HARMONIOUS COEXISTENCE

正In upgrading its protection of wild elephants, China can look to Kenya Over the past few months, with the northward migration of Asian elephants in southwest China's Yunnan Province, the wild species has caught the eye of the international community, and the preparation for the establishment of an Asian elephant national park in China has been pushed forward.     

Red Tape,Rule Burden,and Legitimate Performance Trade-Offs: Results from a Vignette Experiment

Abstract

Goals in the public sector are complex and managers can face situations in which pursuing one legitimate goal necessitates performance trade-offs in other areas. This study tests how knowledge of legitimate performance trade-offs shapes the perception of red tape. Using a vignette experimental design and a sample of university students, between group t-tests and regression analyses suggest that, when evaluating increased rule burden, individuals that are provided with information about how objectively burdensome rules serve alternative values such as equity and effectiveness associate them with lower levels of red tape. A series of Monte Carlo simulations suggest that this effect is substantial.     

The Frontiers of Legal Analysis: Reframing the Transition in Northern Ireland

British constitutional legal discourse is structurally limited in its capacity to capture the complexity of the Good Friday Agreement. Rather than assessing the Agreement in narrow devolutionary terms, it should be seen as a hybrid domestic and international law instrument, making an important contribution to accepted international law norms in relation to self-determination. The Agreement transforms and partly transcends the Northern Ireland conflict by substituting political contestation for violent conflict, and by defining the modalities of conducting that contestation. This analysis complements classical international law perspectives, and opens up the application of legal discourses associated with 'transitional justice' to the legal and political transformation in Northern Ireland. These discourses focus on the problem of reconciling the demands of peace with the imperatives of justice. The Agreement sits squarely in this terrain with its provisions on 'dealing with the past' and 'institutional legacies'. The insights gained here challenge orthodox thinking about conflict-management and the ongoing political process.