Has the Right to Education a Future Within the United Nations? A Behind-the-Scenes Account by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education 1998-2004

This article ponders over the future of human rights work withinthe United Nations on the basis of the author's six years ofexperience as the Special Rapporteur on the right to educationof the Commission on Human Rights. This broadens the analysisto the factors shaping the work of the Commission on Human Rightsthat are not formally documented, and generates a series ofquestions concerning the Commission's recent past and uncertainfuture.     

Inside post-socialist courts: the determinants of adjudicatory outcomes in Slovenian commercial disputes

European Journal of Law and Economics - Despite the judiciary’s central role in the capitalist market system, micro-level empirical analyses of courts in post-socialist countries are...     

Understanding of and memory for a complex auditory event: an experimental case study to resolve an evidentiary issue in a trial

While many studies have focused on eyewitness’ perception and memory, few studies on earwitness’ ability to understand and remember complex sound events have been conducted. The present study included 73 participants and explored whether it is possible for children and adults to understand and later recall a complex sound event. The aim was to resolve an evidentiary issue in a trial concerning a 7-year-old child’s earwitness testimony and whether is it possible to understand a complex sound environment based solely on aural perception. The participants listened to a recording that replicated the aurally perceived situation described by the child witness in his testimony. The results showed, that adults and children could identify only a few, familiar sounds of the 16 sounds presented in free recall. They recognized the correct sounds poorly (51.9% vs. chance level of 50%): significantly better than chance only if the retention interval was immediate and the sounds could be heard clearly (57.5%). The results suggest that the participants were not able to understand what was transpiring and, thus, could not later recall the sound events. The findings highlight that understanding this kind of a complex sound event is a difficult task and that the experimental role of a witness psychologist is valuable for resolving evidentiary issues for the court. The implications for the case and the limitations of the study were discussed.     

Litigation and the timing of settlement: evidence from commercial disputes

Although an overwhelming proportion of all legal disputes end in settlement, the determinants of the timing of settlement remain empirically underexplored. We draw on a novel dataset on the duration of commercial disputes in Slovenia to study how the timing of settlement is shaped by the stages and features of the litigation process. Using competing risk regression analysis, we find that events such as court-annexed mediation and the first court session, which enable the disputing parties to refine their respective expectations about the case outcome, in general reduce case duration to settlement. The magnitude of the respective effects, however, varies with time. Completion of subsequent court sessions, in contrast, does not affect the time to settlement. Judicial workload affects the timing of settlement indirectly, via the effect on the timing of the first court session. We also examine the effect of other case and party characteristics.     

Aggression, psychopathy and brain imaging — Review and future recommendations

Violent behavior appears to result from a complex web of interacting genetic as well as environmental factors. Psychopathy is a strong predictor for relapse in violent acts. The current review shed light on rapidly expanding knowledge in brain imaging related to violent behavior and psychopathy. A literature search was performed in PubMed, Cochrane and PsycInfo combining the key words: mentally disordered offender/aggression/violence/ crime/forensic psychiatry/brain imaging neuroimaging/fMRI/MRI/PET/SPECT/lack of empathy/psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. The reviewed material, which consisted of 48 articles, indicates a rather strong consensus on the connection between dysfunctional parts of the frontal and temporal lobes and violent antisocial behavior and psychopathy. In future studies, it would be useful to focus on the limbic system and to investigate which parts of the frontal lobes and cerebral networks that are of interest in the psychopathic personality. Moreover, the reviewed material highlights some of the methodological difficulties in this area of research such as selection bias in the recruitment of patients, inadequate matching of control subjects, and sometimes incongruous results. In the future we hope that brain imaging can be used to map biological deviations in different offenders in order to try to learn more about the different mechanisms behind violent behaviors.     

The Body a ‘Double-Edged Sword’? A Qualitative Study on Swedish Female Prisoners' Relationship toward Their Bodies

Our aim was to explore female prisoners' relationship toward their bodies by means of qualitative interviews. We interviewed 14 female prisoners aged 22–53 years. Four were convicted for violent crimes, seven for drug crimes, and three for more than one crime. All of them had been addicted to drugs and the most frequently used drug was amphetamine. To analyse the participants' relationship toward their bodies we used a thematic analysis. The main result encompasses three phenomena: worries about weight, negative emotions toward the body, and negative thoughts about the body. Analyses revealed that the female prisoners' relationship toward their bodies is a changeable process. Our analyses also showed that experience of physical and sexual abuse was a very important factor for understanding these women's relationship toward their bodies.     

The Persistence of Sperm and the Development of Time Since Intercourse (TSI) Guidelines in Sexual Assault Cases at Forensic Science Ireland,Dublin, Ireland

The persistence of sperm using confirmatory microscopic analysis, the persistence of sperm with tails, time since intercourse (TSI) analysis, and results from the acid phosphatase (AP) reaction from approximately 5581 swabs taken from circa 1450 sexual assault cases are presented. The observed proportions of sperm in the vagina and anus declines significantly after 48 h TSI, and sperm on oral swabs were observed up to 15 h TSI. The AP reaction as a predictor of sperm on intimate swabs is questioned. All AP reaction times gave a low true positive rate; 23% of sperm‐positive swabs gave a negative AP reaction time. We show the AP reaction is an unsafe and an unreliable predictor of sperm on intimate swabs. We propose that TSI not AP informs precase assessment and the evaluative approach for sexual assault cases. To help inform an evaluative approach, TSI guidelines are presented.