Religion, law and development: Islam and Christianity—Why is it in Occident and not in the Orient that man invented the institutions of freedom?

This article answers the following question: why were institutions of freedom not invented in the Orient but in occident? It upholds that Christianity predisposed the West to discover institutions of freedom when Islam didn’t. In the first section it explains the decline and economic rise of the Orient and Occident as derived from Kant’s hypothesis (2.1) and geographical conditions (2.2). It explains in the second section the invention of institutions of freedom in Europe by two moral innovations: the secularising of law and the invention of the individual (3). The secularising of law was the result of Christian property theology which recognised man’s place in God’s creation (3.1). Secularising of politics and the Christians’ desire for autonomy vis-à-vis political authorities originated in individual rights being conceived as normal and incited man to insist upon respect from public authorities. The advent of individual rights was at the origin of the implementation of a secular constitutional right applying to all men, even the sovereign (3.2). The third section explains why political and social Islam did not predispose Muslims to discover the institutions of freedom, capitalism. Islamic law distanced the Orient from capitalism as it developed a religion of community salvation hostile to individualism and its rights (4.1); it never disassociated the rule of God from the rule of law (4.2) and it did not consider individual rights sacred or private property (4.3). The article concludes with the way in which economic theory could conceive of the religion variable in economic growth and development (5).     

A law for need or a law for greed?: Restoring the lost law in the international law of foreign investment

The 1990s brought about a change in the international law of foreign investment due to the primacy achieved by the tenets of neo-liberalism. They drove concerns about the environment and poverty away from the concerns of the law and gave priority to the interests of multinational corporations by enhancing their ability for movement of assets and the absolute protection of these assets through treaty rules. The regime created by this law was operated through secure systems of dispute settlement through arbitration which also enabled the stabilization of these rules. In the process, private power of a section within the hegemonic state was able to subvert international law through the use of low order sources of the law and secure a system of investment promotion and protection. The restoration of the more universal themes of environmental protection and poverty alleviation is necessary. This paper outlines the developments that accentuated the sectional interests of multinational capital and explores the means by which a change that reflects the global interests could be effected.

Prosecuting in paradise – race,politics and the rule of law in Fiji

This article looks at the violent coup in Fiji in 2000 led by George Speight in which the multiracial Government of Mahendra Chaudhary was overthrown. The article gives an insider's account of a subsequent criminal trial of some senior political figures who had supported Speight, including the Vice-President of Fiji. They were charged with taking treasonous oaths of office to serve in a rebel Government under Speight at a time when the legitimate Head of State, President Ratu Sir Kamasisi Mara, was struggling to prevent the nation from descending into total chaos and anarchy. The article considers how the trial had important ramifications for the rule of law in this developing south Pacific nation.     

Who are the most highly cited forensic scientists in the United States?

The most highly cited forensic practitioners in the United States were identified using a publicly available citation database that used six different citation metrics to calculate each person's composite citation score. The publication and citation data were gleaned from Elsevier's SCOPUS database, which contained information about ~7 million scientist each of whom had at least five entries in the database. Each individual was categorized into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, one of which was legal and forensic medicine (LFM). The database contained citation records for 13,388 individuals having LFM as their primary research discipline and 282 of these (2%) were classified as being highly cited. Another 99 individuals in the database had LFM as their secondary discipline, making a total of 381 highly cited forensic practitioners from 35 different countries. The career-long publication records of each individual were compared using their composite citation scores. Of the 381 highly cited scientists, 93 (24%) had an address somewhere in the United States. The various branches of forensics they specialized in were anthropology, criminalistics, DNA/genetics, odontology, pathology, statistics/epidemiology, and toxicology. The two most highly cited scientists, according to their composite citation score, were both specialists in DNA/genetics. Bibliometric methods are widely used for evaluating research performance in academia and a similar approach might be useful in jurisprudence, such as when an expert witness is instructed to testify in court and explain the meaning of scientific evidence.     

Why Snowden and not Greenwald? On the Accountability of the Press for Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information

Law and Philosophy - In 2013, following the leaks by Edward Snowden, The Guardian published a number of classified NSA documents. Both leaking and publishing leaks violate the law prohibiting...     

Modeling the politics of punishment: A conceptual and empirical analysis of ‘law in action’ in criminal sentencing

The empirical sentencing literature has focused intensively on racial equity concerns, but this research added to the literature by analyzing political-contextual sources of punishment. This study developed a functional model of court decision making and used ordinal logit to assess court punishment decisions in 387 counties across seven states. The findings supported established assumptions about individual level punishment determinants, but showed that political environment indicators also predicted sentence severity. Interactions were present as well. In law and order environments Black defendants received enhanced sentences, but in jurisdictions with the largest Black populations, Black defendants faced reduced punishments. With individual and state level effects held constant, the findings from this research reinforced claims that punishment is intensely political.     

Fat and the law: who should take the blame?

