我国毒品犯罪的立法改造

刑法是遏制毒品犯罪进一步滋生蔓延的重要手段。但目前我国刑法中关于毒品犯罪的规定,还存在一定的问题,有的法定刑规定过重,有的选择性罪名设置不合理,有的则表现为不同犯罪之间的法定刑配置失衡,等等。这些问题的存在,不仅影响到对犯罪的认定和处理,更重要的是丧失了公平正义这一法律最根本的价值追求,因而有待进一步完善。     

老年犯从宽处罚立法思考

《刑法修正案(八)》关于老年人犯罪的规定,对于已满七十五周岁的老年人犯罪在刑罚的设置上呈现轻缓化趋势,并且禁止适用死刑,这不仅使刑法与我国的优良传统相契合,而且符合刑法现代化发展的趋势。但该规定在老年人年龄的认定、起算基点和死刑禁用的例外情形等方面还存在不完善的地方。进一步完善刑法关于老年人犯罪的规定,对老年犯从宽处理的年龄认定应以结果发生时为计算基点,对老年犯禁止死刑的年龄起算点应以犯罪时为基点,取消对于已满七十五周岁的老年犯禁止死刑适用的例外条款。     

论金融犯罪的立法及完善

我国金融犯罪立法采取刑法典、单行刑法与附属刑法相结合的立法模式,规制范围较广,涉及罪名较多。《刑法修正案(八)》和《刑法修正案(九)》废除了金融犯罪中的死刑规定,但主刑设置仍较为严厉。完善金融犯罪立法的重点是:将非法经营证券、期货、保险业务,非法从事资金支付结算业务和非法买卖外汇犯罪行为规定在破坏金融管理秩序罪中;完善利用未公开信息交易罪的法定刑设置,增加单位犯罪主体;对逃汇罪增加自然人犯罪主体;对贷款诈骗罪增加单位犯罪主体。     

关于单位犯罪若干问题的思考

单位犯罪作为近年来刑法学界所关注的焦点,同样也是刑法修订过程中一个不可回避的问题。修订后的１９９７年新刑法在总则第二章设专节对单位犯罪主体的范围及单位犯罪的处罚原则作了总括性规定的同时,又在分则的有关章节里规定了具体的单位犯罪的构成法定刑,从而构筑起了一个集自然人刑事责任与单位刑事责任一体化的刑法新体系。这既是我国改革开放和社会主义市场经济发展的必然,也是我国立法界、刑法理论界对传统刑法理论的一个重大突破。一、单位犯罪的主体资格根据新刑法第３０条的规定和立法精神,所谓单位犯罪,是指公司、企业、事…     

涉黑犯罪四条标准的执法差异

我国刑法关于涉黑犯罪的条款,是在1997年刑法修改后新增加的罪名条款——第294条。在打黑除恶专项斗争之前,最高人民法院在各地情况充分调研的基础上,出台了关于我国涉黑犯罪依法量刑的司法解释。其中重点规定了涉黑犯罪的四条标准,即是否称霸一方、是否存在严     

我国警察圈套辩护理由及其完善——以美国警察圈套辩护理由为借鉴

美国刑法上的警察圈套是一种合法的辩护理由,被告人如果因为警察的诱惑行为而实施了犯罪,可以以此进行辩护。美国刑法上警察圈套构成要件有主体、行为和主观三个条件,并有其一套认定标准。根据美国关于警察圈套的有关规定,我国刑事法上的警察圈套的完善应当包括明文规定刑事责任,明确警察辩护理由的适用标准,以及在司法上规定侦查人员应该出庭接受质证,在立法上确立有限度的警察圈套无罪辩护制度。     

俄罗斯洗钱犯罪的刑法规制及其启示

俄罗斯洗钱犯罪具有潜伏性、有组织性、高技术性的特点。俄罗斯刑法第174条和174-1条对洗钱犯罪进行了全面完善的规制。我国刑法可借鉴俄罗斯刑法规定,扩大洗钱罪上游犯罪的范围,在立法上对自洗钱行为进行入罪处理。     

论行贿罪的犯罪目的

我国现行刑法关于行贿罪规定了明确的犯罪目的:"谋取不正当利益"。但是未把"谋取正当利益"纳入刑法惩处的范围,这是不妥当的。这样的规定有很大的不合理性:不利于处理受贿罪的关系,不符合罪责刑相适应原则并将对社会将产生不利的影响。     

