Ethnic Law and Minority Rights in China: Progress and Constraints

Western discourse on human rights in China typically assumes that China's minority rights law must be a sham because China is an authoritarian state. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, China has articulated an "ethnic law" that elaborates rights and preferences that minorities value. At the same time, People's Republic of China ethnic law is inadequate to grant the idealized range of minority rights claimed by the Chinese state, and some rights are being eroded by the marketization of China's political economy. The most notable weaknesses in the ethnic law system include the failure to enlarge the scope of ethnic regional autonomy, a lack of preferential policies sufficient to offset the growth of the economic gap between Han and minority areas, and an inadequate program for overcoming antiminority bias. While an emerging minority elite is a stabilizing factor in minority‐state relations, additional measures to expand minority rights are required, some of which are suggested by the policies of other Asian states.     

法治国家下的少数人的特别权利

“多数与少数的关系”是民主理论、民主政治和法治国家的核心论题。满足不同的民族、族裔、宗教和语言群体的愿望并确保属于少数群体的人的权利,是法治国家的基本要求。现代民主政治体制和法治国家下促进和保护属于少数群体的人的权利的规定包括禁止歧视和少数人的特别权利。这些基于现代民主政治和法治国家下的平等理念已经成为国际社会的共识而在国际条约中得到了具体体现,集中体现在《在民族或族裔、宗教和语言上属于少数群体的人的权利宣言》。     

Partisanship,Sophistication, and Public Attitudes about Majority Rule and Minority Rights in Congress

The balance between majority rule and minority rights is a central issue in the design and operation of democratic institutions and remains a contested issue in debates of policy‐making processes. Remarkably, public attitudes about this balance are not subjected to scholarly investigation. In this article, we report the findings of the first survey experiment in which the American public's attitudes about majority rule and minority rights in legislative bodies are explored. We find robust support for both majority rule and minority rights, discover that only a few Americans distinguish between the US House of Representatives and Senate in the application of these principles, and demonstrate that views of majority rule and minority rights can be moved once we introduce respondents to the partisan implications of procedural rules. Moreover, with conflicting theoretical expectations about the effect of political sophistication on attitudes about majority rule and minority rights, we find that higher levels of political sophistication are associated with stronger partisan effects on attitudes about the balance between majority rule and minority rights in Congress.     

Authority,Nationality, and Minorities

Prominent normative theories for accommodating minority national groups appeal to the value of national cultures and/or the psychology of group recognition. This article aims to show that an argument from political authority provides a better justification. Building on Joseph Raz's theory of authority, the article argues that members of minority national groups are disadvantaged in relation to their majority counterparts under standard democratic institutions; such institutions do not provide minority national groups with comparable access to the conditions for legitimate political authority. Constitutional arrangements for accommodating minority national groups—such as territorial self‐government or power‐sharing—are justified insofar as they might offset this disadvantage.     

Education,Languages and Linguistic Minorities in the EU: Challenges and Perspectives

Although, with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, two provisions of EU primary law now refer to ‘minorities,’ there are no explicit EU competences and policies to promote the rights of minority groups in education. Nevertheless, EU law has a strong potential to impact the educational rights of linguistic minorities in Member States. To evaluate the right to access education, with an emphasis on the needs of minorities to preserve their identity, this paper first discusses the EU's relevant competences in education (Part II) and then in languages (Part III). Based on the analysis of relevant EU provisions, the paper concludes that EU law is unlikely to offer meaningful protection to linguistic minorities without explicitly endorsing their educational rights. However, to do so, the EU needs a stronger competence in education and minority rights.     

Judicial Responsiveness to Valence Issues: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) Laws

Under what conditions does judicial responsiveness to the public's policy preferences compromise the court's role as a countermajoritarian institution? Scholars have yet to examine whether and how quickly state appellate court justices respond to valence issues. This study investigates the relationship between retention elections and judicial responsiveness to the initial sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws popularized in the 1990s. Findings show that judges who participated in nonpartisan retention elections exhibited greater democratic accountability by engaging in judicial review of SORN laws earlier than judges in other retention election systems. Valence issues create political challenges for nonpartisan judges who, like their counterparts in other retention systems, are expected to balance majoritarian interests with minority rights.     

试析杰斐逊对自然权利思想的发展

杰斐逊是美国早期的民主思想家,是近代自然权利思想发展史上的重要代表人物。在由杰斐逊起草的1776年《独立宣言》中,他以洛克的自然权利思想为基础提出了人类三项自然权利:生命权、自由权和追求幸福权。杰斐逊以追求幸福权取代洛克的财产权,从而赋予近代自然权利思想以民主的意义。从自然法和历史传统两个角度,杰斐逊论证了自然权利的正当性;此外,杰斐逊还提出多数派应该尊重少数派权利,推动了近代民主思想的发展。     

Democratic Inclusion,Law, and Causes

Abstract. In this article two conceptions of what it means to say that all affected persons should be granted the right to vote in democratic elections are distinguished and evaluated. It is argued that understanding “affected” in legal terms, as referring to the circle of people bound by political decisions, has many advantages compared to the view referring to everyone affected in mere causal terms. The importance of jurisdictions in deciding rights to democratic influence should hence be recognized more clearly than it currently is in democratic thinking.     

