论税权二元结构及其价值逻辑

目前学界关于税权概念存在着一些争拗,而税收债权论和社会契约论的引入和运用,有助于对税权内涵及其本质的深层解构。显然,税权作为国家税权力与纳税人税权利的统摄,并非仅仅是一种语义上的概括,而是税权力与税权利互为债权债务关系表里的必然,其主体不仅包括行使税权力的国家,还包括授权国家行使税权力的纳税人,而且始终以保障纳税人权利的良好实现为依归。本文试图运用税收债权债务论和社会契约论来分析税权的概念和内涵,澄清税权的外观结构与内在本质,进而揭示宪政语境下税权结构生成的价值逻辑。     

跨WTO体制的规则冲突及其解决路径

越来越多的国际条约包含贸易限制措施,这些贸易限制措施被用来追求各种非贸易目标或价值,比如环境、人权、劳工标准等,这种做法将增加WTO规则与其他国际法规则之间相互冲突的可能性。但是,国际法中还找不到任何明确的方法以确定贸易法与人权法、环境法或海洋法等的关系。不过,WTO规则与其他国际法规则之间跨体制的规则冲突仍可通过协调一致的解释而避免,这是因为WTO的规定中经常使用一般的、广泛的条款,为其解释留下了余地,使WTO裁决机构得以考虑到其他国际义务。在解释WTO的规定时,可采用国际法推定为不冲突的方法避免冲突;在明显可看出一个WTO协定的用语具有演变的意义、带有一些内在弹性时,还可以考虑使用演变解释的方法。     

Police Officer Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam: “Worlds Apart”?

American Muslims may be the most diverse group of Muslims in any country in the world. There are an estimated 5–7 million Muslims in the United States. They represent a number of different nationalities, ethnicities, and interpretations of Islam. Moreover, over the past few years there appears to be an increase in the immigration of Muslims to the United States. Law enforcement agencies are currently concerned with the danger of “homegrown” terrorists and terrorism in the U.S. American Muslims likely represent the best source of information regarding those who have been dangerously radicalized within their various communities. To cull important information from the community, police agencies need to contact and communicate with their Muslim population. The ability to achieve these goals would seem to be shaped by both organizational and individual officer understanding and perception of both Muslims and Islam. Organizations and officers with accurate views would likely find efforts at communication and information exchange more fruitful. The current research seeks to assess the knowledge of and attitudes toward Muslims and Islam among our sample of American police officers. Four general areas will be explored in the survey. First, we examine the respondents’ general understanding of many of the basic tenets of Islam. Next, we wish to explore some of the respondents’ attitudes regarding Muslims and Islam. Third, we explore the respondents’ perception of media treatment of Muslims and Islam. Last, the level of officer contact with Muslims is examined.     

Associations Between Caregiver Support, Bullying, and Depressive Symptomatology Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Girls: Results from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey

Although sexual minority (SM) youth are at an increased risk for being bullied and experiencing depression, it is unclear how caregiver support is interrelated with those variables. Therefore, we sought to assess: (a) the prevalence of nonphysical bullying, depressive symptomatology, and caregiver support among heterosexual and SM girls, (b) the association between caregiver support and bullying in both groups, and (c) whether sexual orientation moderates the interactive effect of caregiver support and bullying on depressive symptoms. Data come from a survey of students in 22 Boston public high schools; 99 of the 832 girls in the analytic sample were SM. We used chi-square statistics to examine group differences, and multiple regression to estimate the association between the caregiver support, sexual orientation, being bullied, and depressive symptomatology. SM girls reported similar levels of caregiver support as heterosexual girls, but reported higher levels of depressive symptomatology. They were also more likely to report nonphysical bullying. Tests for interactions were not statistically significant, suggesting that bullying, caregiver support, and sexual orientation are independently associated with depressive symptomatology.     

Campaign allocations under probabilistic voting

We develop a probabilistic voting model where candidates compete by advertising in different media markets. Ads are viewed by everyone within a market and cannot be targeted to subgroups such as one candidate??s partisans. Candidates estimate the distribution of voter preference intensities in a market, and campaign ads then shift this distribution. Individuals with any intensity vote with some probability for each candidate. We derive comparative static implications of changes in a variety of factors on the advertising decisions of each candidate. Using campaign advertising data from 2002, we find these results to be consistent with actual campaign allocation behavior.     

