Bellamy on Dirty Hands and Lesser Evils: A Response

This article offers a response to Alex Bellamy's article 'Dirty Hands and Lesser Evils in the War on Terror'. It outlines deep errors in his claims about 'dirty hands' and 'lesser evils'. Essentially, these errors result from his failure to grapple with the complexity of dirty hands theory, coupled with his uncritical acceptance that dirty hands scenarios are essentially defined as a clash between a public and private morality. Furthermore, we argue that Bellamy's distinction between 'dirty hands' and 'lesser evils' is a spurious one since all dirty hands cases require a choice between lesser evils. In addition, we reject his claim that dirty hands makes no political sense. For illustrative purposes, we then briefly examine one problematic philosophical issue which needs attention if the notion of dirty hands is to be taken seriously. Finally, we demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of dirty hands by applying it to the issue of torture in the so-called 'war on terror'.     

试论竞争法上的竞争维持与成本效益原则

本文是笔者在通过对亚太经济合作组织（ＡＰＥＣ）成员经济体的竞争政策、法律进行研究后写成的、文章共分五个部分，分别对竞争维持与成本效益原则的一般概况及运用等情况作了介绍和分析，     

A Search for Truth: A Critical Analysis of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

In Liberia, much debate has surrounded the truth and reconciliation commission both in the challenges that it faced during its operational stage as well as in the issues surrounding the release and content of its report. This article will critically examine the establishment, proceedings, and findings of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to draw conclusions regarding what lessons can be learned, what could have been done to make the commission more effective, and how we can learn from this example in applying transitional justice mechanisms for future African conflicts.     

The Political Consequences of Self-Insurance: Evidence from Central-Eastern Europe,the Caucasus and Central Asia

Political Behavior - Does self-insurance, such as access to savings or assets, affect support for government? While existing research recognizes that households’ ability to privately manage...     

The paradox of collective action: Linking interest aggregation and interest articulation in EU legislative lobbying

Olson's logic of collective action predicts that business interest associations face fewer collective action problems than citizen action groups. This article challenges this assumption by arguing that forming an organization comes with different collective action problems than voicing a joint policy position. This leads us to examine an important paradox: Citizen groups face challenges in establishing themselves as organizations but find it relatively easy to position themselves on policy issues, whereas the reverse is true for business associations. We study this paradox empirically based on interviews with spokespersons of interest organizations active in the European Union and find support for our hypotheses. Our findings demonstrate that citizen groups position themselves on policy issues more easily than business interests and that this competitive advantage is amplified when policy issues attract the attention of the media.