Testing Times Ahead: Non‐Invasive Prenatal Testing and the Kind of Community We Want to Be

This article reviews the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ report on Non‐Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT); and introduces two general questions provoked by the report – concerning, respectively, the nature and extent of the informational interests that are to be recognised in today's ‘information societies’ and the membership of today's ‘genetic societies’. The article also considers the role and nature of the Nuffield Council. While the Council's report identifies a range of individual and collective interests that are relevant to determining the legitimate uses of NIPT, we argue that it should put these interests into an order of importance; we sketch how this might be done; and we suggest that, failing such a prioritisation of interests, the Council should present its reflections in a way that engages public debate around a number of options rather than making firm recommendations.     

The "Compliance" Trap: The Moral Message in Responsive Regulatory Enforcement

Simple deterrence will often fail to produce compliance commitment because it does not directly address business perceptions of the morality of regulated behavior. Responsive regulation, by contrast, seeks to build moral commitment to compliance with the law. This article shows that a regulator can overcome the deterrence trap to improve compliance commitment with the skillful use of responsive regulatory techniques that "leverage" the deterrence impact of its enforcement strategies with moral judgments. But this leads it into the "compliance trap." The compliance trap occurs where there is a lack of political support for the moral seriousness of the law it must enforce, such as is the case with cartel enforcement in Australia. In these circumstances, business offenders are likely to interpret the moral leveraging of responsive regulation as unfair or stigmatizing, and business perceptions of regulator unfairness are likely to have a negative influence on long-term compliance with the law. Moreover, big businesses that perceive regulatory enforcement as illegitimate are also likely to actively lobby for the political emasculation of the regulator. In these circumstances, most regulators are likely to avoid conflict by taking the easy option of enforcing the law "softly," and therefore ineffectively.     

《我们人民:宪法变革的原动力》

~~《我们人民:宪法变革的原动力》@孙文恺$南京师范大学法学院!讲师、法学博士~~     

The Way We Do Europe: Subsidiarity and the Substantive Democratic Deficit

The new institutional framework of subsidiarity is expected to lower the EU democratic deficit. In contrast to this optimistic scenario, I argue that the success of subsidiarity depends on its capacity to unravel the EU's ‘substantive’ democratic deficit. Linked to the Union's functionalist institutional design, this dimension of the democratic deficit has developed due to two limitations of EU‐level politics. First, the EU functionalist design has narrowed the range of topics open to democratic debate (horizontal substantive democratic deficit). Second, the proportion of the debate which we could genuinely describe as being political is declining as a result of the de‐politicisation of EU goals, underpinned by a massive accumulation of allegedly apolitical expert knowledge (vertical substantive democratic deficit). Against this background, I contend that by involving actors relatively alien to the EU functionalist thinking, subsidiarity could offer an opportune ground for the re‐politicisation of democratic ‘blind spots’ in EU policy making.     

A policy transformed by politics: the case of the 1973 Australian Community Health Program

During an era of health policy reform in Australia, community health advocates believed that community health centers (CHCs) could form a solid foundation for a new system of health care delivery. Instead, a proposal for national health insurance (Medibank) emerged as the predominant structural reform. Community health proposals were not abandoned, however, and a policy designed to give federal grant assistance for the establishment of CHCs was implemented in 1973. The historical account of how the 1973 Australian Community Health Program (CHP) was developed in the early 1970s is relevant to dilemmas faced by contemporary policy makers. Specifically, how did the CHP "survive" even though government leaders had moved away from traditional direct service models, choosing to focus more attention on indirect insurance reimbursement?     

The Challenge of Institutional Integrity in Responsive Regulation: Field Inspections by the Australian Taxation Office

Based on responsive regulation, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Compliance Model was developed as a way of dealing with the complexities of the Australian tax system. This article demonstrates some of the challenges that come with introducing responsive regulation into a bureaucracy such as the ATO. Selznick's ideas of institutional integrity provide a conceptual framework that allows the regulatory agency engaged in responsive regulation to emphasize voluntary compliance and the building of positive relationships with the regulatee, while simultaneously ensuring that non-compliance is both detected and dealt with. Using evidence from a qualitative study of ATO "walk-ins" with used car dealers, the article demonstrates the unintended consequences that can occur without institutional integrity both at the level of design and at the level of everyday ATO field-officer practices.     

What We Know Now: The Evanston Illinois Field Lineups

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit secured 100 eyewitness identification reports from Evanston, Illinois, one of three cities of the Illinois Pilot Program. The files provide empirical evidence regarding three methodological aspects of the Program’s comparison of non-blind simultaneous to double-blind sequential lineups. (1) A-priori differences existed between lineup conditions. For example, the simultaneous non-blind lineup condition was more likely to involve witnesses who had already identified the suspect in a previous lineup or who knew the offender (non-stranger identifications), and this condition also entailed shorter delays between event and lineup. (2) Verbatim eyewitness comments were recorded more often in double-blind sequential than in non-blind simultaneous lineup reports (83% vs. 39%). (3) Effective lineup structure was used equally in the two lineup conditions.     

