生态环境损害的赔偿、移转与预防:从私法到公法

如何赔偿、移转和预防损害是当代损害赔偿法律的核心内容,也应是构建生态损害赔偿法体系的三个任务.对生态环境损害立法,应树立“损害赔偿体系”的大观念.生态环境损害制度的研究和设计,应置于“生态损害赔偿体系”的概念框架下,进行全盘观照、整体布局、全面推进.传统损害赔偿法主要体现为私法,但如今公法也越来越多地介入到损害赔偿领域,损害赔偿从私法向公法移转是当代损害赔偿法的普遍趋势.基于生态环境损害的特殊性,生态环境损害赔偿的移转应当是我国立法设计和理论研究的一个重点领域,是一项迫切任务.     

Braving Jim Crow to Save Willie McGee: Bella Abzug,the Legal Left,and Civil Rights Innovation, 1948–1951

This article considers the role of Bella Abzug, lead counsel for Willie McGee from 1948–1951, in shaping the defense of this Cold War era Mississippi rape case. Representing McGee left an indelible mark on Abzug: she made her first trip south, wrote her first Supreme Court petition, and faced her first death threat. Participation in the Left legal bar—especially the National Lawyers Guild and Left feminist circles—shaped Abzug's legal consciousness as she redirected the McGee defense significantly in 1950. By joining race and sex, Abzug's legal argument zeroed in on the taboo of interracial sexual relations at the heart of Southern rape cases, thereby exposing the innermost sexual color line. She urged the courts and cause lawyers—albeit unsuccessfully—to pursue a more radical civil rights agenda than outlawing public segregation, as ultimately achieved in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and typically recognized in Cold War civil rights scholarship.     

State‐Sponsored Homophobia and the Denial of the Right of Assembly in Central and Eastern Europe: The “Boomerang” and the “Ricochet” between European Organizations and Civil Society to Uphold Human Rights

State‐sponsored homophobia emerged in certain Central and Eastern European states in the past decade, with the denial of the right of assembly for gay pride marches. However, more recently there has been progress in the recognition of the fundamental democratic right of assembly. What accounts for this progress in fulfilling commitments enshrined in the European human rights treaties? This article proposes that the response of European organizations, in particular the Council of Europe and the European Union, as well as human rights nongovernmental organizations working in collaboration with local civil society organizations, have been critical to this progress. Previous literature has described a “boomerang” effect, in which aggrieved citizens use transnational activist networks to publicize human rights violations and put pressure on governments to fulfill their international legal commitments. To understand the functioning and effectiveness of the “boomerang” we introduce the concept of the “ricochet”—a process in which various institutions and civil society rapidly exchange information as well as political and legal argumentation. We posit that the ricochet is an integral process in the development of a European consensus on the human rights recognized by the European Court of Human Rights. Four cases have been selected for empirical analysis: Poland, Latvia, Serbia, and Russia. In analyzing the ricochet of information and argumentation between institutions and civil society, we find the consensus has been framed around the right of assembly, instead of the more contested area of human rights and sexual orientation.     

“Friends as Foes: The Amicus Curiae Participation and Effectiveness of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Effective Law Enforcement in Criminal Cases, 1969–1982”*

Scholars have long recognized that interest groups realize the importance of the courts as policymakers and as vehicles of social and political change. We examined the amicus curiae participation of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Effective Law Enforcement in criminal cases before the Burger Court from 1969–1982. We found that AELE, a conservative law-enforcement organization, has been the most successful interest group as participant as amid. Moreover, we found that criminal law is yet another area of law in which interest groups are using the Supreme Court to achieve and protect their policy interests.     

From Global to Anthropocenic Assemblages: Re‐Thinking Territory,Authority and Rights in the New Climatic Regime

In a widely read study, Saskia Sassen uses the territory, authority, rights (TAR) framework in order to analyse the transformation of social life in the West from ‘medieval’ to ‘global’ assemblages. In the context of rapid, planetary climatic change – with many claiming that we have entered a new and climatically uncertain epoch known as the Anthropocene – does the TAR framework provide the relevant conceptual resources required to understand the ‘Anthropocenic’ assemblages of the present? This article examines the limitations of Sassen's TAR framework, arguing that alterative theoretical resources are required in order to grasp the changing dynamics of social life in the context of the new climatic regime.