Academic literature on the topic 'Medical laws and legislation – united states – cases'

Background Infodemiology is an emerging field of research that utilizes user-generated health-related content, such as that found in social media, to help improve public health. Twitter has become an important venue for studying emerging patterns in health issues such as substance use because it can reflect trends in real-time and display messages generated directly by users, giving a uniquely personal voice to analyses. Over the past year, several states in the United States have passed legislation to legalize adult recreational use of cannabis and the federal government in Canada has done the same. There are few studies that examine the sentiment and content of tweets about cannabis since the recent legislative changes regarding cannabis have occurred in North America. Objective To examine differences in the sentiment and content of cannabis-related tweets by state cannabis laws, and to examine differences in sentiment between the United States and Canada between 2017 and 2019. Methods In total, 1,200,127 cannabis-related tweets were collected from January 1, 2017, to June 17, 2019, using the Twitter application programming interface. Tweets then were grouped geographically based on cannabis legal status (legal for adult recreational use, legal for medical use, and no legal use) in the locations from which the tweets came. Sentiment scoring for the tweets was done with VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner), and differences in sentiment for states with different cannabis laws were tested using Tukey adjusted two-sided pairwise comparisons. Topic analysis to determine the content of tweets was done using latent Dirichlet allocation in Python, using a Java implementation, LdaMallet, with Gensim wrapper. Results Significant differences were seen in tweet sentiment between US states with different cannabis laws (P=.001 for negative sentiment tweets in fully illegal compared to legal for adult recreational use states), as well as between the United States and Canada (P=.003 for positive sentiment and P=.001 for negative sentiment). In both cases, restrictive state policy environments (eg, those where cannabis use is fully illegal, or legal for medical use only) were associated with more negative tweet sentiment than less restrictive policy environments (eg, where cannabis is legal for adult recreational use). Six key topics were found in recent US tweet contents: fun and recreation (keywords, eg, love, life, high); daily life (today, start, live); transactions (buy, sell, money); places of use (room, car, house); medical use and cannabis industry (business, industry, company); and legalization (legalize, police, tax). The keywords representing content of tweets also differed between the United States and Canada. Conclusions Knowledge about how cannabis is being discussed online, and geographic differences that exist in these conversations may help to inform public health planning and prevention efforts. Public health education about how to use cannabis in ways that promote safety and minimize harms may be especially important in places where cannabis is legal for adult recreational and medical use.

Advances in medical technology have made free-standing ambulatory surgery centres a cost-effective method of delivering health care in the United States. One: Rapid expansion of such centres and duplication of services have raised concerns over rising health care costs, two: leading to government regulation of facilities via a Certificate of Need (CON) law in many states. Three: Such regulation may decrease access to elective procedures. This study investigates access to elective surgical procedures in selected states with and without CON laws. Results of the Health Care Utilization Project were analyzed. Per capita rates of elective carpal tunnel release (CTR) and lumbar discectomy were evaluated in 16 states with CON laws and 5 states without CON laws over the years 2004-2005. Distribution of CTR and lumbar discectomy were analyzed by facility ownership and teaching status, using rates of emergent procedures as a control. Student’s t-tests compared rates of CTR and discectomy as a function of CON legislation. Two-factor ANOVA extended this analysis to account for teaching environment and facility ownership. Fewer CTR cases were performed in states with CON laws (p=0.014), specifically in government-owned (p=0.012) and non-teaching facilities (p=0.01). No difference was observed in lumbar discectomy rates in states with respect to CON regulation. Distribution of both procedures among teaching and non-teaching centers was independent of CON laws. Facility ownership predicts fraction of these cases performed at an institution,(p < 0.01) and this distribution is influenced by CON regulation, increasing fractions of both types of procedures performed at private, not-for-profit centers (p=0.001, p=0.003 respectively). We conclude that CON laws restrict access to certain procedures, specifically in government-owned and non-teaching facilities. These laws may limit the supply of surgical care, notably by redistributing away from government and for-profit centres. Potential solutions include reinvestigating the need for CON laws, or examining the CON methodology to accurately reflect need. Small NC, Bert JM. Office Ambulatory Surgery Centers: Creation and Management. J Am Acad Orthop Surg 2003; 11:157-62. Casalino LP, Devers KJ, Brewster LR. Focused Factories? Physician-Owned Specialty Facilities. Health Affairs 22(6):56-67. Lanning JA, Morrisey MA, Ohsfeldt RL. “Endogenous hospital regulation and it’s effects on hospital and non-hospital expenditures” Journal of Regulatory Economics1991 (June); 3(2):137-54.

