Women Accused of International Crimes: A Trans-Disciplinary Inquiry and Methodology

This paper tackles one of the gender silences in situations of atrocity: women accused of international crimes (‘WAIC’). It is part of a larger body of work that is ongoing. Debate and discussion that shine light into this murky area is essential, for with hundreds of women tried after World War II, some 96,000 females processed in Rwanda through gacaca alone, some 30–40% of the combatants in the Liberian civil war being females and over 25% of reported gang rapes in Sierra Leone alleged to involve female perpetrators, it is hardly an insignificant challenge to peace and security. The hypothesis motivating the author’s study, at this stage, is a methodological one. It is that an open-minded and non-ideological study of WAIC can be developed as a field in its own right. In seeking to tackle the ‘elephant in the room’ and understand WAIC, the author has engaged in a prospecting methodology that begins with global contextualisation, engages with work done across relevant disciplines (the transdisciplinary approach) leading to identification of rich seams of future research. Within the trans-disciplinary approach, work done to understand instances of serious female criminality is of particular value. These ‘hard’ cases, involving female serial killers and sexual offenders, females engaged in torture and female terrorists, suicide bombers and others within extremist ideological or religious movements are particularly close to the criminality that lawyers label as ‘international’. Much work has been done on these situations across disciplines, and this paper draws from that to identify meaningful lines of inquiry into WAIC. The author’s approach has been pluralistic, drawing in diverse perspectives and interpretations within and from different disciplines. This, it is argued, is the best – if not the only way – to gain a genuine and meaningful understanding of female participation in atrocity. This paper therefore presents that prospecting exercise, and opens doors to new ways of thinking about WAIC. By its nature, the work raises more questions than answers. Future publications will address discrete themes, where possible presenting a new paradigm or hypothesis.     

Terrorists' planning of attacks: a simulated ‘red-team’ investigation into decision-making

Despite billions of dollars having been spent on counter-terrorism activities since the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the USA, there is almost no experimental research examining the methods terrorists use in planning attacks. To shed light on this 90 participants (N=43 with military training and N=47 without military training) took part in an exercise in which they took the role of a ‘red-team’ of terrorists planning to attack a major city. Fifteen individuals with counter-terrorism training took part as a ‘blue-team’ attempting to predict the actions of the red team. Participants were required to rank tasks in the order they would carry them out and results showed that they were consistent in their ordering. For example, they consistently ranked ‘identifying targets’ as the first step and ‘testing weapons’ as the last step. Prior military training did not influence the order that tasks were carried out in. Participants were then required to identify targets and there was a high degree of consistency in target selection preferences, particularly towards targets that were easy to access and where mass casualties would be likely. Findings are discussed in relation to using empirical evidence to prevent terrorist attacks.     

‘Ulster’s policing goes global’: The police reform process in Northern Ireland and the creation of a global brand

This paper engages with contemporary discussions in relation to the commodification of policing and security. It suggests that the existing literature regarding these trends has been geared primarily towards commercial security providers and has failed to address the processes by which public policing models are commodified and marketed both within, and through, the transnational policing community. Drawing upon evidence from the police change process in Northern Ireland, we argue that a Northern Irish Policing Model (NIPM) has emerged in the aftermath of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP) reforms. This is increasingly branded and promoted on the global stage. Furthermore, we suggest that the NIPM is not monolithic, but segmented, and targeted towards a number of different ‘consumers’ both domestically and transnationally. Reflecting these diverse markets, the NIPM draws upon two seemingly incongruous constituent elements: the ‘best practice’ lessons of policing transition, as embodied in the ICP reforms; and, the legacy of counter-terrorism expertise drawn from the preceding decades of conflict. The discussion concludes by querying as to which of these components of the NIPM is in the ascendancy.     

‘Notice and staydown’ and social media: amending Article 13 of the Proposed Directive on Copyright

ABSTRACT

This paper critically assesses the compatibility of content recognition and filtering technology or so-called notice and staydown approach with the right of social network platforms and users to a fair trial, privacy and freedom of expression under Articles 6, 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) (ECHR). The analysis draws on Article 13 of the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Copyright, the case-law of the Strasbourg and Luxembourg Court and academic literature. It argues that the adoption of content recognition and filtering technology could pose a threat to social network platforms and user human rights. It considers the compliance of ‘notice and staydown’ with the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) three-part, non-cumulative test, to determine whether a ‘notice and staydown’ approach is, firstly, ‘in accordance with the law’, secondly, pursues one or more legitimate aims included in Article 8(2) and 10(2) ECHR and thirdly, is ‘necessary’ and ‘proportionate’. It concludes that ‘notice and staydown’ could infringe part one and part three of the ECtHR test as well as the ECtHR principle of equality of arms, thereby violating the rights of social network platforms and users under Articles 6, 8 and 10 of the Convention.     

