The social foundations of global production networks: towards a global political economy of child labour

The resilience of the problem of child labour in the global economy has been amply documented, but, we suggest, the reasons for this situation have not yet been fully captured in the associated debates. Our aim is to advance a way of thinking about those forms of child labour which occur in the context of global production networks (gpns), and to contend that greater attention must be paid to the organisation and functioning of gpns, and the social foundations on which they rest, if we are to grasp more fully the conditions and processes which facilitate the persistence and evolution of child labour. The way of thinking we propose is rooted in the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’ in the global economy, which we develop by drawing together currents in gpn analysis and poverty research to explore the commercial and social dynamics in gpns which give rise to these forms of labour exploitation. We illustrate our arguments with reference to the garments industry in New Delhi, India.     

Space, time and function: intersecting principles of responsibility across the terrain of criminal justice

This paper considers the interpretive significance of the intersecting relationships between different conceptions of responsibility as they shift over space and time. The paper falls into two main sections. The first gives an account of several conceptions of responsibility: two conceptions founded in ideas of capacity; two founded in ideas of character, and one founded in the relationship between an agent and the outcome which she causes. The second main section uses this differentiated conceptual account to analyse and interpret certain aspects of the contemporary criminal law of England and Wales. In conclusion, the paper considers a number of hypotheses about what the evidence of certain shifts in the relationship between the three families of responsibility-conception can tell us about the current state and significance of criminal law among other systems of social governance.

Developmental validation of the AmpF?STR SEfiler Plus™ PCR amplification kit: An improved multiplex with enhanced performance for inhibited samples

Since its introduction in 2002, the AmpF?STR^® SEfiler™ kit has provided a highly discriminating DNA profiling option to German forensic laboratories by combining the widely used SGM Plus^® Kit loci with the SE-33 locus required for the German DNA Database. Whilst proving successful on database samples, laboratories using the SEfiler™ kit have reported the need for chemistry better able to handle the ever-increasing number of casework samples.The new AmpF?STR^® SEfiler Plus™ kit contains the same loci and primer sequences as the SEfiler™ kit but uses improved synthesis and purification processes to minimize the presence of dye-labeled artifacts. Other improvements include modified PCR cycling conditions for enhanced sensitivity and a new buffer formulation that improves performance with inhibited samples when compared to the original SEfiler™ kit.Validation studies demonstrating the effectiveness of the multiplex are presented with emphasis on the models of inhibition and casework samples.     

The Tragic Plight of HIV-Infected Haitian Refugees at Guantanamo Bay

Last June marked the 14th anniversary of the closing of the world’s first, and only, HIV camp at Guantanamo Bay. This article revisits the infamous legacy of the Guantanamo Bay camp and the plight of the HIV-infected Haitian political refugees during the early 1990’s. Part I summarises the development of the United States’ immigration policy and the government’s history for excluding immigrants for health related reasons. Part II details the factual and historical background leading to the mass exodus of the Haitians and the sequence of tragic events which resulted in their confinement at Guantanamo Bay. Part III focuses on the seminal case of Haitian Centers Council, Inc. v. Sale (II) (Haitian Centers Council, Inc. v. Sale, 823 F. Supp. 1028, 1049 (E.D.N.Y. 1993)) which was responsible for bringing about the closure of the HIV camp and granting parole to all HIV-infected refugees to enter the United States. The anticipated revolutionary reform of the HIV-exclusion policy emanating from this legal triumph never materialized. The United States government successfully sought to have the case vacated from the Court’s books. Consequently, the landmark precedent does not technically exist today. What does remain is the notorious HIV-exclusion policy which was distorted by the United States government to justify their detainment. Although the epic legal and emotional struggles of the Haitians are forgotten by many, the legacy of Guantanamo Bay continues to haunt the lives of those who were prisoners of the HIV camp.     

Rethinking Race, Gender and Citizenship: Black West Indian Women in Costa Rica, c. 1920–1940

This article brings Afro‐Caribbean women to the fore of a discussion of Costa Rican citizenship. It explores the relationship between ideologies of gender, imageries of black womanhood, and the dialectic of citizenship and exclusion. It examines how the efforts of the black elite to achieve citizenship through assimilation generated inter‐class tension which centred on ideas of female morality. It explores the absence of political platforms for poor black women excluded by such strategies and argues that while Costa Rican feminists succeeded in challenging the ideological system of gender they failed to challenge issues of race and class.     

recasting the role of the intellectual: Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral

The life and work of Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, is examined as an example of how difficult it was for women to win recognition as intellectuals in 20th-century Latin America. Despite an international reputation for erudition and political commitment, Mistral has traditionally been represented in stereotypically gendered terms as the ‘Mother’ and ‘Schoolteacher’ of the Americas, and it has been repeatedly claimed that she was both apolitical and anti-intellectual. This article contests such claims, arguing that she was not only committed to fulfilling the role of an intellectual, but that she also elaborated a critique of the dominant male Latin American view of intellectuality, probing the boundaries of both rationality and nationality as constructed by male Euro-Americans. In so doing, she addressed many of the crucial issues that still confront intellectuals today in Latin America and elsewhere.     

