Search

Systemic (but lawful) political corruption reduces well-being and equity in America. The original form of Madisonian democracy is no longer capable of containing such corruption. Proposals currently on the table to stem corruption are unlikely to be effective and tend to undermine basic rights. This Essay describes a new, but still Madisonian, approach—regulating the output of corrupted legislative and administrative processes, rather than the inputs. Providing for substantive ex post review of direct and delegated legislation would be far more protective of the “general welfare” of the People than other reforms, while no more or less difficult to implement. Supporting an “umpire” branch may be a dominant strategy for elites themselves.

Revolutions in genetic technology have heralded the age of population-scale genomic metadata. This article analyzes the tensions and gaps between traditional conceptions of personhood and international legal responses to a person’s right over disembodied data obtained from his/her body. The opportunities for breakthroughs in healthcare by interrogating population-scale genomic databases are accompanied by questions about privacy, property, dignity, and the nature of information regulation in a global economy. This article highlights instances where law and policy makers have grappled with these challenges, and foreshadows some emerging future challenges. It also highlights differences between jurisdictions, and calls for greater global participation in the development of a coherent framework, rather than continued reliance on a small number of stakeholders, to develop that framework.

The shipping industry, although relatively carbon-efficient, is projected to produce rising carbon emissions in the future as a consequence of increasing world trade. A number of candidate regulations designed to mitigate these emissions have been canvassed by the UN’s International Maritime Organisation and by the European Commission. Many of these schemes are focussed on the use of market measures—emission trading schemes or fuel levies. This paper draws on observational and interview data gathered to examine enforcement issues associated with the control of ships’ sulphur emissions in order to consider the possible enforcement problems that might be associated with projected market measures to control ships’ carbon emissions. Enforcement problems are shown to be associated with the globalised character of the industry and its polycentric governance structure.

Central to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) is the claim that a conferral of incapacity may not be based on the wisdom of a decision alone. This paper problematizes this position. Values-based medicine is drawn on to explore the process of capacity assessment, highlighting the presence of preconceptions throughout assessment. Two cases before the Court of Protection are examined to bring into focus the complexity of conducting assessment without reference to wisdom. The paper proposes that every stage in the assessment of capacity is undertaken with reference to preconceptions and that an acknowledgement of these, along with transparency about when they are to be employed, would allow for greater clarity about what the MCA demands of practitioners.

Trends in international human rights law have challenged States globally to rethink involuntary mental health interventions from a non-discrimination perspective. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in particular prohibits laws that discriminate on the basis of disability. However, a key criterion for compulsory mental health treatment under typical mental health legislation is a psychiatric diagnosis (in conjunction with risk of harm and other criteria). Hence, for people with mental health disabilities, rights to liberty and consent in healthcare are held to a different standard compared to other citizens. A prominent law reform option being explored by some governments and commentators for achieving non-discrimination is to replace the diagnostic criterion for triggering involuntary intervention with an assessment of mental capacity. After all, every citizen is subject to restrictions on autonomy where they are deemed to lack mental capacity, such as where concussion necessitates emergency service. However, the use of mental capacity “testing” is seen by diverse commentators as wanting in key respects. A prominent criticism comes from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which considers mental capacity assessments a form of disability-based discrimination. This article queries the call to replace the diagnostic criterion in mental health law with an assessment of mental capacity in the light of jurisprudence on equality and non-discrimination in international human rights law. Instead, we examine the doctrine of necessity as an area of law, which might help identify specific thresholds for overriding autonomy in emergency circumstances that can be codified in a non-discriminatory way. We also consider the need for deliberative law reform processes to identify such measures, and we suggest interim, short-term measures for creating a “supported decision-making regime” in the mental health context. The article focuses in particular on the Australian context of mental health law reform, though the analysis can be generalised to international trends in mental health law.

The paper aims to compare how the concept of corporate reputation is understood in the fields of law and marketing. This comparative investigation determines whether interdisciplinary communication between these two domains, and consequently interdisciplinary research on corporate reputation, is possible. Due to the lack of a legal definition (i.e. definition in a legal act) of corporate reputation, the meaning of this concept is reconstructed on the basis of Polish legislation and case law. Then the legal concept of corporate reputation is compared with numerous definitions proposed by marketing scholars. As a result of this investigation, two approaches to corporate reputation are distinguished: reputation as a process and reputation as a result. Legal scholars focus on the latter, whereas marketing researchers consider both approaches. This difference results from diverse objectives of marketing and legal research on corporate reputation. The former aims at developing a good reputation (process) and evaluating it (reputation as a result), while the latter focuses on protecting corporate reputation (reputation as a result). Despite the differences in approaches towards the concept, interdisciplinary research is not only possible (especially, when both domains investigate reputation as a result), but also needed, as both lawyers and marketing experts operate in the same market and have the same client, i.e. an entrepreneur. The comparative analysis explained in this paper is the first step to bringing legal and marketing knowledge together.

Recently, a political shift has been observed, in that some political conservatives are now advocating, adjusting, or abandoning draconian drug laws, including mandatory minimums, and funding diversion, re-entry, and drug programs. Vocal proponents of this movement include Grover Norquist, Rand Paul, Edwin Meese, and Mark Levin, from the Texas Public Policy Council. Any movement away from the mass incarceration that has characterized the U.S. correctional policy for the last 30 years is welcomed, however, it is important to note carefully the philosophical foundation of the conservative’s interest in shifting correctional policy. This paper explores the potential factors contributing to this philosophical shift.