In the light of the announced adoption of the Law on Same-Sex Unions, the question arises whether the draft law is in accordance with the Constitution, especially after the announcements that the law will not be signed. Although the Constitution specifies that marriage is a union of a man and a woman, experts point out that in this case it is not a law on marriage and family, nor does it provide for the possibility of adoption of children by same-sex couples, but that it regulates property, health, pension and other legal relationships of same-sex partners living in the union. At the same time, many public figures have invited traditional religious communities to react in order to defend the "right to freedom and future of the people", emphasizing that contentious issues related to the regulation of mutual rights and obligations of same-sex couples could be resolved by amending the existing laws in those areas. In the countries where similar laws exist, case law has played a significant role, just as various medical and psychological associations. The European case law is not uniform, and cases often end before the European Court of Human Rights, while in the United States at the federal level, all anti-homosexual laws are repealed by a Supreme Court decision (Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 [2003]). Nevertheless, there is no single law in this area and the rights of same-sex couples vary from country to country. The paper will provide an overview of significant court decisions in this area in European countries, as well as the decisions of the US Supreme Court, which may lead us to think about the possible legal consequences of (non)adoption of the disputed Law on Same-Sex Unions, about procedures that could be initiated if partners decided to request judicial protection for the purpose of recognizing their guaranteed human rights, as well as the content and significance of such court judgments.

The debate surrounding the legalization of assisted suicide has been galvanized in recent years by reports of specific cases of assisted suicide, primarily involving physicians such as Kevorkian and Quill, and by impassioned pleas for legalization and assistance in suicide from individuals suffering in the throes of terminal or agonizing diseases, such as Sue Rodriguez. Media attention on criminal trials of individuals accused of assisting in a suicide has heightened public awareness of the issue. The constitutionality of criminal prohibitions on assisted suicide has been tested in various jurisdictions, and has recently been considered by the Supreme Courts of both the United States and Canada. Following two narrowly unsuccessful attempts to enact dignified death provisions by referenda in Washington and California, Oregon voters passed the first of such proposed laws in November 1994, providing for physician-assisted suicide under certain specified conditions. Attempts to introduce legislation to legalize assisted suicide in other jurisdictions have been galvanized by the success in Oregon. A model statute has been drafted by a group of law professors, philosophers and medical professionals.

