Authoritarian Electoral Engineering and its Limits: A Curious Case of the Imperiali Highest Averages Method in Russia

This study examines the limits of electoral engineering in a consolidating authoritarian regime by focusing on the case of the Imperiali highest averages method of proportional seat allocation in Russia's regional legislative elections. The Imperiali method strongly disadvantages the opposition. But, in the absence of political constraint or trends towards liberalisation, most of the regional decision makers still chose a more permissive formula. The trade-off among the incentives to solidify the power monopoly, to maintain the democratic façade of the regime and to co-opt the opposition was achieved by rejecting the least permissive electoral formula and choosing a middle-of-the-road solution instead.     

Hague Case Law: Latest Developments

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Testing problems regarding narcotic substances in hair analysis]

The authors discuss legal, ethic, and technological problems associated with introduction of drug testing by analysis of hair in Russia. There are sufficiently reliable methods of hair analysis, but lack of legal basis and poor equipment of forensic chemical departments impede the introduction and wide use of these methods in Russia. The authors propose certification of the best equipped departments and render them the legal status of regional centers for tests for narcotics and psychotropic agents.     

Forensic evaluation of the QIAshredder/QIAamp DNA extraction procedure

The potential to recover genetic profiles from evidence samples has substantially increased since robust and sensitive amplification kits are commercially available. Nevertheless, even the best amplification kits cannot succeed when the extracted DNA is of poor quality. In this study we compared the efficiency of silica (QIAamp DNA Mini Kit), Chelex and Phenol-Chloroform (PC) based protocols to recover DNA from different categories of samples (blood and saliva on cotton swabs, muscles, cigarette butts, saliva on foods and epidermal cells on clothes). The efficiency of the QIAamp system was improved when samples were treated with QIAshredder homogenizing columns. Overall, conventional Chelex or PC protocols allowed to recover conclusive SGM Plus profiles for 61% of the samples considered in this study. Contrastingly, 82% of them were successfully genotyped after being treated with a combination of QIAshredder and QIAamp systems. Our results further suggested that the QIAshredder/QIAamp protocol was particularly helpful to analyze evidence samples with few DNA and/or that were collected on substrates containing PCR inhibitors.     

Death From Butane Inhalation Abuse in Teenagers: Two New Case Studies and Review of the Literature

The ready availability of butane makes butane abuse frequent. Fatalities are rare. This study presents two cases of death by butane overdose. The postmortem analyses were carried out using headspace gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. It revealed femoral blood butane concentrations of 18 and 22 mg/L, respectively, as well as specific combinations of adjuvants in each victim. In one of the victims, brain and fatty tissue also contained butane, pointing to chronic consumption. The originality of this study is to show that the identification of specific combinations of adjuvants can be helpful for identifying the brand of deodorant used. Also, sampling the skin and mucosa can help identify the method of drug delivery. The histological examination documented both the direct toxic effect of the gas on the respiratory mucosa and signs of chronic abuse. Volatile substance intoxications should be systematically considered in case of sudden death in a teenager.