The role of prosecutors in ensuring human rights compliant responses to terrorism

Since 9/11 the threat from terrorism has been regarded as ‘exceptional’, a threat that requires military and sometimes even extra-judicial responses. But experience has shown that these responses can have unintended and counterproductive results. Many experts now believe that criminal justice and rule of law-based responses to terrorism are often more legitimate, effective and sustainable. The paper argues that prosecutors have a vital role to play in promoting appropriate criminal justice responses to terrorism. Yet with no international court with jurisdiction over terrorist crimes, prosecutors carry the primary responsibility to work with their local law enforcement agencies to bring terrorist suspects to justice before national courts, while ensuring that no misuses or abuses of authority have occurred. To deliver on this mandate, prosecutors must remain vigilant and ensure that the counter-terrorism actions of police, corrections and other law enforcement authorities are lawful and respectful of human rights. This will often require immense courage under fire.     

‘Monsters don’t bother me anymore’ forensic mental health service users’ experiences of acceptance and commitment therapy for psychosis

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for psychosis (ACTp) is an approach that aims to change the relationship an individual with psychosis has with difficult thoughts, emotions and experiences. It promotes the use of acceptance, defusion, mindfulness and focussing on valued outcomes as opposed to struggling with psychotic experiences. This service evaluation project explored service users’ experiences and meanings of ACTp within a medium secure mental health service. Thematic analysis was used to analyse interviews with 10 male service users. Four main themes emerged from the data: ‘Recovery’, ‘Insight’, ‘Developing Skills’ and ‘Accessibility’. Overall, service users viewed their experience of ACTp positively and identified encouraging therapeutic outcomes. These findings suggest that ACTp is an approach that should be considered a therapeutic option within forensic mental health contexts. These outcomes were compared with previous research findings. Limitations of the study, clinical implications and ideas for future research have been discussed.     

Terrorizing Criminal Law

The essays in Waldron’s Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs have important implications for debates about the criminalization of terrorism and terrorism-related offences and its consequences for criminal law and criminal justice. His reflections on security speak directly to contemporary debates about the preventive role of the criminal law. And his analysis of inter-personal security trade-offs invites much closer attention to the costs of counter-terrorism policies, particularly those pursued outside the criminal process. But is Waldron right to speak of a ‘welcome the return to the criminal justice model’? This article considers the arguments in favour of prioritizing the prosecution of terrorist suspects and asks if their prosecution can safely proceed without undue hazard to the criminal law and criminal process.     

Toward a phenomenology of terrorism: implications for research and policy

The central theme of this paper is that the phenomenology of perception can contribute to conceptualizing terrorism, in terms of both a research orientation and policy applications. This means that counter-terrorism needs to be grounded in a holistic perspective that has meaning from the point of view of those engaged in terrorism. A critique of the “war on terror” counter-terrorism practices is followed by a discussion of phenomenology and its implications for a holistic perception of counter-terrorism. Four cases are presented that show how a phenomenological approach can facilitate counter-terrorism study and policy.     

“Experts by Experience”: The Involvement of Service Users and Families in Designing and Implementing Innovations in Family Justice

Drawing on international research, policy, and practice, this article explores what is meant by service user involvement, how it has developed, and how it has been implemented across different areas of practice. Using examples from across the health and social care fields, it reflects on how the learning from other areas of practice in which service user involvement has been successful may be applied to the family justice field. The arguments presented highlight the value of taking a bottom‐up approach in designing and implementing innovations in family justice, which would embrace the views of family members, including children, as ‘service users.’ It is important, however, to balance both the challenges and the opportunities offered by involving those who are ‘experts by experience’ in the family justice processes, in order to lead to improved services and experiences.     

