Protecting Journalists’ Sources Without a Shield: Four Proposals

Journalists’ right to protect the identities of their confidential sources relies on an inconsistent set of court decisions based on constitutional and common law interpretations and state statutes. Efforts to bring some consistency to federal law through the passage of a shield law have stalled while journalists face new threats because of the vulnerability of their communications to discovery and monitoring by third parties. Also, the entry of non-professional communicators into the news ecosystem is causing courts to reevaluate and redefine long-standing protections. This article proposes four ways that sources could be better protected from unmasking without the passage of a shield law: improving whistleblower laws to better protect people who report illegal or unethical actions to the media; vastly reducing the number of government secrets to make “leaking” less attractive or necessary; changing legal strategy to focus on protecting the anonymity of sources instead of the rights of journalists to keep secrets; and more widespread and intelligent use of encrypted applications and software could all improve the security of journalistic sources. Because of the complexity of amending multiple whistleblower protection laws and changing the government’s document classification system, the article argues that the best solutions may be to persuade news organizations to change legal tactics and to use better encryption technology.     

For Better or Worse? The Europeanisation of the Conflict of Laws

From its very beginnings the European Union(EU) has taken an interest in that area of legal activity known as the conflict of laws or private international law. The purpose of the conflict of laws is to determine how a national court should behave when confronted with a legal dispute that involves a foreign element. A state's conflict rules will provide the answer to three basic questions: in what circumstances their courts may assume jurisdiction over cases involving a foreign element, what system of municipal law to apply (their own or that of some foreign legal system) and which foreign judgments are capable of recognition and enforcement within their national system. The very fact that the EU exists in order to bring states together to form a single internal market would seem likely to provoke conflict of laws situations. It, therefore, appears unremarkable that the EU has agreed a variety of measures with a bearing on the conflict of laws. The purpose of this article, however, is not to give a detailed account of the EU's interventions on this topic. Instead the intention is to offer some thoughts upon and to raise some questions regarding the implications of the EU's engagement with the conflict of laws. In particular this article aims to provide an overview of the direction in which the EU is taking the conflict of laws and how this has affected the focus and character of the subject in one Member State, namely the United Kingdom. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

European Law Beyond ‘Ever Closer Union’ Repositioning the Concept,its Thrust and the ECJ's Comparative Methodology

The article investigates competing understandings of European law. It supports, against the prevailing EU‐centred understanding, an ecumenical concept that embraces EU law, supplementing international instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights and, importantly, various domestic laws enacting or responding to such transnational law, as well as European comparative law. To keep the concept in sync with European politics, it posits a new idea that binds the parts together: to provide for a European legal space rather than further European integration (the ever closer union). This idea can also serve as European law's functional equivalent to forming one legal order. European law thus conceived grasps the puzzling complex of interdependent legal orders, sets a common frame for corresponding reconstructions (European composite constructions, legal pluralism, network theories, federalism or intergovernmentalism) and allows forces with diverging outlooks to meet in one legal field, on one more neutral disciplinary platform. Within this framework, European comparative law finds a new mission as well as a sound legal basis.     

Autonomous weapon system: Law of armed conflict (LOAC) and other legal challenges

The legality of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) under international law is a swiftly growing issue of importance as technology advances and machines acquire the capacity to operate without human control. This paper argues that the existing laws are ineffective and that a different set of laws are needed. This paper examines several issues that are critical for the development and use of AWS in warfare. It argues that a preemptive ban on AWS is irrelevant at this point and urges the appropriate authorities to develop a modern legal framework that is tailored to embrace these state-of-the-art weapons as the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) develops. First, this paper explores the myriad of laws designed to govern the potential future development and deployment of artificial intelligence and AWS in the context of International Humanitarian Law or LAOC. Second, the paper argues that it will be challenging for AWS to fulfill the requirements laid out under the International Committee of the Red Cross and LOAC for the rules of humanity, military necessity, distinction, proportionality and precaution, especially as it is related to noncombatants. Third, the paper discusses command responsibility and argues that states should establish accountability for wrongful acts committed by the AWS. Finally, this paper contends that there is an urgent need for a new legal framework to regulate these AWS and presents different solutions for the legal framework of AWS.     

