Sovereignty in the South China sea

Abstract

In January 1974, when fighting broke out between Saigon forces and Chinese in the oil-promising South China Sea, the American establishment news media tended to assume that the Chinese, being communists, must have been the aggressors. Those reporters who were quickly able to attune themselves to the official State Department line, however, refrained from making any judgment regarding the merits of the controversy. And well they might have, for the assertions of America's client regime regarding the various archipelagoes are at best dubious. Official U.S. Government maps designate the islets by their Chinese (not Vietnamese) names, and neither Hanoi nor the Provisional Revolutionary Government has stated any claims in the region.     

China and the International Human Rights Covenants

ABSTRACT

In 1966 the UN passed two International Human Rights Covenants that are among the great achievements of humankind. The covenants were adopted in five equally binding languages, one of which was Chinese. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is generally assumed to have ratified one and signed (but not ratified) the other. In 1973, however, soon after the PRC began representing China in the UN, new Chinese-language versions of each mysteriously came into existence. These are the versions one is likely to find on the UN website, and they are what the Chinese government treats as the “covenants.” The authors of this article show that these contain substantial revisions from the covenants that had been passed by the UN 1966 and subsequently ratified by at least 164 countries. The revised versions are so different, in fact, that one could well question whether the PRC actually embraced either covenant. The covenants granted rights that the revisions would later withdraw, and in at least one case the revisions recognize a right that is absent in the covenants. Based on their comparative analysis of the various versions, the question arises as to whether China is a responsible actor in the international legal order and a reliable partner when it comes to entering into agreements with other countries or acceding to international treaties. Given that China comprises over one-fifth of humanity, it also brings into question whether the principles in the covenants can claim absolute validity and anything like universal acceptance.     

Managing the contract: A transaction cost analysis of externalisation

This paper examines the externalisation of the London Borough of Ealing's Technical Services Group between 1994 and 1999, the first local government Technical Services function to be externalised as a whole. The case is discussed in the light of transaction cost theory from economics. The study illustrates the difficulties that arise under local authority competitive tendering where the parties enter into an incomplete contract and rely on mutual goodwill to adjust the contract terms later. The study confirms that transaction costs can be pervasive in local government contracting.     

The war on cartels and the social meaning of deterrence

The global war on cartels has had much success in introducing tough sanctions for cartel conduct, such as price fixing and market sharing. The policy rhetoric justifying criminalization assumes that compliance can be induced through deterrence. This, in turn, assumes that business people know about the law, believe that they are likely to be caught and face enforcement action and jail if they break the law, and calculate that they should comply. This paper problematizes these policy assumptions using evidence from a survey of a random sample of Australian business people and in‐depth interviews with 25 cartelists. This paper argues that business people's knowledge about the law is less important than their relationship with (or distance from) the law. Corporate elites see themselves as intimate with the law and, therefore, able to strategically “play” the law; while small business people and managers lower down the corporate hierarchy see themselves as “innocent” of any knowledge of the law. The impact of a policy of increased sanctions for misconduct cannot be understood solely in terms of marginal difference in aggregate levels of deterrence. It must also be understood in terms of how it interacts with people's experience of the law to create and maintain or contest and destabilize social segmentation and inequality.     

Irrationality, evidence-based medicine and the standard of care

The determination of the legal standard of care in Australia for medical diagnosis and treatment has gone through three apparent phases in modern times: the Bolam era, the post-Rogers v Whitaker era, and the current Civil Liability Acts era. It is conventionally accepted that the two shifts linking these phases were a jettisoning of the Bolam principle in Rogers and a return to a modified Bolam principle in the Civil Liability legislation, with the post-Rogers interregnum being a time of a court-imposed standard. This story is somewhat inaccurate. The Bolam test relied more on practice accepted at the time as proper by a responsible body of medical opinion rather than the practice of a "responsible body of medical men". The ability of post-Rogers courts to override medical evidence was more a rhetorical power than an actual one. And the irrationality condition, which reserves the right to override medical opinion under the Civil Liability Acts, is more dependent on sound evidence than the terminology might suggest. It is not so much that the legal standard of care has changed in dramatic ways as that the content of competent professional opinion has evolved as medical research and practice have developed. There is greater continuity than is usually granted, throughout the three phases, of the standard's reliance on current best evidence and opinion. This is more easily seen with the advent of evidence-based medicine.     

Graduate education in Canadian public administration: antecedents,present trends and portents

Abstract. Education in Canadian public administration has undergone some significant changes in the past decade. One of these changes with profound educational implications is the relationship between political science and public administration. The authors examine the nature and extent of this relationship by first discussing the intellectual origins of modern Canadian public administration. This is done by reviewing important aspects of the American wing of the field, pointing out divergences from, as well as contributions to, the Canadian experience. Then Canadian public administration's potential in the political economy tradition is discussed, contrasting the field's early development with the malaise it experienced in the 1960s. Reasons for the field's revival are given, the new programs in Canadian public administration are analysed, and the conditions which have created institutional independence for public administration are critically discussed in light of the uneasiness created in political science by this institutionalization. The authors conclude by arguing that although separation has opened some wounds in field and discipline this institutionalization would, in the long run, leave the study of government and public affairs in both political science and public administration considerably strengthened. Sommaire. L'enseignement de l'administration publique canadienne a subi des modifications importantes au cours des dix dernières années. L'un de ces changements qui a des implications éducatives profondes est le rapport entre le science politique et l'administration publique. Les auteurs examinent la nature et la portée de ce rapport en considérant tout d'abord les origines intellectuelles de l'administration publique contemporaine au Canada. Ils le font en étudiant les aspects importants de l'école américaine de cette discipline et en dégagent ce qui la distingue de l'expérience canadienne ainsi que ce qu'elle a apportéà celle-ci. Ils envisagent le potentiel de l'administration publique canadienne dans la perspective de l'économie politique traditionnelle en opposant ses premiers développements au malaise ressenti pendant les années 60. Ils donnent les raisons du renouveau qui se manifesto dans ce domaine, analysent les nouvelles causes de l'indépendance institutionnelle de l'administration publique à la lumière du malaise créé en science politique par cette institutionalisation. Les auteurs concluent en declarant que bien que la séparation ait été responsable de heurts à la fois théoriques et pratiques, elle renforcera considérablement, à la longue, l'étude du gouvemement et des affaires publiques en science politique comme en administration publique.     

Governing Genetic Databases: Challenges Facing Research Regulation and Practice

This paper reports on the initial findings of an interdisciplinary research project on the governance of human genetic databases in England and Wales. The number of biosample and information collections has expanded, yet considerable legal uncertainty surrounds their definition, collection, storage, management, and use which could inhibit research and clinical practice, while failing to protect the rights and interests of all stakeholders. We report some initial findings from the legal research and identify major challenges associated with defining 'genetic databases'. We identify a wide range of relevant instruments and regulatory actors, and suggest that none adequately addresses the challenges posed by contemporary research techniques or the'corporeal'and'informational'materials used in the genetic databases context. This preliminary analysis seriously questions the efficacy of the current regulatory framework and concludes that developing an appropriate governance framework for the creation, maintenance, and use of genetic databases requires the bringing together of legal analysis with good quality empirical evidence.