Child labor in soccer

Many laws seek to protect children from being exploited in the labor market, and there is widespread repugnance when it appears that such exploitation is taking place. (Think of the issues associated with children sewing soccer balls in Pakistan...)

But minors can also be professional athletes, and that turns out to be an issue in the Euro 2024 competitions, because star Spanish player Lamine Yamal is only 16 years old. (He was scouted at 6...)

Here's the story

Why Spain are Risking 30,000 Euro Fine by Playing Lamine Yamal at Euro 2024, by Robin Mumford 

"Yamal has started in each of Spain's group games so far, against Croatia and Italy, but a German law put Spain at risk of a €30,000 fine for his involvement in the game against Italy. That's because the German Youth Protection Act prohibits under-18s from working beyond a certain time - usually 8pm.

"Spain's first group game kicked off at 6pm local time, but their game against Italy started at 9pm. While there is an exceptional rule within the German law that authorises athletes to work until 11pm, the match finished very close to that time anyway, and post-match showers and interviews are also considered within the realms of labour, which means Spain may very well have met the conditions to be hit with a fine."

HT: Peter Biro

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The Centre for Sport and Human Rights has a White Paper called

CHILD LABOUR IN SPORT. Protecting the Rights of Child Athletes

Free speech and universities

 At Stanford, recent event are helping us remember that our speech policy is the First Amendment.

That hasn't always been front of mind at Stanford, and now that it is, it is still distressing to see a student wearing a Hamas headband on campus, but it's worth remembering that freedom of speech is important, and important at universities. (The First Amendment is generally understood to also imply freedom of association, so you should feel free not to hire a Hamas supporter who graduates from Stanford.)

Here's the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Because the First Amendment only restricts government from abridging the freedom of speech, private universities (although not public ones) are entitled to have more restrictive speech codes.  But in California, the 1992 Leonard Law forbids private secular universities from restricting student speech  protected by the First Amendment.

In 1994, a court ruled (in the case of Corry v. Stanford) that a Stanford prohibition of certain "fighting words" when addressed to individuals violated the Leonard Law. Stanford's then president, Gerhard Casper, subsequently addressed the faculty senate, giving his thoughts on speech at a university:

Statement on Corry vs. Stanford University (by Gerhard Casper)

Here are his concluding sentences:

"Harassment, threats or intimidation continue to be unacceptable. Should they go beyond what is protected by law, we will invoke university disciplinary procedures. Otherwise, we shall continue to do what we always have done. We shall counter prejudice with reason. The work of reason is hard work, as is the work of building and maintaining a great private university. I invite all faculty, students and staff to continue the work of reason."

The harmful human rights impact of unjustified criminalization of individuals and communities: ICJ statement

 The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has published a set of legal principles  for a human rights-based approach to criminal laws proscribing conduct associated with sex, reproduction, drug use, HIV, homelessness and poverty.

The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty

It opens with a foreword by Edwin Cameron, Retired Justice, Constitutional Court of South Africa, Inspecting Judge, Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Service.  The first paragraphs are:

"From long years in the law, and as a proudly gay man, I know profoundly how criminal law signals which groups are deemed worthy of protection – and which of condemnation and ostracism. In this way, the criminal law performs an expressive function – and it has dramatic consequences on people’s lives. It sometimes entails a harshly discriminatory impact on groups identified with the disapproved or stigmatised conduct.

"To add to this, criminal proscriptions may reinforce structural inequalities; they may codify discrimination, invest them with the law’s power and may foster stigma. All this may wreak terrible harm.

"Criminal law may thus impel hostility, exclusion, inequality, discrimination and marginalization of individuals and groups, sometimes to the point of violence. As a result, human rights, democratic values and social inclusiveness all suffer." 

...

"The Principles are based on general principles of criminal law and international human rights law and standards. They seek to offer a clear, accessible and workable legal framework – as well as practical legal guidance – on applying the criminal law to conduct associated with:

† sexual and reproductive health and rights, including termination of pregnancy;

† consensual sexual activities, including in contexts such as sex outside marriage, same-sex sexual relations, adolescent sexual activity and sex work;

† gender identity and gender expression;

† HIV non-disclosure, exposure or transmission;

† drug use and the possession of drugs for personal use; and

† homelessness and poverty. 

***********

And here are the first paragraphs of the Introduction:

"Criminal law is among the harshest of tools at the disposal of the State to exert control over individuals. As such, it ought to be a measure of last resort, where other less restrictive means of achieving legitimate interests are insufficient. However, globally, States have exhibited a growing trend towards overcriminalization.

While retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation are generally considered to be its main purposes, criminal law may also perform an expressive function, through public condemnation of certain conduct seen as deserving reprobation and punishment. The desire to harness this expressive function is a critical factor contributing to the proliferation of criminal law.

