In December, 2010, Canada's 6 year old Assisted Human Reproduction Act was successfully challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada. There may be important implications for public health and the evolution of reproductive technologies in this country.

Can the modern economy function without a market for interestbased credit? This question has acquired some urgency in the wake of the recent Shariat Court ruling banning interest in Pakistan. Some pundits have pronounced that great harm will result from the banning of interest. Actually, such pronouncements are based on a lack of understanding of both the modern economic system, as well as the ...

consent from patients, substitute decision-makers or an independent tribunal in order to pull the plug on life-sustaining treatments they deem futile? An informal survey of Canadian case law indicates that courts have been all over the map on the issue, which has recently resurfaced in the headlines as part of a dispute between two physicians at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto,...

In this study, we explore the problems and the potential involved in combining social science and legal decision making, drawing primarily on examples from the United States. We also briefly discuss the situation in Israel, which provides an interesting comparison. We suggest that a complex act of translation is needed in order for law to incorporate social science findings, particularly in lig...

This article reviews recent research related to impaired insight in schizophrenia and its consequences for cognitive, behavioral, legal, and treatment compliance issues affecting this population. It discusses efforts to find the neurobiological basis for lack of insight and the various structures or circuits of the brain that have been implicated. In the search for a more reliable and valid mea...

DEEP BLUE’s victoryoverKasparov has confirmedtheideas of thegenuineartificialintelligence researchers, but – and that is more important – it has also opened the eyes of the disbelievers. The latter group is now given to understand that (i) scientific progress in mimicking human chess performances can go as far as outperforming the World Champion, and that (ii) progress in one domain may be tran...

We assess the credit market impact of allowing mortgage “strip-down” as a foreclosureprevention measure, where strip-down reduces the principal of underwater residential mortgages to the current market value of the property for homeowners in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Our identification is provided by a series of U.S. court decisions that introduced strip-down in parts of the U.S. and a Supreme Cou...

The reliability of confessions is subject to a variety of factors, some of which give rise to expert testimony. To the degree that prosecutors construe the determination of reliability as an objective standard, they may attempt to bar testimony. Moreover, when the testimony is theoretical rather than clinical, there are additional challenges. Depending on jurisdiction, the admissibility of expe...