Current political and legal conditions caused by the medical reform implementation, transformation of legislation, and increased activity of patients to protect their rights, have given rise to the need to find the best forms, methods and means of protecting human rights in the field of medical care. The Council of Europe recommends the governments of member states to ensure that patient safety becomes a cornerstone of all relevant healthcare strategies and defines that, while people can make mistakes in all areas of activity, they can turn those mistakes to experience in order to prevent their repeating, and medical professionals and medical organizations that have reached a high level of security have the potential to recognize errors and learn to avoid them. Given the risky nature of the provision of medical care, it is not always possible to achieve the desired result, as well as the inadequate provision or non-provision of medical care can be harmful to the patient's life and health. According to the practice of law enforcement and the current state of development of these relationships, the patients themselves are more vulnerable and their rights are most often being violated. Given the modern period of medical and legal practice implementation, attention should be drawn to arbitration as an out-of-court jurisdictional form of protecting the subjects’ to legal relations rights in the provision of medical care. Although the arbitral tribunal does not belong to the judicial system, while being a quasi-judicial authority; however, this form is considered to be jurisdictional, since it is a special non-governmental authorized body created to resolve disputes arising from civil and commercial relations. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine notes that the arbitration of disputes between the parties in the field of civil and commercial relations is a kind of non-governmental jurisdictional activity, which arbitration courts conduct on the basis of the laws of Ukraine, including, in particular, the methods of arbitration. In performing the functions of protection, arbitral tribunals do not exercise justice, but arbitration of disputes. The peculiarity of this method of protection is that, on the one hand, it has similar features with state justice (for example, in the aspect of the adoption of binding decisions), but at the same time it is similar with extrajudicial forms of non-jurisdiction, as, in particular, mediation (however, there is a significant difference between them: the mediator does not make decisions, but only contributes to the decision making by the parties). One of the major issues in the scope of the study is the question of the possibility of referring subjects to medical legal relations medical to an arbitration tribunal to resolve disputes arising from the provision of medical care. The criteria for the jurisdiction of arbitration courts include: a) the nature of the controversial legal relationship: arbitration court subordinate cases of civil and commercial relations; b) the subjects of controversial legal relations: legal entities and/or individuals; c) the existence of an arbitration agreement between the parties to the dispute. Novadays, both in national and foreign legal practice, medical arbitrations have been established and operate. In 2009, the first and only Permanent Court of Arbitration was established at the All-Ukrainian Public Organization "Foundation for Medical Law and Bioethics of Ukraine". The purpose of this specialized court is to ensure fair, speedy and effective arbitration of disputes arising from healthcare legal relations and reconciliation of parties to the dispute. However, this court has not yet considered a case due to a number of factors, such as: 1) the lack of legal awareness of the subjects to medical legal relations regarding the possibility of resolving the case through an arbitration court; 2) low level of legal culture of subjects of legal disputess, generating judicial way of disputes resolution as the only possible option; 3) the introduction of amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Arbitration Courts" in the aspect of excluding from the jurisdiction of arbitration courts disputes related to the protection of consumer rights, including those in the sphere of medical services. The experience of foreign countries in this aspect is positive. Thus, Arbitration Court for Health Insurance and Health, which is a specialized arbitration in healthcare issues, operates at the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It is a self-standing permanent authority that resolves disputes arising from civil legal relations between actors and participants in the health insurance system and the healthcare system in St. Petersburg. In the United States, there is the Federal Arbitration Law that encourages the use of arbitration in all matters, if the agreement contains a clause on arbitration. Most states have adopted relevant legislation that regulates health arbitration and imposes special requirements for arbitration agreements. National Medical Arbitration Commission under the Ministry of Health, which exercises medical arbitration and aims to resolve disputes between a doctor and a patient using alternative ways of resolving conflicts, operates in Mexico. All employees and experts are fully funded at the expense of state budget. The Commission is an official body authorized to provide, at the request of judges, expert opinions, which may in future be the basis for judgements. In order to resolve a dispute, whether through the application of a conciliation procedure or arbitration, both parties need to agree that the case would not be tried in court and that the purpose of the Commission's work is not limited to imposition legal liability to a doctor. The Commission is not a judicial body, therefore, it cannot impose penalties, but only gives the parties the opportunity to make reparations under contract. Taking into account the above, the institute of medical arbitration in Ukraine is worth implementation, as the number of medical cases increases and more and more individuals apply for the protection of violated rights in healthcare system. Advantages of resolving disputes that arise in the provision of medical care in arbitration courts are: 1) simplification of the trial procedure; 2) short terms of consideration of the case; 3) possibility of choosing a judge; 4) preservation of confidentiality; 5) freedom to establish rules of arbitration; 6) voluntary involvement in the arbitration process; 7) synthesis of discretion, which is covered by the review procedure, and the imperativeness due to the binding decision of the parties. Functions of medical arbitration are the following: a) protective: protection of rights of subjects of legal relations in the field of medical assistance; b) controlling: it is the component of healthcare quality management system; c) educational: enhancement of legal culture and legal awareness of the subjects of medical legal relations, as well as promotion of confidence in arbitration proceedings. Taking into account foreign experience and national legal regulation, and according to the specific nature of legal relations in the field of medical assistance and the task of arbitration proceedings in defense of non-proprietary rights, it would be advisable to make modifications to reduce the scope of subordinate prohibitions for arbitration, in particular, in cases concerning disputes in the field of consumer rights protection, identifying only those categories that would be banned (the cases for medical services consumers’ rights protection should not fall into scope of such limitation), as well as conducting spectral work on increasing the authority of the arbitration proceedings and the level of competence of arbitrators. Also, it should be noted that tort cases can be subject to arbitration in case entering into agreements (arbitration agreements) between the creditor and the debtor in order to achieve the purpose of the obligation: the reimbursement of the harm done to the victim.

