The Emergence of Penal Extremism in California: A Dynamic View of Institutional Structures and Political Processes

This article examines legal and political developments in California in the 1970s and early 1980s that led to extreme changes in the state's use of imprisonment. It uses historical research methods to illustrate how institutional and political processes interacted in dynamic ways that continuously unsettled and reshaped the crime policy field. It examines crime policy developments before and after the passage of the state's determinate sentencing law to highlight the law's long‐term political implications and to illustrate how it benefited interest groups pushing for harsher punishment. It emphasizes the role executives played in shaping these changes, and how the law's significance was as much political as legal because it transformed the institutional logics that structured criminal lawmaking. These changes, long sought by the law enforcement lobby, facilitated crime's politicization and ushered in a new era of frenetic and punitive changes in criminal law and punishment. This new context benefited politicians who supported extreme responses to crime and exposed the crime policy process to heightened degrees of popular scrutiny. The result was a political obsession with crime that eschewed moderation and prioritized prison expansion above all else.     

The Force of International Law: Lawyers' Diplomacy on the International Scene in the 1920s

Where does international law (IL) draw its authority from a still weakly institutionalized international scene deprived of the warrants of a state? To address this classical debate, the article draws from a case study on the social and professional structure of the “international legal community” as it emerged during the 1920s as part of the rise of multilateralism and international organizations. It focuses on the “situation of the international lawyers” of the time, starting with the multiple and often antagonistic roles they play (as legal advisers, scholars, judges, diplomats, politicians, etc.) and the variety of interests and causes they defend (states, international organizations, professional interests, etc.) in international politics. It argues this heteronomy of international lawyers helps understand the autonomization of international law. Far from being opposed to one another it has often been assumed—realism and idealism, national loyalty and international loyalty, political logic and learned logic—actually gain when analyzed as various modes of affirming a single cause—that of an international rule of law. This attention given to the “situation of international lawyers” and to the way they manage their various allegiances also accounts for the particular vision of the “International” and of “Law and Politics” relationships that are encapsulated in this emerging international corpus juris.     

Redefining Apartheid in International Criminal Law

This article asks: to what extent is Article 7(1)(j) of the Rome Statute—the crime of apartheid—a tenable crime in international criminal law? It will be argued that despite the obligations incumbent on states not to intentionally discriminate against social groups, there is no customary legal norm of apartheid as a distinct crime against humanity. This is premised on the distinction between state obligations as different from norms demanding individual liability in international criminal law, as well as inadequacies of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973) and the absence of case law relying on apartheid as a crime against humanity. Further, the weaknesses hindering the formation of a customary norm of apartheid as a distinct crime against humanity will be assessed with regard to the Rome Statute. Also it will be shown that the lack of coherence of Article 7(1)(j) demonstrates that the crime of apartheid is subsumed by the crime of persecution. Finally, two suggestions are offered on how the crime of apartheid could be established as a distinct offence in international criminal law. The central thesis of this paper is that the crime of apartheid is ambiguous and inoperable. In order for Article 7(1)(j) to be relevant in international criminal law, the offence must be reworked and clearly articulated.     

State-Organized Crime,International Law and Structural Contradictions

Following the trail blazed by Bill Chambliss in his 1988 Presidential Address to the American Society of Criminology, this article engages two interrelated issues concerning the concept of state-organized crime that he pioneered. First, the article develops Chambliss’s argument that criminologists should define state crime as behavior that violates international agreements and principles established in the courts and treaties of international bodies. Second, although Chambliss effectively argued that international law “on the books” provides a framework of substantive concepts and categories that allows criminologists to define certain state actions as a form of crime, “in action” international laws fail to provide legal accountability for states and protection for victims. This article demonstrates, however, that Chambliss’s structural contradictions theory of law can help to explain this paradox.     

The Vocabulary of Progress in Interwar International Law: An Intellectual Portrait of Stelios Seferiades

The intellectual portrait of Stelios Seferiades sketched outin this article performs a dual function. While paying tributeto the work of a neglected, but fascinating, scholar, it servesas a heuristic device which allows us to examine the ‘vocabularyof progress’ in international law – the discursivestrategies used in legal argument to legitimize the transformationof the discipline. Crucial to the construction of such a vocabularyof progress in the international law writings of Seferiadesis the opposition between the notions of absolutism and democracy.The article situates this opposition in the political milieuof the interwar period and the life trajectory of Seferiades.Ultimately, it points to the closely-knit relationship between‘universalist’ vocabularies of progress, such asthe opposition between absolutism and democracy, and the personal-ideologicalpursuits of public international lawyers.     

