Liberal Nationalism: an Irresponsible Compound?

In this century there has been a deep concern about the dangers of nationalism. Many of those who have expressed such concerns have been liberals. Yet, ironically, in the last decade, there has been a resurgence of interest in the idea of nationalism from within liberal thought—thus giving rise to the compound term 'liberal nationalism'. Having situated liberal nationalism in a broader historical context, this paper critically reviews the arguments of liberal nationalism in the work of Neil MacCormick, David Miller and Yael Tamir. It concludes by drawing a distinction between the pragmatic and ethical significance of nationalism. This distinction neither entails a denial of the role of nationalism nor a defence of liberalism. It attempts to sever the connection between nationalism and ethics. Nationalism may be inevitable for the present, but it is not a virtue to be promoted.     

Consensus on validation of forensic voice comparison

Since the 1960s, there have been calls for forensic voice comparison to be empirically validated under casework conditions. Since around 2000, there have been an increasing number of researchers and practitioners who conduct forensic-voice-comparison research and casework within the likelihood-ratio framework. In recent years, this community of researchers and practitioners has made substantial progress toward validation under casework conditions becoming a standard part of practice: Procedures for conducting validation have been developed, along with graphics and metrics for representing the results, and an increasing number of papers are being published that include empirical validation of forensic-voice-comparison systems under conditions reflecting casework conditions. An outstanding question, however, is: In the context of a case, given the results of an empirical validation of a forensic-voice-comparison system, how can one decide whether the system is good enough for its output to be used in court? This paper provides a statement of consensus developed in response to this question. Contributors included individuals who had knowledge and experience of validating forensic-voice-comparison systems in research and/or casework contexts, and individuals who had actually presented validation results to courts. They also included individuals who could bring a legal perspective on these matters, and individuals with knowledge and experience of validation in forensic science more broadly. We provide recommendations on what practitioners should do when conducting evaluations and validations, and what they should present to the court. Although our focus is explicitly on forensic voice comparison, we hope that this contribution will be of interest to an audience concerned with validation in forensic science more broadly. Although not written specifically for a legal audience, we hope that this contribution will still be of interest to lawyers.     

School Quality, Neighborhoods, and Housing Prices

We study the relationship between school characteristics andhousing prices in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, between1994 and 2001. During this period, the school district was operatingunder a court-imposed desegregation order and drew school boundariesso that students living in the same neighborhoods were oftensent to very different schools in terms of racial mix and averagetest scores of the students. We use differences in housing pricesalong assignment zone boundaries to disentangle the effect ofschools and other neighborhood characteristics. We find systematicdifferences in house prices along school boundaries althoughthe impact of schools is only one-quarter as large as the naivecross-sectional estimates would imply. Part of the impact ofschool assignments is mediated by differences in the characteristicsof the population and the quality of the housing stock thathave arisen on either side of the school assignment boundary.     

Deepwater Horizon: The Legal Fallout—The Framework for Liability,Fines, and Penalties for Oil Pollution

On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit resulting in the death of eleven workers, and subsequently a continuous and uncontrolled release of crude oil and natural gas from the wellhead for a total of eighty-six days. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) provides a comprehensive liability and compensation scheme by creating strict liability for the responsible party of a vessel or facility from which the oil was released subject to statutory limitations, and very limited applicable defenses. The owner of the Deepwater Horizon and the operator of the Macondo well were designated responsible parties under OPA subjecting them to liability for removal costs and damages. In addition, the Clean Water Act imposes civil and administrative fines on a per-day-per-barrel basis without limitation. Other federal statutes which are used to impose criminal liability are the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the River and Harbors Act of 1899.     

全球性剥削型人口贩运发案率的评估策略研究

评估性剥削人口贩运在全球的发案数是一项艰巨的任务,由于缺乏统一的措施以及可行的研究方法,关于人口贩运的实证研究非常缺乏,而了解性剥削的人口贩运活动对制定有效的反制措施具有至关重要的作用。根据针对目前已查明的人口贩运案件的深入挖掘和利用受害者收集的一手数据,本文试图提出基于外推法的评估全球性剥削人口贩运的发案数的可行策略。     

Grime and Verts: Two faces of European ecologism

Using recent Eurobarometer data, this article aims to verify, through an analysis of voters characteristics and attitudes the hypothesis of a socio‐historical differentiation of European Ecologism in two poles: the New Left radicalism of the German Grüne, and the more pragmatic way of the newly more visible French Verts. Such a Janus’ Head of some the most prominent actors of New Politics largely reflects specific constraints of their respective national political systems and different strategic partisan orientations.