“Going to Law”: Reflections on Law,Religion, and Mitra Sharafi's Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia

This essay explores religion's need for law, comparing the story told in Mitra Sharafi's Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia (2014)—about the virtual hijacking of British colonial law to serve the communal religious needs of Parsis in colonial India—to other contexts in which secular and religious legal systems have built symbiotic relationships, including in the United States and Thailand. It concludes by urging a reweaving of religious and legal histories after the critique of secularism and its shadows, separationism, and antinomianism.     

A Welcome Conversation: Toward a New Historiography of Intellectual Property

This essay considers what tools should be used to study the legal history of intellectual property. I identify three historiographical strategies: narration, contest, and formation. Narration identifies the diverse “narrative structures” that shape the field of intellectual property history. Contest highlights how the inherent instability of intellectual property as a legal concept prompts recurrent debates over its meaning. Formation recognizes how intellectual property historians can offer insight into broader legal history debates over how to consider the relationship between informal social practices and formalized legal mechanisms. I consider Kara W. Swanson's Banking on the Body: The Market in Blood, Milk and Sperm in Modern America (2014) in light of these historiographical strategies and conclude that Swanson's book guides us to a new conversation in the legal history of intellectual property law.     

捍卫权利模式——个人信息保护中的公共性与权利

个人信息权和个人信息受保护权是两种相对立的模式,学界通常认为个人信息权赋予个人排他性的支配权,这与个人信息的公共性相矛盾。个人信息的公共性并不必然反对权利模式。一种广义的公共性包含着个人信息所负载的公共利益,个人信息的公开化也是网络时代个人和商业交往的必要前提,但这并不意味着要否定个人信息保护的权利模式。公共利益具有多样性,正是某些公共利益支持了权利。权利所蕴涵的主张权确保了人的尊严和自由,这也是个人信息保护法的立法宗旨;个人信息受保护权做不到这一点,它不具有义务指向性。但在立法模式上,个人信息保护法要以义务性规范或禁止性规范为主,这是由网络空间个人信息的性质决定的。     

Trademarks as a System of Signs: A Semiotic Look at Trademark Law

This essay attempts to explore trademark law and the marks themselves from a semiotic viewpoint to provide a deeper understanding to (trademark) law as a system of signs. Although the language of trademark law may suggest slightly different meanings, for the purpose of this essay “trademark” will refer to an area of law (unless otherwise indicated) and “mark” will refer to the individual sign. The first part of this essay will provide a brief overview of semiotics. Second, it will outline a general look at trademark law as set forth in the Lanham Act. The third section is a semiotic approach to provide a deeper understanding of trademark law. Finally, the essay will analyze a seminal trademark case whilst using semiotics to address legal meaning within the case. Semiotics teaches that no absolute meaning can be found. This essay, then, attempts to secure at least one particular meaning of the Qualitex case and what it means in trademark law today.     

Barriers in the Utilization of Domestic Violence Services Among Arab Immigrant Women: Perceptions of Professionals,Service Providers &; Community Leaders

Ten focus group discussions were conducted with Arab American community leaders who had experience with victims of violence in the Arab American population and issues related to domestic violence. Community leaders were selected from an array of backgrounds, ranging from health and human service providers, legal and law enforcement service providers, religious and grass roots community organizations. Focus group discussions explored the role of personal resources, family, religion, culture and social support system in the utilization of domestic violence services by Arab immigrants experiencing domestic violence. In addition, issues related to personal, socio-cultural and institutional barriers in domestic violence service utilization were addressed along with identifying culturally competent policy strategies in reducing barriers for service utilization by Arab immigrants experiencing domestic violence.     

