Familial ideology,family law and mediation: Law casts more than a ‘shadow’

Pickett examines the contemporary debate among feminists over the risks of mediation as an alternative to the formal legal process in the area of child custody disputes. Pickett argues that the dichotomous nature of many feminist critiques of mediation suggests that law can operate outside the influence of a familial ideology which disadvantages women and which plays a large part within the discourse of the family mediation movement. Instead of seeing law and mediation as radical alternatives, with law as the preferred choice, Pickett suggests that these two modes of discourse are best seen as forming a continuum in terms of the superversion and regulation of the family.     

Family in Dutch migration policy 1945–2005

This article looks at how and why the concept of ‘family’ was used in Dutch migration policy in the period between 1945 and 2005. Throughout this period differences were made between migrant women and migrant men. Whereas the migration of men was associated with labour migration, the migration of women was equated with family migration. Migrant women were constructed as wives and mothers (and not as workers). This construction of women was combined with a victimhood discourse in which women were presented as victims of repressive religion (usually Islam), domestic violence, trafficking and prostitution, and discriminatory government policy. The victimhood discourse was successfully used to acquire rights for migrant women (mostly the right to stay), but as a result all migrant women came to be seen as vulnerable and in need of protection. In this article, I show how this combined family and victimhood discourse was used by governments, by (migrant) organizations and, to a lesser extent, in court cases to create differences between migrant men and women. The ‘success’ of the victimhood discourse is not only explained by the fact that it fitted (Western) ideas on femininity. It was also used to give a humanitarian face – albeit beneficial to women only – to an essentially restrictive immigration policy.     

Reframing the mediation debate in Irish all-issues divorce disputes: from mediation vs. litigation to mediation and litigation

Mediation currently plays a minor role in the Irish family justice system, yet a policy consensus exists that more couples should be encouraged to mediate and that increased rates of mediation will reduce the numbers seeking redress through the courts. The Mediation Act 2017 adopts this position, assuming that the provision of information on mediation will increase uptake and that mediation offers an alternative to litigation for most civil disputes. This article reviews attempts in Ireland, England and Wales to encourage family disputants to mediate, identifying weaknesses in the information strategy. It also examines the legal framework governing all-issues divorce and dissolution in Ireland, pointing to the limited potential for mediation to act as an alternative to litigation. It concludes by arguing that policy focus must shift away from encouraging mediation as an alternative to litigation towards more nuanced understanding of mediation as a support to court based dispute resolution.     

``Greenwich, 1 January 2000': De-inventing the Law of Britain in a Tent

This is an essay on what happened during January 2000 on Greenwich peninsula, London. The Millennium Dome in Greenwich, London, is read here as a site of the nomadic law of the labyrinth. At the Dome, a law of hyper-nomadics is emerging. In the Dome – a nomadic home, a temporary home quickly pitched of/for/by nomads – Britishness, I argue, is being seriously played as perpetual de-invention in a labyrinthine space, somewhere in-between the Law of Lures and the Law of Commands, in-between the Law of the Desert, the Law of the Game and the Law of Orderings. The Dome is being read here as an image/space through which New Britishness forces/forges itself to the fore, as well as an image/space that forces/forges New Britishness to force/forge itself to the fore. In this essay, ``Law', as well as ``Semiotics', are being used in a very broad sense. The ``Law of Britain', i.e. that which keeps ``Britain' apart/together, or, in other words, ``Britishness', so I will argue, not only elusively occupies a labyrinthine space in-between said Laws (of Lures, of Commands, as well as those of the Desert, of the Game, and of Orderings), which it articulates while it nevertheless also weakens them, dissolves them. ``It', the Law of Britain, Britishness, I will argue, also roams nomadically in-between ``spaces of belonging' and ``spaces of becoming'. In and through the Dome, an interstitial, meridional space, ``it' surfaced – it shaped surfaces – forming a labyrinth that articulates various nomadics, while not allowing any of these to fully emerge. This is ``its' newness, this could be read as the Law of ``New Britain' or ``New Britishness': an ever-elusive labyrinthine mes(s)(h) of surfaces in-between belonging and becoming. This essay is part of an attempt at ``reading the figural', to use Rodowick's words here. Rodowick reads Deleuze who reads Foucault – theorist of spatialization – who reads figures, such as Magritte('s). Figures are clusters of ``visibles' and ``expressibles'. Their light and sound – ``light, sounds and shapes', says the Millennium Dome leaflet – form imaginary spaces – ``spatial images' – that allow for specific ``statements' to be produced and to be read in them; which, in turn, allows for the (re)production of specific ``visibles' and ``expressibles'. The specificity of the Dome, the spatial image of New Britain, of New Britishness, is that the Law of Britain whirls in there, in labyrinthine windings, on surfaces, somewhere in-between belonging and becoming, roaming elusively in-between statements, allowing and (re)producing myriads of specific statements, though none specifically.     

