Ethics Newsline®

How society protects the rights of those who may not be in a position to protect themselves was a prominent theme in the ethics news during June. We led this week’s edition of Newsline with two items related to that issue: grand jury investigations into the role Catholic bishops may have played in covering up sexual abuse of minors by priests, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing execution of the retarded. We reported on similar issues in the June 17 issue: a high court ruling that the disabled cannot claim a right to jobs that endanger them, and that prisoners can be compelled to take part in a program that requires them to confess to additional crimes. Other related stories included a report on a legal rejection of the use of Internet filters in libraries to shield children from pornography (June 10), and a probe into reports that U.S. Navy sailors were used as guinea pigs in Cold War-era bio-weapons experiments without their knowledge or consent.

Business practices of major corporations headlined the news during June: the conviction of Arthur Andersen in an obstruction of justice case (June 17), new SEC rules to hold CEOs more accountable for financial reporting practices (June 17), a spike in white-collar crime (June 10), the resignation of the CEO of Tyco amid claims of tax irregularities (June 10), an accounting-practice investigation of Halliburton (June 3), and a claim of conflict of interest against Ernst & Young (June 3).

The intersection of ethics and technology news was a busy one during June, with reports of Citibank’s crackdown on the use of its credit card for Internet gambling (June 24), a court decision protecting patent law (June 3), and a charge that research from a prominent lab may be riddled with errors (June 3).

As usual, we also featured several stories dealing with the ethics of international business, including a lawsuit against banks that lent to the South African government (June 24), a call from Nigeria’s leader for other nations to help track down funds looted by corrupt African officials (June 17), a report noting that British working women have not achieved financial or professional parity with their male counterparts (June 10), and the continuing exchange of conflict-of-interest charges involving the awarding of government contracts to Canadian firms (June 3).