Merely a transit country? Examining the role of Uganda in the transnational illegal ivory trade

Uganda is repeatedly implicated in the illegal ivory trade as a transit territory for ivory destined for Asia. Interviews with law enforcement officers reveal that the size of seizures and means of concealment and transportation are varied, showing diversity in the trade’s level of organization and sophistication. Arguably, considerable processing takes place within Uganda in terms of stockpiling, repacking and organization of exports but investigations rarely lead to prosecution and conviction of those responsible. Findings demonstrate the intricate role and responsibility of transit countries and illustrate how the transnational ivory trade operates locally.     

Characteristics and dynamics of illegal firearms markets: Implications for a supply-side enforcement strategy

The question of whether the illegal firearms market serving criminals and juveniles can be disrupted has been vigorously debated. Recent research suggests that illegal gun markets consist of both “point sources” (ongoing diversions through scofflaw dealers and trafficking rings) and “diffuse sources” (acquisitions through theft and informal, voluntary sales). To the extent that systematic gun trafficking is an important source of weapons for criminals and youth, focused regulatory and investigative resources may be effective in disrupting the illegal flow. In this research, we use data on traced firearms to examine one aspect of the illegal gun market that holds the most immediate promise for focused supply-side enforcement efforts—close-to-retail diversions. We find that almost one-third of traceable crime guns were recently diverted from legitimate retail firearms commerce and that nearly one-third had two or more indicators of gun trafficking involving dealers, purchasers, and possessors. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding illegal gun markets and for developing effective supply-side enforcement strategies.     

When Social Norms and Pressures Are Not Enough: Environmental Performance in the Trucking Industry

Why do some business firms and not others work hard to advance regulatory values such as environmental protection and comply with regulations? Previous research indicates that business firms are influenced in that regard by a number of variables—not merely the perceived likelihood of legal punishment but also the risk of negative reactions by societal actors (which we call “social license pressures”) and the intensity of managers' commitment to norms of law‐abidingness and environmentalism. This article reports on a study of control of diesel emissions in the trucking industry, a highly competitive market with many small firms, mobile pollution sources, expensive “best control technologies,” and weak regulatory demands. In contrast to findings in studies of large firms, we found that social license pressures on small trucking firms are minimal. Trucking companies' environmental performance—good and bad—flows from managers' economic choices, which are influenced by their particular market niche. In such highly competitive, small‐firm market contexts, these findings imply, significant improvement in environmental performance is not likely without strong direct regulatory pressures.     

Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs

Scholars of mass incarceration point to the 1970s as a pivotal turning point in U.S. penal history, marked by a shift toward more punitive policies and a consensus that “nothing works” in rehabilitating inmates. However, while there has been extensive research on changes in policy makers' rhetoric, sentencing policy, and incarceration rates, scholars know very little about changes in the actual practices of punishment and prisoner rehabilitation. Using nationally representative data for U.S. state prisons, this article demonstrates that there were no major changes in investments in specialized facilities, funding for inmate services–related staff, or program participation rates throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s. Not until the 1990s, more than a decade after the start of the punitive era, did patterns of inmate services change, as investments in programming switched from academic to reentry‐related programs. These findings suggest that there is a large gap between rhetoric and reality in the case of inmate services and that since the 1990s, inmate “rehabilitation” has increasingly become equated with reentry‐related life skills programs.     

The existing tensions in the defining of human trafficking at a UK and international level: a critical overview

Human trafficking is an ancient trade that took several forms over the centuries, from full blown state-perpetrated slavery through to illegal exploitative employment of migrants in the sex and other labor industries. At the start of the twenty-first century, a new definition of human trafficking was produced by the United Nations, within which are contained terms such as “coercion,” “deception,” “abuse of power” and “consent.” While the definition itself has largely been agreed upon, deep divisions – about the interpretation of those terms within the definition – continue to polarize the views of antagonizing political and feminist lobbying groups. The agreement on the definition seems to have served little in ironing the differences and the debates continue to be fuelled. In this article, the author elaborates on the tensions that surround the interpretation of the definition and argues that the main group to have fallen victim to the relevant yet inept international and individual state regulations is the trafficked people, while the traffickers tend to largely escape punishment. Rectifying the situation can be extremely challenging and requires sustained and large scale multinational collaborative work. So far, only little is being done to address the problem and the expectation is that it will become significantly worse before it eventually gets better.     

