"Pro-life" absolutes, feminist challenges: the fundamentalist narrative of Irish abortion law 1986-1992

This article asks how Irish abortion law developed to the point of stopping a young pregnant rape victim from travelling abroad to have an abortion in 1992 (Attorney General v.X). The author argues that this case, which ultimately saw the Irish Supreme Court overturn that decision and recognize the young woman's right to abortion, was the last chapter of the fundamentalist narrative of Irish abortion law. The feminist critique of that law needs to consider its particular fundamentalist aspects in order to clarify the obstacles posed to the struggle for Irish women's reproductive freedom. The author argues that a fundamentalist narrative ordered the post-colonial and patriarchal conditions of Irish society so as to call for the legal recognition of an absolute right to life of the "unborn." The Supreme Court's interpretation of the constitutional right to life of the fetus in three cases during the 1980s is evidence that Irish abortion law was constructed through a fundamentalist narrative until that narrative was rejected in the Supreme Court decision in Attorney General v. X.     

O'Keeffe v Ireland: The Liability of States for Failure to Provide an Effective System for the Detection and Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse in Education

In O'Keeffe v Ireland, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights found that Ireland failed to protect the applicant from sexual abuse suffered as a child in an Irish National School in 1973 and violated her rights under Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights. This note argues that the decision is important in expanding the Court's jurisprudence regarding positive obligations under Article 3 to child sexual abuse in a non‐state setting where there was no knowledge of a ‘real and immediate’ risk to the applicant. It also argues that the case raises concerns about the Court's methodology for the historical application of the Convention and about the interaction of Article 3 positive obligations with vicarious liability in common law tort regimes.     

Not in my back yard: control of Irish Travellers by paramilitaries and vigilantes across the island of Ireland

This article concerns control of Irish Travellers by paramilitaries and vigilantes. The main issues explored here relate to theories of deviance and debates as to the power of the ‘established’ over those regarded as outsiders. The topic of dangerisation is also considered. Across the island of Ireland, the accommodation needs of Irish Travellers have been largely overlooked by both governments. Amidst a wholesale failure to provide adequate accommodation, including transient sites which would permit nomadic Irish Travellers to continue to be so, harsh anti-trespass laws have recently been sanctioned. However, despite these recent anti-trespass laws and no doubt due to the failure to provide accommodation, across the island illegal encampments remain common. Thus, a failure of the public system is evident. As such, this article demonstrates how, in turn, this failure may encourage vigilantes to adopt self-help private violence as moral action against ‘deviant’ Travellers, whilst self-justifying their actions in comparison to the violence exhibited by, and, that inherent to, state sanctioned law.     

"Reasonable accommodation" under the Americans with Disabilities Act--what does it mean?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) imposes on employers the duty to afford qualified disabled applicants and employees "reasonable accommodation," but provides minimal guidance as to the range of actions necessary to fulfill this duty. Under the statutory scheme, required accommodations will vary from employer to employer, from worksite to worksite for the same employer, and perhaps even from employee to employee at the same worksite. Personnel managers will be required to make very fact-specific decisions in each case as to whether to offer particular accommodations, with any decision declining to provide the accommodation subject to attack in litigation. Based on an analysis of how similar reasonable accommodation requirements have been interpreted under other statutes, this article analyzes the likely parameters of the duty to afford reasonable accommodation under the ADA and offers specific suggestions for employers to minimize their risk of liability.     

Workplace Monitoring and the Right to Private Life at Work

In Barbulescu v Romania, the European Court of Human Rights clarified the application of the Article 8 right to private life in the workplace, and the extent of the state's positive obligations to protect the right against workplace monitoring. The decision establishes that there is an irreducible core to the right to private life at work that does not depend on an employee's reasonable expectations of privacy, and sets out clear principles for striking a fair balance between Article 8 and the employer's interests in the context of workplace monitoring. This article considers the nature of states’ positive obligation to protect human rights at work, the scope of the right to private life, and the impact of the decision on domestic law of unfair dismissal.     

行政法视角下的行政决策

在我国,行政决策通常属于行政学的研究范畴,其特点表现在主体、目标、对象以及责任承担上。行政决策与法律、政策有着不同的内涵和外延。由于行政决策的作出实质上是公权力的行使,对公众之间的权利义务会产生直接的影响,因此行政决策应当受到行政法之约束,并且应当纳入行政法学的研究范畴。基于自身的多样性,对属于行政行为范畴的行政决策应当以行政法原理进行约束;对目前不能纳入行政行为的可用政策和程序加以规范。     

Scottish Legal History Group Report 2009

This is the second of two articles examining the relationship between British Imperial statutes and Irish law in the early years of the self-governing Irish state. The present article examines the assertion that the Imperial parliament at Westminster enjoyed the right to legislate for the self-governing Irish state in the 1920s and 1930s. Successive governments in the Irish Free State denied the validity of this legislative power. This article examines a number of Imperial statutes passed between 1922 and 1931 that purported to apply to the Irish Free State. These Imperial statutes were seen as serious threats to Irish legislative sovereignty and have never been recognised by the Irish courts as being part of Irish law. This article examines how the controversial power to pass Imperial statutes for the Irish Free State provoked a serious Anglo–Irish dispute at a delicate stage in bringing the Irish Constitution of 1922 into force. It attempts to illustrate the profound consequences of this dispute for the 1922 Constitution. The article also examines the complex relationship between Irish law and the Statute of Westminster as an Imperial statute. The controversies over Imperial statutes and Irish legislative sovereignty are examined in the context of earlier periods of Irish history and also in the context of recent developments in twenty-first-century Ireland. This permits a consideration of wider questions as to how concepts of national identity influence the acceptance or rejection of particular sources of law.     