Freedom, Property and Equality in the Theory of `Fundamental Rights'. A Commentary on an Essay by Luigi Ferrajoli

The essay that Luigi Ferrajoli published inTeoria politica is a partial, althoughvery important, preview of an importanttheoretical work on which he has been labouringfor several years. Ferrajoli is knownto be aiming at achieving a rigorousformalisation of the theory of subjectiverights, an undertaking to which he first turnedhis hand at the beginning of the seventies,with the book Teoria assiomatizzata deldiritto, in which he laid the foundations forhis subsequent work, including his extensivetreatise of the theory of criminal law,Diritto e ragione.So it is quite natural that this new essaycontains a quantity of references to conceptualcategories that come together in a veritableWeltanschauung, as it used to be called at onetime, in addition to an epistemology and ageneral theory of law.In order to discuss all his theses in thisessay as seriously as they deserve, we reallyshould go back to that set of philosophicalpremises to which they refer – and whichFerrajoli tends to nurture in a sort oftheoretical latency – and try to focus on anddiscuss them. As this is not the place for such amassive task – for which I may not even havethe necessary competence – I shall restrictmyself to touching on just a few points thatconcern me more closely. I apologise for thisselective and thus not very systematicapproach, made necessary to some extent also bythe large numbers of theoretical and politicalquestions that Ferrajoli's essay tackles,raises or merely touches on. Nevertheless, myselection will be aided by the criticalsignificance that Ferrajoli dedicates to someof my opinions. In short, I shall not try to doany more than to respond indirectly to hiscriticisms. And I shall do so with the greatestof respect, as Ferrajoli well knows, for histheoretical work and for the profoundmotivations that inspire him.     

An access to justice approach to mediation and the construction of positive legal professional identity

Research indicates that practising and teaching alternative dispute resolution may reduce the prevalence of mental health issues within the legal profession. This paper builds on these findings by arguing that an approach to mediation focused on access to justice, of which social justice is core, will enhance positive legal professional identity. This approach, which is yet to be trialled, values equality of access and achievement of just outcomes. It does not over-privilege neutrality and self-determination and also values the positive role of law within society. The paper outlines the nature of an access to justice approach to mediation, and explores how this approach may be challenged by the more traditional and fundamental values of mediation, namely, neutrality and self-determination. In addition, it discusses the approach in light of the provisions of the Australian National Mediator Accreditation System (NMAS) Practice Standards and explores the relationship between the access to justice approach and positive legal professional identity. Overall, it discusses the importance of an access to justice approach to mediation in legal education and lawyering and explores the relevance of that approach to promoting social justice, wellbeing and positive professional identity.     

Social Justice and Communication: Mill, Marx, and Habermas

This article concerns how one may theorize a social justice of communication. The article argues that the theory of democracy cannot neglect an analysis of communication and that, indeed, a social justice of communication can be identified in the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas’s “deliberative” theory of democracy. The socio-political analyses of communication in John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx are examined as precursors to Habermas’s position because they are useful for setting off the unique synthesis of the liberal and critical traditions that Habermas develops. Such a social justice of communication shows how the communicative mediation of the public sphere can ameliorate the tension between individual autonomy and the solidarity of group membership by communicatively empowering individuals under conditions of mutual respect and equal dignity.

Crime, accidents and (dis)organization: Rhizomic communications on/of a foodscare

``Organization', as in organized crime, or organizationalor corporate crime, has, in criminological discourse, often something fixed about it. ``Crime' then is often being read as the more or less logical outcome of intentional organization.And the same would go for the ``control', or regulation of organized/organizational crime. An undercurrent of fixedassumptions like these about the fixity of organized/organizationalcrime and its regulation often structures criminological theoryand research. In an age of events (cf. Deleuze), and of eventsas accidents (cf. Massumi), this criminological discursiveundercurrent is in need of some supplements. If, as one mightbe able to assume, ``organizations' (of ``crime', and of ``control') can now be read appropriately as clusters of events/accidents, then it pays to look towards and focus onall and everything Outside the lines which we once consideredto be ``organizational' boundaries. This Outside – a spaceof multiplicity, and thus of ambivalence, undecidability, and(im)possibility – can be read as the cradle of contemporary``organizations' (of ``crime' and ``control'). In this paper,we illustrate this with the example of a recent case, in Belgium,of food contamination, and a foodscare which emerged in its wake.Inspired by recent discussions in organization theory (see partI of this essay), we develop the case study in part II of thispaper. With this paper, we hope to rethink ``organization', and thus ``organizational crime' and ``organized crime' aswell. But we also hope to contribute, through our reading ofcontemporary rhizomics, to the study of foodscares, and perhapsto the study of ``panics' more generally. Reading ``crimes',``controls' and ``criminologies', in a Deleuzean way, aslabyrinthine hybridities will, we think, also help to rethinkcriminology in an era of meshy, (dis)organized capitalism (cf.Lash and Urry).     

