Criminal law

The close temporal coincidence of International Human Rights Day 2010 (10 December 2010) and the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Act 1998 (2 October 2010) stimulates some reflections on the progressive scope and influence of this domestic statute of towering importance. In addition, it seems especially appropriate to examine how Article 2 of the European Convention, which protects the individual’s right to life and is a cornerstone of this treaty, has featured in the jurisprudence of both the European Court and domestic courts. This article considers the celebrated Conjoined Twins case, together with other challenging issues which have confronted the courts – termination of pregnancy, medical prolongation of life, assisted suicide and so-called ‘mercy killing’.     

The inflationary aspect of repetitive devaluation: A comment

In this paper we use primary data on 500 Ghanaian FBOs collected through semi-structured interviews and risky dictator games (RDG) to test the validity of the cooperative life cycle theory and formulate a measure of cooperative health. We first define cooperative health as the alignment of heterogeneity in risk preferences and the effectuation of collective investments. We then use cluster and correlation analysis to categorize FBOs on the basis of their health and correlate these typologies with various performance indicators. Our findings reveal that organizational health is generally low as there are only a few organizations that manage to provide member-farmers with both risk-sharing and cost-saving opportunities. Further, healthier FBOs experience stronger growth in membership while health is lower in FBOs that have been established for the purpose of benefitting from external incentives.     

Efficient use of reference group cues in a single dimension

If there are groups whose endorsements voters can use as positive (or negative) cues, we demonstrate that voters do not need to know anything directly about candidate positions to be able to identify the candidate whose issue positions and performance is likely to be closest to the voter's own preferences. In one dimension we show that, given certain simplifying assumptions, voters are best off adopting the choice recommended by the single reference group to which they are closest. We also show that even a decision by reference groups not to endorse any candidate may be informative to voters.     

Cycle avoiding trajectories,strategic agendas,and the duality of memory and foresight: An informal exposition

This paper considers the notion of cycle avoiding trajectories in majority voting tournaments and shows that they underlie and guide several apparently disparate voting processes. The set of alternatives that are maximal with respect to such trajectories constitutes a new solution set of considerable significance. It may be dubbed the Banks set, in recognition of the important paper by Banks (1985) that first made use of this set. The purpose of this paper is to informally demonstrate that the Banks set is a solution set of broad relevance for understanding group decision making in both cooperative and non-cooperative settings and under both sincere and sophisticated voting. In addition, we show how sincere and sophisticated voting processes can be viewed as mirror images of one another — embodying respectively, “dmemory” and “foresight.” We also show how to develop the idea of a “sophisticated agenda,” one in which the choice of what alternatives to propose is itself a matter of strategic calculation.