A Positivist Account of the Rule of Law

Despite extensive debate, accounts of the Rule of Law remain strikingly vague and imprecise. This paper begins the task of remedying this situation through the development of an analytically rigorous theory of the Rule of Law. First, it offers a preliminary sketch of a concept of law; second, it shows how the principles traditionally associated with the Rule of Law can be intrinsically connected with this concept of law; and third, it shows how these principles place meaningful restrictions on what states can and cannot do. Further components of the overall project are gestured toward in the paper's conclusion. Apart from advancing the broader goal of developing a complete theory of the Rule of Law, a paper of even this limited scope will be helpful in imposing some much-needed conceptual discipline over the Rule of Law debate.     

宪法解释:一种拯救中国宪法权威性的方法--读范进学教授著《宪法解释的理论建构》

依法治国的前提是依宪治国。在当下中国,依法治国方略虽然被写进了宪法,但宪法却没有得到很好的适用,宪法仍然缺乏必要的权威性。《宪法解释的理论建构》一书充分论证了“释宪演进模式”较之“立宪演进模式”在提高宪法权威方面的优越性,并从界定宪法解释的概念入手,对宪法解释的场合、主体、目标和原则做了令人信服的论证。尽管《宪法解释的理论建构》没有解决宪法解释的方法等技术层面上的问题,但该书对宪法解释主体的界定和对解释原则的论证已经为宪法解释的技术性研究扫清了理论障碍。     

毛泽东邓小平治国方略与法制思想比较研究

毛泽东“人治加群治”的治国方略 ,实质上是“人治底下的群治” ,是人治的当代形态 ,收效甚微 ,负面作用为主 ,乃至某种程度上造成国无宁日 ,以一场浩劫告终。邓小平提出了“以经济建设为中心”的治国路线 ,实行“三有利”原则的社会主义本质观和功利主义法价值观 ,为使中国从人治走向法治开辟了道路。但由于历史的局限性 ,不可能完全摆脱人治的痕迹 ,给其后继者留下了继续革故鼎新的空间。     

中国法治需要迈进方法论时代

依法治国建设社会主义法治国家是我国宪法确定的治国方略,因此对社会主义法治理念的定位,必须坚持法治这一最高原则,在社会转型基本完成以后,我们应该进入法治时代。法治时代是一个讲法律理性和逻辑方法的时代。法治时代的法治理念承载不了太多的内容,我们应该在坚持宪法和法律至上的原则下,熟练掌握法律思维、法律方法、追求社会公平正义,使人人成为法治的缔造者。     

Altered states: state health privacy laws and the impact of the Federal Health Privacy Rule

Although the Federal Health Privacy Rule has evened out some of the inconsistencies between states' health privacy laws, gaps in protection still remain. Furthermore, the Federal Rule contains some lax standards for the disclosure of health information. State laws can play a vital role in filling these gaps and strengthening the protections afforded health information. By enacting legislation that has higher privacy-protective standards than the Federal Health Privacy Rule, states can play three important roles. First, because they can directly regulate entities that are beyond HHS's mandate, states can afford their citizens a broader degree of privacy protection than the Federal Health Privacy Rule. Second, by having state health privacy laws, states can enforce privacy protections at the local level. Finally, action by the states can positively influence health privacy policies at the federal level by raising the standard as to what constitutes sufficient privacy protection. High privacy protections imposed by states may serve as the standard for comprehensive federal legislation, if and when Congress reconsiders the issue. So far, states' reactions to the Federal Privacy Rule have been mixed. Only time will tell whether states will assume the mantle of leadership on health privacy or relinquish their role as the primary protectors of health information.     

The Rule of Law Beyond Thick and Thin

In this paper it is argued that different understandings of the requirements of the Rule of Law can to a large extent be explained by the position taken with regard to two interrelated distinctions. On the one hand, the Rule of Law can be regarded as either a principle of law or as a principle of governance. On the other hand, the requirements of the Rule of Law can be regarded as defining either a minimum standard which something has to meet in order to be law or as an aspirational standard identifying what it means to be good law. In combination these two distinctions define a range of perspectives on the nature of the Rule of Law that are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.     

