Restrictions on legal aid in family law cases in England and Wales: creating a necessary barrier to public funding or simply increasing the burden on the family courts?

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) resulted in significant cuts to the availability and scope of legal aid in family law proceedings. Some four years after the cuts were implemented, there has been a great deal of research about their devastating impact on vulnerable groups and individuals. This paper considers the other victim of the cuts, the family court itself. It is currently bulging under pressure from both an increase in applicants who have been forced to represent themselves in family proceedings and also from a rise in applications for injunctions linked to domestic violence. This paper will draw on case law to demonstrate that the reforms implemented through LASPO have seemingly only succeeded in passing the burden from one publicly funded agency, the Legal Aid Agency, to another, HM Courts and Tribunals Service. The family court system is currently at breaking point and further government review is urgently needed if people are going to be able to continue to use the system effectively.     

Institutionalized Intervention: The ‘Bunker Politics’ of International Aid in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

Afghanistan has come to be seen as emblematic of the security threats besetting peace and security operations, and in this article we consider the response to such threats via the ‘bunkering’ of international staff. Drawing on an in-depth qualitative survey with aid and peacebuilding officials in Kabul, we illustrate how seemingly mundane risk management procedures have negative consequences for intervening institutions; for the relation between interveners and national actors; and for the purpose of intervention itself. Bunkering, we argue, is deeply political – ‘imprisoning’ staff behind ramparts while generating an illusion of presence and control for ill-conceived modes of international intervention.     

论法学研究的中国问题意识——以关于法律信仰问题的争论为分析线索

法学研究的中国问题意识根本而言就是批判反省意识,对它的论证应当坚守事实证成和价值证成两个维度。在当下中国,法学研究既不能做简单的信息提供者,也不能唯主义至上。这既是纠偏目前中国法学界形形色色的问题意识误区的需要,也是适格的法学研究的中国问题意识当下在场的主要方式。     

我国行政问责制的实践反思

行政问责制是建设责任政府、法治政府、民主政府和效能政府的重要保障。自2003年＂非典＂之后,我国政坛掀起了一场迅猛的＂问责风暴＂,取得了一大批问责成果,然而,在实践过程中却凸显出一系列亟待解决的问题。因此,必须完善行政问责制度,以确保政府部门及官员真正做到有权必有责、用权受监督、违法受追究,由此建立起廉洁、高效的责任政府和服务型政府。     

Breaking with tradition? South Africa–UK relations

Just over twenty years into its new era of democracy, South African foreign policy appears to be undergoing important changes in orientation and global positioning. Indeed, post-apartheid South African foreign policy has been steadily shifting away from a preoccupation with more traditional partnerships to developing alliances and coalitions with emerging economies and actors seeking to reform the global governance order. The paper seeks to understand the implications of this shift for South Africa's relationship with its most pivotal and enduring traditional ‘partner' – the United Kingdom. Thus, the paper proposes that this relationship can be best understood by considering it on different and at least partially contradictory levels, reflecting South Africa's own ambiguous identity as an emerging middle power.     

Does the well-being of ‘embedded’ staff affect programme performance? The case of the IGAD initiative in South Sudan

South–South Cooperation is an emerging trend in international development assistance. Since 2011, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) initiative in South Sudan has been one of the most comprehensive attempts at post-conflict capacity development through South–South Cooperation, in terms of both scope and level of funding. This paper looks at the well-being of civil servant support officers deployed under the IGAD initiative, and the relationship between well-being and project performance. The paper explores assumptions underpinning South–South Cooperation and seeks to establish a better understanding of well-being and its impact on project performance. The paper also examines whether the second phase of the initiative has adequately addressed various challenges identified in the first phase. The paper finds that well-being, although often overlooked, has been critical to programme success in the IGAD initiative.     

The International Humanitarian Regime and its Discontents: India’s Challenge

Abstract

In recent years, concerns over whether the humanitarian regime as we know it will survive a many-pronged challenge have spurred humanitarian organisations to embark on processes of soul-searching and innovation. With a steadily increasing aid budget and its more active and vocal role in development and humanitarian politics—and in global politics more generally—India has acquired the label of ‘emerging’ humanitarian actor. This article, however, shows that in many ways India has been a humanitarian pioneer, and connects the norms and values of the international humanitarian regime with India’s own philosophical, religious and democratic traditions. It also discusses how Indian policy-makers have critiqued the current United Nations-led international humanitarian regime and investigates how the government of an increasingly powerful and influential Commonwealth country from the South interacts with an international regime created in Europe. For many Indian policy-makers, current humanitarian practices are tainted by what they see as North American and European interventionist and highly political agendas in the South. The article concludes that while there is still a lot to be said for a global, multilateral humanitarian regime led by the United Nations, it need not be Western-biased, either in theory or in practice.