‘Customary internet-ional law’: Creating a body of customary law for cyberspace. Part 2: Applying custom as law to the Internet infrastructure

The shift in socio-economic transactions from real space to cyberspace through the emergence of electronic communications and digital formats has led to a disjuncture between the law and practices relating to electronic transactions. The speed at which information technology has developed require a faster, more reactive and automatic response from the law that is not currently met by the existing law-making framework. This paper suggests the development of special rules to enable Internet custom to form legal norms to fulfill this objective. In Part 2 of this article, I will construct the customary rules to Internet law-making that are applicable to electronic transactions by adapting customary international law rules; apply the suggested rules for determining customary Internet norms and identify some existing practices that may amount to established norms on the Internet, specifically practices relating to the Internet Infrastructure and Electronic Contracting.     

刑事被害人的权利保护

刑事诉讼中,国家追求的目标是追究和惩罚犯罪,而对被害人来说可能更关注自身受损利益的恢复和补偿。然而,我国的刑事诉讼制度对保障被害人权利方面的立法非常有限,在司法实践中被害人的权利往往得不到保护。应借鉴西方国家维护被害人求偿权的立法和实践,结合我国刑事立法和司法实际,主要从公诉案件被害人的权利救济切入,从立法上完善刑事被害人对犯罪追诉权的法律保护,在司法上完善执行阶段对刑事被害人权利的保护的相关措施。     

论我国刑事被害人国家补偿制度的构建

刑事被害人国家补偿制度体现了国家对刑事被害人这一弱势群体的人权保障,反映了一国的法治水平。本文就建立我国刑事被害人国家补偿制度的必要性和可行性进行了分析,提出了具体的构建设想。     

Succession strategies in the Pyrenees in the 19th century: The Basque case

Basque customs in the Old Regime dictated the traditional succession rules of aînesse intégrale, which entitled the first-born male or female child to inherit all family assets (house and land) upon marriage. He or she was then to cohabit with the parents as a stem family, thus securing the transition and continuity of the house. With the implementation of the Civil Code in the 19th century, these ancient succession practices were abolished, forcing families to partition their assets equally among their children. Family reconstitution, succession records, and land registers of the 19th century indicate that, despite the new law, Basque families circumvented the law to transmit their property to one child, thus avoiding partitioning and securing continuity of the house. To perpetuate their ancient succession practices, families elaborated new strategies, showing flexibility toward traditional practices (especially aînesse intégrale) and making concessions to the heir or heiress, spouse, and siblings. They adapted the customs to the new law while maintaining the most essential prerogatives of ancient family traditions (single inheritance) for the survival of the “house system”.     

环境侵权中的精神损害赔偿制度初探

环境污染通常以危害范围广、后果严重、社会影响大为特征。它不但会对人的生命健康、财产或其他合法权益等造成损害,还会给受害人带来巨大的精神伤害和痛苦。环境侵权作为一种新型的侵权行为,其损害赔偿法律制度存在许多不完善之处。目前的法律法规中并无有关环境侵权精神损害赔偿的原则规定,在一定程度上造成了执法尺度的混乱,受害人的权益难于得到有效的维护。笔者建议将精神损害赔偿纳入我国环境侵权损害赔偿范围,确立环境侵权损害赔偿的社会化原则,以及法官自由裁量和最高限额的赔偿原则,从而有效地防止环境侵权行为,维护受害人的合法权利。     

论WTO补贴案件报复规则的发展——以美国—陆地棉花案为视角

报复在WTO争端解决体系中起着最后救济手段的作用。2009年WTO争端解决机构通过的美国—陆地棉花案DSU第22.6条仲裁裁决,是关于WTO报复的最新司法见解。补贴案件中的报复规则主要涉及报复水平的认定、交叉报复适用的原则和程序两个方面,而美国—陆地棉花案不仅在这两个方面均有涉及,且发表了若干重要见解。作为涉及报复问题最新的WTO仲裁裁决,美国—陆地棉花案对当前补贴案件中的报复规则有诸多发展,其中包括:将SCM协定中规定的反措施与一般国际法上的报复制度相联系;将"贸易影响"作为判定补贴案件报复水平计算的标准;仅允许原告就自己受到的不利影响采取报复措施;坚持"既往不咎"的原则,不允许对已经纠正的违反措施实施报复;澄清补贴案件中的"反措施"仍应遵循DSU第22.3条所规定的报复原则和程序,并确立了判定该条所规定"有效性"的新依据等。     

What Happens to Law in a Refugee Camp?

