Consent-GPT: is it ethical to delegate procedural consent to conversational AI?

Obtaining informed consent from patients prior to a medical or surgical procedure is a fundamental part of safe and ethical clinical practice. Currently, it is routine for a significant part of the consent process to be delegated to members of the clinical team not performing the procedure (eg, junior doctors). However, it is common for consent-taking delegates to lack sufficient time and clinical knowledge to adequately promote patient autonomy and informed decision-making. Such problems might be addressed in a number of ways. One possible solution to this clinical dilemma is through the use of conversational artificial intelligence using large language models (LLMs). There is considerable interest in the potential benefits of such models in medicine. For delegated procedural consent, LLM could improve patients’ access to the relevant procedural information and therefore enhance informed decision-making. In this paper, we first outline a hypothetical example of delegation of consent to LLMs prior to surgery. We then discuss existing clinical guidelines for consent delegation and some of the ways in which current practice may fail to meet the ethical purposes of informed consent. We outline and discuss the ethical implications of delegating consent to LLMs in medicine concluding that at least in certain clinical situations, the benefits of LLMs potentially far outweigh those of current practices

Bargaining Practices: Negotiating the Kampala Compromise for the International Criminal Court

At the International Criminal Court\u27s (ICC) Review Conference in 2010, the ICC\u27s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) agreed upon a definition of the crime of aggression, jurisdictional conditions, and a mechanism for its entry into force (the Kampala Compromise ). These amendments give the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute political and military leaders of states for planning, preparing, initiating, or executing illegal wars, beginning as early as January 2017. This article explains the bargaining practices of the diplomats that gave rise to this historic development in international law. This article argues that the international-practices framework, as currently conceived, does not adequately capture the role sincerity played in the negotiations. Sincerity was an international practice, but not a performance. It follows that the international practices framework should be adjusted to accommodate the decisive role of sincerity, a special nonperformative international practice, in the face-to-face interactions of international politics and diplomacy. The remainder of the article lays out the international-practices framework and explains the place of performances within it. The article then introduces the concept of sincerity as a social practice. The second half of the article discusses some ways that sincerity played a role in the negotiations. The article concludes that sincerity is a special kind of international practice: It cannot be a performance, but it can be an international practice, and an effective one at that

Deaf-hearing interpreter teams: navigating trust in shared space

This mixed-method study was designed to explore whether role function inequalities among Deaf and hearing interpreters contribute to trust issues within Deaf-hearing interpreter teams. The initial hypothesis stated that role functionality, when not clearly delineated, contributes to the formation and perpetuation of mistrust within Deaf-hearing interpreter teams. Llewellyn-Jones & Lee’s (2014) axes of role-space functionality include interaction management, consumer alignment, and the “presentation of self” and address the interpreters’ interface with the consumers in an interpreted event. The data did not support the presence of explicit issues of trust when the team moved outward to interact with consumers. Survey data revealed evidence to support implicit as well as explicit trust issues present within the team dynamic. The data indicated three domain areas in which intra-team trust issues tend to appear: preparation, linguistic mediation, and imbalances in role/function duty distribution. Castelfranchi and Falcone’s (2010) socio-cognitive theory of trust provides a lens through which to make the respondents’ experiences better understood. Trust is based upon a series of actions that allows the individual to make informed choices on how to proceed through establishing a shared goal, making a positive evaluation to delegate a task/action to an individual, and exercising their power/competency to carry out the specific task or action. When these series of actions are carried out successfully, Deaf-hearing interpreter teams function in accord to Hoza’s (2010) construct of team interdependency utilizing trusting, effective partnerships in which individual roles and functions are equally understood and valued

American Bar Association Special Committee on Election Reform, Symposium on the Vice-Presidency, Panel Discussion 3. Conduct of the Office: Duties and Functions