Where Size Matters: Agglomeration Economies of Illegal Drug Markets in Philadelphia

There is a debate over whether police attention focused on an illegal drug market causes dealers to spatially displace their activities “around the corner” therefore having no positive impact on the aggregate level of illegal drug sales in the city. The alternative perspective is that focused police attention lowers the rate of illegal drug sales in the city. Recent research in Jersey City, New Jersey has demonstrated that focused police attention does not simply move illegal drug dealing around the corner. The present analysis explains why this finding is likely to be common in other cities using the economic theory of “agglomeration economies.” Agglomeration economies illustrate that taking the largest and most profitable site from illegal drug dealers will make dealing in the surrounding neighborhoods less rather than more profitable and lead to a smaller marketplace overall. The empirical analysis focuses on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.     

Understanding parrot trafficking between illicit markets in Bolivia: an application of the CRAVED model

The CRAVED model has been used to understand theft variation in a whole host of hot products, including wildlife. Past research, however, has only applied the model at either the theft or illicit market stage to understand why particular products are stolen in high numbers. The CRAVED model has yet to be applied to the trafficking stage of hot products smuggled between illicit markets and, therefore, its applicability at this particular stage remains unknown. Using secondary data from the Los Pozos wildlife market in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, this study applies the CRAVED model to explain why parrot species are trafficked between illicit markets in Bolivia. This research finds that species that are more “available” and less “valuable” are more likely to be trafficked between illicit markets, suggesting that variation at the trafficking stage of the parrot trade can be explained by nearly the same CRAVED concepts as they do at the poaching stage. This study also finds that one-quarter of parrots in the Los Pozos market are trafficked to other cities, of which 99% are to the city of Cochabamba. These findings suggest that shutting down illicit markets and patrolling major roadways between cities can substantially reduce the illegal parrot trade.     

Never a final design: interviewing Norwegian alcohol smugglers

This paper presents a typology of respondents that have been encountered in interview-based research on the illegal alcohol market in Norway. Six distinct types (“the social talker”, “the expert witness”, “the flasher”, “the manipulator” and “the paranoid”) are distinguished and their relative value discussed from a scientific perspective. Students of organized crime must learn how to handle these characters both socially and analytically, and how to avoid certain pitfalls. Challenges a researcher may meet while studying organized crime will also be discussed, like “going nervous,” “going naïve”, “going native” and “going nonchalant”. Traditional Scandinavian literature on research methods has not been very helpful in this sense.     

Policing the Anticommunity: Race,Deterritorialization, and Labor Market Reorganization in South Los Angeles

Recent decades have seen the rise of both community partnerships and the carceral state. Community policing in Los Angeles arose after the 1992 uprisings and was built on two conceptual building blocks—the territorial imperative and community partnership—which remain central more than 20 years later. At the same time, LA has undergone a significant black‐to‐Latino demographic shift linked with its restructured economy. This article discusses these changes using archival analysis and 5 years of participant observation in one South LA precinct. Police help to reshape the demography of South LA in ways conducive to post‐Fordist economic shifts. The “community” concept appropriated by urban governance initiatives is composed against an unwanted “anticommunity,” which serves to heighten territorial control over black and Latino residents. Rather than encourage community cogovernance over the institution of policing, community rhetoric facilitates racial preference in neighborhood transition under the auspices of an increasingly bifurcated labor market.     

Using morphometric and analytical techniques to characterize elephant ivory

There is a need to characterize Asian elephant ivory and compare with African ivory for controlling illegal trade and implementation of national and international laws. In this paper, we characterize ivory of Asian and African elephants using Schreger angle measurements, elemental analysis {X-ray fluorescence (XRF), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS)} and isotopic analysis. We recorded Schreger angle characteristics of elephant ivory at three different zones in ivory samples of African (n=12) and Asian (n=28) elephants. The Schreger angle ranged from 32 degrees to 145 degrees and 30 degrees to 153 degrees in Asian and African ivory, respectively. Elemental analysis (for Asian and African ivory) by XRF, ICP-AES and ICP-MS provided preliminary data. We attempted to ascertain source of origin of Asian elephant ivory similarly as in African ivory based on isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and strontium. We determined isotopic ratios of carbon (n=31) and nitrogen (n=31) corresponding to diet and rainfall, respectively. Reference ivory samples from five areas within India were analyzed using collagen and powder sample and the latter was found more suitable for forensic analysis. During our preliminary analysis, the range of delta13C values (-13.6+/-0.15 per thousand and -25.6+/-0.15 per thousand) and delta15N values (10.2+/-0.15 per thousand and 3.5+/-0.15 per thousand) were noted.     

