Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration: Creating a New Theoretical Framework for Understanding Involuntary Property Loss and the Remedies Required

In We Want What's Ours: Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program, I introduced the concept of “dignity takings,” which I defined as property confiscation that involves the dehumanization or infantilization of the dispossessed. I argued that the appropriate remedy for a dignity taking is “dignity restoration”: material compensation to dispossessed populations through processes that affirm their humanity and reinforce their agency. For this symposium, contributors were invited to examine these paired concepts through case studies beyond the South African context. This introductory essay summarizes the central arguments of We Want What's Ours and considers how the symposium contributions confirm, extend, or revise the concepts of dignity takings and dignity restoration.     

'Cultural Defence' of Nations: Cultural Citizenship in France, Germany and the Netherlands

This article presents a new development in European immigration policy. Focusing on France, Germany and the Netherlands, I describe a process of 'culturalisation' of admission and citizenship rules in Europe intended to reinforce liberal values and national identity. I then suggest a two-stage set of immigration-regulation principles: in the first stage, immigrants would have to accept some structural liberal-democratic principles as a prerequisite for admission. While Europe has criteria for state admission, anchored by the Copenhagen Criteria, Europe has not yet formalised definite criteria for immigrants' admission. In the second stage, as part of the naturalisation process, immigrants would be expected to recognise and respect constitutional principles essential for obtaining citizenship of a specific state. I call this concept 'National Constitutionalism'.     

When More than Property Is Lost: The Dignity Losses and Restoration of the Tulsa Riot of 1921

Bernadette Atuahene's We Want What's Ours focuses on deprivations that go beyond property losses. Her focus is on the dignity harms to South Africans over centuries, such as denial of citizenship, that accompanied the theft of their land. I focus here on one grotesque episode of violence, the Tulsa race riot of 1921, to gauge dignity takings in a US context. Thousands were, in the parlance of the times, run out of town in a “negro drive.” They lost property, but also their community, and they could not assert their rights after the riot. This article turns to the ways in which African Americans in Oklahoma obtained rights through the courts that should have been protected around the time of the riot. This expands our sense of the range of responses, from apologies and compensation, to additional judicial process and substantive rights, that are needed for past racial crimes.     

Restitution in America: Why the US Refuses to Join the Global Restitution Party

In the past generation, restitution law has emerged as a globalphenomenon. From its Oxbridge home, restitution migrated tothe rest of the Commonwealth, and ongoing Europeanization projectshave brought the common law of restitution into contact withthe Romanist concept of unjust enrichment, further internationalizingthis movement. In contrast, in the United States, scholarlyinterest in restitution, in terms of books, articles, treatises,symposia and courses on restitution, is meager. Similarly, whilerestitution, equity and tracing cases receive considerable treatmentat the highest levels of the English judiciary, US courts seemuninterested in these issues, rarely producing the theory-ladenopinions that have become quite common in the House of Lords.The situation is particularly curious because restitution isgenerally thought to be the invention of late nineteenth-centuryAmerican scholars. This article explains this divergence. Iargue that the Commonwealth restitution discourse is largelya product of pre- or anti-realist legal thought which generatesscepticism within the American academic-legal establishment.The article identifies the two dominant camps in American privatelaw thought—left-leaning redistributionalists and thecentre-right legal economists—and shows that neither hasany use for the Commonwealth's discourse. I conclude by analysingthe emerging drafts of the Restatement of Restitution and forecastthe future of American restitution law.     

The Role of Victim-Related Factors in Victim Restitution: A Multi-Method Analysis of Restitution in Pennsylvania

Mandatory statutes do not always produce change, but a 1995 Pennsylvania statutory change making restitution mandatory dramatically increased the proportion of cases in which restitution was imposed. There are three possible reasons for this generally successful implementation: (a) judges agreed with the victim-centered goals of the statute, (b) there were mechanisms in place to implement the goals of assisting victims, and (c) there was a context supportive of victims that made it easier to follow the law. Two studies investigated these possible explanations. First, a statewide survey of trial court judges suggested that they agreed with the statute's goals of compensating victims. Second, hierarchical logistic models of 55,119 statewide restitution-eligible decisions indicated that a victim-related contextual factor, the nature and location of the victim/witness assistance office, was significantly related to the imposition of restitution, although a more general contextual factor relating to funding for victim programs had only small effects.     