The incidence of obesity in both adults and children is rising at a rapid rate in most developed countries, including in Australia. Some obese people are seeking to place the blame for their condition on the fast-food industry, as demonstrated by the recent litigation in the United States brought by two obese plaintiffs against McDonald's. This litigation was unsuccessful, and on existing Australian negligence principles any similar litigation commenced here is likely to suffer the same fate. Principles of personal responsibility, autonomy and free will should prevail to deny a negligence claim. The risk of obesity and concomitant health problems from eating fast food to excess is an obvious risk which the plaintiff should not have ignored and which he or she has voluntarily assumed. It is for the Australian Government, not the courts, to regulate the behaviour of the fast-food industry. The government should take action by requiring all major fast-food chains to label their products with nutritional information, and by imposing restrictions on the advertising of food to children.     

Why hasn't integrated health care developed widely in the United States and not at all in England?

There have been influential advocates for financing and organizing health care in the United States and England based on the model of integrated health care delivery systems (IHCDSs). Despite good evidence that a few IHCDSs provide high-quality health care economically, such organizations are rare and localized in a few market areas in the United States and are absent in the English National Health Service (NHS). The explanation of why this is so includes various contributory factors: the way the development of the medical profession in each country pursued specialization; the division in British medicine between general practitioners and specialists; and the characteristics that we identify of established successful IHCDSs, which created formidable barriers to entry for a new IHCDS. This explains why currently the most promising organizational developments in U.S. health care are hybrids resulting from vertical integration. In England government policies of an "internal market," as adopted in the 1990s and currently, were and are based on a purchaser-provider split with the objectives that providers would compete and be funded by a system in which "money follows the patient." These policies recognize the division in British medicine, which also means that it is difficult to implement a reorganized English NHS based on high-performing IHCDSs.     

The problems and possibilities in regulating technological frontiers: the politics of the new anxiety?

The revolution in science, biotechnology and medicine of the past 30 years demands a revisitation of old institutional forms and responses, including those of law itself. Scientific citizenship requires that law develop a moral vision and vocabulary so that we shape the moral dimensions of the emergent bioeconomy. Chief among those in the field of biotechnology are technologies of human reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning and stem cell research using human embryos. Where there are deep pluralist divisions is in relation to therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research. Regulatory flexibility may be opportune in delimiting the extent to which government need stray into this realm of "moral politics". As Brownsword has written, an important developmental vector is what has become known in administrative and public law literature as the concept of "smart regulation". This concept is examined and an attempt to apply it to these fields is made. The enlarged nature of human action -- enlarged in magnitude, reach and novelty -- raises moral issues beyond interpersonal ethics and requires reflection; responsibility is centre stage and calls for lengthened foresight -- what has been called a "scientific futurology". This is also examined.     

Mergers and difference-in-difference estimator: Why firms do not increase prices?

Difference-in-difference methods are being increasingly used to analyze the impact of mergers on pricing and other market equilibrium outcomes. Using evidence from an exogenous merger between two retail gasoline companies in a specific market in Spain, this paper shows how concentration did not lead to a price increase. In fact, the conjectural variation model concludes that the existence of a collusive agreement before and after the merger accounts for this result, rather than the existence of efficient gains. This result may explain empirical evidence reported in the literature according to which mergers between firms do not have significant effects on prices.     

Mental health law and the EU: the next new regulatory frontier?

Over the last decade the EU's engagement with health law and policy has rapidly increased and there is now a growing body of literature highlighting this evolution and the impact of legal and regulatory structures in this area. In contrast the specific impact of EU law and policy in relation to the area of mental health remains the subject of comparatively little engagement. The aim of this paper is to examine whether mental health law and policy will become a major site for EU policy and law in the future. It examines the development of EU policy in this area. It sets this in the context of related legal developments such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the new EU Patients Rights Directives. It suggests that while it might be at present premature to envisage that a single body of EU mental health law itself may be unlikely that nonetheless the EU presents what is a potentially very influential site for regulation, law and policy in this area in the years to come.     

Psychopathy and violence in juvenile delinquents: what are the associated factors?

The purpose of the present study was a) to examine the discriminative power of the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD), aggressive traits, impulsiveness, antisocial attitudes and alcohol-related problems between subgroups of Russian juvenile delinquents (n=175) with low versus high levels of violent behavior; and b) to compare the predictive value of these variables in two subgroups defined by higher versus lower levels of psychopathic traits. Results demonstrated that the APSD score, traits of physical aggression and alcohol-related problems were able to discriminate between groups with various levels of violence. Furthermore, the level of violence was the only variant factor when comparing levels of psychopathy. Finally, different sets of predictors emerged for the group with higher versus lower psychopathy scores. The results are discussed in relation to specific features of psychopathy and environmental factors in general and the use of alcohol in particular.     

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.     

Reason‐Giving in Administrative Law: Where are We and Why have the Courts not Embraced the ‘General Common Law Duty to Give Reasons’?

This article has two aims. Firstly, it explores a body of modern challenges to administrative reason‐giving, decided in the five‐year period 2014–2018. Three main themes are drawn out: outright failures to give reasons now seem to be a rare occurrence; a number of considerations help to ensure that at least an outline of reasons is usually offered by decision‐makers; common law fairness plays a limited role in testing the adequacy of reasons. Secondly, it addresses the question of why the courts have not embraced a ‘general common law duty to give reasons.’ Four factors are discussed: doubts that introducing a general duty would add something of substance to the law; difficulties inherent in developing a general formulation of the reasons required; weaknesses in the ‘hortatory’ case for a general duty and weaker commitment on the part of judges than academics to generality as a central feature of administrative law doctrine.