Accommodating Children's Rights in a Post Human Rights Act Era

This article considers why so little case law currently acknowledges that children have recognisable rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and argues that the family courts are not meeting the demands of the Human Rights Act 1998 in this regard. It suggests that a reinterpretation of the 'paramountcy principle' in the Children Act 1989 should be accompanied by a radically different judicial approach to evidence relating to children's best interests. The article considers the difficulties that such an approach might produce when applied to teenagers intent on refusing life-saving medical treatment. It further argues that the courts should call on the substantial body of rights jurisprudence to provide legal and moral support for this revised approach.     

The Sociology of Law in France: Trends and Paradigms

To suggest that French legal sociology is a field in which a dominant theoretical tendency is identifiable is misleading; equally, attempts to provide insight into the work achieved in French socio-legal studies which presuppose that a complete inventory of the field must be undertaken are misguided. In this article, an exposition of French legal sociology is attempted using different means: following a brief history of the evolution of socio-legal studies in France, the authors suggest different paradigms around which French researchers appear to converge. Eight paradigms are identified, covering the majority of French sociologists and jurists. The article concludes with an analysis of some characteristics of socio-legal studies in general, within the framework of French intellectual and academic life.     

On penal metrics

This paper presents the results of a public survey on the perceived severity of different kinds and levels of penalties gathered using magnitude estimation techniques. Three topics are dealt with. Individual scales of sentence severity are shown to be internally consistent. Then the structural properties of the severity scales of fine, imprisonment, community work, and probation are analyzed. Finally, what a given penalty is worth in relation to other types of punishment from the public's point of view is established and compared to existing exchange rates prescribed in legal statutues or practiced by criminal courts.     

Morphometric Comparison of Clavicle Outlines from 3D Bone Scans and 2D Chest Radiographs: A Shortlisting Tool to Assist Radiographic Identification of Human Skeletons

This paper describes a computerized clavicle identification system primarily designed to resolve the identities of unaccounted‐for U.S. soldiers who fought in the Korean War. Elliptical Fourier analysis is used to quantify the clavicle outline shape from skeletons and postero‐anterior antemortem chest radiographs to rank individuals in terms of metric distance. Similar to leading fingerprint identification systems, shortlists of the top matching candidates are extracted for subsequent human visual assessment. Two independent tests of the computerized system using 17 field‐recovered skeletons and 409 chest radiographs demonstrate that true‐positive matches are captured within the top 5% of the sample 75% of the time. These results are outstanding given the eroded state of some field‐recovered skeletons and the faintness of the 1950's photofluorographs. These methods enhance the capability to resolve several hundred cold cases for which little circumstantial information exists and current DNA and dental record technologies cannot be applied.     

Disopyramide and Mianserin Intoxication: A Unique Fatal Case – Review of the Literature

Lethal occurrence is exceptional after disopyramide or mianserin poisoning. A case of intentional lethal intoxication with these drugs was reported, as well as a review of the literature. Pre‐ and postmortem blood concentrations of disopyramide or mianserin were assessed in a woman who died from acute cardiac failure after ingestion. The premortem blood concentration of disopyramide alone was considered lethal, and a toxic premortem concentration of mianserin was observed that may have increased cardiovascular failure induced by disopyramide because the metabolism of both drugs is mediated via cytochrome P450. Moreover, it was shown that the postmortem redistribution of disopyramide was limited, as pre‐ and postmortem concentrations were 48 and 65 mg/L, respectively. As regards mianserin, redistribution was observed after death with pre‐ and portmortem concentrations at 0.23 and 0.79 mg/L, respectively. This case illustrates that if postmortem blood concentration of disopyramide is known, the premortem concentration can be deduced.     

Nord-Mali: les frontières coloniales de l’Azawad

RÉSUMÉ

La revendication en 2012 de l’indépendance de l’Azawad a été strictement limitée au seul Mali et à ses frontières septentrionales, d’origine coloniale. Un “État (pan)touareg” regroupant les populations touarègues (Algérie, Mali, Niger, Burkina-Faso, Libye) n’a pas non plus été revendiqué. Cette situation ne peut s’expliquer sans tenir compte des héritages anciens. La définition des territoires impériaux, et des frontières coloniales, connut un processus très différent de ce que suggère le mythe de la conférence de Berlin. Les logiques à l’?uvre témoignent d’une co-construction des frontières avec les populations locales, ou pour le moins le résultat de stratégies croisées de l’administration coloniale et des pouvoirs africains. Les rébellions récurrentes, et le séparatisme récent, ne peuvent donc avoir comme seule explication les tracés frontaliers. Il faut intégrer dans l’analyse les histoires locales, et surtout la gestion politique et économique des marges par l’administration française puis par les États indépendants.