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.     

反不正当竞争法“权利”与“利益”双重客体保护新论

"权利一元保护"与"利益一元保护"是学界对反不正当竞争法(反法)保护客体的一般概括,且建基于反法"利益一元保护"通说之上的知识产权法往往具有适用上的优先性。但是,从反法的历史血统、利益与权利的转化程式以及现行反法的规范实践来看,利益与权利双重保护更符合反法的客观实际:在历史演化层面,反法虽从民法中分离,但本质上却承继了传统民法中权利与利益双重保护的血统;在转化程式上,反法伴随着"利益—法益—应然权利—法定权利"的转化路径而形成一种"随动关系",既为这一"过程利益"提供保护,又将作为"转化节点"的具体"法益"和"权利"以实定法的方式确立下来;在规范实践方面,作为法益保护的经营者利益以及社会公共利益、作为应然权利的商誉权、作为从应然权利向法定权利成功转型的商业秘密权,以及作为法定权利的消费者知情权等客体均得到了反法的实际承认。在双重客体保护论的基础上,反法中的诸多疑难问题均可获得进一步释明。     

Rights and Resources—Libertarians and the Right to Life

The author addresses Robert Nozick's claim that: “The particular rights over things fill the space of rights, leaving no room for general rights to be in a certain material condition.” Hence Nozick insists that rights are violated if citizens are compelled to contribute to others' welfare, however urgent their needs may be. The author argues that it is characteristic of libertarian theories that they invoke the moral sanctity of private property against welfarist or egalitarian conceptions of social justice. Nozick's version of the libertarian critique has three conceptual pillars–“right,”“thing” and “space.” On that basis Nozick claims that talk of welfare “rights” can be condemned on the plane of rights. This is true, Nozick maintains, even of “the right to life.” The author contends that this argument fails. It equivocates over the idea of “rights”; and it misconceives crucial features of property. Nozick deploys exclusive “domain rights,” whilst attacking “important‐interest rights.” His historical‐entitlement theory fails as a justification of private property. The author argues that, so far as material objects are concerned, private property institutions depend upon trespassory rules which do not impose morally binding obligations unless basic needs are catered for. Furthermore, private property institutions also comprise monetary resources to which the spatial metaphor of exclusive rights does not apply. Holdings vested in any particular person at any particular time are stamped, morally, with a mix of contestable and mutable property‐specific justice reasons. Hence it is fallacious to suppose that ownership rights together exhaust all normative space over “things.” The major objection to speaking of everyone's having a right to various things such as equality of opportunity, life, and so on, and enforcing this right, is that these “rights” require a substructure of things and materials and actions; and other people may have rights and entitlements over these. [≡] The particular rights over things fill the space of rights, leaving no room for general rights to be in a certain material condition. (Nozick 1974, 238)     

The impact of “empirical facts” on legal scholarship and legal research training

Lawyers have traditionally viewed law as a closed system, and doctrinal research has been the research methodology used most widely in the profession. This reflects traditional concepts of legal reasoning. There is a wealth of reliable and valid social science data available to lawyers and judges. Judges in fact often refer to general facts about the world, society, institutions and human behaviour (“empirical facts”). Legal education needs to prepare our students for this broader legal context. This paper examines how “empirical facts” are used in Australian and other common law courts. Specifically, the paper argues that there is a need for enhanced training in non-doctrinal research methodologies across the law school curriculum. This should encompass a broad introduction to social science methods, with more attention being paid to a cross-section of methodologies such as content analysis, comparative law and surveys that are best applied to law.     

人本法学方法论初探

人本法学方法论系以人本主义为研究法学方法论的基本立场,从四个前提假设出发展开论述,引用人本精神之衍生含义十项,分别点出哲学论、现象论、技术论和实践论四个部门的特色,以及通观整体的人本权利义务观。在哲学论,先叙述由神本到人本的思想蜕变,再列出四个先设假定,随后的人性观分成先天的理性和自由两个本性,与后天的互助和道德感两个习性,而美国土产哲学实用主义则是人本法学方法论的哲学基础和研究方法。在现象论,探讨法学与人之存在关系,认为法学之存在与衍化,肇因于法学研究者研究意识之渐觉和时代信念之影响,民主社会的法学方法论之争持现象,可用伞架原理说明之,法学新旧之更迭传承,乃是法律文化之绵延。在技术论,考察法学如何切入挺进研究活动,人生的体验,悟出一套"事实─理想─行动"的三层面剖析法,法学知识可经由融贯理性与经验获得之,法律虚拟以假充真,可巧妙解决囿于现实的困境,研究技术之提升达到艺术之境,则有赖法学研究者的生活美感修为。在实践论,焦点聚集在研究态度,态度之自来,与法律人七加三的特质、浪漫而中节的胸襟、怀疑主义的精神以及和谐致善的伦理向度关系至为密切,法律研究的实践历程,既能凸显人本精神的人道与人伦,更能揭示法学以人权和人义实现人类共生乐活的理想。     

