To Eat or Not to Eat? A Short Path from Vegetarianism to Cannibalism

Subjective reasoning and chemical composition are not the sole arbiters of our systems of alimentary taste; consumption of food is also defined by cultural orientation and other complex value systems. There are those who choose to consume only plant matter to respect the rights of animals, equally there are those who consume pets without a second thought. What informs these choices depends on how we understand our own place in the world, the values we attribute to the things that surrounds us, the relationships we maintain with our fellow beings and those with living things in general. It is in the space between those variable definitions that we find food taboos and the complex stories which entwine around them. Above all else comes cannibalism, present today not only as a hypothetical act in which only the wildest savages could take part but also as the basis of varying forms of current communication. Cannibalism is at work in advertising and in television programs, in modern rituals and in unconventional marketing campaigns. In this paper we will attempt to explain its meaning in connection with the more general way of how to catalogue and understand the consumption of food.     

To fix or not to fix? How corruptors decide to fix football matches

This paper examines the decisions of the internal corruptors in fixing football games. The methodology is a mixture of interviews, database analysis and examination of a specific series of taped phone calls of a corrupt Russian football official. It finds that generally, this type of match-fixing occurs only after a specific point in the season. There are five implicit questions that corruptors must answer: is the game important enough to fix? Is it morally ethical? Can my team win honestly? Can I afford to fix the game? If I am caught is there a high risk of sanctions? The second section of the paper examines the question of who to bribe? The data indicate that out of the three possible options – referees, players and team officials – the best chance of delivering a successful fix are the team officials. The final section is an examination of the use trust, favour banks and guarantors among the team officials who are willing to sell matches.     

Listen to the Judge or Listen to the Facts?——On the exclusionary rule

证据是认识的基础、证明的根据、检验的标准、思想的指南.什么能当此重任?惟有事实.证据是事实,事实不存在非法、合法的问题.事实是客观的,既不受法律调整,也不受法律制约,因而证据也没有合法性.证据不能排除.排除证据的实质是法官睁着眼睛不认事实,排除证据的法官把自己和事实的位置摆错了,这是一项根本性的错误.非法获取人证是司法警察通过刑讯逼供和指名问供这样两重罪行实现的,因而它不是程序,而是程序中的实体.     

Mavericks or misconstruction? A reply to Campbell and Allan

In a jurisdiction without a codified constitution clearly demarcating the role of the courts, and given the centrality of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty to the United Kingdom's constitutional framework, criticism of the courts for overstepping the mark – particularly in politically contentious cases – is par for the course. In their 2019 article, Professors David Campbell and James Allan offer a criticism of the Supreme Court for what they describe as its surreptitious creation of judicial supremacy at the expense of parliamentary sovereignty. In support of their claim, the authors examine two particularly significant judgments: R (Miller and another) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and Re Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission's Application for Judicial Review. This reply discusses several problematic aspects of the authors’ critique of those judgments, demonstrating that, contrary to the authors’ claims, these cases do not provide evidence of a surreptitious attempt by the Supreme Court to expand its power.     

Embracing Wikipedia as a research tool for law: to Wikipedia or not to Wikipedia?

Useful aspects of Wikipedia should be embraced as a research tool. Arguments are based upon a consideration of Wikipedia's purpose; policies and controlling mechanisms; commentator views on and academic use of Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool; the fact that empirical research has found students will use Wikipedia. The results of a survey on the research preferences of a range of students engaged in various levels of legal study, from senior secondary school to second year law students, are presented and recommendations regarding educating students in the appropriate use of Wikipedia for research are made.     

Agricultural drug economies: cause or alternative to intra-state conflicts?

Through case studies selected among the world’s main drug-producer countries and regions (Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, Morocco, Peru, and West Africa) this paper depicts the global scene in order to improve understanding of how agricultural illicit drug economies may foster the emergence of intra-state conflicts, help prolong intra-state conflicts or, conversely, prevent some crises. The paper thereby examines the complex connections between agricultural illicit drug production and intra-state conflict in the all-important context of underdevelopment and globalisation. Because it is illegal, drug production may affect international security, above all through the armed violence it creates and the uses to which resulting profits are put (financing of armed groups and criminal organisations, and even – as has been recently though mostly erroneously claimed – terrorist organisations [4, 5]. However, it is important to avoid restricting the question of drug production to security issues, and instead to examine the phenomenon overall in an analysis encompassing everything from the causes of the recourse to an illegal drug economy to the effects of official responses. Through case studies selected from the main regions of illegal agricultural drug production (Afghanistan, West Africa, Burma (Myanmar), Bolivia, Colombia, Morocco and Peru) this paper aims at improving our understanding of how such production might foster the emergence of conflicts, ease their prolongation or, conversely, prevent crises in certain situations. These three questions require examining the connections between the agricultural economy of illegal drugs and conflict in the all-important context of underdevelopment and of globalisation.