This article proposes a change in public policy that promises to greatly reduce major crime in the United States, protect society, eliminate prison overcrowding, and save taxpayer dollars. This policy would employ electronic monitoring (EM) technology in a way that discourages individuals who might otherwise be tempted to commit crimes. The approach is arguably more effective, efficient, humane and ethical than any alternative strategy and potentially could revolutionize law enforcement and the American criminal justice system. Keywords: crime; policy; corrections; law; electronic monitoring; cost-benefit; criminal justice 1. Introduction Existing policies to “get tough” on crime have not only failed to control crime but have contributed to an enormous increase in the number of incarcerated individuals [1,2]. This suggests that the underlying premise—stiffer sentences deter criminals—may be incorrect. Furthermore, even in the unlikely event that incarceration rates could be tripled through a tripling of law enforcement and prison budgets, the available data suggest that the probability that an offender would be apprehended and incarcerated would remain low. As of 2004, the probability that an offender would be incarcerated was negligible for residential burglary (0.8 percent), vehicle theft (0.6 percent), robbery (1.7 percent), and assault (1.2 percent); and fairly small for rape (12.4 percent) [3]. This suggests that the deterrent effect of policies to “get tough” on crime would remain weak, and suggests a need to switch paradigms.

“Why workers’ rights are not women’s rights” is an argument whose purpose is to make clear why workers’ rights rest on a masculine embodiment of the labor subject and it is this masculine embodiment which is at the center of employment contracts and employment relations systems. By excavating the gender subjects implicit to and explicit in regulations of labor, the paper reveals the opposition of paired terms, masculinity and femininity privileging production over reproduction and naturalizing gender-based power relations. The paper identifies various laboring activities associated with differential rights and responsibilities. An examination of the treatment of part-time employment and waged caring labor, framed in labor, welfare, immigration, and citizenship policies and practices, locates exclusions from labor standards and exemptions from entitlements due to eligibility requirements and thresholds that assume the masculine embodiment of the worker-citizen. Gendering the analysis illustrates how contemporary labor laws and conventions grant rights on the basis of, and to, a rather abstract conception of the prototypical worker-citizen. Its origins lie in what classical political economy labeled a capitalist logic, as well as the historical practices in which free class agents entered into contracts for continuous, full-time work free of care responsibilities outside of the wage/labor nexus. Thus, it is this particular abstract construction of the proto-typical worker which instantiates the separation of “rights to” from “responsibilities for”, and it is this separation that allows the masculine embodiment of the labor subject. Modes of regulation privileging rights over responsibilities will valorize the masculine worker-citizen whose rights derive from their participation in wage labor and simultaneously devalue the feminine worker who is directly connected to caring labor.

This paper examines the EB-5 immigration visa, created by the United States through the Immigration Act of 1990. The Immigration Investor Programm allows immigrants to earn their Green Card / American Citizenship by investing in American businesses. Investments range from commercial real estate to solar energy plants and could only be received by an economic unit defined as a Regional Center. The paper is focusing on legal aspects of the regional centers, which are started by local U.S businessmen, sometimes in alliance with local government agencies, in order to attract investment capital for current or planned business ventures. Regional centers are involved with the promotion of economic growth, job creation and increased domestic capital investments. The paper also reviews certain financial qualifications that EB-5 investors who choose to invest through a regional center with the EB-5 programm must meet. Basically, the U.S Government looks for sophisticated immigrants who qualify as ”accredited investors” in order to maximize their business success. State and federal securities laws require this approach in order to protect the investment. Ultimately, the paper offers a presentation of a major project ”SkyRise Miami”, that will create approximately 17.000 jobs, with a total economic impact during its development stage that exceeds $800 million. It will be the tallest building in Florida, considered to become ”Miami? s Eiffel Tower”, that will change the landscape of Miami.

После введения Россией запрета на ввоз отдельных видов сельскохозяйственной продукции, сырья и про- довольствия из США, ЕС, Канады, Австралии и Норвегии, ухудшения отношений с Украиной и Молдавией остро встала проблема импортозамещения отечественными продуктами и соответствующей кор- ректировки аграрной политики. Для ускоренного импортозамещения в Госпрограмму развития сельско- го хозяйства и регулирования рынков с/х продукции, сырья и продовольствия включены новые подпро- граммы. Однако практически ни по одной из новых подпрограмм нельзя сказать, что она действитель- но способствует импортозамещению. В ряде случаев (субсидирование приобретения элитных семян, закупки сырья) она работает прямо противоположным образом. Практически везде финансирование урезано настолько, что не понятно, почему эти отрасли объявили приоритетными и как выполнять целевые показатели. Все это свидетельствует о необходимости доработки аграрной политики РФ.

While highlighting the novelty of character by the separate plea for annulment of certain categories of conclusion rendered by the arbitral tribunal, the study is criticizing the superficial references, void or unfounded, that the art. 594 of the Code of Civil Procedure has on the regime of the aforementioned separate pleas for annulment by refering to others provisions of Book IV of the Code of Civil Procedure

The article critically discusses the perspective of the Constitutional Court of Romania concerning the practice of using Government emergency orders (acts regulated by Article 115 of the Constitution of Romania) in order to transpose European Union directives or to implement provisions of European Union law into Romanian law.

Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly as interpreted in the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities General Comment No. 1, presents a significant challenge to all jurisdictions that equate interventions permitted under their mental health and incapacity laws with mental capacity. This is most notable in terms of the General Comment’s requirement that substitute decision-making regimes must be abolished. Notwithstanding this, it also offers the opportunity to revisit conceptions about the exercise of legal capacity and how this might be better supported and extended through supported decision-making. This article will offer some preliminary observations on this using Scottish mental health and incapacity legislation as an illustration although this may also have relevance to other jurisdictions.

