No,prime minister: explaining the House of Commons’ vote on intervention in Syria

On 29 August 2013, the UK House of Commons inflicted the first defeat on a Prime Minister over a matter of war and peace since 1782. Recalled to debate and vote on UK intervention in Syria, the Commons humbled the government and crucially impacted the development of UK foreign policy. This article places that vote, and the developments leading to it, in the context of the role of parliaments in security policy and explores the relationships between parliamentary influence, leadership, intra-party and intra-coalition politics, and public opinion. From an in-depth analysis of leaders’ statements and parliamentary debate, we find a combination of intra-party politics and party leadership were most significant. An additional factor – the role of historical precedent – was also important. Our analysis explores the fluidity and interconnectedness of the various factors for parliamentary influence in foreign policy and offers directions for future theoretical development and empirical research.     

拨开法律解释学的迷雾——对法律解释质疑的回应

众所周知,成文法具有开放性,时滞性,以及存在着不可避免的嗣滑。解决这一缺陷的方式就是运用法律解释．这也正是法律解释学得以快速发展的原因．但就在这门学科与实践的结合逐渐呈密集翌之际．不少学者也对该门学科提出了种种的质疑．如反对解释问题、“辈分”问题、元规则问题、客观性问题等。文章对这几种典型的质疑给予了回应．以此希望能拨开法律解释学的迷雾、能对法律解释学更好地被认识与发展提供些许帮助。     

HMP/YOI Holloway: a lament but also a call to arms

Abstract

London’s oldest women’s prison is to close in 2016. The unexpected speed of the UK Government’s closure plans and the lack of alternatives for London women are a cause for concern but also an opportunity. Ironically, this announcement came at a time when both the prison and its health care were evaluated as better than ever before. Staff constitute a vital source of knowledge and expertise. Good care for women who offend relies on these ingredients. Learning from the last decade should be salvaged and further developed.     

Surveillance and identity management: Migrant perspectives on UK Biometric Residence Permits

The identity card for foreign nationals - now known as the Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) - was first introduced in November 2008. Following the May 2010 UK general election, the newly formed Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government announced that the scheme would not be extended to UK citizens. To date, over 300,000 BRPs have been issued to UK foreign nationals - a group of non-EEA migrants that include international students, visiting scholars and entrepreneurs. In this paper, we draw on findings from interviews conducted with policymakers, advocacy groups, Higher Education administrators and foreign nationals - between March and December 2010 - to highlight some policy issues arising from the continued roll-out of the BRPs to this migrant group. We conclude by arguing that, although interviewees raised few objections to the BRPs in principle, cardholders were concerned about being unfairly ‘targeted’ for additional surveillance and remained unclear about the true purpose of the BRP. We identify a number of areas for further policy development.     

The Contradictory Political Economy of Higher Education in the United Kingdom

The Coalition government's first Comprehensive Spending Review will cut 40% from university budgets by 2014. This will result in an increasingly tension‐prone political economy of UK higher education. As it is, the sector already sits uncomfortably astride the two distinct welfare models currently in existence in Britain. As the fees agenda has taken hold, university degrees have been increasingly susceptible to being rebranded as a strategic investment in the future, thus acting as an exemplar for the move towards an asset‐based system of welfare. Despite this, even in the post‐Browne world students will still not be charged the full market price of delivering degree programmes. Higher education institutions therefore continue to be redistributive mechanisms providing long‐term welfare‐enhancing transfer payments to their overwhelmingly middle‐class student base. The budget cuts and the associated changes to student finance will bring into stark relief the contradictions of serving two welfare masters at once.     

The inadequate legislative response to e-signatures

This article examines the two most influential international initiatives on electronic signatures (UNCITRAL’s 1996 Model Law on Electronic Commerce and the 1999 EU Electronic Signature Directive). It considers whether the legislative approaches in Australia and the United Kingdom based on these initiatives are helpful in deciding whether lower level signature methods such as simple email messages are likely to satisfy a legal requirement for a signature. The conclusion reached is that they are unhelpful. The article goes on to consider whether legislative amendments based on UNCITRAL’s 2001 Model Law on Electronic Signatures or the 2005 UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts would improve the identified weaknesses. It concludes that such an update would clarify some issues, but that overall it will not solve the difficulties. The article ends with a brief speculation on the likely attributes of a more helpful approach.     

论声纹鉴定意见的表述形式

本文针对目前国内外讨论比较热烈的声纹鉴定意见表述问题进行了评述.首先介绍了实践中正在使用的听觉分析法、声谱比对分析法、声学分析法、听觉-声学分析法和说话人自动识别五种鉴定方法,指出了各种方法的优缺点;然后对现存的二元判决、可能性等级、似然比和英国立场声明四种鉴定意见表述形式进行了介绍和评析,通过分析发现,上述四种意见表述形式都存在一定的问题,实践中选择何种形式表述鉴定意见要综合考虑其科学性、逻辑性、现实性和可行性等多种价值选项;最后认为解决该问题的根本方法是各相关领域的专家应加强在鉴定方法上的合作性的基础研究.     

Lamppost networks*: stickers as a genre in urban semiotic landscapes

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the pragmatics of stickers as a genre prominent in communication in urban public space. Although normally small in size, stickers may quantitatively dominate signage in certain areas of cities. Stickers are examined here as localized communicative events that mediatize social practices through a range of complex multimodal and linguistic processes, based on data from the Digbeth area in central Birmingham, UK. An analysis of the distribution of stickers, their agency, audience, and the multimodal practices involved in their creation reveals that they bring together transgressive, artistic and commercial discourses and form a specific layer of urban communication, especially in areas of pedestrian transit within a city. A large number of stickers also initiate communications that can potentially be continued online.     

In the Public Eye: Sustainability and the UK's Leading Retailers

This paper aims to provide an exploratory case study of the sustainability agendas being publicly reported by the UK's leading retailers and to offer some wider reflections on the ways these retailers are currently addressing and pursuing sustainability agendas. The paper begins with a short discussion of the characteristics of sustainability. The paper draws its empirical material from the most recent information on sustainability posted on the UK's top 10 retailers' corporate web sites. The findings reveal that all the UK's top 10 retailers provide information on a wide range of environmental, social and economic sustainability agendas and that the majority of them essentially argue that by integrating sustainability into their businesses, they are better placed to provide long term growth. More critically, the authors argue that the UK's leading retailers are, at best, adopting a ‘weak’ model of sustainability and that in pursuing continuing growth, they are ignoring the basic fact that present patterns of consumption are unsustainable in the long term. The paper provides an accessible review of, and some reflections on, the sustainability agendas being pursued by the UK's leading retailers and as such it will interest academics and those working in management positions within the retail and the retail supply industries. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.