The Freedom of Expression in Global Perspective

This paper presents recent events including the Danish cartoon crisis occasion—a re-examination of John Stuart Mill’s argument for freedom of expression. Despite the appeal of liberalism, Mill’s philosophy had from the start been subject to intense criticism. The rise of political Islam opens a new phase in the debate; the difficulties pointed out by Mill’s critics are indicative of the obstacles that liberalism still faces.

The EU offensive against IP offences: should right-holders be offended?

Preliminary comments by interested parties on the draft EuropeanDirective on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcementof intellectual property rights and the corresponding FrameworkDecision were made at a public hearing in the European Parliamenton 22 November 2005. At this hearing it became apparent thatconsensus on the proposed measures will be hard to reach, asright-holders and their lobby groups seem surprisingly reticentwith regard to the proposed harmonization. This article summarizesthe draft proposal and comments on some of the most relevantobservations made at the hearing.     

Forensic typing of autosomal SNPs with a 29 SNP-multiplex—Results of a collaborative EDNAP exercise

We report the results of an inter-laboratory exercise on typing of autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) for forensic genetic investigations in crime cases. The European DNA Profiling Group (EDNAP), a working group under the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG), organised the exercise. A total of 11 European and one US forensic genetic laboratories tested a subset of a 52 SNP-multiplex PCR kit developed by the SNPforID consortium. The 52 SNP-multiplex kit amplifies 52 DNA fragments with 52 autosomal SNP loci in one multiplex PCR. The 52 SNPs are detected in two separate single base extension (SBE) multiplex reactions with 29 and 23 SNPs, respectively, using SNaPshot kit, capillary electrophoresis and multicolour fluorescence detection. For practical reasons, only the 29 SBE multiplex reaction was carried out by the participating laboratories. A total of 11 bloodstains on FTA cards including a sample of poor quality and a negative control were sent to the laboratories together with the essential reagents for the initial multiplex PCR and the multiplex SBE reaction. The total SNP locus dropout rate was 2.8% and more than 50% of the dropouts were observed with the poor quality sample. The overall rate of discrepant SNP allele assignments was 2.0%. Two laboratories reported 60% of all the discrepancies. Two laboratories reported all 29 SNP alleles in all 10 positive samples correctly. The results of the collaborative exercise were surprisingly good and demonstrate that SNP typing with SBE, capillary electrophoresis and multicolour detection methods can be developed for forensic genetics.     

Secrets and Lies: The Queen's Proctor and Judicial Investigation of Party Controlled Narratives

Driven by the fear of collusion in the new divorce court, in 1860 Parliament authorized the Queen's Proctor to intervene in divorce suits by rooting out information that the parties left undisclosed. This paper explores the activities of the Queen's Proctor in its first quarter century, revealing both the curious genealogy of community participation in the Queen's Proctor's efforts and the struggle over the definition of collusion. Over time, economic and evidentiary concerns prompted the Queen's Proctor to turn from uncovering collusion to producing evidence of adultery. The Queen's Proctor represents a striking attempt by courts to assess the validity of party-controlled narratives, resulting in surprising practical consequences. Evaluation of narratives quickly devolved into a bright-line test focusing on adultery, with judges following the Queen's Proctor's lead and eschewing discretion.     

Decentralization: Conceptualization and measurement

Decentralized government institutions are doing more of the work of government than ever before, but there is little agreement about 1) what decentralization means, or 2) how it should be measured. To overcome this confusion, this article builds on standard definitions of decentralization that include three core dimensions: fiscal, administrative, and political. The article offers an empirical test of that definition using factor analysis of data from 1996 for sixty-eight countries. Factor analysis confirms these three core dimensions and generates a score for each case in each dimension, allowing countries to be measured according to their type and degree of decentralization. In future work, these scores can be used for hypothesis testing about the causes and effects of decentralization on important social outcomes. This exercise demonstrates that conceptual confusion need not hamper research when empirical tests can help verify conceptual categories. Aaron Schneider is a political scientist at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. His research interests include comparative politics, public finance, and methodology. His current research projects include studies of federalism, decentralization, party systems, budgeting, and taxation. He has conducted research in Brazil and India, and plans to apply the measures derived in this article to study the impact of decentralization. Tel:+44 (0)1273 678270; fax: +44 (0)1273 621202; email: a.schneider@ids.ac.uk. For valuable comments and suggestions, the author would like to thank Mick Moore, Arnab Acharya, Marcus Kurtz, Benjamin Goldfrank, and anonymous reviewers from Studies in Comparative International Development. Financial support was provided by the Department for International Development. All errors or omissions are the author’s own.     

日本与联邦德国的犯罪及其控制

<正> 一、比较犯罪学的理论与方法直到不久前,犯罪学仍然是注重犯罪人。犯罪行为的最初原因是从犯罪人反常的个性中看出的。由此人们认为,可以把罪犯安置在改造场所,通过运用教育和治疗的方法来消灭犯罪行为。今天,这种关于犯罪原因和刑事政策的认识仍然受到支持。虽然如果没有犯罪人就没有犯罪学,也没有刑事政策,但是犯罪人不是犯罪原因及其控制所应考虑的唯一因素。应该考虑的因素还包括受害人和社会环境这两个因素,它们各自都对犯罪的发展发生不同的作用,因此它们必须参加对犯罪的控制。犯罪是在社会完善和个人的学习过程中发展起来的,它也只能在这个过程中被消灭。     

A European Public Choice perspective

Invited lecture in honor of Gordon Tullock at the meeting of The Public Choice Society in New Orleans, 15–17 March 1991.