В декабре российские власти столкнулись с острым валютным кризисом, для преодоления которо- го была повышена учетная ставка до 17%, ряд государственных компаний, в том числе «Газпром» и «Роснефть», были обязаны вернуть валютные резервы на уровень октября, то есть продать часть валюты. Однако непростая ситуация сохраняется в связи с низкими ценами на нефть, предстоящими крупными выплатами российскими компаниями внешнего долга и общей мировой напряженностью. В. Путин в своем послании обещал налоговую амнистию физическим лицам (впрочем, пока не решен значительно более важный вопрос по юридическим лицам) и отказ от проверок на 3 года в отношении малого бизнеса, не имевшего серьезных нареканий предыдущие 3 года, а также выразил уверенность в невиновности В. Евтушенкова, после чего тот был освобожден. Эти неплохие для бизнеса новости, однако, оказались смазаны непонятным административным запретом на экспорт зерна, при том что Россия собрала крупный урожай и его дефицита не наблюдается.

This paper looks at the notary public service in general and its scope of activities. In addition, it deals with the Notarial Code of Conduct (Code of Ethics) written by Vladimir Pappafava in 1896 and, in a certain way, provides a historical overview and comparison of public notary service in respect of the powers now and then. It is indicated that the notary public service, in terms of powers, has not changed much to the present time. Nowadays, when the development of computer science and technology has reached the point when it is almost impossible to follow it, the question is how and to what extent the notary public service should take advantage of such a wide range of technological capabilities. Along its development, information technology has been penetrating more and more into every segment of human life - both business and private. In addition to many benefits provided by information technology (acceleration of business, communications, etc.), it has also brought some technical problems that can lead to complete interruption of business. The contribution and role of information technology in the notary public service in the European Union Member States including the Republic of Croatia, as well as certain ideas regarding the use of opportunities afforded by information and communication technologies are also discussed.

Neuroscientific endeavours to uncover the causes of severe mental impairments may be viewed as supporting arguments for capacity-based mental health laws that enable compulsory detention and treatment. This article explores the tensions between clinical, human rights and legal concepts of “capacity”. It is argued that capacity-based mental health laws, rather than providing a progressive approach to law reform, may simply reinforce presumptions that those with mental impairments completely lack decision-making capacity and thereby should not be afforded legal capacity. A better approach may be to shift the current focus on notions of capacity to socio-economic obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Keywords: legal capacity; mental capacity; decision-making; mental health laws; neuroscience 1. Introduction Laws that enable the compulsory detention and treatment of individuals with severe mental impairments [1] have been enacted in many countries, including recently in China [2]. While the criteria for compulsory detention and treatment differ across jurisdictions, in general, there must be evidence of “mental illness”, generally defined according to certain symptoms, a need for treatment and some form of risk of harm to self or others [3]. Such mental health laws place decision-making about treatment primarily in the hands of clinicians, rather than the individual concerned, thereby enabling what is generally termed “substituted” decision-making. Some jurisdictions have mental health laws which also require evidence that the person concerned is unable or lacks “capacity” to consent to admission and/or treatment [4]. There have been calls by

В сентябре 2013 г. состоялся «единый день голосования». Результаты голосования оказались очень дифференцированны по регионам: от 60–80% у «Единой России» в регионах, где выборные процедуры формальны, до 40–55% в тех регионах, где выборы были более-менее конкурентны. На втором месте уверенно держится КПРФ, набирая практически везде более 10% голосов и сохраняя эти же 10% в столице. А вот результаты ЛДПР и особенно «Справедливой России» упали – последняя не прошла в легислатуры почти половины регионов. Голосование за мэра Москвы принесло победу С. Собянину с минимальным перевесом в 51% голосов, что может расцениваться как серьезная неудача этого чиновника, входящего в орбиту наиболее влиятельных в стране. Успех же оппозиции в лице А. Навального оказался частичным – с одной стороны, 27% это хороший, обнадеживающий результат, с другой стороны, все равно это поражение со значительным отрывом. Правительство РФ, приняв очередной трехлетний бюджет, объявило о сокращении ряда расходов. Позитивно можно оценить, в частности, отказ от роста заработных плат чиновников и военнослужащих, которые последние годы росли опережающими темпами, сокращение программы перевооружения и сокращение расходов естественных монополий, тарифы которых для промышленности не вырастут, а для населения должны вырасти ниже инфляции. Вызывает серьезную обеспокоенность состояние пенсионной системы – сокращая накопительную ее часть и обсуждая возможную ликвидацию всего десять лет назад введенной системы, правительство подрывает доверие к собственной политике и обессмысливает выплату легальных заработных плат.

В январе т.г. российское правительство утвердило антикризисный план, суть которого состоит в снижении бюджетных расходов на 10% (кроме оборонных, социальных, расходов на сельское хозяйство и выплату внешнего долга) и масштабной финансовой поддержке банковской сферы. Большинство предложений о поддержке малого бизнеса и снижении административных барьеров было отложено или передано в компетенцию субъектов Федерации, которые не заинтересованы в уменьшении на- логовой нагрузки на этот бизнес. Впрочем, план будет дорабатываться, и окончательные формы примет, видимо, с утверждением скорректированного бюджета на 2015 г. в марте. Срыв мирных минских соглашений и возобновление боевых действий сняли с повестки дня ослабление санкционного режима против России и, напротив, поставили в повестку дня его ужесточение.

Adequate cognitive and emotional capacity is essential to autonomous decision making by adult medical patients. Society often attaches legal consequences to decisional capacity evaluations. Even when the legal system is not formally involved in the competency evaluation of a particular individual, clinical practice and ethical conduct occur within and are informed by legal parameters. Using relevant statutory, court rule, and judicial opinion examples from a representative jurisdiction within the United States, this article argues that the law seldom provides much meaningful guidance to health care and human services providers to assist them regarding the content of capacity evaluation. The article concludes by asking how society ought to respond to the paucity of helpful guidance provided by the law in the decisional capacity evaluation context.

