The Difference Law Makes: Domestic Atrocity Laws and Human Rights Prosecutions

This article offers the first systematic analysis of the effects of domestic atrocity laws on human rights prosecutions. Scholars have identified various political and sociological factors to explain the striking rise in human rights prosecutions over the past 30 years, yet the role of domestic criminal law in enabling such prosecutions has largely been unexamined. That is surprising given that international legal prohibitions against human rights atrocities are designed to be enforced by domestic courts applying domestic criminal law. We argue that domestic criminal laws against genocide and crimes against humanity facilitate human rights prosecutions in post‐authoritarian states by helping to overcome formal legal roadblocks to prosecution, such as retroactivity, amnesties, immunities, and statutes of limitations. Using original data on domestic atrocity laws and human rights prosecutions in new democracies, we find that atrocity laws increase the speed with which new democracies pursue prosecutions, as well as the overall numbers of trials they initiate and complete.     

Rural and Regional Policy: A Case of Punctuated Incrementalism?

The rural policy environment has many of the conditions that might suggest a tendency towards punctuated equilibrium. The Commonwealth has little direct power over rural space and industries, there has been a long tradition of state support for agriculture and decision‐making has generally been kept within a tight policy community, dominated by rural interests. In our review of the PAP data and policy history, we find instead an underlying movement across time and governments towards an expectation of self‐reliance for rural businesses and communities. On top of the long‐term incremental movement towards this expectation, issue attention has shifted according to political, climatological and market conditions, rather than necessarily in line with changes in policy content.     

Dartmouth,Sir Mansfield Cumming and the origins of the British intelligence community

This article uses original archive material to trace the connection between two processes of institutional development that was to result in the British intelligence Community becoming an integral part of government. The first process was the development in the latter part of the nineteenth century of a scheme of education and training for naval cadets at Dartmouth. The importance of this scheme is that it gives, through the Records of Progress and Conduct, a unique insight into the qualities that the first two heads of Britain's foreign intelligence service, and the first head of Britain's signals intelligence unit brought to their respective posts. This article argues that there are a number of timeless and vital competencies which cadets Smith, Sinclair and Hall displayed, albeit in embryonic form, that were critical, later on, in propelling their respective organizations to the centre of government. This is the second process of institutionalization. It is a position that they still occupy today.     

The external costs of foreclosure: The impact of single‐family mortgage foreclosures on property values

Abstract

To measure the impact of foreclosures on nearby property values, we use a database that combines data on 1997 and 1998 foreclosures with data on neighborhood characteristics and more than 9,600 single‐family property transactions in Chicago in 1999. After controlling for some 40 characteristics of properties and their respective neighborhoods, we find that foreclosures of conventional single‐family (one‐ to four‐unit) loans have a significant impact on nearby property values. Our most conservative estimates indicate that each conventional foreclosure within an eighth of a mile of a single‐family home results in a decline of 0.9 percent in value.

Cumulatively, this means that, for the entire city of Chicago, the 3,750 foreclosures that occurred in 1997 and 1998 are estimated to have reduced nearby property values by more than $598 million, for an average of $159,000 per foreclosure. This does not include effects on the value of condominiums, multifamily rental properties, and commercial buildings.     

Decades of Disillusion: Reappraising the ALP-ACTU Accord 1983–1996

In this article we review the Accord between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), in order to address current uncertainty over the role of unions in politics, particularly in the face of both the Coalition Government's 2006 industrial relations legislation and the ALP's apparent repudiation of the country's longstanding institutional leverage over wages and non-wage policies. The Accord exemplified an explicitly corporatist union strategy and it initially attracted extensive and hostile commentary. However, discussion of the experiment, together with other tripartite approaches to policy formation, has waned in recent years, perhaps suggesting that it was a tactic whose time has passed. Reviewing some major criticisms, we argue that critics have dismissed the Accord too hastily. Although serious problems with the Accord process are acknowledged, the articulation of a broad program of social democratic initiatives is always likely to retain support on the political left. Despite changes in union density and workforce composition, the union movement still possesses capacity to mobilise community support and develop a principled program.     

The Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action: Reaffirming Latin America's Generous Tradition of Asylum and Innovative Solutions

The ‘Foreword to the Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action’written by Philippe Lavanchy, Director of the Americas Bureauat UNHCR, should have appeared in Volume 17:4 and should stillbe read with the documents there. In late 2005, UNHCR sent alarge set of materials relating to the Americas, but, due toannual page limits for the IJRL, they had to be split across17:4 and 18:1. For     

From consultation to participatory governance? A critical review of citizen engagement strategies in Queensland

This article explores what appears to be a major shift in the policies and practices of national and international governments–the increased attention to, and use of, citizen engagement strategies as a basis for developing more participatory forms of governance. The article examines recent citizen engagement initiatives of the Queensland state government which have grappled with these complex political, policy and service concerns. The potential innovation and effectiveness of citizen engagement techniques and approaches are examined. The limitations of technical methodologies based on a traditional consultative framework are highlighted. The article analyses the relationship between these citizen engagement practices and more strategic democratic reforms based on notions of participatory governance.