Asian countries possess some of the fastest growing economies in the modern world. To maintain this tremendous growth while also sustaining demographic, population, health, and quality of life standards, leaders must take careful stock of past accomplishments and their plans for the future. Trends, Prospects, and Challenges in Asian E-Governance addresses some of the ongoing struggles of fast-developing nations such as China, India, and Indonesia within the context of electronic government, illustrating how digital tools can assist developing nations in maintaining their prospects for future growth and expansion. Employing real-world case studies as well as ongoing research on the growing potential of these Eastern nations, this book serves as a useful reference for government officials, policymakers, and students of public policy in Asia and Oceania.

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aA must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of law and politics. . . . [Hasenas] is an important framework against which election law scholars will react and upon which they will build for some time to come.a
--"Michigan Law Review"

"Hasen wrote this concise but substantive volume to assess the history, at least since 1901, of the Supreme Court's intervention in the political process."
--"The Law and Politics Book Review"

"A major contribution to the field of election law."
--Thomas E. Mann, The Brookings Institution

In the first comprehensive study of election law since the Supreme Court decided "Bush v. Gore," Richard L. Hasen rethinks the Court's role in regulating elections. Drawing on the case files of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, Hasen roots the Court's intervention in political process cases to the landmark 1962 case, Baker v. Carr. The case opened the courts to a variety of election law disputes, to the point that the courts now control and direct major aspects of the American electoral process.

The Supreme Court does have a crucial role to play in protecting a socially constructed "core" of political equality principles, contends Hasen, but it should leave contested questions of political equality to the political process itself. Under this standard, many of the Court's most important election law cases from Baker to Bush have been wrongly decided.

Wysong analyzes the nature and extent of the involvement of seven major health and safety professional organizations in the development of the most significant national reform effort in occupational health policy since the OSA Act of 1970: The High Risk Occupational Disease Notification and Prevention Act. The professions have long been a focus of study in sociology; however, this is the first book to examine how the interests and involvement of health professionals' organizations on a national health policy issue are linked to external interests and dynamic contextual factors. By illuminating how professional societies' policy choices are embedded within and shaped by economic and political contexts, Wysong refines prevailing new class interpretations of professionals' interests where policy reforms are concerned. This book should be of particular concern to scholars and researchers involved with medical sociology, the sociology of work, complex organizations, social change, and occupational health policy.

Every year, thousands of people seek asylum in the United States because they have been persecuted in other countries due to their race, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion. In seeking refuge and protection, these immigrants must rely on the American court system to help them achieve safety from the great harm they have suffered.

In her unique and compelling judicial memoir, Susan Yarbrough, a former US immigration judge, highlights five significant asylum cases that she heard and decided during almost eighteen years on the benchcases that profoundly changed her not only as a judge, but also as a person.

Yarbrough recounts heartrending testimony described against the background of the countries in which the persecution took place, following each account with personal reflections on how she was emotionally and spiritually transformed by each person who testified. From Josue Maldonado, persecuted in El Salvador because of his religion, to Daniel Quetzal, an Indian from Guatemala who was tied naked to a pole and tortured because of his political opinion, the cases that the author shares provide an unforgettable glimpse into the lives of courageous people who risked everything for peace and freedom in the United States.

Bench-Pressed is the story of five asylum seekers and the judge who was irrevocably changed by the intersection of her life with theirs.

Throughout this century, organized interest groups have played a central role in U.S. Supreme Court litigation on issues of civil rights and liberties. Yet in recent decades, the Court has been less willing to protect many rights and has discouraged the use of federal court forums. With the federal courts inhospitable or unavailable, interest groups have had greater incentive to enter state judiciaries. Proponents of the new judicial federalism urge groups and other litigants to seek greater individual protection based on state constitutions than that required under federal constitutional standards. Farole examines the conditions under which groups are likely to enter state litigation. How the Supreme Court decisions provide incentives or disincentives for organizational action in state judiciaries as well as how other factors specific to organizations condition their willingness and ability to enter state courts is of particular concern. Farole also examines whether groups assert rights claims based on state constitutional law. He provides a comparative analysis of group litigation in two issue areas--eminent domain and obscenity--in five states. Evidence is taken from a variety of sources including interviews, interest group and court files, and published court opinions. The analysis provides insights into the ability of interest groups to remain active in rights litigation by turning their lobbying efforts to state judiciaries. This book is of particular interest to political scientists and academic lawyers concerned with federalism, interest groups, judicial politics, and civil liberties.

