Public Interest

11 Key excerpts on "Public Interest"

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  Ethics and Management in the Public Sector

  • Alan Lawton, Julie Rayner, Karin Lasthuizen(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Interestingly, at the same time, what constitutes the public realm is contested. It is not just about the State, but might include voluntary associations and intermediary institutions. We shall turn to communitarian arguments below. However, throughout the term's usage, the Public Interest has been seen as, either, an interest balancing approach, or as resulting from the promotion and protection of individual rights (Morgan 1994). The twists and turns of the relationship between State, civil society and the individual are well charted by Ehrenberg (1999). At this stage in our discussion we are left with a number of questions:

  – What is the appropriate role of the State?

  – What is the nature of citizenship?

  – How can individual rights be balanced against duties to others?

  – Who determines what might be in the Public Interest?

  – How can individual interests be reconciled with group, community and State interests?

  – How do we conceive of the public realm that is to serve the Public Interest?

  Definitions and distinctions

  The Public Interest can be seen in different ways: either as an abstract ideal or as realized in concrete decisions. As an ideal it is linked to the comprehensive purpose of an institution. In the liberal perspective, the Public Interest consists in upholding basic individual human rights such as the right of property, free speech, etc. In the utilitarian perspective it is taken to mean the welfare of a collective where welfare is regarded as the preferred satisfaction of the collective's individual members. The pluralist perspective sees the Public Interest as the winner between competing interests (see Bozeman 2007 for an excellent discussion of the different perspectives).

  While the concept has a long history, it still features in much discussion of public policy as Exercise 3.1 illustrates.

  EXERCISE 3.1 THE Public Interest AND BAE SYSTEMS: A MODERN TALE

  BAE Systems is a major global defence contractor and is part of an industry, with some 60-plus sites in the UK that have been seen by successive governments as crucial to the UK economy. In the mid-1980s Saudi Arabia was keen to upgrade its defence systems and a series of deals were struck with the British government and BAE to supply, in particular, fighter aircraft. These deals were worth billions of pounds. As early as 1992, reports were emerging that millions of pounds were being paid to middlemen in kickbacks and bribes. Between 1997 and 1999, BAE set up offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands and Switzerland to move large sums of money around.

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  Property Rights and Natural Resources

  • Richard Barnes(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  It provides a framework within with certain values can be articulated. Moral principles or doctrines encompass both individual and collective values. The Public Interest serves to define a particular subset of moral values—these are explic-itly community-type values—which are relevant in a decision-making context. Moreover, if we recall that the Public Interest may be conceived of as a categorical form, which necessarily holds a plurality of values, it reinforces the idea that several rather than singular moral values should be taken into account. This mirrors the role played by private law jus-tifications of property set forth in chapter 2: property is based upon a number of irreducible justifications (eg, liberty, utility and propriety), all of which are important to decisions about the use and allocation of 106 WNR. Lucy and C Mitchell, ‘Replacing Private Property: The Case for Stewardship’ (1996) 55 Cambridge Law Journal 566, 595–6. 107 Held, n 18 above, 163. 108 See eg, Art 1 of the First protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that: ‘[e]very natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the Public Interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a state to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.’ (emphasis added) A Template for the Public Function of Property 89 natural resources. Finally, the Public Interest provides more than simple rhetorical coherence to a set of ideas or values; it exerts a normative pull on the way in which decisions are reached in society.

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  Accountability and the Public Interest in Broadcasting

  • Kenneth A. Loparo, Andrea Millwood Hargrave(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  3 The Public Interest in Broadcasting Some definitions My view is that the Public Interest is the common good, assessed in context. (Paul Chadwick, ABC, Australia) Public Interest is national interest – they are interchangeable. But there are very subtle variances, certain issues which you may think are national interest issues concerning our foreign policy . (Ashok Jailkhani, Doordarshan, India) The concept of the Public Interest is a battle ground between the right and the left. The left thinks it has real and important meaning. The right usually thinks its invocation is just a mask for the politics of liberal special interest groups. And, according to the right, the only real Public Interest is the summation of the private interests of all the individuals as embodied in the market. (Ed Baker , Professor , Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania, US) Public Service Broadcasting defines a relatively small number of broadcasters who do quite big things in a relatively constrained and legally-prescribed way . The Public Interest is presumably much broader and can be served by a whole load of people who will con- tribute to the Public Interest in ways which are far beyond those which are exercised by Public Service Broadcasters. (Tim Suter, Ofcom, UK) These four quotations illustrate the breadth of opinions about the pub- lic interest in broadcasting which emerge from the four countries under 44 The Public Interest in Broadcasting n 45 study . They range from, at one extreme, Baker’ s scepticism, typical of many Americans, about the very existence of such a concept, through Jailkhani’ s equation of it with the national interest in certain circum- stances and Chadwick’ s pragmatic approach, to Suter’ s reminder that the Public Interest may also be served outside those broadcasting organ- isations specifically established to serve it. We intend in this chapter to explore the extent of this field.

