Katrinanomics: The politics and economics of disaster relief

Hurricane Katrina revealed massive governmental failure at the local, state and federal levels. This commentary brings the modern theory of property rights and public choice reasoning to bear in explaining why officials failed to strengthen New Orleans's levee system despite forewarning of its weaknesses, failed to pre-deploy adequate emergency supplies as the storm approached landfall and failed to respond promptly afterwards. Its main lesson is that no one should have expected government to be any more effective when confronted with natural disaster than it is in more mundane circumstances.     

The Law of Trusts and Equitable Obligations * 4th edn, By Robert Pearce and John Stevens

The most difficult textbook to write is one on trusts and equitableobligations. The principal market for such a book must be undergraduateswho are forced to combine the study of the law of trusts withperhaps three other legal topics in one year's study. Such isthe nature of the law of trusts and equity     

Back-Channel Negotiation: International Bargaining in the Shadows

Back‐channel negotiations (BCNs) are officially sanctioned negotiations conducted in secret between the parties to a dispute. These extraordinary negotiations operate in parallel with, or replace, acknowledged front channels of negotiation. Back channels are like the black markets of negotiation; they are separate tables where bargaining takes place in the shadows. When front‐channel negotiations fail, they are sometimes eclipsed by successful BCNs even though the same principals, conflicts, and sociopolitical contexts are involved. This article asks: Why do decision makers deploy back channels? What is the impact of BCN on international peace processes? The Palestinian–Israeli peace process, in which both back and front channels have been used consistently, provides the basis for comparing channels and offering initial answers to these questions. The author concludes that while BCN can facilitate breakthrough agreements, it can also damage a peace process by helping to reinforce some of the uncertainties that gave rise to the use of back channels in the first place.     

The Trap

A professor is brought before a secret tribunalin his law faculty for the purpose of decidingthe appropriateness of a student's grade. Thegrounds of the grade appeal are that theprofessor had taught critically instead ofpractically and that he had done so with anacademic bias and prejudice. He is also allegedto have taught philosophy rather than law. After many hours of examination andcross-examination as a defendant and as anexpert witness, the professor, Flink, begins adialogue with a spirit in an effort tounderstand the nature and identity of law. Flink comes to appreciate that law is adisplacing discourse rather than a structure ofcategories signified in an official writing. The analytic method familiar to officials incommon law jurisdictions, Flink comes tounderstand, excludes the experiential meaningsthat are manifested through unwritten gesturesand rituals. Officials embody signs withexperiential expectations and past assumptions.The embodiment of meaning brings life intolegal language. But such an embodiment isforgotten as officials decompose textualfragments and reported social events intoanalytic units. Legal analysis is so successfulthat officials even forget that they hadforgotten something so important as theembodiment of meaning.The professor and the spirit also ask whetherjustice is an `ought' and where one can locatesuch an `ought'. They conclude that there is astructure within which legal officials reason.The exteriority of the structure is anunwritten `ought' realm. But the structurepossesses a gap, which enters into such anunanalysable object-less realm. Analyticreasoning has assumed that reason can take anofficial only so far until she or he mustjourney outside the structure to anunanalysable realm of personal values. However, the embodiment of meanings alsoincorporates unwritten collective values ofwhich officials, precisely because of thesuccess of the analysis project in forgettingthat something was forgotten, have never beenconscious. It is such an unanalysable realmthat grounds or authorises the analyticproject. The exterior authorising origin of theanalytic units of the structure rests upon apossibility that requires faith on the part ofthe officials, a faith that there exists afoundation, radically different from theanalytic units, on the other side of thestructure. The officials can, at best, imagineor picture the authorising origin, located asit is in the unanalysable object-less realmexterior to the written language of thestructure. The imagined origin takes the `form'of a bodiless spirit. The officials (and theprofessor and spirit) are haunted by thepossibility that the structure of humanlyposited rules are ultimately authorised by aspirit.     

Education and Marriage as Protective Factors Against Homicide Mortality: Methodological and Substantive Findings from Moscow

This study examines the protective effects of education and marriage against homicide mortality in Russia. Individual data are obtained from death records and population data from the 1994 micro-census, and differentials in mortality from homicide are estimated employing two different methods: a straightforward approach using census data and proportional mortality analysis. We find that the latter underestimates the impact of education on homicide mortality. Despite differences in effect sizes, however, both methods reveal a significantly higher risk of homicide victimization for those that are unmarried and less educated. We conclude that education and marriage likely provide social capital and coping skills that protect individuals against violent victimization, even during times of dramatic social change and dire economic circumstances such as those faced in transitional Russia.     

'Far too dangerous a gamble'?1 British intelligence and policy during the Chanak crisis, September-October 1922

In considering the role of intelligence in the events that culminated in the 1922 Chanak crisis, particular attention is given to the extent to which intelligence assessments of Turkish Nationalist troop strengths influenced British decisions. Key political figures included Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, Winston Chuchill, and Austen Chamberlain, as well as military officers such as General Harington and Admiral Brock, and the diplomat Sir Horace Rumbold. It concludes that the final armistice, signed at Mudania, met British objectives, but only after running too high a risk.¹Harington to Maurice, 8 Jan. 1923, 23 April 1923, Maurice 3/2.     

The British whistleblower protection bill

This paper critically examines the first attempt to offer general statutory protection to United Kingdom whistleblowers. Despite some useful provisions, the paper concludes that the bill is retrogressive, unsophisticated and narrow; and that it will be the legal profession not employees of conscience who will benefit from this instrument if it passes into law. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.