Part III. Interstate Agreements on Cooperation Against Terrorism : Treaty Concerning Cooperation Between Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the Struggle Against Terrorism

The authors of Federal Law No. 131 "On the General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation" knew what they were doing when they provided a three-year "transition period" for their creation. The law entered into force in its full measure in far fewer than all of the regions of the country and there is plenty of confusion. And the situation with authority and money among the bodies of local self-government recalls the well-known old anecdote concerning the fate of money under communism: some have it and some do not.     

Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan,No. 416-I, "On the Struggle Against Terrorism"

A former militia major general explains how the recertification of militia officers is being organized and why it will not help.     

菲律宾打击跨国有组织犯罪综述

全球经济一体化发展渐行渐进,跨国有组织犯罪活动日趋猖獗,对世界造成的危害日益严重。跨国有组织犯罪的主要形式有:走私贩毒、非法移民贩卖人口、国际恐怖、洗钱交易、侵犯知识产权、军火走私、海盗、互联网络犯罪等。近年来,菲律宾作为一个发展中国家,在加强与东盟亚洲国家及国际组织紧密合作的同时,通过加大内部执法力度、配合外部国际合作、积极采取有效措施,打击跨国有组织犯罪,取得了初步成效。     

The June Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee and Certain Questions Concerning Scientific Organization of the Struggle Against Crime

The June Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee posed the question of further intensification of ideological and educational activity, elevation of the educational and cultural level of the people, and struggle against bourgeois ideology. The primary aspects of all our ideological work at present are the training of all working people in the spirit of lofty ideals, devotion to communism, and a communist attitude toward labor and the public economy, the complete overcoming of vestiges of bourgeois attitudes and morality, the rounded and harmonious development of the personality, and the creation of a rich intellectual and moral culture.     

Dynamic Attenuation: Terrorism,Transnational Crime and the Role of the US Army Special Forces

This article analyses the ability of the US Army Special Forces to combat illicit networks (criminal and terrorist) through ‘dynamic attenuation’. It is argued that a process of dynamic attenuation, where network ties and not the actors in the network are targeted, should replace the current US strategy of ‘killing or capturing’ criminal agents threatening US interests. By dynamically attenuating (not destroying) the ties between and among criminal actors and criminal organisations, the US can effectively reduce the capability of criminal organisations to operate and achieve their missions (profit and/or terror). This argument is substantiated by assessing the environments where criminal networks thrive, the characteristics of criminal networks, the utility of targeting networks instead of individual actors, and through a comparison of criminal organisations' and US Army Special Forces' strengths and weaknesses. This article concludes with implications and recommendations for US policy in the fight against criminal organisations.     

Crime and the EU's Constitutional Future in an Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice

Abstract: The European Union is finalising negotiations in respect of a constitution that will define its identity and future. The draft constitution begins with a quote from Thucydides ‘Our constitution . . . is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the greatest number’. 1 In this article I look at the proposed constitutional framework of the European Union from the perspective of the gradual realisation of measures in criminal law capable of affecting the lives of individuals. The central question is to what extent the Union is providing itself with the tools to achieve democratic exercise of the power to maintain order and to punish individuals within a single area of freedom, security, and justice. Within the draft constitution an ambiguity arises as regards the principles which underlie this part of the project: mutual recognition and approximation. Mutual recognition of national decisions maintains power within the borders of the state, approximation leads towards a consolidation of power. The extent to which the constitution pulls in two rather different directions and the consequences for the individual are examined here.     

Political culture,xenophobia and the development of the violence of the radical right in the Federal Republic of Germany

Recently an increasing amount of violent racism has been directed at foreigners in Germany. Current theoretical explanations are deficient because they fail to recognize the historical role of the political culture. This paper argues that political elites are responsible for initiating rhetoric and policy that has created an environment where xenophobic and racist violence can flourish. Positive normalization is defined as a process for the neutralization of the violent Nazi past and the reconstruction of a German nationalist identity. Negative normalization is described as responsible for the decriminalization and trivialization of xenophobic and racist violence. It is argued that unless changes within the German political culture are taken into account, criminological perspectives on the current situation will inevitably be limited.     

Constitutionalism Without Constitution: Transnational Elites Between Political Mobilization and Legal Expertise in the Making of a Constitution for Europe (1940s−1960s)

By exploring how early political investments in favor of a European Constitution have been turned into a legal enterprise to constitutionalize the European treaties, this article analyzes the changing role of legal elites in the genesis of a European transnational order. At first, legal activities of constitution-making were closely linked to military issues and political mobilizations; later, the legal work of constitutionalization took a different path as a result of the process of differentiation of the European field of power and of the internal and contradictory logics of a newly created legal institution, the European Court of Justice (ECJ). By reconstructing the constitutionalization process, this article highlights the various types of elites then competing for the early definition of a European transnational order and, in particular, the capitals and representations of legal agents in the making of a Constitution for Europe.     

Official Crime Statistics and Survey Data: Comparing Trends of Youth Violence between 2000 and 2006 in Cities of the Czech Republic,Germany, Poland,Russia, and Slovenia

Based on official crime statistics, violent crimes of youths in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe had appeared to have increased considerably between 1990 and 2000. Survey data that can overcome limitations of police data and allow to compare crime trends across countries are rare. Based on self-report delinquency studies of 15 year old juveniles in 1998–2001 (SRD) and 2006 (ISRD-2) using compatible questionnaires in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe (partly in the same cities), trends of attitudes towards violence, of victimisation experiences and self-reported wanton and instrumental violence are compared cross-nationally. There is substantially less approval of violence in 2006 and a corresponding decrease of victimisation experiences and violent behaviour between 1999 and 2006. Official crime statistics show serious limitations. The results are discussed with respect to theories of modernisation and social change.     

Life strain, coping, and delinquency in the People's Republic of China: an empirical test of general strain theory from a matching perspective in social support

Using a sample of 615 middle- and high-school students from rural and urban areas of the People's Republic of China, this study tests the effects of coping strategies predicted by Agnew's (1992) general strain theory (GST), in which the impact of strain on delinquency is conditioned by adolescents' social and personal resources. Results provide support for the coping strategies hypotheses posited by GST, in a non-Western culture. Social supports in the three major domains of family, school, and peer group have cross-domain and within-domain buffering effects on the relationships between juvenile delinquency and interpersonal problems in these domains, and moral beliefs have all-domain buffering effects. Girls are more likely to use cross-domain support resources in managing interpersonal problems, whereas boys are more susceptible to delinquent peers in their adaptation to interpersonal strain in all domains. The implications of the findings to intervention were discussed.