Virtually Criminal: Discourse,Deviance and Anxiety Within Virtual Communities

While it would be appropriate to state that criminologists and those in legal disciplines have recently discovered that new technologies are worthy of research, they have yet to tap into growing concerns over sub-criminal activity within increasing populated virtual environments. As a result we find new forms of sociopathic behaviour, which present themselves in abundance, being disregarded due to their 'virtual status', while similar crimes in the real world are subject to intensive investigation. This study considers forms of 'virtual deviance' that manifest themselves within online communities as viable forms of inquiry. Through a multi-method approach, including ethnographic methods, linguistic, case source and discourse analysis, this research project aims to unravel the link between the aetiology of online deviance and the discourses of surveillance, regulation and mediation. It is hoped that the analysis will provide for a virtual regulatory model that curtails disruptive behaviour within online environments while simultaneously maintaining relevant justice models and forms of human/ avatar rights.     

Images from a Neoliberal City: The State, Surveillance and Social Control

Smith (1996: 230–232) characterized the latetwentieth century crusade for a new urbanfrontier as akin to the Wild West ofnineteenth century America. In the last tenyears, not only in the North American contextbut in Europe too, extending the boundaries ofthe urban frontier – economically,politically, and culturally – has galvanizedpowerful urban coalitions in the task ofre-taking – both ideologically and materially– city spaces from the visible and symbolicelements of urban degeneration. The project ofurban reclamation has not been neutral but hasbeen formulated within a post welfare,neoliberal politics that has promoted aideology of self responsibilisation within aclimate of moral indifference to increasinglyvisible inequality. These ideological shiftshave been fuelled by, and consolidated in, anevolving form of state ensemble that, as arapidly moving target (Hay 1996: 3), has beenlargely neglected in criminological analysis.It is the contention of this paper that theagents and agencies of the neoliberal state areconstructing the boundaries and possibilitiesof the new urban frontier while simultaneouslyengaging in a project of social control thatwill have far-reaching consequences for how weunderstand the meanings of public space, socialjustice and the parameters of state power.     

The importance of teaching dispute resolution in a twenty-first-century law school

Civil justice reviews over the past 20 years have encouraged the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and particularly mediation. Mediation is arguably now becoming more mainstream in terms of dispute resolution process choice. In some instances law changes have been introduced requiring parties in dispute to consider using mediation; similarly, lawyers have an ethical responsibility to provide advice to their clients about the range of dispute resolution processes available. What is lacking however is a corresponding appreciation of the changing attitudes to the teaching of dispute resolution in the majority of UK law schools, where the promotion of adversarialism within the curriculum appears to remain the focus as the primary and only method of dispute resolution. The article argues that this is unreflective of current attitudes and thinking towards dispute resolution in most common law countries, where litigation is no longer necessarily the primary dispute resolution process of choice. Whilst there was token appreciation of the importance of mediation advocacy and its inclusion recommended within the Bar Practice Training Course (BPTC), the recent Legal Education and Training Review was silent on any suggestions about the inclusion of dispute resolution based curriculum content at any stage of legal education in England and Wales. The article will explore the historical development of lawyers’ attitudes to dispute resolution within the civil justice arena and academics’ teaching of curriculum associated with it in UK law schools. The article will pose questions on why recent legal history suggests that law schools should now perhaps take a more socio-legal approach to their curriculum content and embrace the teaching of dispute resolution as a defined subject area for the twenty-first-century law school.     

The Hysterical Attorney: The Legal Advocate Within Lacanian Discourse Theory

In this essay, I apply Jacques Lacan'sfour discourses to the legal profession. A lawyer –i.e. a legal expert – engages in the Master'sdiscourse when he writes the law; he engages in theUniversity discourse when he interprets or attempts tojustify the law. In contrast, an attorney – i.e. a legal advisor – engages in the Analyst'sdiscourse when she counsel's her client; she engagesin the Hysteric's discourse when she represents herclient. From a Lacanian perspective, the two lawyer'sdiscourses are masculine, while the two attorney'sdiscourses are feminine. I divergefrom Lacan's view that the Analyst's is the mostradical discourse. The insight gained throughanalysis can only challenge and change the law iftranslated through the Hysteric's discourse. Consequently, despite dominant sexual stereotypes tothe contrary, to be an effective advocate should takeon a radically hysteric femininity.     

