“Between Two Communities So Diverse”: Confrontation and Collaboration in Cuba, 1898–1902

In 1898, the United States government took possession of Cuba. Rather than annexation, the William McKinley Administration chose to create a new nation-state. Cuba’s fate therefore was unlike that of the Philippines, waiting until after the Second World War for independence. It leads to a question: when it came to Cuba, why the choice of creating a nation rather than annexation? The short answer is that the Cubans would have resisted annexation by force. The longer—and more interesting—answer is that annexation became unnecessary: Over time, Cuba’s nationalist elite proved willing to co-operate with American interests, and McKinley’s Administration left Cuba in nationalist hands, provided those hands were bound by the Platt Amendment. Historians have argued that Cuban nationalists co-operated because of coercion. Whilst true, Cuba’s nationalists also saw value in a relationship with the United States. Therefore, Cuba’s new leaders resisted American demands in ways not only to preserve the good opinion of Washington, but to prove themselves capable of civilised self-government.     

The software patent debate

Legal context. This article has practical application for thoseworking in the patent field, particularly with regards to thefiling of software patent applications. Key points. The article provides a detailed explanation of thestate of the art with regards to the legal protection of software,and describes the latest legal developments in the area, includingthe failed Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions andsome recent cases that may shed more light on some of the technicalissues involved in the area of software. The paper also exploressome of the arguments put forward by those in favour and opposedto software patents, in order to ascertain their validity. Practical significance. Existing case law may provide help tosolve the problem of patentability, but it might also be a goodidea to resurrect the idea that there should be a sui-generissoftware right.     

From Suicide and Strain to Mass Murder

Mass media explanations and criminological profiles of mass shootings focus on the perpetrator’s individual psychological traits in their search for motive and meaning behind such horrific events. We consider the broader social context to better understand mass shootings. We focus on three recent high profile mass shootings in the United States – Aurora, CO, Newtown, CT, and Santa Barbara, CA as examples of people responding to various experienced strains with violence, and conclude with some ideas to help prevent such occurrences from happening again.     

Undocumented consciousness: Citizenship and illegality in the lives of US citizen youth

This paper examines the impact of immigration law on US citizens' understanding of legal status categories. Prior research on legal consciousness has uncovered the ways in which undocumented persons make sense of and navigate their legal position in society. Less is known, however, about the paradox of US citizen children who are legally protected by their citizenship yet grow up in the context of their parents' precarious immigration statuses. Drawing on interviews with US citizen youth and undocumented parents, I conceptualize the phenomenon of undocumented consciousness to explain how US citizens make sense of parental legal status vulnerability. By witnessing their parents' blocked opportunities from work, travel, and other aspects of life, youth begin to attach meaning to citizenship and its protections, all the while forming an understanding of what it means, practically, to live in the United States with and without legal status. Findings reveal the mechanisms by which it is possible for functions of immigration law to have adverse impacts on the lives of US citizens themselves.     

DIFFERENT EXPRESSIONS OF THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE IN THE SPANISH CRIMINAL PROSECUTION

The postulates of what is known as Therapeutic Jurisprudence seek to guide to a more humane, reinvigorating and resocializingjustice, and in the Spanish Legal System we can find different manifestations of itself. This paper aims to examine some of the manifestations of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Spanish criminal prosecution： adults and minors criminal mediation, the plea bargaining of the criminal offender and the attenuated pre-trial custody.     

Ignorance Is Bias: The Effect of Latino Losers on Models of Latino Representation

Nearly every aggregate study of minority legislative representation has observed outcomes of elections (officeholders), rather than the supply of minority candidates. Because of this, scholars have left a large amount of important data, the election losers, out of their models of minority representation. The evidence presented in this article demonstrates that voters in the United States cannot choose minority officeholders because there are rarely minority candidates on the ballot. I use state legislative candidate data from Carsey et al. ( 2008 ) and Klarner et al. ( 2012 ) to test models of Latino representation that correct for first‐stage selection bias. Once candidate self‐selection is taken into account, the probability of electing a Latino increases enormously. I then use data from 2010 to make out‐of‐sample predictions, which clearly favor the conditional model. Thus, our current understanding of Latino representation is significantly biased by ignoring the first stage of an election, a candidate's decision to run.     

Personality disorder and violence in the national household population of Britain

Background: Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is strongly associated with violence but the effects of other personality disorder (PD) categories are uncertain. Purpose: To investigate associations between 10 DSM-IV PD categories and effects of co-occurring disorders on self-reported violence. Method: Cross-sectional survey of 8397 adults aged 16–74 years in households in Great Britain. Results: ASPD contributed strongly to the burden of violence in the British population. Paranoid and obsessive–compulsive PD made additional independent contributions, and narcissistic PD contributed to intimate partner violence. The prevalence of violence correlated with the number of PD categories. Comorbid alcohol dependence further increased the risk. Conclusions: Risk of violence increases with increasing severity of PD, measured by the number of PD categories, and with co-occurring alcohol dependence. Not all PD categories are associated with violence, and avoidant PD was protective. Identification of targets for future interventions may be obscured using a classification based solely on severity.     

An Improved Protection for the (Mentally Ill) Trans Parent: A Queer Reading of AP,Garçon and Nicot v France

The European Court of Human Rights has been deciding cases concerning LGBT rights since the early 1980s. Its case law on trans rights has changed drastically over time, imposing upon the states of the Council of Europe certain minimum standards regarding the legal recognition of gender identity. In its recent judgment of April 2017 the Court laid down a new rule to be adopted by domestic legislation; namely, that the legal recognition of gender transition cannot be made conditional upon pursuing medical or surgical procedures which have (or are likely to have) sterilising effects. This article analyses the judgment from a critical perspective grounded in queer theory, noting both the positive and the negative elements of the Court's decision.