Civil Liberties and the Korean War

This article addresses the unsuccessful attempts to suppress free speech during the Korean War, and in particular explains the attempts to silence three reporters of alleged atrocities by United Nations forces. In the absence of carefully targeted legislation, the three individuals – Alan Winnington (a journalist), Monica Felton (a women's movement activist) and Jack Gaster (a solicitor) ‐ were threatened with or investigated for prosecution for treason or sedition, and Winnington was unable to renew his passport until 1968. Drawing heavily on archival sources (including MI5 files, which unusually fail to redact the identity of one of the lawyers who was reporting to Special Branch about Gaster's activities), the article explores the threat to civil liberties from the administrative as well as the legislative and the judicial power of the state. The article concludes by drawing contemporary parallels, and highlighting the continuing relevance of the writings of Winnington, Felton and Gaster.     

Masculinities,Money, and Mosques in Algeria’s Civil War

To what extent did economic marginalization and political crisis activate prejudice, violence, and religious faith in Algeria’s civil war during the 1990s? The Algerian novel Les Agneaux du Seigneur (In the Name of God), by Yasmina Khadra offers a glimpse. The novel shows how political and economic disparities intertwined with an increasingly strict interpretation of Islam. In turn, Islam’s political applications and its militarized enforcement soon drew the country into a veritable civil war. The resulting breakdown of the cultural order simultaneously increased the pressure on men to fulfill a socially prescribed gender role and made the fulfillment of that role more difficult.     

Framing Henry Ford's War: Representation,Speech, and the New Civil Rights History

Woeste, Victoria Saker. 2012 . Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. In this essay, I respond to three readers of my book, Henry Ford's War and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech, by embracing the opportunity to reconsider the book's theoretical and historiographical frames. I synthesize the contributions that Clyde Spillenger, Carroll Seron, and Aviam Soifer make in their deep readings of the book and respond to their criticisms. I then place the book into a new interpretive frame that is emerging in the field of the “new civil rights history,” as it is now being conceptualized in the work of Risa Goluboff, Kenneth Mack, Tomiko Brown‐Nagin, and others writing on civil rights advocacy in the twentieth‐century United States.     

Identification process in mass graves from the Spanish Civil War II

The identification process of a mass grave from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) is presented. The presumed location of the grave, as well as the presumed number and identities of the persons buried in the grave were obtained exclusively from witnesses' and relatives' testimonies. In agreement with the testimonies, the grave was located at the indicated location and five skeletons were exhumed. Also in agreement with the testimonies, the osteological and DNA study led investigators to propose the identification of two kin groups, a father and his son and a pair of brothers. But the genetic study did not support the identification of a fifth man presumed to have been buried in the grave. The differences and similarities between this case and another case reported earlier are discussed.     

战后日本的民法修改与家制度

20世纪初以后,随着社会的变革,日本传统的家制度越来越不能适应现实的需要,因此,战前已开始出现缓慢变革的家制度,战后在以美国为主的占领军强制下,通过民法的大幅度修改实现了根本性的变革,但同时,社会的实际变化没有与之同步。     

美国内战前联邦制因素对奴隶制相关案件的影响

黑人奴隶制问题一直是美国历史上一个非常复杂的问题。内战前,联邦制原则和奴隶制问题纠合在一起,使这个问题越发复杂,在宪法法理学方面引发了很多争论。本文考察了1787年宪法中关于奴隶制的相关规定,指出宪法语言具有模糊性,最高法院法官的解释才能赋予这些法律条文真正的意义,最高法院的判例原则遂成为重要的法律原则。本文分析了内战之前的几个涉及奴隶制的重要案例,探讨这些案例形成的法律原则以及最高法院法官对联邦和州的不同态度。     

War,crime, empire and cosmopolitanism

The millions of deaths produced by states and governments make the 20th century ‘unnameable’, a century far more lethal than all previous ‘pre-civil’ epochs. It does not appear that contemporary state violence tends to decline or to temper the brutality commonly attributed to archaic armies, nor that the rules and limitations internationally imposed on that violence, throughout the last decades, have reduced its effects. The 20th century having gone, and while hope was growing that mass murder and destruction would also go with it, recent events appear to suggest that the twenty-first century is poised to become unnameable in its turn. In this paper a reflection is presented of the notion of war as annihilation, which emerges in contemporary international conflicts. This is followed by a review of the debate on the relationship between war, empire and crime. As a logical extension of the argument developed, war is described as a particularly devastating form of crime of the powerful. Finally, reflecting on the concept of ‘cosmopolitanism’, the discussion suggests that such a concept may offer legitimacy to those who invest their enthusiasm in supporting contemporary wars as well as to those who fight against them. The latter may find inspiration in the idea of a ‘critical’ cosmopolitanism.     

What's in a War? (Politics as War,War as Politics)

Abstract. This paper combines reflections on the current “state of war” in the Middle East with an epistemological discussion of the meaning and implications of the category “war” itself, in order to dissipate the confusions arising from the idea of a “War on Terror.” The first part illustrates the insufficiency of the ideal type involved in dichotomies which are implicit in the naming and classifications of wars. They point nevertheless to a deeper problem which concerns the antinomic character of a collective institution of violence. The second part discusses the extent to which, in spite of the historical transformations in the means and political objectives of wars, the contemporary confrontation still obeys the rules of warfare described by Clausewitz, particularly with respect to temporality (“friction”). The third part discusses “non‐clausewitzian” aspects of the “new wars” defined by Martin Van Creveld and Mary Kaldor, while suggesting that they have left aside the most salient contradiction illustrated by the US interventions, which results from the combination of a claim to universal sovereignty and a reduction of war to generalized police operations.     

宪法危机理论:以美国内战与重建时期为例的阐释

宪法危机的发生有两个条件 :第一 ,在根本性问题上 ,宪法条文具有强烈的容易引起宪法解释争端的模糊性 ;同时 ,这些模糊的宪法条文所规定的问题 ,在现实政治生活中又已经发展成为实际的、主要的政治问题。我通过对美国内战与重建时期的历史检视 ,发现在美国联邦宪法中存在着三个符合这些条件、并最终引发宪法危机的模糊点 :联邦制度和最高主权归属的问题、共和制度与奴隶制度的关系问题、公民身份与公民权利的问题。这三个问题也是美国内战与重建时期要着力解决并通过暴力手段得以解决的问题。     

民法理性与民法典——论中国民法典起草思路

民法典是民法形式理性的必然 ,它应当体现民法的价值理性。我国民法典的编纂 ,要做到符合民法的价值理性 ,在体例上应采改良的“现实主义” ,即基本采用现实主义体例 ,但又要汲取理想主义的思想 ,强调人格权的保护 ,以理性的民法典充分体现民法的私权神圣、意思自治的灵魂 ,实现对人的终极关怀。