Otherwise than Hospitality: A Disputation on the Relation of Ethics to Law and Politics

At a time of unprecedented migration and social displacement, following a century ravaged by war and hegemonic shift, the question of hospitality presents itself with unparalleled urgency. Taking his cue from Immanuel Kant’s cosmopolitics, Jacques Derrida addressed this question by deliberating on the nature of the political obligation to the other person. Invoking the work of Emmanuel Levinas, this demand is first of all ethical, and unconditional. But Derrida was also acutely aware of the residual violence of the hospitable gesture, which always takes place in a scene of power. The resultant aporias at the heart of hospitality provoked debate between the two authors at the 2007 Critical Legal Conference, and this paper seeks to elucidate and elaborate on this encounter. At stake are the matters of the potential political forms of hospitality, whether it should always been striven for and, ultimately, how one can conceptually reconcile its ethics with its violence.

Disabling dissent: the colour revolutions,autocratic linkages,and civil society regulations in hybrid regimes

State elites in hybrid regimes have increasingly sought to manipulate the legal regulation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as part of the growing backlash against democracy assistance in nondemocratic countries around the world. Sophisticated laws detailing burdensome NGO registration procedures and complex regulations enabling invasive government oversight of NGOs represent upgraded forms of civic curtailment and democracy resistance. This paper analyses these significant developments in a systematic, cross-national fashion over time by constructing a new dataset of NGO legal barriers in hybrid regimes from 1995 to 2013. It demonstrates that the expansion of repressive NGO regulations are shaped by international factors, particularly autocratic linkages, in the form of trade or defence pacts with Russia and China, as well as authoritarian learning from the colour revolutions. It thus contributes to debates on autocracy promotion and authoritarian resurgence by moving beyond the regime level to focus on the sub-regime dimension of freedom of association.     

Re-imagining News Values and Labels of Controversies with Reference to Political Scandals

Abstract

Scandals involving heads of state are generally the staple diet of news media. Internationally, the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” sex escapades are some of the most memorable. In South Africa, scandals that marred former president Jacob Zuma’s term of office have continued to be the centre of attention long after he resigned as president. During his presidency, Zuma became one of the most covered (reported in the news) leaders across media platforms, in South Africa and beyond. This was largely due to allegations including corruption, his relationship with the Gupta family, and misuse of government funds to renovate his private property. Evoked in the media by various labels of controversy, the media frenzy dominated headlines in South Africa at the time. This article presents an account of how journalists actively construct labels for controversy associated with newsworthiness. The article makes a theoretical link between labels of controversies and news values, and argues that these labels are, in spite of their significance, the most understudied phenomena in mainstream journalism literature today. Fifty-eight news articles were examined by means of content analysis for the labels that journalists constructed.     

Post Cold War Evolution of Chinese Thinking on Regional Institutions in Northeast Asia

A review of four periods and a comparison of three regional institutions provide evidence for how serious China has become about multilateralism with its neighbors in Asia. Approval for multilateralism does not mean that China is ready to endorse strong regional organizations that bind their members, especially when it has reservations both about institutions that could undermine its narrow notion of sovereignty and norms that could support US or even Japanese efforts to impose long-feared universal values. If China calculates that limited multilateralism now provides a variety of benefits, to date its support reflects specific circumstances, not general trust in this format. Focusing on the Six-Party Talks as the presumed foundation for regionalism in Northeast Asia offers a concentrated view of strategic thinking toward the area most vital to China's security. In the standoff between North Korea and the United States we are able to assess the degree to which China accepts working with four or five states and the prospects for its active support, if circumstances permit, for the establishment of a peace and security mechanism through the fifth working group that originated in the Joint Agreement of February 2007.     

Economic Crime and Casinos: China’s Wager on Macau

Notwithstanding the results of some empirical studies, casinos and gambling are widely considered to be breeding grounds for a range of deviant behavior and criminal offenses. As one writer expressed it, “the world of gambling offers a portfolio of anonymous expenditure” which allows for money laundering and other illegal activities associated with the legal operation of casinos. This paper examines economic and white-collar criminal activities and case histories of offenses related to Macau’s growing casino industry, now the highest revenue generating in the world. A Portuguese colony from 1557 until 1999 when it was returned to China, Macau is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with its own governing officials operating under the PRC maxim of “one country, two systems.” The dramatic recent growth of the casino industry in Macau offers a unique opportunity to examine issues of economic crime and law enforcement within the context of the People’s Republic of China’s recently acquired political and economic stewardship in this SAR. The paper documents white-collar and organized crimes that present new challenges and risks to China now that Macau has become an international marquee.     

Circumstances of death and diagnostic difficulties in brushfire fatalities

The deaths of 10 bushfire (brushfire) victims (aged 2-59 years; M/F 1:1) from the files of Forensic Science SA in Adelaide, South Australia, over an 8-year period (January 2002 to December 2009) are reported. Nine of the victims were found in or near motor vehicles. Death was attributed to incineration (N = 5), trauma from bushfire-related vehicle crashes (N = 2), inhalation of products of combustion with hyperthermia (N = 1), inhalation of products of combustion (N = 1), and undetermined (N = 1). Death scenes covered large areas and involved many victims. Loss of infrastructure and closure of local roads owing to debris limited access and made the finding of bodies difficult. Bodies in such fires may be exposed to the damaging effects of weather and animal predation. Heat damage hindered pathological assessment with resultant delays in identification. Assessment of antemortem injuries and determination of causes of death were also complicated by the condition of some of the bodies.     

Invocations of Chinese Traditions in International Relations

Chinese writings on international relations increasingly invoke history. In the past Chinese and foreigners alike have seen China??s foreign policies through the lens of history, but recent Chinese stress on the ??harmonious world?? resulting from Confucianism has shifted the discussion. It serves as a guide to resurgent claims for leadership, a source of legitimation for why China deserves leadership, and a warning of how its leadership may be abused to the detriment of countries agreeing to regionalism or multilateralism. Claims to superiority raise tensions in Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere where hopes had existed for a shared view of history. They arouse controversy among advocates of socialist ideology who fear that Confucianism will eclipse communism. The increasingly hereditary elite of Party leaders continues to bridge the gap between these two types of memory, but they face an ideological challenge at home and a credibility challenge abroad.     

Validation of reduced-scale reactions for the Quantifiler Human DNA kit

Accurate quantification of DNA samples is an important step in obtaining accurate and reproducible short tandem repeat (STR) profiles. Quantitative real-time-PCR has improved the speed and accuracy of DNA quantification over earlier methods, albeit at significantly greater cost per reaction. Here, the performance of reduced volume (10 microL) DNA quantification assays using the Quantifiler Human DNA Quantification Kit was evaluated using commercial standards and single source biological stains (e.g., venous blood, saliva, and semen). In addition, casework-type samples including those subjected to environmental contaminants containing PCR inhibitors and samples having undergone extensive DNA degradation were also quantified. The concentration of DNA in various forensic samples ranged from 0 to 2.9 ng/microL depending on sample source and/or environmental insult. Compared to full-scale reactions, reduced volume assays displayed equivalent to improved amplification efficiency and sample-to-sample reproducibility (+/-0.01-0.17 C(T FAM)). Furthermore, the use of data from reduced-scale Quantifiler reactions facilitated the accurate determination of the amount of sample DNA extract needed to generate quality STR profiles. The use of 10 microL-scale Quantifiler reaction volumes has the practical benefit of increasing the effective number of reactions per kit by 250%; thereby reducing the cost per assay by 60% while consuming less sample. This is particularly advantageous in cases of consumptive testing.