Fiscal Federalism in Transition: Evidence from Ukraine

Effects of fiscal federalism on redistribution and economic growth are analyzed for Ukraine, a country with large regional differences. Since there is virtually no such empirical literature, except a study of the German case, and since there are several potential flaws, the results must be interpreted in a very tentative way. We find that this relatively poor, disorganized country with little democracy has effectively redistributed income from relatively wealthy to relatively poor regions and thus promoted regional economic convergence, and even dampened the recession in both types of regions. We also find that the evidence does not reject the view that relatively poor regions used the transfers in a growth-conducive fashion, and the paper argues that the findings may have implications beyond the case of Ukraine. But the analysis is tricky, uncertain, and merely a small step to an interesting research issue.     

从“卡翁达诉南非共和国总统案”看外交保护的另一种国家实践

外交保护的实施过程可以区分为国内决策阶段和利用国际法向侵害本国人权利的相对国采取措施的阶段。因此,在国内决策阶段中有一种不可忽视的实践,那就是认为从国内法角度来看国家负有以一切可能方式保护本国公民的义务。但是,实际上外交是国家行为,它代表国民的整体利益。因而在具体个案中可能需要从大局出发采取和缓的方式对权益受侵害的国民进行保护或放弃保护。但,必须建立有效的机制以沟通被害者和实行外交保护的公权力机构。在对公共利益和私人利益进行取舍时,可能需要考虑相应的补偿问题。以此为出发点,对将以外交保护方式保护国民作为国家宪法义务的国家实践进行研究。     

关于无效合同确认的若干问题

无效合同的确认是合同法理论和司法实践中的重要问题。尽管我国民法通则、合同法对无效合同的确认标准做了原则性规定 ,但在实务中仍存在一些模糊的认识和作法。论文结合审判实践和立法规定 ,深入地探讨了确认无效合同应注意的几个问题 ,更加清晰地划清相关问题之间的界限 ,有利于更好地指导审判实践。     

台湾地区共犯口供的证据规则及其启示

广义上的共犯口供问题包括未共同审理的共犯的口供问题,以及在同一程序中审理的共犯或其它牵连案件被告人等共同被告的口供问题。共犯及共同被告口供问题在台湾地区的证据法上经历了一个从模糊到逐步清晰的发展时期。在台湾地区现行的刑事诉讼制度中,共犯口供在其他被告的案件中作为证人证言,并要求补强证据;对于共同被告则可经程序分离而进行证人的证据调查程序,并且其口供同样也需要补强证据。对于共犯及共同被告口供的处理方式体现出台湾地区对严格证明法则的重视,对被告人程序权利保障的加强,也反映出口供在证据体系中地位的降低,但依然存在一些难题未能解决。台湾地区共犯及共同被告口供的证据规则能给大陆带来一些有益的启示。     

检察一体化中“上命下从”的限度

目前,我国正在推进的检察一体化改革具有极端性,要求下级检察机关必须绝对服从上级检察机关的指令。但是,域外各国为了防止上级检察官滥权,对指令权进行限制。同时,下级检察官具有相对独立性,对上级检察官的指令有异议权;表示异议后,上级检察官应行使职务承继权或职务移转权;下级检察官违反指令作出的决定依然具有法律效力。我国应当借鉴上述经验,纠正片面强调上级检察机关指令效力的极端化改革。     

英国刑法犯罪故意的构造分析

我国刑法学界对于英国刑法中的犯罪故意在理解上值得反思,英国刑法犯罪故意需从判例法和制定法这个角度加以理解.将英国判例法立场的变化归纳为几种并存的学说不够客观,同时,认为英国刑法在该问题上是以认识为本质理解犯罪故意的观点也不能成立.英国判例法在这个问题上既有原则性又有灵活性,尽管这种弹性是我国司法部门不可能做到的,但是英国刑法同样对于我们具有一定的借鉴意义.     