This book offers a multidisciplinary treatment of targeting. It is intended for use by the military, government legal advisers and academics. The book is suitable for use in both military training and educational programs and in Bachelor and Master degree level courses on such topics as War Studies and Strategic Studies. The book first explores the context of targeting, its evolution and the current targeting process and characteristics. An overview of the legal and ethical constraints on targeting as an operational process follows. It concludes by surveying contemporary issues in targeting such as the potential advent of autonomous weapon systems, 'non-kinetic' targeting, targeting in multinational military operations and leadership decapitation in counter-terrorism operations. The deep practical experience and academic background of the contributors ensures comprehensive treatment of current targeting and use of force issues. Paul Ducheine is Professor for Cyber Operations and Cyber Security, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands; and Professor of Law of Military Cyber Operations and Cyber Security at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Michael Schmitt is Charles H. Stockton Professor & Director, Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island, and Professor of Public International Law, University of Exeter, UK. Frans Osinga is Chair of the War Studies Department, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands, and Professor of Military Operational Art and Sciences.

The book considers the changes which national sovereignty has undergone through the supranational European integration. In various contributions by renowned academics and high judges demonstrate the serious impacts of supranationality on the EU member states and even on third countries which are connected with the EU by international treaties. It becomes clear that primacy of EU law, the most significant expression of supra-nationality, collides with national sovereignty as anchored in the national constitutions. The studies clearly show that most member states do not fully deny EU law primacy but are aware of the need to find an adequate balance between the supranational and the national orders. The result from the analyses of the authors from various European countries is that the upcoming constitutional paradigm is "constitutional identity", a concept established by jurisprudence in Germany, France, Czech Republic (without being named so) and debated also in Poland which, herself, denies supranational impact on the national Constitution entirely. Studies on selected EU member states clarify the specific national approaches towards the limitations of their sovereignty as developed by the constitutional jurisprudence (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Germany with comparative references to United Kingdom and France). It is illuminated that traditionally strong sovereignty concepts (UK, France) are considerably relativized and functionally opened towards the integration challenges. Basic issues are furthermore reflected, such as the supranational impact on the State's power to reform its Constitution, the relation of national and constitutional identity and the national and supranational perspectives of identity. The book also includes Europe beyond the EU by research on the supranational character of association treaties (from a Ukrainian perspective) and on the Europeanization of a third country preparing EU membership (Albania).

A thorough descriptive list of 225 printed constitutions, statutes, session acts and resolutions passed by properly authorized bodies of the Cherokee Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation, Creek (or Muskogee Nation), Indian Territory, Nez Perce tribe, Omaha Tribe, Osage Nation, Ottawa Tribe, Sac and Fox nation, Seminole Nation, Seneca Nation, State of Sequoyah, Stockbridge and Munsee Tribe and the Winnebago Tribe. Each chapter begins with a brief history of the tribe or nation and each entry contains useful biographical, historical and bibliographical notes. The author observes that many of these items have not been "recorded in any connection, and the scant biographical information about the others are widely scattered."

This work deals with the temporal effect of judicial decisions and more specifically, with the hardship caused by the retroactive operation of overruling decisions. By means of a jurisprudential and comparative analysis, the book explores several issues created by the overruling of earlier decisions. Overruling of earlier decisions, when it occurs, operates retrospectively with the effect that it infringes the principle of legal certainty through upsetting any previous arrangements made by a party to a case under long standing precedents established previously by the courts. On this account, in the recent past, a number of jurisdictions have had to deal with the prospect of introducing in their own systems the well-established US practice of prospective overruling whereby the court may announce in advance that it will change the relevant rule or interpretation of the rule but only for future cases. However, adopting prospective overruling raises a series of issues mainly related to the constitutional limits of the judicial function coupled by the practical difficulties attendant upon such a practice. This book answers a number of the questions raised by this practice. It makes use of the great reservoir of foreign legal experience that furnishes theoretical and practical ideas from which national judges may draw their knowledge and inspiration in order to be able to advise a rational method of dealing with time when they give their decisions.