The law and the sublime: Rethinking the self and its boundaries

Christine Battersby has argued that it is Kant (and not Descartes) who provides the paradigm model of what it is to be a self in modernity. The Kantian self is established in opposition to its other. The body is commonly envisaged as a container, with selfhood as something that is defended against the outside. In contrast, she proposes a feminist reworking of such a model of selfhood, applicable to both men and women, in which the self and other emerge over time through patterns of relationality. This paper introduces Battersby’s work by focusing upon her early analysis of Kantian aesthetics, in particular the sublime. The aim is to draw out some of the legal and political implications of her work, particularly with regard to the common law’s developing conception of privacy. This is carried out by distinguishing her ontological position from the psychology of Carol Gilligan and then by considering the overlapping concerns of Jennifer Nedelsky in the area of legal theory.

The lethal injection quandary: how medicine has dismantled the death penalty

On February 20, 2006, Michael Morales was hours away from execution in California when two anesthesiologists declined to participate in his lethal injection procedure, thereby halting all state executions. The events brought to the surface the long-running schism between law and medicine, raising the question of whether any beneficial connection between the professions ever existed in the execution context. History shows it seldom did. Decades of botched executions prove it. This Article examines how states ended up with such constitutionally vulnerable lethal injection procedures, suggesting that physician participation in executions, though looked upon with disdain, is more prevalent--and perhaps more necessary--than many would like to believe. The Article also reports the results of this author's unique nationwide study of lethal injection protocols and medical participation. The study demonstrates that states have continued to produce grossly inadequate protocols that severely restrict sufficient understanding of how executions are performed and heighten the likelihood of unconstitutionality. The analysis emphasizes in particular the utter lack of medical or scientific testing of lethal injection despite the early and continuous involvement of doctors but ongoing detachment of medical societies. Lastly, the Article discusses the legal developments that led up to the current rush of lethal injection lawsuits as well as the strong and rapid reverberations that followed, particularly with respect to medical involvement. This Article concludes with two recommendations. First, much like what occurred in this country when the first state switched to electrocution, there should be a nationwide study of proper lethal injection protocols. An independent commission consisting of a diverse group of qualified individuals, including medical personnel, should conduct a thorough assessment of lethal injection, especially the extent of physician participation. Second, this Article recommends that states take their execution procedures out of hiding. Such visibility would increase public scrutiny, thereby enhancing the likelihood of constitutional executions. By clarifying the standards used for determining what is constitutional in Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court can then provide the kind of Eighth Amendment guidance states need to conduct humane lethal injections.     

Green Criminology and Dirty Collar Crime

As a contribution to literature drawing together green criminology and studies of organised and corporate crime, this paper provides a case study of crimes and public health harms linked to the Naples garbage disposal crisis. The context is the inability of modern consumer society to cope with the problem of mass production of waste. In turn this leads to opportunities for both legal and criminal entrepreneurs to offer services that promise but fail to ‘dispose’ of the problem. The analysis draws upon environmental law and classic studies of organised crime.     

Religious Relations across the Taiwan Strait: Patterns,Alignments, and Political Effects

This study of Buddhist, Taoist, and Christian relations across the Taiwan Strait elicits three observations: (1) officials on both sides of the Strait are permitting increased cross-Strait religious interaction, but each side has different calculations for doing so; (2) each side uses religion as “soft power” to obtain its political objectives, but these low-key approaches are limited—for different reasons; and (3) even though cross-Strait religious ties are defined by the governments and religious organizations in Taiwan and China in cultural terms, they have significant political implications.     

Protecting the planet: a proposal for a law of ecocide

A wide range of actions imperil the planet and threaten the future of humanity and other species. This essay notes some examples of crimes and harms damaging to the environment and human and non-human species as well as various forms of response that have called for more effective and appropriate models of justice and law than currently prevail. This leads to a discussion of several suggestions regarding the development and expression of an earth jurisprudence and to the history of a proposal that “ecocide” be recognised internationally as a crime. Analysis of documentary sources traces this idea from debates about the concept of genocide to consideration by United Nations officials as to how crimes against the environment might be defined, and shows how near such a proposal has previously come to acceptance and enactment. The article concludes with an argument for supporting a law of ecocide as the 5th Crime against Peace.