Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project

This article analyzes a number of yearly reports from the World Bank's Doing Business project, an ambitious international effort to measure various aspects of law and development, analyze their interrelationship, develop benchmarks for assessment of legal systems, and suggest legal reforms. After describing the methodology used, we analyze the strengths and limitations of the project, both as a scholarly enterprise and as a set of proposals for legal reform. Our analysis highlights the challenges associated with measuring legal variables in the face of legal complexity and uncertainty, measuring development when the concept of development is contested, tracing causal connections between law and development, and using scholarly research as a basis for legal reform.     

Managing Police Patrol Time: The Role of Supervisor Directives

Contemporary police practice advocates the importance of proactive policing activities. Proactive policing reforms emphasize self‐initiated tasks during unassigned patrol time and directed activities based on supervisor review of crime analysis and problem identification. Our study analyzes data from systematic social observations of police patrol officers to examine how officers spent their discretionary time. We find that, on average, over three quarters of a patrol officers’ shift is unassigned. During this time, officers primarily self‐initiate routine patrol, or back up other officers on calls to which they were not dispatched. Just 6 percent of unassigned time activities are directed by supervising officers, dispatchers, other officers or citizens. Moreover, directives provided by supervisors are vague, general in form, and do not operationalize problem‐oriented policing, community‐oriented policing, or proactive policing strategies. We conclude that first, a very significant proportion of patrol officer time is spent uncommitted that could be better utilized doing proactive, problem‐oriented policing activities, and second, supervisors need to provide patrol officers with much more detailed directives, based on sound crime analysis, to help capitalize on the under‐utilization of patrol officer time.     

Political Environments and Implementation Failures: The Case of Superfund Enforcement*

The Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund enforcement program is examined to test the hypothesis that change in the political environment contributes to implementation failure. Agency achievements are evaluated under two enforcement strategies: a Burford strategy dominated by the Reagan administration deregulatory agenda and a Ruckelshaus/Thomas strategy that is more in keeping with the Agency's initial pro-regulatory legislative mandate. The latter strategy is found to be more effective in terms of quantitative and qualitative enforcement outcome measures. This supports the conclusion that the systematic intrusion of deregulatory politics into enforcement strategy formulation contributed to Superfund failure.     

欧洲共同体指令的直接效力

在欧洲共同体的所有二级立法渊源中,指令的法律效力是一个颇具争议的问题,尤其是指令在各成员国中是否具有直接效力,更是引起了诸多纷争,而《欧洲共同体条约》和《欧洲原子能共同体条约》均未对此做出规定.以欧洲法院的相关案例法为主线,对其提出的指令的纵向直接效力、协调一致解释及附带横向直接效力原则逐一进行了评析,最后得出结论:为切实有效实现欧洲共同体指令所追求的目标,欧洲法院应当重新定义其提出的指令的直接效力原则;其中,最具有关键性意义的是,应当赋予指令在自然人和法人等私人之间的横向直接效力的职能.     

绿色发展中的环境法实施问题:基于PX事件的微观分析

环境法的实施是当前中国环境法治的核心议题。在环保新常态和推进绿色发展的时代背景下,不应先验地将地方政府视为阻碍环境法实施的消极因素,而是需要从微观视角出发进行更为细化地分析。运用社会科学研究中的假设—验证方法,对近年来具有代表性的PX事件的研究表明,环境法的实施情况并不能作为解释PX事件治理困境的主要原因;将厦门PX事件视为范例掩盖了其复杂的博弈过程,反而对类似事件的合理解决造成阻碍。PX事件治理困境之根源,在于政府权力运作的短期性与随意性。中国环境法实施现状与公众诉求之间的矛盾,源于行政权力运作的实践逻辑,是一种内生困境而非外在困境,并不是简单通过加大外部资源投入就能解决,而是要依赖制度性约束条件的转变与改善,其关键环节在于实现政府决策模式从嵌入到善治的转型。     

MI Implementation in Juvenile Justice: A Case Report

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a communication style focused on enhancing clients’ own motivation towards change. In the justice system MI has evidence to support that it enhances communication and change behaviors in youth. As most MI training is designed for healthcare settings training and implementation of MI must be adapted to fit the juvenile justice model. This includes both rehabilitation and restorative justice. Here we describe the details that allowed one county small county in Pennsylvania to roll out MI training and initial skills review in less than 6 months. The case reviews the details of planning, trainings, and timing of activities. We then discuss what elements of those details fit into a greater implementation plan that may be applied elsewhere. Four key elements were instrumental to implementation: 1) appreciation of JPO time constraints, 2) cost containment 3) using blending to enhance JPO flexibility with MI use, and 4) policies that normalize use of MI. This outline may assist other courts in their own implementation efforts.     