国际犯罪的类型研究:回顾、反思与探寻

在理论研究的层面,国际犯罪的范围包括战争罪、侵略罪、危害人类罪等31种犯罪。在对这些国际犯罪进行类分时,根本立足点是国际犯罪,即以国际犯罪的自身特性为视角。由于国际犯罪是一定的主体所实施的严重危害国际社会共同利益,依据国际刑法应当承担刑事责任的行为,因此,在划分国际犯罪的基本类型时,可以采取如下几项标准:一是国际刑法的"两重性";二是国际犯罪的主体;三是国际犯罪的行为特征;四是国际犯罪侵害的法益。     

From Cold War Instrument to Supreme European Court: The European Court of Human Rights at the Crossroads of International and National Law and Politics

The history of the genesis and institutionalization of the European Convention on Human Rights offers a striking account of the innovation of a new legal subject and practice—European human rights—that went along with, but also beyond, the political and legal genesis of Europe following World War II. The rise of the European human rights institutions shows not only how law and lawyers played key roles in the early politics of European integration but also how the subtle combination of law and politics—as both national and international strategies—continued to play a decisive part in the institutionalization of European human rights. The article generally argues that the interplay between law and diplomacy had a fundamental impact on the innovation of European law and that lawyers capable of playing an intermediary role between the two were particularly central to this development.     

Setting the Path for the UNWCC: The Representation of European Exile Governments on the London International Assembly and the Commission for Penal Reconstruction and Development, 1941–1944

This article discusses the development of the UNWCC and the intellectuals involved. It notes the commitment that smaller Allied states made to frame international criminal law with regard to war crimes. The article pays particular attention to two Czech delegates who stood out from the community of experts, and who were instrumental in formalizing how war crimes committed in Europe during the Second World War – and beyond – should be handled. The concept of crimes against humanity became a main outcome of the legal debates, serving not only as a blueprint for the London Charter, but the international criminal law system as a whole. The predecessors of the UNWCC, involving some of the most renowned lawyers of the time, formed one of the first truly transnational networks. Moreover, the experiences of the lawyers, and their framing of that experience in lengthy memorandums, helped to generate a new concept in politics: the protection of human rights.     

国际航空犯罪法人刑事责任及其国内立法转化研究

2010年《北京公约》和《北京议定书》首次规定了国际航空犯罪法人责任,法人责任以法人的高级管理人员代表法人实施劫持航空器等国际航空犯罪为要件,法人为此承担刑事、民事或行政责任。公约对法人犯罪及其责任的立法需要转化为国内法才能适用。世界各国国内法对法人犯罪及其责任的态度差别较大,英国、加拿大、法国等国刑法规定有航空犯罪的法人刑事责任,德国国内法规定有航空犯罪的法人行政责任,意大利刑法规定有航空犯罪的法人民事责任,我国仅在个别航空犯罪中规定有法人犯罪及其刑事责任。我国法人犯罪及其刑事责任的立法和理论具有较强的包容性,可在我国刑法中取消法人犯罪法定化限制,全面规定包括航空犯罪在内的法人犯罪及其刑事责任。     

International Law,Institutional Moral Reasoning,and Secession

This paper argues for the superiority of international law’s existing ban on unilateral secession over its reform to include either a primary or remedial right to secession. I begin by defending the claim that secession is an inherently institutional concept, and that therefore we ought to employ institutional moral reasoning to defend or criticize specific proposals regarding a right to secede. I then respond to the objection that at present we lack the empirical evidence necessary to sustain any specific conclusion regarding an international legal right to secession. Specifically, I argue that we ought to adopt a precautionary approach, and that such an approach justifies giving no weight to promoting political self-determination per se when considering whether to reform international law governing secession. I conclude with several reasons to think that even a remedial right to unilateral secession will detract from, not enhance, the international legal order’s ability to promote peace and human rights.     