The unjustified criminalization of individuals and sometimes entire communities is increasingly impeding progress in advancing human rights in many areas, including: racial and gender equality; reproductive autonomy; disability; economic justice; civil liberties; sexual orientation; gender identity; education; youth development; and public health.

Moreover, in recent years, in some quarters, there has been a backlash against human rights, especially against sexual and reproductive health and rights and the human rights of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, gender diverse and intersex persons, as well as against sex workers, people who use drugs and people experiencing homelessness and/or living in poverty.

"In particular, there has been continued use and, in some cases, a new proliferation of arbitrary criminal laws proscribing conduct associated with sex, reproduction, drug use and the possession of drugs for personal use, HIV, homelessness and poverty. These laws have led to egregious human rights violations, including by engendering and perpetuating stigma, harmful gender stereotypes and discrimination based on grounds such as sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and other protected fundamental characteristics. 

"Unless criminal laws proscribing the above-mentioned conduct are directed at coercion or force or otherwise at the absence of consent, their mere existence – let alone their threatened or actual enforcement – violates human rights."

**********

See Saturday's post, concerning Canada's "The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act," which is designed to protect sex workers.

Open letters--democracy and academic freedom, in Iran and Turkey

 Around this time of year I think of the various open letters I sign, from among many that I'm invited to sign.  (I try to avoid signing letters in which it might appear that I'm offering expertise where in fact I don't have any--e.g. letters that make macroeconomic predictions or prescriptions.)  But some of the letters I end up signing protest injustices of various sorts, and seem to require only the kind of expertise that comes with being a citizen in a democracy or a professor at a university.

Here are two that I've recently signed.

The first concerns widely reported events in Iran.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF IRAN. Over 120 Nobel Laureates from around the world stand in solidarity with the calls for justice and freedom in the wake of the death of 22 year-old Mahsa Amini.

Here's the beginning:

"Nobel Laureates from around the world stand in solidarity with the courageous actions of the people of Iran and join them in their calls for justice and freedom, and for the protection of human rights for all citizens of the country.

"Nobel laureates condemn the Iranian authorities’ violence against women and protestors.

“We condemn these barbaric actions toward women and protesters in Iran,” said laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2003. “Women should be free and there must be removal of all legal discriminations against women.”

***********

The second concerns a colleague at a Turkish university:

Prof. Dr. Ünal Zenginobuz’un ve Boğaziçi Üniversitesi’nin yanındayız.  We stand by Prof. Ünal Zenginobuz and Boğaziçi University.

The International Academics’ Statement:

"We are outraged by the suspension of Prof. Ünal Zenginobuz from teaching at Boğaziçi University for a period of three months, thereby preventing his academic and educational activities, on grounds of an investigation into actions conducted while he held the position of Department Head.

...

"Cutting Prof. Zenginobuz off from the academic world will harm his students, his university, his country, and the international academic community. This is simply unacceptable. What makes this unjust decision even more grave is that this is a continuation of developments at Boğaziçi University since January 2021 that have been in violation of academic autonomy and merit. Boğaziçi University enjoys success and worldwide renown thanks to values including academic merit, democratic governance, and dedication to public service, which Prof. Zenginobuz represents at its best.

"We stand by Prof. Zenginobuz and Boğaziçi University."

Do (some) kidney donors have a right to donate?

 Here's an article that considers whether some potential kidney donors, who have more appetite for risk than some transplant teams, might nevertheless have a right to donate.

Donor Autonomy and Self-Sacrifice in Living Organ Donation: An Ethical Legal and Psychological Aspects of Transplantation (ELPAT) View  , by Nizam Mamode, Kristof Van Assche2, Lisa Burnapp, Aisling Courtney, David van Dellen, Mireille Houthoff, Hannah Maple, Greg Moorlock, Frank J. M. F. Dor, and Annette Lennerling, Transplant International, 35, 2022, https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/articles/10.3389/ti.2022.10131, DOI=10.3389/ti.2022.10131    

ABSTRACT: "Clinical teams understandably wish to minimise risks to living kidney donors undergoing surgery, but are often faced with uncertainty about the extent of risk, or donors who wish to proceed despite those risks. Here we explore how these difficult decisions may be approached and consider the conflicts between autonomy and paternalism, the place of self-sacrifice and consideration of risks and benefits. Donor autonomy should be considered as in the context of the depth and strength of feeling, understanding risk and competing influences. Discussion of risks could be improved by using absolute risk, supra-regional MDMs and including the risks to the clinical team as well as the donor. The psychological effects on the donor of poor outcomes for the untransplanted recipient should also be taken into account. There is a lack of detailed data on the risks to the donor who has significant co-morbidities."

