Past Reflections, Future Insights: African Asylum Law and Policy in Historical Perspective

This article argues that an understanding of the evolution ofasylum is an essential ingredient in the search for ideas andperspectives to the plight facing forced migrants. Using Kenyaas a case study, the paper evaluates the extent to which proceduresused to determine claims for asylum, protection outcomes andentitlements met international human rights and refugee lawstandards. It is contended that limited resources, porous boundariesand the mass movement of asylum seekers have compromised thelevel of protection offered to those who seek surrogate protectionin African states like Kenya. In conclusion, critics in thearea of asylum are challenged to undertake historical studies,as a way towards offering best practise lessons for those involvedin the protection of persons forced to flee their home states.     

Discipline, Assault, and Justice: Violent Parents and the Law

This article calls attention to an unacceptable double standard in American law: the lenient treatment of parental violence against children when compared to other forms of physical assault. Parts II and III critique the generous privilege of physical discipline extended to parents and the differential state response to violence when the victim is a child in the assailant's family. Appeals to family privacy and parental autonomy to justify the current double standard are examined and found wanting. Clearer and much stricter limits on corporal punishment are recommended and defended as constitutional. We further recommend that parental violence which falls outside these limits should be treated no differently than other misdemeanor and felony assaults. These two proposals give children the protection against domestic violence to which they are entitled as a matter of right and prudence.     

Transitional Regimes and the Rule of Law

Abstract. This paper seeks to establish a connection between the existence of a legal system and the ideal of the rule of law. Its point of departure is the phenomenon of a transitional regime that is attempting to restore or institute the rule of law. Lon Fuller's formulation of the canons of the rule of law as an internal morality of law is expounded as well as his notion of legal pathology as symptomatic of departure from the canons' requirements. The existence of a legal system, it is argued, is a matter of degree, covariant with the degree to which the rule of law is realized. Problems inherent to the implementation of the rule of law are examined, such as the effect of the passage of time on reasonable expectations. While legal pathology is always a matter of degree, police states are shown to suffer seriously from it. Among the examples discussed are Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany, though it is granted that there are moral differences between them. Finally, a response is made to some contemporary critiques of the rule of law.     

法院执行中的暴力抗法:1983-2009

暴力抗法是国家与社会的短兵相接。以司法能力为线索,从国家与社会两个层面,结合自上而下、自下而上两种视角对暴力抗法进行分析,可以发现,暴力抗法的产生主要源于国家能力的不足,体现在司法领域即司法能力的不足。治理暴力抗法的主要思路为加强司法能力建设,应从惩罚与激励两个方向入手,努力提升司法的强制能力、救济能力及合法性能力。     

党的政策与国家法律70年关系的发展历程

党的政策与国家法律是国家和社会治理的两种重要制度依托。然而,不同历史时期的国家任务和制度环境直接决定着人们对党的政策和国家法律的理解认知,并体现到党的政策和国家法律在国家和社会治理中的实践定位及相互关系之中。大体而言,由新中国成立到改革开放之前,无产阶级专政是主线,巩固政权的需要推动党的政策成为无产阶级专政强有力的工具;由改革开放到依法治国,经济建设是中心,制度供给的需求促成国家法律成为重要治理方式;从依法治国到法治中国,国家治理体系和治理能力现代化成为治国理政的重要目标,党的政策和国家法律的规范转化和逻辑交融成为国家治理的时代主题。从政策本身就是法到党的政策指导国家法律制定运行,反映出人们对党的政策与国家法律关系的科学认识和解读;从主要依靠政策治理国家到全面推进依法治国,表现了党对国家治理的新思维、新理念、新方略。与此同时,党的政策和国家法律关系的学术研究也经历了一个与实践逻辑相吻合的理论演进过程。     

The Dead, the Law, and the Politics of the Past

This article explores the role of law in cultural and political disputes concerning dead bodies. It uses three interconnecting legal frameworks: cultural and moral ownership, commemoration, and closure. It begins with a critique of the limitations of the private law notion of 'ownership' in such contexts, setting out a broader notion of cultural and moral ownership as more appropriate for analysing legal disputes between states and indigenous tribes. It then examines how legal discourses concerning freedom of expression, religious and political traditions, and human rights and equality are utilized to regulate the public memory of the dead. Finally, it looks at the relationship between law and notions of closure in contexts where the dead have either died in battle or have been 'disappeared' during a conflict, arguing that law in such contexts goes beyond the traditional retributive focus of investigation and punishment of wrongdoers and instead centres on broader concerns of societal and personal healing.     

