The Roots of Modern White-Collar Crime: Does the Modern Form of White-Collar Crime have its Foundation in the Transition from a Society Dominated by Agriculture to One Dominated by Industry?

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate whether the process of transition from an agricultural to an industrial society was a watershed for white-collar crime, such that this type of crime increased rapidly in connection with the industrialization process. The theoretical reasoning behind this notion is that the transition process promoted a mentality characterized by self-centered values and a culture of competitiveness, which together paved the way for fraud perpetrated at the expense of others. The data are from Statistic Sweden’s historical records and cover the period of 1864–1912. Since there is no way to measure all crimes that can be defined as white collar crime, we have used bankruptcy offences as an example of white collar crime. The results do not support the notion that the transition period from an agricultural to an industrial society showed an increase in bankruptcy offences. Instead, the results show that when fluctuations in the economy are taken into account, the industrialization process per se entailed less bankruptcy offences. On the other hand, other research using the case of Sweden has shown that it was first after World War II that bankruptcy offences increased rapidly. Our argument is that the transition process as a structural mechanism had a greater impact on bankruptcy offences when industrialized capitalism became advanced.

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The Case of the “Offering of Life” in the Causes for Canonization of Catholic Saints: The Threshold of Self-Sacrifice

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Catholic legal and doctrinal tradition defined two main cases for the canonization of saints:...     

Homosexuality as Defamation: A Proposal for the Use of the “Right-Thinking Minds” Approach in the Development of Modern Jurisprudence

False imputations of homosexuality have long been considered by courts to be defamatory per se, but many jurisdictions are beginning to revisit the issues surrounding homosexuality and defamation in the wake of a national debate over gay rights. This article examines whether courts should abandon false imputations of homosexuality as per se defamation and concludes that, at a minimum such statements should no longer be defamatory per se and further provides courts with a framework to go a step further and hold that such statements hold no defamatory meaning.     

MPs' Issue Attention in Parliament: Evidence of a Stick–Slip Process of Attention Allocation in the French National Assembly

Until now, political science has focused mainly on institutions or political actors and much less on the content of politics, the issues political actors and institutions deal with. Based on the seminal work of Jones and Baumgartner ((2005), The politics of attention: How government prioritises problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press), the article will study MPs' issue attention in Parliament and will investigate the source of punctuation in attention allocation. Even if a growing literature is dedicated to this issue, the two main sources of friction – cognition and institution – have not yet been directly tested. Based on an exhaustive database of the parliamentary questions in the French National Assembly between 1988 and 2007, the paper will focus on the dynamics of issue attention in the parliamentary questions at three levels to show that: the general punctuation hypothesis is valid for the parliamentary question agendas; the comparison between the levels of punctuation of the institutionally unconstrained written question agenda and the institutionally constrained question to government agenda is consistent with the idea that higher institutional friction induces higher punctuation in attention allocation; and the dynamics of issue attention in the parliamentary question agendas at the individual level exhibit strong patterns of cognitive friction.     

The Investigation and Trial of Criminal Offences in the New Century – The Need for a Radical Change

This is the text of the Liverpool Law Review Annual Lecture 1999. Mr. Justice Hooper speaks about the need for a radical reform of the practices and procedures and rules of evidence in the Criminal Courts in England and Wales. Radical reform is needed at all stages of the process including the investigation stage, the pre-trial stage and at the trial itself. Substantive law reform is also long overdue and there is a real need to consider a new approach by the adoption of a comprehensive criminal code. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Godparenthood: driving local solidarity in Northern France in the Early Modern Era. The example of Aubervilliers families in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries

This article studies the choice of godparents in Aubervilliers, a French catholic rural parish near Paris, during the Early Modern Era. At the turn of the sixteenth century, godparenthood essentially served to extend social ties. Vertical godparenthood was quite visible, at least with regards to ‘elite’ local residents. The shift toward kin godparenthood happened over the long term, with a clear acceleration in the second half of the eighteenth century. A second evolution was the result of the Council of Trent. In the north of France, shifts from the ternary model of godparenthood to the godmother/godfather system at the beginning of the seventeenth century increased the proportion of elites amongst the godparents selected. This would indicate a strengthening of the clientele model of godparenthood in the seventeenth century, as suggested by Alfani's works on Italy. Finally, godparenthood was gender-sensitive. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, godmothers from the maternal side were greater in number than those from the paternal side, while godfathers from the paternal side were greater in number that those from the maternal side. Above all, the sex of the christened child took on a decisive dimension at the time when choices became more family-focused in the eighteenth century. This new consideration of the child's gender would seem to indicate a shift in the concept of the tie created at the time of the baptism. The intergenerational link between godchildren and godparents would take on new significance, in contrast to the relationship between parents and godparents that proved so crucial at the beginning of the Early Modern Era.     

The Caribbean Court of Justice: a learning experience for the International Criminal Court?

This article starts by examining the role of Small States in the development of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It then surveys the functioning and administration of the ICC before proceeding to draw on key lessons for this Court, including on the election of judges and financing, from the Caribbean Court of Justice.     

Witnesses in the special court for Sierra Leone: The importance of the witness–lawyer relationship

This study is concerned with the relationship between witnesses testifying in the Special Court for Sierra Leone and their legal teams. Other research conducted with witnesses in international war crimes tribunals suggests that this relationship has a significant impact on the experience of such witnesses. A structured interview was administered to 171 witnesses who had testified in the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Witnesses generally felt their lawyers' attitude towards them was extremely good. Emotional support and good preparation for testifying seem to be particularly important predictors of witnesses' relationship with their lawyers, as does the level of respect they felt they received from court staff. However, communication between witnesses and their legal teams after the testimony is over did not have a significant impact on witnesses' evaluations of their lawyers' attitude towards them.     

Judicial Activism in the Evolution of a Judicial Function for the International Courts: The Role of Compétence de la Compétence

Netherlands International Law Review - Judicial activism is a highly controversial term that has given rise to varied debates and discussions. While it remains elusive in legal scholarship on...     

Offender’s Personal Circumstances and Punishment: Toward a More Refined Model for the Explanation of Sentencing Disparities

Prior research suggests that offender sex, age, and race are often influential determinants of sentencing outcomes. According to focal concerns theory, they affect sentencing because—due to limited time and information—judges rely on stereotypical behavioral expectations when assessing offender blameworthiness and dangerousness. As such, extralegal offender characteristics may serve as proxies for more specific risk indicators. Whether more complete information on additional risk factors helps account for the effects of extralegal characteristics, however, remains an untested assumption. Therefore, this study analyzes the Dutch data on standardized pre-sentencing reports to examine the influence of personal circumstances of the offender, such as employment, family, and drug use factors, on the likelihood and length of incarceration. The results suggest that personal circumstances exert inconsistent influence over sentencing outcomes and that they fail to significantly mitigate the direct effects of sex and age, but do mitigate the effects of national origin.