Dignity Takings and Dispossession in Israel

This article examines the concept of dignity takings, as developed by Bernadette Atuahene, and its applicability to the Israeli situation, focusing on takings from the Arab‐Palestinian minority in Israel. Although I find dignity takings a valuable concept, as it emphasizes the interconnections between land dispossession and the denial of human dignity, I offer some qualifications and suggestions. I then examine the applicability of the concept to the dispossession of Arabs/Palestinians in Israel through two case studies: one, a close reading of the (in)famous Ikrit villagers' dispossession; the other, an examination of the dispossession of Negev (southern Israel) Bedouin citizens of Israel, which takes place, not unlike terra nullius, simultaneously with a denial of this very taking. The article concludes that with some modifications, the concept of dignity taking applies to the situation of Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel.     

The Honor and Dignity Intrinsic to the Profession

Heads of the regional police trade unions in Sverdlovsk and Dagestan criticize the course and initial results of the police reform in Russia.     

人性尊严与农民平等权的保护

人性尊严伴随着人类的产生而产生,其之于人的如此重要作用,决定了它在宪法和人权保障中的核心地位。然而,农民的弱势处境导致其平等权利的落空,并在此基础上产生了侵害农民人性尊严这一社会现象,该现象的存在违背了人性尊严在主体、内容及目的方面的价值要求。因此,为消除其带来的不利影响,在尊重客观现实的前提下,课负农民、市民与国家以相应的义务,是保护农民平等权,进而维护农民人性尊严的现实路径。     

Clearing the Innocent: Guarantees of Personal Honor and Dignity

The measures of compulsion used to protect the interests of the state and society significantly constrain the rights of citizens suspected or accused of committing crimes. These constraints are necessary and justified. By its essence, compulsion by the state expresses application of the power to wield authority and in the given case affects the constitutional right of citizens to inviolability of the person. It is very important that such authority be used with adherence to legal and moral norms and with the greatest caution and tact. Toward this end guarantees of legality in the work of the agencies of police investigation, preliminary investigation, the procuracy, and the courts are being constantly strengthened and broadened. Their forms and methods of work are being improved, and the levels of political ideology and professionalism of officials so engaged are being raised. Guidance of criminal investigation has been improved, and criminal liability has been established for handing down a deliberately unjust verdict, making a knowingly illegal arrest or detention, and for the use of compulsion to testify.     

补助金的正当使用与限价房之返还

限价房是国家通过减少(补助)土地出让金,灵活运用私人开发商参与保障型住房供给的新型行政活动方式。为了保障补助金的正当使用,对于非以自住为需求的购房人,各地方的限价房政策上规定了返还限价房之义务。然而在国土管理部门、开发商、购房人这一三方法律关系中,为了控制补助金的正当使用,仅依据购房合同无法有效地实现限价房之返还,有必要参考德国的相关理论,构建实定法乃至理论层面返还请求的法律依据。     

The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity

Abstract. We argue that all human beings have a special type of dignity which is the basis for (1) the obligation all of us have not to kill them, (2) the obligation to take their well‐being into account when we act, and (3) even the obligation to treat them as we would have them treat us, and indeed, that all human beings are equal in fundamental dignity. We give reasons to oppose the position that only some human beings, because of their possession of certain characteristics in addition to their humanity (for example, an immediately exercisable capacity for self‐consciousness, or for rational deliberation), have full moral worth. What distinguishes human beings from other animals, what makes human beings persons rather than things, is their rational nature, and human beings are rational creatures by virtue of possessing natural capacities for conceptual thought, deliberation, and free choice, that is, the natural capacity to shape their own lives.     

所有权返还请求权制度——以德国法为视角对《物权法》之反思

2007年《物权法》遗留了相当多的制度缺失和制度缺陷问题,例如所有权概念、所有权返还请求权制度建设问题。从所有权的概念入手,论述所有权中最重要的一项权能,即占有及以该项权能为对象的所有权返还请求权,指出我国的物权法应对所有权返还请求权进行明确规范。同时对于与所有权密切联系的另一个制度,即占有应进行进一步的规范。通过对所有权返还请求权的论述,得出结论,占有制度中的间接占有制度的引入对于保障所有权返还请求权必不可少。