Eternal Return? Social Science Perspectives of ‘Upstream’ Terrorist Activities

The 9/11 attacks stimulated an unprecedented academic interest in the study of terrorism; bringing a range of new disciplinary perspectives, theoretical frameworks and empirical tools to the subject. Within a broad social science perspective, this paper seeks to draw on these cross-disciplinary resources to understand pre-attack terrorist activities. In doing so, the paper first reviews some of the key themes relating to the study of terrorism including (but not restricted to) empirical values, the duplication of knowledge, points of consensus, and the focus on individual and deterministic features. The paper then examines conceptualizations of ‘terrorism as a process’ as they relates to pre-attack activities and considers current analyses relating to this issue. Here, temporal features of attack cycles are particularly prominent. The third area of analysis draws from a range of social science disciplines – including environmental psychology, human geography, sociology and criminology – to investigate the prospects of furnishing these accounts with spatial detail. These discussions are organized by a number of overarching arguments. These include: the importance of inter-relationships between counter-terrorism practice and precise understandings of terrorist action; and of exercising caution over deterministic pathways of action and accounts that focus too heavily on the individual level of action.     

Building sustainable free legal advisory systems: Experiences from the history of AI & law

The enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) as a source of solutions to problems is not new. In law, from the early 1980s until at least the early 2000s, considerable work was done on developing ‘legal expert systems.’ As the DataLex project, we participated in those developments, through research and publications, commercial and non-commercial systems, and teaching students application development. This paper commences with a brief account of that work to situate our perspective.The main aim of this paper is an assessment of what might be of value from the experience of the DataLex Project to contemporary use of ‘AI and law’ by free legal advice services, who must necessarily work within funding and other constraints in developing and sustaining such systems. We draw fifteen conclusions from this experience, which we consider are relevant to development of systems for free legal advice services. The desired result, we argue, is the development of integrated legal decision-support systems, not ‘expert systems’ or ‘robot lawyers’. We compare our insights with the approach of the leading recent text in the field, and with a critical review of the field over twenty-five years. We conclude that the approach taken by the DataLex Project, and now applied to free legal advice services, remains consistent with leading work in field of AI and law.The paper concludes with brief suggestions of what are the most desirable improvements to tools and platforms to enable development of free legal advice systems. The objectives of free access to legal information services have much in common with those of free legal advice services. The information resources that free access to law providers (including LIIs) can provide will often be those that free legal advice services will need to use to develop and sustain free legal advisory systems. There is therefore strong potential for valuable collaborations between these two types of services providers.     

The role of government regulations in the adoption of cloud computing: A case study of local government

Cloud computing is a technology that facilitates improved productivity, improved efficiency and lower costs. This technology has the potential to improve the reliability and scalability of organizational systems and leads to an enhanced focus on core business and strategy. Despite the Australian Federal Government's ‘cloud-first’ strategy and policies and the Queensland State Government's ‘digital-first’ strategy, the adoption of cloud services at the local government level has been limited, largely due to a lack of specificity among government regulations and a lack of regulations that provide support to local governments. This empirical study deploys a mixed research method designed to develop a cloud regulations model to assist governments in adopting cloud computing services. By integrating Australian Cloud Policy Frameworks with the extant research on cloud computing, this study conducted 21 field interviews with Information Technology (IT) managers and surveyed 480 IT staff from Australia's 47 local governments. This research paper presents and validates a revised set of factors used to develop government regulations specific to cloud computing adoption. The factors that we found to be statistically significant were cost, quality of services, security, privacy, management, government-based facilitating conditions, and firm-based facilitating conditions regulations. Based on these findings, this research concludes that government regulation is a significant aspect in decision making for the adoption of any new technology such as cloud computing.     

Dilemmas and consequences of prior criminal record: a criminological perspective from England and Wales

This article considers the contemporary architecture of criminal record usage in England and Wales. We focus upon impact on ‘employment status’, partly because work is often now seen as key to good health and other self-esteem indicators in the modern world. First, we examine in the context of England and Wales, (a) the development of the contemporary criminal record system and extent of availability of prior record information in terms of employment (and other licensing purposes) and (b) the factors that helped shape the current architecture. Second, this article outlines what is known from the British criminological literature on employment and conviction records and what more is needed in terms of criminological research. Finally, we consider how convictions become ‘spent’ – in particular the English approach to ‘expungement’/sealing of the criminal record according to the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders legislation.     