How do people living in a refugee camp engage with legal practices, discourses, and institutions? Critics argue that refugee camps leave people in “legal limbo” depriving them of the “right to have rights” despite the presence of international humanitarian actors and the entitlements enshrined in international law. For that reason, refugee camps have become a highly visible symbol of failed human rights campaigns. In contrast, I found in an ethnography of the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, West Africa, that although people living as refugees faced chronic insecurity and injustice, they engaged extensively with several different facets of the law. I illuminate three interrelated dimensions of their experiences: (1) their development as international legal subjects; (2) their alienation from domestic legal institutions; and (3) their agency within the legal field. The article contributes to the research agenda on law in humanitarian settings an empirically grounded account of the subjective dimensions of legal alienation and mobilization in a refugee camp. More broadly, it contributes to international human rights debates by theorizing a mixed outcome of international human rights campaigns: the emergence of wards of international law, people deeply embedded in the international legal system, but alienated from local law.     

On the Sources of International Criminal Law

In their efforts to establish a quite original system of proceduraland material rules of international criminal law, by means ofthe so-called "judge-made law", the two ad hoc Tribunals forthe Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda hold a peculiar approach tothe sources of that law. The most controversial of all is theirconcept of "customary law". This paper is an attempt to clarifythe meaning and scope of these sources mainly from some aspectsof the respective rules adopted in the 1998 Rome Statute. Itis also a continuance in this author's research on the sourcesof public international law.     

确立我国公务员损害赔偿责任制度

公务员执行职务的行为致第三人损害的,是否应当向受害人承担赔偿责任.在此问题上,我国立法缺乏明确的规定,最高法院的有关批复持否定立场.然而,确立公务员损害赔偿责任具有理论和实践上的必要性,应当从国家赔偿法和民法两个方面,完善相关立法,共同构建公务员损害赔偿责任制度.     

城市治理结构中抽象系统信任建设与法治*--以书面文化认同为线索

城市治理结构优化有赖于抽象系统信任的进化与法治的发展。抽象系统信任在城市社会中承担着特殊的社会信任重建功能，并推动着法律信任、法治发展和城市治理改善。从各国的城市治理基本规律和经验教训来看，让抽象系统信任和法治在城市治理结构中处于重要维度既是各国城市治理建设的基本经验之一，也是衡量一国城市治理现代化水平的重要标志。而书面文化认同既是抽象系统信任本身和城市化的产物，同时又参与到了抽象系统信任建设和城市治理完善之中。     

Intoxication and the Act/Control/Agency Requirement

Doug Husak has argued, persuasively I think, that there is no literal ??act requirement?? in Anglo-American law. I begin by reviewing Husak??s reasons for rejecting the act requirement, and provide additional reasons to think he is right to do so. But Husak??s alternative, the ??control condition??, I argue, is inadequate. The control requirement is falsified by the widespread practice of holding extremely intoxicated offenders liable for criminal conduct they engage in even if they lack control over their conduct at the time of the offense, and even if they are acting involuntarily. I provide examples from Canadian, US and German law to flesh out our legal practices with respect to intoxicated offenders. I then argue that, at least with respect to one class of intoxicated offenders?Cthose known as ??grand schemers??, who plan their criminal offending prior to rendering themselves incapable of voluntary control over their conduct?Cwe are morally justified in imposing liability. I then propose an alternative to both the act and control requirements: what I call the ??agency requirement??. I argue that our law does and should impose liability for conduct that is expressive of or constitutive of the defendant??s practically rational agency. Adopting an agency view allows us to expand our focus from just the moment of the offense to temporally extended instances of agency, such as is involved in planned offending by grand schemers.     

