Toxic Torts,Politics, and Environmental Justice: The Case for Crimtorts*

The borderline between criminal and tort law has been increasingly blurred over the past quarter century by the emergence of new “crimtort” remedies which have evolved to deter and punish corporate polluters. Punitive damages, multiple damages, and other “crimtort” remedies are under unrelenting assault by neo‐conservatives principally because, under this paradigm, the punishment for wrongdoing can be calibrated to the wealth of the polluter. If wealth‐based punishment is eliminated by the “tort reformers,” plaintiffs’ victories in crimtort actions such as those portrayed in the movies Silkwood, A Class Action, and Erin Brockovich will become an endangered species.     

Science,Politics, and Persistent Organic Pollutants: The Role of Scientific Assessments in International Environmental Co-operation

International measures to address environmental problems increasingly rely on scientific information, and a growing number of international agreements require periodic scientific re-assessments. However, the arena of scientific assessment, governed by a combination of scientific criteria and political interests, is not well-understood, and few case studies have mapped the influence of scientific assessment on the birth and development of environmental policy issues. This article examines the role of scientific assessments and the science-politics interplay in international attempts to regulate persistent organic pollutants (POPs), focusing on the processes within the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The study shows that scientific and political activities are intrinsically linked in international POPs work. Scientific and political agendas are co-constructed with no clear boundary between the science and politics spheres. Scientific assessments played a prominent role in constructing POPs as an issue of international concern, setting agendas and shaping policies.     

Policy, Politics, and the Criminal Courts

This case study of criminal process in a middle-sized western city in the United States employs quantitative data, interviews, and library research to explore the politics of criminal process and its impact on the operative policies of the criminal courts from I964 through 1980. The research reveals significant policy change but a very elusive relationship between politics and policy. Judges and prosecutors preserve a significant measure of autonomy for dealing with the bulk of their caseload by giving up much of their independence in those cases that are inescapably politicized. Both judges and prosecutors use this partial political insulation to advance their own versions of criminological wisdom. On the other hand, they are constrained by the prevailing ethos and by institutional limitations to operate well within conventional definitions of crime and criminality—even when those conventional views run counter to their own practical experience.     

全球化、身份政治与法律

美国弗吉尼亚理工大学校园枪击案引发了身份对当代人和当代社会深刻影响实施的思考。身份的连带责任效应表明,拥有某种身份的人所实施的违反道德或法律的行为必然会连累到其他拥有相同身份的人。身份的搭便车效应表明,拥有某种身份的人所做出的高尚或伟大的行为可能会惠及到其他拥有相同身份的人。身份的刻板印象效应表明,社会上形成的对某一身份的刻板印象会影响拥有该身份的个人的命运和社会地位。法律上的很多制度,包括连带责任制度、结社自由制度、反歧视制度等,与身份的这些效应和影响之间存在着密切的关系。     

法系渊源、政治与现代股票市场

许多现代经济学著作认为,法系渊源决定着一国证券市场的实力和公司所有权结构,发达国家更是如此。然而,本文认为法系渊源并不是证券市场的基础。现代政治学为不同的所有权结构和发达国家证券市场发展状况的差异提供了另一种解释。20世纪残酷的事实——许多重要国家被完全摧毁,而其先前的许多制度也遭到破坏,很好地预示了战后现代证券市场的实力,并与发达国家在战后政治及政策上的差异有着密切关系。在20世纪,几乎每个核心的大陆法系国家都遭受到军事侵略和占领,这种整体动荡甚至摧毁了强大的制度,然而核心的普通法系国家并未在这种灾难中垮掉。世界上最发达的各个国家中占主导地位的利益和意识形态以及这些国家的基本经济任务在20世纪后半期各不相同,这使得一些发达国家乐于发展证券市场,而另一些发达国家则对其保持冷淡或敌对。这些政治经济学思想比法系渊源观念能更好地解释西方发达国家证券市场不同的实力。     

Islam,Politics, and the Security of Central Asia

The editors of Novyi mir [New World] received many hundreds of letters following publication of the article "Advances and Debts" [Avansy i dolgi].* Roughly nine-tenths of them supported the author's positions; one-tenth were partially or entirely opposed. Many of the letters raised very acute issues and serious problems concerning perestroika [restructuring] which require the most painstaking reflection and discussion. The editors have accordingly called upon N. Shmelev to share with the readers his thoughts upon reading the mail received in response to his article.     

Resources, Rights, and Environmental Regulation

Prior to the Human Rights Act 1998, there were significant expectations that it would promote the development of environmental rights and extend remedies for environmental harm. This has not been the case, but then the expectations were probably always false. The paper points to three reasons why: the retention of a strong model of parliamentary sovereignty; the need to mould human rights principles alongside the common law; the traditional reluctance of the courts to determine questions of utility where questions of resource allocation arise. The paper concludes by reflecting on whether one would hope, in any case, to advance the cause of the environment through the mechanism of the Convention and suggests that there may be reasons to doubt the wisdom of this approach.     

Law, Finance, and Politics: The Case of India

The liberalization of India's economy since 1991 has brought with it considerable development of its financial markets and supporting legal institutions. An influential body of economic scholarship asserts that a country's "legal origin"—as a civilian or common law jurisdiction—plays an important part in determining the development of its investor protection regulations, and consequently its financial development. An alternative theory claims that the determinants of investor protection are political, rather than legal. We use the case of India to test these theories. We find little support for the idea that India's legal heritage as a common law country has been influential in speeding the path of regulatory reforms and financial development. Rather, we suggest there are complementarities between (1) India's relative success in services and software; (2) the relative strength of its financial markets for outside equity, as opposed to outside debt; and (3) the relative success of stock market regulation, as opposed to reforms of creditor rights. We conclude that political economy explanations have more traction in explaining the case of India than do theories based on "legal origins."     

Researching Restorative Justice: Politics,Policy and Process

The purpose of this paper is to explore some questions around the process of engaging in research in restorative justice in the contemporary political and economic climate of the UK. Its key concern is to endeavour to create a framework in which it is possible to develop an understanding of the process whereby restorative justice was transformed from the ‘dead duck’ of the late 1980s to its current popularity. It takes as its example for understanding this transformation the problems and possibilities of engaging in research in restorative justice and how such research needs to be contextualised within a wider understanding of the policy and political process. This paper does not set out to offer any answers to the questions it raises, but is primarily concerned to bring to the fore some of the absences that can be detected within the contemporary embrace of restorative justice in the UK.     

Politics and Science

To say that science has a great role to play is to repeat platitudes. Hardly anyone with any smattering of knowledge doubts this. In these days, when science is taking truly giant strides, when its achievements are evident to any modern man at literally every step, there is no need to prove that science is indispensable to the progress of society.