THE HEDGEHOG DILEMMA IN THE COURT-MEDIA RELATIONSHIP IN CHINA

This paper explains why Schopenhauer＇s ＂Hedgehog Dilemma＂ may be the most apposite metaphor for the relationship between the courts and the media. Whatever they get from each other, the media＇s role representing the public and the court＇s role representing justice are both essential to modern democracy. Therefore, their relationship has attracted attention, not just in legal and media professions, but also in public and government debate. In the last two decades, China ＇s highest court has issued judicial interpretations and guidelines to regulate the activities of the media and the court, which has brought the topic to a new level of discussion. As a drafter of these official documents, the author will comment on development in this field and their interaction with values inherent to democracy.     

Regulatory Domain and Regulatory Dexterity: Critiquing the UK Governance of ‘Fracking’

This article provides a critique of the UK government's regulatory response to ‘fracking’. It shows how government has adopted two distinct schemas of regulation, which may usefully be classified under the headings ‘regulatory domain’ and ‘regulatory dexterity’. These schemas rely on very different interpretive conventions and are in many ways contradictory. Yet, government uses both ‘domain’ and ‘dexterity’ arguments simultaneously in order to advance its policy in favour of fracking. The article explains how two seemingly different regulatory approaches work together towards the same policy goal, and highlights the role of law in facilitating technological development.     

The Legal and Social Construction of Value in Government Procurement Markets

The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 introduces a social value duty. It requires public authorities in England and Wales that are carrying out procurement activities to ‘consider’ how such activities might ‘improve … economic, social and environmental well-being’. This article analyses qualitative, empirical data on how the social value duty has been interpreted and applied across local government in England. Although only a weak legal duty, this law has made a notable impact on practice. The article explains the changes brought about in practice under the social value duty and seeks to understand why these changes have occurred. It does so by recognizing local government procurement markets, as well as local government organizations themselves, as strategic action fields. In these fields, there are competing visions for social value. It is through conversations between actors that a common meaning comes to be attached to the law.     

Regulating security on the Internet: control versus trust

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the role of government in relation to cybersecurity. Traditionally, cybersecurity was primarily seen as a technical issue. In recent years, governments have realised that they, too, have a stake in securing the Internet. In their attempts to grapple with cybersecurity, governments often turn to technical solutions to ‘code away’ illegal or undesired behaviours. ‘Techno-regulation’ has become popular because it may seem to be an effective and cheap way of increasing control over end users’ behaviours and increasing cybersecurity. In this article, we will explain why using techno-regulation has significant downsides and, therefore, why it may be unwise to use it as a dominant regulatory strategy for securing the Internet. We argue that other regulatory strategies ought to be considered as well, most importantly: trust. The second part of this article explains that trust can be used as an implicit strategy to increase cybersecurity or as an explicit mechanism for the same goal.     

都市生态治理中党政干部领导力探讨

推进都市生态治理是促进区域经济社会协调可持续发展的应有之义.本文以A省S市都市生态治理中党政干部领导力为基点,阐释了S市党政干部在生态治理中发挥的核心作用,同时也发现其中面临领导动力弱化、领导效益损耗、领导协同失效、领导制度选择性执行等困局.因此,应从增强都市生态治理中党政干部领导自洽力、提升领导转换力、激活领导制度力...     

Art,Artists' Associations,and the State in Norway

Conservation of indigenous heritage is closely associated with the political and social position of the indigenous people in society. In order to understand the ongoing debate and changing perspectives on indigenous heritage, study of the growth of American Indian communities and their relationships with the U.S. government is crucial. Therefore, this article examines the federal policies and programs and the political dynamics presented in conserving indigenous heritage by reviewing Indian policy developments within the past two decades. American Indians did not possess ownership of their own cultural heritage and could not participate in the administration and formation of legal protection for heritage conservation. Policy changes have been influenced by the evolving roles of American Indian communities; this article explains how tribes finally became a partner in heritage conservation efforts.     

