Lost on the Way Home? The Right to Life in Northern Ireland

This article starts from the premise that, through the Belfast Agreement, the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) was invested with a 'transitional justice' function in Northern Ireland, unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom. The article evaluates how far the HRA has met this challenge by examining a case study of the right to life. The European Court's development of a procedural aspect to the right to life in the form of a right to an effective investigation, has implicated both institutional reform for the future, and also a need to revisit past state killings with their 'transitional justice' implications. There have been some positive developments, but, despite this, domestic institutions and courts have largely failed to deliver on Article 2's procedural aspect. The article concludes by questioning whether the very design of the HRA has limited the possibilities for a 'transformational constitutionalism' capable of incorporating Article 2's procedural right.     

Crime That Pays: The Global Spread of the Russian Mafia

Books reviewed in this article:
Robert I. Friedman, Red Mafia: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America
Paul Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia
James O. Finckenauer and Elin J. Waring, Russian Mafia in America: Immigration, Culture, and Crime
Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism
Jeffrey Robinson, The Merger: The Conglomeration of International Organized Crime     

“In the shadows of hierarchy”: Intergovernmental governance in Canada and the European Union

The articles in this issue suggest that intergovernmental governance takes a different form in Canada and the EU, raising questions about the transference of practices and institutions from one to the other. In both systems, non‐hierarchical modes of governance provide coordination in social policy. Hierarchy also plays a role, though not in a manner that one might expect. In the EU, hierarchy is tempered by members' direct participation in policy formulation. In Canada, hierarchy is important, but within rather than between governments, resulting in executive dominance of the intergovernmental process at the expense of devolving power to civil society and sub‐provincial governments.     

protagonists and victims: women leading the fight for a democratic Colombia

This paper offers an account of the relationship between gender, class and notions of happiness. It draws on recent research conducted into the experiences of working class women who play the UK National Lottery. In particular, it explores the notion that gambling offers working class women the opportunity to dream of the ‘good life’ – of enhancing their lives and of making ‘improvements’ to their own and their families’ well-being. In this paper, the discourse of happiness will be examined, and the tacit assumption that working class women in particular are prone to turning to gambling as a last ditch attempt to personal and emotional fulfilment will be challenged. The paper argues that developing understandings of culture and consumption practices is imperative for producing a more complex understanding of the subjective realities of working class women's everyday lives. By engaging with feminist accounts of respectability, daydream and fantasy, the paper will present a thorough exploration of National Lottery play in working class women's everyday experiences of happiness.     

Poland and Hungary, 1956: A Comparative Essay Based on New Archival Findings

Why did the Soviet Union intervene in Hungary in 1956 but not in Poland? This article reviews the “historical thesis”, “personality thesis”, and “neutrality thesis”. It concludes that, while the new archival sources do not radically alter these three older theses, they do yield some insights. Wladyslaw Gomulka was perhaps less successful in deterring the Soviet leaders during the latter’s 19 October visit to Poland and less secure politically in his own country than originally thought. In addition, Imre Nagy may not have been as progressive, given his initial opposition to the very decisions for which he has gone down in history as having made.