The Leverage of the Gatekeeper: Power and Interdependence in the Migration Nexus between the EU and Turkey

In March 2016, the European Union and Turkey reached an agreement seeking to end the refugee flows from Turkey to Greece. This agreement is the outcome of a bargaining process in which Turkey gained considerable leverage from its position as a ‘gatekeeper’ situated between Syria and an increasingly ‘immigration-averse’ and securitised EU. More importantly, this bargaining process might have broader implications for the EU and its relations with its periphery, since Turkey has progressively reversed the asymmetries of power by demonstrating the indispensability of its continued commitment to act as gatekeeper vis-à-vis an increasingly fragmented and anxious EU.     

A case of mistaken identity: The wrongful classification of Islamic marriage contracts as premarital agreements in New York

New York precedent has mischaracterized Islamic marriage contracts, or nikah agreements, as premarital agreements. Nikah agreements are not premarital agreements; they are contracts. This mischaracterization has subjected nikah agreements to the acknowledgement requirement codified in N.Y. DRL § 236(B)(3) which has incorrectly been used to strike down valid contracts which Islamic litigants rely on. To prevent the effects of this mischaracterization, this Note suggests to New York appellate courts that a recharacterization of these agreements as contracts would prevent further confusion amongst the lower courts and allow for clearer, more uniform decisions.     

Repeatability and reproducibility of comparison decisions by firearms examiners

In a comprehensive study to assess various aspects of the performance of qualified forensic firearms examiners, volunteer examiners compared both bullets and cartridge cases fired from three different types of firearms. They rendered opinions on each comparison according to the Association of Firearm & Tool Mark Examiners (AFTE) Range of Conclusions, as Identification, Inconclusive (A, B, or C), Elimination, or Unsuitable. In this part of the study, comparison sets used previously to characterize the overall accuracy of examiners were blindly resubmitted to examiners to assess the repeatability (105 examiners; 5700 comparisons of bullets and cartridge cases) and reproducibility (191 examiners of bullets, 193 of cartridge cases; 5790 comparisons) of firearms examinations. Data gathered using the prevailing AFTE Range were also recategorized into two hypothetical scoring systems. Consistently positive differences between observed agreement and expected agreement indicate that the repeatability and reproducibility of examiners exceed chance agreement. When averaged over bullets and cartridge cases, the repeatability of comparison decisions (involving all five levels of the AFTE Range) was 78.3% for known matches and 64.5% for known nonmatches. Similarly averaged reproducibility was 67.3%% for known matches and 36.5% for known nonmatches. For both repeatability and reproducibility, many of the observed disagreements were between a definitive and inconclusive category. Examiner decisions are reliable and trustworthy in the sense that identifications are unlikely when examiners are comparing non-matching items, and eliminations are unlikely when they are comparing matching items.     

新加坡法下仲裁协议的效力研究

仲裁协议的效力由其所适用的法律决定,不同国家或地区的法律在认定仲裁协议的法律效力时所采取的标准亦有所区别.从新加坡有关仲裁协议的成文法规范出发,结合新加坡法院就仲裁协议法律效力争议所作的判例,在研究新加坡法院对“病理性仲裁协议”效力认定时所采取的基本原则后,认为新加坡法律具有“亲仲裁”特性.这是新加坡在国际商事仲裁和国际海事仲裁领域取得令人瞩目发展成果的重要原因之一.     

区域合作中的府际契约:概念与分类

契约行政是当代中国区域政府间合作的一种模式创新,而府际契约是开展区域契约行政的制度支撑。从政府间关系视角看,府际契约本质上是一个府际治理问题,不能简单地与一般意义上的行政契约概念混为一谈,因为府际契约在追求目标、契约主体、贯彻原则和基本属性上,均与行政契约存在诸多差异乃至本质不同。本文根据签约主体间的相互关系以及合作的不同领域,对我国区域合作中的府际契约进行了不同分类。     

