Redressing the Silent Interim: Precautionary Action & Short Term Tests in Toxicological Risk Assessment

The author recommends that a stronger emphasis be placed on creating and implementing short-term tests that use iterative, conservative-based, tiered procedures in conjunction with a precautionary attitude during the interim phase of toxicological risk assessments

There are Two Sides to Every Question - Controller Versus Attacker.

We investigate security enforcement mechanisms that run in parallel with a system; the aim is to check and modify the run-time behaviour of a possible attacker in order to guarantee that the system satisfies some security policies. We focus on a CSP-like quantitative process-algebra to model such processes. Weights on actions are modelled with semirings, which represent a parametric structure where to cast different metrics. The basic tools are represented by a quantitative logic and a model checking function. First, the behaviour of the system is removed from the parallel computation with respect to some security property to be satisfied. Secondly, what remains is refined in two formulas with respect to the given operator executed by a controller. The result describes what a controller has to do to prevent a given attack

Quantitative evaluation of enforcement strategies

In Security, monitors and enforcement mechanisms run in parallel with programs to check, and modify their run-time behaviour, respectively, in order to guarantee the satisfaction of a security policy. For the same pol- icy, several enforcement strategies are possible. We provide a framework for quantitative monitoring and enforcement. Enforcement strategies are analysed according to user-dened parameters. This is done by extending the notion controller processes, that mimics the well-known edit automata, with weights on transitions, valued in a C-semiring. C-semirings permit one to be exible and general in the quantitative criteria. Furthermore, we provide some examples of orders on controllers that are evaluated under incomparable criteria

“The One-Eyed Are Kings”: Improving Congress’s Ability to Regulate the Use of Judicial Resources

Improving the ability of Congress to regulate the use of judicial resources is discussed. Reducing caseload growth in the federal courts, assuring that judicial resources are utilized effectively and a proposed agency that would structure jurisdiction under particular legislation are discussed

Three Essays on Illegal Immigration

This dissertation consists of three essays studying illegal immigration in the United States. In the first chapter I extend the standard Mortensen-Pissarides labor market model to study the effect of two immigration policies, an amnesty and tighter border enforcement, on the wages and unemployment rates of US natives and Mexican immigrants. A key finding of this paper is that natives might benefit from the presence of illegal workers in the economy. The presence of illegal workers increases firms' incentives to open vacancies, which increases the wages of natives and decreases their unemployment rate. Moreover, this paper also shows that the effect of border enforcement on the number of illegal workers in the US is ambiguous. Tighter border enforcement deters illegal migration of prospective workers, but decreases return migration.In the second chapter I estimate the effect of legal status on the wages of immigrants using Mexico's Survey of Migration to the Northern Border. I control for possible selection biases and test for selectivity in the population obtaining legal status. The analysis shows that legal workers earn higher wages than illegal workers, especially those working in the production and services sectors. Moreover, within sectors the wage gap varies by occupation, and is larger among individuals working in formal jobs. The results show that once we control for observable characteristics, there is no evidence of selectivity among Mexican workers obtaining legal status.In the third chapter I study return migration and test Borjas and Bratsberg's (1996) prediction that the return migration process further accentuates the type of selection observed among immigrants moving from Mexico to the US. I use data from the Survey of Migration to the Northern Border together with a selection model to infer the unobservable skills of Mexican immigrants and the unexpected component of their earnings in the US. The results show that immigrants are negatively selected relative to the Mexican population. Consistent with Borjas and Bratsberg's prediction, return migrants are relatively more skilled than the typical immigrant. Moreover, workers who face more negative unexpected conditions in the US are those who find it optimal to return to Mexico