论经济法视角下中西方经济自由思想的发展

经济法中所蕴含的经济自由思想是通过对经济主体的经济权利（力）和义务的配置来实现的。中西方经济自由思想的发展历程以及在经济自由内涵上的共识对我国当前经济发展具有借鉴意义。经济自由作为一种经济理念,是人们期待社会经济所能达到的理想状态即在法律所允许的范围内的自主经济决策和经济行为;作为一种经济制度安排方式,是经济体制构建和经济政策的取向,也是经济自由的理念在经济生活中的现实化,其实质是在经济领域内各经济主体之间的权利（力）义务的配置要达到的一定比例关系。     

Caste Discrimination: A Twenty‐First Century Challenge for UK Discrimination Law?1

Discrimination based on caste affects at least 270 million people worldwide, mostly in South Asia. Caste as a system of social organisation has been exported from its regions of origin to diaspora communities such as the UK, yet despite the prohibition of caste‐based discrimination in international human rights law caste is not recognised as a ground of discrimination in English law. The overhaul of its equality framework and the proposed new single equality act present the UK with an opportunity to align national legislation with international law obligations. The Government's decision not to include protection against caste discrimination in the new legislation leaves race and religion as the only possible legal ‘homes’ for caste. This article considers the argument for legal recognition of caste discrimination in the UK, the capacity of race and religion to subsume caste as a ground of discrimination, and the role and limitations of law in addressing ‘new’ forms of discrimination such as casteism.     

亲情正义与规则正义的冲突与调和——基于亲情案件引发舆论争议的思考

亲情正义与规则正义的立论基础不同,导致涉亲情案件中依法律规则的裁判结果与社会的情感评价可能冲突。亲情正义强调亲情伦理,思考问题充满感性和区别对待,更注重亲情带来的义务要求。而规则正义强调法律至上、理性思考、权利与义务的统一,注重平等对待。为弥合二者冲突,借鉴不同地方的法治经验实属必要。立法和司法也应更积极回应亲情正义的要求,清晰界定涉亲情案件中对事、对人的适用范围,尊重当事人的选择,如此方能实现法律与情理的合理互动。     

The Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003: the Data Protection Directive and its implications for medical research in Ireland

Directive 95/46/EC on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data has been transposed into national law and is now the Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003. The Directive and the transposing Act provide for new obligations to those processing data. The new obligation of primary concern is the necessity to obtain consent prior to the processing of data (Article 7, Directive 95/46/EC). This has caused much concern especially in relation to 'secondary data' or 'archived data'. There exist, what seem to be in the minds of the medical research community, two competing interests: (i) that of the need to obtain consent prior to processing data and (ii) the need to protect and foster medical research. At the same time as the introduction of the Act, other prior legislation, i.e. the Freedom of Information Act, 1997-2003, has encouraged candour within the doctor-patient relationship and the High Court in Ireland, in the case of Geoghegan v. Harris, has promulgated the 'reasonable-patient test' as being the correct law in relation to the disclosure of risks to patients. The court stated that doctors have a duty to disclose all material risks to patients. The case demonstrates an example of a move toward a more open medical relationship. An example of this rationale was also recently seen in the United Kingdom in the House of Lords decision in Chester v. Afshar. Within the medical research community in Ireland, the need to respect the autonomy of patients and research participants by providing information to such parties has also been observed (Sheikh A. A., 2000 and Irish Council for Bioethics, 2005). Disquiet has been expressed in Ireland and other jurisdictions by the medical research communities in relation to the exact working and meaning of the Directive and therefore the transposing Acts (Strobl et al). This may be due to the fact that, as observed by Beyleveld "The Directive makes no specific mention of medical research and, consequently, it contains no provisions for medical research as an explicitly delineated category." (Beyleveld D., 2004) This paper examines the Irish Act and discusses whether the concerns expressed are well-founded and if the Act is open to interpretation such that it would not hamper medical research and public health work.     