"The donation of a solid organ for transplantation by a person who is alive at the time represents a unique event in healthcare, since the donor will gain no physical benefit from undergoing major surgery, which has a low but nevertheless significant rate of major complications and death (1, 2). Living donors are usually highly motivated individuals, whose appetite for risk differs substantially from that of the healthcare team (3). This may lead to conflicts between the clinical team and potential donors-some examples are given in Figure 1. Were the decisions of the clinical teams correct? This article explores the issues raised by these cases and others, and considers the principles which might help to guide decision-making. It is an overview aimed at healthcare professionals, and is not intended to be an in-depth ethical review."

***********

And here's a news story from People.com about just such a donor, who exercised his right to donate:

When His Patient Couldn't Find a Kidney Donor, This Doctor Gave His: 'It's a Feeling That's Hard to Describe'  "I was always in awe of people who donated organs. It fascinated me. And I soon decided that I didn't just want to talk the talk," said Dr. Aji Djamali    

By Johnny Dodd 

"Djamali, a nephrologist who chairs the department of medicine at Maine Medical Center Department, was wheeled into an operating room and surgeons removed his kidney. Within minutes another team went to work transplanting the organ into Jartz, who had been diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD) — an inherited disorder that causes the kidneys to enlarge and stop working — seven years earlier. (The two men met when Jartz was Djamali's patient at the UW Health Transplant Center in Madison, Wisconsin.)

"For Djamali, who was back at work two days later (Jartz was discharged after five days), being able to donate an organ was the culmination of a dream that began decades earlier while in medical school.

...

"Looking back on the experience, Djamali struggles to find the words to properly convey what it feels like to give a part of his body to another person.

"It's a feeling that's hard to describe," he says. "It's like watching your child being born. It's just this sensation of freedom, elation and happiness."

"But, of course, there was another reason why he did it. The veteran physician knew that the story of his actions might spur someone else to perform a similar act.

"Half of the reason was to help John," says Djamali, who is in touch with Jartz on a daily basis. "But the other reason was to encourage people to help others, to inspire them to consider stepping up and helping the 90,000-plus patients across the nation who are on waiting lists to get a transplant."

Data use agreements, and university research policies regarding restrictions on publication

 Since the beginning of the year, I've been sent several Data Use Agreements from organizations interested in the possibility of sharing some of their data for research purposes.  I've had to decline the opportunity more than once, because of publication restrictions that conflict with Stanford research policies (and those of most other universities, I think, out of concern for academic freedom, and to keep academic publications free from selection bias concerning the research findings).

The relevant Stanford policies are here:   https://doresearch.stanford.edu/policies/research-policy-handbook/conduct-research/openness-research

The most relevant paragraphs are these:

"C. Publication Delays

"In a program of sponsored research, provision may be made in the contractual agreement between Stanford and the sponsor for a delay in the publication of research results, in the following circumstances:

"For a short delay (the period of delay not to exceed 90 days), for patenting purposes or for sponsor review of and comment on manuscripts, providing that no basis exists at the beginning of the project to expect that the sponsor would attempt either to suppress publication or to impose substantive changes in the manuscripts.

"For a longer delay in the case of multi-site clinical research (the period of delay not to exceed 24 months from the completion of research at all sites), where a publication committee receives data from participating sites and makes decisions about joint publications. Such delays are permitted only if the Stanford investigator is assured the ability to publish without restrictions after the specified delay."

**************

Alex Chan points me to this article in Science by some of our Stanford colleagues:

Waiting for data: Barriers to executing data use agreements  by Michelle M. Mello, George Triantis, Robyn Stanton, Erik Blumenkranz, David M. Studdert,   Science  10 Jan 2020: Vol. 367, Issue 6474, pp. 150-152 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz7028

Here's a figure from the paper that makes clear that concerns about publication often are serious obstacles (and that concerns about indemnification clauses are frequent obstacles).

"The third set of issues relates to clashes between DUA negotiators over what is and is not acceptable in the contract. Negotiators reported that the most common and serious of these substantive issues related to provisions concerning information privacy and security, indemnification, and the definition of confidential information; provisions concerning publication rights and ownership of academic researchers' work product were less commonly in dispute but serious problems when they were. These are no mere matters of “legalese”; each implicates potentially important risks to the university and faculty member.

...

"Indemnification is another actionable area. At least where low-risk data are involved, university contract negotiators may be spending more time on these provisions than is warranted. If good privacy and security protections are in place, the risk of a data breach is low, and haggling over who pays in the unlikely event of a breach that causes harm should not obstruct timely data transfers for research. Yet, negotiators at 13 of 48 universities had walked away from a negotiation because of indemnification issues.