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  A Lawyer When Needed

  • Elliott Evans Cheatham(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  io6 THE Public Interest law over those who are the makers of them. 2 Suppose, finally, that the guides of decision are not settled rules of law, but rather undefined conceptions of justice or merely the interests of the parties making the decision. The suggested departures from the usual assumptions are sup-ported, in part at least, by the Solicitor General of the United States in an article on the litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States: The point is that in many cases the real contest is not so much between individuals and business corporations as between institutions and ways of life; and in reaching decisions this fact is explicitly recognized. . . . Indeed an extraordinarily large proportion of the most funda-mental issues of our times ultimately go before the Supreme Court for judicial determination. . . . Perhaps it is an [no] exaggeration to suggest that in the United States we have developed an extraor-dinary facility for casting social, economic, philosophical and politi-cal questions in the form of actions at law and suits in equity, and then turning around and having the courts decide them upon social, economic and philosophical grounds. . . . 3 The issues before the Supreme Court of the United States are but an end product of the issues and questions that constantly arise for decision by all tribunals in our country. Their breadth and importance naturally prompt an inquiry into what is needful in the representation of the Public Interest at the earlier or later stages of what the Solicitor General calls decisions of social, eco-nomic, philosophical and political questions. My suggested inquiry is not into what is the Public Interest or ' C O D E NAPOLEON a r t . 1 1 3 4 . * Cox, The Nature of Supreme Court Litigation, 4 5 J . A M . JUD. SOC'Y. 9 3 , 94 (1961)- THE Public Interest 107 what arc its components. That troubling question has been raised and argued by reflective men at least since the days of Socrates.

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  Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century

  • Richard B. Freeman, Joni Hersch, Lawrence Mishel, Richard B. Freeman, Joni Hersch, Lawrence Mishel(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  Fordham Urban Law Journal 25:721–28. Komesar, Neil K., and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1978. The Public Interest law fi rm: A behavioral analysis. In Public Interest law: An economic and institutional analysis, ed. Burton A. Weisbrod, 80–101. Berkeley: University of California Press. Llewellyn, Karl N. 1930. A realistic jurisprudence—The next step. Columbia Law Review 30:431–65. Lopez, Felix. 1998. Lawyers matter, policy matters: How one small not-for-pro fi t combats discrimination against ex-o ff enders, people in recovery, and people with AIDS. Yale Law and Policy Review 17:443–54. Maltby, Lewis L. 1998. Private justice: Employment arbitration and civil rights. Columbia Human Rights Law Review 30:29–64. Melnick, R. Shep. 1994. Between the lines: Interpreting welfare rights. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution. National Employment Law Project. 1975. Legal services manual for Title VII litiga-tion. Unpublished Manuscript. O’Connor, Karen, and Lee Epstein. 1989. Public Interest law groups: Institutional profiles. New York: Greenwood Press. Paget, Karen. 1990. Citizen organizing: Many movements, no majority. The Amer-ican Prospect (Summer): 115–28. Parker, Wendy. 1994. The future of school desegregation. Northwestern University Law Review 94:1157–1227. Pound, Roscoe. 1910. Law in books and law in action. American Law Review 44: 12–36. Resnick, Judith, and Emily Bazelon. 1998. Legal services: Then and now. Yale Law and Policy Review 17:291–303. Rutherglen, George. 1995. From race to age: The expanding scope of employment discrimination law. Journal of Legal Studies 24:491–521. Selmi, Michael. 1998. Public vs. private enforcement of civil rights: The case of housing and employment. UCLA Law Review 45:1401–59. Settle, Russell F., and Burton A. Weisbrod. 1978. Occupational safety and health and the Public Interest. In Public Interest law: An economic and institutional anal-ysis, ed. Burton A. Weisbrod, 285–312. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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  Public Interest Law

  An Annotated Bibliography & Research Guide

  • Lee Epstein, Tracey E. George, Joseph F. Kobylka(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Trial 12 (2): 12-26.

  Trial, a publication of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, dedicated half of this issue to Public Interest law with three fairly straightforward pieces, all written in a brief, journalistic style. The first, by Trial editor Barbara E. Sullivan and entitled “Public Interest Law: A Balancing Act,” gives a general overview of what Public Interest law is, who practices PIL, and the tensions between the different interests involved.