Federal law excludes millions of American citizens from crucial public benefits simply because they live in the United States territories. If the Social Security Administration determines a low-income individual has a disability, that person can move to another state and continue to receive benefits. But if that person moves to, say, Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands, that person loses their right to federal aid. Similarly with SNAP (food stamps), federal spending rises with increased demand—whether because of a recession, a pandemic, or a climate disaster. But unlike the rest of the United States, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa receive a limited amount of federal food assistance, regardless of need. That’s why, after Hurricane Maria, despite additional congressional action, over a million Puerto Rican residents lost food assistance. And with Medicaid, federal law caps medical assistance for each of these five territories, a limit that does not exist for the fifty states or the District of Columbia. This Article draws much-needed attention to these discrepancies in legal status and social protection. It surveys the eligibility rules and financing structure of disability benefits, food assistance, and health insurance for low-income Americans in the states and the territories. A comprehensive account of these practices provokes questions about the tiers of citizenship built by a fragmented and devolved American state. Part I invokes the scholarship on social citizenship, the idea that an individual cannot meaningfully participate in society without some modicum of economic security. Part I then explores the tension between that normative commitment and one of the defining features of the American welfare state—federalism. It then elaborates the exceptional legal status of Americans who live in U.S. territories. Part II provides a comprehensive overview of federal food, medical, and disability assistance and, in doing so, demonstrates how the American territories inhabit a different and, in many ways, dilapidated corner of the American welfare state. Part III begins with an analysis of ongoing cases in federal court that challenge this facial discrimination. It then canvasses legislation introduced in Congress that would make significant progress in putting territorial Americans on par with Americans in the fifty states. To conclude, Part IV brings the states back in, using the earlier discussion of territories as an invitation to imagine an American welfare state built on a foundation other than a racial order.

Based on an examination of the relevant UN-Documentation, this report identifies four notable instances of the topic of restitutions and reparations for victims of the Third Reich appearing as a topic of interest for UN bodies: the provisions made in the interest of refugees as part of the Paris Agreement, the discussion surrounding the draft of the Genocide Convention, as well as the legislative involvement of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and the Secretary General of the UN (Sec-Gen) in the (later) Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The funds created by the Paris Agreement are, probably, of the least interest, since they were conceived more as immediate relief than as individualized reparation. The discussion surrounding the Genocide Convention is interesting from a historical standpoint, as it attests an early and acute awareness of the underlying issues. However, any discussion addressing the restitution and reparation of victims of genocide did not find its way into the Convention. The involvement of the IRO with the Office of the Military Government for Germany, United States (OMGUS) and the FRG, which resulted in the drafting of specific laws on the matters of restitution and reparation, is perhaps the most interesting of the instances noted here. Potentially, the IRO played a significant role in the move towards restitution during the short years of its existence. Further investigations based on sources other than UN Documentation could reveal the extent to which the IRO was materially involved in the drafting of specific laws. The efforts of the Sec-Gen towards the reparation of victims of “medical” experimentation provides great insight into the process by which one such issue was discovered and addressed within the UN at the time. Beyond that, this is an instance in which there is a deeper understanding of the specific involvement of a UN-body with German reparatory legislation. In this case, it amounted to bringing up the issue and urging appropriate action without much involvement in the particulars of the resulting measures. Overall, it should be summarized that there was no consolidated or systematic effort towards the restitution of victims of the Third Reich on the parts of the UN. Rather, the issue appeared and reappeared with some frequency and only in certain cases did the UN take action.

