Children in conflict: assessing the Optional Protocol

Rachel Stohl is Senior Analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC. She is a founding member of the US Campaign to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and serves on its Steering Committee.     

The strategic inconsistency of Paretian liberalism

In this paper, the problem of the Paretian liberal is cast as a preference revelation game whose outcome function satisfies Gibbard's libertarian condition and strong Pareto optimality. Strategic consistency requires that the equilibrium of the game agree with the sincere outcome. It is shown that, whether viewed in a cooperative or non-cooperative context, the liberal social choice function is strategically inconsistent. This result suggests that, from a strategic standpoint, a different resolution of the liberal paradox is desirable.     

Institutional Impediments To Efficient Water Allocation

Current water institutions were developed for conditions of water penty rather than scarcity and are unable to allocate water resources efficiently under conditions such as those in the arid West. This paper reviews riparian, appropriation and correlative water law as well as existing admin- istrative rules governing water use in California and finds that all of these institutions violate norms of economic efficiency. The review suggests that decentralized water systems such as mutual irrigation companies with their appropriate laws are more flexible than centralized federal or state systems in promoting water movement to higher valued use. The paper concludes that institutional mechanisms which promote rather than inhibit water trades and transfers are more appropriate to arid areas and that these institutions will become increasingly popular as water becomes increasingly scarce.     

Crimes against children in nineteenth-century France

Abuse of children is not entirely a modern phenomenon but the definition and classification of abusive practices has changed. Modern concepts of child abuse date only from the 1880s in France. Child abuse in twentieth-century terms of emotional and physical assault, neglect, abandonment, and sexual molestation was not considered a crime during most of the past century. Prior to the 1880s, only two acts, abortion and infanticide, constituted crimes against children. Child abandonment, rather than a crime, was the state supported, societally acceptable alternative to abortion and infanticide. After abandonment, malnourishment and neglect of these children, even to the point of death, likewise were not crimes. With changes in attitudes of the 1880s, parental neglect, assault, and starvation of children became defined as child abuse as did perceived immoral behavior of the parents such as habitual drunkenness and debauchery. Under these new definitions of abuse, state officials could deprive parents of their legal rights and make the children wards of the state for their own protection. The state becamein loco parentis. This essay explores the changing perceptions of child abuse, and the increasing state intervention for the care of abused children after the 1880s.     

An Assessment of the Impact that Participation in Local Climate Networks Has on Cities’ Implementation of Climate,Energy, and Transportation Policies

Much of the attention surrounding local climate protection in the United States is associated with two networks: ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability's Cities for Climate Protection and the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement (MCPA). However, the impact of these networks on member‐city actions has not been clearly established. This paper examines whether, and to what extent, participation in climate networks leads to the implementation of greenhouse gas (GHG)‐reducing policies, above and beyond what would have been done in their absence. To account for the possibility that cities which join climate networks are systematically different from those that do not and control for self‐selection induced bias, three statistical techniques—propensity score matching, Heckman full information maximum likelihood, and instrumental variables—are employed to estimate the “treatment effect” of participation. Results suggest that impact is network specific: ICLEI membership causes small to moderate increases in cities’ GHG‐relevant activity, whereas the MCPA has no such effect. The characteristics of each network are evaluated in light of these findings.     

An investigation into the differentiating characteristics between car key burglars and regular burglars

Car key burglary has recently become the focus of empirical investigation as offenders, no longer able to steal vehicles without first obtaining their keys, resort to "burgling" target properties. Research surrounding the modus operandi of these offenses is beginning to emerge; however, little attention has been paid to investigating the characteristics of car key burglary offenders. Challenging the assumption that car key burglary offenses are perpetrated by regular burglars, this study aims to differentiate between offenders. Logistic regression analysis of 110 car key and 110 regular burglary offenders revealed that car key burglars are more likely to have previous vehicle theft convictions and are also more likely to be detected on information supplied to the police than regular burglars. Regular burglars are more likely to have previous shoplifting convictions. It was concluded that car key burglars are a distinct sample of offenders and the implications of these findings are discussed.