  The other two pieces look at the relationship between PIL and the government. The second piece -- “Public Interest Law Meets the Government: Tension Can Be Healthy” -- is written by the Chief Counsel of the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Jane Lakes Frank and takes the view of PIL groups as opponents of the governmental system. In contrast, the third piece -- Public Interest Law Joins the Government: Advocate for the Public Within” -- is authored by the Director of the Division of Public Interest Advocacy of the State of New Jersey, Arthur Penn, who discusses how the government can meet the Public Interest.

  7.28    Terris, Bruce J. 1973. “Hard Times Ahead for Public Interest Law.” Juris Doctor 4 (7): 22.

  Terris begins his short article with the assumption that Public Interest law has been very successful and that it is needed to balance “upperdog” interests which have previously dominated legal institutions. Yet, he also argues that to “sustain” its momentum, voluntary organizations and attorneys need to put greater emphasis on two things. First, they must reconsider their funding sources because, as Terris argues, private foundations will eventually withdraw or lessen their support. He, in turn, suggests that groups now look toward the collection of attorneys’ fees, class action suits, and “federally supported citizen intervention.” Second, Terris suggests that groups try to “sustain intellectual leadership.”

  7.29    Wasby, Stephen L. 1985. “The Multi-Faceted Elephant: Litigator Perspectives on Planned Litigation for Social Change.” Capital University Law Review

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  Law and Legacy in Medical Jurisprudence

  Essays in Honour of Graeme Laurie

  • Edward S. Dove, Niamh Nic Shuibhne(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  94 law. Second was his almost superhuman ability to detect and tease out the kernel of an idea. And a great deal of teasing was required as I struggled to translate my practical experiences of the law and regulation into the language of academic discourse. It was the thorny issue of the Public Interest that led to our paths crossing. In the abstract, this enigmatic concept presents very real chal- lenges: it is uncertain and changeable, hard to define and deeply context- ual. Indeed, the Public Interest is more likely to elicit exasperation from colleagues – as those from different disciplines talk across one another – than enthusiasm. However, despite this (or perhaps because of this), the Public Interest also speaks to one of the central challenges of medical jurisprudence – the relationship between individual and collective inter- ests. This is a consideration that runs through myriad areas of study and practice in health, where our focus shifts from the traditional doctor– patient encounter to matters that engage wider community interests. Consider, for example, the allocation of health resources or, rather topically at the moment, public health interventions to control the spread of contagious disease. Graeme has been at the forefront of these consid- erations in HRR, where the turn towards large-scale projects, combining data and/or tissue from many thousands of participants, often across national borders, has created an environment where the individual consent encounter (between a researcher and a participant) may no longer be practical or meaningful. In looking beyond the ‘consent or anonymise’ binary, 2 he has underlined the need to identify new govern- ance mechanisms that can engage with the multiple interests engaged; one candidate that emerges is the Public Interest. One aspect of the legacy of Graeme’s work on the role of the Public Interest has been to reinvigorate this previously neglected concept in HRR.

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  International Law and Dispute Settlement

  New Problems and Techniques

  • Duncan French, Matthew Saul, Nigel D White, Duncan French, Matthew Saul, Nigel D White(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  3 Programmes on radio and television highlighting the sufferings of consumers at the hands of suppliers, and consumer columns in newspapers, are interesting exceptions. They sometimes lead to the enactment of consumer protection legislation criminalising certain commercial practices, and so completing the translation of the contractual relations from the private to the public sphere. Private Disputes and the Public Interest 5 The focus upon the integrity of the procedure, rather than upon the substantive rights, is reflected in the fact that the plumber and I may choose not to refer any dispute arising from the contract to the courts but rather to arbitration—to settlement by a tribunal chosen by us, sitting and deciding the case in private, so that the public need never know that we have had recourse to arbitration, or what we said to the tribunal, or what the tribunal decided. But again, if one of us fails to comply with the award of the arbitral tribunal, the other may go to the public courts to obtain an order from the courts to enforce the award. If necessary, the successful party may invoke the assistance of the law enforcement agencies of the State in the coercive enforcement of the court order. Here, again, the pub-lic interest is engaged once the matter comes within the court system. 4 These observations are directed at the position in municipal law; but the essential distinction between public and private interest is one that has great importance in international law, too. There is, in the eyes of many international lawyers, a serious issue aris-ing from the convergence of two developments in international behav-iour, both of them obvious and well-known. The first is the growth in the scale and the pervasiveness of the power of private corporations, and of the dependence of individuals and societies upon them.