MEDICALLY ASSISTED HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES (ART) AND HUMAN RIGHTS — THE EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

The present article examines how the progress of science, and in particular, medically assisted human reproductive technologies (ART) have provoked a revolution in the sphere of family relations, generating a series of ethical and legal conflicts. The article focuses on the European perspective, without ignoring the international sphere, given the globalization of the phenomenon. The emerging legal issues are analyzed through the filter of international human rights, not only an important aspect to take into consideration in the context of bioethics in general, but a “passage obligé” given that certain concepts find their explanation and coordinates in international human rights law. It is from this perspective that the relationship between ART and human rights is presented. The applicable international and European legal instruments and principles shall be mentioned, as well as a brief comparison of national legal frameworks in Europe. The emerging bioethical and legal issues are examined in correlation with the response of the European Court of Human Rights through its case law aimed at balancing conflicting rights when faced with issues pertaining to ART. Lastly, the article presents in more detail the particular legal issues under debate in France and Italy, two European countries with specific legislation in the field.     

Facts, Fictions or Reasoning. Law as the Subject Matter of Jurisprudence

This paper deals with the problems involved in the concept of knowledge in the sphere of law. Traditionally, the idea of knowledge has dealt with the presumption of given objects of information. According to this approach, knowing means finding these objects. This is the natural and understandable foundation of metaphysical or philosophical realism. Cognition and cognitive interest are directed outside the sentences by which they are described. This is the point of departure of legal positivism as well. However, it is not possible to see valid law as totally independent of language and concepts. This makes the idea of legal facts as institutional facts vague. From a practical viewpoint, the sentences of judges and legal scholars, when they present valid law, justify rather than describe. Their crucial function is interpretation. Hence, the objectivity of these sentences cannot be based on the presumption of separate objects either. Instead, it has to be based on the principles of acceptable reasoning. Moreover, the author claims that this kind of approach, united with the utilization of human rights and substantial legal principles, leads one to acknowledge objective values.     

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.     

Can There Be an Artifact Theory of Law?

The idea that particular legal institutions are artifacts is not new. However, the idea that the “law” or “legal system” is itself an artifact has seldom been directly put forward, due perhaps to the ambiguities surrounding philosophical inquiries into law. Nevertheless, such an idea has recently been invoked more often, though not always developed in detail in terms of what the characterization of the “law” or “legal system” as an artifact entails ontologically, and what consequences, if any, this has for philosophical accounts of law. As a result, the primary aim of this paper is to attempt an inquiry into what the claim that “law” by its nature or character is an artifact entails, and what an artifact theory of law might look like.     

Advancing Direct Corporate Accountability in International Human Rights Law: The Role of State-Owned Enterprises

Resorting to the immensely state-centric international legal system to regulate corporate human rights abuses is often viewed as inadequate. Among many proposals aiming at filling the international regulatory gaps, imposing international human rights obligations directly on corporations is a bold one, which, due to profound doctrinal and practical challenges, is yet to be materialized. However, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), given their prima facie “state–business nexus” that blurs the traditional public–private divide, might provide a renewed opportunity to push forward the “direct international corporate accountability” campaign. This study investigates whether SOEs represent a golden chance for direct corporate accountability in the international legal regime. This study provides a legal analysis supported by case law, and by comparative and empirical research when appropriate. After providing a definitional account of SOEs, it examines the legal status of SOEs under international law. Then, in the reverse direction, it proceeds to explore if the state–business nexus of SOEs as non-state actors could render the argument toward direct international corporation accountability more convincing. Major findings reveal that SOEs, to a limited extent, represent a renewed opportunity to rethink direct corporate accountability under international law.     