State Transformation and the Role of Lawyers: The WTO,India, and Transnational Legal Ordering

This article explains the impact of India's engagement with the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on both the Indian state and on the WTO itself. In each case, it explains the role of Indian lawyers within the larger transnational context. In engaging with globalization and the WTO, India has transformed itself. The Indian state has moved toward a new developmental state model involving a stronger emphasis on trade, greater government transparency, and the development of public‐private coordination mechanisms in which the government plays a steering role. The analysis shows that it has done so not as an autonomous policy choice, but rather in light of the global context in which the WTO and WTO law form an integral part. Reciprocally, the article displays the ways that India has built legal capacity to attempt to shape the construction, interpretation, and practice of the trade legal order. Indian private lawyers play increasing roles, although they remain on tap, not on top.     

Autonomy, justice, and disability

In this Article, Professor Carlos A. Ball explores the philosophical foundations for the types of rights and benefits that our society currently provides to individuals with disabilities. The concept of autonomy places on society a moral obligation to assist individuals with disabilities when their basic human functional capabilities are impaired. The exercise of this obligation entails assisting individuals with crossing a minimum threshold of functional capabilities below which it is not possible to lead autonomous lives. In making this argument, Professor Ball responds to libertarian critics who contend that notions of freedom or liberty proscribe an activist role for government in this arena. He explains how even a libertarian state redistributes wealth in order to provide for some incapacities. Professor Ball also disputes the idea that the meeting of the needs of the disabled is enough to provide moral justification for the rights and benefits provided to individuals with disabilities. The problem with the concept of needs, Professor Ball argues, is that it fails to account sufficiently for the human good of personal autonomy.     

对公共风险的政府规制——阐释与评述

现代社会存在着诸多公共风险,也存在着诸多针对公共风险的政府规制。如何理解公共风险,这是政府规制成立的逻辑起点。与私人风险是由一方的故意或者过失而引起的不同,公共风险在本质上是一种与道德无涉且在功能上有利于减少风险和增进公共福祉的行为。但是一旦从风险变成事故,公共风险却会对社会造成极大损害。如何治理公共风险?业已成为我们所要面对的重要课题。传统的侵权法由于技术上的局限,已经不胜任对公共风险的治理。政府规制在现代社会中发挥了越来越多的作用。当政府介入公共风险的治理之后,原先通过事后损害赔偿来保护个人权利的法律制度逐步让位于通过准入、标准和信息披露等构筑起来的以安全为目的的政府规制,而且这种制度的核心也不再是着眼于个案式的正义实现,而是为了减少整体风险。     

Doing justice without the state: The Afikpo (Ehugbo) Nigeria model of conflict resolution

Prior to colonialism, Afikpo, like most societies in Africa had a well‐defined system of political and social control. This, like other aspects of African democratic socio‐political practices, was relegated to the side‐lines by the British colonial authorities when they instituted a central government for Nigeria. Afikpo peoples’ disapproval of colonial rule and the emergent colonial political and judicial institutions partly explains the survival, and the increasing popularity of, the Afikpo traditional conflict resolution system. In examining the Afikpo traditional conflict resolution system, the focus of this discussion will be on the traditional political and social institutions and their application in recent years. These institutions function as channels for conflict resolution and deviant controls, command nearly total acceptance and participation, and are viewed as legitimate by the community. An attempt is made to explain how and why these institutions continue to coexist with non‐traditional institutions of conflict resolution.     

