Narco-Terrorism: The Merger of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror

The aim of this article is to analyse the phenomena of narco-terrorism and the practical measures utilised to counter this threat. By adopting the model of the crime-terror continuum developed by Tamara Makarenko, the article will outline the similarities and dissimilarities of narcotics trafficking and terrorism in order to provide a more nuanced perspective on the concept of narco-terrorism. By doing so, the article will evaluate the kind of approach taken in combating the threat of narco-terrorism.     

War as an Institutional Fact: Semiotics and Institutional Legal Theory

In institutional legal theory, norms and facts are reciprocally operating elements: an interplay in which meaning construction is closely connected with acting: the pragmatic understanding of legal language in terms of its uses. With the semiotic elements of institutional theory, extended by the notion of ‘semiotic groups’, an analytical framework can be constructed to analyze a case study on the shifts in the concept of war which have taken place since the 1945 UN Charter and in the aftermath of 9/11. The semiotic aspects of the institutional approach can offer insight into the complexity of the processes of meaning attribution in the field of law and war.

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Making War on Terror? Global Lessons from Northern Ireland

In place of the simple modelling employed in anti-terrorist legal discourse, this article posits an interactive model of the relationship between the state and violent political actors, exploring law's role in both the repression and mobilisation of challengers. Drawing on social movement theory, it hypothesises a process of 'legally implicated mobilisation' which takes account both of law's presence and its partial absence in 'legal grey zones' during violent conflict, and it suggests how law may impact upon key elements of the mobilisation process. The hypothesis is applied to qualitative data from Northern Ireland on violent challengers. The data point to the importance of 'messaging' about law in the state of exception, supporting claims that law can have a 'damping' effect on violent conflict. The relationship between repression and violence is partly symbiotic, and in the global 'war on terror,' prisoner-abuse may have a mobilising effect on violent challengers.     

Governmentality and the War on Terror: FBI Project Carnivore and the Diffusion of Disciplinary Power

Social control capabilities have increased significantly over the past several decades, particularly because of an increased utilization of technologically advanced surveillance methods. Following the tragic events of September 11,2001, U.S. Congress and the present Administration have granted law enforcement considerable new powers in the enforcement and prevention of terrorism-related crime. Collectively labeled under the heading of the so-called war on terror , the scope of such laws, policies and directives are challenged by civil rights organizations and numerous legislators for lack of definitional precision, arbitrary application of sanctions, and violation of privacy laws. One of federal law enforcements surveillance tools is Project Carnivore, a Justice Department Internet surveillance program that is administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to access information flowing to and from a central processing unit on a network connection. While, theoretically relying on Michel Foucaults theory of discipline and governmentality, as well as related insights in the social control literature, this paper examines Project Carnivore relative to the larger context of state rationality and related privacy issues.     

Contested Terrains and Regime Politics: Thinking about America's Trial Courts and Institutional Change

Institutional change in America's trial courts is poorly understood. Herbert Jacob in his 1982 presidential address to the Law and Society Association recommended that future research might consider intensive studies of single courts over time to trace the causal links between the courts and sociopolitical events outside the courtrooms. This essay explores Jacob's recommendation but ultimately takes a different tack. Instead of conducting natural histories of particular trial courts, this essay speculates that trial courts can be viewed as contested terrains made up of various sites. Proponents of particular ideas, interests, and institutions struggle to impose their policy preferences on these sites. These disputes, which wax and wane over time, constitute the regime politics that shape the probabilities of who wins in America's trial courts. The outlines of this perspective are sketched using the political science literature on agenda politics and on how policy ideas become institutionalized. Illustrations of this perspective are drawn from studies of civil and criminal court reforms.     

Trampling Human Rights in the War on Terror: Implications to the Sociology of Denial

Critical criminology has greatly benefited fromthe concept of moral panic, which is a helpfulframework for understanding immigrationreform and the treatment of immigrants –especially in relation to concerns aboutterrorism. In response to the events ofSeptember 11, 2001, the United Statesgovernment swiftly produced legislationintended to protect homeland security,culminating in the USA Patriot Act. Whilemainstream political leaders supported the newlaw, many legal experts expressed concernsabout its expansive powers as serious dangersto immigrants rights and civil liberties.Among those concerns are controversial tacticsinvolving ethnic profiling, detentions, andgovernment secrecy. This article examinescritically the nature of those forms of humanrights violations while elaborating on thecontradictions in the war on terror. ApplyingCohens sociology of denial – how literal,interpretive, and implicatory denial perpetuatelong-term social problems – developments areinterpreted conceptually, contributing to adeeper understanding of growing threats tohuman rights.     