网络化社会的戏仿与公平竞争——关于著作权制度设计的比较分析

本文关于戏仿与著作权的讨论,侧重于数码网络化对法律秩序的深刻影响以及各种创新型制度设计。作者认为,对所谓公平使用原则的考量,必须以严格区分美国模式和欧洲模式为前提;中国现行著作权法极其强调对作者人格的保护,固然有其必然性和合理性,但也很可能在不同程度上阻碍信息流通以及文化产业的发展。因此也可以说,“馒头血案”与《无极》的碰撞,其实提出了一些涉及法与社会转型的根本问题:怎样才能避免通讯技术引起著作权的解体或贬值?人际互动与大批量的契约群以及民主决定的法律程序要件之间的关系究竟应该如何重构?解答这些问题的关键是对权利处理的不同方式进行比较。     

Traditional Local Justice,Women’s Rights,and the Rule of Law: A Pluralistic Framework

The paper focuses on the application of a particular conception of the rule of law to situations characterized by traditional local justice and legal pluralism. While in the twentieth century international rule‐of‐law programmes were directed almost exclusively at state legal system, they have recently begun to take into account traditional local justice, namely, those institutions which in many world regions represent the main form of effective justice. Starting with a review of the positive and negative aspects of traditional local justice from a rule‐of‐law perspective, the paper underlines the widespread lack of protection of human rights, particularly of women’s rights. Discussing vertical rule‐of‐law functions in contexts of legal pluralism the paper stresses the advantages of an approach to the promotion of the rule of law based on mutual recognition and influence between different legal authorities and sources. It is argued that this “interactive” approach appears best suited to the complex frameworks of relations that characterize present‐day systems of deep legal pluralism. Finally, the paper underlines the correspondence between this approach and a conception of the rule of law as an ideal framework of plural interactions characterized by the limits imposed on the law by the law itself, and it discusses its advantages from the perspective of human rights and women’s rights promotion.     

The Concept of Rights in Contemporary Human Rights Discourse

In a variety of disciplines, there exists a consensus that human rights are individual claim rights that all human beings possess simply as a consequence of being human. That consensus seems to me to obscure the real character of the concept and hinder the progress of discussion. I contend that rather than thinking of human rights in the first instance as “claim rights” possessed by individuals, we should regard human rights as higher order norms that articulate standards of legitimacy for sociopolitical and legal institutions.     

The legal construction of personal information protection and privacy under the Chinese Civil Code

Personal information protection and privacy interact in diverse ways, especially in the contemporary information age. Although books and articles have focused on this topic, the new tendencies of worldwide legislation and judicial practice bring challenges, as the legal construction of personal information protection and privacy differs from culture to culture and time to time. In 2017, the General Provisions of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China (“the General Provisions of the Chinese Civil Code” hereafter)¹ (expired) addresses the legal concepts of personal information protection and the right to privacy simultaneously, to which this article refers as the dual model, differing from the one-dimensional mode of privacy protection before. Subsequently, the “The Right to Privacy and the Protection of Personal Information,” a chapter of the newly issued Civil Code of the People's Republic of China's (“the Chinese Civil Code” hereafter), ascertains the dual model and details related provisions. It has been dubbed a landmark ruling of China's personal information protection, greatly boosting the modernization of China's civil system.Despite the many articles that discuss approaches to China's civil protections, little attention has been given to the fundamental question concerning what exactly encompasses the personal information protection and privacy to which these laws refer. Based on the regulations and applicability of the General Provisions of the Chinese Civil Code and the Chinese Civil Code, this paper explores the legal construction of personal information protection and privacy under Chinese legal orders, including the differences, similarities, and interplay between the two rights. By distinguishing the legal value, contents and remedial approaches, this paper concludes that the two rights are distinct but overlap. On one side, personal information protection is elevated to the status of a separate civil right in the legal context of China, rather than part of privacy. On the other side, tailored regulations should be establish according to the criteria of the nature of information, the extent of information processing, and the elements of damage when confronted with overlaps in the two rights in judicial practice. Thus, this paper provides a perspective from which to clarify the approaches to civil protection of personal information and privacy in China and a reference model for enactment of the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law in the future.     

Changes of Legal Scenarios in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

The superposition of artificial intelligence (AI) and non-state power has aggravated changes in state functions, and has downgraded centralism of political state. The “Intelligent Leviathan” will persist in objectifying the “individual.” The relationship mode of “human-human” being transformed into the mode of “humantechnology-human, ” is giving rise to a new social structure, while state power together with non-state power, law and the algorithm, as well as ethics and technologies, are creating a new order. The major threat to freedoms and rights is horizontal non-state power, instead of vertical state power. Going through profound changes, legal scenarios need reconstruction of “kindness” dimension for balancing the “rights priority” theory, while the “obligations standard” should be recovered in the sense of legal technology to rectify the “rights standard” and to resolve the “rights disability.”     

