Online research in philosophy

The first main purpose of this paper is to identify and to distinguish between a number of problems and conflicts of interest in the area where medical personal registers are used in research, particularly when the registers are computerized. The second main purpose is to suggest and comment upon a method for solving or minimizing such conflicts of interest.

This Note considers the impact of the changing nature of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the criminalization of HIV exposure in the United States. The Note describes contemporary HIV/AIDS criminal transmission statutes, examining the history of these statutes' implementation, the varying nature of the statutes themselves, and academic criticisms of their effectiveness. Today, because of the effect of HAART on both the transmission of HIV and on the strains of the disease itself, the world of HIV/AIDS is far more complicated than the framers of these statutes could have imagined. The Note continues to explore the changing HIV/AIDS epidemic with an eye to explaining both the policy issues it presents today and the issues which it may present in the future. The Note describes how treatments for HIV/AIDS are undermining the already-shaky rationale for the criminalization of HIV exposure, and ends arguing that the solution to this problem is not a revision of these statutes, but their repeal. Pre-existing criminal statutes are better prepared to deal with the challenges the changing epidemic will present.

The Anglo-Australian literature on the interaction between choice-of-law and statutes identifies two competing methods for determining the application of forum statutes in transnational litigation. The classical method is that statutes of any legal system, including the forum, should be applied only if they are indicated as part of the governing law by the relevant choice-of-law rules. The alternative method requires that courts of the forum give priority to forum statutes, by determining whether those statutes apply of their own force, before considering choice-of-law. Recent cases suggest that the courts are likely to apply the second method, and are likely to conclude that forum statutes are applicable of their own force. This article argues that this method has the propensity to invest too many forum statutes with an internationally mandatory effect, and that it undermines the important internationalist objectives of the conflict of laws. These problems are compounded when one takes into account the ability of claimants to choose their forum, and by this means to manipulate the extent to which legislation is applied. The article concludes that the first method is superior and should be applied, unless forum legislation specifically states that it has an internationally mandatory effect.

From scientia to science Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9483-3 Authors Peter R. Anstey, Department of Philosophy, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, 9054 New Zealand Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.