The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Defense Perspective

A fundamental aspect of United States criminal law is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. A corollary right gives every American a Constitutional right to counsel or the right to represent herself in person if she so chooses. In international criminal law, similar fundamental rights are theoretically offered to accused persons under the statutes of the courts and under general international human rights law. However, unlike the U.S. criminal justice system, international criminal tribunals have generally failed to honor the lofty promises contained in their constitutive instruments. But it is not the principled lack of adherence to ensuring the due process rights of accused persons that has caused problems in concrete cases. Rather, their Achilles Heel has been their abject failure to create independent defense offices that would fearlessly safeguard the rights of those accused of the worst crime known to law. In this Article, I analyze the absence of organs tasked with guaranteeing the rights of the defense in international criminal law and explain why that is bad for any credible system of justice. I then explain how the organizational charts of the United Nations courts for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone omitted the defense and essentially treated them as second class citizens before the eyes of the law. This sets the stage for me to show why the creation of the first full-fledged defense organ in international criminal law by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon is a welcome advance to the maturing of international penal tribunals from primitive to more civilized institutions. I argue that, if the legal provision contained in the Lebanon Tribunal statute is matched with the independence and resources needed to help realize defendant rights, it will likely become one of its biggest legacies to international law

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Defense Perspective

This Article analyzes the absence of organs tasked with guaranteeing the rights of the defense in international criminal law. It explains the historical origins of the problem, tracing it back to the genesis of modern prosecutions at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal. It then explains how the organizational charts of the UN courts for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone omitted the defense and essentially treated it as a second class citizen before the eyes of the law. This sets the stage for the author to show why the creation of the first full-fledged defense organ in international criminal law by the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon is a welcome advance in the maturing of international penal tribunals from primitive to more civilized institutions. The Article argues that if the legal provision contained in the Lebanon Tribunal statute is matched with the independence and resources needed to help realize defendant rights, it will likely become one of the statute\u27s biggest legacies to international law

Electronic Health Record Functionality Needed to Better Support Primary Care

Electronic health records (EHRs) must support primary care clinicians and patients, yet many clinicians remain dissatisfied with their system. This manuscript presents a consensus statement about gaps in current EHR functionality and needed enhancements to support primary care. The Institute of Medicine primary care attributes were used to define needs and Meaningful Use (MU) objectives to define EHR functionality. Current objectives remain disease- rather than whole-person focused, ignoring factors like personal risks, behaviors, family structure, and occupational and environmental influences. Primary care needs EHRs to move beyond documentation to interpreting and tracking information over time as well as patient partnering activities, support for team based care, population management tools that deliver care, and reduced documentation burden. While Stage 3 MU’s focus on outcomes is laudable, enhanced functionality is still needed including EHR modifications, expanded use of patient portals, seamless integration with external applications, and advancement of national infrastructure and policies

Study to gather evidence on the working conditions of platform workers VT/2018/032 Final Report 13 December 2019

Platform work is a type of work using an online platform to intermediate between platform workers, who provide services, and paying clients. Platform work seems to be growing in size and importance. This study explores platform work in the EU28, Norway and Iceland, with a focus on the challenges it presents to working conditions and social protection, and how countries have responded through top-down (e.g. legislation and case law) and bottom-up actions (e.g. collective agreements, actions by platform workers or platforms). This national mapping is accompanied by a comparative assessment of selected EU legal instruments, mostly in the social area. Each instrument is assessed for personal and material scope to determine how it might impact such challenges. Four broad legal domains with relevance to platform work challenges are examined in stand-alone reflection papers. Together, the national mapping and legal analysis support a gap analysis, which aims to indicate where further action on platform work would be useful, and what form such action might take

Restraining ICANN: an analysis of OFAC sanctions and their impact on the Internet Corporation for assigned names and numbers

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has long played a crucial role in coordinating some aspects of the domain name system (DNS) and managing domain names and Internet Protocol Addresses. In 2016, ICANN underwent a significant transformation when completing the IANA Transition, aimed at securing the corporation’s independence from U.S. government oversight. However, while the transition marked a pivotal moment in ICANN’s history, the corporation still operates within U.S. jurisdiction. This situation makes ICANN subject to compliance with the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions programs, impeding the corporation from contracting and accrediting gTLD registries and registrars from countries currently targeted by OFAC, as well as individuals or entities included in OFAC’s «Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons» (SDN) list. This article explores the implications of the IANA Transition, the constraints that OFAC exerts on ICANN operations, and the complexities surrounding potential solutions to the OFAC sanctions quandar