论被追诉人本人的阅卷权

刑事诉讼中被追诉人本人能否行使阅卷权,因关系"发现真实"与"被告作为程序主体"之间的冲突,而争议较大。目前向被追诉人本人开放一定程度的阅卷已成为现代法治发达国家刑事诉讼法的调整方向,我国在"固有权"理论下全面禁止被追诉人本人阅卷的立法与实务值得检讨。被追诉人作为程序主体,应享有阅卷权,尤其是对无辩护人的被追诉人,应赋予其本人直接阅卷的权利。但阅卷权对被追诉人开放所可能带来的制度风险,仍是不可忽视,因此,基于利益的权衡,应根据案件的具体情况对被追诉人本人的阅卷权进行合理限制。     

Crime and punishment in the soviet union and the united states: 1986–19901

A relatively recent development in the comparative criminology literature concerns cross‐national comparisons of criminal sentencing practices (e.g., Lynch, 1993). While there are now several studies comparing sentencing practices and lengths, there is a particular shortage of studies that examine the disposition of serious criminal cases through several stages of the criminal justice process. Specifically, there is a shortage of information concerning this issue in Russia and the former Soviet Union. To address this limitation, we present data on the police and court disposition of violent criminal cases in the former Soviet Union during the period of 1986 to 1990. For comparative purposes, comparable data from recent studies of criminal case dispositions in the United States are presented. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Disclosure of medical data to relatives after the patient's death: recent legal developments with respect to relatives' entitlements in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands the physician is still bound to professional confidentiality after the patient's death. However, in the legal doctrine and in case law some exceptions have been recognized, especially for circumstances where the relatives have a legitimate interest in the inspection of medical records of the deceased. Today developments as regards the Dutch proposal to new legislation on patients' rights, notably the proposed insertion of a provision stipulating the conditions under which the relatives have a right of access to medical records of the deceased, give cause for renewed consideration of this issue related to legal protection after death. This article explores whether the proposed provision corresponds to the prevailing principles regarding disclosure of medical data after death. It is concluded that there is a need to reconsider the provision's wording or to adhere to self-regulation of the Royal Dutch Medical Association in order to strike an appropriate balance between the various interests concerned.     

A Practical Guide for the Formulation of Propositions in the Bayesian Approach to DNA Evidence Interpretation in an Adversarial Environment

The interpretation of complex DNA profiles is facilitated by a Bayesian approach. This approach requires the development of a pair of propositions: one aligned to the prosecution case and one to the defense case. This note explores the issue of proposition setting in an adversarial environment by a series of examples. A set of guidelines generalize how to formulate propositions when there is a single person of interest and when there are multiple individuals of interest. Additional explanations cover how to handle multiple defense propositions, relatives, and the transition from subsource level to activity level propositions. The propositions depend on case information and the allegations of each of the parties. The prosecution proposition is usually known. The authors suggest that a sensible proposition is selected for the defense that is consistent with their stance, if available, and consistent with a realistic defense if their position is not known.     

论笔迹鉴定结论的证据效力——兼谈“世纪遗产争夺案”的笔迹鉴定

笔迹鉴定在现代诉讼中日益增多,因其鉴定多依赖于＂经验知识＂,不具有可验证的重复性,也无法接受实证的重复性检验,致使其在作为证据使用时存在一定的分歧,尤其是遗嘱笔迹因书写人死亡,其鉴定结果更富有争议。香港历经＂八年＂旷日持久的＂世纪遗产争夺案＂中的笔迹鉴定颇具典型意义。笔迹鉴定结论如何在法庭中出示以及法庭对有争议的笔迹鉴定结论如何采纳或者排除,既是一个理论问题,又是一个制度问题,还是一个价值选择问题。因此,对笔迹鉴定结论的研究与探讨成为司法鉴定制度和证据制度必须直面的带有现实意义的问题。     

Case mix reimbursement for nursing homes

Nursing home care is growing in importance as the population ages and as Medicare's prospective payment system encourages earlier discharges from acute care settings to nursing homes. Nursing home reimbursement policy is primarily a Medicaid issue, since Medicaid pays for about half the nation's nursing home care. The research reviewed in this article suggests a strong association between case mix and cost, and a weaker but still positive association between quality and cost. The research also implies that traditional nursing home reimbursement methodologies may impede access and may lower quality for Medicaid (and Medicare) recipients. To offset these problems, several states have recently begun to incorporate case mix directly into the reimbursement process. These systems deserve careful policy consideration.     

