Extradition on the Two Sides of the Atlantic: The U.S. Model as Blueprint for the European Arrest Warrant?

This article compares the EU’s enhanced extradition model, in the form of the European Arrest Warrant, with the more mature American interstate extradition mechanism. The US Constitution’s Extradition Clause mandates interstate extradition and, after a slow start-up, has led to a smooth and obligatory procedure. In the EU, the European Arrest Warrant, based on the principle of mutual recognition, has made a number of significant changes to traditional extradition and has simplified extradition between EU member states. Yet, it does not operate without problems and the first decade has revealed what the difficulties with extradition on the basis of mutual recognition are. The comparison with the US seeks to draw lessons from the US experience. The main finding is that in a number of areas the US example can direct the EU toward further improving its extradition scheme, while at the same time it is not realistic to expect that the EU will achieve a similar degree of harmony as in the US, required for an obligatory extradition scheme. The article argues that it is important to recognise these limits in order to make the European Arrest Warrant a success.     

Situational prevention of terrorism. Remarks from the field of counterterrorism in the Netherlands on Newman and Clarke’s Policing Terrorism

In this paper I shall discuss how criminal investigation might contribute to a situational approach to terrorism. Therefore I discuss Policing Terrorism by Newman and Clarke, and confront it with experiences from work in the field of counterterrorism: criminal investigations at the Dutch National Police Agency (NPA). I demonstrate that Newman and Clarke have too narrow a scope on policing terrorism, in particular when it comes to the role of criminal investigation. They restrict their focus to local police work in the phases immediately before and after a terrorist attack. This is unfortunate because case files show that criminal investigators play a central role in the prevention of terrorism. They intervene in earlier phases of terrorist preparation, target a wider range of terrorist offences than terrorist attacks, and prosecute radicals for their non-terrorist offences. Furthermore, criminal investigations offer insights that might be of help in developing an SCP approach to terrorism.     

Localization Path of the Research Paradigms of Legal Commentary in China — Focusing on the Public Legal Service Function of the Case-Commentary Research on the Style of Civil Litigation Documents

Conducting case-commentary research on the style of civil litigation documents is a key method for judges to produce legal documents, develop professional writing and creative skills, and enhance legal thinking. Such a study is an important way to deepen the reform of the judicial power operation mechanism and to improve the trial management mode. Considering the background of the judicial responsibility system reform, the localization of the research paradigms and case-commentary methods of the style of litigation documents can help reach the consensus of the legal professional community. It also helps promote judgment rules and the spirit of the law. Legal commentaries convey the important functions of public legal services to the public. It is necessary to integrate the Style of Civil Litigation Documents, the “one-stop” litigation service with the reform practice of judicial committees in China, and conduct detailed research on the procedural ruling function and guiding function of the style of civil litigation documents. By studying the guiding function of civil litigation document style for judicial behavior, litigation procedure, and entity processing, it is good for judges to broaden their ideas and methods to write civil litigation documents, enabling an examination of the localization path and method of the legal commentary research paradigm and demonstrating how to continue using the paradigm within the context of the comprehensive reform of the judicial system. Moreover, the study emphasizes how to exert the function of public legal services integrated with the style of civil litigation documents.     

Climate change and the credibility of international commitments: What is necessary for the U.S. to deliver on such commitments?

The engagement of the United States is critical to the success of any international effort against global climate change. Although international climate efforts require long-lasting, credible commitments by participating countries, risk of failure to deliver on such commitments rises with the degree of gap that the domestic institutions permit between the executive and the legislature. The U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol indicated that the Clinton administration’s effort to bring international solutions into the domestic arena before domestic consensus was obtained was counterproductive. The congressional politics over budgetary allocation regarding the Bush administration’s technology policies showed that general preference to a technology-oriented approach to climate change alone did not ensure the credibility of international commitments. These cases revealed that the U.S. climate diplomacy was lacking in domestic institutional mechanisms that bring the executive branch’s deal at international negotiations, and the legislators’ preferences at home, closer together. For the U.S. to take leadership in international climate cooperation, domestic institutional frameworks which reconcile the interests of the two branches are necessary. This paper suggests that such domestic institutional frameworks feature two components: regular channels of communication between the two political branches; and, incentive mechanisms for the two branches to swiftly come to terms with each other.