The philosopher’s courtly love? Leo strauss, eros, and the law

This essay poses a critical response to Strauss’ political philosophy that takes as its primary object Strauss’ philosophy of Law. It does this by drawing on recent theoretical work in psychoanalytic theory, conceived after Jacques Lacan as another, avowedly non-historicist theory of Law and its relation to eros. The paper has four parts. Part I, ‘The Philosopher’s Desire: Making an Exception, or “The Thing Is...’’’, recounts Strauss’ central account of the complex relationship between philosophy and ‘the city’. Strauss’ Platonic conception of philosophy as the highest species of eros is stressed, which is that aspect of his work which brings it into striking proximity with the Lacanian-psychoanalytic account of the dialectic of desire and the Law. Part II, ‘Of Prophecy and Law’, examines Strauss’ analysis of Law as first presented in his 1935 book, Philosophy and Law, and central to his later ‘rebirth of classical political philosophy’. Part III, ‘Primordial Repression and Primitive Platonism’, is the central part of the paper. Lacan’s psychoanalytic understanding of Law is brought critically to bear upon Strauss’ philosophy of Law. The stake of the position is ultimately how, for Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Law is transcendental to subjectivity, and has a founding symbolic force, which mitigates against speaking of it solely or primarily in terms of more or less inequitable ‘rules of thumb’, as Plato did. Part IV, ‘Is the Law the Thing?’ then asks the question of what eros might underlie Strauss’ paradoxical defense of esoteric writing in the age of ‘permissive’ modern liberalism – that is, outside of the ‘closed’ social conditions which he, above all, alerts us to as the decisive justification for this ancient practice.     

“法治”概念在当代中国的继受及其意义

“法治”在当代中国逐渐成为大家耳熟能详的概念.从中国具体法治实践看,无论在学界还是法律实践部门,尽管都在使用“法治”概念,但实际上是对大陆法系“法治国”或“法治主义”的继受,这对中国的法治建设产生了一定的积极意义的同时也带来了一定的消极影响.如何实现走出继受,建构起拥有自己发展个性的法秩序模式,成为摆在我们面前一个义不容辞的使命.     

Towards the Law &; Economics of development: Ragnar Nurkse (1907–1959)

The purpose of this essay is, first, to suggest Ragnar Nurkse as a Law & Economics thinker, and second, yet more importantly, to demonstrate the possibility and desirability of a Law & Economics of Development along Nurksean lines. Ragnar Nurkse (1907–1959), whose 100th birthday is celebrated in 2007, is one of the founding fathers of classic development economics. Given the recent interest in the Law & Economics of development, showing how a classic figure in the field successfully used such an approach might be of considerable interest, especially as development economics is a very emotional field which may well profit from the ‘objectivizing’ function of Law & Economics. Nurkse’s economics-based realism, his focus on what effect a program really has, rather than what it is supposed to have, and on what a policy can steer or change and what not, based on a typically Stiglerian attention to aggregate welfare, seem especially productive. Finally, the essay suggests a set of Nurkse-based principles or theses for a Law & Economics of Development.

La sumisión del poder público al derecho en el civil law y en el common law: estado de derecho,rule of law y su expansión al ámbito internacional

Generally regarded as synonyms, the Rule of Law and the Rechsstaat are different. There are between the two legal institutions substantial differences that we must distinguish rigorously. The idea of the public power submission to the law —expressed through both theoretical constructions— has gone beyond the State borders and, progressively, made its way into international scenario. For some authors, the root for the application of the principle of the Rule of Law to interstate relationships, within international society, could date back to the XVIII century. However, it was until a few years ago that the Rule of Law analysis, from a sttrictly international point of view, started to take off. In this article the author analyzes the differences between the Rechsstaat and the Rule of Law in order to study the extension of these conceptions and how it could be applied to highlight the preeminence of law at international level.     

European legal history – a new field of research in Germany

John Austin's essay, ‘A Note on Interpretation’, appears in his Lectures on Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of Positive Law.¹ At the end of the essay is a note by Austin's wife, Sarah. The note states that the conclusion of the essay is missing. In this paper I argue that the conclusion of the essay appears 363 pages earlier as a fragment following Lecture XXXVII.     

法治评估的有效性和准确性——以中国八项法治评估为检验分析对象

自余杭法治指数初创至今,法治评估实践在我国已历经15载,现俨然成为中国法治实践学派的标签。那么量化法治实践中究竟如何才能保证法治评估的有效性和准确性?要回答这一问题,首先需要对我国现有法治评估的有效性和准确性进行科学检验。在明确界分法治评估有效性和准确性概念基础上,采用验证性因子分析法、探索性因子分析法对我国4项法治评估的有效性进行检验。经检验,我国法治评估的有效性特征表现为:结构效度低,理论构想的整体符合度低。采用主成分分析法、重新赋值法对我国8项法治评估的准确性进行检验,结果表明,余杭法治指数、四川依法治省评估、中国法治满意度评估等3项准确度低;江苏依法行政评估等1项准确度一般;中国法治政府评估、广东法治政府满意评价、广东法治社会满意度评价、上海法治满意度指数等4项准确度高。文末根据检验结论,提出保证法治评估有效性和准确性4个方面的实验研究路径。     

Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network; final rule revision of comment period and effective dates--HRSA. Extension of comment period and delay of effective date for the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network

This document sets forth the revisions required by the Fiscal Year 1998 Supplemental Appropriations Act, Public Law 105-174, signed into law by the President on May 1, 1998. Section 4002 of that Act states that public comments on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Final Rule are permitted until August 31, 1998, and that the OPTN rule will not become effective before October 1, 1998. This document is provided to notify the public about these provisions and to make corresponding changes to the regulation.     

