Evidence-Informed Prevention of Civil Wars and Mass Atrocities

Abstract

The prevention discourse in all its forms has tended to ignore or at least downplay the epistemic problems with prevention. Forecasting political violence is not as easy as the debate on early warning often assumes. Effectively forestalling political violence and mass atrocities is much more difficult than the often used rhetoric of a ‘tool box’ implies, which creates the impression that one knows what works. An evidence-informed prevention policy needs to be aware of the limits of our knowledge, but at the same time knowledgeable of what social science research can provide – even if the results are provisional, often controversial and fraught with methodological problems.     

Responsibility to Protect in the Age of Global Terror: A Methodological Reassessment

Abstract

Ten years after its formal adoption, the R2P doctrine remains an incomplete project in a world of continuing conflicts now aggravated by the existential threat of global terrorism. The debate on the permissibility of military action to stop mass atrocities when authorisation to use force is not forthcoming from the Security Council has produced only a plurality of conflicting theories but hardly any progress at the normative level. A two-pronged approach could be used to consolidate R2P as a doctrine fully integrated into the corpus of international law. The first prong requires the revamping of the largely neglected Article 48 of the ILC Draft on State Responsibility; the second involves using R2P as a platform to initiate a reform of customary international law to make it more consistent with elementary principles of justice and universal human rights.     

OUT-OF-COURT STATEMENTS BY VICTIMS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE TO MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAMS: A CONFRONTATION CLAUSE ANALYSIS

Acknowledging the rapid growth of child sexual abuse in the United States, this Note advocates for the recognition of a limited exception to the blanket-hearsay ban on out-of-court statements made by unavailable declarants set out by the Supreme Court in Crawford v. Washington . In order to protect a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment confrontation right, Crawford requires that hearsay evidence that is "testimonial" in nature be deemed inadmissible if the witness is unavailable and the defendant does not have a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness against him. However, Crawford noted that, where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, cross-examination may not be necessary. Accordingly, where a child sexual abuse victim makes statements during a structured or semi-structured forensic interview to a member of a multidisciplinary team, these statements should be deemed nontestimonial and thus admitted into evidence, without requiring cross-examination of the child. Allowing for this exception to the general hearsay ban in Crawford is not only consistent with current precedent, but it is also warranted to promote public policy and to curb the negative impact such abuse has on society.     

建国初期司法改革运动述评

建国初期的司法改革运动是新中国法制建设史上的重大事件。开展此次运动是当时巩固人民政权、实行人民民主专政、维护革命秩序的要求,成绩很大。但是由于对旧法观点包括西方资本主义国家的法律思想未能采取实事求是的态度而予以全盘否定,对新中国后来的法制建设和法学发展产生了不可低估的负面影响。回顾、总结此次运动的经验和教训,正确处理法律的阶级性与普世性、司法与政治、司法官职业化与司法大众化以及司法程序化与司法便民化之间的关系,对于当前进行的司法体制和工作机制改革具有重要的现实意义。     

Provocation and Pluralism

What is the best way to reflect human diversity in the structure of the provocation defence, and similar excusatory defences in the criminal law? The House of Lords recently concluded that the right way is to allow the jury to personalise and thereby qualify the apparently uniform ‘reasonable person’ standard mentioned in section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957. In this paper we argue that this is not the right way at all. We argue that the reasonable person standard, unqualified, already accommodates the only variations between people that the law should want to accommodate in an excusatory defence. To defend this view we revive the common law's tripartite analysis of the ‘objective’ (or impersonal) issues in the provocation defence: first, was there an action capable of constituting a provocation? second, how provocative was it? and third, how much self‐control should have been exhibited in the face of it? We show that these questions each have a built‐in sensitivity to certain variations between different defendants' situations, but that this does not detract from their objectivity (or impersonality). We argue that no more sensitivity is needed in the name of human diversity, and what is more that no more sensitivity is desirable.     

Foreign direct investment,restructuring of R and D sector and technology transfer during economic transition： The case of Hungary

With the industrial restructuring of former socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe （ECE）, the local R and D system experienced fundamental changes as well. Specialized R and D institutions that supplied technology to enterprises were downsized dramatically. With the privatization of the industry, multinational corporations became major players in the advanced sectors of the industry. Sourcing of technology within the multinational corporate system increased import of technology and locally performed R and D dropped sharply. The rapid decline of R and D staff both at specialized research institutions and at the enterprise level coincided with a sharp drop in local patent applications. Operation of multinational corporations has also resulted in vertical and horizontal spillover of technology. The evidence on the extent of such transfer has varied among ECE transition economies and industrial sectors.     

Community security: human security at 21

The concept of human security has come a long way since its introduction in the UNDP Human Development Report in 1994. There are now a number of global and regional initiatives aimed at promoting human security issues. However, the achievements over the last two decades may be less impressive when one starts to explicate the progress of each of the key elements subsumed under the broad concept of human security. This paper will examine the extent to which community security, as one of the elements of human security, has been advanced through the security discourses and practices in the international arena. Using ASEAN as a case study, the paper argues that the massive gaps in human development, security and democracy hinder progress in promoting community security. The paper further argues that in developing states, community security is still very much the domain of the state.     

共振光散射法在核酸测定中的应用研究

本文用RLS技术研究了在酸性介质中，阳离子表面活性剂溴化十六烷基三甲铵（CTMAB）存在下，依来铬蓝黑R（Eriochrome Blue Black R，EBBR）与鱼精脱氧核糖核酸（fsDNA）相互作用的RLS光谱特征及影响因素，并在优化实验条件下，实现了对fsDNA的定量检测。对于EBBR┝CTMAB—fsDNA体系，fsDNA浓度的线性范围为0．01-1．6μg／mL，相应的检出限（3σ，n=5）为4．6ng／mL。将所建立的方法用于合成样品中痕量核酸的测定，回收率在97％-106％之间，RSD小于2．8％。     

Power,Popular Opinion,and the Latvian National Communists

This paper explores the attempts by Latvian national communists to develop and consolidate authority using both traditional and unconventional means. Of particular interest was their strategy of generating, then drawing upon, popular support to further their program. It is this author’s contention that the goal was to remove as many non-Latvians from the local Party as possible and replace them with Latvians. By comparing the newspaper Rīgas Balss with archival documents, interviews of participants, and memoirs, one can piece together the national communists’ agenda, the public response, use of public opinion, and finally, ascertain their level of success.     

Assessing Recidivism Risk Across Female Pathways to Crime

This research empirically examines the role of police in promoting collective efficacy and in particular, whether higher levels of police legitimacy are associated with more neighborhood collective efficacy. The research is conducted in the developing nation of Trinidad and Tobago—providing important evidence about the generalizability of the antecedents and effects of legitimacy outside of industrialized nations. The results support a potential role for police in promoting collective efficacy, but the mechanism for doing so is not legal institution legitimacy. Instead, the research identifies a relationship between quality routine police services, levels of police misconduct, and collective efficacy. In Trinidad, the amount and nature of interactions with police appear to play an important part in residents’ and neighborhood‐level assessments about police services and misbehavior.