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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Clare Feinstein; Clare O'Kane |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an overview of government commitments to strengthen participation by children and adolescents to protect them from sexual abuse and exploitation. It also considers concrete recommendations for strengthening young people’s involvement in their own protection, based on their recommendations about what is needed to realize the Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action. Other useful inputs include case studies that offer new perspectives on children’s and adolescents’ participation to combat sexual exploitation and abuse. The paper provides recommendations for further research, policy development and programming intended to support advocacy and practice developments with and by children and adolescents. These are aimed at furthering achievement of their protection and participation rights during and after World Congress III. The paper calls for governments, UN agencies and NGOs to promote children’s civil rights and recognize their agency and the diversity of childhood experiences. It highlights the importance of strengthening child protection systems, developing and strengthening child-led groups and networks, and creating processes and mechanisms for children to access information, express their views, participate in practice and policy matters concerning them and gain feedback. It further highlights the need for better implementation of international standards that recognize and promote children’s participation and encourage special efforts to address discrimination and involve the most marginalized girls and boys. |
| Keywords: | child exploitation; child protection; children's participation; protection from abuse and neglect; protection from sexual exploitation; sexual abuse; |
| JEL: | K19 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa09/58&r=law |
| By: | Daniel O'Donnell |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the right of children to be heard in any judicial or administrative proceeding affecting them. It introduces the subject based on examples from the laws and practices of 52 countries around the world, shedding further light on a topic covered in the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre publication Law Reform and Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2007). Section 1 analyses the text of article 12.2 in the light of other provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other norms of international human rights law. Section 2 reviews the legislation of selected countries, including laws that establish fixed limits concerning the age at which a child can or must be heard in various types of legal and administrative proceedings (such as child protection proceedings, family law proceedings, criminal proceedings in which the child is a witness). It also addresses laws that establish other criteria (such as maturity, ability to understand, risk of adverse psychological consequences) for such purposes. Section 3 explores the reasons that underlie the criteria such as age limits used in different legal systems for determining when a child will be heard in legal or administrative proceedings. Section 4 concerns how laws are applied in practice in different legal systems, including the flexibility of the criteria as applied in practice and the extent to which the views of children are actually taken into account. Section 5 reviews efforts made by selected countries to make children’s participation in legal and administrative proceedings child sensitive, such as by making the courtroom less intimidating, barring repeated interrogation on sensitive subjects and establishing new modalities of cross-examination. Section 6 reviews the advances made in some countries in recognizing children’s right to legal services and legal representation. This is vitally important in enabling them to exercise the right to be heard and to have their views taken into account in legal and administrative proceedings. Section 7 contains findings and recommendations. This paper is addressed primarily to child rights advocates, researchers, legal practitioners and other professionals working in the area of children and the law. Further research is needed document good practices and to complement this introductory, global overview with studies focusing in more detail on different regions or legal traditions and specific types of proceedings. |
| Keywords: | children's opinion; children's participation; judicial system; right to be heard; |
| JEL: | K19 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa09/55&r=law |
| By: | Ugo Cedrangolo |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses the content of the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Pornography. It analyzes the provisions of this Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (herein referred to as the CRC or the Convention), and integrates them with the jurisprudence of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (herein referred to as the Committee). The paper highlights the main issues covered in the text of this Optional Protocol. These include: definition and criminalization of the offence; jurisdiction, extradition and further matters of criminal procedure; prevention; protection of victims and their rehabilitation; and the importance of international cooperation in the fight against sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The paper then more closely examines the Concluding Observations of the Committee on States Parties’ reports. Comparing the content of the Protocol with the observations of the Committee enables the identification of gaps between what is required and what has been done. At the same time, such a comparison allows for a discussion of some successful attempts at compliance. The paper concludes that the Committee’s jurisprudence has indeed provided useful guidance to the complex issues of the Protocol and helped in filling some of the gaps contained therein. Concurrently, however, it is found that many challenges remain with respect to the implementation of the Protocol’s provisions at national level. |
| Keywords: | child abuse; child exploitation; child pornography; committee on the rights of the child; implementation of the crc; optional protocol; protection from abuse and neglect; protection from exploitation; protection from sale and trafficking; protection from sexual exploitation; sale and trafficking; |
| JEL: | K19 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa09/54&r=law |
| By: | Arguedas, Carmen (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.); Camacho, Eva (Universidad Jaume I de Castellón); Zofío, José Luis (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.; Departamento de Análisis Económico: Teoría e Historia Económica. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the incentives to adopt advanced abatement technologies in the presence of imperfect compliance. Surprisingly, incentives to adopt advanced abatement technologies remain intact under emission taxes and pollution abatement subsidies when compared to the perfect compliance scenario. However, under emission standards imperfect compliance increases firms’ incentives to invest under certain assumptions, whereas under an emission permit mechanism investment incentives decrease only if widespread non-compliance induces a (sufficient) reduction in the permit price. Our results are valid for fairly general characteristics of the monitoring and enforcement strategies commonly found in both, theoretical and empirical applications. |
| Keywords: | environmental policy; technology adoption; monitoring; non-compliance |
| JEL: | K42 L51 Q28 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uam:wpaper:200903&r=law |
| By: | David Chacko (School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | The frequency and severity of medical liability litigation in the United Kingdom have increased since the middle of the twentieth century. Recent estimates of settling out-standing negligence claims hover around at least 10 percent of the National Health Service’s total annual budget. This paper argues that the frequency and severity of these claims have increased as patients have been increasingly dissatisfied with the established complaints procedures and regulation of physicians and as doctors have seen their influence in the doctor–patient relationship decrease. The current litigation situation compared to the past is three pronged: doctors are being sued more often; when sued, they are more likely to lose; and when losing, the claims awarded against them are increasing in size. As patients become increasingly aware that doctors are more likely to lose when sued and that the courts are more likely to award larger set-tlements, the frequency with which doctors are sued will almost certainly escalate. This paper concludes by discussing no-fault compensation as an alternative to litigation that would likely reduce physicians’ susceptibility to litigation. |
| Date: | 2009–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_077&r=law |
| By: | Nisvan Erkal; Suzanne Scotchmer |
| Abstract: | We investigate rewards to R&D in a model where substitute ideas for innovation arrive to random recipients at random times. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society as a whole preserves an option to invest in a better idea for the same market niche, but with delay. Because successive ideas may occur to different people, there is a conflict between private and social optimality. We characterize the welfare-maximizing reward structure when the social planner learns over time about the arrival rate of ideas, and when private recipients of ideas can bank their ideas for future use. We argue that private incentives to create socially valuable options can be achieved by giving higher rewards where "ideas are scarce." |
| JEL: | K00 L00 O34 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14940&r=law |