From the rule of law to the rule of rules: technocracy and the crisis of EU governance

This article focuses on two trends emerging through the eurozone crisis, both of which diminish the quality of democracy in the EU and its member states. Firstly, the crisis has led to an increased reliance on non-majoritarian institutions, such as the ECB, at the expense of democratic accountability. Secondly, the crisis has led to a new emphasis on coercive enforcement at the expense of the voluntary cooperation that previously characterised (and sustained) the EU as a community of law. Thus, the ECB’s (over-)empowerment is a synecdoche of a wider problem: The EU’s tendency to resort to technocratic governance in the face of challenges that require political contestation. In the absence of opportunities for democratic contestation, EU emergency governance – Integration through Crisis – oscillates between moments of heightened politicisation, in which ad hoc decisions are justified as necessary, and the (sometimes coercive) appeal to the depoliticised rule of rules.     

The European Union-Turkey Controversy over Cyprus or a Tale of Two Treaty Declarations

When the European Council in 2004 decided to open accessionnegotiations with Turkey, it linked Turkey's accession processwith the Cyprus problem and made the signature of an AdditionalProtocol to the EC-Turkey Customs Union Agreement extendingthis Agreement to the ten new Member States of the Union, includingthe Republic of Cyprus, a precondition for the start of accessionnegotiations. Not having been recognizing the Republic of Cyprussince 1963, Turkey had to avoid everything that could be interpretedas a recognition of the Republic of Cyprus when concluding theAdditional Protocol. This led Turkey in September 2005 to makea "Declaration on Cyprus" when signing the Protocol which, inturn, triggered a counter declaration by the European Communityand its Member States. The two declarations do not qualify asreservations but are general statements of policy or, at best,interpretative declarations that do not have any effect on thesubstance of the Protocol and that are not binding upon theparties.     

Fatal thoracic compression after being partially run over by an automobile

The authors report on a fatal pedestrian accident in which the victim lay on the street and got under a car being run over by one of the front wheels. Both the car driver and the killed pedestrian were strongly alcohol-intoxicated at the time of the accident (2.45 a.m.). After the car had come to a standstill, the pedestrian remained trapped under the car until she was rescued by the fire brigade. On the basis of the autopsy findings and the technical expert opinion it could be reconstructed that the pedestrian's death was not caused by the consequences of being run over by the car, but by the subsequent compression of her thorax in the final accident position.     

Symmetrical fracturing of the skull from midline contact gunshot wounds: reconstruction of individual death histories from skeletonized human remains

This paper reports a bilaterally symmetrical cranio-facial fracture pattern that is observed in self-inflicted, midline gunshot wounds. Five cases of self-inflicted gunshots wounds are presented as follows: two high-powered rifle cases, two shotgun cases, and one handgun case. In all five cases the remains were either decomposing or skeletonized and submitted to forensic anthropologists. Following identification, the main focus of the anthropological examination was the analysis of perimortem trauma to the skeleton. In each case, the skull was submitted in a highly fragmented state. Nevertheless, by focusing on the pattern of perimortem cranio-facial fractures, the anthropologists contributed key information regarding the circumstances of death. The observed symmetrical cranio-facial fracture patterns in the above cases are described in detail and interpreted. The specific location of the linear fractures is discussed, as well as the theoretical rationale behind the location in terms of skeletal architecture, such as buttresses, struts, and sutures. The interpretive framework provided by this paper may prove helpful to others who are faced with similar cases of cranio-facial fracturing.     

Lessons from Philosophy? Interdisciplinary Justice Research and Two Classes of Justice Judgments

More and more scholars of social justice have been calling for a closer collaboration between empirical and normative disciplines. Psychological and sociological research, as well as philosophical theories can, so they claim, learn from one another and work should be based on results obtained in the other fields of research. Some political philosophers do not share this view. They argue that, since most empirical research does not capture people's moral views on justice, its results cannot be of any value to their theories. Based on this critique I suggest in the first part of this paper that empirical research should distinguish between two classes of justice judgments: First, justice judgments in a narrow sense, which are made under conditions of impartiality and grounded in moral principles, and second, justice attitudes, which differ from other types of social attitudes only in their attitude objects. In the second part I present a quasi-experimental study that aimed at testing the two different classes of justice judgments empirically. The results show that justice judgments in the narrow sense can be obtained even under conditions in which complex experimental manipulations cannot be employed. In the third part of this paper I hypothesize that justice judgments which are based on the two formal criteria provided by political philosophy (impartiality and reference to moral principles) may serve as important intervening variables when trying to explain the impact of justice beliefs on different patterns of human behavior.     

Stand and Deliver: Private Property and the Politics of Global Dispossession

Property rights necessarily generate violent, and oftentimes lethal, processes of dispossession. While liberal theorists from Locke to Hayek consider property rights as an essential and emancipatory component of human freedom, they fail to consider societal power asymmetries impeding the ability of property rights to protect the interests of the weak and marginalised. If property rights produce freedom and prosperity, they do so very selectively. More obvious is the ongoing historical process of already propertied classes making 'clever usurpation into an irrevocable right' by extending private property regimes along two key dimensions – type and space. Examining various uses of private property over time reveals processes whereby relatively basic notions of private property, enforced by a Weberian state at the local level in the early era of industrialisation, are extended to encompass new and sophisticated forms of property that are enforced globally via international institutions. Two contemporary empirical cases of using property rights are examined in this paper: land reform in Southern Africa (specifically Zimbabwe) and intellectual property rights. In this context of ongoing dispossession, further privatisation and commodification can only exacerbate contemporary problems of marginalisation and dispossession.     

Problems associated with the diagnosis of vitality in burned bodies

The most important signs of vitality in burned bodies are soot deposits in the respiratory tract, the esophagus and the stomach as well as elevated CO-Hb values in the blood. But these findings show only that a person was exposed to fire fumes while alive; they are no indicator for vital heat exposure. As the external findings in burned bodies are often not very conclusive due to postmortem consumption by the fire, the internal findings are all the more important. Macroscopic signs that hot fumes were inhaled may be edematous swelling and vesicular detachment of the mucosa in the pharynx, the larynx and/or the upper section of the esophagus. As histological changes in the respiratory tract soot deposits, vesicular detachment of the epithelium, hyperemia and edema of the tracheal and bronchial mucosa as well as increased secretion of mucus have been described. These findings may partly be absent although the victim was alive during the fire, which can make diagnosis more difficult. Especially in peracute deaths vitality findings are usually sparse. The significance of the macroscopic and histological parameters of vitality was systematically investigated on the basis of our own autopsy material from the years 1996-2002 (88 cases) and compared with the statements found in the literature. In our study material, the vitality parameters were incomplete in 23% of the burned corpses. In 3% of the cases the question whether there was an antemortem heat exposure could not be answered.