The new chain gang: Corrections in the next century

This article examines the operations and excesses of the correctional chain gang as a group of prisoners working outside a penal facility under armed correctional supervision and wearing chains or other restraining devices to prevent escape. We detail the operations and excesses of earlier chain gangs, identifying variables that contributed to the contemporary phase that emerged in 1995. Predicated on vengeance, retributive justice, and punitiveness, the chain gang represents yet another devolving standard of human decency in correctional policies. Future scenarios are explored.     

The Battle of the Forms—There Is a Purpose

This article provides an alternative approach to the daunting task of teaching business undergraduates a fundamental appreciation of the flexibility of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and the ability of the UCC to adapt to the needs of commerce by facilitating fair, efficient transactions. Paradoxically, we suggest using one of the most difficult sections of the UCC, Section 2-207, the often discussed "Battle of the Forms," to make UCC concepts and the relationships of those concepts to modern business transactions easier to understand. This alternative approach is also designed to help students appreciate the challenges of establishing rules to assure fair and efficient transactions and how changes in the way transactions occur impact the laws and how the laws impact the changes. This article also presents exercises, questions, and illustrative flowcharts used successfully over several years in undergraduate business law classes. These tools produce an integrated method for presenting UCC Section 2-207. While no sane individual has ever professed a love for UCC study, students and faculty have expressed tolerance and a palpable appreciation for these methods.     

Of caterpillars and butterflies: The introduction of metamorphosis at the UWA law school

CENTRAL ISSUES IN JURISPRUDENCE: JUSTICE, LAW AND RIGHTS By Nigel E. Simmonds [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 2nd ed., 338 pp., £16.95 (paperback)]

JUSTICE, HUMANITY AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER By Ian Ward [Ashgate, 2003, 192 pp., £50 (hardback)]

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF THE EUROPEAN UNION By Sionaidh Douglas Scott [Longman, 2002, xlx + 533 pp., £29.99 (paperback)]

THE ENGLISH LEGAL PROCESS By Terence Ingman [Oxford University Press, 2002, 9th ed., 624 pp., £19.99 (paperback)]

SMITH, BAILEY &; GUNN ON THE MODERN ENGLISH LEGAL SYSTEM By S. H. Bailey, J. P. L. Ching, M. J. Gunn and D. C. Ormerod [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 9th ed., 1,387 pp., £30.00 (paperback)]

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO CIVIL LITIGATION By Robert Hill, Helen Wood and Suzanne Fine [Jordans, 2003, 571 pp., £45 (paperback)]

PARTNERSHIP LAW By G. Morse [Blackstone Press, 2001, 5th ed., 280 pp., £14.95 (paperback)]

EMPLOYMENT LAW By Malcolm Sargeant [Longman, 2003, 2nd ed., 499 pp., £26.99 (paperback)]

THE LAW OF CONTRACT By J. C. Smith [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 4th ed., 268 pp., £15.95 (paperback)]

CONTRACT LAW By Catherine Elliott and Frances Quinn [Pearson Education, 2003, 4th ed., 353 pp., £17.99 (paperback)]

AQA LAW IN FOCUS: AS LEVEL By Simon Jackson [Causeway Press, 2003, First impression, 233 pp., £12.95 (paperback)]

TORT LAW By Chris Turner [Hodder and Stoughton, 2003, 1st ed., 232 pp., £13.99 (paperback)]

LOOKING AT CRIMINAL LAW By Chris Turner [Hodder and Stoughton, 2003, 1st ed., 114 pp., £9.99 (paperback)]

CRIMINAL LAW By Alan Reed and Peter Seago [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 2nd ed., lvii + 597 pp., £22.95 (paperback)]

CRIMINAL LAW: DOCTRINE AND THEORY By William Wilson [Longman, 2003, 2nd ed., lii + 640 pp., £29.99 (paperback)]

BURGLARY By R. I. Mawby [Willan Publishing, 2001, x + 213 pp., £40.00 (hardback), £16.99 (paperback)]

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY By David Bainbridge [Longman, 2002, 5th ed., 710 pp., £34.99 (paperback)]

PARRY AND CLARK: THE LAW OF SUCCESSION By Roger Kerridge Assisted by A. H. R. Brierley [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 11th ed., 671 pp., £29.95 (paperback)]

CONSTRUCTION LAW By John Uff [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 8th ed., 536 pp., £23.95 (paperback)]

WATER POLLUTION AND WATER QUALITY LAW By William Howarth and Donald McGillivray [Shaw and Son Publishers, 2001, 1212 pp., £85.00 (hardback)]

PROPERTY LAW By Roger J. Smith [Longman, 2003, 4th ed. lxviii + 617 pp., £29.99 (paperback)]

PROPERTY LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS By Roger J. Smith [Longman, 2003, 2nd ed. lv + 836 pp., £33.99 (paperback)]

HOUSING LAW CASEBOOK By Nic Madge [Legal Action Group, 2003, 3rd ed., 1,139 pp., £39.00 (paperback)]

LEGAL MATERIALS FOR SOCIAL WORKERS By Hugh Brayne and Graeme Broadbent [Oxford University Press, 2002, 522 pp., £24.99 (paperback)]     

The crisis of the state in Russia

President Dmitry Medvedev is neither a “liberal” nor a “puppet” of his mentor, Vladimir Putin. He is a capable politician, who appears genuinely to believe in the rule of law. Yet his formative policy experience has been overwhelmingly dirigiste, the approach that is unlikely to change fundamentally under his presidency. Medvedev's personal preferences in foreign policy are largely in line with the policies initiated by Putin, although his rhetoric and style will likely be more conciliatory. He will inherit a plethora of problems created by Russia's assertive policy, both in its near and far abroad. Moreover, the institutional constraints and informal rules within which Medvedev will have to operate make policy continuity more likely than policy reversal.     

Civil Rights and Political Human Rights: Contesting Human Rights Failures within the Minimally Democratic State

Allen Buchanan argues that democracy ought to be added to the list of basic human rights, but he limits the conception of democracy to a minimum of electoral representation within the nation state, effectively collapsing human rights into civil rights. This, however, leaves him unable to address the problem of human rights failures occurring within established states that meet his standard of minimal democratic representation. In order to address this problem, I appeal to James Bohman's conception of the political human rights of all members of humanity, as opposed to the civil rights of the citizens of particular states. I argue that while this provides the basis on which to address the problem of human rights failures within minimally democratic states, Bohman's conception also entails the potential for deep tensions to arise between the different claims of civil and human rights.