The article outlines general characteristics of the sources of law, regulating relations associated with mergers, consolidations, acquisitions of joint stock companies in Russia and corporations in the United States respectively in the Russian legislation and the legislation of the United States and individual States. Both in Russia and in the USA there is a constitutional separation of powers between the Federal authorities and the Subjects of the Federation/States respectively. In both countries legal regulation of mergers and acquisitions of corporations is carried out first of all by a number of laws. These laws fall into three main groups: securities laws, antitrust (competition) laws and civil and joint-stock legislation in Russia and corporate laws in the US. All the three groups are federal laws in Russia, while in the US the first two are federal too, but the last one is state laws. It is necessary to highlight the important role of judicial decisions in the United States on legal regulation of mergers, acquisitions, takeovers in comparison with Russia, which is due to the differences in the legal systems of the states in question. However, although Russia is not a state of case law, such legal acts as the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Commercial Court will undoubtedly have an impact on law enforcement practice and, consequently, on the regulation of relevant relations. Of particular importance are the findings of the Constitutional Court, whose decisions may cancel acts or their separate provisions provided they are recognized as unconstitutional. Such acts are repealed. Decisions of courts and other bodies based on acts or their separate provisions, recognized by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation unconstitutional, are not subject to execution and shall be revised in accordance with the Federal law. The US case law implies existence of a hierarchy of precedents according to which decisions adopted by the higher courts are binding for cases adjudicated in lower courts. Judicial decisions have a major impact on the regulation of mergers and acquisitions of corporations, in particular, the state corporate Laws. The article analyses the main similarities and differences of sources of legal regulation of mergers, consolidations, acquisitions of joint stock companies in Russia and corporations in the United States.

Though California is recognized for protecting women’s right to choose today, this was not always the case. Abortion was illegal in California, as it was in all other states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; over time, however, California witnessed a series of legal amendments and cases that pressed on its nineteenth-century statute—culminating in the decriminalization of abortion years before Roe v. Wade. This article begins with the history of California abortion legislation, then analyzes recent laws passed elsewhere in the United States, showing how these new laws simply repeat laws previously passed and discarded in California. This overview should prove helpful to citizens and legislators who wish their states to follow suit and protect choice.

As the biggest developing country, China is relatively lagging in the development of laws on environmental protection. With the increasing impact on the environment bring by the enterprises, the application of group liability in the field of environmental torts has become an urgent legal issue to be solved. This paper uses case the study method, the comparative method, and literature study method, taking Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act in the United States as an example, to compare the cases, legislation, and judicial practice of China and the United States in this problem. It is concluded that the current Chinese legislation on group liability and corporate environmental responsibility is insufficient, which affects the application of group liability in environmental tort cases. Based on these shortcomings, this paper draws on the experience of CERCLA and proposes suggestions for improving China’s legislation on this issue. A relatively detailed two-step plan is arranged, including improving and perfecting the existing system of piercing the corporate veil and introducing the Environmental Liability Law.

