海峡两岸冲突法反致制度立法初探——兼谈反致与两岸民商事法律冲突的解决

在海峡两岸的冲突法立法中,反致制度有着不同的表现形式与特点。我国台湾地区立法一直对反致持肯定的态度,规定接受当事人本国法的广义的反致,立法较为全面。但在涉及有关合同、国籍的消极冲突、区际冲突等问题的法律适用时是否采用反致尚存疑问,其反致制度不论在内容上还是立法技术上都有需要完善之处。祖国大陆现行立法对反致制度没有明确的规定,从《示范法》及《民法(草案)》的有关内容来看,主流观点不是一概地拒绝反致,表现出例外接受反致的立法倾向。反致有利于实现冲突法的价值取向,有利于解决海峡两岸特殊的区际法律冲突,祖国大陆应借鉴他人的立法经验,明确接受并建立自己科学、合理的反致制度。     

Donation of 'spare' fresh or frozen embryos to research: who decides that an embryo is 'spare' and how can we enhance the quality and protect the validity of consent?

This paper analyses elements of the legal process of consent to the donation of 'spare' embryos to research, including stem-cell research, and makes a recommendation intended to enhance the quality of that process, including on occasion by guarding against the invalidity of such consent. This is important in its own right and also so as to maximise the reproductive treatment options of couples engaged in in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and to avoid possible harms to them. In Part 1, with reference to qualitative data from three UK IVF clinics, we explore the often delicate and contingent nature of what comes to be, for legal purposes, a 'spare' embryo. The way in which an embryo becomes 'spare', with its implications for the process of consent to donation to research, is not addressed in the relevant reports relating to or codes of practice governing the donation of embryos to research, which assume an unproblematic notion of the 'spare' embryo. Significantly, our analysis demonstrates that there is an important and previously unrecognised first stage in the donation of a 'spare' embryo to research, namely: consent to an embryo being 'spare' and so, at the same time, to its disuse in treatment. This is not explicitly covered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act 1990, as amended by the HFE Act 2008. Having identified this important initial stage in the process of consent to the donation of a 'spare' embryo to research in conclusion to Part 1, in Part 2 we analyse the idea of consent to an embryo's disuse in treatment on the basis that it is 'spare' with reference to the legal elements of consent, namely information as to nature and purpose, capacity, and voluntariness. We argue that there are in fact three related consent processes in play, of which the principal one concerns consent to an embryo's disuse in treatment. If the quality of this first consent is compromised, in turn this will impact on the quality of the consent to the donation of that 'spare' embryo to research, followed by the quality of consent to future cycles of assisted reproduction treatment in the event that these are needed as a result of a donation decision. The analysis overall is of central relevance to the debate as to whether, and if so when, it should be permissible to request the donation of fresh embryos for research, as opposed to those that have been frozen and, for instance, have reached the end of their statutory storage term. This has a particular bearing on the donation of embryos to stem-cell research since there is a debate as to whether fresh embryos are most useful for this.     

"Braxton Hick's" or the birth of a new era? Tracing the development of Ireland's abortion laws in respect of European Court of Human Rights Jurisprudence

In Ireland, Article 40.3.3 degrees of Bunreacht na hEireann (the Irish Constitution) guarantees the right to life of the unborn child and the equal right to life of the mother. Abortion in Ireland is permissible only where there is a real and substantial risk to the mother's own life. Since Ireland became a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950,2 there have been concerns that it could result in Ireland being compelled to introduce a right to abortion. This article commences with a review of the extant law on abortion in Ireland, tracing the Constitutional protection afforded to the unborn child. The article will discuss the impact of the European Court of Human Rights' jurisprudence in regard to access to abortion and to information on abortion services in Ireland in an effort to ascertain if it really has resulted in a radical change to Irish abortion laws. As such, it will also be necessary to examine the more recent decisions of the ECtHR such as Tysiac v. Poland, and A, B, and C v. Ireland, to determine both the approach of the ECtHR to access to abortion in general and also to consider if it has resulted in a liberalisation of abortion law in Ireland.     

Disqualification of lists in Israel (1948–1984): Retrospect and appraisal

The aim is to review the decisions of the Central Elections Committee and of the Supreme Court regarding disqualification of lists in Israel. Two major questions are addressed: When should tolerance have its limits?; and, What constraints on liberty should be introduced in order to safeguard democracy? The judicial analysis focuses attention on the issue of whether the justices acted in accordance with the law. Consideration is given to the written law and to existing normative considerations which allow justices an exegetic latitude. It is argued that theNeiman decision of 1984 was flawed, that the Court was erroneous in ignoring the licensing effect of its decision, and that democracy does not have to allow a violent list propounding the destruction of democracy to act in order to fulfil its aim. It is neither morally obligatory, nor morally coherent, to expect democracy to place the means for its own destruction in the hands of those who either wish to bring about the physical annihilation of the state, or to undermine democracy. These two cases are the only cases in which democracy has to introduce self-defensive measures and to deny representation in parliament to violent lists that convey such ideas, and that act to realize them.     

