Thirty-Second Annual Administrative Law Issue: Congressional Access to Information: Using Legislative Will and Leverage

2002 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Fisher
1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 285-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Harlow

Freedom of information is an idea which has been high on the political agenda of western democratic societies for many years. It has been cultivated, propagated and sometimes misused in self-interested fashion by the media. Its meaning, always imprecise, has fluctuated. It has been recycled under the American terms of “openness” and “Government in the Sunshine”. Recently it has been once more recycled under the fashionable term “transparency”. In the European context, this imprecision has been detrimental to the development of logical and sturdy principles concerning transparency and access to information. What has emerged from the conceptual confusion has been a reliance on the more restricted administrative law rights of access to information in contexts where a constitutional right to transparency would have been more appropriate, with a consequential impoverishment of the transparency concept in EC law.


Author(s):  
Inger-Johanne Sand

This chapter discusses the impact of the pan-European principles of good administration on Norwegian administrative law. The chapter claims that the European Convention on Human Rights and other sources of the Council of Europe (CoE) have generally contributed to strengthening the ‘rule-of-law tradition’ in Norwegian law. This contribution is especially palpable in specialized fields like migration, family law and local self-government. However, in other fields, such as administrative procedural rights and access to information, the impact of the CoE seems to have been limited because the corresponding national regulations preceded many of the relevant conventions and recommendations of the CoE. The chapter concludes that Norway shows a willingness to be influenced by new administrative law standards developed by the CoE.


2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall J. Breger

In the United States, administrative law suffers from a perceived lack of legitimacy largely due to a lack of democratic accountability or what some have called a democratic deficit. These misgivings stem, in part, from a deep-seated American distrust of bureaucracy. This Article examines how the quest for legitimacy has led practitioners (and theorists) of administrative law to undertake four interrelated projects: the Accountability Project, the Rationality Project, the Transparency Project, and the Participatory Project all designed to create a substitute or shadow form of democratic legitimacy.Through an examination of these projects, I clarify how they try to address the democratic deficit, and whether they effectively do so. Specifically, this article investigates the impact of judicial review, informal rule-making, increased access to information, and public participation as efforts to meet the legitimacy challenge. Moreover, it disputes the contention that the pursuit of democratic legitimacy is less consequential for administrative law than the need for bureaucratic rationality, by illustrating that bureaucratic rationality is but one component of a larger scheme intended to serve as a functional substitute for legitimacy. At bottom, because Americans do not share the fondness for the technocratic model displayed by many other legal systems, legitimacy projects have an enduring place in American administrative law.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Hufgard

Is the World Bank living up to its own standards in transparency and access to information? On the basis of 75 individual cases the author critically examines how one of the most central institutions in international development administration, the World Bank, implements its Access to Information Policy in practice, taking into account its mandate, the sovereignty of its member states, and human rights requirements. The author provides concrete proposals for reforming this policy that show how the World Bank can strengthen the right of access to information and make its development cooperation more transparent. This study thus contributes to the still evolving field of international administrative law.


1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 285-302
Author(s):  
Carol Harlow

Freedom of information is an idea which has been high on the political agenda of western democratic societies for many years. It has been cultivated, propagated and sometimes misused in self-interested fashion by the media. Its meaning, always imprecise, has fluctuated. It has been recycled under the American terms of “openness” and “Government in the Sunshine”. Recently it has been once more recycled under the fashionable term “transparency”. In the European context, this imprecision has been detrimental to the development of logical and sturdy principles concerning transparency and access to information. What has emerged from the conceptual confusion has been a reliance on the more restricted administrative law rights of access to information in contexts where a constitutional right to transparency would have been more appropriate, with a consequential impoverishment of the transparency concept in EC law.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Oliver Westerwinter

Abstract Friedrich Kratochwil engages critically with the emergence of a global administrative law and its consequences for the democratic legitimacy of global governance. While he makes important contributions to our understanding of global governance, he does not sufficiently discuss the differences in the institutional design of new forms of global law-making and their consequences for the effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance. I elaborate on these limitations and outline a comparative research agenda on the emergence, design, and effectiveness of the diverse arrangements that constitute the complex institutional architecture of contemporary global governance.


Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Christian Ulrich Eriksen ◽  
Flemming Konradsen ◽  
Thilde Vildekilde

Abstract. Background: Information on methods of suicide is available online, and access to information on methods of suicide appears to contribute to a small but significant proportion of suicides. There is limited documentation of how methods of suicide are being profiled, as well as what content exists in other languages than English. Aim: We aimed to analyze and compare how methods of suicide are profiled on Danish and English-language websites. Method: We applied a categorization and content analysis of websites describing methods of suicide. Sites were retrieved by applying widely used Danish and English-language search terms. Results: A total of 136 English-language websites and 106 Danish-language websites were included for analysis. Websites were more often categorized as prevention or support sites, academic or policy sites, and against suicide sites than dedicated suicide sites (i.e., pro-suicide sites), or information sites. However, information on methods of suicide was available, and 20.1% and 8.9% of the English and Danish-language sites, respectively, suggested that a particular method of suicide was quick, easy, painless, or certain to result in death. Limitations: Only one author coded and analyzed all websites. A further operationalization of the content analysis checklist is warranted to increase reliability. Conclusion: The websites primarily had a prevention or anti-suicide focus, but information on methods of suicide was available, requiring an increased focus on how to diminish the negative effects of harmful online content.


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