corporations compliance and crimes July 19, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : compliance , add a commentThe UK Parliament’s Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee is taking evidence from Rupert and James Murdoch. The two don’t seem to be selling quite the same story all the time. But James Murdoch, while emphasizing News Corporation’s code of conduct which prohibits criminal activity by employees, suggested that the senior executives of the corporation couldn’t be expected to know about employees’ criminal activities. He admitted that denials in 2009 had been more emphatic than was justified by the facts. But he seemed to think it was reasonable for an organization to discover facts about its own conduct in the course of litigation. All this raises some big questions about whether some large corporate organizations are really too big to comply with the law.
the meaning of integrity July 17, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : ethics , 1 comment so farThe Independent has the full text of Sir Paul Stephenson’s statement on his resignation as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service. It contains the following sentences:
As Commissioner I carry ultimate responsibility for the position we find ourselves in. With hindsight, I wish we had judged some matters involved in this affair differently. I didn’t and that’s it. However, the issue of my integrity is different. Let me state clearly: I and the people who know me know that my integrity is completely intact.
But the Commissioner did accept a stay at Champneys in Tring which news reports value at around £12,000. It seems to me that people in charge of police forces should not be accepting this sort of hospitality from anyone, and that the fact of accepting such hospitality raises real questions about the recipient’s integrity whether or not he realizes there is a problem.
consultation and standard setting July 13, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : consultation , add a commentMy paper, Consultation and Legitimacy in Transnational Standard-Setting is published in 20 Minn. J. Int’l L. 480 (2011).
a green and pleasant land July 10, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : life , add a commentHow much pleasanter will the UK be without the News of the World? Perhaps a bit until the Sunday Sun (not a cynical replacement for the News of the World) comes online. It’s a bit greener: this new map of the UK produced by the Center for Ecology and Hydrology is pretty green. And the UK cuts are forcing some new green behaviour: to save money on landfill tax Councils are encouraging residents to separate food waste from other waste. Some councils seem to have a more aggressive attitude than others to policing whether waste is put in the right places.
eu contrasts June 22, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : eu , add a commentThe EU is preparing for a European Council meeting which will consider economic policy, migration, Croatia, the inclusion of Roma people and the endorsement of the Danube strategy. Commissioner Malmström urges:
we need more solidarity, tolerance and responsibility in our asylum and migration policies, and we need to translate these principles into concrete action. I trust that the EU’s Prime Ministers and Presidents will show leadership in these difficult times, by protecting the values that are now being challenged in many countries in Europe. I hope that this European Summit will confirm that solidarity and responsibility are still key principles worthy of being cherished within the European Union.
Meanwhile last Friday Hungary (finishing up its presidency of the Council of the EU this month) published a web page on famous Hungarian battles.
friday miscellany June 10, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : life , add a commentSimon Jenkins on Grayling’s folly (nb Grayling complains about reactions to the idea); Frank Turner (England Keep My Bones); lobbying as corruption in disguise; European fish week.
what “education” at the new college for the humanities? June 8, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : consumers , add a commentLinda Colley, a leading historian of Britain, empire and nationalism, and her husband, Professor Sir David Cannadine, an expert in British history 1800 to 2000 – both based at Princeton University – have taken equity stakes in the New College for the Humanities, but will deliver only one lecture each in the first academic year, Grayling confirmed.
According to the article, others will be teaching 5 hours of lectures, and some even 20 hours over an academic year. So who will actually be doing the teaching?
imf on uk June 7, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : financial regulation , add a commentFinancial stability in the UK is ..a global public good
private top-ups in education June 7, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : markets , add a commentWhereas we often think of education as being separated into private and public sectors there are a couple of illustrations recently that private education may operate alongside public education in troubling ways. One is a report prepared for the EU Commission on The Challenge of Shadow Education which focuses on tutoring in the EU. One of the report’s conclusions is that:
private tutoring is much less about pupils who are in real need of help that they cannot find at school, and much more about maintaining the competitive advantages of the already successful and privileged.
At a time of austerity, where funding for social programs is under threat, this is particularly troubling. The privileged can mitigate – for themselves – the damage caused to public education systems caused by spending cuts. And, in the UK, they will be able to think about sending their offspring to the glitzy New College for the Humanities (see Eagleton v Johnson) which will offer courses taught by celebrity academics and (courtesy of the University of London International Programmes (which used to be the external degree)) a University of London degree. I think the fuss about plagiarism of syllabi is a bit overblown, as the work of publicly funded academics should surely benefit the public. The London external program has been running for a very long time, and has some very eminent alumni, including Derek Walcott and Ronald Coase. Not that it is clear that many of the future students of the New College for the Humanities will ever be among them.
Update 3.45pm: In the US my colleague Osamudia James argues that for-profit higher education isn’t as useful to students as the providers claim.
the problem of managing food risks June 4, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : food, risk , add a commentEating a supposedly healthy diet can be risky. Having to balance the risks of consuming mercury against the health benefits of eating fish can lead in the direction of a vegetarian diet. But vegetables – right now especially salad vegetables – can be dangerous too. And it seems that women are affected by the recent e coli problems more frequently than men. Until the source of the problem is identified the UK’s Food Standards Agency gives some pretty useless advice about salad risk management:
The Agency is reminding consumers of the importance of basic food hygiene practices when preparing food.
It is a good idea to wash fruit and vegetables before you eat them to ensure that they are clean, and to help remove germs that might be on the outside. Peeling or cooking fruit and vegetables can also remove these germs.