France at the origins of the European construction. French law subjected to European law, but guaranteed of national sovereignty. I. Submission to European law: European “legal order” 1. “Legal order” of the European Order “A community legal order integrated into the domestic legal order and distinct from the international order” A. Time resistance: a Jacobin State Council Manifestations of resistance: screen law, pre-legal matters, transposition of directives. A more respectful position of the Court of Cassation. Boosting the Constitutional Council B. Integration by recognizing the specificity of Community law The principle of integration constitutional (2004). Harmonization between the supreme courts. Preventing the conflict. Independence in interpretation 2. Integration of the European Convention on Human Rights A. Safeguarding fundamental rights Adapting French law and jurisprudence. Examples: phone-tapping; stakeout ... B. Fair trial French specificity put into debate: the famous trial of Government’s Commissioner before the administrative courts; advisory and contentious double function. Subtle arrangements. II. Respect of national sovereignty 1. Statement of the Constitutional Council A. Bloom of the constitutional review: first only a priori, the apparition of the a posteriori control with the priority issue of constitutionality. B. A conventional constitutional and administrative law Area of the judges’ power on the constitutional control and constitutional control: anything, except for the control of law’s constitutionality. 2. The superiority of the Constitution on the treaties The importance of the Constitution and priority in examining the issue of constitutionality. A. Constitutional rules and Community rules: translation Migration of a rule to another. Sending from one jurisdiction to another of the pre-trial matters. B. Constitutionality preventive control of treaties The main issue of constitutionality: which is the way the priority should be managed? Conclusion: The complexity in the service of harmony

USP Marion is the first supermax federal penitentiary. Marionization refers to the experimental control program used at this prison. The prisoners speaking in this article suffered many years of solitary confinement. This research brief discusses some of what they experienced in their own words. These are the recollections of a few Marion prisoners that have summoned the courage to speak out and share their darkest memories.

Libya is in a state of civil war, with rival militias battling for control of different parts of the country. In the three years since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled by Libyan rebels and Nato airstrikes, fighting between militia has plunged the country into civil war and seen Tripoli fall to Islamists. The involvement of Qatar, Egypt and the UAE risks a wider regional war . The daily situation appears so far from the so said Arab’s Spring perspectives and illusions that in Libya involved the International Criminal Court also. In fact, in a dramatic turn of events, both extraordinary and brutal, the beginning of 2011 pushed the excesses of the Arab Spring in Libya onto the agenda of the ICC. The effects of the Court on developments in conflict and post-conflict Libya speak to the sharp tensions between the pursuit of justice and the politics of law. The situation in Libya is remarkable for the way peaceful protests deteriorated into indiscriminate bloodshed as well as the clarity and extent of the threat to civilian lives by the Gaddafi regime. War crimes; attacks against civilians; mass rapes: this is a synthesis - if you can summarize- of the several and serious human rights violations perpetrated during the revolt against the Gaddafi regime in Libya, a very important country for the Mena area. After forty-two years of oppression and nine months of revolution, Libya liberated itself from Muammar Gaddafi’s reign on October 23,2011. In February 2011, the people of Libya rose up against their government, led by Muammar Gaddafi, who responded with anger, violence, and mass murder. For the following months, armed conflict pervaded Libya that threw into chaos. Libyans finally came face to face with the opportunity so to turn the page on their oppressed past and to begin a new chapter as a free and democratic society. The Libya case, under examination before the International Criminal Court, the African Court on Human and Peoples' rights, and the national courts in Libya, is certainly an exemplary case for the international justice development. This is for the countless challenges, innovations and issues characterizing the Libya case, but also for the shortcoming of the international justice, later resulting purely instrumental for political strategies and interests which have nothing to do with the justice aims.In the Lybia case many unimportant challenges were lost by the International Criminal Court, but also by all the international political system, for the achievement of a clearer and more effective international criminal justice. For the first time the International Justice could assume the role of instrument for conflict resolutions: but it lost this opportunity. For the first time it could clarify the concept of country "ability", condition sine qua non for the supremacy of the national justice: but it lost this opportunity also. For the first time the international justice could have the opportunity of promoting solutions to ensure a widest applicability and lasting respect for Justice through the approach of a "positive complementarity" in favor of the States willing to uphold the national justice, but unable to do so in accordance with appropriate standards: but it lost also this opportunity. The International Criminal Court could face all these significant and important challenges and opportunities not only for the Lybia case, but for the general human rights protection system.

This article explores the practice of gamete donation in the U.S. having in mind the larger question of what do we as a society owe children born as a result (donor-conceived children). Do recipient-parents have a duty to tell their donor-conceived child about his/her genetic origins? Should the identity of the donor be disclosed or remain anonymous? Does the child have a right to know her conception story and to receive information, including identifying information, about the donor? Furthermore, if a donor-conceived child has a right to know, who has the duty to tell her/him about it? The Article underscores the ethical, legal and social dilemmas that arise, comparing and contrasting with international developments in this arena. It highlights the market-based and more specific medical justifications for regulating this field, explores the emerging so-called right of the child to know his/her genetic origins (“the right to know”), and considers the challenges such a right evokes to existing legal culture and principles of medical ethics in the U.S. as well as other broader societal implications of such a right.

Canada recognizes young people’s constitutionally protected freedom of expression and consequently their right to engage in a narrow subset of consensual sexually expressive practices without being prosecuted as child pornographers. Nevertheless, numerous anti-sexting campaigns decry the possibility of voluntary and “safe sexting” let alone the affordances of adolescents’ self-produced and consensually shared sexual imagery. In this article, we argue that these actors have erred in their construction of youths’ risque imagery as inherently risky and thus governable. We propose that anti-sexting frameworks—which conflate consensual and nonconsensual sexting and which equate both with negative risks that purportedly outweigh the value and benefits of the practice—rely on a calculus that is fundamentally flawed. This article consists of two main parts. In Part I, we map and trouble the ways in which responses to consensual teenage sexting emphasize the practice’s relationship to embodied, financial, intimate and legal risks. In Part II, we suggest that research examining consensual adolescent sexting and young people’s rights to freedom of expression consider alternative theoretical frameworks, such as queer theories of temporality, when calculating the risk of harm of adolescent sexual imagery.