Cancer is regarded as a global disease and one of the leading killer diseases in the world. The reason why cancer is so widespread and often misunderstood stems from multiple factors, namely, the lack of knowledge about cancer, unfair discrimination of persons living with cancer, inadequate or inappropriate treatment provided to patients, the stigma attached to cancer, misdiagnosis and late diagnosis of persons living with cancer, as well as the inadequate provision of screening programs to detect cancer at an early stage. The combination of these issues raises alarming medico-legal problems that merit further attention. The thesis will explore the origin, nature, philosophical and clinical aspects pertaining to cancer, as well as legal issues related to cancer and oncology. The study will conclude with recommendations aimed at mitigating and addressing the shortcomings that exist in the medico-legal framework. The study will also draw on a legal comparison of relevant South African, English and American laws and regulations. Since this thesis entails focussing on medico-legal principles, the study will draw on aspects of medical law, labour law, law of contract, law of delict, constitutional law and criminal law.
Private Law
LL. D.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
The Catholic Church is widely known for its opposition to birth control. Yet statistics show that the vast majority of American Catholics use birth control. While multiple studies have been conducted on a larger quantitative scale about the use or attitudes of American Catholics toward birth control, there have not been qualitative studies to understand the experiences of Catholics who use contraception. This study is particularly timely given the recent Catholic opposition to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate of employee healthcare provided birth control as well as, the extraordinary synod of bishops to discuss pastoral challenges to family life in October 2015. Fourteen married Catholic women were interviewed about their religious identities and experiences using contraception. Analysis demonstrated how these women constructed a religious identity by maximizing certain aspects, such as prayer and service, while minimizing other aspects, such as individual autonomy and denominational distinctions, of their religious identity. However in order to cope with the tension between their salient religious identity and their contraceptive decision making women utilizing multiple mechanisms. Specifically, they made boundaries around which types of contraception were acceptable and limits to church or individual authority; they justified their decisions based on medical necessity or betrayal they felt from the church; they legitimated their decisions by discussing God’s control and their husband’s perceptions of NFP; and they normalized their decisions through their desire to care for their children and be sexually intimate with their husbands. This research illuminates unique challenges that religious women face in their sexual decision making and sexual health practices that can help sex educators and health care providers care for women. Additionally, the Catholic Church and American Catholics make up huge forces in education, health care, charity, politics, and employment. However, not all Catholics follow the rules of the church. Those members who remain an active part of the Catholic Church, such as the practicing Catholics in this study can influence the way the church changes. By better understanding the experience of these dissenters, social researchers may be able to better understand the future of the Catholic Church.

AbstractIn the evolving landscape of healthcare, the tension between patient privacy and the necessity for information sharing presents complex ethical and legal dilemmas. Medical confidentiality is not an absolute principle; laws, such as HIPAA in the United States, provide both protective frameworks and conditions for permissible breaches. These may include mandated reporting of communicable diseases for public health, “duty to warn” cases where imminent harm is threatened, and legal mandates like court orders. With the digitization of healthcare records and the rise of telemedicine, maintaining the integrity of confidential information has become even more challenging. Issues extend to parental access to minors’ records, access granted to family members of incapacitated adults, and the use of biobanking in research. While technology poses new risks, it also offers ways to enhance security and confidentiality. The healthcare sector must balance the utilization of technology with robust measures to mitigate risks to patient privacy. Promoting a culture of confidentiality remains crucial to address these challenges and protect the privacy rights of patients.

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter examines the law on abortion, beginning with a survey of the ongoing debate over the moral legitimacy of abortion. It then examines the current legal position, and considers how the Abortion Act 1967, as amended, works in practice. It looks at recent controversies over sex-selective abortion and considers the prospects for law reform. Finally, the chapter looks briefly at the regulation of abortion in Northern Ireland, Ireland, and the United States.

This chapter examines Supreme Court cases that were filed over the issue of abortion in Texas. Texas figured in two of the three major decisions on abortion laws in the United States: Roe v. Wade and Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The late 1960s witnessed the introduction of various legislative measures to reform abortion laws. Reform measures based on the American Law Institute proposal were initiated in thirty state legislatures, including Texas in 1967. The same year the American Medical Association backed abortion liberalization, abortions were first mentioned at the Supreme Court. The chapter first discusses the case about the right of married couples to obtain contraceptives, which an 1879 Connecticut law severely restricted, and another case, Griswold v. Connecticut, the third attempt at the Court to kill the Connecticut law. It also considers cases involving Roy Lucas, Texas's mandatory sonogram bill, and Texas Senate HB 2.