法律视野中的时间范畴

“时间”首先是自然科学和哲学的范畴 ,其运动规律在法律制度设计的技术化特征上也有体现。本文从分析法学与哲学、经济学的学科间影响 ;法律制度中与“时间”相关的概念、规则和原则 ;法律规范与客观规律的关系入手 ,阐述了“时间”范畴与法律制度、法律价值、法律程序、法律成本的密切联系 ,意在提醒人们 ,在研究法律制度的价值追求和伦理评价的基础上 ,法律中的时间问题或是以“时间”为重要范畴来分析法律制度的有关内容 ,具有重要的价值意义和工具意义 ,值得做思考的努力。     

Say cheese! Privacy and facial recognition

The popular social networking site, Facebook, recently launched a facial recognition tool to help users tag photographs they uploaded to Facebook. This generated significant controversy, arising as much as anything, from the company’s failure to adequately inform users of this new service and to explain how the technology works.The incident illustrates the sensitivity of facial recognition technology and the potential conflict with data privacy laws. However, facial recognition has been around for some time and is used by businesses and public organisations for a variety of purposes – primarily in relation to law enforcement, border control, photo editing and social networking. There are also indications that the technology could be used by commercial entities for marketing purposes in the future.This article considers the technology, its practical applications and the manner in which European data protection laws regulate its use. In particular, how much control should we have over our own image? What uses of this technology are, and are not, acceptable? Ultimately, does European data protection law provide an adequate framework for this technology? Is it a framework which protects the privacy of individuals without unduly constraining the development of innovative and beneficial applications and business models?     

Social networking sites and the legal profession: Balancing benefits with navigating minefields

The purpose of this article is to review the impact of social networking sites on law, the legal profession and dispute resolution. Within a very short period of time, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, combined with social networking hardware platforms, such as iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android, have infiltrated the profession of law and dispute resolution. Many legal professionals now have a social networking profile, use information on social networking sites as evidence, and interact with other lawyers and judges through such forums. This increased interaction in a publically accessible and viewable medium presents a challenge to the legal profession's traditional ideas of independence, confidentiality, and rules of evidence. Social networking mediums are here to stay. Therefore, this article looks at how this trend affects law and the legal profession, what issues it presents to lawyers and judges, whether new laws are necessary to take into account the impact of social networking sites and the benefits of such technology in fostering access to justice and helping parties achieve justice.     

The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict: Some Supplementations to Mattias Kumm

Abstract:  Mattias Kumm has developed a jurisprudence of constitutionalism beyond the State (CBS) proposing principles, to be applied by courts of both the Community and the municipal levels, about how to deal with constitutional conflicts. This CBS is supposed to be part of neither the Community nor the municipal legal systems but to emerge from a legal practice comprising the whole of Community and municipal laws. Preliminarily Kumm claims, situating himself, for argument's sake, within the framework of analytical jurisprudence, that there is no legal reason for a court not to choose a different ultimate legal rule than the one it used to adhere to. These supplementations argue that Kumm's preliminary claim is erroneous. If accepted, this argument eliminates one of the reasons for the development of CBS. Concerning Kumm's main claim, these supplementations argue that the substantive content of CBS—its principles—may well be, and indeed largely already are, accommodated within the traditional structure of legal systems founded on ultimate legal rules, and that the structure proposed by Kumm would make impossible any distinction between general and legal discourses, thereby seriously undermining the determinacy of law. It also argues that Kumm's CBS can be reconstructed, within the analytical framework, only as outright supremacy of EC law.     

The Privatization of Public Legal Rights: How Manufacturers Construct the Meaning of Consumer Law

This article demonstrates how the content and meaning of California's consumer protection laws were shaped by automobile manufacturers, the very group these laws were designed to regulate. My analysis draws on and links two literatures that examine the relationship between law and organizations but often overlook one another: political science studies of how businesses influence public legal institutions, and neo-institutional sociology studies of how organizations shape law within their organizational field. By integrating these literatures, I develop an "institutional-political" theory that demonstrates how organizations' construction of law and compliance within an organizational field shapes the meaning of law among legislators and judges. This study examines case law and more than 35 years of California legislative history concerning its consumer warranty laws. Using institutional and political analysis, I show how auto manufacturers, who were initially subject to powerful consumer protection laws, weakened the impact of these laws by creating dispute resolution venues. The legislature and courts subsequently incorporated private dispute resolution venues into statutes and court decisions and made consumer rights and remedies largely contingent on consumers first using manufacturer-sponsored venues. Organizational venue creation resulted in public legal rights being redefined and controlled by private organizations.     