Можно выделить три наиболее существенные проблемы, характерные для инфраструктурных от- раслей российской экономики: определение контуров рынков отраслей естественных монополий, кратное сокращение объемов перекрестного субсидирования и привлечение государственного и част- ного капитала в инфраструктурные отрасли. В этой связи последние инициативы Правительства по созданию единого регулятора естественномонопольных секторов выглядят опережающими раз- витие рынков. Именно обозначенные проблемы, а не вопросы о том, какое из ведомств должно при- нимать решения в области регулирования отраслей естественных монополий, должны быть перво- степенными при формировании государственной политики в отношении естественных монополий.

Why does torture persist despite its prohibition? Scholars, policymakers, and the public have heavily debated this topic in the past decade. Yet, many puzzles remain about the practice of torture. Scholarship on torture spans academic disciplines, which adds diversity in perspectives brought to these questions but also can lead to redundancy and stunted progress in research on the issue as a whole. This article assesses the state of the multidisciplinary literature on torture in counterterrorism with specific focus on why democracies torture despite prohibiting it, how public perception of torture is malleable, and why so few countries are able to move from commitment to compliance in the prohibition of torture. In each section, the article also identifies underexplored areas in the research and suggests avenues for future investigation.

Previous research suggests that social relations, in particular the forming of family ties and employment (social factors), self-efficacy (personal factors), and therapeutic interventions (institutional factors) constitute main contributors in post-release success. These studies, however, have largely been based on general delinquents serving relatively short prison terms. This study aims to shed light on the influence of social, personal, and institutional factors on post-release success versus failure among paroled lifers. We conducted in-depth life-history interviews with 64 individuals who had served a life sentence, who were either re-incarcerated for another crime or parole violation, or were currently out on parole. The role of social factors in desistance among long-term incarcerated offenders was minimal. Rather, self-efficacy appeared to be a key element in post-release success. These findings suggest that research based on short-term incarcerated offenders cannot be directly translated to long-term incarcerated offenders. This group does not experience the same traditional turning points, such as establishing family ties and employment. Accordingly, long-term prisoners may go through a different process post-release that determines their success versus failure compared to general delinquents who serve shorter sentences.

This article uses the debates surrounding the age of consent as a broad umbrella to question the continued usefulness of Queer Theory. The debates surrounding the age of consent illustrate that Queer Theory has not fulfilled its original promise and that it is not (and possibly never been), “fit for purpose”. Towards the end of 2013, the topic of lowering the age of consent in England and Wales was once again much in the news. This article suggests that much of that debate focused expressly or impliedly on the age of which men and boys have sexual intercourse (whether gay or straight), rather than when people have sexual intercourse. Queer Theory (originating from feminism), was intended to be a liberating phenomenon, but contrary to these hopes and intentions, Queer Theory evolved to become synonymous with white gay men, thus denying its origins and becoming distinctly anti-feminist. Those who argue for a reduction in the age of consent have used (whether knowingly or not) an approach which is consistent with this evolved version of Queer Theory. Consequently, the debate on the age of consent has ignored, or given insufficient attention to, the effect(s) a lowering of the age of consent will have on girls and women. This article, therefore, seeks to question, disrupt and unsettle, what Queer Theory has become, suggesting that, in several significant aspects, it fails to fully acknowledge patriarchy, render (lesbian) women visible, acknowledge and accommodate the lived experiences of women.

Over the last 40 years a number of scholars have called upon fellow criminologists to rethink the field’s priorities and methods, as well as the American criminal justice system and current punishment practices. Drawing on alternative criminologies, including constitutive and peacemaking criminologies, as well as the practice of reintegrative shaming, this paper presents a new model of criminal justice that combines aspects of adversarial, restorative, social, and transformative justice frameworks. The resulting “intersectional criminal justice” offers a holistic harm-reduction model that moves the focus of our criminal justice system away from “rough justice” and towards collective restorative healing and positive social change.

While boys who offend have been a dominant majority and primary concern of the juvenile court since its earliest days, the population of delinquent girls has increased in recent years at a far higher rate in the U.S. The special challenges presented by females, however, continue to be generally overlooked by the justice system. Moreover, while a few specialized programs now serve these girls, the field tends to view young female offenders as a homogeneous group, what distinguishes particular female subpopulations and the characteristics associated with different criminal trajectories have gone largely unexplored. Employing data from the state of Missouri, this study examines girls who offend, identifying models that predict subsequent violent behavior that include indicators such as parental substance abuse and incarceration, and offender substance abuse, mental health, and school behavior. Special attention is given to the effects of child maltreatment, which we find significantly, but weakly correlated with violent behavior. The authors conclude by considering the possibility that maltreatment may be correlated with other criminogenic factors, and by discussing the implications of findings for future research and practice, especially services that take into account the trauma experienced by young women who come to the attention of state authorities.

Revolts in Tunisia and Egypt have led many observers to speak of the “first digital revolution” in the Arab world. Social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, are now recognised as the important tools that facilitated the “Jasmine Revolution”. In fact, the willingness of the Mubarak government to block all internet connection in Egypt has demonstrated the concern over the power of new technologies in facilitating political change. The tenacity of the social movements that are still on-going in the Arab world continues to demonstrate the important role that networked technologies—such as the internet, satellite channels and social networking sites—play in revolutions. The revolutions demonstrate an effective use of social media and other network technologies as an organisational tool, and as a means of asserting pressure on current rulers and future governments. Accordingly, this article seeks to expose freedom of expression as a fundamental democratic principle and the internet network as a vehicle driving the demonstrations in the Arab countries of Tunisia and Egypt.

