States as Agents and as Trustees

In The Shifting Border, Ayelet Shachar observes that the ‘beast’ of state migration policy has broken out of its cage and shifted both outward – to intercept migrants before they can ‘touch base’ and thereby gain rights – and inward, to restrict and subvert the rights of migrants and others in Exclusionary Zones within state territory. Shachar wants to ‘tame’ the beast by obligating states and their agents to uphold basic rights wherever they act. The current article first questions whether this ‘beast’ is necessarily monstrous, or whether it is not an admittedly excessive response to understandable challenges that arise due to the passivity of territorial states in the face of external forces. The article then suggests that the better response to this passivity is for states to embrace their legitimating function of trusteeship for the people (or moral patients) of the world as a whole.

Preferences in Between: Moderates in the Catalan Secessionist Conflict

Recent research on territorial preferences focuses on explaining who supports or opposes independence. However, this research overlooks the relevance of an “intermediate” category of citizens who may oppose the territorial status quo of a sub-state territory but not support independence. We use evidence from the critical case of Catalonia to illustrate the relevance of individuals with such preferences for policies and outcomes highly relevant to secessionist conflicts. We present four sets of findings using two-wave panel data from December 2017 (just prior to the December regional elections when Catalan independence was the most salient and contentious issue) and September 2018. First, we find that a sizable plurality within Catalonia supports greater autonomy short of independence; conventional sociodemographic variables explaining support for independence do not strongly account for this preference. Second, such pro-autonomy individuals have considerably more intermediate attitudes regarding the key “on the ground” actions that the Spanish and Catalan governments pursued during the crucial independence drive in 2017. They were more opposed than pro-independence individuals to the unilateral independence efforts, and more opposed than pro-status quo individuals to the Spanish government’s actions to counter these efforts. Third, they expressed emotions around the secessionist conflict similar to pro-status quo individuals. Finally, using an embedded survey experiment, we find that pro-autonomy individuals are more trusting of both the central and regional governments regarding their abiding by an agreement to resolve the conflict, and are less easily “polarized” through priming. Overall, these findings indicate the importance of further analyzing individuals with intermediate territorial views in secessionist conflicts.

Internet Accessibility for Blind and Visually-Impaired Users: An Evaluation of Official U.S. State and Territory COVID-19 Websites

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most health information was moved to an online format for easier dissemination. However, many of these health websites may not be accessible to users who are visually impaired, such as people who use screen readers and magnifiers. This study aimed to test the accessibility of 55 U.S. state and territory COVID-19 websites using 3 automated accessibility checker tools (MAUVE++, CynthiaSays, and AChecker). The homepage, testing, and vaccine pages for each state/territory were tested. Accessibility violations were categorized based on their relevance to visual impairment and compared between categories. Individuals who have vision loss but still access the websites visually are the most likely to be affected, with relevant accessibility violations detected in 81% of the checked cases. In addition, states/territories were ranked by their accessibility ratings. Our findings emphasize the need to improve the accessibility of public-facing health informational websites and provide suggestions for remedies.

THE PARADIGM OF CONTEMPORARY UNITARISM IN UKRAINE: ISSUES OF FORMATION AND IMPLEMENTATION

Aim. The article aims to investigate the essential and content characteristics of unitarism as a phenomenon of contemporary constitutional law. The synergistic connection between the doctrine of modern unitarism, the principles of unitarity of the state territory and the fundamental institutions of political-legal and state-administrative life of modern unitary states is shown. It proves that the unitary system is not only one of the important components of the process of accomplishing the tasks, goals and functions of most modern states, but also an immanent feature and strategic element of the mechanism of exercising their sovereign rights. Methods. The methodological basis encompasses philosophico-ideological, general scientific principles and approaches and special scientific methods of inquiry for constitutional and legal phenomena and processes. The philosophico-ideological basis of the study is the position of dialectics, on the basis of which the causes and factors of the evolution of unitarism are thoroughly investigated. In general, the research was conducted on the basis of a combination of ontological, epistemological and axiological analysis of contemporary unitarism. Results. The complexity, importance and relatively widespread use of unitarity as a form of government is causing a lively and ever-growing scientific interest in it throughout the world. The unique capability of unitarism to take into account the specific features of a particular condition allows it to manifest itself in each case in a new way. That is why it is important to analyze the mutual influence of unitary theory and practice, to explore and take into account the peculiarities of national unitarism. The problem of unitarism and the unitary form of the territorial structure of the state and the status of its constituents is one of the least studied in domestic constitutional law. Modern scholars studying constitutional law, as a rule, are limited to consideration of individual issues of the territory, in particular, the features of the territorial organization of state power and local self-government, problems of state sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, etc. To a large extent, the problem has not been studied exhaustively in contemporary Ukraine which causes difficulties in understanding such interrelated but not identical phenomena as unitarism and unitarity, regionalism and regionalization, municipalism and municipalization, decentralization and deconcentration, etc. It should be noted that in modern literature related to problems of state territory, territorial organization of state power, and other issues of the status of territory, the complex, multidimensional nature of unitarism, as a constitutional category, is not always taken into account. Conclusions. Unitarism is proved to be a multidimensional socio-political and constitutional phenomenon: it is an idea, a theory, a scientific direction as well as a global social constitutional practice and a constitutional form of the existence and functioning of territorial communities, it is the historical condition of national statehood and Ukrainian regional civilization and the form of realization of the national identity and civic consciousness, etc.