政府治理体系的构建:特色、过程与角色

健全和完善政府治理体系,是我国国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的一项重要任务和目标。为此,中国共产党在基于中国国情和多年改革的经验基础上,创造性地进行了“整体性治理”的党和国家机构的全面深化改革,从而形成了一种全新的政府治理格局。我国政府治理体系的构建,需坚持以人民为中心,坚持党的全面领导,加强人民政府与法治政府的内涵建设,将人民政府打造成体现多种功能的多维人民政府。     

试论政府形象危机的构成

政府形象的好坏关系到政策执行的难易程度、社会稳定程度以及社会公众对政府的信任度。政府形象危机的出现重则威胁到政府的执政基础和政权的稳定性,轻则影响社会公众对政府的满意度和政府职能的履行。政府形象危机实质上包括政府合法性危机、政府产出危机和政府理念危机三个部分,其中的任何一种危机都会危及政府的形象。对政府形象危机构成的认识有助于构建有效的政府形象修复和救治体制。     

The Future of FOIA: Course Corrections for the Digital Age

After the fiftieth anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act in 2016, criticism of the law is considerable. FOIA has failed to live up to its initial promise of peeling back the layers that too often shroud the federal government in secrecy, frustrating the news media’s efforts to contribute to an informed electorate. Issues with response rates, unorganized systems and subjective interpretations of the act’s exemptions are not uncommon. This article utilizes data gathered from 2008 to 2015 that indicate that across multiple metrics, FOIA has increasingly failed to provide records to requesting parties. The trends suggest that significant overhaul is necessary. Rather than prescribing more amendments that are little more than Band-Aids on a withering dinosaur, this article concludes with a detailed set of recommendations – highlighted by a crowd-sourced request database – that move far from FOIA’s original paper-based model that still rests at its analog core.     

‘Not always logical’: binational/biracial marriages in Britain, 1900–1940

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the intersection of race, religion, and nationality in marriage by concentrating on unions between Britons and ‘Arabs’ (those from North Africa and the Middle East) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Focusing on this area, most of which was not in the British Empire, allows an analysis of the intersection between the empire and the larger world. Marriage was a nexus in the intertwined prejudices of race, empire, class, and religion. Though the British primarily blamed polygamy for any marital problems, their own gendered law of nationality was equally at fault. Indeed, the centrality of gender was clearest in three circumstances. First, many women refused to be ‘white women in peril,’ instead exercising agency in their relationships. Second, British men who moved to the Middle East, converted to Islam, and married Muslim women, became legal hybrids who struggled to pass on British nationality to their wives and children. Third, British-born women married to Middle Eastern Christians faced similar problems, despite marrying other monogamists. In the 1930s, the British government formed a committee to address these issues, but the committee failed to find solutions, in part because the members, like the British state, supported racial/national coverture for women and thus refused to consider granting women equal rights in nationality. As a result, women married to men of different races and nations remained vulnerable to desertion and divorce in the interwar period. Such issues both confirmed the importance of an imperial frame of mind, but also the fact that the dilemmas went well beyond the formal empire.     

The power of presidency in UN climate change negotiations: comparison between Denmark and Mexico

In December 2010, the 16th Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ended with adopting Cancun Agreements as official decisions under the UN process. The international community determined the meeting a success. This was a substantial change compared to the previous year’s Copenhagen climate conference, which failed to reach consensus at the official level and thus having come under severe criticism as “diplomatic failure.” This article aims to explain the stark contrast between the two consecutive COP meetings and argues that the leadership style of the president of the conference is one important factor propelling negotiations forward. While the current literature scarcely addresses the role of the president, this article explores multiple variables that condition the president’s effectiveness in moving negotiations forward. This article concludes that the Mexican government successfully chaired the negotiations with excellent agenda management and process management capability, which the Danish government lacked. In particular, its transparent and embracing manner in handling subgroup meetings and the production of a single negotiation text facilitated trust among negotiators, which in turn made the parties tend to cooperate better. More importantly, the case study reveals that the Mexican government had a significant influence on given conditions of the negotiation process, such as the international environment surrounding the negotiation and the decision-making rules.     

