Framing effectiveness in impact assessment: Discourse accommodation in controversial infrastructure development

There is ongoing debate about the effectiveness of impact assessment tools, which matters both because of the threat to future practice of the tools which are frequently perceived to be ineffective, and because of the disillusionment that can ensue, and controversy generated, amongst stakeholders in a decision context where opportunities for meaningful debate have not been provided. In this article we regard debate about the meaning of effectiveness in impact assessment as an inevitable consequence of increased participation in environmental decision-making, and therefore frame effectiveness based on an inclusive democracy role to mean the extent to which impact assessment can accommodate civil society discourse. Our aim is to investigate effectiveness based on this framing by looking at one type of impact assessment - environmental impact assessment (EIA) - in two controversial project proposals: the HS2 rail network in England; and the A4DS motorway in the Netherlands. Documentary analysis and interviews held with key civil society stakeholders have been deployed to identify discourses that were mobilised in the cases. EIA was found to be able to accommodate only one out of four discourses that were identified; for the other three it did not provide the space for the arguments that characterised opposition. The conclusion in relation to debate on framings of effectiveness is that EIA will not be considered effective by the majority of stakeholders. EIA was established to support decision-making through a better understanding of impacts, so its ineffectiveness is unsurprising when its role is perceived to be broader. However, there remains a need to map discourses in different decision contexts and to analyse the extent to which the range of discourses are accommodated throughout the decision process, and the role of impact assessment in those processes, before recommendations can be made to either improve impact assessment effectiveness, or whether it is simply perceptions of effectiveness that need to be improved

The Economics of Healthcare Rationing

This article examines the economics of healthcare rationing. We begin with an overview of the various dimensions across which healthcare rationing operates, or at least has the potential to operate, in the first place. We then describe the types of economic analyses used in healthcare rationing decision-making, with particular reference to cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. We also discuss healthcare rationing in practice, such as how economic analyses inform decisions regarding which services to cover, and conclude by discussing various practical and conceptual challenges that may arise with economic analyses and that span both economics and ethics

Organizational capacity in local community of interest organizations:Abstract for the session on Population Decline

Bijdrage en presentatie op internationale congres Populations Geography in Groningen, juni 2013

Sustainability Discourses on Controversial Infrastructure Development: Investigating their Mobilization in Environmental Impact Assessment

This thesis investigates the mobilization of sustainability discourses in environmental impact assessment (EIA) by looking at two cases, in the United Kingdom (UK) and the Netherlands. EIA is a procedure used for predicting the sustainability impacts associated with project development. It is reasoned that, where adverse sustainability impacts are likely to occur, situated civil society stakeholders involved in deliberating these impacts will mobilize discourses on how the proposed development relates to achieving sustainability objectives. Yet a pertinent question is whether EIA accommodates sustainability discourse mobilization, not least when the mode of public engagement is taken into account. Premised on the differences in institutional design and political culture between the UK and the Netherlands, the thesis aims to investigate whether and how the external influence exerted by institutions and political culture on public engagement is manifested in the mobilization of sustainability discourses in EIA. By focusing on the largescale infrastructure development projects of High-Speed rail 2 (HS2) in the UK and the A4 motorway connection between Delft and Schiedam (A4DS) in the Netherlands, it is found that institutional design and political culture have influenced sustainability discourse mobilization only to a very limited extent. This finding has been consistent across the two cases, despite institutional and cultural variance. Furthermore, it is found that EIA did not accommodate the mobilization of sustainability discourses, reflecting the absence of meaningful spaces for civil society engagement particularly with the scientific justification of why the projects are necessary. The thesis concludes that institutional design and political culture do not significantly influence sustainability discourse mobilization in cases where the use of science and expertise mediates public engagement, further compounded by the strict procedural aspects of EIA. It recommends that further research on sustainability discourses in infrastructure development focuses on the complex relationship between EIA and project justification

Modifying RAND Commitments to Better Price Patents in the Standards Setting Context

This Article addresses a single problem: how can we allow engineers and scientists from different institutions to collaborate to set the best technical standards possible, not considering intellectual property (“IP”) rights, and then establish the royalty rates for each patent owner after the standard is set? The current system attempting to solve this problem requires patent owner participants to sign a Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (“RAND”) commitment. These RAND commitments require the participants to agree an ante, i.e., before the standard is actually set, to license whatever patent rights they may ultimately have in the standard on terms that are reasonable and non-discriminatory. However, RAND commitments do not elaborate on what it means for a license to be reasonable and non-discriminatory, or how the reasonableness determination is different from the non-discriminatory determination. Too often rent seeking patent owners cannot agree on how to split the royalty payments and end up in court. Nastiness ensues. Through the current Georgia Pacific fifteen factor balancing test for determining whether a licensing agreement (or lack thereof) satisfies the RAND commitment, court decisions are almost as unpredictable as if the RAND commitment was not in place. As such, over the past decade, a number of more predictable methods for courts to use to split royalty profits in RAND commitments have been suggested. This Article is not concerned with analyzing which alternative system should replace the current system, however. Using any of three alternative methods for interpreting RAND commitments discussed in this Article would be better than the current system. Thus, this Article differs from others in the literature because it addresses the standards setting problem from a procedural standpoint. Because RAND commitments do not elaborate as to their meaning at all, I recommend RAND commitments elaborate by telling courts what RAND commitments do not mean. By adding a clause strictly rejecting the Georgia Pacific test in RAND commitments, courts would be free to use any new test they find fit and would be more inclined to strike down the Georgia Pacific factors test in the standards setting context