Constitutional Impediments to Decentralization in the World\u27s Largest Federal Country

Decentralization is often advocated as a means of improving local democracy and enhancing what economists call allocative efficiency. In federal countries, where power is already divided between national and state governments, decentralization involves the devolution of power from state to local governments. The world’s largest federal country, India, took an unusual step to advance decentralization: it passed the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act to confer constitutional status on municipalities. However, India’s efforts to promote the devolution of power through a national urban renewal scheme have not succeeded for three reasons. The first is that India’s decentralization process is incomplete. Political decentralization has been stymied by the language of the constitutional amendment itself; administrative decentralization has been hampered by the comparative advantage of entrenched state-level institutions; and fiscal decentralization has not occurred because financial responsibility—but not significant revenue—has been devolved. The second reason is that decentralization has been undertaken in a top-down manner, which has exacerbated Center-state relations and mitigated the goal of allocative efficiency. Third is the relative weakness of local governance structures, which has created a Catch-22 situation: as long as the local governments lack significant capacity, the states are reluctant to devolve power to them. Additional effort needs to be directed towards an effective model of cooperative federalism. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi poised to create “smart cities” and promote urban renewal, it is critical to understand why India’s prior decentralization efforts have largely failed. The lessons learned over the past decade are an important guide to the future of cities in India as well as in other federal countrie

A New Constitutive Commitment to Water

Cass Sunstein coined the term “constitutive commitment” to refer to an idea that falls short of a constitutional right but that has attained near-constitutional significance. This Article argues that access to safe and affordable water for drinking, hygiene, and sanitation has attained this status and that national legislation is needed to realize this new constitutive commitment. Following the termination of water to thousands of households in Detroit, residents and community organizations filed an adversary complaint in Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings seeking a six-month moratorium on the disconnections. The bankruptcy court dismissed the case, accurately finding that “there is no constitutional or fundamental right either to affordable water service or to an affordable payment plan for account arrearages.” The widespread protests and outrage at the Detroit water shutoffs suggest, however, that people perceive access to water as a right. Although affordable access to water for essential needs falls short of a constitutional right, it could implicate substantive due process, which reflects its near constitutional status. An analysis of American history, culture, and law demonstrates how access to water for drinking, hygiene, and sanitation could be protected under the right to life. This Article argues that legislation is needed to implement a new constitutive commitment to water and proposes numerous policy options that would not only make moral and economic sense, but also would ensure that all Americans have affordable access to safe water for drinking, hygiene, and sanitation

Making technological innovation work for sustainable development.

This paper presents insights and action proposals to better harness technological innovation for sustainable development. We begin with three key insights from scholarship and practice. First, technological innovation processes do not follow a set sequence but rather emerge from complex adaptive systems involving many actors and institutions operating simultaneously from local to global scales. Barriers arise at all stages of innovation, from the invention of a technology through its selection, production, adaptation, adoption, and retirement. Second, learning from past efforts to mobilize innovation for sustainable development can be greatly improved through structured cross-sectoral comparisons that recognize the socio-technical nature of innovation systems. Third, current institutions (rules, norms, and incentives) shaping technological innovation are often not aligned toward the goals of sustainable development because impoverished, marginalized, and unborn populations too often lack the economic and political power to shape innovation systems to meet their needs. However, these institutions can be reformed, and many actors have the power to do so through research, advocacy, training, convening, policymaking, and financing. We conclude with three practice-oriented recommendations to further realize the potential of innovation for sustainable development: (i) channels for regularized learning across domains of practice should be established; (ii) measures that systematically take into account the interests of underserved populations throughout the innovation process should be developed; and (iii) institutions should be reformed to reorient innovation systems toward sustainable development and ensure that all innovation stages and scales are considered at the outset

Innovation and Access to Technologies for Sustainable Development: A Global Systems Perspective

This workshop report is a summary of themes discussed by five panels during a daylong workshop on “Innovation and Access to Technologies for Sustainable Development: A Global Perspective” at Harvard University on April 24,2014. The workshop brought together a diverse group of scholars to explore how the technological innovation needed for sustainable development can be promoted in ways that assure equitable access in current and future generations. Three key themes that emerged from the workshop include:(1) The central role of power, politics and agency in analyzing technological innovation and sustainable development -an important aspect of this includes the articulation of the roles of actors and organizations within frameworks and models of innovation systems.(2) The importance of focusing both on supply-push and demand-pull mechanisms in innovation scholarship and innovation policy.(3) The need to focus on more innovation scholarship around the goals of sustainable development

Addendum to ASNC/AHA/ASE/EANM/HFSA/ISA/SCMR/SNMMI expert consensus recommendations for multimodality imaging in cardiac amyloidosis:Part 1 of 2-evidence base and standardized methods of imaging

There are 2 primary reasons for an addendum. The first is that the document reviewer list is being updated to include Dr Richard Cheng and Dr Roy John, who have critically reviewed the document, but were inadvertently not listed as reviewers. In addition, since the publication of this document and the introduction of approved therapies for transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis, the clinical use of bone tracer cardiac scintigraphy has been extended to populations with a lower prevalence of transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis. Numerous observations have raised concerns about (1) incorrect diagnosis of transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis based on 99mTc-pyrophosphate (PYP) planar imaging and heart-to-contralateral lung (H/CL) ratio without confirmation of diffuse myocardial uptake on single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging at some sites; (2) excess blood pool activity on the 1-hour planar and SPECT images being interpreted as positive scans; and (3) missed diagnosis of light chain amyloidosis, as serum-free light chain studies and serum and urine immunofixation electrophoresis studies may not be recommended in the 99mTc-PY P/-3,3-diphosphono-1,2-propanodicarboxylic acid/hydroxymethylene diphosphonate (99mTc-PYP/DPD/HMDP) report. Incorrect diagnosis leads to inappropriate therapy and worse patient outcomes. SPECT and planar imaging performed at 3-hour maximize specificity. 1 , 2 , 3 Additionally, technical parameters have been updated