Access to courts by vulnerable persons in relation to hydraulic fracturing in South Africa

Hydraulic fracturing is in a planning stage in South Africa. Notices have been issued regarding pending administrative decision concerning applications for exploration rights to explore for natural (shale) gas largely in the Karoo region. Concerns, which are similar to those expressed in other jurisdictions regarding the process are also being raised locally. These concerns are exacerbated considering that a significant part of the population of the Karoo have limited understanding of the issues associated with hydraulic fracturing. Many of them are also poor, which may hinder their effective access to justice. The aim of this article is to examine the constitutional provision pertaining to the right of access to courts in South Africa vis-à-vis a theoretical underpinning of the right with a view to determining whether or not the provision can effectively be applied to guarantee the access of poor and vulnerable persons to the courts in the event of any potential violation of their rights by hydraulic fracturing. Recommendations are made in the conclusion, to reinforce the ability of poor and vulnerable persons to enforce the right of access to courts in the event that hydraulic fracturing becomes a reality in South Africa.     

论我国农村土地权利制度的完善

新中国成立以来,农村土地权利制度出现过数次变迁,最终形成了农村土地集体所有的制度。农村土地权利制度的不足主要表现在,因为集体所有权概念本身的模糊性,导致集体所有权的主体不明确、农民权利虚化。《物权法》试图通过引入成员权概念来明确集体所有权的主体。成员集体所有在性质上类似于总有,它是完善我国集体土地所有权制度的途径,也是保护农民权益的制度基础。成员权是私法上的权利,不同于村民自治的权利。关于成员资格的认定,原则上应当以户籍为标准,在此之外还应当考虑其他因素。成员权可以分为共益权和自益权两部分,应当完善其救济制度。     

The police,social services and psychiatry cooperation in Denmark—A new model of working practice between governmental sectors. A description of the concept,process, practice and experience

In 2004 a new model of working practice between three public sectors, the local Police Department, Social Services and Psychiatry/Mental Health Services (PSP) was introduced in the municipality of Frederiksberg, Denmark. The aim of this cooperation was to enhance support to vulnerable citizens, who do not belong solely to one of the three sectors and thereby often get lost in the system. The PSP cooperation was introduced to ensure that relevant information concerning vulnerable citizens was shared between the three sectors and to improve collaboration between the sectors involved in order to provide the needed support to the individual citizen. Due to the success of the PSP cooperation in Frederiksberg, the PSP model was implemented by law in Denmark in 2009.In order to evaluate the model, a qualitative study based on structured interviews, focus group discussions and observations, was performed in four selected municipalities in Denmark: Frederiksberg, Odense, Amager and Esbjerg. The evaluation was undertaken by the Danish National Centre for Social Research.It is concluded that the PSP cooperation draws attention to marginalized groups of citizens and helps to prevent social downfall and crime. Participants of the PSP cooperations further highlight positive changes in the cooperation between the involved sectors, which is thought to further improve the support to vulnerable citizens and thereby enhance both prevention and follow up of cases. Furthermore, the recommendations drawn from the evaluation are to adapt PSP cooperations to local conditions, avoid unnecessary red-tape, keep a constant focus on citizens' ethics, as well as involve the frontline workers in the individual sectors, i.e. those who are actually in contact with marginalized citizens.     

论金融危机下发展权面临的挑战与出路

在全球金融危机中受到影响最大的是发展中国家及其人民的发展权利。危机对发展权的挑战,不仅体现在经济发展领域,也反映在社会文化以至政治发展层面,进而衍生为人的生存发展危机。要摆脱危机,就必须重新塑造发展权法治理念,从传统的形式平等和社会正义迈向一种新的正义观即发展正义,从现有的公法强制干预和私法自由调节转向政策性平衡新机制,在全球社会连带中实现自主发展。在这些新理念导引下,于法律重心的发展权定位、发展权指标体系的法律化以及强化国际与国内公共权力对发展权的法律责任三大方面进行制度建设,确立公共权力对发展权的自觉意识和可归责性、建立全球性的发展权法律标准以及危机预警与干预系统。     

The protection of the contractor in public works contracts in the Roman Republic and Early Empire

The use of contractors to build and maintain public works in Rome and the provinces is a common feature of Roman building practice in the Republic and early Principate. It reflects a general tendency in Roman republican administration (also found in other sectors such as tax-farming) to let out state business to private entrepreneurs. While the extant sources frequently mention the use of contractors in public works contracts, most references do not describe the internal working of these contracts or (to use the terminology of Roman private law) the rights and duties of the parties involved. This article examines selected references to public works contracts in legal and literary sources in an attempt to clarify a single aspect of the contractual relationship between the state and an individual. The purpose of this survey is to establish whether the sources allude to any form of legal protection available to a contractor in his dealings with Roman magistrates in the context of public works contracts.     