论卢旺达国际刑事法庭对国际刑法发展的贡献

卢旺达国际刑事法庭在1994年的建立和12年的审判实践经验为国际刑事法的发展作出了一定贡献.主要表现在:卢旺达国际刑事法庭是历史上首次建立专门审理非国际性武装冲突的国际刑事法庭;丰富了国际人道主义法的内容;扩大了对在非国际性武装冲突中犯罪的管辖权,进一步积累了国际刑事法院的审判经验,对国际刑法中的三大罪行的界定作出了新的阐释;推动了非洲国际法学的发展并在一定程度上促进了常设性国际刑事法院的建立.     

Non-State Actors in International Law: A Rejoinder to Professor Thirlway

That we consider the state-based system as best representing the individual is the product of a particular world view. A ‘naturalized myth’ renders inevitable the link between the physicality of the observable landscape and the state as a means of organizing a polity. This myth lingers on in international legal scholarship, although it has been debunked in other disciplines, notably in critical political geography. (Public) international lawyers can learn from their brethren in other disciplines and problematize the territorial state as a contingent political concept. Awareness of the social production of space may allow lawyers to imagine practices of resistance to the spatial status quo, in particular rights of non-state actors in the production of international law, alongside states, and obligations and responsibilities of non-state actors, especially where states have proved unable to properly assume roles of protection vis-à-vis individuals under their formal jurisdiction.

     

Political Liberalism and Political Embeddedness: Understanding Politics in the Work of Chinese Criminal Defense Lawyers

This article examines the meanings of politics in everyday legal practice using the case of Chinese criminal defense lawyers. Based on 194 in‐depth interviews with criminal defense lawyers and other informants in 22 cities across China, we argue that lawyers’ everyday politics have two faces: on the one hand, lawyers potentially can challenge state power, protect citizen rights, and pursue proceduralism in their daily work; on the other hand, they often have to rely on political connections with state agencies to protect themselves and to solve problems in their legal practice. The double meanings of politics—namely, political liberalism and political embeddedness—explain the complex motivations and coping tactics that are frequently found in Chinese lawyers’ everyday work. Our data show that the Chinese criminal defense bar is differentiated along these two meanings of politics into five clusters of lawyers: progressive elites, pragmatic brokers, notable activists, grassroots activists, and routine practitioners. They also suggest that a principal manifestation of political lawyering is not merely short‐term mobilization or revolutionary struggle against arbitrary state power, but also an incremental everyday process that often involves sophisticated tactics to manage interests that often conflict.     

Stateless Crimes,Legitimacy, and International Criminal Law: The Case of Organ Trafficking

Organ trafficking and trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ transplantation are recognized as significant international problems. Yet these forms of trafficking are largely left out of international criminal law regimes and to some extent of domestic criminal law regimes as well. Trafficking of organs or persons for their organs does not come within the jurisdiction of the ICC, except in very special cases such as when conducted in a manner that conforms to the definitions of genocide or crimes against humanity. Although the United States Code characterizes trafficking as “a transnational crime with national implications,” (22 U.S.C. § 7101(b)(24) (2010)), trafficking is rarely prosecuted in domestic courts. It has thus functioned in practice largely as what might be judged a “stateless” offense, out of the purview of both international and national courts. Yet these forms of organ trafficking remain widespread—and devastating to those who are its victims. In this article, we begin by describing what is known about the extent of organ trafficking and trafficking in persons for the purpose of removal of organs. We then critically evaluate how and why such trafficking has remained largely unaddressed by both international and domestic criminal law regimes. This state of affairs, we argue, presents a missed chance for developing the legitimacy of international criminal law and an illustration of how far current international legal institutions remain from ideal justice.     

论国际犯罪主体的范围与特征

由于对国际犯罪的本质、国家法律责任性质、国家犯罪标准的不同认识,学界对国际犯罪主体的范围界定不一。基于国际刑法规范及惯例中关于国际犯罪的规定、国际刑事审判实践、国际犯罪构成理论特质、国际刑法保护、国际社会共同利益的宗旨以及国际犯罪新形态等国际犯罪主体的内涵性考察,可以明确国际犯罪主体的外延应当包括个人、组织或团体(单位)、国家、国际组织,并可以概括出这四类国际犯罪主体的本质和认定特征。     

