Effective Sanctions in EC Law: A Moving Boundary in the Division of Competence

Abstract: This article details and analyses the development of European Court of Justice guidelines regarding sanctions provided by Member States to correct infractions of EC law. It will be shown that the contemporary policy of the Court significantly retreats from an early practice of non-interference with the discretion of national judges to attach domestic remedies for breach of substantive Community measures. Preliminary comments will be made on the possible impact of these developments on the constitutional structure of the Community, and in particular their potential effect on the continuing debate concerning the legitimacy of EC rules.     

Evolutionary behavioural science and crime: Aetiological and intervention implications

In this paper, we argue that evolutionary behavioural science can be fruitfully applied to the explanation of criminal behaviour and subsequent interventions with offenders based on this understanding. First, we provide a brief overview of evolutionary theory and the three main approaches applied to the social and behavioural sciences, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology, and gene‐culture co‐evolution theory. Second, we examine two examples of crimes that have been approached from an evolutionary standpoint, psychopathy, and rape. Third, we discuss four implications of adopting an evolutionary behavioural perspective for therapeutic and prevention work with offenders.     

Legal Responses to the Standard Form Contract of Employment

Having suggested that the advent of standard form contractsof employment is a neglected aspect of employment law, an assessmentis made of two of the main legal responses to the potentialunfairness of terms, namely implied terms and the applicationof section 3 the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. The Law Commission'sproposed legislative reform is also examined. It is concludedthat only by combining terms implied by the law with the statutoryprotection of reasonable expectations of employees will thelaw succeed in devising an adequate technique for rebalancingcontracts of employment.     

The use of crossover immunoelectrophoresis to detect human blood protein in soil from an ambush scene in Kosovo

This study examines the survivability of human blood proteins in soils from a year and a half old ambush scene in Kosovo. A total of 72 soil samples were collected, a number of which were directly associated with bone fragments or bullet projectiles. The samples were examined using crossover immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP) to determine the presence of blood protein and species affiliation. Human blood proteins were identified in 44 of the 72 samples (61%) with the majority of the positive observations (29 of 44) found 0.0-4.5 cm below ground surface (65%). Chi-squared and two-sample difference of proportions tests confirmed significant differences between samples with and without associated physical evidence and the presence and depth of human blood proteins. While DNA has largely replaced immunological analysis in forensic analyses, our results suggest that in particular situations, CIEP may still be a valuable tool in criminology.     

Can we distinguish juvenile violent sex offenders, violent non-sex offenders, and versatile violent sex offenders based on childhood risk factors?

Understanding the developmental precursors of juvenile violent sex offending can contribute to the promotion of effective early intervention and prevention programs for high-risk children and youth. However, there is currently a lack of research on the early characteristics of adolescents who commit violent sex offenses. Drawing on the literature regarding the generalist and specialist positions of criminal behavior, the aim of the present study was to compare childhood risk factors for three groups of juvenile offenders: (a) pure sex offenders (PSO; n = 28); (b) violent non-sex offenders (VNSO; n = 172); and (c) versatile violent sex offenders (VVSO; n = 24). Nineteen risk factors comprising four life domains (individual, family, peer, and school) were identified from a file review. Three hierarchical logistic regression analyses examined associations between risk factors and offender groups. The results reflected the underlying heterogeneity of the sample, offering support for both the specialist and generalist positions of criminal behavior. PSOs differed from VNSOs on the basis of higher odds for precocious sexual behavior. Second, VVSOs differed from VNSOs on the basis of higher odds for precocious sexual behavior, criminal family members, and an adolescent mother, as well as lower odds for poor school behavior. Third, PSOs were marginally more likely to have engaged in early overt antisocial behavior compared with VVSOs. Fourth, many of the childhood risk factors examined were not associated with any offender group. In conclusion, VVSOs appeared to differ on the greatest number of risk factors from VNSOs, suggesting that VVSOs share a more similar developmental pathway with PSOs. The prevention and future research implications of these findings are discussed.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">It’s Right,It Fits,We Debated,We Decided,I Agree,It’s Ours,and It Works</Emphasis>: The Gathering Confluence of Human Rights Legitimacy

How should we understand human rights and why might we respect them? The current literature – both philosophical and historical – presents a barrage of conflicting accounts, including moral, functional, deliberative, legal, consensual, communitarian and pragmatic approaches. I argue that each approach captures a unique, common-sense – and, in principle, compatible – insight into why human rights warrant respect. Acknowledging this compatibility illuminates the myriad different avenues for legitimacy human rights enjoy, and provides a historical window into explaining how human rights rose to become the international community’s ethical lingua franca. The depth and spread of convergence on human rights proved possible precisely because myriad people the world over found a wealth of disparate reasons for rallying under its banner. But even as human rights enjoy seven distinct sources of legitimacy, I argue that they are thereby opened for normative challenge on seven distinct fronts.     

Evidence-informed or value-based? exploring the scrutiny of legislation in the UK Parliament

This article argues that three types of factor – process, subject and political circumstance – are likely to affect the extent to which claims of evidence are made during legislative scrutiny. It draws upon case studies of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Academies Act 2010 and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, utilising interviews with those involved and information from Hansard. The article concludes that these cases highlight that while there might be potential benefits from a yet more robust legislative scrutiny process, including greater use of pre-legislative scrutiny and the ability of public bill committees to take evidence from a wider range of witnesses and on all bills, subject and political factors would be likely to mean that the use of claims of evidence would continue to vary widely.     

Self-Control and Crime/Deviance: Cognitive vs. Behavioral Measures

Using survey data, various measures of self-control, based respectively on cognitive and behavioral indicators, are compared in their ability to predict eight measures of crime/deviance. The results show that either type of measure produces supportive evidence for the theory, and the behavioral measures provide no better prediction than do the cognitive measures. Unlike cognitive type indicators, and contrary to the implications of the theory, different types of crime-analogous, imprudent behaviors are not highly interrelated, making it difficult to develop reliable behavioral measures. These results suggest that general support for self-control theory would likely not be any greater if all researchers had used behaviorally based measures, as recommended by the authors of the theory. Improving the level of prediction to the point where self-control could claim to be the master variable, as envisioned by its proponents, does not seem to rest on a shift to behaviorally based measures. Instead, improvements in the theory itself, particularly the incorporation of contingencies, appears to offer more promise.     

Disputes, Democracies, and Dependencies: A Reexamination of the Kantian Peace

Militarized interstate disputes are widely thought to be less likely among democratic countries that have high levels of trade and extensive participation in international organizations. We reexamine this broad finding of the Kantian peace literature in the context of a model that incorporates the high degree of dependency among countries. Based on in-sample statistical tests, as well as out-of-sample, predictive cross-validation, we find that results frequently cited in the literature are plagued by overfitting and cannot be characterized as identifying the underlying structure through which international conflict is influenced by democracy, trade, and international governmental organizations. We conclude that much of the statistical association typically reported in this literature apparently stems from three components: (1) geographical proximity, (2) dependence among militarized interstate disputes with the same initiator or target, and (3) the higher-order dependencies in these dyadic data. Once these are incorporated, covariates associated with the Kantian peace tripod lose most of their statistical power. We do find that higher levels of joint democracy are associated with lower probabilities of militarized interstate dispute involvement. We find that despite high statistical significance and putative substantive importance, none of the variables representing the Kantian tripod is associated with any substantial degree of predictive power.