Unfulfilled promises of the consultation approach: the limits to effective indigenous participation in Bolivia’s and Peru’s extractive industries

Indigenous peoples’ right to prior consultation and to informed consent represents the basis of the new global model shaping state–indigenous relations. Consultation processes promise to enable indigenous people to determine their own development and are especially promoted when extraction projects with significant socio-environmental impacts are planned on indigenous lands. In this article we draw on debates on participatory development in order to analyse the first state-led consultations in Bolivia’s and Peru’s hydrocarbon sectors (2007–14). The analysis shows that effective participation has been limited by (1) an absence of indigenous ownership of the processes; (2) indigenous groups’ difficulties defending or even articulating their own visions and demands; and (3) limited or very general outcomes. The study identifies real-life challenges, such as power asymmetries, a ‘communication hurdle’ and appropriate timing – as well as simplistic assumptions underlying the consultation approach – that account for the unfulfilled promises of this new model.     

Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy

Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies seem to arise out of presidential systems, Turkey, though a parliamentary system, has also displayed the distinctive features of delegative democracies. This paper identifies three characteristics of delegative democracy, which are responsible for the lack of democratic consolidation, if not the erosion of democracy itself: anti-institutionalism, an anti-political agenda and clientelism. Arguing that delegative democracy is the best concept with which to examine contemporary Turkey, the paper lays out how, post-2011, Turkey has demonstrated the three elements of delegative democracy. The final section discusses the implications of the Turkish case for scrutinising the very possibility of delegative democracy in parliamentary regimes.     

论我国合同法上的法定解除

合同解除是合同法终止制度中的一个重要问题,其中的法定解除制度为重点规制对象。我国合同法对此作了较详细的规范,包含了法定解除权的行使条件和合同解除的法律效力等几个方面的内容。     

Postmortem Computed Tomography in Firearm Homicides: A Retrospective Case Series,

Postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) is integrated into the evaluation of decedents in several American medical examiner offices and medicolegal death investigative centers in many other countries. We retrospectively investigated the value of PMCT in a series of firearm homicide cases from a statewide centralized medical examiner’s office that occurred during 2016. Autopsies were performed or supervised by board-certified forensic pathologists who reviewed the PMCT scans prior to autopsy. PMCT scans were re-evaluated by a forensic radiologist blinded to the autopsy findings and scored by body region (head–neck, thoracoabdominal, and extremities). Injury discrepancies were scored using a modified Goldman classification and analyzed with McNemar’s test. We included 60 males and 20 females (median age 31 years, range 3–73). Based on PMCT, 56 (79.1%) cases had injuries relevant to the cause of death in a single body region (24 head–neck region, 32 thoracoabdominal region). Out of these 56 cases, 9 had a missed major diagnosis by PMCT outside that region, including 6 extremity injuries visible during standard external examination. Yet all had evident lethal firearm injury. We showed that PMCT identifies major firearm injuries in homicide victims and excludes injuries related to the cause of death in other regions when a single body region is injured. Although PMCT has a known limited sensitivity for soft tissue and vascular pathology, it can be combined with external examination to potentially reduce or focus dissections in some of these cases depending on the circumstances and medicolegal needs.     

Combined Collection and Analysis of Inorganic and Organic Gunshot Residues

Gunshot residue (GSR) analysis and their interpretation provide crucial information on a criminal investigation involving the use of firearms. To date, several approaches have been proposed for the implementation of a combined sampling and analysis of inorganic (IGSR) and organic GSR (OGSR). However, it is not clear at this stage if concurrent analyses of both types of residue might be detrimental to the analysis of IGSR currently applied in forensic laboratories. Thus, this work aims to compare and evaluate three different protocols for the combined collection and analysis of IGSR and OGSR. These methods, respectively, involve the use of a modified stub (with two halves, one for the detection of IGSR and the other for the analysis of OGSR); the sequential recovery of GSR with two stubs mounted with different adhesives (double-sided carbon tape and Tesa® TACK) and the sequential analysis of IGSR and OGSR from a single carbon stub following carbon deposition. The detection of IGSR was carried out using SEM-EDX, while OGSR analysis was performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). Obtained results for experiments performed using Geco Sinoxid^® ammunition indicated that sequential analysis was the most suitable protocol for the combined collection and analysis of both IGSR and OGSR. A higher number of inorganic (characteristic and consistent) particles and higher concentrations of ethylcentralite, N-nitrosodiphenylamine, diphenylamine, and nitroglycerin were recovered with this method.     

