent refusals by pharmacists to dispense oral contraceptives. A review of John Rawls’s (...) concepts of the “original position” and the “veil of ignorance”, along with consideration of the concept of compartmentalisation, are used to assess pharmacists’ requests and the moral and legal rights of patients to have their prescriptive needs met. (shrink)

Lack of understanding about the relationship between federal and state educational institutions brings confusion into discussions of democracy, equity and equality in schools. The 'right to education' continues to be espoused by American society as a birthright, yet it does not figure in federal documentation. This matter has repeatedly come to the attention of legislative courts, who have insisted that the question of education as a fundamental right be addressed. Numerous court cases have attempted to bring closure (...) on this issue, on the basis of such abstractions as national rights, equal access, opportunity and economic disparity among the petitions. However, legal judgments remain inconclusive, reiterating that education remains a state legislative issue. This paper explores the implications of a fundamental right to education through an examination of federal and state legal litigation, discussing the philosophical and ideological roots of discussion of rights and democratic values, and evaluating how federal and judicial participation contributes to overall misunderstanding regarding public schooling. (shrink)

Family ties play a particular and distinctive role in immigration policy. Essentially every country allows ‘family-based immigration’ of some sorts, and family ties may have significant importance in many other areas of immigration policy as well, grounding ‘derivative’ rights to asylum, providing access to citizenship and other benefits at accelerated rates, and serving as a shield from the danger of removal or deportation. Furthermore, status as a child may provide certain benefits to irregular migrants or others without proper immigration (...) standing that is not available to adults. Despite the fact that these benefits are extremely widespread, the justification for them remains less than fully clear, and the extent of the benefits required by considerations of justice (as opposed to expediency or other policy considerations) is debated. While essentially all states recognize at least some of these rights, a significant number of them wish to reduce, rescind, or place significant conditions on them. The role of the family in immigration policy, then, stands in need of further clarification. In this paper I attempt to provide the needed clarification and justification. I discuss first questions about family unification or formation, focusing in particular on how broad a right must be provided by states wishing to have a just immigration policy, and on whether this right violates norms of liberal neutrality. I then discuss the family in relation to refugee and asylum policy, considering both when family ties should be given weight in refugee protection decision and when harm to a family member should, on its own, be able to be grounds for applying for refugee protection. I turn next to the question of when, and to what extent, family ties should be able to serve as a “shield” to removal or deportation, and finish with a discussion of the special rights of and obligations to children in immigration settings. (shrink)

This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic (...) participation and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or 'twilight' of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project 'The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance'. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. (shrink)

We speak of the right to know with relative ease. You have the right to know the results of a medical test or to be informed about the collection and use of personal data. But what exactly is the right to know, and who should we trust to safeguard it? This book provides the first comprehensive examination of the right to know and other epistemic rights: rights to goods such as information, knowledge and truth. These rights (...) play a prominent role in our information-centric society and yet they often go unnoticed, disregarded and unprotected. As such, those who control what we know, or think we know, exert an influence on our lives that is often as dangerous as it is imperceptible. Beginning with a rigorous but accessible philosophical account of epistemic rights, Lani Watson examines the harms caused by epistemic rights violations, drawing on case studies across medical, political and legal contexts. She investigates who has the right to what information, who is responsible for the quality and circulation of information and what epistemic duties we have towards each other. This book is essential reading for philosophers, legal theorists and anyone concerned with the protection and promotion of information, knowledge and truth.. (shrink)

Assess to quality diets is a basic human right. Geographical challenges and cultural traditions have contributed to the widespread malnutrition present among ethnic minorities of mountainous areas in Northwest Vietnam. Home gardens can play a role in increased diet diversity and micronutrient intakes. However, low production yields and plant diversity in ethnic home gardens have limited their contributions to household food security and nutrition. The pilot study tested a home garden intervention in weekly vegetable harvests and increasing household production (...) and consumption of diverse vegetables year-round. Food ethics issues encountered included limited access to quality food by resource-poor groups, conflicts arising from low preference and value given to some nutritious foods, limited access to information and technology for food production and consumption, each of which were addressed in the study design. The intervention includes: (1) nutrition-focused home garden training and (2) locally-adapted home garden packages consisting of garden planning, technical assistance, and high-yielding seed varieties. Twenty households from two ethnic villages in Son La province participated in the study and were randomly assigned into two groups (intervention and non-intervention). The total vegetable supply from weekly harvests of home garden produce was significantly higher in the intervention households (226 kg) compared to the non-intervention households (39 kg). The intervention group yielded 5.8 and 1.7 times more vegetables by weight and weight per area than those without the intervention. The vegetables were mainly consumed at home for both groups, but the intervention households gave more vegetables as gifts to neighbors. The intervention group cultivated a higher diversity of vegetables with a total of 42 different vegetables compared to 24 in the non-intervention group, which is reflected in an overall higher nutritional yield of vitamin A, iron, other micronutrients and phytochemicals. The home garden training significantly improved the amount, diversity and continuity of household food and nutrient supply. The home garden model is effective and could be scaled up to improve household vegetable supply and consumption, particularly in Northwest Vietnam. (shrink)

Courts, Litigants, and the Digital Age examines the ramifications of technology for courts, judges, and the administration of justice. It sets out the issues raised by technology, and, particularly, the Internet, so that conventional paradigms can be updated in the judicial context. In particular, the book dwells on issues such as proper judicial use of Internet sources, judicial ethics and social networking, electronic court records and anonymization techniques, control of the courtroom and jurors' use of new technologies, as well (...) as the Internet's impact on judicial appointments and the diversity of the judiciary. The second edition includes discussion of current issues in this rapidly developing area, such as privacy protection, the "right to be forgotten," cyber intimidation, freedom of digital speech, and litigant anonymity. Through examination of relevant practical, legal, and ethical issues, it endeavours to extract lessons from the developing issues surveyed and proposes forward-thinking approaches based on proportionality principles. (shrink)