The right to recognition of gender identity was recognised to transgender persons in 2002 by well-known decision of the European Court of Human Rights in case Goodwin v United Kingdom. Thus, the Court established positive obligation on all Contracting States to enable legal recognition of preferred gender in cases of transsexuality. It was left to national legislations to decide what requirements are necessary for legal recognition of preferred gender. Establishing the right to gender identity means also to determine the court or administrative authority with jurisdiction to make decisions that are legal grounds for changing of gender data in birth records. However, national legislations of Contracting States differ greatly from one country to another in many issues concerning enforcement of the right to gender identity. Those issues refer primarily to gender recognition requirements and legal effects of decision on recognition of preferred gender. The focus in this paper will be on the need of taking certain medical services as requirements for legal change of sex in the birth records. Special attention will be paid to the latest amendments of the domestic legislation on registers of civil status, as well as recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights in case A.P., Garçon and Nicot v. France from 2017.

Libya introduced four laws between 1972 and 1974 that regulated ḥudūd crimes and other related offences. In 1994 another statute was introduced, which ordered the courts to follow the classical rules of retaliation and blood money in homicide cases. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Constitution 1971 states that “Islam is the official religion of the Union, and that Islamic shariah is the main source of its legislation.” This last phrase is understood to mean that, in addition to shariah, other sources may also be utilised for purposes of legislation. The formula thus provides for a mixed legal system. Qatar Penal Code 2004 incorporates the shariah ḥudūd punishments for various offenses. Article 1 of this law states that the provisions of Islamic law concerning qiṣāṣ and taʿzīr offences also apply if the defendant or victim is a Muslim.

Historically, transracial adoption has been controversial in the United States. Even with legislation supporting the adoption of children who are not the same race or ethnicity as their parents, debate has continued about the well-being and racial socialization of transracially adopted children. Transracial adoptions comprise close to half of adoptions in the United States and most frequently involve White parents raising children of color. This chapter reviews what is known from the social sciences about family dynamics and child outcomes among transracial adoptive families in the United States. It also highlights pivotal court cases in custody battles related to transracial adoption, including recent controversy surrounding the Indian Child Welfare Act (1978). An intersectionality framework is used to represent diversity among transracial adoptive families, including those with sexual minority parents and formed through different pathways (i.e., international, private domestic, public child welfare). Finally, the chapter discusses evidence-based recommendations informing relevant laws and policies.

By its decision in case Goodwin v. United Kingdom (2002), The European Court of Human Rights has recognized the positive obligation of states to provide conditions for the legal recognition of preferred gender in the context of the right to respect for private life. In this regard, the Court emphasized gender identity as an important element of personal identity and an integral part of the transgender person's right to private life. On the other hand, states have kept their margin of appreciation regarding requirements needed for changing gender data in civil registries or in other words legal recognition of preferred gender. After Goodwin case, that has laid foundations for the rights of transgender people to gender identity, further development of this right was set by the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in case A.P., Garçon and Nicot v. France (2017). By this decision, the Court has further narrow the margin of appreciation removing imposing of sterilisation as a requirement for legal gender recognition. Finally, The European Court of Human Rights has taken the position in the latest judgment X and Y. v. Romania (2021) that conditioning legal recognition of preferred gender with surgical interventions of gender reassignment represents breach of the right to respect private life. Thus, the Court further approached Council of Europe Resolution 1728 (2010) according to which states are suggested to remove from the requirements for legal gender recognition the subjection to any medical service of gender reassignment, including hormone therapy. Domestic legislation has retained only hormone therapy as a necessary condition for legal gender reassignment. Although this solution is in accordance with the latest case law of the European Court of Human Rights, another step is needed to make the exercise of the right to gender identity adjusted to the "soft law" of the Council of Europe and the bodies under the auspices of the United Nations.