世界贸易组织规则的阳光原则

阳光原则指WTO的成员方应公布并以统一公正合理的方式实施与贸易有关的法律、行政法规和政策措施 ,以期国际贸易交往的可预见性的立法行政行为规则。本文从WTO的阳光原则的含义入手 ,论述了其在部分WTO协定中的体现、其存在的法理基础及其意义。任何一项法律原则都有深刻的法学哲学基础。法学哲学多维度地阐述某项法律原则存在的必要性和合理性。阳光原则作为重要的法律原则亦是如此。对WTO阳光原则的法学哲学思考 ,就是为了揭示其存在的必要性、合理性和可能性。     

地方性法规设定行政处罚的空间

从地方治理的现实需要出发,无论地方创制性立法设定“其他行政处罚”,还是地方执行性立法补充、增设违法行为与行政处罚,皆有其必要性与合理性。行政处罚法第12条第3款,赋予了地方执行性立法以行政处罚补充设定权,为确保地方立法机关合理行使该项权力,有必要对其适用空间加以厘定。为避免行政处罚过.多过繁,地方立法机关补充设定行政处罚时,应当遵循“非必要不设定”的原则,并综合考虑义务内容的确定性、合理性和可履行性,以及违法行为的可认定性等多项因素。地方性法规补充设定的行政处罚,只能限于上位法规定的行政处罚种类,且不能突破_上位法规定的处罚幅度。     

Japan’s Ivory Trade in the Face of the Endangered Species Convention

Abstract

Commercial trade in ivory remains one of the major threats to the survival of an iconic wildlife resource: the elephant, in particular the African species (Loxodonta africana). At its 2016 Johannesburg meeting, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) adopted by consensus an urgent call for the closure of domestic markets for ivory. The only Party which has openly defied that call is Japan – claiming that its own domestic ivory market is strictly controlled, and does not contribute to elephant poaching elsewhere. The present study analyzes that claim in light of the evidence, including the country's legislation (as recently amended) and its application in practice (as documented by multiple recent surveys). The author's findings do not support Japan's claim to a sweeping exemption from the global ban agreed by the CITES Conference. On the contrary, in view of serious shortcomings in the Government's current legislative and administrative controls over the ivory trade (especially with regard to internet transactions), the author recommends effective termination of Japan's domestic ivory market; and pending such closure, a reclassification of Japan in category 2 of the CITES legislation list (‘legislation believed not to meet all the requirements for CITES implementation’).     

Corruption and Wildlife Trafficking: Three Case Studies Involving Asia

As wildlife trafficking or the illegal wildlife trade has taken a more prominent place on the global agenda, discussions are taking place as to how wildlife trafficking happens. An increased understanding has revealed that corruption is a key facilitator of this profitable and pervasive global black market, but limited research has explored exactly what that corruption looks like and how corruption enables wildlife to be trafficked. Furthermore, research shows that Asia, particularly China and Southeast Asia, are focal points for the supply and demand of certain species of wildlife. Through a literature-based investigation, this paper unpacks the role specific acts of corruption play in the trafficking of ivory, reptile skins and live reptiles from, through or to Asia. It is proposed that not only do individual corrupt acts enable wildlife trafficking to happen, but also that corrupted structures (the criminal justice system, and economic and political foundations) in some societies enable trafficking to happen and also increase the resilience of trafficking to reduction measures. In collating detailed data about the forms of corruption facilitating wildlife trafficking, the gaps in knowledge, and therefore the important areas for further research, become evident.     

