Police Shootings and the Role of Tort

In Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex , the House of Lords ruled that a civil claim in trespass to the person may be sustained against an individual police officer in respect of a fatal shooting, in circumstances where the officer had already been acquitted in criminal proceedings and where liability to compensate in respect of all losses had been conceded. Two members of the majority clearly ruled that trespass torts may have a vindicatory purpose which survives a concession of liability to compensate, thus deepening the connection between tort, and the protection of fundamental rights, and suggesting an intriguing distinction between the functions of civil and criminal law.     

The Economics of Cruel and Unusual Punishment

It has sometimes been argued that one way to reduce the costs of law enforcement would be to reduce the probability of detection and conviction (hence saving those costs), while at the same time increasing the size of the punishment. Following this strategy would keep the expected costs (to a risk neutral criminal) of committing a crime constant and hence keep the deterrence level constant; it would have the benefit, though, of reducing costs to the rest of society.There are some well-known objections to such a policy. One such objection deals with marginal deterrence: A convicted murderer serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in a jurisdiction which bans capital punishment has nothing to lose from killing a prison guard—there is no marginal deterrence to the commission of a more serious crime or any additional crime for that matter. In fact, so long as there remains any upper limit to the amount of punishment that can be inflicted upon a convicted criminal, the only ways to create some type of marginal deterrence are to reduce the punishments for less serious crimes, which will either reduce the deterrence of those less serious crimes, or alternatively to require the use of more of society's scarce resources to increase the probabilities of apprehension and conviction.It is possible to reduce this marginal deterrence problem, however, by practicing cruel and unusual punishment on perpetrators of serious crimes, i.e. by raising the limits of allowable punishment. Anecdotal evidence suggests this practice is followed unofficially with child molesters and killers of prison guards and hence provides some additional deterrence against these crimes.Despite the theoretical validity of this argument, our society has chosen to impose a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, over time we seem to have lowered the threshold of what is considered cruel and unusual. Following Dr. Pangloss, the concluding section of the paper examines why rational maximizers would choose to give up this additional potential deterrence. The explanations depend upon an assumed positive income elasticity of demand for humanitarianism or for insurance against the costs of punishing the innocent. While there are some reasons to accept the humanitarianism argument, the insurance argument seems more persuasive.     

Das informell-kooperative Verwaltungshandeln im Umweltrecht

Zusammenfassung  Informelles Verwaltungshandeln geh?rt zum umweltrechtlichen Alltag. Die technische Entwicklung und die zunehmende Komplexit?t umweltrelevanter Sachverhalte veranlassen den Staat dazu, jenseits der hergebrachten Handlungsformen des ?ffentlichen Rechts in den wirtschaftlichen Bereich einzuwirken und das ursprünglich subordinative Staat-Bürger-Verh?ltnis in eine auf Konsens zielende Kooperation umzustrukturieren. Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit der noch nicht abschlie?end gekl?rten rechtlichen Bew?ltigung informeller staatlicher T?tigkeit. Der Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf dem sog. normvollziehenden Verwaltungshandeln. Besondere Berücksichtigung findet die Teilformalisierung informeller Verhaltensweisen de lege lata und im Referentenentwurf zum UGB.     

Schiffe als Abfall?

Zusammenfassung In dem Beitrag geht es um die Frage, ob Seeschiffe in hiesigen H?fen, die demn?chst im Ausland abgewrackt werden sollen, unter das Ausfuhrverbot des Basler übereinkommens und der EG-Abfallverbringungsverordnung fallen. Diese Auffassung wird in Industriel?ndern aufgrund der oftmals hohen Kontamination alter Schiffe mit Giftstoffen und angesichts unzureichender Umweltund Arbeitsschutzbestimmungen in abwrackenden Entwicklungsl?ndern verschiedentlich vertreten. Die Autoren zeigen, dass das geltende Recht Auslaufverbote für solche Schiffe nicht zul?sst und weisen auf die Bemühungen der Internationalen Seeschifffahrts-Organisation um ein Schiffsrecyclingübereinkommen hin.     

An investigation into the use of calculating the first derivative of absorbance spectra as a tool for forensic fibre analysis.

A range of fibre samples was measured using J&M MSP400 and J&M MSP800 microspectrophotometers across the visible and UV/visible wavelength ranges respectively. The first derivative of the absorbance spectra was then calculated and studied. When the absorbance spectra produced for some samples were broad and featureless, the first derivative spectra provided more points of comparison that facilitated discrimination. For many of the samples, calculating the first derivative did not result in any additional discrimination due to the high number of points of comparison present in the absorbance spectra. However, for the samples that exhibited a high level of intra-sample colour variation (e.g. through uneven dye uptake common in cotton and wool, etc.), which was evident in the absorbance spectra, the associated first derivative spectra highlighted this variation between the fibres and could potentially have resulted in false exclusions. The results show that whilst calculating first derivative can be a useful aid in the comparison of spectra, a high degree of caution is required when applying this method to fibres which exhibit a large intra-sample variation in colour.     

Why Right‐Leaning Populism has Grown in the Most Advanced Liberal Democracies of Europe

Immigration and new class divisions, combined with a growing anti‐elitism and political correctness, are often used as explanations for the strong gains for right‐leaning populist parties in national elections across Europe in recent years. But contrary to what we might assume, such parties have been very successful in the most developed and comprehensive welfare states, in nations—such as the Nordic countries—with the best scores on economic equality and social inclusion and long established political and judicial institutions enjoying a high degree of popular legitimacy. As argued in this article, this seems to happen because a duopoly of the centre‐left and centre‐right political establishment has kept issues such as immigration and new class divisions off the public agenda and hence paved the way for right‐leaning ‘disruptor’ populist parties with an anti‐immigration agenda in times of increasing immigration.