The legal geographies of transnational cyber-prosecutions: extradition,human rights and forum shifting

This article describes legal and human rights issues in three cases of transnational online offending involving extradition requests by the United States (US). These cases were selected as all suspects claimed the negative impacts of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were sufficient to deny extradition on human rights grounds. We demonstrate how recent developments in UK and Irish extradition law raise human rights and prosecutorial challenges specific to online offending that are not met by established protections under domestic and internationally sanctioned approaches to extradition or human rights law. In these cases, although the allegedly unlawful conduct occurred exclusively online and concurrent jurisdiction enables prosecution at both the source and location of harm, we demonstrate why national courts hearing extradition challenges are extremely reluctant to shift the trial forum. We conclude by discussing the implications of the new geographies of online offending for future criminological research and transnational criminal justice.     

In comparison: a study of the competence of nurses and physicians in primary care practice

This study reports the competence of nurses and physicians in primary care setting. Analysis of their diagnostic and treatment practice revealed significant agreement with a consultant family physician's and a general practitioner's (GP) prescribing and treatment status. The consultant's opinion was used as a golden reference. Analyzing the data using KAPPA Statistic (K), indicated the presence of an excellent reproducibility for one nurse and good reproducibility for the other nurses. After analyzing the data according to disease category, none of the nurses were found to miss any life threatening conditions. Most of the disagreements with the GP and the consultant in diagnosis and treatment were in mild health problems. Nurse practitioners (NP) are competent to practice in refugee camps without risking patients' lives. These findings are similar to other studies and suggest that letting NP's participate actively in patient management may be an enabling factor that supports their practice in medically under-served locations.     

The contribution of Tamara Hareven to the understanding of carework

Tamara Hareven was widely recognized for her contribution to the study of the family in the context of economic activity, but she was also a pioneer in developing an understanding of carework, the unpaid work that families, usually women, do for the young, and the dependent elderly. This article reviews her insights from interviews in Manchester and in Kyoto, where she examined family strategies for combining paid work and carework among working class families. She described how women integrated child care and economic activity in the decades when women were expected to be at home and out of the labour force. The Manchester interviews also revealed the role of the adult child providing care for the elderly parent and how this role changed rapidly between early and later cohorts of adult children born in the early 20th century. From this she developed her insights on the importance of the historical context for understanding how transitions to parent care differed for different cohorts. In the early 21st century, carework has become integral to the study of the family and of women's roles in the family. Tamara Hareven's work provides early insights as to how these issues were managed in the context of more traditional family roles in the early 20th century.     

The Paradox of the Politically-Sophisticated Partisan: The French Case

The erosion of partisan ties observed in many advanced industrialised democracies has been attributed to a cluster of factors associated with societal modernisation. This article considers the impact of one of these explanatory factors, the political sophistication of the electorate, in the case of France. Specifically, it tests the proposition that a more highly-educated and better-informed electorate will be less partisan. Its findings challenge a number of the assumptions behind the ‘independent’ voter thesis. The evidence points to the fact that it is lower rather than higher cognitive mobilisation that is associated with apartisanship. More politically-sophisticated voters, young and old alike, tend to have stronger party attachment and to rely on this rather than on complex evaluations of issues and policy to guide their voting decision.     

The world bank,health policy reforms and the poor

Over the years, since the mid-1990s, World Bank-prescribed health policy reforms have successfully introduced market-based private-managed healthcare model in the developing world. This article presents a portrait of the private healthcare model, explores the factors that facilitated the introduction of this model in developing countries and examines the impact of the model on the health rights and health conditions of the poor. It argues that health reforms designed to promote private-managed care in developing countries affect the poor severely and violate their basic health rights, the rights to stay disease-free and lead a healthy life. A host of factors produced by the private-managed care model, most notably reduced social spending on public health, dismantling of public health systems and the ever expansionary grip of private sector health services have effectively diminished the health rights of the poor.     

Interests over norms in western policy towards the Caucasus: How Abkhazia is no one's Kosovo

The potentially numerous cases of ‘genocide’ around the world can now invoke the precedent of NATO's use of military force for humanitarian purposes against Serbia in spring 1999. Such a claim was suggested by Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze over Georgia's disputed former autonomous republic of Abkhazia. The conflict over this former ‘Soviet Riviera’ again demonstrates the constraints behind gaining accurate information on the causes and consequences of a conflict. Particularly, it illustrates the difficulty of determining what constitutes ‘genocide’ and against whom, as both the Abkhaz and the displaced Georgians make such claims. On that basis, each party can expect ‐ and equally fear ‐ a NATO‐style military intervention. In the event, even if both sides view themselves as victims of ‘genocide’ and entitled to such intervention, Western perceptions of strategic interests in the Caucasus prevent this scenario. The determination of injustices, quite apart from their redress, goes unanswered.     

Suicide Terrorism in Iraq: A Preliminary Assessment of the Quantitative Data and Documentary Evidence

This preliminary assessment of suicide terrorism in Iraq sheds light on why some groups in the insurgency employ suicide attacks although others do not. The unequal utilization of suicide bombings corresponds to divergent strategies in the insurgency. Some groups fight to achieve system reintegration, whereas others send suicide bombers to collapse the emerging political order. Quantitative data and documentary evidence substantiate the finding that suicide terrorism is carried out by groups that cannot compete in any future political and institutional alignments in Iraq's new coalition politics. Suicide terrorism is intended to produce system collapse, sectarian warfare, and a failed state.     

The Pure Theory of Law and the Fragile New Democracies of the Developing World

Political and socio‐economic distress invariably accompanies democratic orders in Nigeria. Usually, the people turn to the military, justifying this by reference to a whimsically transferable peoples’ will as Grundnorm (a basic norm, order or rule that forms an underlying basis for the legal system). However, though ‘We the People’ is contained in the Preamble, it is dangerous to so situate the Grundnorm in the will of the people other than that will expressed by them in the Constitution. That said, the Grundnorm is still, for juristic and jurisprudential reasons, to be found in the Preamble.

For new democracies, the Nigerian example illustrates how not to employ the Grundnorm theory if democracy is to survive.