Legal Transnationalism: The Relationship between Transnational Social Movement Building and International Law

This article examines the compelling enigma of how the introduction of a new international law, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), helped stimulate labor cooperation and collaboration in the 1990s. It offers a theory of legal transnationalism—defined as processes by which international laws and legal mechanisms facilitate social movement building at the transnational level—that explains how nascent international legal institutions and mechanisms can help develop collective interests, build social movements, and, ultimately, stimulate cross‐border collaboration and cooperation. It identifies three primary dimensions of legal transnationalism that explain how international laws stimulate and constrain movement building through: (1) formation of collective identity and interests (constitutive effects), (2) facilitation of collective action (mobilization effects), and (3) adjudication and enforcement (redress effects).     

Who's on the line? Policing and enforcing laws relating to mobile phone use while driving

This article investigates how laws relating to mobile phone use in cars are written, interpreted and applied in real life. It explores how regulations are imposed, the difficulties that are encountered in terms of enforcement, and how laws have been policed and tested in court. By focusing on the socio-legal context in Victoria and drawing upon international comparisons, we see that stories of enforcement highlight the unique and particular questions asked of existing legal systems by motorists using a mobile phone. Moreover, in describing the problematic process of developing and implementing legal regulations, we see that road rules are struggling to adapt to a transitional technology and that there are significant obstacles to enforcing the laws.     

Legal Translation and Cultural Transfer: A Framework for Translating the Common Law into Chinese in Hong Kong

It is widely held in translation studies that translation proper is not merely a process of linguistic transfer but also of cultural transfer. But how cultural transfer is effected or whether it can be effected is not at all clear. The study begins with a critical analysis of the problems relating to law translation in general and translating the common law into Chinese in particular. It then examines the nature of cultural transfer in law translation with special reference to the translation of common law terminology. The study purports to set out the framework for legal translation as cultural transfer, in particular, for translating the common law into Chinese in Hong Kong. It argues that successful transfer of the legal culture of foreign laws always requires the adjustment of translating language and the employment of metalanguage.     

FAMILY SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE: EMERGING ISSUES IN SOME DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WITH MIXED JURISDICTIONS

Family support and maintenance laws in several developing countries with mixed legal traditions derived from colonial and local laws are based on a litigation model. This model often fails to give adequate legal relief in the socioeconomic context of poverty. The situation is made worse by inequitable and gender‐biased inheritance laws. This article will use examples mainly from countries in South Asia and Commonwealth Africa to demonstrate how reformist legislation and constitutional jurisprudence in the area of public law and judicial activism highlight the issues that must be addressed if the legal system is to provide an effective system of family support and maintenance.     

美俄商用密码法律监管制度比较

商用密码是电子商务的关键技术,也是保护敏感信息的重要手段。目前,世界各国都在积极调整其商用密码政策和法律规范,力争在信息社会取得优势地位。我们在借鉴国际社会的密码法制经验时,也需要探索密码监管法律背后的国家政治、经济、军事、文化和技术基础。美国和俄罗斯在密码技术方面的领先优势以及对国家利益的考量是其商用密码监管法律制度的重要基础,而维护国家安全、商业利益和用户权利之间的动态平衡则是设计商用密码监管法律制度的核心。     

The legal status of clinical and ethics policies, codes, and guidelines in medical practice and research

This article examines the legal status of "soft law" in the fields of medicine and medical research. Many areas of clinical practice and research involve complex and rapidly changing issues for which the law provides no guidance. Instead, guidance for physicians and researchers comes from what has often been called "soft law"--non-legislative, non-regulatory sources, such as ethics policy statements, codes, and guidelines from professional or quasi-governmental bodies. This article traces the evolution of these "soft law" instruments: how they are created, how they are adopted within the professional community, and how they become accepted by the courts. It studies the relationship between soft law instruments and the courts. It includes an examination of the approaches to judicial analysis used by the courts in theory and in practice. The authors then examine the jurisprudence to see how courts will adopt professional norms as the legal standard of care in some circumstances and not others. They consider the legal concerns and ethical issues surrounding the weight attached to professional practices and norms in law. The authors demonstrate how practices and policies that guide professional conduct may ultimately bear weight as norms recognizable and enforceable within the legal sphere.     