The changes made by the Lisbon Treaty suggest that its entry into force in December 2009 marks a new stage in the shaping of the EU's commitment to the protection of fundamental rights. This book's concern is to provide an examination of the several (and interlocking) challenges which the Lisbon reforms present. The book will not only address the fresh and intriguing challenges for the EU as an entity committed to the protection and promotion of fundamental rights presented by developments 'post-Lisbon', but also a number of conundrums about the scope and method of protection of fundamental rights in the EU which existed 'pre-Lisbon' and which endure. The book consists of three parts. The first part is concerned with the safeguarding of fundamental rights in Europe's internal market. The second part of the book is entitled 'The Scope of Fundamental Rights in EU Law' and the chapters discuss the reach of fundamental rights and their horizontal dimension. The last part of this book deals with 'The Constitutional Dimension of Fundamental Rights' analysing the special relationship between the ECJ and the ECtHR and the issue of rights competition between the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and national rights catalogues.

This thought-provoking book examines the socio-legal mechanisms that drive EU constitutional tensions, as well as the role of principles and values in re-directing EU law and policy towards a democratic Social Europe. It addresses the current limits of Social Europe in relation to different areas of EU law, offering a critical assessment of the present status of EU integration. Covering areas such as posting of workers, the right to collective bargaining, political rights and free movement for EU citizens, and asylum policy, chapters provide a cross-disciplinary and policy-oriented treatment of these subjects alongside focused legal analysis. Complementing traditional concepts and methodologies with newly emerged empirical elements, the book exposes the EU's inherent tensions while also offering new perspectives on the ways in which EU constitutional principles, rooted in solidarity, could inform a future Social Europe. Law, Solidarity and the Limits of Social Europe will be a stimulating read for scholars and students of EU law and social policy. It will also be of interest to legal practitioners, policy makers and civil society organisations working in fields related to Social Europe.

Professors Grear and Kotze have masterfully fashioned a landmark work on human rights and the natural environment. This Research Handbook is more than just a library of current ideas about this important topic; it is an intellectual tour de force that stimulates new thinking on the place of social justice and moral responsibility in the Anthropocene.' - Benjamin J. Richardson, University of Tasmania, Australia'As the connections between human rights and the environment become deeper and broader, this Handbook offers an indispensable point of reference. A seriously impressive group of scholars addresses a seriously interesting range of themes that inform and challenge the totality of our understanding.' - Philippe Sands, University College London, UK Bringing together leading international scholars in the field, this authoritative Handbook combines critical and doctrinal scholarship to illuminate some of the challenging tensions in the legal relationships between humans and the environment, and human rights and environment law. The accomplished contributors provide researchers and students with a rich source of reflection and engagement with the topic. Split into five parts, the book covers epistemologies, core values and closures, constitutionalisms, universalisms and regionalisms, with a final concluding section exploring major challenges and alternative futures. An essential resource for students and scholars of human rights law, the volume will also be of significant interest to those in the fields of environmental and constitutional law. Contributors: S. Adelman, U. Beyerlin, K. Bosselmann, D.R Boyd, P.D. Burdon, L. Code, L. Collins, S. Coyle, C.G Gonzalez, E. Grant, A. Grear, E. Hey, C.J. Iorns Magallanes, B. Jessup, A. Jones, A. A. Khavari, L.J. Kotze, R. Lyster, K. Morrow, A. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, W. Scholtz, P. Simons, S. Theriault, F. Venter