Kamalaśīla on Doubt as the Cause of the Activity of Reading

As Funayama has shown, Dharmakīrti’s successors had an animated discussion on the nature and function of the initial statement (ādivākya) of scientific treatises in terms of its effectiveness and requisites. Arca?a (8th c.) in his comments on the initial statement of the Hetubindu considers that the initial statement, which contains the purpose (prayojana) of the treatise, is useless in prompting people to undertake the activity (prav?tti) of reading the treatise because judicious people are supposed to undertake action only due to certainty (ni?caya) which never arises from something that is not a pramā?a. For Arca?a, the initial statement is set forth only to dispel the objection of an opponent who criticizes the treatise for not having a purpose. Kamala?īla (8th c.) criticizes Arca?a on this point; for him the initial statement is effective to prompt people to undertake the reading of the treatise because people act also on the basis of doubt (sa??aya), which arises from the initial statement that is not a pramā?a but an abhyupāya for action. This paper attempts to consider how such doubt can cause reading by examining the debate in the Tattvasa?grahapañjikā and related texts. As Kamala?īla presupposes, when people act due to doubt, they may attain the desired purpose by chance but cannot escape the risks of not attaining an desired purpose and also of attaining an undesired purpose. Taking these risks into consideration, it is reasonable for Granoff to take up Kamala?īla’s position as an example of the maxim of kākatālīya in the introduction of her paper in the present volume. However, the probability for the readers of the Tattvasa?graha to achieve easy comprehension of tattva as a result of reading a full treatise, which they undertake due to doubt out of the initial statement, is higher than that for a crow being suddenly killed by a falling palm-fruit. According to Kamala?īla, the risk of not attaining the desired purpose does not prevent people from reading because such fear equally occurs in activities based on certainty. Furthermore, there is no risk of attaining an undesired purpose from the treatise because authors are supposed to undertake action only for the sake of others. Therefore, doubt which arises from an abhyupāya can make people undertake action.     

Evaluation of the one-step Lumicyano™ used in the visualisation of fingermarks on fabrics

This study consisted of three parts to evaluate the performance of Lumicyano? on a variety of fabrics. One part assessed the impact of dye percentage (8%, 9% and 10%) on visualisation of fingermark detail and luminescent brightness in split grab marks. A 9% dye produced the highest quality detail of grab impressions with least interference from background fluorescence. The second part investigated the optimal relative humidity (RH, 75–84%) for certain fabric types using Lumicyano on split, six-series depletion fingermarks. It was concluded that the recommended RH of 80% remained the ideal cyanoacrylate fuming environment. The final and third part of this study determined the impact of sequential addition of Basic Yellow 40 (BY40) on Lumicyano compared to traditional cyanoacrylate (CA) followed with BY40 application. Results from this study demonstrated that Lumicyano on its own developed fingermarks with superior quality to Lumicyano with sequential addition of BY40 or traditional cyanoacrylate followed by BY40. Inclusion of more fabrics, donors and longer ageing periods should be explored in future studies to determine what frameworks are best for certain types of fabrics.     

Classical Sāṁkhya on the Authorship of the Vedas

The question as to whether the Vedas have an author is the topic of vivid polemics in Indian philosophy. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the classical Sāṁkhya view on the authorship of the Vedas. The research is based chiefly on the commentaries to the Sāṁkhyakārikā definition of authoritative verbal testimony given by the classical Sāṁkhya writers, for these fragments provide the main evidence (both direct and indirect) for the reconstruction of this view. The textual analysis presented in this paper leads to the following conclusion. According to most classical Sāṁkhya commentaries, the Vedas have no author. Two commentators state directly that the Vedas have no author, and four commentators allude to the authorlessness of the Vedas. Only one commentator seems to hold the opposite view, stating that all the authoritative utterances are based on perception or inference of imperceptible objects by authoritative persons, from which it follows that the Vedas too have an author or authors.     

