Of War and Law

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Breaking the chain: Confronting issueless college town disturbances and riots

Law enforcement agencies and institutions of higher education have confronted increasing numbers of violent and destructive campus riots and disturbances over the past decade. Problematic is the fact that these riots typically have no underlying cause, other than students’ quest for excitement. Responding to gaps in the empirical literature about these events, this study used data from two waves of surveys to systematically examine those involved in a recurring problem event in a college town that was subject to a police crackdown. The analyses drew on survey responses from over eight hundred event participants in 2002 and 2003, and the results revealed that increased enforcement had a significant effect on crowd composition, including the gender and race of participants, repeat visitors, out-of-town participants, and perceptions about the subjects' overall experience. Implications for law enforcement and community strategies to decrease the size and destructiveness of such problem events are outlined.     

Language disorders in disruptive behavior disordered homicidal youth.

Eight homicidal youths were assessed for language disorders and psychiatric diagnoses using a battery of standardized language tests and the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents. Both language disorders and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III-R psychiatric diagnoses were present in all subjects.     

Routine crime in exceptional times: The impact of the 2002 Winter Olympics on citizen demand for police services

Despite their rich theoretical and practical importance, criminologists have paid scant attention to the patterns of crime and the responses to crime during exceptional events. Throughout the world large-scale political, social, economic, cultural, and sporting events have become commonplace. Natural disasters such as blackouts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis present similar opportunities. Such events often tax the capacities of jurisdictions to provide safety and security in response to the exceptional event, as well as to meet the “routine” public safety needs. This article examines “routine” crime as measured by calls for police service, official crime reports, and police arrests in Salt Lake City before, during, and after the 2002 Olympic Games. The analyses suggest that while a rather benign demographic among attendees and the presence of large numbers of social control agents might have been expected to decrease calls for police service for minor crime, it actually increased in Salt Lake during this period. The implications of these findings are considered for theories of routine activities, as well as systems capacity.     

Randomized experiments in criminology: What have we learned in the last two decades?

This paper aims to review randomized experiments in criminology with offending outcomes and reasonably large numbers that were published between 1982 and 2004. A total of 83 experiments are summarized, compared with only 35 published between 1957 and 1981: 12 on policing, 13 on prevention, 14 on corrections, 22 on courts, and 22 on community interventions. Randomized experiments are still relatively uncommon, but there have been more large-scale multi-site experiments and replication programs. There have also been several experiments in which 100 or more places were randomly assigned. Relatively few experiments (only 10 out of 83) were conducted outside the United States. Meta-analyses suggest that prevention methods, correctional therapy, batterer programs, drug courts, juvenile restitution and deterrent policing were effective in reducing offending, while Scared Straight and boot camp programs caused a significant increase in offending.     

From International Sanitary Conventions to Global Health Security: The New International Health Regulations

In May 2005, the World Health Organization adopted the new InternationalHealth Regulations (IHR), which constitute one of the most radicaland far-reaching changes to international law on public healthsince the beginning of international health co-operation inthe mid-nineteenth century. This article comprehensively analysesthe new IHR by examining the history of international law oninfectious disease control, the IHR revision process, the substantivechanges contained in the new IHR and concerns regarding thefuture of the new IHR. The article demonstrates why the newIHR constitute a seminal event in the relationship between internationallaw and public health and send messages about how human societiesshould govern their vulnerabilities to serious, acute diseaseevents in the twenty-first century.     

Governance without a state: Can it work?

In this article we explore how much state is necessary to make governance work. We begin by clarifying concepts of governance and the “shadow of hierarchy” and we follow this clarification with a brief overview of empirical findings on governance research in developed countries. We then discuss the dilemmas for governance in areas of limited statehood, where political institutions are too weak to hierarchically adopt and enforce collectively binding rules. While prospects for effective policymaking appear to be rather bleak in these areas, we argue that governance research has consistently overlooked the existence of functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy. We assert that governance with(out) government can work even in the absence of a strong shadow of hierarchy, we identify functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy, and we discuss to what extent they can help overcome issues of legitimacy and effectiveness in areas of limited statehood.     

Hair analysis: a worthless tool for therapeutic compliance monitoring

Hair analysis has been presented by some authors as a possible tool of investigation for estimating patients' compliance to long-term therapies. This paper summarises the different publications that have been devoted to this topic and highlights the available statistical data presented to support this proposition. Qualitative results of such determinations may be of some interest but due to the enormous interindividual variations of quantitative data, the idea of using hair analysis to ascertain whether a patient has taken his treatment exactly as prescribed, clearly appears to be inapplicable.