Rethinking organizational crime and organizational criminology

Organizational crime and organizational criminology, obviously, are, orshould be about ``organization'. This essay wants to explore what is goingon in contemporary ``organizations'; it wants to think through what iscurrently happening in today's organizations. It will argue thatcontemporary organizational life has arrived in a phase of transition.New forms, and new modalities of organizational morality are taking shape.So is organizational regulation. This, as will hopefully become clear, is ofimportance to organizational criminologists who, inevitably, though oftenimplicitly, have been researching and writing about organizational orbusiness ethics and morality for some time now. This essay suggests analternative way of conceptualizing life and regulation in contemporaryorganizations. It suggests a reading of contemporary organizations as clustersof labyrinthine networks – i.e. the raw materials and again the outcome oflabyrinthine moralities – in which – as Deleuze and Guattari had it – theOutside is always already potentially, though undecidably,Within. To students of organizational regulation, and organizationalcriminologists are amongst them, this essay argues that contemporaryorganizations are gradually turning into highly complex networks (of networks) thatare often inextricably interwoven with surrounding networks. This has aprofound impact on how organizational moralities emerge and develop, onon how these in turn impact on the contents and the orientation oforganizational action. This essay will argue that regulating contemporaryorganizatons is bound to be simultaneously much easier as well as muchmore complex than in a previous, ``bureaucratic' age.     

Unemployment, Economic Theory, and Property Crime: A Note on Measurement

Drawing on rational choice theory, this study considers how best to measureunemployment within the context of the unemployment–property crimerelationship. Specifically, we use ARIMA techniques to examine the relativeefficacy of using the conventional Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)unemployment rate and two alternative measures of the demand for labor aspredictors of monthly counts of U.S. property offenses for the years 1982through 1996. The bivariate time series analyses indicate that while theBLS unemployment rate exhibits null effects, the number of individualsunemployed for 15 weeks or more and the capacity utilization ratesignificantly affect the level of property crime. The implications ofthese results are discussed.     

Secondary victimization and the collective identity of crime victims: a qualitative analysis of Swedish crime news discourse

This article presents an analysis of how secondary victims of murder—in this context, the parents or close family members of a primary murder victim—are represented in Swedish crime news discourse. The study is based on a discourse analysis of media coverage of secondary victims, and statements made by them, in relation to four highly publicized murder cases during the last two decades. The analysis shows that portrayals of secondary victimization reinforce the conflictual character of victim–offender relationships in the news, but also limit the conditions for talking about the significance of social support, mediation and reconciliation for crime victims. News representations of crime victims become less clearly marked by the characteristics of the ‘ideal’ victim as secondary victims, and persons who are explicitly critical toward the legal system, claim victimhood. Furthermore, the identity of the crime victims’ movement as a collective becomes destabilized when the category of the victim is widened to include individuals whose interests are framed as subjective, rather than related to the needs of other crime victims or the general public. In sum, increased media focus on secondary victims may thus undermine the legitimacy of victim claims in public discourse.     

The European Forum for Victim–Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice

The European Forum for Victim–Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice is a non-governmental organisation set up because European victim–offender mediation projects had seldom established contacts beyond national borders. Informal contacts revealed that practitioners, academics and policy makers were looking for a more regular exchange and mutual support in developing victim–offender mediation and other restorative justice practices. This article gives an overview of the background to restorative justice and victim–offender mediation, and pays attention to the development of the Forum, its current aims, objectives and activities, and other (policy) developments at a supranational level.     

Creating Legal Space for the Unborn

This article explores how the unborn moved from inhabiting an implicit mother-centric space, tacitly expressed in the Irish constitutional order, to a separate legal space created first by the Eighth Amendment and later through public discourse, judicial interpretation and failed constitutional referenda. The article opens with a brief examination of the relationship between law and space in recent scholarly works. It goes on to assess the impact of post-colonial and gender discourse in producing the first legal space in which the unborn was tacitly understood. This is followed by an exploration of how cultural and gender rhetoric gave birth to a definite legal space in which the right to life for the unborn was protected by the Constitution and the government’s subsequent attempts to solve the legal limbo by shifting the debate to the social policy space. The paper concludes by discussing the extent to which a wider, more universal space, that of human rights discourse, may have an impact on the legal space created for the unborn, by either protecting or weakening its right to life.     

Multiculturalism and its Discontents

This article examines the practical and theoretical nature ofthe concept of multiculturalism. Its focus is on multiculturalismin the public space and in immigrant states, particularly inWestern Europe. From a practical viewpoint, the article discusseswhy multiculturalism has taken centre stage in legal and politicalagendas, and how the practical application of the concept hasgiven rise to controversy in a number of states. Particularattention is given to the implications of the judgment of theEuropean Court of Human Rights in the case Refah Partisi v Turkey.In terms of a theoretical viewpoint, the role played by multiculturalismin human rights discourse is examined, as are challenges tothe concept from the fields of legal and political theory.