WHERE IS THE VILLAGE GOING? MAINTAINING AND INCLUDING CULTURAL STRENGTHS TO PROTECT CHILDREN ORPHANED IN KENYA

This article is the result of a master's thesis about children and their universal right to be included in a family environment. This is not only protected under international law, but also intuitive to human beings. HIV‐AIDS continues to threaten lives of children, particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa in the form of orphaning. Looking at a case study from Kenya, it is revealed that, while legal protection is yet to be fully realized in the state, strong cultural norms of value are alive. Currently, the extended family system is the greatest protection to children orphaned or at risk of being orphaned. However, this system was made invisible in the domestic laws of Kenya under the Children Act 2001. This neglect calls for questions not only regarding the protection cultural norms may offer, according to the best interests of children, but also as to the cultural environment being created with the new law.     

超期羁押28年案件凸现我国人权法制的软肋——关于谢洪武悲剧的法理与制度分析

超期羁押28年的谢洪武案件是我国人权法制实践中一个悲剧性的典型案例,暴露出我国人权保障机制的一系列突出问题,主要是法律理念严重滞后、有关法律制度不健全、价值取向发生偏差;在人权入宪的背景下透视我国人权法制发展问题,应以尊重和保障人权为立足点推进法制转型,特别是推动法律观念革新和人权法制创新,这是实现依法治国方略、建设和谐社会的必由之路.     

网络安全的战略选择

随着网络空间的迅速扩张及其对社会各领域的全面渗透,网络空间不断增长的财富、战略价值以及世界经济社会运行对网络空间的深度依赖,使网络空间整体安全问题的重要性日益凸显,网络安全已成为国际社会面临的又一全球性公共问题。网络安全问题虽然属于国家安全范畴内的非传统安全领域,但国家对于安全的偏好没有改变,对安全追求的逻辑路径依旧。从理论的角度看,由于体系压力以及国家对于安全的追求,国家会选择制衡的战略,但在现实中,制衡经常缺位或迟到。受到非传统安全环境影响,地缘战略中分而治之、领土补偿、加强军备、联盟以及平衡手的存在等制衡方式和作用、意义同时发生了变化。细分到网络安全领域,沟通机制的不同、威慑效果不同、行为体的多样、行为判断的困难等特殊性,导致在网络安全领域,国家选择追随或合作将成为更优选择。     

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the context of South Caucasus regional security issues: An Armenian perspective†

For more than a quarter-century, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been one of the most important factors influencing the political map of the South Caucasus. On 12 May 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement that ended military operations in the conflict zone and has been observed until recently. Negotiations for a peaceful settlement have been underway within the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia, and France since 1992, but society and the elite in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan remain largely unprepared for compromise. Considering the settlement process a zero-sum game, they have generally accused one another of escalating the conflict and of a lack of willingness to restore peace. Other countries and international organizations involved in the negotiations do not share a vision of the future and frequently pursue their own interests. Accordingly, the Karabakh conflict could remain unresolved for decades more. The aim of the paper is a general assessment of the current stage and dynamic of this conflict and the impact of new trends and old obstacles on the prospects for further settlement.     

Preparing NATO for the Future – Operating in an Increasingly Contested Environment

The global proliferation of precision-strike systems may be challenging the foundations of Western military-technological supremacy. Relatedly, the development of so-called Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities across the globe threatens to complicate Western freedom of military movement and access, and could give way to a more contested military-strategic environment. The twin challenges of precision-strike proliferation and A2/AD strongly impact NATO’s agenda, which revolves around strengthening deterrence and defence in Eastern Europe, and addressing the different threats emanating from the so-called Southern European neighbourhood. In order to address or mitigate such challenges, the Alliance needs to produce operational concepts and capabilities able to deliver deterrence and expeditionary warfare in a maturing precision-strike environment, one characterised by the emergence of A2/AD capabilities.     