习近平法治思想:新时代伟大社会革命的理论产物

习近平法治思想的创立,是马克思主义法治思想中国化进程的第三次历史性飞跃。在中华民族迎来了从站起来、富起来到强起来的伟大飞跃的历史进程中,习近平法治思想应运而生。面对着新时代具有许多新的历史特点的伟大斗争,习近平法治思想深刻回答了在中国这样一个超大型的东方大国为什么实行全面依法治国、怎样实行全面依法治国这一重大时代课题,为新时代伟大社会革命中的全面依法治国、建设法治中国、推进国家治理现代化提供了科学指南。     

Rehabilitating Retributivism

This review essay of Victor Tadros’s new book, “The Ends of Harm: The Moral Foundations of Criminal Law,” responds to Tadros’s energetic and sophisticated attacks on retributivist justifications for criminal punishment. I argue, in a nutshell, that those attacks fail. In defending retributivism, however, I also sketch original views on two questions that retributivism must address but that many or most retributivists have skated past. First, what do wrongdoers deserve – to suffer? to be punished? something else? Second, what does it mean for them to deserve it? That is, what is the normative force or significance of valid desert claims, either with respect to retributivist desert in particular or with respect to all forms of desert? Because the answers that this essay offers are preliminary, the essay also serves as a partial blueprint for further work by criminal law theorists with retributivist sympathies.     

THE RULE OF LAW IN CORPORATE SOCIETY: NEUMANN,KIRCHHEIMER AND THE LESSONS OF WEIMAR

The Rule of Law : Political Theory and the Legal System in Modern Society . By Franz L. Neumann . Social Democracy and the Rule of Law . By Otto Kirchheimer and Franz Neumann . Edited by Keith Tribe. Translated by Leena Tanner and Keith Tribe.     

论现代“追赶型”法治———东亚与南亚现代法治的特殊性

西方“现代法治”局限性,它并非是“唯一中心”的法治模式。东亚与南亚现代“追赶型”法治的的产生和发展,有其必然性,但如何在特定的社会背景下,克服自身障碍,实现文化整合则有待进一步的探索     

Grounding the Rule of Law

Abstract. Although the concept of Rule of Law has been revived and developed vigorously by mid-twentieth century conservative political theorists, contemporary legal positivists have not been impressed. The author reviews this confrontation, outlines the logic for a strong theory of Rule of Law, and surveys the leading attempts to provide compelling grounds for such a theory.     

The political morality of convergence in contract

One of the most interesting recent developments in contract law has been an academic and political effort to integrate private law. The proposed Common European Sales Law was ultimately withdrawn, and a series of setbacks, including the British referendum to exit the EU, has recast the politics of convergence. But it remains an objective for many European scholars. This essay considers the wisdom of convergence on a single law of transactions from the perspective of philosophical contract theory. The essay proceeds by disaggregating the rights at stake in contract law. It characterises the formal right to contract and describes its moral impetus as one that should underwrite contract law in all states, especially liberal states. But the essay argues that the legitimate contours of the formal right are contingent on tenets of political culture that vary across Member States. Similarly, substantive regulation of contract is morally compulsory and serves universal interests; the essay takes regulation of permissible work and remuneration for work as examples. But the rules and standards that best advance those moral interests depend on economic facts specific to individual political communities. The essay concludes by arguing that contract law is a poor tool by which to accelerate political and economic convergence.     

法治时代的解释主义之争——以陈金钊与范进学之间有关法律解释问题的争论为分析对象

发生在陈金钊和范进学之间有关法律解释问题的争论,扩及到对诸多相关法律理论问题上的争论。双方秉持各自"反对解释"抑或"如何解释"的立场,从对"法治反对解释"命题的"真/假"之争不断地上升到对相关法律解释学的学科属性之争、司法观之争、法律观之争以及法治观之争等。无论是主张守法主义的法律意识形态,还是主张能动主义的法律意识形态,实际上,法治时代同时需要这两种不同的声音。