Cultural Minority Rights and the Rights of the Majority in the Liberal State

Traditional liberalism's blindness to cultural concerns has often come under fire, while so-called “liberal multiculturalism” (Taylor and Kymlicka) has made it its business to take a good look at the place of culture within liberal law. According to them, cultural minorities should be recognized. In my opinion, however, their proposals, in fact, almost entirely preclude the possibility that cultural minorities would receive recognition within liberal society. In what follows, I explain my view of these matters and, above all, argue for a more vital understanding of cultural minorities. This will entail presenting a comprehensive view of minority rights within liberal society.     

On State, Identity and Rights: Putting Identity First

The paper considers the nature of the state understood as the political unity articulated on the basis of a collective identity which provides the state with its capacity to make decisions. The foremost decision of the state to protect and defend this identity is the source of its authority to enforce laws. Collective identity thus represents an object of special interest, unlike both ??political?? interests (Millian other-regarding acts) and private interests (Millian self-regarding acts). The validation of laws through this special interest is a necessary condition for both of these latter kinds of interests to materialize. Hence, unlike the Millian thesis of two different kinds of interests (self- and other-regarding), here we take that there are three types or spheres of interests. Any conception of rights, then, will cover a subset of interests found in the domains of all of those three types of interests: in the domain of political interest the issue concerns selection among competing sets of legitimate interests, within the domain of private interests the point is to discern those that will be protected by law, while the third type of interests, the object of which is a unique collective identity and its defining specificity, represents an overarching interest that is embedded in any legitimate collective concern. In this scheme, well-suited for democratic theory, the majority/minority discourse is a matter of distinguishing which particular set of legitimate interests is chosen to be dominant (e.g., which political party is in power) and which ones are waiting for the opportunity to achieve their transformation from minority (opposition) to majority (i. e. government). If, however, there is no well-defined collective identity, minorities acquire a new meaning. Rather than being possible future majorities, they form a nucleus of competing collective identities with, sometimes hopeless but still alive, aspirations to sovereignty. Thus they become sources of likely conflicts that may go well beyond political controversies.     

Locke on Toleration and Inclusion

As the product of liberalism's first encounter with the theoretical problems posed by legal discrimination and unequal treatment of minority groups, Locke's argument for religious toleration foreshadowed contemporary democratic theory's emphasis on non‐coercive discussion of diverse rights claims and broadly inclusive public deliberations. This study tries to illuminate the democratic dimension of Locke's toleration theory by focusing on his crucial account of the church as a voluntary association. Here Locke presented discursive possibilities for the articulation of diverse beliefs and interests that he believed would not only benefit both society as a whole and the minority religious groups contained in it, but also weave principles of contestation and deliberation into the very fabric of the liberal polity.     

统一多民族国家的宪制建构——新中国成立初期民族区域自治制度的奠基历程

对于民族区域自治制度在我国的确立,《共同纲领》的宪政宣示尽管具有最为重要的合法性确认意义,但这一基本宪政制度的真正奠基,则有赖于民族识别、民族干部培养、少数民族地方民主改革等一系列相关政治实践。这其中,少数民族地方民主改革可视为我国民族区域自治制度奠基的关键,它直接决定了新中国的民族治理制度是否坚持和贯彻了社会主义方向这一民族区域自治制度的最实质所在。同时,新中国通过将民族区域自治制度作为我国民族治理的基本宪政制度,也实现了清末以来多民族大国的民族—国家建构的真正飞跃。     

契合或分离：中国人民政治协商会议权能的政治学分析

以权利为基础实行的一系列政治行为是实现中国人民政治协商会议政治功能的手段。以中国人民政治协商会议政治功能为导向形成了＂领导、合作与协商＂的功能结构。履行政治协商、参政议政和民主监督三大职能是中国人民政治协商会议政治功能权能的评价方式。在我国政治实践中,中国人民政治协商会议政治功能权利的赋予主要来自政治层面,而作为组织体系的权利属性则相对较弱,因此,影响了其功能和职能的发挥。中国人民政治协商会议权能在理论和实践中是契合还是分离,决定了中国人民政治协商会议作为一种重要的政治制度在国家政治生活中职能作用的发挥。     

The Americans with Disabilities Act as risk regulation.