CLOUD act agreements from an EU perspective

For many years, transatlantic cooperation between the EU and the US in the area of personal data exchange has been a subject of special interest on the part of lawmakers, courts – including supranational ones – NGOs and the public. When implementing recent reform of data protection law, the European Union decided to further strengthen guarantees of the protection of privacy in cyberspace. At the same time, however, it faced the practical problem of how to ensure compliance with these principles in relation to third countries. The approach proposed in the GDPR, which is based on a newly-defined territorial scope of application, clearly indicates an attempt to apply EU rules extraterritorially in relation to data processors in third countries.Irrespective of EU activity, the United States has also introduced its own regulations addressing the same problem. An example is the federal law adopted in 2018, specifying how to execute national court orders for the transfer of electronic data. The CLOUD Act was established in response to legal doubts raised in the Microsoft v United States case regarding the transfer of electronic data stored in the cloud by US obliged entities to law enforcement authorities, as well as in cases where this data is physically located in another country and its transfer could result in violating the legal norms of a foreign jurisdiction. The CLOUD Act also facilitates bilateral international agreements that enable the cross-border transfer of e-evidence for the purposes of ongoing criminal proceedings. Both the content of the new regulations and the model proposed by the US legislature for future agreements concluded on the basis of the CLOUD Act can be seen as an alternative to regulations arising from EU law.The purpose of this paper is to analyse the CLOUD Act and CLOUD Act Agreements from the perspective of EU law and, in particular, attempt to answer the question as to whether this new legal mechanism brings the EU and the USA closer to finding common ground with regard to a coherent model of exchange and protection of personal data.     

Applying the Responsibility to Protect to the ‘Arab Spring’

The doctrine of the responsibility to protect, since its inception in the ICISS report of 2001, has been the subject of considerable discussion. Arguably its most publicised component is the principle that the international community has the responsibility to protect civilian populations against severe suffering where the relevant national authorities are unable or unwilling to do so. Consequently, the main focus of discourse upon the responsibility to protect has centred on its impact upon the approach of the international community to intervention in respect of situations posing considerable humanitarian crises. The events of the Arab Spring, in which full blown conflict in some states gave rise to serious human suffering, provided a real opportunity for the international community to evaluate the role of the responsibility to protect in decision-making over responding to such instances, and potentially to develop it into a practical and meaningfully implementable concept. However, due to political flaws inherent in the doctrine, and its arguably overstated significance, the doctrine at best played a minimal role in guiding the international response to developments in the Arab World. Nonetheless, responses to the Arab Spring do allow certain conclusions to be drawn in respect of the future relevance of the doctrine.     

刑法解释的常识化

条文解释的常识化和学理研究的经验化,是我国刑法学发展过程中出现的一个显著特点。刑法学中的所谓“常识化”大致有两种不同的表述形式:一是刑法解释上的“公众认同”,二是所谓的“社会相当性”。刑法解释常识化是实现法律认识统一性的基础,是实现刑法公正与效率有机结合的重要条件,也是实现刑法目的的重要手段。但是,运用常识化方法解决法律适用问题,必须面对的问题是如何协调该方法中内在的矛盾关系,即常识与专业之间的关系、科学解释与效力解释之间的关系。在我国目前的刑法解释中,需要走出将生活常识等同于专业知识、以感性经验替代科学理论的误区。     

资源型城市转型发展问题研究——以松原市为例

松原市作为成长型的资源型城市,在转型发展实践中取得了一定的成绩,但同时也遇到了许多问题。本文认为,把握资源型城市发展规律,认识转型发展;联系资源型城市客观实际,规划转型发展;完善政策体系,促进转型发展;采取必要措施,落实转型发展;创新体制机制,保障转型发展,是松原市转型发展经验带给资源型城市转型发展的启示。     

Deploying pre-grant patent opposition mechanisms in Africa to monitor abuse of the patent system

This article examines the extent to which African countries could deploy pre-grant patent opposition provisions in their domestic patent regimes to mitigate the abuse of the patent system. The author argues that the public has the right to participate in the patent system in order to oppose the grant of bad patents. Therefore, if African countries were to strengthen legislative provisions on pre-grant opposition civil society and non-governmental organisations that represent the interests and will of citizens would be able to invoke key provisions to challenge any abuse in the patent system in order to protect the public interest.     