The aim of the present study was threefold: to examine (1) the relation between both cognitive and affective empathy and prosocial behavior, (2) the relation between both cognitive and affective empathy and offending, and (3) the role of cognitive distortions in the relation between cognitive empathy, affective empathy and offending in a sample of adolescent girls with lower SES and education (N = 264). Results showed that both cognitive and affective empathy were positively related to prosocial behavior. Furthermore, cognitive empathy was positively related to offending, whereas affective empathy was not related to offending. Finally, no support was found for our hypothesis that cognitive distortions play a moderating role in the relation between empathy and offending.

The first tribunal in Mexico was established in the central state of San Luis Potosi in 1926. The Law Regarding Social Prevention and Juvenile Delinquency for the Federal District and Mexican territories was promulgated in 1928. In 2005, Article 18 of the Mexican Constitution was modified to establish a comprehensive system (“Sistema Integral de justicia” in Spanish) of justice for juveniles between 12 and 18 years old who had committed a crime punishable under criminal law. Its objective was to guarantee juveniles all the due process rights established for adults, in addition to the special ones recognized for minors. The constitutional reform also provides a framework that includes special tribunals as well as alternative justice options for juveniles. With these reforms, institutionalization of minors was to be considered an extreme measure applicable only to felonies and to juveniles older than 14. In 2006, all states within the Mexican federation enacted the “Law of justice for adolescents”. This system, at both the federal and state levels, formalizes a new global paradigm with regard to the triangular relationship between children, the State and the Law. It recognizes that children are also bearers of the inherent human rights recognized for all individuals, instead of simply objects in need of protection. However, despite formally aligning Mexican juvenile justice law with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), issues of actual substantive rights remained and new ones have appeared. For example, juveniles younger than 14 who have not committed a felony are released from institutions without any rehabilitation or treatment options, and alternative forms of justice were included without evaluating their possibilities of application or their conditions for success. In addition, the economic status of most juvenile detainees continues to be one of the most important determining factors in the administration of justice. Juveniles lack real access to an adequate defense because they cannot afford to pay lawyers. This disconnection between rights and reality undermines the new system, raising the question of whether recent modifications to bring laws in line with international norms are in fact advancing juvenile justice. By approaching the Mexican juvenile justice systems as a single, multilayered system combining international, federal and local laws and procedures, we can better describe some of the substantive inconsistencies that continue to prevail, even as new ones develop in terms of children’s rights.

Online copyright infringement is one of the toughest challenges the content industry has faced in the twenty first century. Article 8(3) of the Information Society Directive, implemented under section 97A of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, provides an injunctive remedy in response to such online infringement. Given the elusive nature of the website operators and the sheer number of their users, rights owners have turned to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to implement the injunctions granted under section 97A to block websites with infringing content. In their battle to keep pace with online infringers, the UK courts have permitted significant compromises to the procedures while granting these injunctive blocking orders. One of the pioneers in this line of cases in the UK is the Pirate Bay case (TPB case), which ruled as a matter of law that the procedure under Section 97A does not require the alleged infringers to be made parties to those proceedings. TPB case also marks the trend of the ISPs consenting to an order of injunction, and not defending the proceedings. This has resulted in the absence of any adverse party in the proceedings under section 97A. This threatens the basic tenets of procedural fairness and propriety, having adverse consequences on both the substantive and procedural aspects, evident in the cases that followed TPB case. This article examines the aspects of the judgment in TPB case that led to these procedural compromises, whether it had any basis in the pre-existing case law, what the nature of an injunction under section 97A is and how the subsequent line of cases have followed TPB case as a precedent. It further explores the adverse consequences of the procedural compromises and whether any safeguards are available against such compromises.

This paper analyzes the criminal offence of the non-consensual distribution of intimate images (frequently called “revenge porn”). Focussing on the debate currently underway in Canada surrounding Bill C-13 (Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act), it notes that such an offence would fill a grey area in that country’s criminal law. Arguing, more broadly, that the criminal law has an important expressive function, the paper posits that the offence targets the same general type of wrongdoing — sexual objectification — that undergirds sexual assault. While not all objectification merits criminal sanction, the paper explains why the non-consensual distribution of intimate images does, and why a specific offence is legitimate.

This article explores the challenges posed by an archival interest in the broad palimpsest of daily life left on social networks that are controlled by private corporations. It addresses whether social networks should be archived for the benefit of future generations and proposes a policy thought experiment to help grapple with these questions, namely, the proposal for the formation of the public interest-oriented Networked Memory Project by the Library of Congress for the archiving of social networks. My discussion of the challenges posed by this thought experiment will focus on the U.S. legal framework within which the Library of Congress operates and take Facebook. To the extent that social networks have user-generated contents that range from the highly “private” to “public” as opposed to other networked platforms that contain materials that are considered “public”, the bar for the historical archival of social networks is much higher. Almost every archival effort must contend with the legal hurdle of copyright, but the archiving of social networks must also address how to handle the potentially sensitive nature of materials that are considered “private” from the perspective of the social and legal constructions of privacy. My theoretical exercise of proposing the formation of the Networked Memory Project by the Library of Congress responds to the need to consider the benefits of a public interest-oriented archive of social networks that can counter the drawbacks of the incidental corporate archiving taking place on social networks.