Taxing Digital Economy: A Critical View around the GloBE (Pillar Two)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposal for taxation of digital economy constitutes one of the most ambitious projects in the field of taxation and may lead to the most significant reform to international tax rules in the 20th century. Based on a two-pillar approach, Pillar Two of the proposal suggests the adoption of Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) provisions that are aimed at introducing a worldwide minimum tax. In this article, a critical analysis is based that the GloBE proposal suggests that it represents a shift in the OECD policy. As compared to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), it jeopardizes the tax sovereignty of jurisdictions and it raises fundamental challenges of implementation, both in terms of amendments to domestic law and conflicts with tax treaties.     

The Governance of Cross-Border Data Flows in Trade Agreements: Is the Cptpp Framework an Ideal Way Out?

The regulations of cross-border data flows is a growing challenge for the international community. International trade agreements, however, appear to be pioneering legal methods to cope, as they have grappled with this issue since the 1990s. The World Trade Organization (WTO) rules system offers a partial solution under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which covers aspects related to cross-border data flows. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) have also been perceived to provide forward-looking resolutions. In this context, this article analyzes why a resolution to this issue may be illusory. While they regulate cross-border data flows in various ways, the structure and wording of exception articles of both the CPTPP and USMCA have the potential to pose significant challenges to the international legal system. The new system, attempting to weigh societal values and economic development, is imbalanced, often valuing free trade more than individual online privacy and cybersecurity. Furthermore, the inclusion of poison-pill clauses is, by nature, antithetical to cooperation. Thus, for the international community generally, and China in particular, cross-border data flows would best be regulated under the WTO-centered multilateral trade law system.     

Experimental Evidence on the Impacts of Need-Based Financial Aid: Longitudinal Assessment of the Wisconsin Scholars Grant

We conduct the first long-term experimental evaluation of a need-based financial aid program, the privately funded Wisconsin Scholars Grant. Over multiple cohorts, the program failed to increase degree completion and graduate school enrollment up to 10 years after matriculation. The program did reduce time-to-degree for some students and modestly increased the number of STEM degrees earned. The lack of robust effects raises important questions about the conditions necessary for financial aid to benefit students.     

The 2019 General Election in Northern Ireland: the Rise of the Centre Ground?

The experience of the 2019 general election in Northern Ireland took a very different course to that of the rest of the UK and, indeed, to the pattern of electoral politics typical of the region. Coming after almost three years with no functioning devolved government, combined with intense disagreement and uncertainty about Brexit, voters were ready to give a message to the two largest parties. Both Sinn Féin and the DUP suffered losses in the election, with the headline outcome being that unionism no longer holds the majority of seats for Northern Ireland in Westminster. More generally, there was a swing from both sides towards centre ground voting, which brought significant gains for the Alliance Party and the SDLP. This article summarises the reasons for this broad trend, focussing on the conditions and electoral pacts which brought it about. It also considers what it might mean for the prospects for Irish unification, noting that a referendum on unification will only be passed by attracting votes from those who tend to see themselves as neither unionist or nationalist.     

Environmental Stressors and Food Security in China

This article considers the immediate forces influencing China’s food system and food security. By immediate is meant events of the reform period, from the late 1970s to 2008. It begins by asking the question that has preoccupied specialists since the publication of Lester Brown’s Who Will Feed China? in 1995: How much arable land does China have? Is that land area sufficient to insure grain sufficiency? To insure food security? The article focuses on the human pressures on the food production environment, and then treats the effects of socioeconomic change: land, air, and water degradation. The core of the article examines six responses of the state to both perceived and actual environmental stressors: policy restricting arable land conversion, China’s one-child policy, investment in irrigation systems, the South–North Water Diversion Project, large-scale afforestation and reforestation campaigns, and the program to convert marginal agricultural lands to forests and grasslands.