The Relation of Harsh and Permissive Discipline with Child Disruptive Behaviors: Does Child Gender Make a Difference in an At-Risk Sample?

The role of parenting in child disruptive behaviors has received substantial support; however, the findings as to differential effects of specific parenting behaviors (e.g., discipline) on boys’ and girls’ disruptive behavior problems have not been consistent. The current study examined the individual, unique, and interactive relation of two types of ineffective discipline (i.e., harsh & permissive) with child disruptive behavior for at-risk boys and girls separately. Participants were 160 parents with 3- to 6-year-old at-risk children (47.5% girls). Findings revealed that higher levels of harsh discipline were related to more intense disruptive behavior of both boys and girls, whereas higher levels of permissive discipline were related to more intense disruptive behavior of only boys. Additionally, results indicated that harsh and permissive discipline did not interact to predict child disruptive behavior problems. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

The effect of sodium fluoride preservative and storage temperature on the stability of cocaine in horse blood, sheep vitreous and deer muscle

The in vitro stability of cocaine in horse blood, sheep vitreous humour (VH) and homogenised deer muscle is described. The stability of cocaine in horse blood was of interest because many toxicology laboratories utilise horse blood for the preparation of calibration and check standards and the latter are typically stored during routine use. The storage stability of cocaine in human VH and muscle has not been previously reported. In the absence of blank human VH and muscle, cocaine stability under varying conditions was demonstrated in animal tissues. Blood and VH were stored with and without addition of NaF at room temperature (RT), 4°C and -18°C for 84 days. Muscle homogenates were prepared in water, water/2% NaF, and phosphate buffer (pH 6.0)/2% NaF, and stored for 31 days at RT, 4°C and -18°C. Cocaine stability in human muscle obtained from cocaine positive forensic cases was assessed following storage at -18°C for 13 months. Cocaine and benzoylecgonine (BZE) were extracted using SPE and quantified by GC-MS/MS. Cocaine was stable for 7 days in refrigerated (4°C) horse blood fortified with 1 and 2% NaF. In the absence of NaF, cocaine was not detectable by day 7 in blood stored at RT and 4°C and had declined by 81% following storage at -18°C. At 4°C the rate of cocaine degradation in blood preserved with 2% NaF was significantly slower than with 1% NaF. The stability of cocaine in horse blood appeared to be less than that reported for human blood, probably attributable to the presence of carboxylesterase in horse plasma. Cocaine stored in VH at -18°C was essentially stable for the study period whereas at 4°C concentrations decreased by >50% in preserved and unpreserved VH stored for longer than 14 days. Fluoride did not significantly affect cocaine stability in VH. The stability of cocaine in muscle tissue homogenates significantly exceeded that in blood and VH at every temperature. In preserved and unpreserved samples stored at 4°C and below, cocaine loss did not exceed 2%. The increased stability of cocaine in muscle was attributed to the low initial pH of post-mortem muscle. In tissue from one human case stored for 13 months at -18°C the muscle cocaine concentration declined by only 15% (range: 5-22%). These findings promote the use of human muscle as a toxicological specimen in which cocaine may be detected for longer compared with blood or VH.     

Psychologising Jekyll,Demonising Hyde: The Strange Case of Criminal Responsibility

This paper puts the famous story of Jekyll and Hyde to work for a specific analytic purpose. The question of responsibility for crime, complicated by the divided subjectivity implicit in Mr. Hyde’s appearance, and illuminated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grasp of contemporary psychiatric, evolutionary and medical thought as promising new technologies for effecting a distinction between criminality and innocence, is key to the interest of the story. I argue that Jekyll and Hyde serves as a powerful metaphor both for specifically late Victorian perplexities about criminality and criminal responsibility, and for more persistently troubling questions about the legitimacy of and practical basis for criminalization. A close reading of the story illustrates the complex mix of elements bearing on criminal responsibility-attribution, and—incidentally—helps to explain what is wrong with the influential argument that, by the end of the nineteenth Century, attributions of responsibility in English criminal law already rested primarily and unambiguously on factual findings about the defendant’s state of mind. Far from representing the triumph of a practice of responsibility-attribution grounded in the assessment of whether the defendant’s capacities were fully engaged, I argue that the terrain of mental derangement defences in late nineteenth Century England helps us to understand that longer-standing patterns of moral evaluation of character remained central to the criminal process. And precisely because ‘character’ remained key to the institutional effort to distinguish criminality and innocence, the ‘terror’ of Stevenson’s story resides in its questioning of whether either scientific knowledge or moral evaluation of character can provide a stable basis for attributions of responsibility. In conclusion, I will also suggest that Stevenson’s tale can help us to make sense of the resurgence of overtly ‘character-based’ practices of responsibility attribution in contemporary Britain and the United States, which themselves reflect a renewed crisis of confidence in our ability to effect a ‘dissociation’ between criminality and innocence.