The task of this paper is to identify the causes of juvenile delinquency and juvenile offending. The French proverb chosen for its title ( Step back in order to jump better ) reflects the inherent challenge in this task; that is, how far back must we step in order to gain a complete understanding of these causes? Do we commence with adolescence, childhood, birth, pregnancy, conception, or the young person’s parents and their life experiences? How wide a net do we cast? Should we focus primarily on intra-individual factors, or the social ecologies in which young delinquents are found? Every story must have a beginning. In this story about young people who fall off the prosocial developmental trajectory, all sign posts point to attachment and the quality of the child’s first attachment experiences. This review will examine, from attachment and other developmental perspectives, how many of the more proximal causes of delinquency and youth offending have their origins in the emotional deficits suffered in early life. We will argue that delinquent and offending behavior represent attempts to redress these deficits. Consequently, interventions that attempt to prevent offending and reduce recidivism that do not address attachment ruptures and other early deficits cannot expect satisfactory outcomes.

The increasing prominence of new Internet and social media technologies and their growing importance as a source of health information are pushing the pharmaceutical industry towards digital channels. This paper explores the potential impacts of the pharmaceutical industry’s increasing interest in online marketing and considers how the existing regulatory framework in Canada translates into the social media sphere. Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs is prohibited in Canada, as it is in most industrialized countries. Although Health Canada has reaffirmed that the existing DTCA regulations apply to new Internet and social media technologies, new dynamics such as user-generated content, consumer propagation, and targeted marketing make applying the existing regulations an uncertain process. Moreover, certain problems often associated with DTCA may be exacerbated in the social media context. Finally, there is skepticism around whether government regulators have the resources or political will to effectively monitor new digital media. As such, this paper considers not only the role of direct government regulation in monitoring and enforcing the regulation of DTCA, but also the role of third party oversight and industry self-regulation—both of which may play an important role in filling the gaps in the regulation of the Internet and social media.

Access to justice has become an important issue in many justice systems around the world. Increasingly, technology is seen as a potential facilitator of access to justice, particularly in terms of improving justice sector efficiency. The international diffusion of information systems (IS) within the justice sector raises the important question of how to insure quality performance. The IS literature has stressed a set of general design principles for the implementation of complex information technology systems that have also been applied to these systems in the justice sector. However, an emerging e-justice literature emphasizes the significance of unique law and technology concerns that are especially relevant to implementing and evaluating information technology systems in the justice sector specifically. Moreover, there is growing recognition that both principles relating to the design of information technology systems themselves (“system design principles”), as well as to designing and managing the processes by which systems are created and implemented (“design management principles”) can be critical to positive outcomes. This paper uses six e-justice system examples to illustrate and elaborate upon the system design and design management principles in a manner intended to assist an interdisciplinary legal audience to better understand how these principles might impact upon a system’s ability to improve access to justice: three European examples (Italian Trial Online; English and Welsh Money Claim Online; the trans-border European Union e-CODEX) and three Canadian examples (Ontario’s Integrated Justice Project (IJP), Ontario’s Court Information Management System (CIMS), and British Columbia’s eCourt project).

In industrial societies, women increasingly postpone motherhood. While men do not fear a loss of fertility with age, women face the biological boundary of menopause. The freezing of unfertilized eggs can overcome this biological barrier. Due to technical improvements in vitrification, so-called “social freezing” (SF) for healthy women is likely to develop into clinical routine. Controversial ethical debates focus on the risks of the technique for mother and child, the scope of reproductive autonomy, and the medicalization of reproduction. Some criticize the use of the technique in healthy women in general, while others support a legally defined maximum age for women at the time of an embryo transfer after oocyte cryopreservation. Since this represents a serious encroachment on the reproductive autonomy of the affected women, the reasons for and against must be carefully examined. We analyze arguments for and against SF from a gendered ethical perspective. We show that the risk of the cryopreservation of oocytes for mother and future child is minimal and that the autonomy of the women involved is not compromised. The negative ethical evaluation of postponed motherhood is partly due to a biased approach highlighting only the medical risks for the female body without recognizing the potential positive effects for the women involved. In critical accounts, age is associated in an undifferentiated way with morbidity and psychological instability and is thus used in a discriminatory way. We come to the conclusion that age as a predictor of risk in the debate about SF is, from an ethical point of view, an empty concept based on gender stereotypes and discriminatory connotations of aging. A ban on postponing motherhood via SF is not justified.

Persons with disabilities often find themselves marginalized by society and by our justice systems. We can improve access to justice by training better advocates. Advocates not only must be knowledgeable concerning relevant laws and regulations, but also must be able to interact effectively on a personal, professional level with persons who have disabilities. We also want to make certain that persons with disabilities have the opportunity to learn to advocate for themselves and for other persons with disabilities. Technologies are available that can help us accomplish these goals. This article provides a brief survey of legal protections (and gaps in such protection) for persons with disabilities. Successful advocate training programs from around the world are identified and described. The article provides examples of how technology is being used to support these efforts and provides suggestions regarding additional ways in which technology could be employed. Law schools around the world have begun to embrace the goal of better advocacy, but improving access will require well-prepared advocates to answer the call. Training advocates to provide services to a population that may have significantly different needs even within that population may be a more efficient and effective way to improve access to justice than by attempting to draft laws and regulations that somehow address all possible circumstances.

The death penalty lives on in America, with some 1350 prisoners put to death since 1976, when the modern American death penalty was reborn. Most prisoners get a last meal of their choice, though that choice is constrained by cost and, often, the stock in the prison kitchen. Last meals can be thought of as brief moments of autonomy in a relentlessly dehumanizing execution process. They also entail a distinctive cruelty. At their lowest point, prisoners seek comfort food but are never comforted. This meal is no entre to a relationship, but instead a recipe for abandonment. Dignity is nowhere to be found on the death house menu. Yet hope lingers, even here; human beings, it seems, cannot live or die without hope. Justice, the most profound human hunger, goes unsated by design.