股东出资义务的请求权主体研究——兼评《民法典》合伙合同、利他合同条款

确定股东出资义务的请求权主体存在请求权基础、公司法自创规则两条路径。前者有奠基性意义,在该路径下,应厘清出资义务的约定基础、法定基础,注重债法与公司法并用的系统思维。本源性的出资义务是约定的,表现为股东协议、公司章程,其区别于法定产生的出资义务衍生体。股东协议是组织性合同,依《中华人民共和国民法典》合伙合同、利他合同条款,出资义务请求权人应包括公司、其他股东,但公司法特殊价值会对出资义务抗辩权等产生抑制作用。章程性质依内容不同具有可分性,其出资条款应界定为组织性合同,请求权主体也包括公司、其他股东。其他股东对出资义务请求有独立利益,组织法不应排除其出资义务请求权。债权人取得出资义务请求权是法定的,须符合法定构成要件。公司法修订时,应明确公司、其他股东的出资义务请求权源于股东协议、公司章程。     

两岸和平协议的性质刍议

本文试图从宏观的角度对两岸和平协议的性质作出分析。两岸和平协议本质上是国内两个政治实体之间的协议,而不是国与国之间的条约。两岸和平协议不是两岸统一协议,但不能排除两岸统一的政治指向。两岸和平协议是在国家尚未统一的特殊情况下的政治安排。两岸和平协议是两岸关系和平发展的框架协议,是两岸关系和平发展的制度化。     

Agreement and Disagreement in Group Deliberation: Effects on Deliberation Satisfaction,Future Engagement,and Decision Legitimacy

While research on democratic deliberation has burgeoned, little systematic work has been done on the effects of the communication content of deliberations. We examine how expressions of agreement and disagreement during online deliberation affect participants' evaluations of their experience, including satisfaction, reevaluation of opinions, and expected future participation. The effects of these evaluations on perceived legitimacy and opinion ambivalence also are considered. Several alternative hypotheses are entertained, including avoidance, in which high disagreement reduces evaluations; reevaluation, in which high disagreement enhances evaluations; sociability, in which high agreement enhances evaluations; balance, which suggests that a balance of agreement and disagreement would enhance evaluations; and disequilibrium, which indicates that high agreement and low disagreement and the reverse yield good evaluations. The hypotheses are tested with survey data and a discussion content analysis of a representative sample of 179 individuals who participated in a deliberation experiment. Findings indicate that deliberation evaluations are important for decision legitimacy and ambivalence. Also, the sociability hypothesis is strongly confirmed for satisfaction. The disequilibrium hypothesis is confirmed for future engagement. The avoidance hypothesis is not supported, contesting the prevalent view that people seek to avoid political disagreements.     

Measuring the Frequency Occurrence of Handwriting and Handprinting Characteristics,

The premise of this study was to take a valid population sampling of handwriting and handprinting and assess how many times each of the predetermined characteristic is found in the samples. Approximately 1500 handwriting specimens were collected from across the United States and pared to obtain a representative sample of the U.S. adult population according to selected demographics based on age, sex, ethnicity, handedness, education level, and location of lower‐grade school education. This study has been able to support a quantitative assessment of extrinsic and intrinsic effects in handwriting and handprinting for the six subgroups. Additional results include analyses of the interdependence of characteristics. This study found that 98.55% of handprinted characteristics and 97.39% of cursive characteristics had an independence correlation of under 0.2. The conclusions support use of the product rule in general, but with noted caveats. Finally, this study provides frequency occurrence proportions for 776 handwriting and handprinting characteristics.     

论我国夫妻约定财产制的完善

2001年婚姻法修正案对夫妻约定财产制作了进一步明确的规定,但在约定财产制的类型、内容,以及效力等方面尚存在着不足,有待于进一步完善。在夫妻约定财产制的类型方面我国应该采用列举与概括相结合的立法模式,并明确约定共同财产制、分别财产制度以及剩余共同财产制的内容。同时增设约定财产制的公示程序,明确其变更、终止的条件和程序,细化其对内对外的效力等。