Psychological and psychosocial interventions after attempted suicide: an overview of treatment studies

A literature search was conducted to collect randomized controlled studies evaluating the outcome of psychological and psychosocial interventions after attempted suicide and deliberate self-harm. Twenty-five studies meeting the inclusion criteria were identified. The studies are grouped according to the psychological approach chosen for the intervention. They are discussed with regard to both the various therapeutic strategies and models used, and the repetition of self-harming behavior as the main outcome.     

The Constitution of a European Democracy and the Role of the Nation State

Starting from the presupposition that European democracy is necessary to the survival and development of the European Union, the author deals with the process which may entail a European constitution, and discusses the elements of the present legal structure of the EU which are conducive to a European Democracy. In particular, the author focuses on the incomplete, polycentric, and dynamic character of a possible EC/EU constitution, and on the duality of its legitimating principle. This claim is that these characteristics necessitate some institutional modifications of democratic principles if compared with national democracy, and that Euro-democracy is possible if we do not simply apply the standards of democracy valid for Member States, but succeed in developing criteria which are adequate to the institutional qualities of the EC/EU. Finally, the author maintains the legal character of the regulatory power of the Community, and invokes the mutual legal bonds linking the Member States and their peoples as the source of the Community.     

Political strategies of large companies and their significance for the implementation of the European single electricity market: the examples of France and Germany

Electricity supply in the European member states has been a closed national public sector service without competition for a long time. Currently, the European electricity industry is subject to radical change resulting from the European directive establishing common rules for the internal market in electricity, which came into force in 1997. This paper attempts to explain the varying forms of implementation of the internal electricity market in France and Germany. First, it clarifies the special characteristics of electricity supply and European electricity policy. Secondly, the paper shows the divergent sectoral arrangements of the French and German electricity industries. Thirdly, it points out that the different degrees of linkage between the public players and the electricity companies in France and Germany produce different political strategies which are followed by the companies at the European level, especially those strategies which seek direct influence on the European Commission. Finally, the paper reveals the significance of these strategies in Brussels in terms of the implementation of the single electricity market in both member states. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

War Crimes Prosecution in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-2002): An Analysis through the Jurisprudence of the Human Rights Chamber

The authors examine the efforts to bring persons suspected ofwar crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosniaand Herzegovina (BiH) to justice before the national judiciary.The analysis is based on the case law of the Human Rights Chamberfor BiH, which from 1996–2003 was the highest court competentto adjudicate violations of human rights in post-war BiH. TheChamber heard complaints linked to war-time atrocities fromtwo main perspectives: (i) that of persons put on trial forwar crimes and (ii) the perspective of the relatives of war-crimesvictims complaining about the failure to investigate and prosecute.The Chamber cases establish that (a) the few prosecutions whichtook place were nearly exclusively directed against suspectsbelonging to the war-time adversary, (b) the authorities failedto comply with the Rules of the Road (a procedure put in placeto enable the International Criminal Tribunal for the formerYugoslavia (ICTY) to supervise Bosnian war-crimes prosecutions)and (c) suspects were often severely ill-treated to extort confessionsand denied a fair trial. The rule, however, was the lack ofany investigatory or prosecutorial action, with the exceptionof the so-called ‘ethnically mixed’ Cantons of theFederation of BiH, where proceedings were sometimes initiatedbut failed to yield an appreciable outcome. The authors discussthree reasons for the poor record: (i) ethnic bias among theauthorities, (ii) disempowerment and passivity of the victimsand (iii) failure to enact legislation that would give effectto and clarify the BiH side of the obligation to exercise jurisdictionconcurrently with the ICTY. They finally set forth some suggestionson lessons to be learned for future attempts to bring justiceto a war-torn society by the concurrent exercise of criminaljurisdiction by an international court and the judiciary ofthe country in transition.     

Organizational power and distributional conflict within OECD nations

Abstract. This article claims that a predator-prey model of cyclical growth is a useful concept for studying the dynamic relationship between wage and salary shares of GDP and employment. The rate of growth of employment is considered as an indicator of union bargaining strength; the change of the wage share is treated as a reflection of an ongoing distributional conflict between profits and wages. The paper discusses some of the analytic properties of the formal model. It continues with an attempt to fit the model to West German data for the period from 1960 to 1985. Given the formal rigidity of the model, this strategy is only partially successful. As a consequence, a more complex model is introduced which also relies heavily on the idea of a predator-prey cycle. As a fully-fledged political-economic model of the OECD type of systems, it allows us to study, among other issues, the implications of different union policies under the constraint of a serious unemployment problem.