The underworld of art

Although crime in the market for fine arts has a long historical pedigree, the explosive growth of the market, and the conversion of art (along with collectible goods of all sorts) into speculative assets, that began or at least accelerated in the mid 1970s, focused increasing attention on the phenomenon. At the same time the issue of protecting cultural patrimony became a subject of greater contention between source and market countries, while common law and civil code jurisdictions struggled over how to reconcile approaches to regulation and enforcement. This paper highlights these issues with specific reference to the market for high-end paintings although its lessons are germane to all subdivisions of the collectibles market. It attempts to elucidate the main criminogenic factors—speculative shifts in demand, fraudulent supply, and illegal activity by various intermediary institutions ranging from dealers to appraisers to auction houses, while highlighting the role of collectors, museums, and financial institutions both as victims and active participants. Despite enduring myths about “organized crime,” illegal operations in the art market are the work overwhelmingly of insiders who alone have the technical knowledge and circle of intimates necessary to link an illicit supply with a demand that can range from the strictly legitimate, the legal but dubious, and the explicitly criminal. The critical lesson is that stolen, forged or smuggled material makes its way through much the same circles of intermediaries and ends up for the most part in the same locations and the same hands as artwork of legal origin.     

The Architecture of Drug Trafficking: Network Forms of Organisation in the Colombian Cocaine Trade

For much of the past twenty-five years, the US-led war on drugs has been premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of Colombian drug trade. Instead of being run by a handful of massive, price-fixing ‘cartels’, the Colombian drug trade, then and now, was characterized by a fluid social system where flexible exchange networks expanded and retracted according to market opportunities and regulatory constraints. To support this interpretation, I draw on primary and secondary source data I collected in Colombia and the US, including interviews with several dozen hard-to-reach informants. I analyze these data to analyze the organisational form and functioning of ‘Colombian’ trafficking networks, focusing on how these illicit enterprises communicate, coordinate their activities, and make decisions, with an eye towards deflating some of the more persistent myths that have grown up around these transnational enterprises.     

Regulatory Categorization and Arbitrage: How Daily Fantasy Sports Companies Navigated Regulatory Categories Before and After Legalized Gambling

This article uses the context of daily fantasy sports (DFS) to analyze how companies use strategic categorization in regulatory arbitrage. Recent actions by two leaders in the DFS industry, DraftKings and FanDuel, provide an ideal context to study this issue. DraftKings and FanDuel categorized themselves differently to different audiences at different times in a manner that evaded categorization as an illegal gambling activity, only to then dominate the sports betting market after the Supreme Court's decision in Murphy v. NCAA. We examine how this type of strategic categorization, which we call “fluid categorization,” raises important questions for regulators and others concerned with regulatory arbitrage. We also explore how fluid categorization provides lessons for other businesses. While this article has broad implications for the sports gambling marketplace, it also contributes to meaningful discourse for the broader business community, as its findings are relevant to industries beyond DFS that offer gray market products and seek to fight categorical labels until there is a reclassification event.     

障碍与释疑:反垄断法适用于银行业的理论澄清

法律适用的明晰是开展法律规制实践的必要前提。虽然反垄断法的适用障碍表现出法律效力的"自我否定"倾向,但是这种制度设计源于对行业发展规律和合理规则方法的尊重。伴随市场经济的发展和管制行业的开放浪潮,反垄断法适用障碍具有主客观两方面的消弭倾向,其适用范围不断扩张。市场化进程的推进使得作为垄断性行业的银行业逐渐回归市场竞争的发展本质,"新型"的反垄断规制和"传统"的金融规制也会因此产生此消彼长的态势转变。《反垄断法》适用于银行业的实然逻辑在于既有法律规则范畴下的解释合法性、银行业市场发展演变的行业合理性以及我国反垄断规制发展脉络下的可期待性。     

The “strange power of speech”: The unprecedented but limited success of telephone company First Amendment arguments

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 rendered moot recent successful telephone company constitutional challenges to the Cable Act ban on telephone company provision of video. The cases, however, suggest the “strange power”; of the First Amendment to shatter well‐established structural regulations and present evidence that well‐heeled actors can gain through the courts regulatory concessions not readily attainable from Congress or the FCC.

Neither precedent nor logic supports these court rulings, which eliminated economic regulation based upon speculative First Amendment gains rather than upon demonstrated abridgments of speech or changes in the video market