Jurisprudence and Communication: Secular and Religious

In considering Van Schooten’s study of the Eric O. case (s.1), I ask whether the different approaches taken by the two different “legal institutions”—the prosecuting authorities on the one hand, the courts on the other—are reflective of different images of warfare (a semantic difference) or of the different images each group holds of its own role (a pragmatic difference). If we consider these two “legal institutions” as distinct semiotic groups (s.2), is there an inevitable “communication deficit” (Van Schooten) between them (and the public) and how does this relate to the Hartian account of such a “crisis in communication” (s.3)? I agree with Van Schooten about the role of underlying images in the construction of legal sense, and relate this to the issue of intuitional judgment, both in and outside the law (s.4). I then turn to comparable issues which arise in my other research area, Jewish law, which reflects quite different ideological premises (s.5), reviewing the original (biblical) conception of the (intuitive) role and functions of judges (s.5A), decision-making, justification and consequentialist ethics in postbiblical Jewish law (s.5B), and the conclusions drawn, not least for the pragmatics of communication, in a recent research study on the wife’s rights in divorce. Paradoxically, I argue (s.5C), that the system rests at base on trust rather than objective truth. But trust, too, is a form of meaning, and susceptible to semiotic analysis. I suggest, in conclusion (s.6), that this is an issue which should be treated more seriously in the theory of secular law and legal communication.     

人与人格分离技术的形成、发展与变迁——兼论德国民法中的权利能力

人格是特定社会的准入条件,因而生物人与法律人的分离,乃是法律人格制度的基本模式。这个模式中核心的要素,就是法律人格的“适格判断”的标准。在法律文明的早期,血缘、地域、财产等身份要素,充当着法律人格的判别标准,由此所引起的身份人格必然带有不平等的色彩。近代法律人格的基本特点,就是个人的伦理属性成为了法律人格的适格标准,由此奠定了近代法律人人平等的基础。《德国民法典》上的“权利能力”概念,是由实定法所界定的法律人格的适格条件,这一实定法上的概念,仍然是建立在关于人的伦理性判断的基础之上的。     

Legal Positivism and Deontic Detachment

I consider a puzzle that arises when the logical principle known as “deontic detachment” is applied to the law. It is not possible to accept the principle of deontic detachment in a legal setting while also accepting that the so‐called “social facts thesis” applies to all legal propositions. According to the social facts thesis, the existence and content of law is determined by the attitudes or practices of legal officials. Abandoning deontic detachment is not an appropriate solution to the problem—the puzzle can be recreated with other plausible closure principles. The problem can be solved by restricting the social facts thesis to legal rules, rather than applying it to all legal propositions. Properly construed the social facts thesis does not apply to facts about what legally ought to be the case.     

民事法律行为类型化的创新与完善

民事法律行为虽已成我国民商法领域重要成果,但也生发出诸多理论与实践上的问题和逻辑矛盾。我国学界有人认为民事法律行为的矛盾源于前苏联民法,一些权威性民法著作主张将"民事法律行为"恢复至德国"法律行为"。但是在构建具有中国特色的社会主义民商法理论体系中,似乎不应当非此即彼,而应当在剔除民事法律行为必须合法这一不合理因素的基础上,坚守民事法律行为在民商法领域的应有地位,且应进一步改变将其局限于民事法律关系原因层面的民事法律事实中的行为,借鉴和吸收我国法理学界的研究成果,将其界定为"由民法规范的、具有民事法律意义和效果的行为";其形式类型上应当从现在"民事法律事实"中的行为拓展至民事法律关系要素客体方面的行为和民事法律关系要素内容中的民事权利行为和民事义务行为,以致包括民事违法行为和民事责任行为。     

我们需要什么样的民法总则--与德国民法比较

我国民法体系与德国民法体系有重大差异,根本原因是立法理念和思路不同。德国民法体系是以权利为核心构建的,所反映的法律关系理论属于“权利关系”阶段的理论。我国民法是以法律关系为核心构建的,所反映的法律关系理论属于“权利义务责任关系”阶段的理论。从立法技术上看,我国民法体系与德国民法体系有重大差异的根源在于,民法上责任的概念和内涵及责任与义务的关系有重大差异。由于《德国民法典》是以权利为核心构建的,请求权在民法中占有十分重要的地位。我国民法体系是以法律关系为核心构建的,体现为以权利———义务———责任为主线,我国民法上请求权的功能与德国民法上请求权的功能不同。