Boycott,Resistance and the Law: Cause Lawyering in Conflict and Authoritarianism

This article examines the role of cause lawyers in conflicted or authoritarian contexts where the chances of legal victory are often minimal. Drawing upon the literature on resistance, performance, memory studies, legal consciousness and the sociology of lawyers, the paper examines how cause lawyers challenge and subvert power. The paper first explores the tactics and strategies of cause lawyers who boycott legal proceedings and the relationship between such boycotts and broader political struggles, legitimacy and law. It then examines why and how cause lawyers engage in fairly hopeless legal struggles as acts of instrumental resistance (the ‘sand in the cogs’), transforming courts into sites of symbolic resistance, and using law as a form of memory work. The paper argues that boycott of and resistance through the courts can counter the use of law as an instrument of wickedness and a tool of denial and preserves a ‘stubborn optimism’ in the rule of law.     

Certain Questions in the Further Development of the Theory of Criminal Law

The achievements of Soviet criminal lawyers in elaborating the basic concepts of criminal law (crime, corpus delicti, complicity, stages of a crime, punishment, special and general prevention, etc.), in establishing boundaries between the norms of criminal law and those of morality, between legal and moral responsibility, between criminal law and other branches of law, etc., are doubtless of interest for the development of the theory of criminal law under the conditions of the state of the entire people. These achievements have promoted the strengthening of legality and constitute a solid basis for further improvement of the norms of criminal law. At the same time, certain concepts and institutions of criminal law that have taken root in theory and practice require critical re-examination as a consequence of various circumstances and, primarily, of certain historical events such as the 20th and 22nd congresses of the CPSU and the adoption of the new CPSU Program. The latter attaches particular significance to ideological work, the education of the new man, overcoming the vestiges of capitalism in human consciousness and behavior, and also poses the objective, new to world history, of uprooting crime within a definite and comparatively brief period of time.     

National Security vs Criminal law. Perspectives,Doubts and Concerns on the Criminalisation of Organised Crime in England and Wales

This paper will interpret and critically analyse the new offence for organised crime in England and Wales (Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015) from a criminological perspective in light of evidence found in research in the country. It will argue that changes in the law relate to changes in political narratives rather than to variations in the criminal panorama of organised crime. It will discuss these changes within three perspectives, which address various levels of concern: a narrative perspective, which reflects on the overlapping of meanings in the use of the words ‘organised crime’; an evolution perspective, which reflects on the origins of the new participation offences with reference to both national and international pressures; a management perspective, which reflects on some of the immediate effects of the new offences of organised crime on the criminal justice system. This paper will conclude that political narratives have indeed influenced criminal policy, while there is no significant change in the phenomenon of organised crime to justify such narratives.     

From refuge to trap: formalist misadventures of Poland’s postsocialist legal profession

ABSTRACT

Since 2015 the populist government of the Law and Justice Party in Poland has spearheaded a highly effective campaign against the country’s lawyers, encountering relatively muted social opposition. Using Bourdieuan lenses, the article traces the roots of that remarkable institutional weakness of the Polish legal profession to the highly formalist approach to law and legal thinking that Poland’s lawyers espoused. Prior to the fall of communism, and in democratic Poland, the role of lawyers in society was to act as guardians of “neatness” of the legal system – or that system’s internal clarity, cohesion, and completeness. Such a sterile approach to legal practice was initially attractive, among other reasons, because it protected the legal profession from difficult legitimacy challenges stemming from that profession’s pre-1989 coexistence with the communist regime. With time, however, the refuge that formalism offered became a trap that undermined lawyers’ political and economic power.     

Complicity in International Criminal Law and Canadian Refugee Law: A Comparison

International criminal law is normally seen as the purview ofcriminal prosecutions, either internationally or domestically.However, international criminal law is also increasingly beingapplied in refugee law. This is because the 1951 Refugee Conventioncontains an exclusion clause prohibiting asylum seekers fromobtaining refugee status if they have committed a crime againstpeace, a war crime or a crime against humanity. Thus, refugeelaw refers back to international criminal law; however, whileinternational criminal tribunals deal with persons who bearthe greatest responsibility, in actual practice persons whohave been excluded from refugee protection have been mostlyfrom the lower echelons of organizations involved in atrocities.This article, based on Canadian case law, examines the conceptsof complicity, aiding and abetting and joint criminal enterprisefrom both an international criminal law point of view and froma Canadian refugee law angle, in order to determine whetherthese notions have similar contents in the two jurisdictions.