"When it comes to provisions safeguarding publication rights and ownership of faculty members' work product, on the other hand, universities must remain resolute. These provisions implicate core values of the university and of open science. A potential strategy for minimizing haggling over non-negotiable issues is for universities as a group to more clearly signal their unified position. Existing university policies setting forth institutional commitments to academic freedom and policies concerning IP are helpful in communicating norms, but even more helpful would be a universal DUA template."

Assisted suicide, the debate continues in England and Switzerland

Assisted suicide, a widely repugnant transaction, continues to be the subject of public discussion in England. The Telegraph reports a new poll: Assisted suicide: 4 in 5 say do not prosecute.

"The public’s support for a change in the law on assisted suicide and euthanasia was uncovered by the YouGov poll following a succession of high profile court cases.
Three quarters of those polled said the law should be amended to allow assisted suicide, a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison. "...

"Sir Terry Pratchett, the author who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, is due to deliver a lecture in which he will call for assisted suicide "tribunals" that would give the terminally ill permission to end their lives. In the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, he will offer himself as a test case for just such a tribunal... Sir Terry, who prefers the term "assisted death", will say that permission to end his life will make each day more precious, and that doctors should not be forced to help the terminally ill to die. ... "If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice." "

The WSJ has an article about the Swiss assisted suicide clinic Dignitas, and the debate going on in Switzerland about the the laws governing assisted suicide:
Assisted-Suicide Pioneer Stirs a Legal Backlash

"From the start, Mr. Minelli has kicked up controversy for his willingness to help foreigners die. Most groups in Switzerland don't assist foreigners. Dignitas only helps foreigners. The number of foreigners Dignitas helps each year—132 in 2007, compared to 91 in 2003—has increasingly left the Swiss uncomfortable with the country's growing reputation for "suicide tourism." As of the end of last year, Dignitas had helped a total of 1,046 people to commit suicide. "...

"Under Swiss law, it is illegal for a person to assist a suicide for their own "selfish" reasons. But there are otherwise no limits on helping someone to die. By contrast, most countries allowing assisted suicide require the person to be terminally ill or demand that a doctor assist the suicide. Switzerland is also the only country permitting right-to-die organizations to help foreigners die.
"At the moment, there is really no law," says Andreas Brunner, a Zurich prosecutor who has fought for greater restrictions on right-to-die organizations, particularly Dignitas. "You have to have some rules and standards. The worst solution is what we have now."
As medical advances prolong lives even for the seriously ill, the debate over assisted suicide is surging elsewhere.
In Oregon—the one state in the U.S. where assisted suicide is legal—doctors are allowed to help only state residents who are expected to die within six months.
The U.K., which has restrictive laws on euthanasia, was forced in a court case last fall to clarify whether it would prosecute Britons who help family members make the trip to Switzerland to die. (It won't.) Luxembourg legalized euthanasia last year. Activists in Belgium and the Netherlands are pushing to broaden the group of patients who can avail themselves of assisted suicide to the elderly, minors and chronically ill. "...

"In 2008, when neighbors' complaints forced Dignitas out of the rented apartment it had long used for suicides, Zurich city officials refused permission for a new venue.
So, Mr. Minelli organized suicides in cars, a hotel room and his own home, drawing the ire of local officials. For a time, he was forced to use the industrial site criticized by Mr. Gall. "Someone who is used to a five-star hotel can't come to Dignitas and expect the same," Mr. Minelli says.
The Zurich prosecutor's office spoke with family members who complained about the 10,000-Swiss-franc fee Mr. Minelli charges people to die, but found insufficient grounds to open an inquiry. One rival right-to-die organization asks for nothing beyond a 45-Swiss-franc membership fee, while another charges 4,000 Swiss francs. Mr. Minelli says the fee helps with his legal and lobbying expenses. "...

"Mr. Minelli argues that making assisted suicide available removes a taboo around suicide, helping people who want to kill themselves open a dialogue and seek help. About 70% of people who get the green light from Dignitas for an assisted suicide never contact the group again, proving the palliative effect of knowing help is available, he says. "
...
"A vote is planned in March on a bill that would sharply restrict the activities of right-to-die organizations. For instance, two doctors must testify that a person is terminally ill, thus ruling out assistance for the chronically or mentally ill. The person seeking help must have given long consideration to his wish to die before doctors can prescribe lethal drugs. Moreover, right-to-die groups would be barred from accepting payments beyond those covering the costs of the suicide. The government also tabled a second bill that would ban assisted suicides altogether. "

The debate has taken a dramatic turn, beginning with a BBC narrator stating on air “I killed someone once.”
The Prime Minister has weighed in too: Gordon Brown: don't legalise assisted suicide.