Punitive Preventive Justice: A Critique

This book chapter critically examines punitive preventive measures, such as preventive detention for dangerous individuals, stop-and-frisks on the street, and order-maintenance policing. After reviewing the traditional concern expressed about punitive preventive practices, the chapter investigates the empirical evidence in support of such measures, concluding that the purported need for these measures is, on balance, factually overstated and generally unproven. But the empirical problems foreground a deeper theoretical difficulty with punitive preventive justice, namely that the modern approach to punitive prevention relies predominantly on economic cost-benefit analytic methods that effectively displace political debate and contestation. Like earlier punitive preventive interventions – such as eugenics or phrenology – the modern approach is grounded on technical, scientific knowledge that privileges efficiency over most other political values and, in the process, tends to displace politics. The modern approach claims to be objective, apolitical, and neutral; it claims to be merely pursuing the most efficient policy option given an agreed-upon narrow objective. But it inevitably reintroduces political values and choices in its outputs. The approach also obfuscates criticism by making it harder for the layman to identify the political values embedded in the technical models. In the end, it insidiously degrades the public sphere and masks political redistribution. For these reasons, the chapter argues against punitive preventive justice

Constitutional Analogies in the International Legal System

This Article explores issues at the frontier of international law and constitutional law. It considers five key structural and systemic challenges that the international legal system now faces: (1) decentralization and disaggregation; (2) normative and institutional hierarchies; (3) compliance and enforcement; (4) exit and escape; and (5) democracy and legitimacy. Each of these issues raises questions of governance, institutional design, and allocation of authority paralleling the questions that domestic legal systems have answered in constitutional terms. For each of these issues, I survey the international legal landscape and consider the salience of potential analogies to domestic constitutions, drawing upon and extending the writings of international legal scholars and international relations theorists. I also offer some preliminary thoughts about why some treaties and institutions, but not others, more readily lend themselves to analysis in constitutional terms. And I distinguish those legal and political issues that may generate useful insights for scholars studying the growing intersections of international and constitutional law from other areas that may be more resistant to constitutional analogies

Human Trafficking in Iraq: Patterns and Practices in Forced Labor and Sexual Exploitation

Human trafficking in the form of forced prostitution and labor has long existed in Iraq, as has forced marriage and domestic servitude within the family, tribe and community. Since the 2003 invasion and subsequent civil war, Iraq has increasingly been a source of trafficking victims who are transported to neighboring countries, as well as a destination for foreign workers who are at risk of trafficking and come to Iraq from the Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh and other countries where poverty is widespread. Furthermore, internal conflict and breakdown in law and order has resulted in a rise in kidnapping and trafficking from one location to another within Iraq.The Iraqi Constitution prohibits forced labor, kidnapping, slavery, slave trade, trafficking in women or children, and the sex trade, and the Government of Iraq ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW"). However Iraqi government officials have overwhelmingly failed to act to prevent abuses and to punish offenders. Iraq has not passed anti-trafficking legislation, allowing traffickers to continue to operate with impunity. Research and preliminary investigations leading to the production of this report indicate that Iraqi women and girls are being subjected to the following types of trafficking: 1) exploitation of prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation; 2) forced labor or services; 3) slavery or practices similar to slavery; and 4) servitude. There are also credible reports of trafficking-related practices such as forced participation in criminal activity. Because of the nature of trafficking, quantitative measurement is inexact even in developed nations with functioning judicial and law enforcement sectors. In Iraq, measuring the scope of trafficking is far more difficult. However, there is ample evidence of established patterns and practices of trafficking, leading to a strong likelihood that hundreds of women have been trafficked over the last five years in the Kurdistan region, and thousands elsewhere in Iraq and in neighboring regions.In accordance with the Iraqi Constitution as well as international treaty obligations, Iraq must develop an effective national and regional counter-trafficking strategy. A comprehensive approach to combating trafficking must include prevention strategies, protection of trafficking victims, and prosecution of traffickers. This is a difficult time for Iraqis as they struggle with ongoing violence and war, as well as ongoing political restructuring in which many issues have yet to be determined. However it is also an opportune time to address trafficking and other serious human rights violations, as Iraq's national and regional governments work to strengthen the rule of law. Addressing problems of trafficking and other forms of gender-motivated violence is integral to this process of reform