This transcript is part of the published proceedings of a symposium convened by the American Bar Association’s Special Committee on Election Reform, which the ABA formed in 1973 and was chaired by John D. Feerick. The symposium took place at Fordham Law School on December 3, 1976. It occurred in the wake of the Watergate era, which saw the resignation of one vice president, the appointment of two vice presidents pursuant to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s Section 2, and a vice president’s succession to the presidency. The symposium’s purpose was to assemble experts on the vice-presidency to develop reform proposals related to the office. In this segment, the panelists field questions from journalists and discuss the vice president’s duties and functions, especially whether they should be expanded. The following panelists participated in the discussion: John D. Feerick, Chairman of the ABA Special Committee on Election Reform Daniel L. Golden, Member of the ABA Special Committee on Election Reform Joel Goldstein, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford Robert Griffin, U.S. Senator from Michigan Ira Jackson, Assistant Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and co-author of Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics Report on vice presidential selection Charles H. Kirbo, Adviser to President Jimmy Carter James C. Kirby, Professor at New York University Law School and former general counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments Clarence M. Mitchell, Director of the NAACP’s Washington Office Endicott Peabody, Former Governor or Massachusetts and Member of the Humphrey Commission on Vice Presidential Selection George Reedy, Dean of Marquette University College of Journalism and former aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Professor at the City University of New York and author of “The Imperial Presidency” Margaret Chase Smith, former U.S. Senator from Maine William B. Spann, Jr., President-elect of the ABA Donald Young, Senior Editor for American History and Political Science at Encyclopedia American

Cooperative social enterprises: company rules, access to finance and management practice

Objectives: In light of the faster than expected take up of the Community Interest Company (CIC) in the UK, this paper revisits findings from a study undertaken in 2000 on the impact of asset-locks on the longevity, growth and management styles in co-operative social enterprises. Prior Work: The co-operative and employee-ownership movements played a leading role in the establishment of Social Enterprise London and the Social Enterprise Coalition. The heritage of the UK co-operative movement, however, differs from its continental counterpart in placing a much stronger emphasis on common ownership that inhibits the transfer of capital and assets to private interests. Approach: This paper is both conceptual and empirical. It examines different worker co-operative traditions and develops a meta-theory that explains underlying assumptions in different forms of co-operative social enterprise. Using empirical data from 5 common ownership co-operatives and 5 equity-based co-operatives, this exploratory study found differences in management style, access to finance and growth prospects both within and between the two groups. Implications: Devolution of management responsibilities was more prevalent in co-operatives permitting both individual and collective ownership, as opposed to common ownership. Access to external finance was less problematic for organisations where individuals had made investments. Despite this, it was not established that organisations with external equity or loan finance grew quicker or faired better over the longer term. Value: The value of the paper lies both in the development of a meta-theoretical framework for differentiating forms of worker co-operative, as well as empirical evidence on the impact of asset-locks in the management and development of social enterprises. The study suggests that the CLS version of the CIC, or abandonment of the CIC in favour of an appropriately structured CLS or IPS model, may be appropriate for social enterprises wishing to grow, but makes little difference in small service oriented social enterprises.</p

Alignment of Leadership to Constructs of Governance in Independent Schools

This qualitative phenomenographic study articulates the different perceptions of independent school heads of school and executive board leaders in their understanding of key constructs of independent school governance, especially as the understanding may change during a crisis. The five constructs of independent school governance are the separation of governance and management activities, maintaining the confidentiality and trust of the board room, the relationship between the board and the head of school, maintaining a strategic mindset, and general board operations. The review of the literature examines the dynamics of leadership through historical crises of an economic nature, endogenous crises, world health crises, and crises caused by natural disasters. Different models of governance and management frameworks, including negotiated order theory, trust versus control theory, the chair-dominated board, the head-dominated board, and democratic management are also reviewed. With the backdrop of the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis, this study examines the effects of crisis on the alignment of understanding between heads of school and board chairs of key constructs of independent school governance

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. First published by Queen Mary, University of London, 2012. ©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 2012. All volumes are freely available online at www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/modbiomed/ wellcome_witnesses/Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineAnnotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar in collaboration with the Department of Kowledge Management and Sharing, WHO, held in Geneva, 26 February 2010. Introduction by Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineThe World Health Organization (WHO)’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the first global convention on public health. Comprehensive tobacco control had been the subject of 20 resolutions – consensus statements of all the member states – passed by the World Health Assembly beginning in 1970. This was 20 years after Sir Richard Doll and Sir Austin Bradford Hill suggested a link between smoking and cancer. The idea of a legally binding international convention, proposed by the late Dr Ruth Roemer and supported by a report from Dr Judith Mackay, was given priority by the new WHO Director-General Dr Gro Brundtland in 1998 when she elevated tobacco control as one of WHO’s three flagship programmes and created the Tobacco Free Initiative. The idea took wing with the publication of a review of tobacco company strategies to undermine tobacco control activities at WHO, which drew on 13 million documents released by the US courts to the public in 1998. This Witness Seminar, held in Geneva on the fifth anniversary of the WHO FCTC in 2010, heard from key individuals actively involved with the treaty negotiations, held between 2000 and 2003, and which came into force on 27 February 2005.The History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group is funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is a registered charity, no. 210183

