Reparation in Cases of Genocide

In the judgement delivered in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia,the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Serbia,with regard to the acts of genocide committed in Srebrenica,had breached the obligation, as set out in Article I of the1948 Genocide Convention, to prevent genocide. However, it alsofound that Bosnia and Herzegovina had no right to monetary compensationand that the mere declaration of Serbia's responsibility fornot preventing the genocide in Srebrenica was in itself appropriatesatisfaction. This article criticizes the decision of the ICJnot to accord monetary compensation, which was based on thelack of a causal nexus between the failure by Serbia to complywith its obligation to prevent genocide and the death of 7000men in Srebrenica. It argues that the Court should have shiftedthe burden of proof and should have required Serbia to showthat even if the institutions of the then Federal Republic ofYugoslavia (FRY) had taken appropriate measures, the BosnianSerbs would nonetheless have completed their criminal plans.Concerning the issue of satisfaction, the article notes thatthe ICJ could have ordered symbolic monetary damages, by takinginto account international practice and the request by the Applicant.In addition, it observes that international tribunals enjoya large measure of discretion in awarding satisfaction and that,in making a determination on the most appropriate form of satisfactionthe genocidal tragedy itself should not have been left aside.In this connection, the ICJ could have found guidance in thecase law of the European Court of Human Rights, which in someinstances has taken into account the degree of pain and sufferingendured by the victims. Finally, with regard to guarantees andassurances of non-repetition, the article notes that these donot constitute a form of reparation, but rather should be consideredas an expression of the obligation to comply with the primaryrule incumbent upon a state in particular situations. The articleagrees with the Court's conclusion that an assessment of theprevailing situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina did not provideany clues to the presence of an actual threat to the physicalintegrity of the Muslim population. However, it contends thatthe reluctance by Serbia to arrest and transfer to the ICTYGeneral Mladi, more than three months after the delivery ofthe judgment of the ICJ and the issuance of a specific orderin this regard, unequivocally demonstrates the strong ties ofsolidarity between the Serbian leadership in Serbia and in theRepublika Srpska. Serbia is making itself an ex post accompliceof genocide, with far-reaching consequences for its envisagedintegration into the European Union.     

Police Interviewing and Interrogation: A Self-Report Survey of Police Practices and Beliefs

By questionnaire, 631 police investigators reported on their interrogation beliefs and practices-the first such survey ever conducted. Overall, participants estimated that they were 77% accurate at truth and lie detection, that 81% of suspects waive Miranda rights, that the mean length of interrogation is 1.6 hours, and that they elicit self-incriminating statements from 68% of suspects, 4.78% from innocents. Overall, 81% felt that interrogations should be recorded. As for self-reported usage of various interrogation tactics, the most common were to physically isolate suspects, identify contradictions in suspects' accounts, establish rapport, confront suspects with evidence of their guilt, and appeal to self-interests. Results were discussed for their consistency with prior research, policy implications, and methodological shortcomings.     

Zubehör-Wohnungseigentum ohne Eintragung ins Hauptbuch?

Zubeh?r-Wohnungseigentum an Hausg?rten, Kellerr?umen oder Lagerfl?chen wird oft nicht eigens im Grundbuch eingetragen, obwohl eine st?ndige, schon zum alten WEG 1975 ergangene Rsp des OGH seine dingliche Wirksamkeit von dieser Verbücherung abh?ngig macht. Der Beitrag versucht, die Begründung zu vertiefen, warum die Rsp eine solche Verbücherung zu Recht verlangt.     

Generational discourse in urban youth images: Private letters and popular literature in the case of Nuremberg's Tucher family around 1550

The history of generations is often researched in the light of ego-documents, including diaries or letters. These sources of communication between young and old require methods of literary criticism, as this article suggests in exemplary cases. Popular (and in some cases popular forms of learned) literature show how stereotypes dominated letters between Nuremberg fathers and sons fom the 16th century. Reading these letters as witnesses of direct emotional expression, as has been done so far, would be problematic on a theoretical level of the concept of autobiography (according the Ricoeur ‘an other’ of the self), but also an empirical level. Letters were cultural artefacts that were considered well-formed only when they met the standards set by the urban youth image. This included a conglomerate of religious discourses, psychological assumption about the nature of emotions, the urban system of values and honour relating to merchant education more specifically. In letters of this intergenerational context, even information could be put into the context of a situational self-representation of the person writing. Writing a letter as an apprentice or a student was not at all confined to convey factual information. Rather than that, writing letters meant to participate in the generation of norms and to act on a meta-level of communication, as well. Negative images of youth were rhetorically implemented in letters to maintain and reaffirm the hierarchy within the family. Letter exchanges secured economic stability of family firms and the subsequent social rise.     