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  Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State

  • Gunther Teubner(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  The general interest can no longer be defined by a content alleged to be special to it; it is a form, a goal, namely the maintenance of the interplay of solidarities. And the general interest, understood as the interest of the State, is itself no more than a particular interest vis-a-vis the collective interests. So much so that the proposition according to which the particular interest must yield to the general interest loses its meaning. We arrive at a logic of interests which is no longer that of the subsumption or subordination of the particular in or to the general, but of balance, of equilibrium, and therefore of arbitration 34 . This trans-formation of the notion of general interest has been pithily put by G. Vedel, who explains that the public (or general, since it amounts to the same thing) interest is not the sum of the particular interests. That would be absurd, for the Public Interest would then be the sum of the interest of alcohol producers and that of victims of alcoholism . . . The Public Interest is not different in essence from the interest of persons or of groups; it is an arbitration among the various particular interests (Vedel, 1980: 414). The societies based on solidarity are, in theory and practice, organised so as to be able continually to compromise with themselves. This is on the one hand a sociological objectification of society, segmenting it into groups, classes and orders endowed with genuine social existence — individuals never being anything but an individualisation of the group from which they draw the essence of their being 35 . On the other hand, it is a legal recognition of groups as legal subjects. Social law, as is well known, is a law of groups, of associations, of bodies corporate; in particular, a law of occupational groupings 36 . Though one might maintain that the series of 34 Which is why we speak of general interests in the plural, without asking whether the very notion of general interest does not imply the singular.

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  Imagining Interest in Political Thought

  Origins of Economic Rationality

  • Stephen G. Engelmann(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Duke University Press Books

    (Publisher)

  Some commentators have seen in the rise of the Public Interest the emergence of a politics that has little or 105 nothing to do with reason of state. More recently these concepts have been much more closely linked. ≤ I will argue that the Public Interest is linked to and even derived from reason of state, but that it marks a significant mutation of it, one peculiar to the English context. In this complex mutation we find much of what closes the gap between interest of state and monistic interest. Arguments made in the name of the Public Interest, the interest of the nation, the interest of England, and so on were legion from the 1640s on. Although the terms are di√erent, these singular interests could be invoked interchangeably for the ‘‘domestic’’ interest of the whole that the Public Interest names. What did these arguments have in common with, and how were they di√erent from, the logic of reason of state? Although the Public Interest was and is a heavily contested category, we can safely make a few generalizations that distinguish it from reason of state’s interest of state. The Public Interest and reason of state share much. They both represent new rationalities that reoccupied and transformed the natural-law doctrine of ne-cessity, demanding a specific type of knowledge and a new orientation, the pursuit of the future. (1) Like interest of state, the Public Interest took its inspiration from natural-law necessity, deriving initially from a vernacular rendering of Cicero’s salus populi . The doctrine of salus populi suprema lex esto —the safety of the people is the highest law—could be invoked both in support of and in opposition to princely prerogative, and so it was in early Stuart England. The English ‘‘Public Interest’’ seems to have been a Parliamentary rather than a Royalist phrase in the conflict over the exercise of prerogative by Charles I.

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  State Liability in Investment Treaty Arbitration

  Global Constitutional and Administrative Law in the BIT Generation

  • Santiago Montt(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  In the US, in the post-Lochner era, the Supreme Court has almost com-pletely abdicated the review of the Public Interest nature of regulation. According to Mashaw, US courts live today under a ‘reverse-Lochner, no review policy’. 174 This is particularly true in the takings jurisprudence, 175 where the Supreme Court has recently stated—in a case that turned on 206 Property Rights v the Public Interest 171 Mashaw, n 14, 52. 172 Joseph William Singer, Entitlement: The Paradox of Property (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000) 4. 173 For a summarised survey, see Aileen McHarg, ‘Reconciling Human Rights and the Public Interest: Conceptual Problems and Doctrinal Uncertainty in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’ (1999) 62 Modern Law Review 671. For a sceptical view on the concept of Public Interest, see Levine and Forrence, n 71, 167. 174 Mashaw, n 14, 60. 175 See eg Epstein, n 1 ( Supreme Neglect . . .), 76 (characterising the public use requirement of takings in US federal constitutional law as a ‘toothless doctrine’); Thomas W Merrill, ‘The Economics of Public Use’ (1986) 72 Cornell Law Review 61, 61 (noting that ‘most observers today think the public use limitation is dead letter’); and, Alexander, n 22, 65 (see n 62). the question of whether a City’s development plan ‘serves a “public purpose” ’—that ‘[w]ithout exception, our cases have defined that concept broadly, reflecting our longstanding policy of deference to legislative judgments in this field ’. 176 In international law, the ECHR has adopted a similar stance. On the one hand, the court has recognised that the Convention requires a public inter-est for state action to interfere with property rights.

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