Contradictions, Law, and State Socialism

The relationship of law to antagonisms and contradictions within state socialism is explored from a Weberian and a Marxian perspective. Examining legislation, court decision making, legal control of economic behavior, and law enforcement reveals contradictions between (I) a radical participatory ideology versus muted or extinct civil society; (2) the ideology of comprehensive planning versus the impotence of law; (3) strategies aiming at total control of public life versus the emergence of a niche society outside the reach of the state; (4) regulatory norms versus the functional necessity of norm-breaking behavior; (5) reliance on a revolutionary sense of justice versus the cultivation of "doublethought"; (6) a program of total control of economic behavior versus the emergence of deviant, even criminal, forms of organization to fulfill functionally necessary but ideologically unapproved economic tasks; and finally, (7) two distinct practices of law, responsive or postliberal versus repressive. Yet, contradictions typically did not lead through conflict to subsequent reform during the state socialist era, as conflicts were repressed. When reforms were attempted, they furthered conflict and system breakdown.     

文义解释的司法操作技术规则

经过长期的法学理论阐发与司法实践尝试和检验,逐步形成了一系列指引和规范文义解释司法运用的操作技术规则,主要包括语法规则、语义学规则、概括性法律用语规则.通过运用一系列以明晰的规则表达的文义解释操作技术,法律文本的意义模糊问题得以消解,有助于提高司法裁判质量,维护司法正义.文义解释规则化操作表征着,实体正义恰以形式正义为前提条件而获保障.     

20世纪罚金刑的兴盛机理与制度化发展趋势

20世纪以来,随着商品经济日益发达,刑法理念和财产刑发生了巨大的变化,以报复与威慑为特征的古代刑罚因其残酷与野蛮的特质已为现代社会所抛弃,刑罚的轻缓化改革和罚金刑地位的逐步提升成为刑罚历史发展的必然路径.回顾20世纪其理念与制度的变革轨迹,探寻其发展趋势,能够为我国罚金制度的建全与完善提供必要的理论启示.     

有关海事国际惯例的立法思考

从国内立法的角度厘清海事国际惯例的范围及其识别标准,主张中国海事立法应放弃对海事国际惯例作为法律渊源的认可,承认当事人可选择国际惯例调整合同,并在国内法任意性调整的领域适当尝试概括并入成文的海事国际惯例。     

行政规章的民事法源地位及问题

行政规章的民事法源地位与行政法对民法的规范效应,是一个问题的两个侧面。“涉民性”与“民事性”行政规章的出现,强烈地改变了民事行为传统的法律渊源结构,形成了新的民事行为生态环境。中国民事行为的路径依赖背景主要是传统的政治体制和文化哲学,但是,诸多客观社会事实也需要行政权力对传统民事关系介入。     

In Person

Arnaud Folliard-Monguiral is a lawyer in OHIM's Industrial PropertyLitigation Unit. He is the regular contributor, with David Rogers,of the JIPLP annual Community trade mark case law round up.JIPLP managed to catch up with him for long enough to ask afew questions... How did you first become interested in IP? When I was finishing my law studies in the early 90s, IP wasbeing revolutionized     

我国法院在承诺函性质认定中存在的问题及完善对策

在司法实践中，我国法院在是否可以采用推定的方法来认定承诺函性质的问题上存在认识分歧。对于承诺函的性质，英美法系国家和大陆法系国家的法院分别采用“文字解释法”和“目的解释法”来进行认定。在司法实践中，应当允许法官从探求当事人真实意图的角度出发，结合与案件有关的证据来对承诺函的性质进行合理的推定。     

Conceiving Parents Through Law

Who a child's parents are is a question that might be answereddifferently by a jurist than by the child concerned. Law directsus to look at particular rules to determine parentage. Yet theserules might not reflect actual relationships within familiesthat extend care, nurturing and support to children, particularlywhen conception has occurred through assisted procreation. Thisarticle is prompted by the discordance between legal and sociallocations of parenthood in these contexts. Examining Canadiancommon law and Quebec civil law, it considers whether legalstrictures imposed on families created through assisted reproductionhinders children from developing relationships that foster self-awarenessand a meaningful sense of ‘place’ within their communities. Part I considers the manner in which law searches for parentsand finds them, discussing cultural and social forces at playin shaping parent–child relationships. Part II sets outa taxonomy for understanding law's location of parenthood wherechildren have been conceived through donated genetic materialor surrogacy. Part III highlights factors that have driven theseassessments of parental status, namely, biological connections,the intentions of participants in assisted procreation arrangements,and social relationships formed with the children produced bysuch arrangements. Potential difficulties with relying on thesefactors are identified, signalling the need for a more coherentand equitable framework for determinations of parental status.