Coercion and Consent: A Tale of Two Court Reforms*

The state courts in Maine have improved compliance with small claims judgments through two distinct reforms: an automatic disclosure process and a court-based mediation program. The first of these survived only briefly but the second is well institutionalized. After showing the similar effects on compliance rates of these two reforms, we conclude that contrasting fortunes of mediation and automatic disclosure can be attributed to their different effects on the costs and work life of courts as organizations and can be further understood in terms of their impact on the court as an institution with fragile authority.     

Intoxicated Consent in Rape: Bree and Juror Decision-Making

The article examines the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Bree, in which the court considered the guidance that should be given to a jury when the complainant is intoxicated at the time of an alleged rape. As well as analysing the reasoning of the court in Bree, the judgment is placed in context by examining factors, such as social attitudes, that influence juror decision-making in rape cases. It also examines the suggestion made by the court in Bree that further law reform in this area would represent 'patronising interference' in the lives of women.     

Consent,Communication, and Abandonment

Law and Philosophy - According to the Behavioral View of consent, consent must be expressed in behavior in order to release someone from a duty. By contrast, the Mental View of consent is that...     

Consent,Legitimation, and Dysphoria

Ideals of consent and consensuality are rapidly displacing ideals of legality as the demarcation of lawful from unlawful, legitimate from illegitimate, and good from bad.  This is a particularly pronounced trend in the areas of sexual and reproductive rights and ethics.  Consensual sex has almost completely displaced marital sex as the demarcation of not only criminal from laudatory sex but also good from bad sex.  Likewise, the consensuality of a pregnancy is increasingly the demarcation of a celebrated rather than mourned pregnancy, rather than its marital province.  This development is justly celebrated as a breakthrough in women's rights and equality, but it carries costs.  This essay develops some of the limits and perils of an over-reliance on consent and consensuality as the primary criterion of the morality of sex and reproduction.  Consent is not always a trustworthy guide to wellbeing, for both general reasons, and reasons specific to sexual and reproductive life.     

Consent,commercialisation and benefit-sharing

This article considers two issues in relation to the increasing commercial exploitation of biological materials: first, whether the consent of the individual who is the source of biological material is needed for the material to be used commercially; and secondly, whether the source has any right to share in the profits. Whilst the legal requirement for consent to commercial use is uncertain, the overwhelming view from ethical statements suggests that such consent is appropriate. With regard to profit-sharing, source individuals have no legal right to share in the profits of commercial exploitation of their sample. However, there is support in some ethical statements for benefit-sharing with source individuals and their communities.     

Agency,Coercion, and Global Justice: A Reply to My Critics

Mathias Risse, Andrea Sangiovanni, and Kok-Chor Tan have offered some subtle and powerful criticisms of the ideas given in my Justice and Foreign Policy. Three themes in particular recur in their critiques. The first is that the arguments I make in that book rest upon unjustified, arbitrary, or contradictory premises. The second is that the use of coercion in the analysis of distributive justice is a mistake. The third is that the global institutional set represents, contrary to my arguments, an independent first-order site of justice. I address these criticisms, and try to vindicate the methodology of Justice and Foreign Policy in the face of these objections.     

从“基于强制”到“基于同意”——论当代行政对公民意志的表达

以公民意志为代表的“同意”因素在行政行为中的生长是中国当代行政虽不明晰但却正日益凸显的趋势。行政行为三个领域正在发生的变化 :以公共行政为代表的行政权力主体模式的多元化、以非管制化为代表的国家社会关系的再调整并因此而引起的行政领域的变化、以交涉性的增长为代表的行政程序的变革 ,是我们求证这一趋势的证据。     

Coercion,competence, and consent in offenders with personality disorder

Competence to consent to treatment has not previously been examined in a personality disorder cohort without comorbid mental disorder. We examined competence and coercion in 174 individuals diagnosed with severe personality disorder using two validated tools (the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment and the MacArthur Coercion Assessment Scale – Short Form). Competence was not categorically impaired, but there were variations within the sample on dimensional competence measures. Further, there were significant negative correlations between experienced coercion and competence. Higher coercion scores were associated with two components of competence: lower understanding and reasoning. Patients who consented to treatment had higher scores on competence measures and experienced less coercion. These findings suggest that therapeutic approaches that decrease experienced coercion and increase competence may increase the engagement of individuals diagnosed with severe personality disorders in treatment.     

Rape,burglary, and opportunity

Following on the recent development of opportunity theory in criminology, we apply an opportunity approach to rape. Although rape is commonly viewed as a street crime, a substantial proportion of rape occurs inside homes following an unlawful entry of the residence. Drawing on this observation, we argue that rape and burglary, because they share a common locus in the home, should exhibit similar opportunity structures. That is, characteristics that place particular types of homes and householders at greater risk of burglary should also place (female) residents at greater risk of rape. An analysis of UCR rates and censusderived opportunity variables for 155 SMSAs in 1980 supports this position. We conclude that home-intrusion rape (rape following an unlawful entry of the home) is a violent crime with the opportunity structure of a property crime.