The legal file

In this essay I examine the criminal defense file. I argue that being a largely neglected “object” of the legal field, upon a close examination, the file discloses its intriguing materiality as what is predicated on the structure of the fold that allows for the objective, virtual, and narrative spheres to overlap in a specific act-object, which, with Gilles Deleuze, I call objectile. A subsequent phenomenological analysis of the legal file as objectile shows how its constitutive features help the attorney shape ordinary matters into plentiful matters, turning the file into a locally designed sign system. Once exposed, this system reveals its relations to the legal system at large, with individual activities, institutional practices, and legal procedures all being a part of a complex manifold that is law.     

论社会主义法治理念在法学体系中的核心价值

法学体系中的社会主义法治理念,体现了政治法学的中国风格,是政治法学的中国化表达。社会主义法治理念既是一门课程,也可以培育成为一门相对独立的分支学科,它在法学体系中的位置可以得到清晰的界定。在我国20世纪80年代的课程设置与法学体系中,已经出现了社会主义法治理念的雏形;在西方国家的课程设置与法学体系中,也可以找到它的对应物。因此,社会主义法治理念在法学体系中的核心价值,就在于把中国的法学体系悬挂在中国政治的天花板上、连接在中国政治的火车头上,以促成法学体系与现实政治之间的血脉贯通。     

Patterns of Courtroom Justice

Any one film can sustain a myriad of compelling intepretations. A collection of films, however, sharing formal and substantive qualities, reveals a common effect more than a diversity of meanings. This essay traces the shared formal and substantive qualities of a group of films, as I name them ‘trial films’. It documents this genre of film by identifying the genre’s norms of viewing and identification. It also investigates peculiar hybrid discourse of the trial film genre that combines both filmic and legal discursive practices to show how trial films cultivate support for the American system of law through its constitution of a specific viewing audience. In so doing, I broach the following questions: how do images of law in film help sustain the power and legitimacy of legal institutions? How does the study of film genres, like the courtroom drama, reveal the way law lives beyond its formal processes?     

法人主体相对性研究

团体拟人主体化是民法二元主体结构形成的基础,作为平等主体的自然人和法人概念在大陆法系学术和立法语言中占据统治地位。作为集合体的法人团体经法技术的整体化抽象和个体化拟制,已然取得了同自然人一样的基础主体地位,掩盖了其群体性和社会性本质,危害甚巨。法人主体相对性思想揭示了法人主体的技术性、非基础性和难以同自然人类比的形式意义;分析了法人本质的集体性和技术智能工具性,并以公司法人为例阐释了法人的"生死"相对性、独立相对性和本质上的技术智能工具性,为深入解读法人的主体形式化、交易控制客体化和关联非独立化现实,实质性反思和完善法人制度提供了思想基础和原理性指南。     

Legal Order,Legal Pluralism,Fundamental Principles. Europe and Its Law in Three Concepts

The essay analyses the way in which the concepts of legal order, legal pluralism and fundamental rights have been used to describe (and decide) what European integration is (and what it ought to be) from the perspective of the law. The essay does not provide a legal theory but limits itself to investigating how certain concepts have been employed to justify legal decisions and to construct legal theories. The juridical discourse on Europe is examined to identify some trends in contemporary legal culture: the decline of a tradition of legal thought, ‘legal dogmatics,’ the vanishing of the distinction between internal and external law (between domestic law and international law, and between positive law and morality), the growing importance of fundamental rights discourse, the centrality of balancing test, the widespread criticism of legal science's claim to neutrality and the consequent normative turn affecting legal scholarship.     

论中国法、伊斯兰法和印度法对东南亚的影响

东南亚地区是一个具有相当特殊性的法域,古老的习惯法、古代中国法、伊斯兰法、印度法在这一地区混合,其情形十分复杂、混乱。概括起来,有如下特点:中国作为东亚和东南亚文明的轴心,中国古代法对所有东南亚国家均产生了普遍、深远的影响,但越南、新加坡等国受古代中华法系的影响要大一些;马来西亚、印度尼西亚和文莱等以信仰伊斯兰教为主的国家及菲律宾南部地区则受伊斯兰法的影响较大;三是在地理位置上靠近印度的缅甸、柬埔寨、老挝和泰国则受印度法的影响较大。     

