S.W.A.T.:光荣与梦想

目前市面上正流行一部由克拉克·约翰逊执导的DVD影片:《S.W.A.T》,其中文译名有多种,比如《反恐特警组》和《洛城特警》等。这张DVD碟片由美国八大影业之一的哥伦比亚/三星(Columbia/TriStar)公司于2004年6月1日正式发行。很多人看过后都说很过瘾,故事情节当然是虚构的,不过,原型却是真实存在的,那就是位于洛杉矶东六街251号的洛杉矶警察局特别武器战术小组。S.W.A.T实际上是SpecialWeaponsAndTactics的首字母缩写,意思就是“特别武器和战术小组”。影片根据20世纪70年代的同名电视剧集改编而成,正是这部电视剧让洛杉矶警察局特别…     

W.A. Schabas,Nowak’s CCPR Commentary: U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 3rd rev. edn.

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Computer based testing – Bolls v. W. Scott Street,Sec'y of Va. Bd. of Bar Exmnrs., August 11, 2009, case no. 090915

The most significant change to law licensing in the United States is the recent¹ reliance on computer-based testing for the bar exam in all of the fifty states. The following comment piece is meant to inform the computer and technology law community how the use of testing software must necessarily be accompanied by additional procedural protections and corrective processes that may not have existed previously. Chief among these is the availability of discovery of the item in question, namely in this case the essays in a computer-based bar exam, which constitutes evidence that is essential to vindicating one's rights when a software failure occurs.     

Introduction: Structure or strategy? Essays on family,demography, and labor from the Dutch N.W. Posthumus Institute

The concept of ‘family strategies’ has yielded much valuable research when used in the classic ‘quantitative’ and ‘anthropological’ approaches to the history of family life. Its continued use as a research concept requires, however, that significantly more attention be paid to the relationships between families as social units and their individual members, to the great variety of families and households, and to the different motives that guided families in charging strategies. These questions are brought to the forefront when the history of the family is investigated cross-culturally and comparatively, as the articles of this Special Issue, written by researchers of the Dutch N. W. Posthumus Institute, seek to do.     

Der Internationale Gerichtshof als Verfassungsgericht und Verfassungsvergleicher. Wähnen, Wunsch und Wirklichkeit

Der IGH fügt sich nicht ohne Weiteres in den Reigen der Verfassungsgerichte ein. Deshalb ist es hier nicht wie bei nationalen Verfassungsgerichten und mittlerweile wohl auch bei EuGH und EGMR möglich, direct zur Tagesordnung der Analyse der Verfassungsrechtsprechung und der Praxis der Verfassungsvergleichung überzugehen. Vielmehr ist vorab zu klären, ob der IGH überhaupt in einem mehr als metaphorischen Sinne als Verfassungsgericht angesprochen werden kann. Dies verlangt zunächst die Beantwortung der Frage, ob und inwieweit es "Verfassung" im Völkerrecht gibt. Bejahendenfalls ist zu untersuchen, in welchem Sinne der IGH diesbezüglich als Verfassungsgericht agiert. Die Existenz einer Völkerrechtsverfassung ist nämlich notwendige, aber nicht hinreichende Bedingung für die Etablierung des IGH als Verfassungsgericht. Der vorliegende Beitrag sucht diese Klärungen in mehreren Schritten herbeizuführen. Es wird sich zeigen, dass der IGH gewisse typische verfassungsgerichtliche Funktionen erfüllt. Ob damit die kritische Masse zur Adelung als Verfassungsgericht erreicht wird, ist zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt jedoch zu bezweifeln.     

Dr. Death? Professionalism,Virtue, and U.S. Physician Participation in the Death Penalty

In the United States at present, the death penalty is a possible sentence in 31 out of 50 states, as well as within the military and for federal cases. In the U.S., numbers of executions are declining, in part due to moratoriums in place and challenges to execution by lethal injection. Participation by physicians in lethal injection executions has been steadfastly viewed by professional medical organizations as contrary to their ethical standards. However, physicians have participated in lethal injection executions, and the morality of the death penalty itself is a matter of intense social and political debate. Medical ethics commentators and professional organizations have typically held that the prohibition on physician participation in the death penalty is independent of the ethical status of the death penalty itself. This article argues that this view is untenable, and that it is tied to a view of professional role virtue that is similarly untenable. At the same time, it argues that, given the morally uncertain status of the death penalty, it is plausible that virtuous physicians may either refuse or choose to participate in some aspects of the death penalty.