补充侦查造成的超期羁押问题

在我国刑事诉讼司法实践中,存在因补充侦查而造成超期羁押的现象。这不仅严重侵犯了犯罪嫌疑人的合法权益,而且产生了极大的社会负面影响。应当完善相关法律法规,正确适用补充侦查措施,避免由此而造成超期羁押。     

The Economics of Cruel and Unusual Punishment

It has sometimes been argued that one way to reduce the costs of law enforcement would be to reduce the probability of detection and conviction (hence saving those costs), while at the same time increasing the size of the punishment. Following this strategy would keep the expected costs (to a risk neutral criminal) of committing a crime constant and hence keep the deterrence level constant; it would have the benefit, though, of reducing costs to the rest of society.There are some well-known objections to such a policy. One such objection deals with marginal deterrence: A convicted murderer serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in a jurisdiction which bans capital punishment has nothing to lose from killing a prison guard—there is no marginal deterrence to the commission of a more serious crime or any additional crime for that matter. In fact, so long as there remains any upper limit to the amount of punishment that can be inflicted upon a convicted criminal, the only ways to create some type of marginal deterrence are to reduce the punishments for less serious crimes, which will either reduce the deterrence of those less serious crimes, or alternatively to require the use of more of society's scarce resources to increase the probabilities of apprehension and conviction.It is possible to reduce this marginal deterrence problem, however, by practicing cruel and unusual punishment on perpetrators of serious crimes, i.e. by raising the limits of allowable punishment. Anecdotal evidence suggests this practice is followed unofficially with child molesters and killers of prison guards and hence provides some additional deterrence against these crimes.Despite the theoretical validity of this argument, our society has chosen to impose a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, over time we seem to have lowered the threshold of what is considered cruel and unusual. Following Dr. Pangloss, the concluding section of the paper examines why rational maximizers would choose to give up this additional potential deterrence. The explanations depend upon an assumed positive income elasticity of demand for humanitarianism or for insurance against the costs of punishing the innocent. While there are some reasons to accept the humanitarianism argument, the insurance argument seems more persuasive.     

论追诉时效超期适用制度

为防止追诉时效制度轻纵犯罪人 ,有必要实行追诉时效超期适用制度 ,我国刑法有此规定 ,但对该制度的适用需从理论上进行进一步探讨 ,以期达到其立法理性思考与司法可行性操作的完美结合。     

DELINQUENCY AND GENDER MODERATION IN THE MOVING TO OPPORTUNITY INTERVENTION: THE ROLE OF EXTENDED NEIGHBORHOODS

A long history of research has indicated that neighborhood poverty increases youth's risk taking and delinquency. This literature predominantly has treated neighborhoods as independent of their surroundings despite rapidly growing ecological evidence on the geographic clustering of crime that suggests otherwise. This study proposes that to understand neighborhood effects, investigating youth's wider surroundings holds theoretical and empirical value. By revisiting longitudinal data on more than 1500 low‐income youth who participated in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized intervention, this article explores the importance of extended neighborhoods (neighborhoods and surroundings) and different concentrated disadvantage configurations in shaping gender differences in risk taking and delinquency. The results from two‐stage, least‐squares analyses suggest that the extended neighborhoods matter and they matter differently by gender. Among girls, extended neighborhoods without concentrated disadvantage were associated with lower risk‐taking prevalence than extended neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage. In contrast, among boys, localized concentration of disadvantage was associated with the highest prevalence of risk taking and delinquency. Interactions between the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods were similarly associated with differential opportunity and social disorganization mediators. Among the more critical potential mediators of the link between localized disadvantage and boys’ risk taking were delinquent network ties, strain, and perceived absence of legitimate opportunities for success.     

我国民法中惩罚性赔偿制度新探

惩罚性赔偿的思想不仅仅只存在于普通法系之中,它是一种世界性意义的赔偿规则(罚则)。一般民事责任与惩罚性赔偿责任的社会功能相差甚远,且适用范围不一。我国历来民事立法中就有惩罚性赔偿的法律文化传统,当前在我国民事立法中的几个惩罚性赔偿条文不仅不能为当前市场诚信程度不高的信用环境起到充分的弥补作用,而且它们本身设计上也不尽合理。我们应当秉持开放的眼光,对惩罚性赔偿制度进行结构上的重构,这也是我国法学理论和司法实践亟待解决的问题。