Multiculturalism and the Willingness of Citizens to Defer to Law and to Legal Authorities

A key problem in trying to manage diverse societies is finding social policies that will be acceptable to all individuals and groups. Studies suggest that this problem may not be as intractable as is often believed, since people's acceptance of policies is shaped to an important degree by the fairness of the procedures used by authorities to make policy. When policies are fairly made, they gain widespread support, even among those who may feel that the consequences of the policy for them or their group are undesirable or even unfair. These findings support an optimistic view of the ability of authorities to manage diverse societies. On the other hand, research suggests that the ability of procedural justice to bridge differences among individuals and groups may not be equally strong under all conditions. People's willingness to accept policies is more influenced by procedural justice judgments when they identify with the society that the authorities represent and view them as representing a group of which they are members. They are less influenced by procedural justice judgments when they identify more strongly with subgroups than with society and/or view the authorities as representatives of a group to which they do not belong.     

从打事实到打证据到打规则

前些日子，一位基层法院从事民事审判的朋友告诉我说，自从4月1日实行了新的证据规则后，说原告们不懂法律吧，律师们怎么也一下子不会打官司了，他们那里一审民事案件原告的败诉率陡增了30％，原因何在?倒不是原告们证明不了自己的权利，而是他们的证据和举证方式总是不够标准，不够完美。我听了也深有同感，尽管按过去的方式，按普通百姓的正常思维方式来看，原告们已经充分地证明了自己的权利，但按“新法律人”...     

如实回答与沉默权的功能主义分析与文化解释

如实回答与沉默权作为一项具体的法律制度属于＂人造之物＂,具有特定的功能。从功能主义出发,梳理如实回答与沉默权在各自不同诉讼结构中的功能性作用,说明其影响诉讼结构之机理。如实回答与沉默权亦是＂文化之物＂。通过文化解释,剖析如实回答与沉默权所蕴含的价值判断,回答了决定二者废与立的决定性原因。功能主义分析与文化解释的相互补充性的阐释,解决＂如何做＂的问题。     

正确认识与积极应对技术性贸易壁垒

技术性贸易壁垒是20世纪80年代以来的国际贸易领域中引人关注的重要现象。这一现象以两种形式八种表现存在于当今世界经济之中。技术性贸易壁垒是一柄双刃剑，既有其存在的合理性，对世界经济和国际贸易有着积极的作用，并在一定程度上有利于舞障各国的消费健康和国民生命安全，同时也会被贸易保护主义思潮利用，成为影响世界经济和国际贸易发展的严重阻碍。应对技术性贸易壁垒必须熟知世贸组织关于技术性贸易壁垒的规则，尽量参与国际标准的制定工作，建立必须的预警机制，充分利用双边与区域合作协调机制等。     

经济的知识化、知识的权力化与法律的知识化

知识经济已经成为新世纪经济发展和法律变革的时代主题 ,社会经济的知识化以及由此带来的知识的权力化 ,引起了构成法律基本要素的“理”即生产方式与“力”即国家权力的相应变化 ,进而引起了法律的知识化发展趋势 ,建立在知识基础上的法律更具有合法性 ,未来法治的重心应是加强知识的法律化和法律的知识化建设。     

Access to treatment as a right to life and health

In some countries in Latin America, in the absence of leadership from governments, activists have had to resort to the courts to obtain access to HIV/AIDS treatments for people with HIV/AIDS. In his presentation to the XIII International AIDS Conference (abstract TuOrE458), Edgar Carrasco, of Acción Ciudadana Contra el Sida (ACCSI), discusses the process that was followed in Venezuela. The presentation describes the very limited access people with HIV/AIDS had to antiretroviral therapies and treatments for opportunistic infections under Venezuela's health and social security systems. It provides details of lawsuits that were launched on behalf of several individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and that resulted in the courts ordering the government to provide treatments for these individuals and, eventually, for all people with HIV/AIDS in Venezuela. The presentation concludes that recourse to the courts is a useful tool for activists and that civil actions launched on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS can serve as an example for people with other chronic diseases.     