国际法的普遍性:过去、现在与未来

普遍性很大程度上决定了国际法的基础、标准以及方向。可以从主体、标准与观念三个方面理解普遍性。普遍性具有正当性,但它是有限度的。历史上,西方大国利用普遍性很大程度上决定了其与非西方国家之间的法律关系,严重损害了国际法律秩序的公正性与合理性。20世纪,社会主义国家和发展中国家分别试图重塑国际法的普遍性,但未取得预期效果。当前,国际法普遍性的作用与运用更加复杂,也迎来被重塑的新机遇。倡导包容性是中国关于国际法普遍性的整体主张与实践的组成部分,恰当地理解包容性应当结合国际法普遍性的视角。中国倡导包容性的过程既是重塑普遍性的过程,也应当是重塑包容性的过程。     

Calling the Judiciary to Account for the Past: Transitional Justice and Judicial Accountability in Nigeria

Institutional and individual accountability is an important feature of societies in transition from conflict or authoritarian rule. The imperative of accountability has both normative and transformational underpinnings in the context of restoration of the rule of law and democracy. This article argues a case for extending the purview of truth-telling processes to the judiciary in postauthoritarian contexts. The driving force behind the inquiry is the proposition that the judiciary as the third arm of government at all times participates in governance. To contextualize the argument, I focus on judicial governance and accountability within the paradigm of Nigeria's transition to democracy after decades of authoritarian military rule.     

Reconstituting Paradise Lost: Temporality, Civility, and Ethnicity in Post-Communist Constitution-Making

This article focuses on constitutional developments and legal policies in Central Europe since 1989 and elaborates on their temporal analysis with special emphasis on the distinction between demos and ethnos in the political and legal discourse. Using various social theories of time, identity, and codification of social traditions, I argue that the difference between civility and ethnicity does not involve simply a conflict between liberal democratic aspirations and ethno-nationalist myths of authoritarian politics, but rather represents two distinct traditions manipulated by political agents and codified in the process of recent constitution-making. The process of selecting different traditions and political manipulations of the past is reflected at the level of both constitutional symbolism and specific governmental policies in post-Communist Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The final part of the text analyzes relations between the abstract symbolic language of constitutional documents and concrete, "ethnos-" based legal policies implemented in these countries of Central Europe.     

民主宪政：转型期中国法治进路的模式选择

当代中国正处于一个伟大的历史变革过程中,随着中国社会的转型,当代中国法治也同样面临着从传统型法治向现代型法治的创造性转换。法治,是现代国家的基本特征。如果说日趋完备的法律体制和日益健全的法律制度,正在中国现代化建设过程中发挥着重要作用的话,那么中国的法治之路还只能说刚刚开始,其最突出的问题在于宪法和法律远没有真正树立起应有的权威。从法治发展的一般规律,特别是中国的历史和现实看,笔者认为:实施宪政才是转型时期中国法治道路模式的理想选择。一、民主宪政为何在中国未能实施(一)法治意识薄弱,是民主宪政未能实施的观念…     

The University and the Start-Up:Lessons from the Past Two Decades

This paper explores one of Edwin Mansfield's enduring interests: the interface between academia and industry. It highlights some key lessons regarding the management of university-based spin-outs, drawing on a variety of sources. I highlight the challenges that the spin-off process poses, the impracticality of directly financing firms through internal venture funds, and the ways in which universities can add value to faculty ventures.     

Implications of Enlargement for EC Agri-Food Law: the Accession Treaty, its Transitional Arrangements, and Safeguard Clauses, December 2003

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to anticipate the implications of the transitional arrangements contained in the Accession Treaty on the agri-food acquis after enlargement on 1 May 2004. While the combination of the current reform of agri-food law and the system of transitional arrangements will contribute to the complexity of EC agri-food law, enlargement also raises other important implications for the future evolution of EC agri-food law. Drawing on experiences gained as a result of the pre-accession strategy, together with an analysis of the readiness of the new Member States to apply the agri-food acquis , this paper concludes with a number of comments on the future evolution of the agri-food acquis in a Union of twenty-five Member States.     

自然法、万民法、世界法——西方法律全球化观念的历史渊源探寻

西方的法律大同观念由来已久 ,它经历了自然法、万民法、世界法、法律全球化几个发展阶段。而在这些不同阶段 ,西方人对法律大同的具体理解是有差异的 ,这些概念记载了其中的异趣 ,也反映了他们在这个问题认识上的曲折过程。研究这些概念 ,探索法律全球化观念的思想渊源 ,这于我们正确理解和把握其涵义 ,显然是不无意义的