Suchergebnisse

This Article examines the Supreme Court's interpretive approach in recent tax cases. Part I of the Article sets the stage by describing the Court's interpretive approach, its focus on the relative determinacy of statutory language, and the backdrop of Chevron. Part II examines the effect of these issues on tax law, focusing on three cases that construe the same Code provision, section 104(a)(2), but apply quite different interpretive approaches. In United States v. Burke, the Court appeared to find the provision ambiguous and relied in part upon an interpretation of the statute contained in a Treasury regulation. Subsequently, in Commissioner v. Schleier, the Court applied a plain meaning analysis to find an additional "independent" statutory requirement. Most recently, in O'Gilvie v. United States, the Court acknowledged the existence of a linguistic ambiguity in the same language interpreted by the Court in Schleier and construed it by reference to a contextual examination of the history and tax-related purpose of the provision. The inconsistency of the analysis in these cases is evidence that the Court's evolving approach to statutory interpretation is doctrinally unstable. Moreover, a close reading of the cases reveals unresolved doctrinal conflicts regarding the scope and meaning of the Code provision. Although those conflicts have now been largely resolved by Congress in legislation enacted last summer, the cases illustrate the doctrinal incoherence that can result from or be intensified by the Court's inconsistent approaches to its interpretive task. Part m outlines some of the normative questions that must be addressed if the Court continues on its present course, including an evaluation of the costs of relying on legislative "correction." When the Court discerns plain meaning, it analyzes the statute without consideration of extrinsic contextual sources of interpretation and without deference to the administrative agency charged with its enforcement. Professor Schauer argues that this approach is a normatively beneficial and efficient decision-making model for a Court with such diverse political and jurisprudential outlooks and that it also protects the public from captured administrative agencies. The question remains whether the costs of incoherence in a complex statutory scheme outweigh these supposed benefits.

The focus of this article is the issue of integrating statutory and other law. A substantial number of statutory cases decided during October Term 1993 offered the Court a choice between treating statutes as static, isolated instructions from higher authority, and regarding them as part of a "unified system of judge-made and statute law." It tended to make the former choice, one that segregates statutes from the common law. The argument here is that, in the process, it diminishes both statute and common law, both legislature and court. Integrating statutes and common law has the opposite effect. Legislative influence and statutes are extended when statutory policy becomes the basis for analogical reasoning to decide cases that have not been provided for. The judicial function is also augmented if the world in which judges act to promote coherence includes statutory as well as judge-made law. Thus, to include statutes implies that judges may shape their readings within the possibilities offered by the text, over time, as changing general law and the social circumstances to which it responds may suggest.

International audience ; Indicators of agricultural production diversity and market access and/or participation have often been used to try to understand how agricultural production and markets influence dietary diversity of rural smallholder households. Based on a standardized search strategy, 37 studies investigating the association between an indicator of agricultural production diversity and any indicator of dietary diversity were reviewed. The characteristics of the indicators of agricultural production diversity, as well as indicators of market access and/or participation, were assessed. This review demonstrated the wide range of indicators; four types and 14 subtypes of indicators of agricultural production diversity were found in the 37 studies, and three types and 14 subtypes of indicators of market access and/or participation were found in 25 studies. While diversity of measurement ideas allows flexibility, it precludes comparability with other studies and might make it difficult to build a robust body of evidence of the impact of agriculture at farm household level on food security, diet, and nutrition.

International audience ; Indicators of agricultural production diversity and market access and/or participation have often been used to try to understand how agricultural production and markets influence dietary diversity of rural smallholder households. Based on a standardized search strategy, 37 studies investigating the association between an indicator of agricultural production diversity and any indicator of dietary diversity were reviewed. The characteristics of the indicators of agricultural production diversity, as well as indicators of market access and/or participation, were assessed. This review demonstrated the wide range of indicators; four types and 14 subtypes of indicators of agricultural production diversity were found in the 37 studies, and three types and 14 subtypes of indicators of market access and/or participation were found in 25 studies. While diversity of measurement ideas allows flexibility, it precludes comparability with other studies and might make it difficult to build a robust body of evidence of the impact of agriculture at farm household level on food security, diet, and nutrition.