尼日利亚宪法述评

尼日利亚宪法和非洲大多数国家一样,发端于殖民地时期,受到原宗主国宪法模式和宪法原则的深刻影响.自1960年独立以来,尼日利亚宪法走上了一条曲折的探索道路,经历了由民选政府治理到军政府统治再到民选政府统治的转变.随着民主化浪潮在非洲各国的扩展,尼日利亚于1999年举行多党大选,并颁布了新宪法.然而,新宪法颁布后受到了国内外学术界的批评,在实施过程中也面临一定的问题.了解尼日利亚宪法曲折的发展道路及其完善的宪法制度,并深入探讨其面临的困境与发展出路,将有助于更好地认识非洲国家宪法发展的现状与发展趋势,对于我们国家的宪政建设也不无裨益.     

从舆论监督到新闻法治——基于当代传媒与司法的关系研究

新闻自由与司法公正都是民主与法治的基本要求，是人类所追求的价值目标。但必须意识到舆论监督权的过度扩张，往往形成民众的激情与压力，影响到独立、理性的司法裁判和司法公正。如何权衡两者之间的矛盾与冲突成为摆在我们面前的一个时代主题。在借鉴国际规则和国外经验的基础上，结合我国司法与传媒的现状，新闻法治应是当前化解传媒与司法困境的可选择之路。     

浅析民国初年的政党政治实践

政党政治是资产阶级共和国建立之初,国内政治发展的大势所趋.资产阶级民主革命派企图通过建立政党政治使中国走上近代西方式的议会民主之路.从1912年初到1914年1月袁世凯非法取缔国会的短短两年时间里,各种政党组织纵横捭阖,离合分化.但由于北洋军阀和旧式官僚等独立于政党政治实践之外的政治势力的干扰,以及从事政党政治实践的各党派缺乏必要的群众参与,加之成员自身政治素质低劣等内外因素,民国初年的政党实践最终以失败而告终.这证明,在这个充满数千年传统包袱又遭到近百年列强侵凌割据命运的东方大国里,西方式的政党政治无法顺利展开并解决中国的问题.此后中国数十年革命实践证明,哪个政党能够更成功地扎根于社会,更细致地把握社会的脉搏,宣传和动员起作为本党目标的物质基础,哪个政党就会取得最后的胜利.     

政府示范项目对技术创新影响机制研究——以贵阳LNG与北上广LPG公交车示范项目为例

示范项目是当今世界各主要国家政府贯彻科技政策的重要抓手,也是中国发展进程中常用的策略安排。然而国内外有关示范项目的研究的匮乏,使得当前我国亟待回答两个问题:一是在相似的背景条件下,为什么有的示范项目成功了,有的示范项目失败了?二是政府资助的示范工程如何影响技术创新?通过贵州贵阳与北上广新能源公共交通示范项目两个案例的对比,定性化地描述和解析了政府示范工程的客观条件(技术就绪水平、市场和产业就绪水平、制度就绪水平)对技术创新绩效(产生信息、实现应用和促进扩散)的作用机制,并提出政府示范工程影响技术创新的概念模型。     

Constructing International Crime: Lawyers,States, and the Origin of International Criminal Prosecution in the Interwar Period

This article explains the development of international crime as a legal category. I argue that states’ pursuit of political rights claims empowers international lawyers to develop new legal categories to grant states new tools to pursue their interests. At the same time, lawyers have a stake in defending the autonomy of law from politics, thus pushing for the development of legal norms and institutions that go beyond the original state intent. States’ turn to law thus begets more law, expanding the legal and institutional tools to solve international problems while simultaneously enforcing a commitment to principles of legality. To demonstrate the plausibility of the theory, the article studies the construction of the concept of an international crime in the interwar period (1919–1939). In response to the Allies’ attempt to prosecute the German Emperor, international lawyers sought the codification of international criminal law and drafted enforcement mechanisms. The interwar legal debate not only introduced international crime into the legal and political vocabulary, it also legitimized a new set of institutional responses to violations of international law, namely, international criminal prosecution.