论我国刑事管辖权规定的完善

与《联合国反腐败公约》相比，我国刑法关于腐败犯罪的刑事管辖问题的规定还有一定的不足，尤其是在属人管辖和保护管辖方面及关于外国人的刑事责任追究方面，而关于外国人的刑事责任追究问题，也有必要深入分析和探讨。另外，我国刑法与《联合国反腐败公约》的相关规定不同，极有可能造成刑事管辖权的冲突，而这不利于对腐败犯罪刑事责任的追究，我国刑法也应该对此有所改进，如规定解决刑事管辖权冲突的委托条款等。     

浅谈我国盗窃犯罪刑事立法的完善

盗窃犯罪是我国社会中极为普遍的一种犯罪形式,其数量在很多地方占据了犯罪之首。我国关于盗窃犯罪的刑事立法存在不完善之处。本文从适当提高追究盗窃罪数额的起点、将虚拟财产纳入盗窃罪的犯罪对象、单独设立单位盗窃罪、单独设立刑法条文追究盗窃珍贵文物犯罪行为以及将邮政工作人员利用职务之便盗取财物的犯罪行为由盗窃罪改为职务侵占罪等方面提出了完善我国盗窃犯罪刑事立法的具体建议,以期为我国法治建设尽微薄之力。     

S.M. BRUCE, IMPERIAL RELATIONS AND WAR FINANCE, 1939–1943

Abstract: This article deals with bargaining between Australia and the United Kingdom over some main aspects of wartime finance. Australian politicians and administrators took advantage of the wartime emergency to persuade the British to provide cheap loans with which the Australian government met its overseas military spending. The British Treasury also had to guarantee the preservation of Australia's sterling balances in the context of lend-lease arrangements between the UK and America. A number of bureaucracies, public and private institutions were involved, including the Australian High Commission, the Commonwealth Bank, the British Treasury, the Bank of England and the underwriting firm, Nivison & Co. It is argued that the wartime emergency enhanced the bargaining power of the Australians so that they were able to extract substantial concessions from the British.     

Serbia: new leadership,same challenges

The results of Serbia's 2012 elections, which saw the incumbent pro-European administration ousted from power by considerably more nationalistic candidates with ties to Serbia's wartime leadership, were greeted with dismay in many countries. But rather than reverting to the bellicose rhetoric of the 1990s, as some had feared, Serbia's new leaders are deploying a strategy of pragmatism in tackling the country's most enduring issues.     

Fighting to win: Wartime morale in the American public

The ingredients of wartime morale are the subject of lively debate, with casualties, prospect of victory, and elite cues representing the major points of view. This research covers the wars in Korea and Vietnam with expanded time series of public support and rare surveys that probed perceptions of victory during those military interventions. The prospect of victory affected wartime morale during both of those conflicts. It did so quite uniformly in the American public, cutting across elite cues such as partisanship.     

Witness to Rape: The Limits and Potential of International War Crimes Trials for Victims of Wartime Sexual Violence

¹Despite the proliferation of trauma and memory research inrecent years, we know very little about the contribution oftransitional justice mechanisms to psychological healing andsocietal reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide, armedconflict and politicized violence. Many scholars in this areahave argued that the disclosure of traumatic experiences isbeneficial to the psychological recovery process for survivorsof gross human rights violations. This article critically examinesthis therapeutic assumption within a transitional justice paradigm.The article explores the potentials and limitations of internationalwar crimes trials for victims of wartime sexual violence, focusingspecifically on the International Criminal Tribunal for theformer Yugoslavia (ICTY). The article provides a theoreticalframework for analyzing the significance of testimony at internationalwar crimes trials and raises some critical questions relatedto the psychological impact of trials. It is argued that dueto the sheer diversity and heterogeneity of wartime rape victims,the experience of giving testimony is likely to be mixed: whilesome victims may suffer under the constraints of legal process,under the right circumstances, war crimes trials may help othersto make sense of their suffering.     