This in-depth examination of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 provides a chronological review of the events, ordinances, and pervasive attitudes that preceded, coincided with, and followed its enactment. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a historic act of legislation that demonstrated how the federal government of the United States once openly condoned racial discrimination. Once the Exclusion Act passed, the door was opened to further limitation of Asians in America during the late 19th century, such as the Scott Act of 1888 and the Geary Act of 1892, and increased hatred towards and violence against Chinese people based on the misguided belief they were to blame for depressed wage levels and unemployment among Caucasians. This title traces the complete evolution of the Exclusion Act, including the history of Chinese immigration to the United States, the factors that served to increase their populations here, and the subsequent efforts to limit further immigration and encourage the departure of the Chinese already in America. Provides excerpts from nearly two dozen original documents, including legislation, letters, essays, and other materials related to the sanctioning of discrimination against the Chinese in the United States Presents a chronology of significant actions and events that preceded and facilitated passage of the Exclusion Act, as well as occurrences after its passage and leading to its repeal Includes a bibliography of over 60 significant sources that reflect attitudes, news reports, and legislation from the time of the Exclusion Act and contemporary viewpoints on the historical event Contains a helpful glossary of terms commonly employed in a discussion of the Chinese-American experience and passage of the Exclusion Act

This book provides law-based governance which is one of the basic policies that underpins our endeavors to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. Law is the key to governing the country,and the rule of law is an important support for the national governance system and governance capacity. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC,China has implemented the four-pronged comprehensive strategy and created an unprecedented new situation for law-based governance. Further progress has been made in ensuring China's legislation is sound,law enforcement is strict, the administration of justice is impartial,and the law is observed by everyone. China's efforts to build a country, government,and society based on the rule of law have been mutually reinforcing) the system of distinctively Chinese socialist rule of law has been steadily improved) public awareness of the rule of law has risen markedly. In recent years, China has adhered to the correct handling of the relationship between deepening reform and law-based governance,ensuring that major reforms are justified by law and providing solid guarantees of the rule of law for reform and opening-up. China has adhered to combine law-based governance of the country and rule-based governance over the party and exercised law-based governance at every point in the process and over every dimension of full and rigorous governance over the party and has made remarkable achievements in the construction of a clean and honest government and the struggle against corruption.

This collection of essays, the result of a John Marshall Symposium held in conjunction with the state of West Virginia's celebration of the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, examines the contributions of John Marshall and the early Supreme Court from a variety of political and methodological perspectives that have been encouraged by current approaches to constitutional theory and history. It fills a gap in analysis of the constitutional foundations laid by the Marshall Court. It reflects the continuities and changes that have transpired in legal scholarship and political philosophy over the last three decades. Divided into analyses of Marshall's legal decisions, his political philosophy, and his methods of legal interpretation, the essays represent a strong and healthy diversity of opinion on Marshall's contribution to American political and legal development. The essays consider the question of how Marshall's judicial reasoning can be best applied to the continuing process of interpreting the Constitution. Marshall's contributions thus become the starting point for an exercise in political engagement. While often celebrating Marshall's achievements, the contributors attempt to move beyond mere celebration toward a critical analysis of constitutional meaning and political philosophy. Legal scholars and historians alike will welcome this cogent collection and the insight it provides into the early development of constitutional thought and interpretation.

This volume of essays, situated at the interface between legal doctrine and legal and political philosophy, discusses the conceptual and normative issues posed by the right to inclusion and exclusion the EU claims for itself when enacting and enforcing immigration and asylum policy under the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In particular, the essays probe how this alleged right acquires institutional form; how the enactment and enforcement of the EU's external borders render possible and undermine the claim to such a right; and how the fundamental distinctions that underpin this alleged right, such as inside/outside and citizen/alien, are being disrupted and reconfigured in ways that might render the EU's civic and territorial boundaries more porous. The volume is divided into three parts. A first set of essays delves into the empirical aspects that define the institutional context of the EU's alleged jus includendi et excludendi. A second set of essays is theoretical in character, and critically scrutinizes the basic distinctions that govern this alleged right. The third set of essays discusses politico-legal alternatives, exploring how the conceptual and normative problems to which this alleged right gives rise might be dealt with, both legally and politically. The contributors to the volume are Peter Fitzpatrick, Bonnie Honig, Dora Kostakopoulou, Hans Lindahl, Valsamis Mitsilegas, Helen Oosterom-Staples, Bert van Roermund, Jo Shaw, Bernhard Waldenfels, Neil Walker and Ricard Zapata Barrero. The volume also includes a comprehensive introduction by the editor, highlighting systematic connections between the three parts and individual essays which comprise it.