Doubling Down: Inequality in Responsiveness and the Policy Preferences of Elected Officials

Is bias in responsiveness to constituents conditional on the policy preferences of elected officials? The scholarly conventional wisdom is that constituency groups who do not receive policy representation still obtain some level of responsiveness by legislators outside of the policy realm. In contrast, we present a theory of preference‐induced responsiveness bias where constituency responsiveness by legislators is associated with legislator policy preferences. Elected officials who favor laws that could disproportionately impact minority groups are also less likely to engage in nonpolicy responsiveness to minority groups. We conducted a field experiment in 28 US legislative chambers. Legislators were randomly assigned to receive messages from Latino and white constituents. If legislators supported voter identification laws, Latino constituents were less likely to receive constituency communications from their legislators. There are significant implications regarding fairness in the democratic process when elected officials fail to represent disadvantaged constituency groups in both policy and nonpolicy realms.     

Drones over Pakistan: Secrecy,Ethics, and Counterinsurgency

Abstract

The US government appears to be using drones to launch air strikes inside Pakistan. This article details uncertainties regarding the ethical soundness of these strikes and highlights the consequent need for greater official transparency. Available evidence is assessed in the light of traditional ethical requirements that the use of force is beneficial to a legitimate military objective, that it discriminates between combatants and noncombatants, and that it generates harm that is proportional to the expected military benefit. The murky picture that emerges is an inadequate foundation for determining whether US drone strikes in Pakistan constitute a just or an unjust use of force. Arguably, however, the very persistence of doubt on this point undermines international norms on the use of force and the reputation of the United States as a champion thereof. The US government should therefore either refrain from drone strikes or explain publicly how they are beneficial, discriminate, and proportionate.     

City Management in the United States and Norway: A Comparative Analysis of Professional Orientations

This analysis examines the effects of political culture on the nature and practice of professional local government management by comparing the structures, responsibilities, and relationships of city administrative executives in the democratic countries of the United States and Norway. The findings suggest that, despite fundamental differences in societal institutions and settings, American and Norwegian city managers serve similar roles in their respective local government organizations. However, the notable variations in the processes of municipal management identified between the two nations appear to reflect the contextual influence of divergent political foundations on the operational environment of professional public administrators.     

Through the European looking glass: citizenship tests in the USA,Australia, and Canada

Discussing new or recently reformed citizenship tests in the USA, Australia, and Canada, this article asks whether they amount to a restrictive turn of new world citizenship, similar to recent developments in Europe. I argue that elements of a restrictive turn are noticeable in Australia and Canada, but only at the level of political rhetoric, not of law and policy, which remain liberal and inclusive. Much like in Europe, the restrictive turn is tantamount to Muslims and Islam moving to the center of the integration debate.     

Attention to Counter-Attitudinal Messages in a State Election Campaign

Research following the "selective exposure" model has focused on avoidance of political messages with which a person might disagree. But positive attention to such "counter-attitudinal" messages is worthy of study, in part because normative theories of democracy value exposure to information that might disturb citizens' political predispositions. Surveys of youth (N = 417) and parents (N = 430) examine attention to newspaper, television, and Web messages about candidates. While there is somewhat more attention to messages about and for a person's favored political candidate or party, forms of political involvement (knowledge, curiosity, and discussion) that predict this "attitude-consistent" attention also predict counter-attitudinal attention at least as strongly. Parents' education and students' exposure to civics lessons also predict both kinds of attention. These results suggest that attention to counterattitudinal political messages is worthy of further study as an important goal of political socialization and a criterion of citizen performance in democracy.     

Administrative reform in Belgium: Maintenance or modernisation?

This article aims to analyse, classify and explain similarities and differences in administrative reform in four separate Belgian administrations along four internationally observed trends in administrative reform: organisation, personnel, strategy, and finance. Comparatively, Flanders can be classified as an early moderniser, followed by the federal government, which had been locked longer in a trajectory of maintenance. The French-speaking governments of the Walloon Region and French Community are late modernisers, and compared to both the Flemish and federal government their reform efforts are more fragmented and incremental. The main factors explaining variations in administrative reform in Belgium are differences in institutional continuity, policy entrepreneurship and policy diffusion, all three of which combined to support administrative reform efforts at the Flemish and, slightly less so, at the federal levels, and were markedly absent in the French-speaking governments. Aggregated indicators of differences in political culture do not convincingly explain differences in public sector reform, but the degree of partisan control over the administration, as a meso dimension of politico-administrative culture, impacts on the French-speaking governments' resistance against certain types of organisational and human resources management reforms.