'Settling Accounts' Revisited: Reconciling Global Norms with Local Agency

In the mid- to late-1980s, the discourse of transitional justicewas shaped above all by the experience of countries in LatinAmerica, where military forces continued to exercise autonomouspower even after ceding formal authority to democratically electedgovernments. In this setting, while human rights professionalsagreed that fledgling democracies should undertake prosecutionsin accordance with their international legal obligations, theywere divided over the question of whether further developmentof international obligations in respect of punishment was desirable.Nor was it clear what, precisely, international law alreadyrequired. Writing in the early 1990s, the author of this essay concludedthat States parties to certain international treaties were ingeneral required to prosecute specific crimes. More generally,she argued, wholesale impunity for atrocious crimes was generallyincompatible with States’ responsibility to ensure thatindividuals subject to their power enjoyed fundamental rights.But these duties, she wrote, should not be interpreted to requireaction incompatible with a nascent democracy's political orlegal capacity. In this essay, the author describes how her views have evolvedin the past 15 years. Noting that international legal normsagainst impunity have grown increasingly strong and arguingthat this trend has itself proved a powerful antidote to impunity,the author nonetheless affirms ‘the central importanceof promoting the broad participation of victims and other citizensin the process of designing as well as implementing programmesof transitional justice’ and addresses the inherent tensionbetween these values and norms.     

transcending the impact of the financial crisis in the United Kingdom: towards plan F—a feminist economic strategy

This paper sets out a framework for understanding the impacts of the financial crisis and its aftermath that is based on the idea of three interacting spheres: finance, production and reproduction. All of these spheres are gendered and globalised. The gendered impact of the current crisis is discussed in terms of the impact on unemployment, employment protection and security, public sector services, social security benefits, pensions, and the real value of wages and living standards. Drawing on the analysis of the UK Women’s Budget Group, the paper demonstrates that the biggest falls in disposable income as the result of austerity policies by the Conservative-led government since 2010 have been borne by the most vulnerable women—lone mothers, single women pensioners and single women without children. Working-age couples without children have been least affected. The paper then goes on to discuss what an alternative economic strategy, based on feminist political economy, might look like. It utilises the notion of the ‘reproductive bargain’, first developed to understand the transition in Cuba in the 1990s. It sets out a possible feminist economic strategy that insists on the incorporation of reproductive and care work into the analysis of alternative economic policies and links employment, wages and social security payments to public provisioning of trans-generational reproductive services. It suggests feasible strategies to finance the proposed Plan F—a feminist economic strategy.     

Reds Need Not Apply: Communism and the FCC, 1940-60

New communication technologies—particularly the Internet—have drastically complicated the problem of preserving privacy. As a result, a multitude of solutions for this increasingly complex area of the law have been put forth in recent years. This essay concludes, however, that changes in technology do not warrant altering the underlying constitutional balance that was arrived at decades ago in the tort law of privacy. The free speech limits on privacy law were imposed for good reason, and steps to protect the interest in the new online environment should not be ones that upset that careful balance.     

DNA collection from used toothbrushes as a means to decedent identification

ABSTRACT: Comparison of DNA profiles is often used in verifying the identification of deceased human beings when other easier, quicker, and less expensive means to identification are not possible. Fifty-five adult subjects divided into 3 groups provided a used toothbrush along with a small bloodstain control for DNA analysis and comparison. Results indicate that there is no significant difference in the quantity and quality of DNA recovered from a toothbrush that has been used for 1 month versus 3 months versus random periods. The results of this study confirm earlier conclusions that a used toothbrush is a reliable source of antemortem DNA from a putative decedent. The use of aviation snips to remove a small portion of the toothbrush head provides an easy, inexpensive method of obtaining a sample for DNA extraction. The authors recommend this method as a standardized technique for use in forensic DNA laboratories.     

Factors Predicting Relationship Satisfaction,Investment, and Commitment When Women Report High Prevalence of Psychological Abuse

Relationship satisfaction, investment, and commitment in women experiencing extensive psychological abuse were examined to determine predictive factors. Participants were the top quartile of a national sample of women in conflictual relationships (N = 81) experiencing psychological maltreatment. Relationship satisfaction, investment, and commitment were each used as criterion variables with conceptually related factors as the predictors (e.g., reactions to the psychological abuse; mental health indicators; personality variables; perceived harm; problematic relationship schemas; response styles; demographics). These relationship markers were differentially predicted within this group of women. Three independent clusters of women, based on patterns of satisfaction, investment, and commitment scores, were compared regarding physical abuse, reactions to psychological abuse, ratings of perceived harm, endorsement of relationship schemas, psychological distress variables, and personality variables. The cluster of women reporting higher satisfaction, investment, and commitment in these seemingly aversive relationships frequently demonstrated differences from the other two clusters. Implications for clinical applications are discussed.     

Review essay / Reform and realism

Larry W. Yackle, Reform and Regret: The Story of Federal Judicial Involvement in the Alabama Prison System New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, xii+322 pp.     

The role of competition in health care: a Western European perspective

The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice 2004 report Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition expresses a clear allegiance to competition as the organizing principle for health care. In Europe, by contrast, the key organizing principle of health care systems is solidarity. Solidarity means that all have access to health care based on medical needs, regardless of ability to pay. This is not to say that competition is not important in Europe, but competition must take place within the context of solidarity. This article critiques the report from a European perspective, describes the role of competition in Europe (focusing in particular on European Union law), and suggests that the United States could learn from the European perspective.     

Severity of intimate partner violence and occurrence and frequency of police calls

This article evaluates whether female victims of severe physical, psychological, or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) call police more often than other abused women. Abused women (431) reported frequency of contacting police (dependent variable), nature and severity of IPV experienced, and characteristics of themselves and their perpetrator (explanatory variables). A two-part regression model estimated likelihood of police contact among all participants and rate of contact among callers. Women with severe physical or psychological IPV or injury were more likely to call police than were other abused women. Among callers, women made 96% more calls if a weapon was involved, 58% more if they were severely sexually abused, and 40% more if they were severely physically abused. Women with children at home made 32% more calls. These results delineate the level and types of IPV and other characteristics of homes that make single and repeat calls to police.