The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund: The Answer to Victim Relief?

The events of September 11, 2001 shook America to its core. The world was forever changed as the horrific tragedy unfolded on live television. Families were destroyed as loved ones were severely injured or killed, leaving spouses and children in need of aid. In response, the United States government established the September 11th Victims\u27 Compensation Fund in an effort to provide the necessary reparations to victims of the terrorist attacks. This article will analyze the September 11th Victims\u27 Compensation Fund (hereafter Fund ) as a way of compensating victims while preserving the financial stability of the United States economy. This Fund was created to address rising concerns in the wake of the terrorist attacks regarding the continued viability of the airline industry. Some feared civil liability for the events of September 11th could force the airlines into bankruptcy. Such an event would have been a colossal blow to the country\u27s already unsteady economy because the airline industry is a cornerstone of the economy. As such, its collapse would undoubtedly cause many thousands of Americans to lose their jobs and shatter the public\u27s economic confidence. Although Congress has expressly precluded individuals from double dipping, (receiving compensation from the Fund and subsequently pursuing separate legal actions) some victims still choose to file suit. These suits attempt to place liability for the horrific events of September 11th onto readily identifiable entities with deep pockets, and away from those directly responsible: the terrorists. The Fund provides a more workable alternative to tort litigation for compensating victims\u27 families. Congress is correct in precluding individuals from double dipping for two reasons. Firstly, there is a fundamental fairness issue, and secondly, most suits filed by the families would surely fail under a negligence theory because there is no proximate cause with which to show negligence on the part of the potential defendants. A suit against the airlines would likely fail, ultimately precluding the plaintiff from receiving any compensation from the Fund. Consequently, those individuals who seek compensation for injuries suffered on September 11, 2001 are better served by using the legislative avenue of recovery rather than the judicial system. This country has enough frivolous litigation, and it is illogical to encourage people to bring suits that are destined to fail. This is especially true when a reasonable and sufficient alternative like the Fund is available. Section I of this article focuses on the legislation resulting from the September 11th tragedy, particularly the Air Transportation and Safety Stabilization Act ( ATSSA ), which created the Fund. Section II discusses the extensive background of the Fund, including information regarding victims\u27 eligibility, compensation requirements and amounts. Section III analyzes Mulligan v. Port Authority, a recent New York decision representing one of the first judicial decisions restricting the manner in which claims are filed with regard to the terrorist attacks. Section IV discusses the fundamental fairness problems inherent in double-dipping from the Fund. Section V explores the proximate cause issues, which will likely cause litigants to lose their suits against private entities for the terrorist attacks. Finally, Section VI discusses the reasons why the September 11th Victims\u27 Compensation fund is a better solution for compensating victims than tort litigation

Kernel Approximation on Manifolds I: Bounding the Lebesgue Constant

The purpose of this paper is to establish that for any compact, connected C^{\infty} Riemannian manifold there exists a robust family of kernels of increasing smoothness that are well suited for interpolation. They generate Lagrange functions that are uniformly bounded and decay away from their center at an exponential rate. An immediate corollary is that the corresponding Lebesgue constant will be uniformly bounded with a constant whose only dependence on the set of data sites is reflected in the mesh ratio, which measures the uniformity of the data. The analysis needed for these results was inspired by some fundamental work of Matveev where the Sobolev decay of Lagrange functions associated with certain kernels on \Omega \subset R^d was obtained. With a bit more work, one establishes the following: Lebesgue constants associated with surface splines and Sobolev splines are uniformly bounded on R^d provided the data sites \Xi are quasi-uniformly distributed. The non-Euclidean case is more involved as the geometry of the underlying surface comes into play. In addition to establishing bounded Lebesgue constants in this setting, a "zeros lemma" for compact Riemannian manifolds is established.Comment: 33 pages, 2 figures, new title, accepted for publication in SIAM J. on Math. Ana

Tracking intended nationally determined contributions: what are the implications for greenhouse gas emissions in 2030?

Headline issue: Countries agreed at the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP20) in Lima, Peru, in December 2014 to set out their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) during the first quarter of 2015, ahead of COP21 in Paris, France, in December 2015. As of 20 July 2015, 46 countries, including the 28 Member States of the European Union, have submitted INDCs to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This policy paper considers whether the INDCs submitted so far are consistent with the 2°C limit. It finds that, whilst the INDCs represent progress compared with a ‘business as usual’ global emissions pathway, there is a gap between current ambitions and the actions that need to be taken to limit a rise in global average temperature to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial level. Key findings: The INDCs submitted as of 20 July 2015 would lead to annual global emissions in 2030 of 56.9 to 59.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030. This is much higher than the 36 billion tonnes that the United Nations Environment Programme has indicated would be consistent with having a 50 to 66 per cent chance of avoiding a rise in global average temperature of more than 2°C above its pre-industrial level. The INDCs also fall well short of the global emissions target of 42 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030, in the scenario that technologies – such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) – can create significant ‘negative emissions’. The authors also reiterate the findings of a previous paper that countries should focus on four key ways to increase the ambitions of emissions cuts both before and after the Paris summit: Hard work is needed over the next few months by all countries to find credible ways of achieving bigger emissions reductions which can be included in pledges to be submitted before the Paris summit, or achieved through additional efforts by partnerships, for example, through specific decarbonisation initiatives among willing countries. An intensification of efforts to increase investment and innovation – particularly in relation to the development of cities, energy systems and land use – could help to close the gap between countries intentions and the emissions reduction goal before and after 2030. A mechanism should be included in the agreement emerging from the Paris summit in December so that countries can review their efforts and find ways of ramping up the ambition of their emissions reductions by 2030 and beyond. Concerted efforts are needed by all countries to build the strong and transparent domestic base necessary for the implementation of their pledges. This should set them on a path to decarbonisation and enable them to ramp up their ambitions

Intended nationally determined contributions: what are the implications for greenhouse gas emissions in 2030?

The analysis presented here considers whether the INDCs that were submitted by 23 October 2015 are consistent with a reasonable chance of not exceeding the 2°C warming limit. As of 23 October 2015, 154 countries (including the 28 Member States of the European Union) had submitted INDCs, including pledges to limit or reduce annual national emissions after 2020. These 154 countries were together responsible for over 85% of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases, and represented over 90% of global gross domestic product (GDP), in 2012. Based on our analysis we conclude that there has been progress compared with hypothetical ‘business as usual’ global emissions pathways. However there is a gap between the emissions pathway that would result from current ambitions and plans, including those goals outlined by the submitted INDCs, and a pathway that is consistent with a reasonable chance of limiting the rise in global average temperature to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The most optimistic estimate of global emissions in 2030 resulting from the INDCs is about halfway between hypothetical ‘business as usual’ and a pathway that is consistent with the 2°C limit. Consequently, countries should be considering opportunities to narrow the gap before and after the COP21 summit in Pa