Suchergebnisse

The topic of abortion was in the limelight again in Dobbs v Jackson, where the US Supreme Court overturned the decision of Roe v Wade, 'which guaranteed women and pregnant people a constitutional right to abortion'. While not bound by the judgment, this gives us an opportunity to reflect on the current law in South Africa which regulates the termination of pregnancy. The primary piece of legislation which governs abortion is the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. Section 2 of the Act lists the grounds under which one may lawfully terminate a pregnancy. One of those grounds relates to the period of the 13th up until the 20th week of the gestation period, and states that if a medical practitioner, after consultation with the pregnant woman, is of the opinion that the continued pregnancy would significantly affect the social or economic circumstances of the woman, then the pregnancy may be lawfully terminated. The question is: What exactly is meant by 'social grounds'? This article considers this aspect from a legal perspective and attempts to provide clarity on the issue, in the hope that this will be of assistance to medical practitioners who are concerned about the outcome of their actions, when assisting persons in this position.

"Explores new scientific principles on which sustainability and zero-waste engineering can be based Presents new models for energy efficiency, cooling processes, and natural chemical and material selection in industrial applications and business - Explains how "green buildings" and "green homes" can be efficiently built and operated with zero waste - Offers case histories and successful experiments in sustainability and zero-waste engineering"--

This Review engages Tim Wu's book, The Curse of Bigness, to explain the significance of the current rupture in antitrust and to situate it within a broader intellectual trajectory. Debates over the foundational purpose of antitrust are not new, and examining how this latest clash fits alongside previous contestations is essential for understanding what has yielded the current contestability and assessing the competing visions. Part I of this Review summarizes Wu's chief contributions in his recent work, focusing on three tenets that form the basis of the book. Part II offers an analytic breakdown of the overhaul in antitrust doctrine that is the subject of Wu's critique, tracing the transformation of antitrust to changes in descriptive claims and normative assumptions that the Chicago School introduced. I argue that framing Chicago's interventions this way lets us map the current antitrust debate with greater coherence. Doing so, moreover, reveals the limits of proffered correctives to the Chicago School and underscores the need for what has been called a "Neo-Brandeisian" program in law and political economy. Part III argues that a central component of the Neo-Brandeisian project should include reforming the institutional structure of antitrust law and policy. Although most critiques of present-day antitrust focus on doctrinal rules and the substantive legal framework that governs antitrust analysis, the exclusive reliance on a common law approach to antitrust is a key source and enabler of current dysfunctions. Complementing this common law structure with an administrative approach and adopting clear rules that curb judicial discretion would help democratize antitrust in the ways that Wu and other reformers champion.

A handful of digital platforms mediate a growing share of online commerce and communications. By structuring access to markets, these firms function as gatekeepers for billions of dollars in economic activity. One feature dominant digital platforms share is that they have inte­grated across business lines such that they both operate a platform and market their own goods and services on it. This structure places domi­nant platforms in direct competition with some of the businesses that de­pend on them, creating a conflict of interest that platforms can exploit to further entrench their dominance, thwart competition, and stifle innovation. This Article argues that the potential hazards of integration by dominant tech platforms invite recovering structural separations. Separations regimes limit the lines of business in which a firm can engage, either by proscribing entry in certain markets or by requiring that distinct lines of business be operated through separate affiliates. Previously implemented both as a standard regulatory intervention and key antitrust remedy in network industries, structural separations have been largely abandoned. At the same time that lawmakers have weak­ened or eliminated sector-specific regulatory regimes, judicial interpre­tation of antitrust law has drastically narrowed the forms of vertical conduct and structures that register as anticompetitive. And when antitrust enforcers have targeted these forms of conduct and structures, they have applied remedies that generally (1) fail to target the under­lying source of the problem and (2) overwhelm the institutional capacities of the actors assigned to oversee them. Neglecting struc­tural remedies results in both substantive harms and institutional misalignments – effects that are especially pronounced in digital platform markets. This Article seeks to give structural separations a seat back at the table. Tracing the history of separations reveals that they have been motivated by a host of functional goals, ranging from fair competition and system resiliency to media diversity and administrability. Recalling this broader set of concerns brings into focus the range of factors at stake when dealing with dominant intermediaries and invites consideration of the degree to which separations in platform markets would also respond to a diverse set of problems.