Free movement of law students and lawyers in the EU: a comparison of English,German and Greek legislation

This article focuses on the linked themes of mobility within the European Union for law students and for lawyers. It highlights obstacles to cross-border legal education and legal practice across three Member States: England and Wales, Germany, and Greece. The European legal framework is outlined. The implications of recent case law of the European Court of Justice, on the conditions of access to higher education and financial support, are considered. Three main areas of concern are identified: admission arrangements; student finance; and the professional recognition of qualifications. The article compares the approach of the three Member States in each of these areas and explores conflicts between their domestic law provisions and European Union law. The article concludes by identifying ways in which ‘Europeanisation’ of legal education and the legal profession could be encouraged by facilitating law student mobility and by modernising the law curriculum.     

Linguistic Justice in International Law: An Evaluation of the Discursive Framework

Claims by minority groups to use their own languages in different social contexts are often presented as claims for “linguistic justice”, that is, justice as between speakers of different languages. This article considers how the language of international law can be used to advance such claims, by exploring how international law, as a discourse, approaches questions of language policy. This analysis reveals that international legal texts structure their engagement with “linguistic justice” around two key concepts: equality and culture. Through a close examination of the way in which these concepts function within international legal discourse, the article suggests that this conceptual framework may sometimes constrain, as well as enlarge, the possibilities for justice for minority language speakers. Thus while international law may provide a language for challenging injustices in the linguistic sphere, limitations inherent in this discourse may also restrict its emancipatory potential.     

论冲突法上的适应问题

冲突法上的适应问题是一种法律关系的准据法同他种法律关系的准据法分别属于不同法律秩序时,应如何调整两者在适用上可能产生相互矛盾及不调和的问题。增强准据法的适应性或者说对准据法加以调整是当代冲突法的一个新动向。可以说,适应或调整程序浓缩了确定准据法的技术,冲突法上的某些制度本身就是适应观念的体现。在适应问题的解决方面,目前还难以制定统一的一般准则,总的来说,有冲突法的适应方法、实体法的适应方法和比较法的适应方法。适应问题不仅存在于法律适用阶段,而且也发生在管辖权协调和外国判决执行方面。     

Allies Already Poised to Comply: How Social Proximity Affects Lactation at Work Law Compliance

This study demonstrates how legal compliance may be better achieved when organizations include individuals who will advocate for newly codified rights and related accommodations. To understand compliance with a new law and the rights it confers, this article examines as its case study the Lactation at Work law, which amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to mandate basic provisions for employees to express breast milk at work. In particular, this study interviewed those organizational actors who translate the law into the policies affecting workers' daily lives: supervising mangers and human resources personnel. Those studied in this article were “Allies Already:” friends or relatives of breastfeeding workers, or ones themselves, who held pro‐breastfeeding values and understood the complexities of combining lactation and employment. They mobilized within their organization to comply with the law swiftly and fully—often even overcomplying. This article demonstrates how heightened compliance, particularly with new laws, may be achieved even without directly affected actors mobilizing their own rights if allies champion needed accommodations.     

Law and public health: beyond emergency preparedness

This Article examines three questions: What is public health? What is public health law? What roles can lawyers play in public health? It first describes the breadth of public health, highlighting six trends shaping its future: social determinants of health; synergy between medicine and public health; shifts in focus from external (e.g., environmental and social) to internal (behavioral) risks to health; federalization of public health law; globalization of health risks and responses; and bioterrorism. Because the domains of law that apply to public health are equally broad, the Article next offers a conceptual framework for identifying the types of laws most suitable to different public health problems. Finally, the role of lawyers in the applied field of public health law is examined, first to encourage attention to law's effect on health, even laws having little apparent relationship to health; and second, to recognize that laws intended to achieve specific health outcomes may affect broader legal principles. Lawyers have a unique role to play in ensuring that the legal principles used to promote health also preserve justice.