Learning in Law Annual Conference Website – A Review

There is pressure to increase the substantive content covered in the business law curriculum. Yet, a content-laden curriculum risks students taking the “surface” approach of rote learning sets of disjointed legal rules without any real grasp of the relevant legal concepts involved or how legal knowledge can be applied to solve the dynamic and untidy problems they will face in their impending business careers. Drawing on relevant educational and legal literature, this article presents a case for more problem-based learning (PBL) to be used in undergraduate business law courses. It suggests that a hybrid form of PBL has the potential to promote deeper and more self-directed learning. PBL also provides an opportunity to make learning the law a more relevant, motivating and authentic experience for business students. Such an improved learning experience is likely to better prepare business students for the legal challenges they will face in their future careers.     

A review of impurity profiling and synthetic route of manufacture of methylamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine,amphetamine, dimethylamphetamine and p-methoxyamphetamine

Amphetamine-type substances (ATS), like other synthetically derived compounds, can be produced by a multitude of synthetic pathways using a variety of precursors and reagents, resulting in a large number of possible contaminants (by-products, intermediates and impurities). This review article describes the common contaminants found in preparations of methylamphetamine (MA), 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine (MDMA), amphetamine (AP), N,N-dimethylamphetamine (DMA) and p-methoxyamphetamine (PMA) synthesised via common synthetic pathways including reductive amination, Leuckart method, Nagai method, Emde method, Birch reduction, “Moscow” method, Wacker process, “Nitrostyrene” method and the Peracid oxidation method.Contaminants can facilitate identification of the synthetic route, origin of precursors and may suggest information as to the location of manufacture of these illicit drugs. Contaminant profiling can provide vital intelligence for investigations in which linking seizures or identifying the synthetic pathway is essential. This review article presents an accessible resource; a compilation of contaminants resulting from a variety of manufacturing methods used to synthesise the most common ATS. It is important for research in this field to continue as valuable information can be extracted from illicit drug samples, increasing discrimination amongst ATS, and in turn, leading to an increase in evidential value and forensic drug intelligence from forensic drug samples.     

The Incapacitation Effect of First-Time Imprisonment: A Matched Samples Comparison

Objectives

The logic of incapacitation is the prevention of crime via the forced removal of known offenders from the community. The challenge is to provide a plausible estimate of how many crimes an incarcerated individual would have committed, were s/he free in the community rather than confined in prison. The objective of this study is to provide estimates of the incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment from a sample of convicted offenders.

Methods

The data are official criminal records of all individuals convicted in The Netherlands in 1997. Two different analytical strategies are used to estimate an incapacitation effect. First, the offending rate of the imprisoned individuals prior to their confinement in 1997 provides a “within-person counterfactual”. Second, imprisoned offenders are paired with comparable non-imprisoned offenders using the method of propensity score matching in order to estimate a “between-person counterfactual”. Incapacitation estimates are provided separately for juvenile imprisonment (ages 12–17) as well as adult imprisonment (ages 18–50), and for male and female offenders.

Results

The best estimate is that 1 year of incarceration prevents between 0.17 and 0.21 convictions per year. The use of additional data sources indicates that this corresponds to between roughly 2.0 and 2.5 criminal offenses recorded by the police.

Conclusions

The current results suggest that, insofar as imprisonment is used with the primary goal of reducing crime through incapacitation, a general increase in the use of incarceration as the sanction of choice is not likely to yield major crime control benefits.     

The exclusion of Roma claimants in Canadian refugee policy

The arrival of thousands of European Roma seeking refugee status in Canada elicited a range of legislative and policy instruments that severely restrict their acceptance and create conditions antagonistic to further admissions. Interventions have included visa restrictions, actions by Immigration and Refugee Board, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act followed by the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, and ministerial rhetoric about the illegitimacy of Roma as refugees. Other factors have involved interpretations of persecution in relation to the Geneva Convention and Protocol, and the implications of the conditions required for membership to the European Union. These political circumstances in large part determine Canadian acceptance rates for the Roma. Their systematic exclusion is reminiscent of the historical treatment of other groups due to institutional racism. In the new racism, however, refugee law and policy is racist in effect while evading the language of race.     

Liberal Nationalism,Imagined Immigration and the Progressive Dilemma

The article critically evaluates liberal nationalist perspectives on immigration by drawing on findings from a qualitative research project undertaken in 2014 among White British interviewees in England. From one perspective the study's participants' attitudes seem to support arguments made by David Goodhart and other liberal nationalists regarding immigration, social trust and integration. However, further analysis suggests that these attitudes are to a very significant extent drawn first from partially imagined ideas surrounding immigration and second from potentially unreliable sources. These findings thus provoke the question of whether social trust and notions of a national community are actually being disrupted by immigration, or whether they are being disrupted by prejudiced nationalist and xenophobic perceptions about immigration and immigrants. The article will conclude by arguing for more nuanced research into attitudes towards immigration and in favour of a sceptical approach to nationalist frameworks for interpreting society and politics in Britain today.     

Managing Incentive Dynamics for Collaborative Governance in Land and Ecological Conservation

Public governance often involves policy tools and stakeholders from multiple sectors. How different policy tools are used may affect the chances that the values and interests of diverse stakeholders can be aligned in mutually supportive ways. Drawing on insights from behavioral and cognitive economics, this article uses the case of land and ecological conservation in Twin Lake, Taiwan, to illustrate how various interactive dynamics—hierarchical exclusion and preemptive effects—may affect efforts in land and ecological conservation involving stakeholders from multiple sectors. Such illustrations may inform the choice and sequencing of policy tools for facilitating collaborative governance.