The Boycott of the Law and the Law of the Boycott: Law, Labour, and Politics in British Columbia

This article uses a critical theoryllegal mobilization perspective to study the 1987–92 trade union boycott of the British Columbia labour law. The problems encountered establishing a total boycott–one that would eschew all contact with the state–and the subsequent modification of the parameters of the boycott through a selective reliance on the law offer an important case from which to learn more about the role of law and legal rights in highly regulated organizations and how collectives mobilize the law. The author argues that legal rights are important to unions because of their ability to mediate the complexity of labour relations through a decentralization of authority. At the same time, mobilization of the law for this purpose accentuates localized identities and unequal resources that operate in tension with a boycott ethos, necessitating a deliberative politics to legitimize the law. By exploring the tension between these two forms of mobilization around law–one to reduce complexity, another to legitimize broad collective norms–the author analyzes and draws some conclusions about the reproduction of social unionism in British Columbia.     

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."     

国际法的普遍性:过去、现在与未来

普遍性很大程度上决定了国际法的基础、标准以及方向。可以从主体、标准与观念三个方面理解普遍性。普遍性具有正当性,但它是有限度的。历史上,西方大国利用普遍性很大程度上决定了其与非西方国家之间的法律关系,严重损害了国际法律秩序的公正性与合理性。20世纪,社会主义国家和发展中国家分别试图重塑国际法的普遍性,但未取得预期效果。当前,国际法普遍性的作用与运用更加复杂,也迎来被重塑的新机遇。倡导包容性是中国关于国际法普遍性的整体主张与实践的组成部分,恰当地理解包容性应当结合国际法普遍性的视角。中国倡导包容性的过程既是重塑普遍性的过程,也应当是重塑包容性的过程。     

全球化、身份政治与法律

美国弗吉尼亚理工大学校园枪击案引发了身份对当代人和当代社会深刻影响实施的思考。身份的连带责任效应表明,拥有某种身份的人所实施的违反道德或法律的行为必然会连累到其他拥有相同身份的人。身份的搭便车效应表明,拥有某种身份的人所做出的高尚或伟大的行为可能会惠及到其他拥有相同身份的人。身份的刻板印象效应表明,社会上形成的对某一身份的刻板印象会影响拥有该身份的个人的命运和社会地位。法律上的很多制度,包括连带责任制度、结社自由制度、反歧视制度等,与身份的这些效应和影响之间存在着密切的关系。     

The Politics of the Rule of Law*

Abstract. The rule of law should be understood as part of the culture of democracy which requires a distribution of power between a periodically elected legislature and executive and an independent, but publicly accountable, judiciary in charge of a more slowly changing legal doctrine. The rule of law is also essential for the protection of individuals in fast changing pluralistic societies. In both its aspects the doctrine is a product of a particular historical culture, and requires a culture of legality, and not merely the introduction of a few legal rules, for its proper functioning.     

《环境保护法》的前世今生

修订后的《中华人民共和国环境保护法》将于2015年1月1日开始实施,这部法律的前身是1979年《环境保护法（试行）》,基础是1989年颁行的《环境保护法》。1979年的《环境保护法（试行）》虽然不是此次修法的直接文本,但其作为中国第一部环境保护领域的综合性法律,在奠定中国环境保护法律制度体系基础的同时,也为后来留下了一些隐患,成为此次修法的争论的起因。1989年的《环境保护法》是此次修改的直接文本,这部法律的存废之争一直持续了20多年;在2011年年初人大常委会正式启动修法程序后,经历全国人大常委会四次审议、修改草案两次面向社会公开征求意见、从＂修正案＂到＂修订案＂,创造了中国立法史上几个＂第一＂。最终通过的《环境保护法修订案》体现了十八届三中全会提出的建设生态文明,建立最严格制度的要求,确立了其在环境保护领域的基础性、综合性法律的地位,在建立生态环境保护法律机制方面实现了重大突破。     

Politics of Law and the Lacanian Real

The paper explores the role of Jacques Lacan’s Ethics of Psychoanalysis in debates in law and legal philosophy. It proceeds by considering a debate between Slavoj Žižek and Judith Butler over Lacan’s concept of the real, which forms part of a larger discussion over the future of democracy and the rule of law (Butler et al. 2000). Through reference to discussions of the relationship between law and ethics based on the Antigone tragedy, I argue that the difference between Žižek and Butler’s positions should not be understood in terms of the correctness of their reading of Lacan, but in terms of the political commitments that inform their respective interpretations. I explain the implications of this debate over one of Lacan’s most enigmatic concepts, thereby showing how Lacan’s theory can be used to rethink the politics of law in light of the increased emphasis on ethics in contemporary legal debates.     

Privatization in Poland: Politics,Society, and the Law*

The paper presents the beginning and the initial results of the process of privatization in Poland. Starting from the summer of 1990 it examines the political debate on the Privatization Act and corresponding social reaction. It shows how the society answers such important questions as: who, and on what principles, is to take over the hitherto state-owned property? The next question is on the content of the “social contract on privatization”: the legal starting point and the first empirical results. It appears that the most visible social effect was the growth in the inequalities between workers and the elites of the society. The role of workers in the process of transformation is also of special interest. Finally, the paper examines the role of privatization law, which on the one hand presents a compromise between the ruling class and the society and on the other hand has been replaced by current privatization policy.     

香港民事诉讼制度改革之回顾与前瞻

香港的民事司法改革历时十年,彰显了民事司法理念的深度变迁,对民事司法制度的发展具有里程碑意义。新规则自2009年4月2日正式施行以来进展大致顺利,在克服诉讼拖延、促进和解、发展调解等方面取得了一定的成效,但改革终究不是一蹴而就的纸面化改造。在新制度与旧观念相互碰撞又各自发挥作用的时期,如欲推翻法律职业者乃至普通民众的思维定势,变革深埋于制度底层的文化样态,其中的困难同样是显而易见的。     

Challenging Medicine: Law, Resistance, and the Cultural Politics of Childbirth

Whereas most sociolegal studies concerned with hegemony and resistance focus on the resistances of ordinary citizens in everyday life, this article focuses on the development of a particular social movement—the alternative birth movement—and analyzes the process by which this movement emerged and has achieved significant legislative victories. The analysis makes several contributions to the literatures on hegemony, resistance, and the law. First, by demonstrating the importance of medicine's assertion of its authority for the expansion and mobilization of the alternative birth movement, we show that the mobilization of the law by a dominant group may trigger the emergence of social movements seeking to resist hegemonic understandings and arrangements. At the same time, by examining how birth activists' organizational resources developed over time and were rendered meaningful in legislative debates, our study demonstrates the importance of avoiding dichotomous conceptions of structure and culture. In addition, by analyzing culture as a process of meaning-making rather than an independent and hierarchical set of values, the analysis shows how cultural and legal hegemony—even that of modern medicine—may be destabilized, even as it sets the terms of the effort to destabilize it and shapes the nature of the hegemony that will replace it.