We propose a language that allows agents to distribute data with usage policies in a decentralized architecture. In our framework, the compliance with usage policies is not enforced. However, agents may be audited by an authority at an arbitrary moment in time. We design a logic that allows audited agents to prove their actions, and to prove their authorization to posses particular data. Accoun...

| In most commercial and legal transactions, the ability to hold individuals or organizations accountable for transactions is important. Hence, electronic protocols that implement commercial transactions must be designed to provide adequate accountability assurances for transacting parties. Without such assurances, electronic transactions can be susceptible to disputes. Currently, protocol desi...

We propose that accountability be a first-class network service, independent of addressing and routing. We design a scheme for allowing accountability services, rather than connectivity-providing ISPs, to vouch for traffic, allowing victims to report abuse, filter abusive traffic, and isolate malicious senders. We discuss how accountability services may evolve, how they may facilitate new appli...

China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2001. It thus bears obligations under Article 12 of the covenant to take appropriate measures at the domestic level to realize the right to health in China. Accountability is an important component of the right to health. This article examines whether the Western concept of accountability, recently imported int...

A B S T R AC T This article reformulates the problem of corporate governance through a shift of analytic focus, away from the problems of securing the interests of remote owners, to an understanding of processes of accountability and their effects, both objective and subjective, within Anglo-American systems of corporate governance. In place of the essentialist assumptions about human nature up...

Hanushek and Raymond have provided us with an elegant and coherent set of arguments for accountability in the public provision of education. Their main empirical contribution is the characterization of the different types of accountability systems in the United States. They go on to show how the operation of incentives in the public sector is not easy to administer and evaluate. Specifically th...

This paper discusses the role of accountability in responsibility ascriptions regarding information and communication technology (ICT). It starts with a definition of responsibility as the social construct representing the ascription of an object to a subject. Recounting the traditional responsibility, the paper will point out the weaknesses of responsibility with regards to ICT. It will then p...

Accountability in electronic commerce (e-commerce) protocols is concerned with the ability to show that particular parties who engage in the protocols are responsible for some transactions. Traditionally, it is used only for resolving payment disputes amongst parties. In this thesis, we argue that the accountability is not just a property for resolving disputes but a fundamental and critical pr...

Regulations and societal expectations have recently expressed the need to mediate access to valuable databases, even by insiders. At one end of the spectrum is the approach of restricting access to information and on the other that of information accountability. The focus of the proposed work is effecting information accountability of data stored in databases. One way to ensure appropriate use ...

Accountability is a central feature of any rights-based approach to health because it converts passive beneficiaries into claims-holders and identifies states and other actors as duty-bearers that can be held responsible for their discharge of legal, and not merely moral, obligations. This article reviews what we mean by accountability, how courts and other mechanisms are being engaged to promo...