Forced Marriage as a Harm in Domestic and International Law

This article reports on our analysis of 120 refugee cases from Australia, Canada, and Britain where an actual or threatened forced marriage was part of the claim for protection. We found that forced marriage was rarely considered by refugee decision makers to be a harm in and of itself. This finding contributes to understanding how gender and sexuality are analysed within refugee law, because the harm of forced marriage is experienced differently by lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women. We contrast our findings in the refugee case law with domestic initiatives in Europe aimed at protecting nationals from forced marriages both within Europe and elsewhere. We pay particular attention to British initiatives because they are in many ways the most far-reaching and innovative, and thus the contrast with the response of British refugee law is all the more stark.     

Law, Finance, and Politics: The Case of India

The liberalization of India's economy since 1991 has brought with it considerable development of its financial markets and supporting legal institutions. An influential body of economic scholarship asserts that a country's "legal origin"—as a civilian or common law jurisdiction—plays an important part in determining the development of its investor protection regulations, and consequently its financial development. An alternative theory claims that the determinants of investor protection are political, rather than legal. We use the case of India to test these theories. We find little support for the idea that India's legal heritage as a common law country has been influential in speeding the path of regulatory reforms and financial development. Rather, we suggest there are complementarities between (1) India's relative success in services and software; (2) the relative strength of its financial markets for outside equity, as opposed to outside debt; and (3) the relative success of stock market regulation, as opposed to reforms of creditor rights. We conclude that political economy explanations have more traction in explaining the case of India than do theories based on "legal origins."     

The Boycott of the Law and the Law of the Boycott: Law, Labour, and Politics in British Columbia

This article uses a critical theoryllegal mobilization perspective to study the 1987–92 trade union boycott of the British Columbia labour law. The problems encountered establishing a total boycott–one that would eschew all contact with the state–and the subsequent modification of the parameters of the boycott through a selective reliance on the law offer an important case from which to learn more about the role of law and legal rights in highly regulated organizations and how collectives mobilize the law. The author argues that legal rights are important to unions because of their ability to mediate the complexity of labour relations through a decentralization of authority. At the same time, mobilization of the law for this purpose accentuates localized identities and unequal resources that operate in tension with a boycott ethos, necessitating a deliberative politics to legitimize the law. By exploring the tension between these two forms of mobilization around law–one to reduce complexity, another to legitimize broad collective norms–the author analyzes and draws some conclusions about the reproduction of social unionism in British Columbia.     

The Dead, the Law, and the Politics of the Past

This article explores the role of law in cultural and political disputes concerning dead bodies. It uses three interconnecting legal frameworks: cultural and moral ownership, commemoration, and closure. It begins with a critique of the limitations of the private law notion of 'ownership' in such contexts, setting out a broader notion of cultural and moral ownership as more appropriate for analysing legal disputes between states and indigenous tribes. It then examines how legal discourses concerning freedom of expression, religious and political traditions, and human rights and equality are utilized to regulate the public memory of the dead. Finally, it looks at the relationship between law and notions of closure in contexts where the dead have either died in battle or have been 'disappeared' during a conflict, arguing that law in such contexts goes beyond the traditional retributive focus of investigation and punishment of wrongdoers and instead centres on broader concerns of societal and personal healing.     

Privatization in Poland: Politics,Society, and the Law*

The paper presents the beginning and the initial results of the process of privatization in Poland. Starting from the summer of 1990 it examines the political debate on the Privatization Act and corresponding social reaction. It shows how the society answers such important questions as: who, and on what principles, is to take over the hitherto state-owned property? The next question is on the content of the “social contract on privatization”: the legal starting point and the first empirical results. It appears that the most visible social effect was the growth in the inequalities between workers and the elites of the society. The role of workers in the process of transformation is also of special interest. Finally, the paper examines the role of privatization law, which on the one hand presents a compromise between the ruling class and the society and on the other hand has been replaced by current privatization policy.     

论民法作为政治文明的法制与文化基础

在西方历史中,民法精神提供了推动政治文明进步的直接动力。民法作为政治文明法制与文化基础之根源在于, 政治文明以市民社会为基础,民法为市民社会基本法,民法文化为市民社会之文化。民法培育了政治文明系统的 基本要素,提供了促进政治文明的社会动力,并创造其运行的外围环境。中国的政治文明建设,应以民事立法的 发达为基础,并依赖于民法成为最广泛的社会文化,中国民法典则当然地承担这一政治使命。     

The Politics of Caesura: Giorgio Agamben on Language and the Law

The concept of division or caesura is central to the political and legal philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. This paper examines the different ways in which Agamben characterises the law in terms of caesura, and the manner in which this analysis of law is grounded in his analyses of language. I argue that there are two forms of legal division to be found in Agamben’s political analyses. The first is the division that occurs when the legal system produces determinate identities, such as those of nation, and socio-economic status. However, this form of division is itself predicated upon the division that delimits the law as such, the caesura between political and bare life. The way that Agamben sets up both of these political problems is deeply indebted to his analyses of the ‘presuppositional structure’ of metaphysical language—the fracture between signification and its excess.

全球化、身份政治与法律

美国弗吉尼亚理工大学校园枪击案引发了身份对当代人和当代社会深刻影响实施的思考。身份的连带责任效应表明,拥有某种身份的人所实施的违反道德或法律的行为必然会连累到其他拥有相同身份的人。身份的搭便车效应表明,拥有某种身份的人所做出的高尚或伟大的行为可能会惠及到其他拥有相同身份的人。身份的刻板印象效应表明,社会上形成的对某一身份的刻板印象会影响拥有该身份的个人的命运和社会地位。法律上的很多制度,包括连带责任制度、结社自由制度、反歧视制度等,与身份的这些效应和影响之间存在着密切的关系。     

The Politics of the Rule of Law*

Abstract. The rule of law should be understood as part of the culture of democracy which requires a distribution of power between a periodically elected legislature and executive and an independent, but publicly accountable, judiciary in charge of a more slowly changing legal doctrine. The rule of law is also essential for the protection of individuals in fast changing pluralistic societies. In both its aspects the doctrine is a product of a particular historical culture, and requires a culture of legality, and not merely the introduction of a few legal rules, for its proper functioning.     

美国普通法婚姻的起源和兴衰

自9世纪到1563年、10世纪到1753年,普通法婚姻分别在欧洲大陆和英格兰得到了教会的承认。在殖民地时期,英属的部分北美殖民地和西班牙属的殖民地予以承认,英属的另一部分殖民地和法属殖民地未予以承认。美国建国之后到19世纪中后期,大多数州承认了普通法婚姻。到了2005年,只有11个州和哥伦比亚特区予以承认。不复承认的理由主要是:人口集中、交通改善、政府公务人员或牧师不再短缺;承认普通法婚姻危害交易安全、危害种族健康、诱发欺诈行为、危害统计数据的准确;非婚生子女地位得到改善。