Public health and human rights: questions from an epidemic in Prato

This article uses Carlo Cipolla's account of the plague epidemic in Prato in 1630-1631 to identify several key questions in public health. The article goes on to observe that the underlying problems posed for public health by the plague epidemic in Prato are similar, in important respects, to those encountered in addressing contemporary public health concerns. Questions of inequalities in health and socio-economic differentials in mortality; the relationship between economic wellbeing and health; the relevance of access to effective interventions; the significance of knowledge concerning disease aetiology or uncertainty in devising and implementing appropriate interventions; and the role of regulation in controlling public health hazards are as relevant today as in the Renaissance. However, contemporary recognition of the right to the highest attainable standard of health has altered the nature of public health responses. Concern for individuals' and populations' rights to health can be seen to have the potential to inform policies for inequalities in health, for economic development in middle- and low-income countries, for access to health care and essential medicines, and for strategies to regulate and control emerging risks to health.     

Researching Restorative Justice: Politics,Policy and Process

The purpose of this paper is to explore some questions around the process of engaging in research in restorative justice in the contemporary political and economic climate of the UK. Its key concern is to endeavour to create a framework in which it is possible to develop an understanding of the process whereby restorative justice was transformed from the ‘dead duck’ of the late 1980s to its current popularity. It takes as its example for understanding this transformation the problems and possibilities of engaging in research in restorative justice and how such research needs to be contextualised within a wider understanding of the policy and political process. This paper does not set out to offer any answers to the questions it raises, but is primarily concerned to bring to the fore some of the absences that can be detected within the contemporary embrace of restorative justice in the UK.     

DNA evidence, probabilistic evaluation and collaborative tests

Forensic scientists working in 12 state or private laboratories participated in collaborative tests to improve the reliability of the presentation of DNA data at trial. These tests were motivated in response to the growing criticism of the power of DNA evidence. The experts' conclusions in the tests are presented and discussed in the context of the Bayesian approach to interpretation. The use of a Bayesian approach and subjective probabilities in trace evaluation permits, in an easy and intuitive manner, the integration into the decision procedure of any revision of the measure of uncertainty in the light of new information. Such an integration is especially useful with forensic evidence. Furthermore, we believe that this probabilistic model is a useful tool (a) to assist scientists in the assessment of the value of scientific evidence, (b) to help jurists in the interpretation of judicial facts and (c) to clarify the respective roles of scientists and of members of the court. Respondents to the survey were reluctant to apply this methodology in the assessment of DNA evidence.     

Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful

Even in formally open, liberal, democratic states, a series of barriers exist as obstacles to critical criminologists who wish to conduct research that scrutinises the activities of powerful states and corporations. Much evidence suggests that in the current political climate, the barring of access to sources of data, neo-liberal re-configurations in the funding of research, and the narrowing of publishing and dissemination opportunities to counter-hegemonic voices are severely limiting the ability to conduct critical research. This article reports on recent experiences of researchers concerned with unmasking the crimes of the powerful and argues that, despite the obstacles power sources use to obscure and mystify the illegal and violent practices engaged in by states and corporations, there remains fertile space around research agendas, and in universities, for critical researchers to exploit. To gain insight from the ways in which researchers can, and do, establish alternative agendas, this article seeks to explore some of the principles that might inform and encourage those forms of resistance, and to establish how critical criminologists might continue to subject the powerful to scrutiny. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

新时期立法借鉴:成就与展望

积极而不盲目地汲取西方发达国家的立法成果，是改革开放２０ 年来中国法制建设取得丰硕成果的一条重要经验。建设社会主义法治国家对立法借鉴提出了更高的要求，必须把借鉴的重点放在公共权力制约和公民权利保障方面的法律上来，同时，必须充分研究我国法制发展的历史和现状，注重立法借鉴的有效性。     

University mission and academic freedom: Are they irreconcilable?

Educational freedom, rightly understood, depends upon the freedom to shape - and (for individuals) to choose to study in or teach in - distinctive educational institutions. This implies an obligation upon faculty who have chosen to commit themselves to such an institution to teach in a way that engages positively with its educational project. Policies which provide scope and encouragement for schools and universities to represent distinctive and coherent viewpoints are an essential condition of educational freedom in a pluralistic society. These issues are discussed with reference to the ‘values project‘ of Free University in Amsterdam and to debates, in the Netherlands and the United States, over the distinctive character of schools. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.