Global forensic anthropology in the 21st century

While it has a long history, the last 30 years have brought considerable advances to the discipline of forensic anthropology worldwide. Every so often it is essential that these advances are noticed and trends assessed. It is also important to identify those research areas that are needed for the forthcoming years. The purpose of this special issue is to examine some of the examples of research that might identify the trends in the 21st century. Of the 14 papers 5 dealt with facial features and identification such as facial profile determination and skull-photo superimposition. Age (fetus and cranial thickness), sex (supranasal region, arm and leg bones) and stature (from the arm bones) estimation were represented by five articles. Others discussed the estimation of time since death, skull color and diabetes, and a case study dealing with a mummy and skeletal analysis in comparison with DNA identification. These papers show that age, sex, and stature are still important issues of the discipline. Research on the human face is moving from hit and miss case studies to a more scientifically sound direction. A lack of studies on trauma and taphonomy is very clear. Anthropologists with other scientists can develop research areas to make the identification process more reliable. Research should include the assessment of animal attacks on human remains, factors affecting decomposition rates, and aging of the human face. Lastly anthropologists should be involved in the education of forensic pathologists about osteological techniques and investigators regarding archaeology of crime scenes.     

存款货币财产所有权研究

关于存款所有权的归属,尽管我国有关法律法规已经明确,在学术上却是一个仍有待澄清的问题,国内已有的存款人所有权说、银行所有权说、双重所有权说等从表面上看似乎都有一定的道理,但实际上均缺乏足够的说服力。可是,这一理论问题的重要性是不言而喻的,不少案件的定性与这一问题直接相关。鉴于此,有必要在梳理相关学说的基础上,正本清源,探寻存款所有权的真正归属。事实表明,虽然存款人对于存款货币财产权可以在债权、所有权之间选择行使自己的权利,但这并不影响有关法律法规立场的正确性,存款所有权非存款人莫属。新近的存款货币新型财产说不可取。     

Law of assisted reproductive surrogacy in Malaysia: a critical overview

Both traditional and gestational surrogacy are now entering the public mind as a major public policy issue, because of concern for apparent truncation of the surrogate mother’s rights. This article sets out to investigate some key relevant rights, the policy issues as yet unresolved, and the character of the current regulatory regime. Modern medicine, specifically assisted reproductive technology, has made legislation obsolete in many jurisdictions around the world, including in Malaysia. These new medical practices present many significant legal problems, with which the courts and legislators still struggle. A proposed statute, the Assisted Reproductive Technique Services Act, aimed at regulating reproductive technologies, including surrogacy arrangements, will be introduced in the Malaysian parliament soon. The proposed Malaysian Act will address issues such as surrogacy, sperm or egg banking, and sperm donation. Malaysia is moving cautiously towards regulation on this issue and is trying to avoid becoming a ‘rent-a-womb country’. Thus, this article asks the question as to what policy considerations are in place, in the current Malaysian regulatory regime, to care for the rights of the surrogate mother? It will try to show that there is still a danger that Malaysia could become a ‘rent-a-womb country’, with its necessary implications of property rights over surrogate mothers. The article employs section-by-section synthesis to reach its conclusions. Argument will suggest that the current state of the law in Malaysia, as to both traditional and gestational surrogacy, seems to be that the regulatory regime is a combination of the general law, private ordering, registration and enforceable professional ethics. However, there is no Malaysian statutory law in place, in the contemporary social context, expressly prohibiting a term in a surrogacy contract that might imply property rights over the surrogate mother. This is a serious apparent lacuna in the law, and might suggest that the laws of transnational crime be considered, as an alternative, as applicable to the surrogacy agreement.     

