Environmental concerns as China modernizes

For the past fifteen years of reform, China has opened its doors to broad economic changes and to the outside world. The decentralization of both agricultural and industrial reforms has increased its pollution problems. China is now at an important crossroads in terms of balancing economic growth and environmental protection in its economic decision-making. The leaders have attempted to curb environmental degradation during the reform years through national policy, laws and regulations, and propaganda. However, there is still much work to be done, specifically in the implementation of the regulations. The reforms have sought to improve the people’s standard of living, which requires both economic growth and a healthy environmenta in which to live.     

Post-conviction DNA testing: the UK's first 'exoneration' case?

The routine incorporation of forensic DNA profiling into the criminal justice systems of the United Kingdom has been widely promoted as a device for improving the quality of investigative and prosecutorial processes. From its first uses in the 1980s, in cases of serious crime, to the now daily collection, analysis and comparison of genetic samples in the National DNA Database, DNA profiling has become a standard instrument of policing and a powerful evidential resource for prosecutors. However, the use of post-conviction DNA testing has, until recently, been uncommon in the United Kingdom. This paper explores the first case, in England, of the contribution of DNA profiling to a successful appeal against conviction by an imprisoned offender. Analysis of the details of this case is used to emphasise the ways in which novel forms of scientific evidence remain subject to traditional and heterogeneous tests of relevance and credibility.     

The Rise and Fall of the 'Ethical Dimension': Presentation and Practice in New Labour's Foreign Policy

This article explores why the New Labour government in Britain stopped using the former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's notion of an 'ethical dimension' to present its foreign policy to the public. The article begins by tracing the rise of the 'ethical dimension' in New Labour's foreign policy pronouncements. It then surveys some of the debates about the party's foreign policy record, investigating how far its explicit appeal to ethics merely overlies traditional British foreign policy practices. The final section discusses three possible explanations for New Labour's decision to abandon the language of an 'ethical dimension'. It is argued that this decision suggests two important lessons for the future relationship of ethics to foreign policy. While explicit ethical standards provide important benchmarks for activists and public intellectuals, they can also serve to highlight the failures of an administration at the expense of more positive developments. Consequently, jettisoning the language of an 'ethical dimension' may actually encourage a more sophisticated public debate that moves beyond the facile and misleading belief that foreign policies are either 'ethical' or 'unethical'.     

‘Seeing’ is believing: Positivist terrology, peacemaking criminology, and the northern ireland peace process

In this essay, the authors seek to draw upon the understanding and critique of positivism within criminological discourse in order to offer one analysis of the British governments’ approach to the Northern Ireland peace process. They argue that this approach has been hampered not just by the political reliance of the John Major government on Ulser Unionist support at Westminster but by a political and ideological approach to the peace process, informed by positivist terrorology, which has lead to an inability to ‘see’ the potential for peace. Offering a brief analysis of one of its leading academic proponents, the authors argue that such a paradigm posits a view of the liberal democratic state as axiomatically legitimate. Politically-motivated violence within such a state is seen as a purely criminal attack upon it, fundamentally inexplicable in terms other than the deviancy of its perpetrators. Thus in this view, politically-motivated violence is only combatable through purely instrumental, technical, and scientific means. By way of contrast to this paradigm, the authors offer an alternative vision, based on the epistemologies of critical and peacemaking criminology which, they argue, offers much greater potential for the prospects of peace in Northern Ireland and similar political conflicts elsewhere. NIACRO     

The biochemistry of vitreous humour. A comparative study of the potassium, sodium and urate concentrations in the eyes at identical time intervals after death

Analysis of the vitreous humour from an individual's eyes collected at the same time since death showed variation between the eyes in the concentration of potassium, sodium and/or urate. This previously unreported finding would limit the use of measuring these electrolytes in determining the time of death.     

Examining the relationship between routine activities theory and social disorganization: An analysis of property crime victimization

A property crime victimization survey was conducted of households in both high and tow crime neighborhoods in one southern city. A response rate of 68.5% was obtained. The study tested the premises of both the routine activities and social disorganization theories as they contribute to the likelihood of property crime victimization at the individual level. It was found that routine activities theory explained 28% of the property crime variance in the socially disorganized area (high crime) while only explaining 11% of the same variance in the low crime area. Separate measurements were used to establish the level of social disorganization in the two geographical areas. The beta coefficients reveal that in the high crime area, those most likely to be property crime victims are white, single homeowners who are not at home from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., who have relatives living in their neighborhoods, and who interact with their neighbors. These findings lend marginal support to the routine activities model.     

Book reviews

Realism, Idealism and International Politics: A Reinterpretation

By M. Griffiths, Routledge: London, 1992, 206pp(hbk), £35.00

International Conflict Resolution: The US‐USSR and Middle East Cases

By Louis Kriesberg, Yale University Press: 1992.

Deterring Democracy

By Noam Chomsky, Vintage Press, 1992, 439pp £7.99(pbk) ISBN 0–09–913501–9.

Arab Military Industry: Capability, Performance, and Impact

By Yezid Sayigh. Brassey's, London, £38.00/$49.50. ISBN 0–08–041777–9.

The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia 1988–91

By Bernard Wheaton and Zdenek Kavan, Westview Press, 1992.

Peace Without Hiroshima: Secret Action at the Vatican in the Spring of 1945

By Martin S. Quigley. Madison Books: Lanham, Maryland, 1991. 169pp.

Historical Discord in the Nile Valley

By Gabriel R. Warburg, London: Hurst & Company Ltd, 1992, £27.50.

To Loose the Bands of Wickedness: International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights

Nigel Rodley (Ed). Brassey's (UK), 1992. 287pp(HBk). ISBN l‐85753‐()47‐().