The Church,Ethnonationalism, and the State

Although the process of the acquisition of independence by countries and large ethnic groups in the post-Soviet region and the Eastern Bloc as a whole is complete, over the next few decades Churches are hardly likely to become propagandists of peace and tolerance.     

The Teamsters, the White House, the Labor Department

This paper examines the instrumental networks established between organized criminals and national politicians. Its major focus centers on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Department of Labor, and the Reagan Administration. We explore the organized crime influence that affected President Reagan's selection of Raymond Donovan as Secretary of Labor. The choice of Donovan resulted in several related investigations into Donovan's association with organized criminals primarily in the construction industry in New Jersey and New York. We explain and critique the investigations thereby establishing the instrumental quality of the networks and the politics of law enforcement. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Defense Lawyer,the Accused,and the Procurator

As the matter is generally conceived, it is the accused who needs a defense attorney. Of course, it is he who needs a lawyer above all. But lawyers for the defense are no less essential to the Soviet state in its administration of justice. The administration of justice, the prosecution, and the defense are three functions, clearly differentiated from each other, that are implemented respectively by the court, the procuracy, and the institution of advocates. Together, they are called upon to assure the smooth functioning of the mechanism of struggle against crime.     

The good, the bad, the ugly, and the Colombian peace plan

Among the many wars thatColombia is fighting, there are two that itis definitely losing – those forgovernment legitimacy and against poverty.Although the country has always shown anearly infinite capacity to turn itselfaround, its traditionally praised democracyshows fresh signs of erosion that lookalmost impossible to reverse. With solidinstitutions no longer standing, theguerrillas, the paramilitary, the corruptjustice system, and the drug producerscontinue to thrive like perennial weeds.Massacres, bombings, kidnappings and thedestruction of infrastructure continue toproduce a devastating effect on theColombian psyche. The good, the bad and theugly mix together in a pitiable realismbetween civil society and state. Theoutcome is poverty, dissatisfaction, andlack of legitimacy and hope.     

The Dead, the Law, and the Politics of the Past

This article explores the role of law in cultural and political disputes concerning dead bodies. It uses three interconnecting legal frameworks: cultural and moral ownership, commemoration, and closure. It begins with a critique of the limitations of the private law notion of 'ownership' in such contexts, setting out a broader notion of cultural and moral ownership as more appropriate for analysing legal disputes between states and indigenous tribes. It then examines how legal discourses concerning freedom of expression, religious and political traditions, and human rights and equality are utilized to regulate the public memory of the dead. Finally, it looks at the relationship between law and notions of closure in contexts where the dead have either died in battle or have been 'disappeared' during a conflict, arguing that law in such contexts goes beyond the traditional retributive focus of investigation and punishment of wrongdoers and instead centres on broader concerns of societal and personal healing.     

Boundaries: The Balkans,the Law,and the Sacred

The recent Balkan Wars are a phenomenon of violence across psychicboundaries, the value-based cosmological Worlds that humans necessarilycreate as the substantive content of consciousness. This violenceresults from the human tendency to consider alien values perceivedacross a psychic boundary as a threat. This violence cannot beeliminated by eliminating these boundaries because these boundariesthemselves cannot be eliminated. Instead, the problem can be addressedonly in terms of establishing public institutions that honor a pluralismof values, thereby attenuating the threat that alien values pose.     

The relationship between intent,consequences, the dangerousness of the victim,and blame: The case of self-defense

Abstract

The way in which, in the special case of self-defense, intent to harm, consequences of the negative act and information regarding the dangerousness of the victim were integrated in a judgment of blame was studied. The sample consisted of men on the street, and also of two sub-populations directly concerned with the special issue of self-defense: police officers and prisoners. Overall, the way in which information was integrated appeared to conform to the proposed model: Blame = f [(Intent + Consequences) × Dangerousness]. The strength of the main effects and of the interactions were, however, extremely variable from one participant to another. A noticeable effect of dangerousness was observed in only onethird of the men on the street and the prisoners, and in only one police officer out of 19.     

The right,the good and the jurisprude

Legal philosophy must be based on a set of substantive political values about such fundamental matters as the nature of the political community and the meaning of human freedom. This general thesis is illustrated by the analysis of moral discourse about the justification and limits of liberty-rights and equality-rights.The most effective way of arguing about the liberal conception of individual liberties (consistent with the Millian Harm Principle) is by recourse to the priority of the right over the good. But this conception is little more than a restatement of the Harm Principle itself hence, a more fundamental justification for it is required. This can be provided by a substantive conception of equality of individuals as moral agents who are capable of choosing, pursuing and changing their own conceptions of the good, within the parameters of avoiding harm to others.In turn, the basic moral problem about equality-rights concerns the test of the discriminatory character of legal classifications. The insistence that immutable personal characteristics, such as race and sex, are prima facie discriminatory, can only be explained by an appeal to a notion of positive freedom: individuals should not be adversely affected by those characteristics over which they have no control.There is a significant parallelism in the discourse about liberty-rights and equality-rights: one is a mirror image of the other. This indicates that jurisprudence is incomplete without those more fundamental conceptions, such as equality of moral agents and positive freedom, and that a proper discourse about human rights is derivative from the ideal of a just society.I am grateful to Martin Krygier, Grant Lamond and David Mason for their helpful comments.     