Has Legal Realism Damaged the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Does understanding how U.S. Supreme Court justices actually decide cases undermine the institutional legitimacy of the nation's highest court? To the extent that ordinary people recognize that the justices are deciding legal disputes on the basis of their own ideological biases and preferences (legal realism and the attitudinal model), the belief that the justices merely “apply” the law (mechanical jurisprudence and the myth of legality) is difficult to sustain. Although it is easy to see how the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the most unaccountable of all American political institutions, is nurtured by the view that judicial decisionmaking is discretionless and mechanical, the sources of institutional legitimacy under legal realism are less obvious. Here, we demonstrate, using a nationally representative sample, that the American people understand judicial decisionmaking in realistic terms, that they extend legitimacy to the Supreme Court, and they do so under the belief that judges exercise their discretion in a principled and sincere fashion. Belief in mechanical jurisprudence is therefore not a necessary underpinning of judicial legitimacy; belief in legal realism is not incompatible with legitimacy.     

Is the Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Violence Relative to the Level of Consumption?

Two ideas concerning the link between bullying in school and violence on the streets are investigated. (1) Bullying and victimization in school is a product of the school situation and people's inability to choose their levels of exposure to others. According to this hypothesis, bullying is largely a phenomenon that is isolated to the school context. (II) Bullying behaviour in school and inflicting damage to others outside school is a reflection of a more general aggressive behaviour pattern and, hence, bullying in school and violence on the streets will, to a great extent, involve the same individuals. The literature offers suggestions that either could be the case. Participants were 2915 14-year-olds in a medium-sized county in Sweden who responded to a self-report questionnaire.Theresults showed that bullying others in school was strongly linked to violent behaviour and weapon-carrying on the streets, both among boys and girls. It was also found that bullying others in school was related to being violently victimized on the streets. The findings remained the same when statistically controlling for loitering and nights spent away from home, which were both related to bullying behaviour. It is concluded that bullying behaviour in school is in many cases a part of a more general violent and aggressive behaviour pattern and that preventive efforts targeting individuals with bullying behaviour in school could, according to the present study, decrease violence among adolescents out in the community as well.     

Estimating the Impact of Classification Error on the “Statistical Accuracy” of Uniform Crime Reports

This paper offers a methodological approach for estimating classification error in police records then determining the statistical accuracy of official crime statistics reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Classification error refers to the mistakes in UCR statistics caused by the misclassification of criminal offenses, for example recording a crime as aggravated assault when it should have been simple assault. Statistical accuracy refers to the estimated true total of each crime type based on cancelling effect of undercounting and overcounting crime due to misclassifications. The population for the study consists of the 12 largest municipal police agencies in a mostly rural southeastern state. Based on a sample of 2,663 records, the authors illustrate the impact of classification error on the total population of reported offenses. Misclassifications result in overcounting and undercounting certain crimes. The true number of each crime type, as well as the aggregate Index Crime, Violent Crime, and Property Crime totals, is estimated based the evaluation of offsetting misclassifications. The findings show that certain UCR crime categories are greatly undercounted while others are overcounted. The index crime and violent crime totals are also significantly undercounted; however, when simple assault is added to the index and violent crime categories, the error in these aggregate numbers is reduced to less than 1%. The results provide a benchmark for assessing the statistical accuracy of the UCR data.     

How Does the European Court of Justice Reason? A Review Essay on the Legal Reasoning of the European Court of Justice

This review essay analyses two significant recent contributions to the debate over the reasoning of the Court of Justice (CJ). These contributions highlight the impossibility of a wholly scientific and deductive approach to attributing ‘correct’ outcomes to the Court's case‐law. At the same time, their analysis adds significant findings for the debate over the Court's possible ‘activist’ or political role. Following from these contributions, this essay makes two arguments: firstly, that the inability of the Court to anchor its reasoning solely in a deductive form of legal reasoning should encourage the CJ to engage in a more advanced ‘constitutional dialogue’ with the EU's political institutions; and secondly, that truly understanding the Court's reasoning involves a closer analysis of the institutional and personal dynamics influencing Court decisions. Understanding European judicial reasoning may require a closer look at the social and political—as well as doctrinal—context within which European judges act.