Much disability based discrimination occurs because of fears that hiring or serving people with disabilities will pose a safety risk. Disability rights laws such as the ADA strictly regulate such risk-motivated discrimination. Many disability rights advocates and academic defenders of the ADA laud such laws as applying a "scientific" approach to risk rather than the "irrational" approach generally adopted by the public at large. That position is doubly strange: It stands in remarkable tension with disability rights advocates' general suspicion of "experts," and applies a technocratic approach to risk regulation-an approach that usually has politically conservative implications-to achieve the distinctly nonconservative goal of promoting the full integration of people with disabilities into our nation's economic and civic life. In this essay, Professor Bagenstos uses the problem of risk-motivated disability discrimination as a lens through which to examine the politics of risk regulation scholarship. He argues that the easy association of technocratic approaches with political conservatism-and of democratic approaches with political liberalism or progressivism-ignores the complex ways in which technocratic and democratic institutions may serve or disserve particular political interests.     

Legal Change and Gender Inequality: Changes in Muslim Family Law in India

Group-specific family laws are said to provide women fewer rights and impede policy change. India's family law systems specific to religious groups underwent important gender-equalizing changes over the last generation. The changes in the laws of the religious minorities were unexpected, as conservative elites had considerable indirect influence over these laws. Policy elites changed minority law only if they found credible justification for change in group laws, group norms, and group initiatives, not only in constitutional rights and transnational human rights law. Muslim alimony and divorce laws were changed on this basis, giving women more rights without abandoning cultural accommodation. Legal mobilization and the outlook of policy makers—specifically their approach to regulating family life, their understanding of group norms, and their normative vision of family life—shaped the major changes in Indian Muslim law. More gender-equalizing legal changes are possible based on the same sources.     

How Democratic is Civil Disobedience?

In her book, Conscience and Conviction, Kimberley Brownlee argues that there is nothing undemocratic about the robust, primary right to civil disobedience that she devotes most of her argument to defending. To the contrary, she holds that there is nothing paternalistic about civil disobedients opposing the will of democratic majorities, because, inter alia, democratic majorities cannot claim particular epistemic superiority, and because there are flaws inherent to democratic procedures that civil disobedience addresses. I hold that Brownlee’s arguments fail. In particular, her argument fails because it does not properly construe the nature of the epistemic claim that can be made either by democratic procedures or by civil disobedients, and because it illegitimately conflates the concern about permanent minorities that has been a constant thorn in the side of democratic theorists, with a concern with all outvoted minorities, whether permanent minorities or not.     

少数人权利及其保护的平等性

少数人作为弱势群体的一部份 ,其权利日益受到各国的关注与重视。然而 ,在对少数人具有重要意义的经济、社会、文化权利上 ,各国却有不同的看法 ,本文在比较了各国在权利问题上的文化传统和近现代的各种平等理论之后 ,分析指出在以经济、社会、文化权利为核心的相当一部份权利上 ,各国政府应当在避免形成“反向歧视”的前提下 ,采取积极措施 ,让少数人有更多机会参与社会竞争 ,实现社会整体的平等和更公正意义上的平等     

The More the Merrier? Hungarian and Romany Minorities in Slovakia

This article discusses some important aspects of thetreatment of minorities in the Republic of Slovakia.It discusses the 1992 Constitution and subsequentdevelopments such as the State language law 1995, therestriction of political rights of Hungarians,educational policies, the setback of EU entry talks,the September 1998 general elections, the Dzurindagovernment's ``De-Meciarization', the 1999 MinorityLanguage Law, and recent electoral legislation. Thespecial condition of the Romany is considered. Theeffectiveness of international mechanisms for theprotection of minority rights (the Organisation forSecurity and Cooperation in Europe, the InternationalCovenant for Civil and Political Rights, the EuropeanConvention of Human Rights, the Framework Conventionfor the Protection of National Minorities) isassessed, as is the involvement of the EU. Finally,the role of the judiciary is reflected upon.     

Contemporary Pluralism and Toleration

The author outlines a conception of toleration as recognition of differences which she argues to be more adequate than current liberal views in order to face issues arising from contemporary pluralism. The liberal conception of toleration as freedom from government's interference in certain areas is appropriate if pluralism is conceived of as a plurality of conflicting conceptions of the good. By contrast, if pluralism is understood as the plurality of groups and cultures, asymmetrically situated in democratic society, then the issues underlying toleration are seen as the contested claim of minorities for asserting their different identity in the public space. Public toleration of differences is thus viewed as a symbolic public gesture of inclusion of the different identities and their bearers into democratic citizenship on an equal footing as members of minority groups. The argument supporting public toleration is so founded on reason of justice.     

Tolerance and the Law

Analyzing the legal dimension of tolerance in the field of international law (especially in international U.N. Declarations and Covenants on human rights), the author emphasizes how the principle of tolerance implies not merely a legal system "agnostic" to religious truth but also the development of minorities and the principle of non-discrimination in a democratic system. Non-discrimination appears to be particularly important in the face of the current phenomena of religious extremism and intolerance; development of a multicultural society is recognized in the U.N. Declaration against Intolerance and Discrimination of 1981.