Editorial Rights of Public Broadcasting Stations vs. Access for Minor Political Candidates to Television Debates

In Arkansas Education Television Commission v. Forbes, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state-owned public station did not violate the First Amendment in excluding a third-party candidate from a political debate organized and broadcast by the television station because the debate was a nonpublic forum. In this Article, Professor Youm examines the constitutional and statutory framework on the access for political candidates to TV debates, the judicial interpretations of the political candidates\u27 claim for access to public television debates, and the Supreme Court\u27s balancing in Forbes of the conflicts between the candidates\u27 access rights and the public broadcast media\u27s editorial freedom. Professor Youm concludes that the Supreme Court in Forbes has resolved various issues arising from several lower court rulings on the public television stations\u27 right to exclude minor-party candidates from political candidates. He argues, however, that the Supreme Court has failed to set forth a functional guideline on accommodating public broadcasters\u27 independent news judgement with candidates\u27 right to participate in a state-sponsored television debate. Consequently, Forbes has left lower courts searching for a working guide on how to determine when public broadcasting should be open to minor-party candidates as some type of forum

The Right to Be Forgotten: Google Spain as a Benchmark for Free Speech versus Privacy?

Since the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Google Spain in 2014, the global legal discourse on the “right to be forgotten” (RTBF) has accelerated the RTBF’s establishment as a right to informational privacy. But international courts have varied in their interpretations and applications of the RTBF, with some embracing it and others being wary of balancing the right with freedom of expression. While de-indexing search engine results was the primary method of facilitating the RTBF in Google Spain, this method has not necessarily informed many courts’ RTBF decisions. Instead, international and foreign courts are increasingly finding that anonymizing or removing original stories linked to internet users is not necessarily the best approach, and that updates, corrections, and responses to contested stories are often preferable options. Over time, global judicial procedures have evolved to deal with the RTBF in a more sophisticated manner, clarifying its conceptual and theoretical boundaries. Notably, non-EU countries have made significant contributions to the legal discussion on how to balance the RTBF with freedom of expression, as evidenced by the Brazilian Supreme Court. The RTBF will undoubtedly continue to be an important part of the “privacy versus free expression” debate, with the balance shifting toward the right to privacy

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and mortality of HIV, 1980–2017, and forecasts to 2030, for 195 countries and territories: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017

Background Understanding the patterns of HIV/AIDS epidemics is crucial to tracking and monitoring the progress of prevention and control efforts in countries. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the levels and trends of HIV/AIDS incidence, prevalence, mortality, and coverage of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 1980–2017 and forecast these estimates to 2030 for 195 countries and territories. Methods We determined a modelling strategy for each country on the basis of the availability and quality of data. For countries and territories with data from population-based seroprevalence surveys or antenatal care clinics, we estimated prevalence and incidence using an open-source version of the Estimation and Projection Package—a natural history model originally developed by the UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling, and Projections. For countries with cause-specific vital registration data, we corrected data for garbage coding (ie, deaths coded to an intermediate, immediate, or poorly defined cause) and HIV misclassification. We developed a process of cohort incidence bias adjustment to use information on survival and deaths recorded in vital registration to back-calculate HIV incidence. For countries without any representative data on HIV, we produced incidence estimates by pulling information from observed bias in the geographical region. We used a re-coded version of the Spectrum model (a cohort component model that uses rates of disease progression and HIV mortality on and off ART) to produce age-sex-specific incidence, prevalence, and mortality, and treatment coverage results for all countries, and forecast these measures to 2030 using Spectrum with inputs that were extended on the basis of past trends in treatment scale-up and new infections. Findings Global HIV mortality peaked in 2006 with 1·95 million deaths (95% uncertainty interval 1·87–2·04) and has since decreased to 0·95 million deaths (0·91–1·01) in 2017. New cases of HIV globally peaked in 1999 (3·16 million, 2·79–3·67) and since then have gradually decreased to 1·94 million (1·63–2·29) in 2017. These trends, along with ART scale-up, have globally resulted in increased prevalence, with 36·8 million (34·8–39·2) people living with HIV in 2017. Prevalence of HIV was highest in southern sub-Saharan Africa in 2017, and countries in the region had ART coverage ranging from 65·7% in Lesotho to 85·7% in eSwatini. Our forecasts showed that 54 countries will meet the UNAIDS target of 81% ART coverage by 2020 and 12 countries are on track to meet 90% ART coverage by 2030. Forecasted results estimate that few countries will meet the UNAIDS 2020 and 2030 mortality and incidence targets. Interpretation Despite progress in reducing HIV-related mortality over the past decade, slow decreases in incidence, combined with the current context of stagnated funding for related interventions, mean that many countries are not on track to reach the 2020 and 2030 global targets for reduction in incidence and mortality. With a growing population of people living with HIV, it will continue to be a major threat to public health for years to come. The pace of progress needs to be hastened by continuing to expand access to ART and increasing investments in proven HIV prevention initiatives that can be scaled up to have population-level impact