法律职业共同体形成了吗（上）——以辩护律师调查权问题为切入的分析

根据1996年修改后的《刑事诉讼法》，律师在审查起诉阶段可以行使调查取证的权利。相对于修改前的《刑事诉讼法》要求律师只能在庭审准备阶段进行有限调查的规定而言，这种修改显然是对律师调查权的更加完善的保障，属于刑事辩护制度的重大进步。然而，几乎所有律师都认为现行法律对律师渊查权的规定属于义一“严重退步”。     

法律职业共同体形成了吗(上)——以辩护律师调查权问题为切人的分析

根据1996年修改后的<刑事诉讼法>,律师在审查起诉阶段可以行使调查取证的权利.相对于修改前的<刑事诉讼法>要求律师只能在庭审准备阶段进行有限调查的规定而言,这种修改显然是对律师调查权的更加完善的保障,属于刑事辩护制度的重大进步.     

Research on Gender and the Law: Where Are We Going,Where Have We Been?

This article provides an overview of issues related to research on gender and the law. Following a discussion of the ways in which gender and the law interact, we assess the extent to which Law and Human Behavior (LHB) has addressed the issue of gender. Specifically, we present the results of our analysis of the role of gender in articles published in LHB from 1990 through 1996. We discuss the relatively few gender-relevant studies that appeared, as well as comment upon the attention given to gender by research with other primary foci. We then discuss various strategies for conducting gender research and their implications for research on gender and the law. We conclude by introducing the articles in this special issue on gender and the law, commenting on how they add to our accumulated knowledge in this area.     

Tax Compliance as the Result of a Psychological Tax Contract: The Role of Incentives and Responsive Regulation

A psychological tax contract goes beyond the traditional deterrence model and explains tax morale as a complicated interaction between taxpayers and the government. As a contractual relationship implies duties and rights for each contract party, tax compliance is increased by sticking to the fiscal exchange paradigm between citizens and the state. Citizens are willing to honestly declare income even if they do not receive a full public good equivalent to tax payments as long as the political process is perceived to be fair and legitimate. Moreover, friendly treatment of taxpayers by the tax office in auditing processes increases tax compliance.     

Taxes and Transnational Treaties: Responsive Regulation and the Reassertion of Offshore Sovereignty

Regulatory dialogue between states with widely diverging tax systems has emerged as a key feature of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and European Union (EU) initiatives on Offshore Finance Centers (OFCs) or tax havens. This has brought together states of differing dimensions in size, population, economy, and power. Where there is such a discrepancy in power between states there is often a temptation to assert a command-and-control regulatory approach. This was the initial reading of the OECD's Harmful Tax Practices Project that demanded tax havens—mostly small states in Europe, the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean—repeal financial secrecy legislation and commit to Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs). As these initiatives have unfolded there has been a transition away from regulation by command-and-control towards responsive regulatory dialogue in which tax havens have been encouraged to cooperate through engagement and active participation. Based on qualitative research with key stakeholders in OFC jurisdictions and multilateral organizations, this article explores this transition towards meta-principles of responsive regulation. The preservation of tax bilateralism has limited the capacity of multilateral organizations to deploy the full range of regulatory techniques, particularly those involving penalty and coercion. Instead all parties, tax haven states and multilateral institutions alike, have been confined to the broadest base of the regulatory pyramid. Responsive regulation can end up having the opposite effect from what is intended where the enforcement peak of the regulatory pyramid is absent. This has resulted in strengthening the sovereignty of small OFC states and has increased international tax competition, rather than reduced it.     

地方法治试验的回应型建构

改革开放以来,地方法治在取得巨大成就的同时,也暴露出了它的问题,那就是未能展现出地方法治发展的理想样态。囿于我国独特的压力型体制,地方法治发展出现了地方政府法治公信力缺失、立法保护地方利益、地方忽视程序法治、地方法治指标考核不良竞争等弊端。因此,亟须转变地方法治发展方式,逐步消除压力型体制的弊端,实现地方法治的回应型发展。应从凝聚国家法治与地方法治互动的共识、实现中央与地方关系法治化、培育回应型法治元素、构建回应型评估指标体系等多个层面,构建回应型地方法治。     

Uniform prices for differentiated goods: The case of the movie-theater industry

Since the early 1970s, movie theaters in the United States have employed a pricing model of uniform prices for differentiated goods. At any given theater, one price is charged for all movies, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This pricing model is puzzling in light of the potential profitability of prices that vary with demand characteristics. Another unique aspect of the motion-picture industry is the legal regime that imposes certain constraints on vertical arrangements between distributors and retailers (exhibitors) and attempts to facilitate competitive bidding for films. We explore the justifications for uniform pricing in the industry and show their limitations. We conclude that exhibitors could increase profits by engaging in variable pricing and that they could do so more easily if the legal constraints on vertical arrangements are lifted.