This paper explores the essence and activities of Innocence Projects and the broader Innocence Movement in the United States and Europe, adopting positive practices for potential amendments to Croatian legislation to protect the rights of wrongfully convicted persons as a special group of victims. Furthermore, it examines the opportunities and obstacles in conducting postconviction DNA testing within Croatian law. Furthermore, it showcases preliminary findings from field research conducted across four county courts in Croatia, highlighting challenges in establishing new evidence (“novum”) and reopening criminal cases. The methodology integrates various approaches: the historical method traces the evolution of Innocence Projects in the US and Europe; the theoretical method provides an analytical framework for understanding the principles underpinning the Innocence Movement and common reasons for miscarriages of justice; the comparative method contrasts operational models in adversarial and continental law systems; the normative method details Croatian laws on DNA evidence; and the case-study method reviews judicial practices in the County Courts of Split, Rijeka, Osijek, and Zadar. The research spans cases from 2011 to 2021 and includes semistructured interviews with judges to explore challenges in renewing criminal procedures, issues with DNA evidence, and the implications of current legislation. The paper is divided into three parts: the first part introduces the origins, nature, and scope of Innocence Projects in the US and Europe; the second part focuses on the Croatian Innocence Project and relevant laws; and the third part presents field research findings, court practices, and Supreme Court positions regarding the novum criteria. The final chapter summarizes practices and experiences, offering recommendations and conclusions.

Abstract In one of the most important chapters of this Handbook, the authors examine implications for health policy at (a) federal, state, and local levels in the United States, (b) the private health sector level, and (c) government and private health system levels in other countries. This chapter begins by defining public policy and health policy, which are generally understood as laws, rules, and regulations affecting environments in which people live, work, learn, and play. Next, the authors highlight the sensitive nature and limitations of health policies, particularly those viewed as affecting religious freedoms or interfering with state-church separation. They make policy recommendations in 10 areas for authoritative bodies to consider that affect public health, emphasizing the need for health policies and their accompanying legislation to be religion-friendly and religion-respectful, viewing religion as a resource that promotes health in most cases (with some exceptions that are notable).

The purpose defines health insurance as a form of social protection in the field of health care, which provides guarantees of medical care in case of loss of health for any reason, including in connection with illness or accident. There is a mechanism for providing health insurance through the formation of personal insurance funds designed to finance medical care under insurance programs. The directions of improvement of legislative regulation of health insurance are offered. The peculiarities of the formation of health insurance programs by insurance companies, ensuring effective cooperation with medical institutions are determined. Theoretical bases of medical insurance, study by domestic scientists, problems of introduction of medical insurance and prospects of introduction and development of medical insurance in Ukraine are covered. Results. Ukraine remains united a post-Soviet country where compulsory health insurance for all citizens has not been introduced. On the law why the order of formation and distribution of health insurance funds, mechanisms of cooperation is not fixed state and insurance companies in the field of insurance medicine. The above issues need further research and proposals for the development of health insurance in Ukraine in order to effectively ensure the financing of medicine and protection of citizens’ rights health care. The solution is especially important problems of health insurance in the process of health care reform. Value/originality. Compulsory health insurance can be provided by the implementation of insurance companies that have a license for such insurance. It should be noted that in many countries around the world, such services are provided, in particular, to certain categories of the population, and priority, expensive programs. A prerequisite for this insurance is the creation of preferential tax terms for insurance companies, guarantees of fulfillment of their obligations under compulsory health insurance. The next way is to form a fund of compulsory health insurance based on contributions from employers, workers and the state. The formation of such a fund is based on the interest of employers in the health of employees, as the main element of the production process. Objective necessity of formation of such fund also due to the provision of social funding th health insurance. Social health insurance provides to meet the needs of citizens in medical services, regardless of purchasing power. And for children, students, people of retirement age contributions will be paid by the state. To optimally determine the tax burden for employers and citizens, compulsory health insurance programs should include only basic medical services, especially outpatient treatment and hospital stay. The list of basic services in the development of health insurance programs should be includes the provision of basic drugs, ancillary medicines, providing medical rehabilitation in cases of severe illness or disability, special early diagnosis and disease prevention services.