论我国鉴定人屏蔽作证制度的法理基础

新《刑事诉讼法》规定,鉴定意见应经质证才能作为定案依据.这一刚性规定促使鉴定人必须履行出庭作证义务,从而提高了鉴定意见证据效力对质证程序的依赖程度,鉴定人出庭作证制度的完善就格外重要.鉴定人屏蔽作证方式为这一问题的探寻提供了微观视角,我国已经存在证人屏蔽作证的司法实践,但是对于鉴定人屏蔽作证的正当性还存在争议,而这些争议实质上是鉴定人屏蔽作证与传统诉讼法原理的冲突与解决,具体反映在鉴定人屏蔽作证应当遵循的原则、程序设置、配套措施等方面.     

Agency in earth system governance: refining a research agenda

In the face of global environmental change, a key question for the social sciences is how to organize the co-evolution of societies and their natural environment. In this context, a new long-term research program, the Earth System Governance Project, proposes several key issues to be examined: architecture, agency, adaptiveness, accountability, and allocation and access. The contributions to this special issue have focused on the analytical problem of agency. For example, they have examined newly emerging or understudied agents of global environmental governance, or offered a fresh assessment of agency in the context of existing governance mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism. This concluding article outlines several insights provided by the contributions to this special issue regarding four key questions underlying the study of agency in global environmental governance. First, they call attention to the ingredients or processes that characterize agency in the first place and thus distinguish actors from agents. Secondly, the authors highlight the differences among agents and how they interact with each other. Thirdly, they point toward variation in the ways that agents may acquire authority. Finally, the contributions to this special issue suggest that there may be several approaches to evaluating agency, with different consequences. Thus, taken together, the contributions to this special issue provide a starting point for broadening our understanding of agency in earth system governance.     

对强奸罪中轮奸、共犯既未遂问题的思考

目前刑法理论界对于强奸罪中轮奸的成立要件及其是否存在着既遂、未遂问题的观点不一。笔者试图通过一个案例来引出自己的观点,即轮奸作为强奸罪的一种加重处罚的情形,其本身不是单独罪名,故不存在既、未遂的提法,而是应以其轮奸行为是否实际发生作为该款项成立的依据。同时,传统的刑法理论通说认为,共同犯罪中的犯罪完成形态只能是整体既遂或整体未遂,即既遂後不存在部分未遂或中止的可能。笔者认为,在特殊共同犯罪中,基于某种实行犯的行为的不可替代性,故仍应存在部分个体未遂或中止的可能,这是对普通共同犯罪中“部分行为全体负责”这一原则的必要例外与补充。     

行政诉讼客观证明责任的分配研究

行政诉讼客观证明责任的分配是诉讼法上的永恒话题。本文认为,被告对被诉具体行政行为的合法性负证明责任是对《行政诉讼法》第32条的正确解读,但是被告证明合法性理论的支持理由存在诸多缺陷,具有实质正义的规范理论仍应成为行政诉讼客观证明责任分配的基本理论。     

The Meanings of the Logical Constants in Deontic Logic

If deontic logic is to cast light on any of the normative sciences, such as legal reasoning, then certain problems regarding its logical constants must be faced. Recent studies in the area of deontic logic have tended to assume that it is our responses to the "paradoxes" of deontic implication which are fundamental to resolving problems with the use of deontic logic to investigate various branches of normative reasoning. In this paper I wish to show that the paradoxes are of secondary importance; that they are merely by-products of the central issue, namely the ability of certain syntactic forms to embody natural language structures used in reasoning about norms. An investigation of modal syntax is proffered as the best starting-point from which to tackle the questions that still dog the legitimacy of deontic logic. Part I provides some philosophical background to the discussion of deontic logical constants. Part II addresses in greater detail issues concerning the representation of normative concepts; and Part III offers a few remarks on the general issue of deontic logic's fruitfulness as an analytical tool.