论民间规范司法适用的前提和场域

民间规范的司法适用,要坚持民间规范的活动性、可接受性、可诉性、对主体权利义务的分配性以及合理性等基本前提。民间规范的司法适用,同时也要符合基本的适用场域。这些场域分别是:在法律调整不能,从而需要运用事实替代方法时;在法律出现漏洞,从而需要法律发现方法时;在法律出现漏洞,从而需要法律续造方法时。     

Police accountability and the Irish law of evidence

Common law courts have differed on whether and to what extent an exclusionary rule should be used as a tool to impose standards on the police. The Irish courts have pursued an uncompromising approach in this area. Basing themselves on the imperative of upholding the constitutional rights of the accused, they have been willing to exclude relevant and cogent evidence on the basis that it was obtained by the police in breach of those rights. This article locates the Irish constitutional exclusionary rule in the broader context of the role of the law of evidence in police governance. Citing specific examples from the Irish legislation and case law, it shows how recent legislative interventions and some judicial hesitancy have fuelled inconsistent and contradictory trends. It concludes that there is now a pressing need for reflection on the respective roles of the legislature and the courts in this area.     

行政主体的义务范畴研究

行政主体的义务范畴是一个非常重要的行政法学理论问题,在现代法治政府之下政府行政系统的责任越来越突出,“责任政府”概念也成了政治学、行政法以及行政法学解释相关问题的基本概念。在责任政府这一现代理论的指导下,行政主体对公民、社会、国家承担义务就自然而然地成了行政法治以及行政法理论的核心问题,与之相对应,行政主体义务的基本范畴就成了近年来各国行政法学关注的热点问题。行政主体应具有推行宪法和法律,接受立法和司法监督,改善社会环境和促进社会发展,使国内事务与国际事务接轨等宪法义务;具有为行政相对人提供利益和保护,为行政行为说明理由和承担赔偿责任等行政法义务。     

Abortion in Northern Ireland: Has the Rubicon Been Crossed?

On 7 June 2018, the Supreme Court delivered their long anticipated ruling on whether the abortion laws in Northern Ireland are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the case was dismissed on procedural grounds, a majority of the court held that, obiter, the current Northern Irish law was incompatible with the right to respect for private and family life, protected by Article 8 ECHR, “insofar as it prohibits abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality”. This Supreme Court decision, seen alongside the May 2018 Irish referendum liberalising abortion, and the 5 June 2018 Parliamentary debate seeking to liberalise abortion laws in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, places renewed focus upon the abortion laws of Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which suggests that the ‘halfway house’ of the Abortion Act 1967 Act finally be close to being reformed to hand the decision of abortion to women themselves.     

试论国际私法的逻辑基础

国际私法的产生和存在,不是因为法律冲突这一社会现象,而是基于十四世纪产生的新型的国际社会关系。 同时,法律作为国家意志,是要约束人们的意识行为,而不是要解决某种客观的社会现象。因此,国际私法的目的和 任务不是要解决法律冲突,而是通过确定当事人的权利义务,建立和维护一个合理的国际民商事交往秩序。     

普遍义务论纲

普遍义务的出现以"二战"后人权国际化和普遍化为背景,是绝对的义务,在国际义务中居于较高层次。普遍义务多为禁止性的义务,以人类社会基本价值和国际社会共同利益作为其承担义务的法理基础。普遍义务反映了国际法价值论的变化。普遍义务应促使我们对国际法体系结构和国际法效力的根据再审视,并重塑国际法中自然法的应有地位,同时也应防止对普遍义务的滥用。     

Can the Human Rights Bodies be Used to Produce Interim Measures to Protect Environment-Related Human Rights?

International environmental law does not protect individuals as such. On the other hand, human rights do not formally encompass the right to a healthy environment. This article argues that human rights bodies are suitable forums to protect environment-related human rights. They can do so by producing interim measures to prevent States' actions or inactions towards the environment from infringing on human rights, even if the harmful character of those actions is uncertain. It is demonstrated that the recourse to the precautionary principle is possible to achieve such anticipatory protection and is supported by recent developments in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the International Court of Justice. In particular, the article shows that human rights bodies can develop interrelationships and interdependency between rights of different normative values in different areas of international law that will lead to equitable interim measures prescribing positive obligations that are reasonable and appropriate.     

Cosmopolitan Duty and Legitimate State Authority

In this paper I apply a suitably developed version of Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority to the debate over the legitimacy of state action aiming to fulfill cosmopolitan moral obligations. I aim to advance two interrelated theses. First, viewed from the perspective of Raz’s service conception of authority, citizens’ moral duties to non-compatriots are an appropriate ground for authoritative intervention by agents of the state. Second, international law based on these duties can also enjoy moral authority over government decision makers. An important source of the moral force of international law is derived from the power of international law to improve officials’ ability to recognize and conform to the totality of their reasons, which contributes to their states’ legitimacy.     

中国传统民事法律的情理观及其当代价值

以天理与人情为内容的情理观影响、规范着中国传统社会民事法律规则,确立了传统民事法律的最高要求与最低底线,其以儒家礼治思想为基础,以公允、诚信、习俗原则为表现形态,贯穿于古代社会民事立法、司法、执法制度的各个方面。天理、国法、人情的和谐既是古代封建官员追求的目标,也是民众民事行为的准则,并由此构建了中国古代独具特色的人情社会。在构建中国民法典的过程中,我们应当科学地对待传统的情理观,取其世俗化、民族化以及权利义务对等性等合理因素,为制定融传统性与现代性为一体的中国民法典所用。