Redress and civil litigation report

The Royal Commission has examined the extent to which ‘justice for victims’ of institutional child abuse has been, or can be, achieved through previous and current redress processes and civil litigation systems. This report contains recommendations in relation to the provision of effective redress for survivors through the establishment, funding and operation of a single national redress scheme and the provision of a direct personal response to survivors by institutions. This report also contains recommendations for reforms to civil litigation systems to make civil litigation a more effective means of providing justice for survivors. The Royal Commission is investigating criminal justice issues (including processes for referral for investigation and prosecution) and support services separately. It will report in relation to them in later reports

Exploring interpersonal trust in the small business

This thesis explores the influences of different types of interpersonal trust on the development of the business enterprise, and builds in part on the author's MSc dissertation, which found interpersonal trust to play a key pert in the decision making process. A key feature of the research is a focus on the notion of becoming, rather than that of being; of change over static presence. The research acknowledges the basic truth of the statement 'only perception gives knowledge of things' and therefore adopts a broadly interpretative approach throughout. This is in keeping with the subjective nature of the trust concept. The thesis discusses the nature of trust from a primarily sociological standpoint and develops its models mainly from discussions of trust in the management and organization literature. The field studies, while conforming to these epistemological and ontological presuppositions, utilise three different methods: semi-structured, taped interviews; longitudinal participant observation case study; and verbal protocol analysis, in order to apply and refine the theory of trust developed and thereby come to an understanding of the role and importance of interpersonal trust in the business enterprise. The thesis finds that interpersonal situational trust is central to small business development, and may be usefully construed as an a posteriori tacit knowledge which the trusting party uses in order to fill gaps in his explicit knowledge of a situation, thereby reducing its complexity and enabling cooperation. The link between trust and co-operation is teased out, and it is suggested that trust overcomes an individual's co-operation threshold for a situation, as determined by a set of identifiable co-operation criteria, enabling co-operative behaviour on the part of the individual. The combination of co-operation threshold and trust level outcomes for each of the individuals in the situation is thus said to determine whether or not co-operation occurs between them. It is argued, therefore, that trust is a prerequisite for co-operation, and that the stronger, more resilient the situational trust, the more likely it is that cooperation will occur. The thesis finds that a useful distinction may be drawn between trust which is based on familiarity with the trusted party and trust which is based on familiarity with the situation in which the trusting interaction occurs. It finds that the development of the latter type, termed Comprehensible Situational Cue Reliance-Based Trust is perhaps of most importance with regard to the effect of trust on business development. The thesis applies a process theory derived from the work of the metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead to the theory of trust which it utilises, and finds that interpersonal situational trust may be considered as 'an actual occasion in concrescence', thereby offering the potential for a philosophical reconceptualisation of trust in terms of a process metaphysic, instead of the more static philosophical presuppositions which have historically tended to underpin its theoretical development. The thesis concludes by suggesting that trust is the medium through which the entrepreneur is able to create and extract value from the environment, emphasises the indicative (as opposed to definitive) nature of its exploration, and identifies a number of areas for further research, including matched international comparisons of businesses in order to verify the applicability of the theories and models which it develops

Subnational Environmental Constitutionalism and Reform in New York State

The State of New York’s constitution was perhaps the first in the world to embody environmental constitutionalism, most directly in what is known as its “Forever Wild” mandate from 1894. In contrast to many subnational environmental provisions, courts in New York have regularly enforced Forever Wild. New York’s Constitution also contains a remarkable mandate that every twenty years voters decide whether to hold elections for delegates to convene a convention to amend the state’s constitution, with the next such opportunity on November 7, 2017. This article explores how subnational constitutionalism from around the world informs discussions about whether and how to amend the charter, and has three parts. Part I provides a primer to the field of subnational environmental constitutionalism. Part II explores the opportunities and challenges in enforcing existing subnational environmental provisions. Part III then examines a case study involving language to consider at a constitutional convention for the State of New York