Volume 5, Spring 2008, Issue 2

OUTSIDERS LOOKING IN: THE AMERICAN LEGAL DISCOURSE OF EXCLUSION

Luis E. Chiesa

Shortly after the birth of our nation, Congress enacted the Alien Friends Act, which granted to President John Adams the power to detain and deport aliens from any country deemed “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” without affording them due process of law. After the riots and criminal attacks on prominent public figures that took place subsequent to the end of World War I, the government ordered various raids directed at deporting aliens who sympathized with anarchist or communist ideals. In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps with the alleged purpose of guaranteeing national security. As part of a sweeping government effort to quell terrorism after 9/11, President Bush signed an executive order allowing special military tribunals to try foreigners suspected of committing such acts. As a result, the military facilities at Guantánamo Bay are being primarily used as prisons for the indefinite detention of non-citizens designated by President Bush as enemy combatants. View More 

LAND USE LAW AND ACTIVE LIVING: OPPORTUNITIES FOR STATES TO ASSUME A LEADERSHIP ROLE IN PROMOTING AND INCENTIVIZING LOCAL OPTIONS

Patricia E. Salkin and Amy Lavine

With rates of obesity and related diseases on the rise, particularly in children, the time is ripe to raise discussions about how our built and planned environments can encourage not just youth, but people of all ages, to lead healthier lifestyles. Criticism has long been raised that land use policies in the United States encourage the sprawling development of isolated, single-use areas and foster automobile reliance, thereby removing physical activity from the daily lives of children and adults. For a number of years, smart growth advocates have sought to encourage a modernization of outdated zoning laws that have separated incompatible land uses and that have led to sprawl and poorly controlled development. More recently, the “active living” movement has emerged as a subset of smart growth, focusing on the linkages between health and our artificial environment. The American Planning Association has identified a number of planning and zoning trends that interfere with active living communities View More 

GEOGRAPHIC INEQUITY IN MEDICARE REIMBURSEMENT – EFFECT OF GEOGRAPHIC PRACTICE COST INDICES ON PHYSICIAN REIMBURSEMENT AND PATIENT ACCESS

Melissa H. Weresh

Health care reform, particularly Medicare reform, is a central issue in the 2008 presidential election. Candidates and voters are focused on issues related to fees and access to physician care. The Medicare system is divided into three main parts. Part A is primarily related to hospital insurance. Part B is primarily related to medical insurance. Part C provides alternatives to Medicare’s traditional benefits package, including Medicare Advantage, and Part D is related to drug coverage. The accompanying visual scholarship addresses issues specifically under Medicare Part B. It is designed to illustrate inequities associated with physician reimbursement and patient premiums as well as the access concerns that stem from those inequities. A longer article will explore potential legislative solutions. View More 

SEPERATION OF POWERS WITHIN THE IVORY TOWER – AN ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE FORUNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE

Bruce Pardy

Governance of the modern university is properly based upon a separation of powers among its faculty, administrators, and legislative bodies. This separation of powers is the university’s central organizing idea, and the university’s version of an unwritten constitutional principle. View More 

PROYECTO ACCESO: USING POPULAR CULTURE TO BUILD THE RULE OF LAW IN LATIN AMERICA

James M. Cooper

Since the 1990s, much of Latin America has transitioned from an inquisitorial model of criminal procedure to an adversarial model. This Herculean task, over a few short years, has been part of the overall process facilitating the return of democratic governance. In much of the region, countries like Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay, have labored to achieve this transition, provide new transparent oral trials, improve judicial administration, modernize legal education and build the rule of law. There has been, unfortunately, a checkered record of success. Chile, however, stands out as the one country that has now fully completed this judicial reform, having implemented new oral trials in the metropolitan capital of Santiago in July 2005. View More