The EU PNR framework decision proposal: Towards completion of the PNR processing scene in Europe

The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty has suspended discussions over the release of a EU PNR processing system. Plans to introduce an intra-EU PNR processing system initiated since 2007, although strongly supported by the Commission and the Council, did not bear fruit before the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the, institutional, involvement of the Parliament. While discussions have been suspended since October 2009 and most probably a new draft proposal will be produced, it is perhaps useful to present in brief the proposal currently in place so as to highlight its shortcomings for European data protection and suggest ways individual protection may be strengthened in future drafts.     

Spanish legislation against trafficking in human beings: punitive excess and poor victims assistance

The article seeks to provide a perspective of human trafficking as one of the fastest growing criminal activities of the last few years in the area of organised crime and one that affects human beings’ most basic rights. In the main, the response to the problem has been its criminal prosecution, but without tackling the issues of need that underlie this conduct and which the traffickers take advantage of to abuse, assail and exploit the people they traffic. In this context, the evolution of Spanish legislation in terms of the criminalisation of this problem has made it one of the most repressive, although there is no clear evidence of its effectiveness. This punishment, which covers a wide range of criminal conducts, has not however been accompanied by any policies to support and integrate the victims of trafficking, which has led to a large number of victims being subjected to slavery who, in the majority of cases, fall under the control of the trafficking networks again.     

A Legacy of Harm: Punitive Drug Policies and Women’s Carceral Experiences in Canada

There is limited research on the gendered impacts of drug policies in Canada, despite the fact that women, Indigenous women in particular, are the country’s fastest growing prisoner population, with many incarcerated for drug-related crimes. This article highlights the results of a larger qualitative study with former prisoners in Ontario and community and medical experts from across the country. Focusing on the women research participants, we consider the lack of adequate and culturally-relevant substance use and harm reduction programming in federal prisons, and suggest a reformulation of Canada’s punitive drug policies toward a health and social welfare approach.     

Access to justice and human rights in Afghanistan

In anthropological and legal literature, the phenomenon termed ‘legal pluralism’ has been interpreted as a co-presence of legal orders which act in relation to their own ‘levels’ of referring ‘fields’. The Afghan normative network is generally described in terms of pluralism, where different normative systems such as customs, shari’a (Islamic law), state laws and principles deriving from international standard of law (e.g., human rights) coexist. In order to address the crucial question of access to justice, in this article, I stress the category of legal pluralism by introducing the hypothesis of an inaccessible normative pluralism as a key concept to capture the structural injustices of which Afghans are victims. Access to justice can be considered a foundational element of every legal project. Globally, the debates concerning the diffusion and application of human rights develop at the same time ideologically, politically, and pragmatically. Today in Afghanistan, these levels are expressed in all their complexity and ambivalence. It is therefore particularly significant to closely observe the work done by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and to discuss the issue of human rights by starting from a reflection on what might be defined a socio-normative condition of inaccessibility.     

Eyes Wide Shut: On Risk,Rule of Law and Precaution

The rule of law offers legal certainty, laying down boundaries to the state's playing field. The precautionary approach stipulates that the absence of scientific certainty is no reason not to act to prevent harm. Here, uncertainty frames action. The precautionary approach potentially expands the state's playing field, and this expansion might well undermine the precepts of the rule of law. The certainty‐uncertainty axis exposes a tension between the rule of law and the precautionary approach in what Ulrich Beck has termed the world risk society in second modernity. It is this tension that is the focus of analysis in this article.     

Connecting restorative justice with gender-responsive programming

Despite the encouraging results of public opinion assessments on restorative justice, people are not likely to spontaneously suggest restorative measures after a crime. Restorative justice thus seems in need of a public relations strategy. This paper discusses the strategy labeling victims as the universal remedy to promote restorative justice, and the proposal of promoting restorative justice through the media by foregrounding crime victims in media reports on crime. This strategy stems from a belief that the most appealing aspect of restorative justice to the public is its thoughtfulness to victims. However, I will argue that there are three problems with this approach. These concern: (1) the victim’s position in both restorative justice theory and practice; (2) the characteristics of media reporting on crime in general and victims in particular; and (3) the risk of attaining a result opposite to the initial objective (i.e. increasing punitive attitudes instead of promoting restorative justice).     

Buried voices: Mexican migrants’ views on the question of illegality

How do immigrant Mexican workers perceive the policies and social discourses that regulate their insertion into American society as noncitizens and illegals? Using ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, evidence is presented that unauthorized Mexican migrants do not consider themselves lawbreakers but rather moral actors responding to difficult socioeconomic conditions. Informed by a keen understanding of the social forces oppressing them, these migrants articulate a discourse of social justice that works as a powerful counterpoint to the hegemonic ideas of citizenship, belonging, and illegality. A careful analysis of migrant social reflexivity offers a much-needed corrective to the prevailing top-down perspective typically offered among contemporary scholars. By looking at the ways in which migrants make sense of immigration policies and articulate their right to have rights, this examination departs from the widespread tendency among scholars and policy makers of analyzing the migrant’s social and civic status as a matter of assimilation and immigration control.     

Book reviews

The Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate ‐ The Environmental Perspective Edited by Eugene C. Hargrove. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992. Pp.xxvi, 261. Index. $19.95.     

Mothering as a citizenship practice: an intersectional analysis of ‘carework’ and ‘culturework’ in non-normative mother–child identities

In this article, a comparative analysis is presented of two ethnographic case studies on mothering practices in Belgium. Interviews with, and participant observation among, both undocumented migrant mothers from the South and Belgian white adoptive mothers of black Ethiopian-born children provide an insight into the way in which mothering plays an important role in the pursuit of citizenship. In our analysis, we draw on critical theorizations of citizenship from feminist, multicultural and globalization perspectives, and of care, intimacy and the affective in order to show how mothering can be viewed as a citizenship practice that transcends boundaries of the private, public and the nation. In their ‘carework’ and ‘culturework’, both undocumented migrant and white adoptive mothers negotiate prevalent ideologies of mothering that are often exclusionary of their own and their children's sense of identity and belonging. Their mothering involves building new networks and strengthening their children's identities in culturally creative ways. We argue that although these mothering practices are embedded in a multiplicity of intersecting privileges and inequalities, within restraints imposed by the nation-state context, this carework attests to the agentic capacity of mothering and its potential to affect politics of inclusion, recognition and changing hegemonic understandings of citizenship and belonging.     

Suicide by Self‐Administration of a Drug Mixture (Propofol,Midazolam, and Zolpidem) in an Anesthesiologist: The First Case Report in Italy

The authors report an unusual case of suicide of an anesthesiologist, in which the suicide manner and means depend upon the victim's occupation. This is the first case report published in Italy of a death involving propofol and other drugs. The anesthesiologist was found dead with an empty drip still inserted in the hand and another one near his body. Forensic and toxicological findings suggested that the cause of death was a respiratory depression due to a self‐administration of a rapidly infused lethal drug mixture. Analytical drug quantification was performed by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry. Blood analysis revealed: zolpidem (0.86 μg/mL), propofol (0.30 μg/mL), midazolam (0.08 μg/mL), thiopental (0.03 μg/mL), and amitriptyline (0.07 μg/mL). Adipose tissue and hair analysis suggested a previous and repeated use of these drugs verifying the fact that in Italy recreational abuse of anesthetic and sedative agents in health care practitioners is becoming an increasing problem.