刑罚轻缓、人权保障与《刑法修正案(八)》——以相关国际公约为蓝本的分析

对照《公民权利与政治权利公约》分析,《刑法修正案(八)》在死刑改革方面的进步值得肯定,但与公约要求的、逐步限制死刑适用以最终废除死刑的目标仍有距离;参照《北京规则》、《美洲人权公约》等分析,新修正案对未成年人、老年人犯罪适用刑罚增加了从宽处理的规定,实现了对弱者的人权保障,但该修正案在建立未成年人及成年人前科消灭制度等方面仍有不足;比照《东京规则》等国际公约分析,其以社区矫正入刑化为代表的非监禁刑之完善,体现了我国对国际公约相关要求的积极回应。     

Black gathering: “The weight of being” in Leonardo Drew’s sculpture

The collector, according to Walter Benjamin and Charles Baudelaire, is the figure who treads the edge of day, roaming the margins of Enlightened society in search of its tossed-aside forms. Into this wasteland of rejected and disavowed life, the collector ambles as if in a dream. In her dream, disavowed living moves into a “better” world, one that lingers safely past the suffocating ether of tired taxonomies. Sculptor Leonardo Drew is a collector that creates and remakes in this spirit. Leonardo Drew purposely weathers objects – wood planks, fabric, cotton, animal carcasses, feathers, and other items – and makes abstract sculpture. By wearing down the object in the process of making something new, Drew intervenes into histories of racial and sexual subjection; histories that have made people into useable objects. Through his reassemblage of the rejectable, Drew imagines another world on the side of this one – a domain of living disaggregated from use and retethered to justice.     

‘Centre-left’ regimes in Latin America: History repeating itself as farce?

Examined here is the phenomenon of the‘centre-left’ regime that has emerged recently in Latin America, and the reasons why such palpably neo-liberal governments attract the uncritical support of leftist intellectuals worldwide. The‘centre-left’ governments of Lula in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentina, Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Toledo in Peru, and Gutierrez in Ecuador are measured against a set of criteria designating espousal of leftist politics, a test failed by them all. It is argued here that, in order to develop authentically leftist views about future patterns of agrarian policy and transformation, and to support these once developed, it is necessary first to sweep away the rhetoric that these days is taken for‘leftist’ views.     

寻求韩国预防大国在东北亚冲突中的作用

随着中国在地区事务中的作用与责任与日俱增,中国在解决地区安全、贸易及环境问题等方面的合作日益至关重要。美国总统奥巴马曾说,美中关系是美国在国际事务中最重要的关系。但东北亚地区有许多问题会经常引发中美两国产生争议和冲突。本文将论证朝鲜半岛问题本身对这种中美合作关系的负面影响。天安舰事件证明了中美两国合作关系的脆弱性;包括核问题在内旷日持久的＂朝鲜问题＂影响中美关系。美国和中国在如何看待与解决朝鲜问题方面存在分歧。特别是在过去两年内,两个大国之间的分歧已经扩大。因此,本文最后将论述韩国对改善美中关系的作用。为避免冷战格局重现,韩国在朝鲜半岛及东北亚地区应该能够发挥更大的作用。