New Frontiers,Old Problems: The War on Terror and the Notion of Anticipating the Enemy

Netherlands International Law Review -     

我国民营经济制度变迁、制度"锁定"及"解锁"研究

我国民营经济制度变迁历程是我国经济体制改革过程的一个缩影.运用新制度经济学分析范式对我国民营经济制度变迁、制度"锁定"及制度"解锁"进行研究探讨,有助于我们总结民营经济发展的经验,把握民营经济未来的发展方向,为我国民营经济更好更快发展提供有益的参考.     

“盗版有理”观念的制度探寻

利益于相关主体之敏感性决定着以利益平衡为使命的知识产权在制度上存在着授权与限权之两难。平衡是一种信念,一种理想,一种追求,绝对的利益平衡是不可能实现的,正是这条由现实通往理想,由实然走向应然的探求之路使得知识产权制度备受争议,难以在短时间内获得与有形财产制度一致的认同。     

The Institutional Hearing Program: A Study of Prison-Based Immigration Courts in the United States

This article presents the findings of the first research study of the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP), a prison-based immigration court system run by the U.S. Department of Justice. Although the IHP has existed for four decades, little is publicly known about the program's origin, development, or significance. Based on original analysis of archival records, this study makes three central contributions. First, it traces the origin and growth of the IHP within federal, state, and municipal correctional facilities. Notably, although the IHP began in 1980 as a program to deport Cuban asylum seekers held in civil detention in an Atlanta prison, it now operates to deport noncitizens serving prison sentences in twenty-three federal prisons, nineteen state prison systems, and a few municipal jails. Second, this article uncovers the crucial role that prison-based immigration courts have played in shaping the design of carceral institutions around the priorities of an immigration system that primarily targets Latinos for deportation. Third, this article shows how immigration courts embedded in carceral spaces have served as influential, yet overlooked, incubators of changes to immigration law and practice that today apply to all immigration courts, not just the IHP. These findings have important implications for contemporary understandings of the relationship between immigration detention, racialized control of migration, and penal punishment.     

论英国移民法改革对中国移民法建设的启示

英国最近的移民法改革是整个英国移民政策紧缩的集中表现, 这次改革从技术上的改进是它的突出特点, 具体来说, 通过实行新的"记点积分制",一方面力图简化以往繁杂的移民法案,另一方面设置更高的移民门槛.这一改革对从事技术含量较低的人员影响较大,使他们实现移民英国的梦想更加难以实现.当前,中国可以借鉴英国的移民法建设经验,加大高技术移民等重点方面的单行移民法规建设,完善中国移民法律,为以后制定一部完整移民法做好准备.     

The Contradictions of Immigration Lawmaking: The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

This paper argues that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 is a composite of contradictory measures. On one hand, employer sanctions are meant to curtail the employment of undocumented workers and preserve the U.S. labor market for legal residents and citizens; on the other hand, special foreign worker programs are designed to enhance the supply of immigrant workers. In an effort to make sense of these contradictions, the author places the legislation in historical context and proposes a dialectical model of immigration policymaking.     

Between Immigration and Policing: Cross Recognition

Abstract: This article looks at the development of the UK's policies towards asylum‐seekers who are to be returned to some country other than the one where they fear persecution (its ‘safe third country’ policy). The Dublin Convention of 1990 addressed some of the problems which this policy created, but left others unresolved. Domestic legislation has progressively reduced the opportunities for challenging safe third‐country removals, especially to an EU state. The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law has generated new possibilities for challenging safe third‐country decisions where removal might damage physical or mental health. Articles 3 and 8 have been invoked in particular. The Dublin machinery established ‘rules’ to decide which member state was responsible for considering the asylum claim and the procedure to be followed. The article examines why the UK courts have said that these provisions are not justiciable in the English courts. Finally the article considers whether the experience with Dublin provides any useful guidance as to the approach that will be taken to European arrest warrants and extradition requests.     

Immigration and Terrorism: A Constructed Connection

In the aftermath of 9/11 several European countries intensified their counter-terrorism policy. This article refers to the Spanish response to the terrorist attacks in the USA and Madrid, with special attention paid to the consequences that (illegal) immigrants faced in relation to their rights. This collective is often depicted in public opinion as “folk devils” in the terminology of the Moral-Panics Theory. Using the latter as a model, this paper establishes that the connection between counter-terrorism policy and more restrictive legislation for foreigners is a construction, which is either insufficient or not satisfactorily explained by the social actors who propose it. The result is a policy that limits the immigrants’ liberty without necessarily making the rest safer.