Regulating forced labour and combating human trafficking: the relevance of historical definitions in a contemporary perspective

Forced labour has been regulated since 1930 on the basis of the ILO Convention on Forced Labour, and since 1957 on the basis of the ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention. In 2000 forced labour was included as one form of exploitation covered by the UN Trafficking Protocol, which situated trafficking into a context of transnational organised crime. In 2014 the ILO adopted a Protocol on Forced Labour, making a link between trafficking and forced labour. The aim of this article is to explore how forced labour came to be regulated and defined in these four treaties. The 1930 ILO Convention came about in a specific historical and political context, yet the 1930 definition remains in use even though the interpretation of forced labour, particularly as it relates to trafficking, has changed. This article focuses on the issue of trafficking for the purpose of forced labour within the context of migration and labour exploitation, and discusses the relevance of historical definitions of forced labour in the current discourse that sees human trafficking mainly as a security threat. It argues that a rigid interpretation of forced labour is not always useful in understanding forms of labour exploitation, at least in a contemporary European migratory perspective. The article calls for a broad interpretation of forced labour, which takes into account also subtle forms of control and coercion.     

Judging the Best Interests of the Child: Judges' Accounts of the Tender Years Doctrine

With dramatic changes in family life over the last several decades, child custody law has shifted from a maternal preference to a more egalitarian standard, the best interests of the child. Despite this change in the law, scholars have debated whether gender continues to play a role in the resolution of custody disputes. Drawing on feminist legal scholarship and sociolegal research on judges, I assess the current debates over gender and custody by examining the accounts of judges who frequently adjudicate custody cases. I conduct in-depth, face-to-face interviews with twenty-five trial court judges in Indiana and investigate judges' accounts about whether they continue to use the tender years doctrine in custody disputes, even though the custody statute is explicitly gender-neutral. Then, I assess several competing explanations of the variation across judges' accounts, including the judges' gender role attitudes, gender, age, and political party affiliation. In exploratory analyses, I also examine the contested custody rulings of a subset of nine judges to assess whether judges' accounts are congruent with their actual custody decisions. I discuss the implications of these findings in light of feminist legal scholarship as well as empirical research on child custody adjudication.     

Writing las dissertations,part one: the rationale for an experimential research project

This article describes the impetus for a research project conducted during 2002–2003 into our law students' experiences of undertaking a dissertation module. It also discusses the rationale for the particular methodology and approach we have used to conduct this research, and presents the results. A driving force behind this research project was not only the desire to obtain knowledge for its own sake but also the need to identify and enhance positive aspects of students' experience of this module. We decided to adopt a student led and experiential method of carrying out our research that focuses directly upon the students' lived-experience of engaging in dissertation writing. The rationale for this decision was our acknowledgement that, within the last decade, students are increasingly defining themselves as consumers of educational services and have a legitimate and indeed pivotal role in quality assurance strategies. We also recognised that adopting an experiential method of inquiry, informed by a phenomenological approach, should, in principle, help to empower students by acknowledging their autonomy and encouraging them to engage in critical reflection. Finally, applying this methodology would provide us with precisely the subjectively rich type of research data derived from the students' lived-experience that we sought. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

L?rmbeurteilung von Kinderspielpl?tzen

Keine Zusammenfassung     

Wiederherstellung eines besonders geschützten Biotops

Keine Zusammenfassung     

Group-specific component imaging from trace material using isoelectric focussing and electroblotting

GC-subtyping was carried out on blood stains, that had been made on glass and stored under room temperature-conditions. Using isoelectric focusing in polyacrylamide gel, followed by transfer to nitrocellulose membrane by semi-dry-electroblotting and detection with enzyme-linked antibody complex the GC-detection was possible even after 64 days. Methodical problems are discussed.     

Liberty, Protection, and Women's Work: Investigating the Boundaries between Public and Private

During the Progressive Era, the U. S. state and federal courts considered constitutional challenges to protective labor legislation. While courts often struck down generalized protective legislation, they frequently upheld such legislation for women. I explore the reasoning in the cases decided between 1897 and 1923, showing that the courts developed understandings of liberty for women that differed from those for men. In opposition to traditional separate spheres reasoning, I show that the courts viewed men's exercise of liberty as depending on their private capacities to be free, while women's labor was subject to public control due to state interest in their reproductive capacities. I suggest that constitutional theorists who are studying substantive due process should place more emphasis on courts'conceptions of the subjects of due process guarantees rather than considering solely the challenged statutes'restriction of liberty. I develop a dynamic and complex understanding of liberty to capture this aspect of the relationship between constitutional theory and gender.