International Norms and the End of Apartheid in South Africa

This article examines the interface in the post-World War II era between expanding global movements supporting human rights and traditional great power concerns regarding global security, and asks why an international alliance of actors mobilized to pressure the Western powers, particularly the USA, to politically isolate and economically sanction South Africa in the midst of the cold war. We argue that in the international struggle against apartheid, humanist (human rights) ideology emanating from social movements in global civil society clashed with traditional realist ideology regarding what constituted state security in the global polity. The norms of self-determination of nations and anti-racism together fueled global activism and challenged powerful Western states. Facing mass protests and lobbying efforts from citizens, democratic states across the Western world found greater security in upholding their own professed human rights principles than in maintaining close economic ties to the apartheid regime.     

Parallel authoritarian powers: an explanation of Mexico’s authoritarian regime breakdown

Regional multilateral regimes have become important instruments for promoting and defending democracy around the world. The novel nature of these regional instruments has generated a cottage industry in social science scholarship. Yet, none of these works compare the democracy promotion and defence regimes of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the African Union (AU). This article is designed to fill this gap. We argue that the unique constellation of actors that are members of each respective organization have reinforced two distinct democracy promotion and defence paths. The state-driven regime evolution characteristic of the Americas contrasts with Africa's expert-driven process of regime construction. The state-centric process of the OAS regime has bolstered a narrow interstate multilateralism that upholds traditional sovereign state prerogatives and minimizes the role for non-state actors in the promotion and defence of democracy in the Americas. The expert-driven process of AU's regime construction has fostered a legalistic approach to democratic promotion and defence in Africa and opened up space for non-state actors to play a central role in the development of regional democracy promotion and defence norms.     

Constitutional Conventions and the Prince of Wales

The Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) held in Evans v Information Commissioner that certain correspondence between Prince Charles and government officials must be disclosed under freedom of information legislation. Much of the judgment was devoted to a discussion of the constitutional conventions applicable to Prince Charles, and the case provides a useful example of how conventions and laws can interact. In this note, I argue that the Upper Tribunal misunderstood how conventions are distinguished from one another, and misapplied the test for the identification of conventions.     

自然资源国家所有权双阶构造说

祛除国家所有权的法律神话,遵循解释论立场的研究范式,中国语境中的自然资源国家所有权是一个法规范系统。该系统包含基础性规范、确权性规范、授权性规范及管制性规范四个单元,分别由宪法文本、物权法文本和特别法文本予以载明。具备转介功能的引致条款把各单元串联成一个整体。在现代法秩序中,所有权绝不是由某一个部门法“独家经营”的法律概念。就所有权类型的理论反思而言,自然资源国家所有权蕴含着宪法所有权与民法所有权的双阶构造,纯粹私权说与纯粹公权说均难谓恰当。就自然资源使用的法律调整机制而言,应回归公物与私物二元区分的大陆法传统,并对“非对物采掘类”与“对物采掘类”自然资源作类型化处理,由此形成不同的规范配置。     

自下而上的规范制定与网络安全国际规范的生成

信息通信技术的使用给国际和平与国家安全带来威胁,而网络安全国际规范还处在生成的过程中。各国政府致力于达成一定的规范共识,但常常受到国家间政治博弈的影响。在此情况下,互联网企业及非政府组织开始以“自下而上”的方式积极参与到规范制定中,并提出了不少有别于现有规范成果的规范倡议。互联网企业及非政府组织期望严格约束国家的网络空间行为,并在网络安全治理中扮演更重要的角色。它们提出的规范倡议从多个方面弥补了现有规范的不足。在现实中,主导规范制定的国家行为体与非国家行为体既相互利用,又持续博弈,互联网企业及非政府组织在规范制定进程中的权力与影响力受限。联合国信息安全开放式工作组及少部分国家有限度地向非国家行为体开放,使经过挑选的部分规范倡议进入政府间规范讨论议程,但国家间的分歧与博弈又阻止了这些规范倡议成为受到认可的国际规范。尽管如此,国家间博弈方式的转变,即越来越多的国家利用互联网企业及非政府组织的力量为政治博弈服务,以及公私关系更为平衡的新型网络安全治理模式的构建,为互联网企业及非政府组织争取更大的规范制定权力提供了机会。     

On national and cultural boundaries: a cross-cultural approach to sexual violence perpetration in Brazil and the United Kingdom

The majority of research on rape has so far neglected to examine the effects of socio-cultural beliefs and practices on sexual violence perpetration, with most authors dedicating themselves, instead, to an individualistic approach of this phenomenon. Although these approaches are certainly valid, they often ignore how these behaviours are embedded in the culture and, as a result, do not adequately explore the causes and consequences of sexual violence perpetration. Therefore, the primary goal of this review is to redress this deficiency, focusing on the connection between the phenomenon and the cultural backdrop against which it occurs. Hence, a discussion around certain factors that may serve to either legitimise or to condemn sexual violence in two different countries (Brazil and UK) is necessary. To make this possible, differences regarding each country’s culture, rape legislation and prevalence are presented, and issues regarding the current individualistic theoretical approach to the subject are explored.     

《新巴比伦法典》民事规范源流考

公元前626年左右,古代西亚地区进入了新巴比伦文明时期。其时,颁行的《新巴比伦法典》详细地规定了以下三个方面的内容,一是关于损害赔偿以及买卖纠纷的处理规定;二是婚嫁过程中的财产赠与及其纠纷的处理规定;三是财产继承的规定。这些民事规范秉承了古巴比伦民事成文法、古亚述民事习惯法的法律传统,颇具特色。它对古代民法的贡献在于:民事权利主体的等级化、婚姻家庭关系的契约化以及财产流转的程式化。因此,《新巴比伦法典》是美索不达米亚法系不可或缺的组成部分,对人类民法的起源做出了自己的贡献。     

Vaccine or catalyst? Christian religion and populism in Europe: A rejoinder to Inglehart's “Religion's sudden decline”

The strength and direction of the association between Christian religion and support for radical right-wing parties is strongly debated. On the one hand, there is work that shows that in Western European countries with a strong Christian democratic party, the relationship between church attendance and voting for populist radical right (PRR) parties is negative (Marcinkiewicz and Dassonneville 2022). Such findings contradict with the conclusions reached by Inglehart (2021), who reported that adherence to religious norms correlates positively with support for PRR parties. In this research note we shed light on the reasons for these contrasting conclusions, by systematically assessing the role of empirical choices in terms of the operationalizations of the dependent and the key independent variables, and how heterogeneity is dealt with.     

论廉政文化的内涵及其在新时期的作用

廉政文化的提出为廉政建设提供了新视角。廉政文化在传统文化中主要强调的是不贪、不妄取等廉洁思想。在新时期,廉政文化有导向、批判、规范和舆论监督等作用,我们建设廉政文化可以弘扬民族精神和党的优良传统,促进党内文化建设。     

The benefits of norm ambiguity: constructing the responsibility to protect across Rwanda,Iraq and Libya

Over the past two decades, International Relations scholars have highlighted the importance of efforts by hegemonic states and norm entrepreneurs to foster norm clarity when promoting the establishment, institutionalisation, and internalisation of norms. Yet, such analyses obscure the benefits of norm ambiguity in facilitating consensus, flexibility, and compliance. The authors offer a framework positing that hegemonic and institutional ambiguity can help create consensus and facilitate incremental reform necessary to sustain that consensus. Empirically, the authors then show how such ambiguity has facilitated the development of the responsibility to protect norm, tracing Rwanda-era debates over humanitarian intervention, Iraq-era backlash over interventionist abuses, and Libya-era norm implementation.