Human Rigghts: A Culture of Controversy

Many arguments in favour of constitutionally entrenched Bills of Rights are undermined by the inherently controversial nature of human rights with respect to their content, their form, and their valence. Even in the case of civil and political rights, the concretization of rights at the level of specificity required to decide particular cases must always be politically and morally controversial. There is no accepted moral or legal method that can be utilized to give the requisite objectivity to the value choices inherent in human rights jurisprudence. Positivization of human rights increases their utility but compromises their moral status. It follows that legitimate articulation of human rights requires ongoing democratic dialogue and decision-making. Although perceived as a stop-gap measure, the Human Rights Act 1998 could facilitate an enduring partnership between courts and parliaments, placing human rights more firmly on the political agenda and establishing a proper balance between the inputs of courts and parliaments which recognizes that the development of positivized human rights must be primarily located in electorally-based politics.     

Constitutional Rights in the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1893

In 1893, Prime Minister Gladstone introduced the second Irish home rule bill in parliament. The bill broke with tradition in Britain and the empire, as it included provisions from the bill of rights of the United States. Its significance was clear at the time: it was debated for nine days in the committee stage and, with one minor amendment, it remained part of the bill that passed the Commons. However, the bill was defeated in the Lords and, at least in the United Kingdom, bills of rights were dismissed as unnecessary or detrimental to sound governance until well after the second world war. This article therefore tries to understand how this early bill of rights was regarded at the time. Who suggested, or demanded, its inclusion? How did they expect it to be applied? And how did the debate reflect and influence thinking about constitutional law in Britain and the empire?     

Risky business: A risk-based methodology to measure organized crime

This paper describes the result of two studies on the development of a methodology to measure organized crime. The purpose of these studies, tasked by the Belgian Federal Police and Minister for Justice, was to provide a concrete and knowledge-based framework for the drafting of annual reports on organized crime that can give better answers to questions like ‘Is there much organized crime? Is the situation serious? Is it bad that there are more criminal groups now than in the past? Which criminal groups are the most dangerous?’. Two features provide a common thread that binds the methodology: the operating principle of the spectrum of enterprise and the application of a risk-based methodological process to the overall framework. The starting hypothesis is that organized crime is entrepreneurial in nature and that the dynamics of the market space provide the main environment and explanation for organized crime. The application of a risk-based methodology is founded on the recognition that the analysis of organized crime will always depend on imperfect information and resource limitations. Furthermore, the utility of a risk-based approach is seen in the provision of findings that are transparently arrived at with a clearly established framework for prioritization of decision-makers. The proposed methodology consists of three parts: environmental scanning, analysis of organizations and counter strategies and licit and illicit sector analysis.     

Identifying with the Nation: Spain's Left-Wing Citizens in an Age of Crisis

This study analyses the extent, sense, and strategies employed by sympathisers with Spanish state-wide left-wing parties to ‘reconstruct’ their affective ties with the Spanish nation after the ‘monopolisation of patriotism’ by Franco's regime. Such an undertaking is further complicated within the context of economic crisis and intensified peripheral nationalism found in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This article applies qualitative analysis to the discourse of left-wing participants from 11 focus groups held in March 2012 amidst the economic (and political) crisis. As expected, this context of crisis favoured the emergence of explicit discourse on the Spanish nation, providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of its nature. Findings show that welfare nationalism and social patriotism define the kind of attachment developed by the interviewees towards Spain better than the concept of constitutional patriotism, or any kind of ethnic-cultural feeling of belonging.