ASPEK HUKUM DALAM PELAKSANAAN ADMINISTRASI PUBLIK DI INDONESIA

ABSTRAK Bentuk dari aspek hukum dalam pelaksanaan administrasi publik di Indonesia adalah kebijakan publik dapat ditinjau tidak hanya secara sosial, politik dan ekonomi tetapi juga yuridis (perundang-undangan). Tujuannya agar penyusunan kebijakan tidak sembarangan atau benar-benar mempertimbangkan dalam menyusun kebijakan akan tidak dianggap melakukan tindakan sewenang-wenang melanggar kewenangan atau mengacuhkan kepentingan publik. Fungsi pemerintah dalam membuat kebijakan dibidang hukum adminstrasi publik yaitu fungsi regeling, membuat produk hukum tertulis yang berisikan materi daya ikat terhadap sebagian atau seluruh penduduk wilayah Negara dan fungsi beschikking, produk hukum yang berupa penetapan yang dibuat oleh pejabat tata usaha Negara. Kata kunci: Aspek Hukum, Administrasi Publik, Pemerintahan. ABSTRACT The form of the legal aspect in the implementation of public administration in Indonesia is that public policy can be reviewed not only socially, politically and economically but also juridically (legislation). The aim is that the formulation of policies is not carelessly or truly considerate in formulating policies that will not be considered as having arbitrarily violated authority or ignored the public interest.The function of the government in making policies in the field of public administration law is the function of regeling, making written legal products containing material binding power to part or all of the population of the State territory and the beschikking function, legal products in the form of decisions made by state administrative officials.

Collider bias in administrative workers’ compensation claims data: A challenge for cross-jurisdictional research

Purpose Workers’ compensation claims consist of occupational injuries severe enough to meet a compensability threshold. Theoretically, systems with higher thresholds should have fewer claims but greater average severity. For research that relies on claims data, particularly cross-jurisdictional comparisons of compensation systems, this results in collider bias that can lead to spurious associations and confound analyses. In this study, I use real and simulated claims data to demonstrate collider bias and problems with methods used to account for it. Methods Using Australian claims data, I used a linear regression to test the association between claim rate and mean disability durations across Statistical Areas. Analyses were repeated with nesting by state/territory to account for variations in compensability thresholds across compensation systems. Both analyses are repeated on left-censored data. Simulated claims data are analysed with Cox survival analyses to illustrate how left-censoring can reverse effects.Results The claim rate within a Statistical Area was inversely associated with disability duration. However, this reversed when Statistical Areas were nested by state/territory. Left-censoring resulted in an attenuation of the unnested association to non-significance, while the nested association remained significantly positive. Cox regressions on simulated data showed left-censoring can also reverse effects. Conclusions Collider bias can seriously confound work disability research, particularly cross-jurisdictional comparisons. Work disability researchers must grapple with this challenge by using appropriate study designs and analytical approaches, and considering how collider bias affects interpretation of results.

Estimating the Failure Risk of Hotel-based Quarantine for Preventing COVID-19 Outbreaks in Australia and New Zealand

AimWith increasing global use of hotel-based quarantine as part of COVID-19 border control efforts, we aimed to assess its risk of failure.MethodsWe searched official websites in both Australia and New Zealand (NZ) to identify outbreaks and border control failures associated with hotel quarantine (searches conducted up to 12 February 2021). We used two denominators: a) the estimated number of travelers who went through these facilities during the 2020 year up to 31 January 2021; and b) the equivalent number of SARS-CoV-2 positive people who went through these facilities.ResultsUp to 31 January 2021, Australia had seven failures with one causing over 800 deaths and six resulting in lockdowns. In NZ there were nine failures, with one causing an outbreak with three deaths, and also a lockdown. The overall failure risk for those transiting quarantine was estimated at one failure per 20,702 travelers and one failure per 252 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases (both countries combined). At the country level, there were 15.5 failures per 1000 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases transiting quarantine in NZ (95%CI: 5.4 to 25.7), compared to 2.0 per 1000 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases in Australia (0.5 to 3.5) – a greater than seven-fold difference in risk. Approaches to infection control and surveillance in hotel quarantine were found to vary widely by country and by state/territory.ConclusionsThere appears to be a notable risk of failure with the use of hotel quarantine in these two countries. The large variation in infection control practices suggests opportunity for risk reduction.