Electoral Democracy during Wartime: The 2004 U.S. Election

The U.S. election of 2004 affords an opportunity to investigate how wartime affects presidential voting. The conventional wisdom is that wartime presidents always get reelected, but previous studies have not examined how citizens' attitudes on the war affect their voting. The papers in this special issue investigate this process, looking at how attitudes on the Iraq War, the larger War on Terrorism, and the so-called cultural war affected attitudes toward the presidential candidates and voting. The studies use a wide variety of datasets and survey questions, showing that the different aspects of the war resonate with different voters and that some of the effects of wartime are indirect through increasing the salience of leadership in the election. Wartime presidents do not get reelected automatically; they have had success in reelection because of how they use the war to build an image that can get them reelected.

The Viennese Connection: Engelbert Broda,Alan Nunn May and Atomic Espionage

Recently declassified materials have revealed the existence of a previously unknown network of Austrian communists in pre-war England. The group of young well-educated Viennese used unsuspecting social contacts and marriages of convenience to establish itself. Analysis of this network reveals some previously overlooked similarities between the ‘Cambridge’ spies Kim Philby and Alan Nunn May, as well as the emergence of a new nuclear spy, Engelbert Broda. Their wartime espionage as individuals took place at a time when non-communist British scientists were promoting the international sharing of atomic knowledge through unofficial channels. The newly released files reflect a characteristic preference of the British secret services for intelligence gathering rather than intervention and illustrate how vital leads follow from apparently trivial observations.     

商鞅变法的“战时法治”特征及其启示

商鞅变法出现于战国的特殊历史背景下,具有明显的"战时法治"特征,这一特征体现在三个方面:农战思想;重刑主义;文化专制。通过对法治标准的要素化与法治类型的多样化分析,可以明确从商鞅变法之后到秦朝灭亡之前是一个君主专制的战时法治时期,对秦亡之训也应有一个新的认识:其罪不在法治,罪在当政者不仅没有及时将"战时法治"转变为"平时法治",反将其推向了极致。这给我们一个重要启示:法治不是永恒不变的,而是应当随着时代的变化进行相应的调整。     

‘Stella polaris’ and the secret code battle in postwar Europe

Much has already been written about the September 1944 evacuation of the Finnish intelligence service to Sweden, which was designated Operation ‘Stella Polaris’. Newly declassified intelligence documents found at the US National Archives provide a fresh perspective on the role of the American wartime foreign intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its successor, the Strategic Services Unit, in ‘Stella Polaris’ and its aftermath. The documents reveal that throughout World War II, the OSS secretly obtained sensitive intelligence information concerning America's wartime ally, the Soviet Union, from agents within the Finnish intelligence service. The OSS Stockholm Station purchased Soviet and other foreign government code and cipher materials from the Finns, not realizing until later that the Finns had sold the same material to other states. The Americans responded by recruiting some well-placed agents within the Finnish ‘Stella Polaris’ organization, who provided detailed information about the intelligence activities of the Finns in Sweden, and the work of Finnish intelligence officers in France after the end of the war. Among the key pieces of intelligence obtained was the fact that the French intelligence service was intercepting American radio traffic.     

Guns 'N jobs: The FDR legacy

The intrusion of war is likely to alter the standard economic voting calculus. A wartime economy is not expected to deliver the same political benefits or costs, in terms of presidential approval or votes in an election, as does a peacetime economy. The Roosevelt presidency presents a perfect target to examine economic voting in wartime. Using monthly polling data on presidential approval from late 1937 to 1945, we demonstrate that the American public suspended standard economic-voting logic during World War II. One explanation for this suspension is the enormous size of U.S. military spending. Using data on government spending from 1929 to 1950, we show that military spending had a huge effect on unemployment while the effect of non-military spending proves negligible and non-significant. It was military spending triggered by war, not the New Deal, that vanquished the Great Depression.     

The scent of a green carnation: A review of the queer year

The “Blitz spirit” is a popular story about the British public during the Second World War, uniting together with defiance and resilience to overcome the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany. Previous work has revised this wartime story as a propagandistic construction of national identity and popular memory. Therefore, this paper reviews the Blitz spirit as a myth. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) then examines how this myth was retold in British newspapers after the July 7th bombings in London. I examine how this myth was constructed and the ideological role it played after the attacks. Similar to previous revisions of the Blitz myth from 1940, I argue that social and political complexities after July 7th were often suppressed by messages that sought to evoke a sense of “Britishness” defined by a previous generation. Whilst the July 7th bombings were not a case of traditional warfare or attacks carried out by a foreign force, I argue that wartime analogies often supported military responses in the war on terror and evoked a foreign threat.