经济法律责任独立性探讨

对法律责任划分标准的正确理解,是认识经济法律责任独立存在的前提条件。经济法律责任是以法律责任的部 门法性质为标准对法律责任进行分类的结果,且经济法律责任具有其独特性。独立的经济法律责任体制有利于 责权利效相统一原则的实现;更能体现经济法的"社会本位"性;充分发挥经济法作为独立部门法的作用;促进经 济法主体守法和执法。构建时,必须遵循经济法自身体系要求,体现经济法律责任自身特色,形式上可以与其他 部门法形式相交叉,可通过经济法中的民事责任、经济法中的行政责任、经济法中的刑事责任、经济法中的经济责 任的方式来实现。     

Legal grounds to process personal data under Spanish legislation after the ECJ Judgment of 24 November 2011 (the ASNEF and FECEMD case)

Spanish law on personal data protection regulates (among other issues) the legal bases that permit the processing of data in a way that is similar to that set out in Directive 95/46/EC. Consent constitutes the general rule although data may be processed without it if necessary for administration functions, within the framework of a contractual relationship, in order to safeguard the vital interests of the data subject or if they are included in sources accessible to the public. However, unlike the Directive, legitimate interest is not recognised as an independent reason for processing data, whereas a legal ground that is not set out in community law is included, i.e., sources accessible to the public. This paper analyses these two cases, taking as its starting point consent, along with the consequences that the ECJ Judgment of 24 November 2011 regarding the interpretation of Article 7 of Directive 95/46/EC may have and giving attention to the revision of this Directive itself.     

Biographing Realist Jurisprudence

This essay reexamines realist jurisprudence through a review of two biographies of leading realists: Dalia Tsuk Mitchell's Architect of Justice: Felix Cohen and the Founding of American Legal Pluralism (2007), and Spencer Waller's Thurman Arnold: A Biography (2005). The essay argues that when biographies of legal realists are considered alongside their academic writing, a more robust jurisprudence emerges. Realist lives crystallize the intuition that the major innovation of legal realism was not, as generally assumed, its attitude toward judges and adjudication. Instead, realist jurisprudence is an institutionalist view of law with a focus on groups rather than individuals. Realist jurisprudence understands courts, legislatures, administrative agencies, and nongovernmental groups as important loci of law, lawmaking, and legal reasoning.     

Law, Finance, and Politics: The Case of India

The liberalization of India's economy since 1991 has brought with it considerable development of its financial markets and supporting legal institutions. An influential body of economic scholarship asserts that a country's "legal origin"—as a civilian or common law jurisdiction—plays an important part in determining the development of its investor protection regulations, and consequently its financial development. An alternative theory claims that the determinants of investor protection are political, rather than legal. We use the case of India to test these theories. We find little support for the idea that India's legal heritage as a common law country has been influential in speeding the path of regulatory reforms and financial development. Rather, we suggest there are complementarities between (1) India's relative success in services and software; (2) the relative strength of its financial markets for outside equity, as opposed to outside debt; and (3) the relative success of stock market regulation, as opposed to reforms of creditor rights. We conclude that political economy explanations have more traction in explaining the case of India than do theories based on "legal origins."     

Desperately Seeking ‘Justice’ in Classical Chinese: On the Meanings of Yi

This essay sets out to search for an equivalent Chinese word to the English word ‘justice’ in classical Chinese language, through ancient Chinese philosophical texts, imperial codes and idioms. The study found that there does not seem to be a linguistic sign for ‘justice’ in classical Chinese, and further, yi resembles ‘justice’ in some ways and has been used sometimes to translate  ‘justice’, but yi is a complex concept in traditional Chinese philosophy with multiple meanings and it is dissimilar to ‘justice’ in their semantic and pragmatic meanings in Chinese and English legal culture. While ‘justice’ is a keyword and fundamental to Western law, yi is not a legal word or concept in classical Chinese in traditional China. Given its complexity, yi does not have a one-to-one equivalent in English. It sometimes carries a sense of ‘righteousness’ and occasionally ‘justice’, but yi and ‘justice’ are not equivalent. In view of these, it becomes understandable that the translations of yi in contemporary Chinese usage vary ranging from ‘friendship and justice’ to ‘greater good’, among others. The meaning of yi is still uncertain and context sensitive as it was two thousand years ago.