The book gives insight into the structures and developments of the fundamental rights protection in Europe which is effective at the levels of the national Constitutions, the European Convention of Human Rights and, for the EU member States of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter. The contributions of renowned academics from various European countries demonstrate the functional interconnection of these protection systems which result in an increasing convergence. Basic questions are reflected, such as human dignity as foundation of fundamental rights or positive action as a specific form of equality as well as the concept of rights convergence. In this latter contribution the forms of direct reception of a different legal order and of the functional transfer of principles and concepts are analyzed. Particular reference is made to the EU Charter, the United Kingdom Human Rights Act as well as to France and Germany. It becomes obvious how important interpretation is for the harmonization of national and conventional fundamental rights protection. Traditional institutional approaches like the dualist transformation concept in Germany are functionally set aside in the harmonization process through constitutional interpretation. Specific studies are dedicated to the field of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter and to the European impacts on the national fundamental rights protection in selected countries such as the "new democracies" Poland, Romania and Kosovo as well as more traditional systems such as Spain, Italy, the Nordic countries or Turkey.

This book presents a comparative study on access to public information in the context of the main legal orders worldwide(inter alia China,France,Germany,Japan,Russia,Sweden,United States).The international team of authors analyzes the Transparency- and Freedom-to-Information legislation with regard to the scope of the right to access, limitations of this right inherent in the respective national laws, the procedure, the relationship with domestic legislation on administrative procedure, as well as judicial protection. It particularly focuses on the Brazilian law establishing the right of access to information, which is interpreted as a benchmark for regulations in other Latin-American states.

This collection reveals the Janus-faced character of federalism in the European Union. Federalism appears in two main forms in the EU. On the one hand, numerous formerly unitary Member States have embarked on a path towards a (quasi-)federal governance structure. On the other hand, the EU itself is sometimes qualified as a federal system. Significantly, the concept of federalism has a very different, even opposite, connotation in both contexts. When associated with Member State reform, federalism is regarded as a technique for accommodating autonomy claims of sub-state nations. By contrast, when federalism is used as a label for the EU itself, it is conceived as a far-reaching way of integrating the nations of Europe. This dual appearance of federalism in the EU context is central to the structure of the book. The focus of this book's first set of essays is on domestic federalization processes, more particularly on the impact of these processes on EU law and vice versa. In a second set of contributions, the attention shifts to the question as to whether the EU itself can be described as a federal system, and whether it can learn from existing federations. (Series: Modern Studies in European Law - Vol. 33)

Title 12 presents regulations governing banking procedures and activities of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Export-Import Bank, Office of Thrift Supervision, Farm Credit Administration, and the National Credit Union Administration. It also contains regulations pertaining to other types of banking operations. Additions and revisions to this section of the code are posted annually by January. Publication follows within six months.

This edited volume presents case studies of the transformation of China's public services over the past decade in China. As the country has experienced fundamental changes in its demographic, economic, social and environmental structures, demands on public services have been increasing tremendously, and have become unprecedentedly diverse. In response, innovations to provide new services, expand service recipients, adopt new technologies, engage partners, and streamline service processes have been employed widely in China to increase service efficiency, enhance quality, enlarge coverage, and improve citizen satisfaction. This book examines prominent cases of public service innovations in China, disclosing their causes, patterns, diffusion, and effects. These cases provide interesting evidence about the nature and effectiveness of public service innovations in China while highlighting to what extent these innovations can be explained by accepted theories and whether new theory building is needed. This book will be of value to academics and policymakers seeking to understand the evolving Chinese political system.