This article examines major changes in the migratory policy of the Dominican Republic over the last decade, and how they possibly relate to the consolidation of racist perceptions of the Other, prevalent since the Haitian and Dominican independence wars in the early 19th century. Generally focusing on the intersection of politics, exclusion, and Otherness, the paper takes a multidisciplinary approach fundamentally focused on the juridical and legislative processes, whenever the rule of law is presented as a legitimizing vehicle through which racism is expressed. Considering the conceptual usefulness of migration as a threat, the article problematizes cultural and biologic understandings of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, and their legislative reduction to ‘bare life’. It finally examines the convenience of Haitian lives for the Dominican State, conditioned by de facto and de jure processes of exclusion.

Sub-federal enforcement of immigration law has expanded significantly in the last decade raising questions concerning policing, rights violations, and remedies. While the Fourth Amendment has historically provided an avenue for potentially suppressing evidence obtained in violation of a criminal defendant’s civil rights, its applicability in the immigration removal context has been circumscribed. Thus, the avenues to protect the rights of unauthorized noncitizens in immigration removal proceedings are less clear where sub-federal agents act outside of their authorization, particularly in the context of Secure Communities, and enforce immigration law. In the context of immigration exceptionalism, racial profiling has historically played a unique role in immigration law. The lack of adequate measures to deter rights violations where sub-federal agents enforce immigration law raises questions concerning the relationship between criminal and immigration law, and the importance of deterring civil rights violations such as racial profiling, in immigration enforcement. This article will examine the problem of sub-federal law enforcement agents’ use of criminal law violations as a pretext to enforce immigration law and the lack of adequate deterrence of civil rights violations.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is the principal international law document, which regulates the establishment of the maritime economic zones, namely the Continental Shelf (CS) and the Exclusive Economic Zone (ΕΕΖ) as well as any issues that may come up during their delimitation. Maritime delimitation issues are settled either through state agreements or through legal redress before the respective international tribunals. In this context, the aim of this paper is to elaborate on the delimitation prospect concerning a Greek CS/EEZ based on contemporary conventional and customary international law of the sea, in addition to contemporary judicial decisions. More specifically, the analysis focuses on dispute issues in the region of the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, between Greece and its neighboring country Turkey, concerning the CS/EEZ delimitation. An attempt is made to critically compare this case to the outcome of recent relevant international judicial decisions by highlighting not only the common points but also any differences and complexities. The main purpose is to render the reader aware of the special treatment needed for the case in question, with the expectation for a fair future delimitation of the Greek maritime economic zones.

In September 2014, the RF Government approved a draft budget for 2015. In so doing it rejected the idea of increasing taxes and found an intermediate solution for the preservation of the funded component of labor pension without, however, making a fi nal decision as to its future. On the other hand, the approved draft budget is based on a rather optimistic forecast of oil prices – a scenario that can put its actual implementation at risk if oil prices should continue on their downward trend. The current situation implies that inflation and devaluation risks remain high. In September 2014, Russia had her single voting day which went smoothly and brought neither excitement nor surprises. The voter turnout was low, with only one third of registered voters coming to the polling sta- tions (vs. two thirds at the last federal elections). In spite of this lackluster voter activity, United Russia increased its dominance in local elections. September 2014 saw the billionaire businessman Vladimir Evtushenkov placed under house arrest. This development has created a very alarming precedent for big investors, especially bearing in mind the fact that his reputedly money-laundering transactions were carried out by him quite recently – and with the Russian authorities’ knowledge. As regards the situation in Ukraine, there was a relative lull in hostilities, which gives rise to hopes that the conflict may indeed be de-escalated on the basis of the status-quo.

В июне произошла определенная деэскалация ситуации в Восточной Украине и российско-украинских межгосударственных отношений, в частности, Россия признала нового Президента Украины П.Порошенко. Однако ситуация остается напряженной – вооруженные формирования на Востоке Украины исключают свое существование в рамках единого государства, на сецессию же этих регионов не готов Киев. Российские власти ищут выход из кризиса без потери лица, однако он остается не очевиден. Вместе с тем, российско-украинские переговоры о цене на газ закончились неудачей, Россия объявила о переходе на предоплату газа. Учитывая накопленный Украиной газ, видимо, актуальность этих переговоров вырастет осенью – Украина не может быть исключена из газового транзита Рос-сии, точно так же как без России Украина не сможет свести свой топливный баланс. В российском правительстве началась острая дискуссия по судьбе пенсионных накоплений 2014 г., а фактически – во-обще пенсионных накоплений как таковых. Увеличены нормативы возможных инфраструктурных расходов Фонда национального благосостояния (ФНБ), впрочем, сами новые расходы пока не согласованы.

Undocumented immigrants face significant challenges in accessing health care. Throughout the United States, these challenges may relate to the structure of the public health system in which the undocumented find themselves. In addition, local, regional, and national practices aimed at targeting immigrants for deportation or other non-health reasons may serve to punish them for seeking health services or care. Spain and the United Kingdom serve as useful case studies in comparing the ability of the undocumented to seek health services in Europe and the United States. Overall, promoting access to comprehensive health services for the undocumented should be a national priority, along with analysis of any immigration-related laws or policies for potential harmful impact on health care access.

In March 2014 Russia announced the accession of Crimea based on the results of the referendum held on 16 March 2014. In response the U.S. and EU introduced visa sanctions and a ban on the possession of assets in their jurisdictions for Russian officials (and in the U.S. this also extended to certain businessmen close to Vladimir Putin). The G8 forum ceased to exist and, effectively, Russia, on the one hand, and the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia, on the other, returned to the situation before 1991 when they considered each other as major opponents. For Russia this may result in a considerable decrease in investment, the withdrawal of capital and an economic decline, even despite the fact that, in the short term, these countries will be unable to replace the Russian hydrocarbon exports and this will cause substantial economic damage. The Russian Parliament introduced a bill to confer citizenship on all descendants of residents of the Russian Empire who are “native speakers of the Russian language” and to cancel mayoral elections in the largest cities, however, consideration of these laws has not been accelerated and they will most probably be amended.