全球反恐形势下的媒体角色

自从“9．11”袭击之后，反恐成为一个严峻的全球问题。国家安全成为一顼至上的公共利益，很多国家采取了新的反恐措施，新的问题也随之而来。全球性的国家安全面临的新威胁致使很多政府采取了过激的措施来打击恐怖主义，损害了值得珍惜的价值准则和人权。恐怖主义对人权造成了严重的威胁，而一些不必要的、激烈的反恐措施亦将人权置于危险境地，其产生的负面结果之一即为——借国家安全之名削减新闻自由。     

A Gramscian Approach to Studying the Judicial Decision-Making Process

This paper applies a Gramscian analytical framework to scrutinise the judicial decision-making process. Based on two distinct research projects, the article explores how, on one hand judges in criminal courts can be identified as part of the bureaucratic machinery of the state, as ‘technicians of repression’; whereas, on the other hand, human rights judges can be distinguished as providing ‘moral and intellectual leadership’ in their production and reproduction of certain values. Some of the key questions this article seeks to answer are: What is the role of hegemony in the judicial decision-making process? To what extent are legal actors both ‘technicians of repression’ and ‘moral and intellectual leaders’? This paper uses examples from empirical research conducted at courts in Argentina and at the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights to identify and explore this dual role of judges as both repressive technicians and moral and intellectual leaders in neo-liberal capitalist societies.     

Do Theories of Punishment Necessarily Deliver a Binary System of Verdicts? An Exploratory Essay

Scholars writing on theories of punishment generally try to answer two main questions: what human behaviour should be punished and why? Only cursorily do they concern themselves with the question as to how confident in the occurrence of criminal behaviour we must be prior to punishing—i.e., the question of the criminal standard of proof. Theories of punishment are ultimately theories about choices of action—in particular, about how to treat individuals. If this is correct, it seems that they should not overlook one of the fundamental variables governing human decision-making: the uncertainty about the facts relevant to our acting. Now, the question as to whether existing theories of punishment require a standard of proof as high as ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ is gaining increasing attention in the scholarship. However, scholars working on theories of punishment give little attention to a particular way in which human decision-making handles the problem of uncertainty. In our everyday lives, we often decide in a many-valued, rather than a binary, fashion. Instead of having a single evidential threshold, the satisfaction of which determines whether we act or stay put, we tend to adjust our actions to our degree of confidence in certain states of affairs. In other words, we decide based on a ladder of evidential thresholds: the features of our actions vary according to the evidential threshold that we have satisfied. Notably, criminal trials do not follow this structure and theorists generally take this departure for granted. Why shouldn’t trials work as ‘ex post facto bets,’ whereby the response that the state is willing to ‘wager’ correlates with the fact finder’s confidence in the defendant’s guilt? The paper explores this question; in particular, it assesses whether the main theories of punishment (consequentialist, retributive, and communicative) necessarily deliver a binary system of verdicts. The work is part of a long-term research project on the comparison between the binary and the many-valued models of the system of criminal verdicts.     

德国社会救助法律制度及其启示——兼论我国行政法学研究领域的拓展

德国社会救助制度作为一项重要的社会保障制度对保障人权、维护人的尊严发挥了重要作用。其历史发展、改革背景、宪法依据和具体制度规定对我国正确认识和定位社会救助、建构适合我国国情的社会救助制度都具有一定的借鉴和启发意义。加强对社会救助法律制度的研究,有助于拓宽我国行政法学的研究范围和视野,有利于在社会管理创新的背景下,建构"回应型"的"新行政法"。     

Victims and the restorative justice ambition: a London case study of potentials,assumptions and realities

Restorative justice is coming out of the shadows and in Europe this interest grows alongside a stronger victims’ movement with a domino effect on EU member states’ laws. In the UK, legislation now allows restorative justice at all stages of the criminal justice system, and as part of these developments, new restorative justice services that will be ‘victim-led’ are being funded. This paper questions this ‘kind’ of restorative justice, using unpublished findings from a research project that was conducted in 2017 in London. The project involved a survey with 66 victims and 44 offenders, followed by 11 in-depth victim interviews and a focus groups with 7 victims and practitioners. The data point out a number of assumptions and caveats, which must be addressed in order to ensure that further investment in restorative justice will yield benefits to all those whose lives are blighted by crime. The conclusions are relevant to anyone practising restorative justice internationally including policy makers and funders.     

Resisting the advance of the security state: The impact of frameworks of resistance on the UK'S securitisation agenda

From the turn of the new century, the UK witnessed an unprecedented advancement in the state's security apparatus. These developments and their human rights implications have been extensively documented by the socio-legal and wider academic community. However, less well-understood has been the forms of resistance which have placed fetters on the operation of state powers. This article identifies three dominant frameworks through which resistance to the ‘securitisation agenda’ has materialised. In doing so, we assess the relative ‘successes’ and ‘limitations’ of each framework. Ultimately, we seek to identify the frameworks that offer the greater transformative potential in promoting alternative forms of security to those promulgated by the ‘new terrorism’ discourse.