     

Protecting Supremacy from External Influences: A Precondition for a European Constitutional Legal Order?

The number of international law obligations that have binding force on the Union and/or its Member States is sharply increasing. This paper argues that in this light the well‐functioning of the European Union ultimately depends on the protection of the principle of supremacy from law originating outside of the EU legal order. The supremacy of EU law is essential to ensuring that Member States cannot use national rules to justify derogation from EU law. As a matter of principle, international treaties concluded by the Member States rank at the level of ordinary national law within the European legal order and below all forms of European law (both primary and secondary). Article 351 TFEU exceptionally allows Member States to derogate from primary EU law in order to comply with obligations under anterior international agreements. It does not however allow a departure from the principle of supremacy that underlies the European legal order. In Kadi I, the Court of Justice of the European Union stated that Article 351 TFEU, while it permits derogation from primary law, may under no circumstances permit circumvention of the “very foundations” of the EU legal order. This introduces an additional condition that all acts within the sphere of EU law need to comply with a form of “super‐supreme law”. It also strengthened the principle of supremacy and gave the Court of Justice the role of the guardian of the Union's “foundations”. The Court of Justice acted on the necessity of defending the Union as a distinct legal order, retaining the autonomous interpretation of its own law, and ultimately ensuring that the Union can act as an independent actor on the international plane.     

宪法“人格尊严”条款的规范地位之辨

规范地位是指某一条款在基本权利内部乃至宪法规范体系中的效力,取决于该条款在特定宪法秩序中的法律属性。尊严条款因其法理基础、宪法文本表述及宪法解释实践的差异在各国宪法上享有不同的地位,归纳起来可分为宪法原则、基础价值、规定功能的宪法概念。我国宪法第38条人格尊严的哲学基础不同于其他国家的人是目的、人格发展、交往理论,而是着重于个人的名誉与荣誉保护;宪法文本表述并非人的尊严、人性尊严,而是人格尊严,且该条既未规定在总纲中,亦未置于"公民的基本权利和义务"一章之首,即使与"国家尊重与保护人权"一款结合起来阅读,亦无法取得与其它国家宪法上的规范地位。人格尊严在我国宪法上属于独立条款,也是公民的一项基本权利,具有具体的法律内容,在宪法解释过程中可作为规范与特定宪法事实相涵摄,证明公民的人格尊严受到了侵犯。     

Just So: “The Law Which Governs Australia is Australian Law”

This essay provides a gloss on the relationship between the common law and the ‘law of the land’. It does so by turning attention to the technologies and identifications that continue to give Australian jurisdiction its place. These relations repeat the long pattern of the common law ordering of colonisation. They also provide the governmental conditions of legal responsibility for settlement. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Crossing Boundaries: Nineteenth-Century Domestic Relations law and the Merger of Family and legal History

This essay argues for the need to study the legal history of the American family. It does so by combining a critique of secondary literature in family and legal history with examples from nineteenth-century domestic relations law. These examples, drawn from family law doctrines on seduction under the cover of a marriage promise, runaway marriages, and bastardy, are used to indicate the benefits of adding a sociocultural dimension to legal history and legal and institutional dimensions to family history. Three main themes in the history of nineteenth-century domestic relations law are developed to make these points: the law's particular fabric of issues, its distribution of authorship, and its chronological development, These themes suggest why a full understanding of the legal history of the American family requires crossing the boundaries between legal and family history.