The Duty to Bring Terrorists to Justice and Discretionary Prosecution

In Res. 1373 (2001), the Security Council laid down the dutyto bring terrorists to justice and to deny them safe haven.Whereas such duty expressed a clear political imperative inthe aftermath of 11 September 2001, it is less clear how nationalauthorities are supposed to translate it into a set of enforceablelegal obligations. If it is interpreted as ‘obliging’states to prosecute and try terrorists, as the Security CouncilCounter Terrorism Committee seems to suggest, the power of prosecutorsto decide whether or not to bring a case to court may be severelyimpaired. An unconditional obligation to bring terrorists tocourt would not necessarily strengthen states’ judicialresponse to the threat of international terrorism. A sensibleexercise of prosecutorial discretion may be instrumental inarticulating a flexible and more effective response in variouscircumstances. Moreover, a rigid interpretation of the requirementto bring terrorists to justice does not find support in SecurityCouncil and General Assembly resolutions on terrorism. Far frommandating that alleged offenders be unconditionally broughtto trial, the universal counter-terrorism conventions and protocolslimit themselves to requiring that the jurisdiction of nationalcourts be established, which is conceptually different fromimposing its actual exercise.     

Sensitivity to befallen injustice and reactions to a real-life disadvantage

The study investigates the construct validity of a self-report questionnaire for dispositional sensitivity to befallen injustice (SBI; Schmitt, Neumann, and Montada, 1995). The items of this questionnaire are combinations of four indicators of SBI (frequency of perceived injustice, intensity of anger, intrusiveness/perseverance of thoughts about the event, punitivity) with 18 types of unfair situations (e.g., performing better than others without getting any appreciation or reward). At Occasion 1, SBI, trait anger, anger in, anger out, anger control, self-assertiveness, and attitudes toward equality were measured. At Occasion 2, the subjects (57 advanced psychology students) took part in a lottery for distributing scarce teaching resources among students. The lottery led to objective advantages for some students and to objective disadvantages for others. Four reactions to the event were measured at Occasion 3: judgment of the lottery as injust, anger about the lottery, experiencing the lottery as demotivating, and approval of activities against the lottery. These reactions were regressed on the variables measured at Occasion 1. SBI was the only significant predictor of the justice judgment and the approval of activities. Anger about the lottery depended only on objective disadvantage/advantage. Experiencing the lottery as demotivating depended negatively on anger control and positively on the intrusiveness/perseverance of thoughts about the event, a subscale of the SBI inventory.     

Reflexive Adaptation of Business to Regulation and Regulation to Business

Regulatory change is driven by competitive struggle. Regulatees struggle with each other for customers and with regulators to lessen the burden of the rules being enforced. Regulators compete for regulatees and for the confidence of customers and the general public.
Competition among regulators is imperfect. Along with better rules, new entrants must offer reputational capital, financial strength, and recognized enforcement powers. These entry requirements have supported a secular expansion of government suppliers relative to private suppliers. Principal-agent conflicts inherent in representative democracy establish incentives for this expanding sector to produce regulatory services of poor quality. Finding ways to make top government regulators economically accountable for acts of misregulation is a critical problem.     

监狱民警违法违纪案件之透析

近年来,预防和惩治监狱民警腐败问题,不仅在司法行政机关党风廉政建设中摆上重要位置,而且日益引起社会关注。分析监狱民警腐败问题,原因固然很多,我们以为,这中间表现出来的我国传统中的“熟人社会”文化影响不能忽视。在我省近几年发生的监狱民警职务活动中的违法违纪案件中,     

走近论题学法学

伯尔曼对西方法律传统的描述,并未细致地揭示11世纪之前西方古代法学在知识论和方法论上的特征。不可否认的是,近代大学体制不仅打造了一个"以学术为生"、专事学问研究的知识群体,而且也铸造了一种追求逻辑形式主义的科学精神,但是,"经院派"以及以后的"公理方法派"法学家们的做法,实际上遮蔽了古老的法学作为一门法的实践知识的性格。古代的论题学体现了这种性格,它将法学的论辩活动带入到了更复杂、更可靠、更贴近人类社会生活现实的思考结构之中。