Issues in Juvenile Program Implementation: A Case Study

Both adult and juvenile justice agencies seek to offer quality programs, but implementing a new program can be a difficult and daunting task. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issues and concerns faced by one jurisdiction as a result of attempting to implement a new curfew check program. The goal is to share specific issues with general underlying solutions that may be utilized in other jurisdictions. An examination of the records of 79 juvenile offenders assigned to the program provides the information for this discussion. Results indicate that some basic assumptions of the program designers were incorrect, and that constant monitoring and the centralization of tasks were keys to program sustainability.     

《欧共体出租权指令》评介

１９９２年１１月１９日由欧共体理事会通过的《欧共体出租权指令》全称《知识产权领域中的出租权、出借权及某些邻接权的指令》,是继《计算机程序保护指令》之后欧共体在协调其成员国著作权制度方面取得的又一坚实进步,它旨在推动共同体的经济和文化的发展,本文对该指令进行了较为详细的介绍和评价。     

Birds Behaving Badly: The Regulation of Seagulls and the Construction of Public Space

This article is about the socio‐legal construction of one of the least‐loved birds in the United Kingdom: the ‘seagull'. In particular, it is about how the gull has been brought within the realm of the ‘anti‐social', in a context in which urban‐nesting gulls (of which there are many in the United Kingdom) are cast as causing a great deal of public nuisance, ranging from noise, aggression, and mess, to attacks, injuries, and stress. The article examines the measures adopted by local authorities to regulate the gull population – and to regulate people, in the name of regulating gulls – and shows how a construction of the ‘seagull’ underpins and justifies this regulatory framework. It argues that the story of the regulation of seagulls in the United Kingdom is also a story about the construction of public space, to the point that the measures adopted here challenge the very idea of public space.     

The Concept of Law Revised—Directives and Norms in the Perspectives of a New Legal Realism

Legal theory usually distinguishes only two kinds of legal realism: the American and the Scandinavian. Another school of this theoretical perspective is German legal realism, which refers to scholars like Ihering, Weber, and Schelsky. According to German legal realism, the author outlines what legal theory can do to persuade modern jurisprudence to face the social reality of law, conceived as institutionalized normative communication. The latter always occurs with reference to already valid and effectively operative legal norms which are used in an established, normatively binding legal practice in a given regional society.     

Delaney and the Motor Vehicle Insurance Directives: lessons for the teaching of EU law

A recent series of cases relating to the EU Motor Vehicle Insurance Directives and their application in the UK makes for interesting reading. It is the UK’s negligent transposition, and a lack of knowledge and awareness by lawyers and judges in the cases of the interaction between domestic and EU law, which compounds the negative effects. The issues raised in Delaney v Pickett [2011] and Delaney v Secretary of State [2014] do not just generate concern as to the implications they have for the application of EU law principles, but have resonance with the way in which EU law is taught in many universities. In this article we suggest that reconsidering the method and purpose of EU teaching may better serve the EU-lawyers needed for the future.     

继承公证实务《物权法》适用若干探讨

以稳定财产关系和家庭关系为己任的继承公证是公证机构的重要业务之一。其办证依据主要来自《婚姻法》、《继承法》和《民法通则》的相关规定。《物权法》实施后作为规范财产关系的民事基本法，无疑也应成为办理继承公证所依据的重要法律。因此，正确认识《物权法》与《婚姻法》、《继承法》等在调整财产关系的分工和角色作用，正确认识《物权法》规定的物权登记、物权变动、物权优先效力等对判断被继承人遗产的影响和作用，必然也就成为继承公证实务的新课题。     

Directives in EU Legal Systems: Whose Norms Are They Anyway?

This article is concerned with whether the concept of a legal system—long a centrepiece of state‐based legal theories—is a useful conceptual tool in theorising the contemporary EU and its legal relations with its Member States. The focus lies particularly with EU directives, and with what the character and operation of this distinctive type of EU norm can tell us as regards the existence of and relations between legal systems in the EU. I argue for the view that the EU is comprised of distinct but interacting legal systems at EU and national level, and claim that the character and operation of directives supports this view. Throughout the discussion I try to bring the conceptual tools of analytical legal philosophy to bear on puzzles generated by EU law and its relations with national law, in order to show that a sound analysis of aspects of the EU can benefit from abstract legal philosophical reflection, and vice versa.     

某商贸大厦地基基础工程质量司法鉴定的案例介绍

通过对某大厦地基基础工程质量的司法鉴定,发现其中存在严重的质量安全隐患,为法院提供了具有高度公信力的证据,为诉讼多年的疑案划上句号做出了应有的贡献,揭露了被告偷工减料、野蛮施工的丑恶行为,保障了受害者的合法权益,有力地维护司法公正,促进社会和谐稳定。建筑工程质量司法鉴定涉及着控辩双方较大的利害关系,鉴定资料和鉴定文书的庭审质证过程必然充满着对抗情绪,司法鉴定人更加需要在本职工作中坚持科学、严谨、客观、公正的基本原则。