Punishing the Awkward, the Stupid, the Weak, and the Selfish: The Culpability of Negligence

Negligence is a problematic basis for being morally blamed and punished for having caused some harm, because in such cases there is no choice to cause or allow—or risk causing or allowing—such harm to occur. The standard theories as to why inadvertent risk creation can be blameworthy despite the lack of culpable choice are that in such cases there is blame for: (1) an unexercised capacity to have adverted to the risk; (2) a defect in character explaining why one did not advert to the risk; (3) culpably acquiring or failing to rid oneself of these defects of character at some earlier time; (4) flawed use of those practical reasoning capacities that make one the person one is; or (5) chosen violation of per se rules about known precautions. Although each of these five theories can justify blame in some cases of negligence, none can justify blame in all cases intuitively thought to be cases of negligence, nor can any of these five theories show why inadvertent creation of an unreasonable risk, pure and simple, can be blameworthy.     

The Middlemen: The Legal Profession,the Rule of Law,and Authoritarian Regimes

Scholars are increasingly interested in exploring ways to strengthen the rule of law in authoritarian states—especially when deeper political reforms are not attainable. The article contributes to this discussion by revisiting the story of the emergence of the so‐called socialist legality in the communist states of Eastern Europe. Using the historical record from Poland, the author demonstrates a previously unnoticed, yet pivotal, role of legal professionals in facilitating socialist legality's rise to prominence. Using the lenses of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of fields, the article chronicles the evolving dynamic between the legal profession, the authoritarian regime, and society. These observations challenge conventional explanations of the emergence of the rule of law in nondemocratic conditions.     

The Juror,the Citizen,and the Human Being: The Presumption of Innocence and the Burden of Judgment

In this essay, I suggest that the criminal trial is not only about the guilt or innocence of the defendant, but also about the character and growth of the jurors and the communities they represent. In earlier work, I have considered the potential impact of law and politics on the character of citizens, and thus on the capacity of citizens to thrive—to live full and rich human lives. Regarding the jury, I have argued that aspects of criminal trial procedure work to fix in jurors a sense of agency in and responsibility for verdicts of conviction. Here, I draw on those ideas with respect to the presumption of innocence. I suggest that the presumption of innocence works not primarily as legal rule, but rather as a moral framing device—a sort of moral discomfort device—encouraging jurors to feel and bear the weight of what they do. I offer an account of character development in which virtues are conceived of not merely as modes of conduct developed through habituation and practice, but also as capacities and ways of being developed in part through understanding and experience. The criminal trial, framed by the presumption of innocence, can be an experience through which jurors and their communities, by learning what it means and feels like to carry a certain sort of moral weight, may engender a certain set of moral strengths—strengths valuable to them not just as jurors, but also as citizens, and as human beings.     

The United Nations,the United States,and the War on Terrorism

Since the moment the United Nations was created, the Americans have had certain expectations of it, which logically follow from their past.     

The Right to Buy,the Leaseholder,and the Impoverishment of Ownership

Right to Buy is one of the most successful schemes devised to extend home ownership to those otherwise excluded. Its introduction by Margaret Thatcher and endorsement by New Labour provide a critical indicator of those governments' neo‐liberal credentials. This article suggests that one of the key achievements of the Right to Buy was to obscure inequalities inherent in a project of democratization via property ownership. It examines New Labour's political reform of local authority landlordism and leaseholder rights and exposes the vulnerability of Right to Buy lessees and their successors in title. It argues that the promise of inclusion via home ownership is a more conditional promise than generally recognized, in some cases impoverishing rather than enriching. It concludes by reflecting on the importance of scrutinizing schemes which purport to democratize ownership, observing that the position of Right to Buy leaseholders is unlikely to improve following the abandonment of social reform projects by the coalition government.     

"Interdependence": The Reality,the Concept,and the Policy

During the entire postwar period, the term "interdependence" has figured repeatedly in statements by American governmental figures and in the writings of bourgeois political scientists. In the past two or three years, it has acquired a new ring. Whereas previously American expressions regarding "interdependence" applied to relationships within the framework of NATO, today they have to do with a considerably broader sphere of foreign policy relationships of the United States, including those involving the entire capitalist world and the developing countries. In a number of cases, American writers working on the "interdependence" problem have also included certain aspects of the relation between capitalist and socialist states. They undertake to analyze, from the standpoint of bourgeois political science, various aspects of "interdependence" — economic, physical-geographical (deriving from mankind's ever more intensive joint utilization of the atmosphere, the waters and floor of the world ocean, near outer space, solar and subsurface energy, etc.), military-political (having to do with the threat of destruction of world civilization should a nuclear war occur), cultural, and so on.