What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act

This article engages with the vogue for predicting the effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 by focusing on the rape prosecution and trial. The specific interest is feminist scrutiny of the right to a fair trial, particularly the concept of ‘fairness’, in light of the increasing use of disclosure rules (in Canada and England) to gain access to medical and counseling records. Transcending the two contemporary narratives of ‘victims’/women’s rights and defendants’ rights in the criminal justice system, the authors argue for the infusion of the legal debate on disclosure with feminist understandings of wider cultural debates. They suggest that an increased reflexivity about intimacy, publicity and power, leading perhaps to the development of a concept of ‘democratic publicity’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 100), might help to revision the meaning of ‘relevant’ evidence in the rape trial. They also suggest that the wide-ranging cultural debate about memory, truth and history, and the emerging commitment to experimentation in responding to massive, institutionalised human rights violations (including apartheid, war crimes and child abuse) might be of use in deepening current thinking about the rape trial and listening to the ‘voice’ of the complainant. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Partnership to Counter International Terrorism: The UN Security Council and the UN Member States

Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolutions 1368 and 1373 and thereby created the basis of a global counterterrorism system. At the heart of this system lies a partnership between the Security Council and the UN member states—a partnership in which states have been given considerable, independent, operational responsibility. Unfortunately, this system has often been criticized and viewed pessimistically by scholars, who tend to focus primarily on UN bodies and offer little discussion of the key role of states. This article presents a different conceptualization of this counterterrorism system and suggests, through case studies, that it has attained some important objectives in the global struggle against terrorism.     

Out-of-Home Care Programs in Argentina: Contradictions Between Effective Protection and Long-Term Permanency

According to UNICEF, in 2011 nearly 14,700 children lacking parental care were attended by public protection measures, such as out-of-home care devices. The aim of this work is to account for the operating conditions of such interventions in Buenos Aires province. Our approach agrees with methodological perspectives guiding current interventions aimed at childhood, which consider children as subject-bearing rights and request all social institutions watch their well-being. The analysis exploits documentary and primary sources of information based on interviews with actors involved in public special protection devices. Our focus is directed towards the analysis of suggested and effective conditions of permanence in special protective measures and, therefore, in exiting from such devices. One of the main conclusions is that bureaucratic requirements aimed to establish an explicit time horizon for public cash transfers face conflicts with more general guidelines that should guide interventions with childhood.     

Only the Party Manages Cadres: limits of Local People's Congress supervision and reform in China

This article joins the debate on the increasingly consultative nature of Chinese politics by adding the role of the Local People's Congress (LPC). In contrast to previous research on LPCs that emphasizes their increasing importance and improved capacity, this article shows that the central Party leadership, in order to uphold its monopoly of the cadre management system, has reduced LPC standing committees' (LPCSC) influence over cadres. The article analyses the consequences of the People's Congress Standing Committee Supervision Law passed in 2006 and the policy of appointing the first Party secretary as LPCSC chairperson. A case study of the changes over a ten-year period (1998–2009) in a county People's Congress (PC) in Zhejiang illustrates how the change in leadership and the implementation of the Supervision Law effectively stopped previously initiated reforms to strengthen the LPC and crippled the LPCSCs' capacity to supervise government cadres. The article concludes that the policies adopted in order to strengthen Party control over LPCSCs have resulted in a decrease of horizontal accountability and confirm the image of an emerging consultative authoritarian political system.     

Analysis of 8 Y-chromosome str loci in population from alicante (Spain)

The allelic frequencies and the haplotype distribution were studied in 8 Y-chromosome STR loci: DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, and DYS 385. Data was obtained from 104 unrelated autochthonous subjects from the province of Alicante, located in the Southeast of Spain. The obtained data will contribute to further progress in the studies on chromosome Y in Spain.