Democratic Global Internet Regulation? Governance Networks,International Law and the Shadow of Hegemony

Abstract: The field of global Internet Regulation serves as a prime example for the rise of global ‘a‐centric’ and ‘self regulatory’ governance structures. The most prominent private organisation in this field is the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN was founded as a private non‐profit organisation comprising private and public actors that run the Internet domain name system, a crucial part of the Internet technical infrastructure. It claims to be a participatory network that enables deliberation among the ‘relevant’ commercial and non‐profit actors in the Internet field. This normative aspiration of a legitimate sectoral polity beyond governmental and intergovernmental policymaking can also be isolated as the driving force behind a certain strand within the literature on global governance. The paper undertakes a critical analysis of this claim within the ICANN context.     

法学是一门科学吗?(下)

八、自然法——未触及生活之需求与经验的抽象真理现在,在这样的基础上,兴起了一个新的学科,此学科在接下来的一个半世纪中,掌握了法学领域思想上的主控权。这个新学科就是自然法。很少有哪部学术著作,能够像荷兰的天才学者Hugo Grotius在1654年出版的(后来的再版次数,无以计数     

Networks of Trade Protest in the Americas: Toward a New Labor Internationalism?

In the mid-1990s, for the first time in the history of the Americas, truly hemispherewide collaboration among labor organizations became possible. Yet this new political opportunity structure has not brought actors together in an undisputed new labor internationalism. This article focuses on two key sources of contention among labor organizations in the context of free trade mobilizations between 1990 and 2004: the discussions about coalition building with other civil society actors and the debates about including a social clause in trade agreements. It argues that transnational collective action occurs parallel to the continued relevance of national-level claims and targets, and that this simultaneity represents a real source of challenges, for scholars and labor organizations alike. Based on social network data and qualitative interviews in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and the United States, the article analyzes the actions taken by labor organizations, and how these changed through time.     

A “Slice of Cheese”—a Deterrence-Based Argument for the International Criminal Court

Over the last decade, theorists have persistently criticised the assumption that the International Criminal Court (ICC) can produce a noteworthy deterrent effect. Consequently, consensus has emerged that we should probably look for different ways to justify the ICC or else abandon the prestigious project entirely. In this paper, I argue that these claims are ill founded and rest primarily on misunderstandings as to the idea of deterrence through punishment. They tend to overstate both the epistemic certainty as to and the size of the deterrent effect necessary in order to thus justify punishment. I argue that we should in general expect reasonably humane punitive institutions to lead to better consequences than if we abolish punishment entirely, and I show that, contrary to widespread assumption among critics of the ICC, we should not expect the conditions characteristically surrounding mass atrocity to undermine this presumption. Properly understood, the ICC equals adding another “slice of cheese” to our comprehensive crime preventive system modelled along the lines of James Reason’s Swiss cheese model of accident causation and risk management. Undoubtedly, some future perpetrators will elope through the holes in this layer too, but others will be deterred.     

Sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and the problem of human specificity

When analysing trace materials and degraded DNA the issue of human specificity is highly important. Especially when it comes down to the analysis of mitochondrial DNA which is extremely susceptible to contamination authenticity is the main question. Therefore in the presented study mitochondrial primers were tested on their human specificity. In all cases it was possible to amplify DNA of animals with human mt-primers. These unintentional amplifications could only be decreased by choosing austere PCR parameters. The study implies the importance of comprehensive evaluation of primers, chemicals and PCR parameters.