作证特免权的价值追问

作证特免权的内在价值和外在价值都是过程性价值,是目标性价值的体现.作证特免权的外在价值在于保障和促进证人证言所涉及的特定社会关系及特定利益,其内在价值则在于保障被告人和证人的权利,同时规范证人作证制度.作证特免权体现了刑事诉讼价值的的多元性和复杂性,在法律价值的层面上实现了价值的动态均衡.     

国际旅游在国家对外关系中的作用分析

国际旅游对国际政治、经济、文化均具有积极的意义。国际旅游可以作为政治外交的开路先锋和催化剂,是和平发展的推动力,并有利于推动国际关系民主化;国际旅游可以平衡外汇收支,提升国家的经济实力,有利于改善投资环境、掌握经济主动权;国际旅游可以传播文化,推动国家间的跨文化交流,还能提升国家形象,推进文化软实力建设的进程。国际旅游在国家发展对外关系中发挥着越来越重要的作用。     

论保险公司应收保费风险的成因与对策

近年来,随着金融危机的蔓延以及我国保险业的快速发展,由于保险公司自身、保险中介机构、客户等原因造成的保险公司应收保费急剧增加,直接影响着保险公司的现金流及财务稳定性,其潜在危害很大,已引起保险监管机构和各保险公司的高度关注。认真分析应收保费风险的成因及危害,采取有效措施,防范风险,具有重要的现实意义。     

Understanding the insurgency in Balochistan

The management and incorporation of ethnic identities in Pakistan has historically been far more problematic in Balochistan than other provinces and regions. With the killing in 2006 of Akbar Bugti, a leading political figure who was the head of the Bugti tribe and served as federal minister, chief minister and Governor of Balochistan, the province became politically polarised and has descended into a new cycle of bombings, abductions and murders. The rebellion has resulted in a major security operation pitting the security forces against the Baloch people, attacks against Punjabi settlers and sectarian violence against Hazara Shias that collectively threaten to derail major development projects and increase instability in Pakistan as a whole at a critical juncture. This article examines the insurgency in Balochistan and evaluates various perspectives that have been used to explain the present crisis: external intervention, resistance to social change, resource driven conflict theory, transnationalism and diaspora, and failure to manage difference. After examining the evidence it concludes by arguing that the primary cause for the insurgency in Pakistan is due to poor management of difference.     

The Experience of Parents of Children in Care: The Human Rights Issue

There is a growing body of international literature about birth parents' negative experience of child protection services. This article reviews some of this literature and adds recent Australian materials to it. It is then argued that the over-reliance on “the best interest of the child” construct is the base from which these negative experiences emanate. The argument is that in adopting this construct parents' rights have been removed in favor of children's rights. This violates parents' human rights. Such an approach lacks balance, as human rights are inalienable and cannot be the exclusive property of only one party.     

Correlates of Externalizing Behavior Symptoms Among Youth Within Two Impoverished,Urban Communities

This study examines whether risk factors associated with child externalizing behavior symptoms differ between two similar low-income, urban communities, using baseline parent data of 154 African American youth (ages 9–15) participating in the Collaborative HIV-Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CHAMP) family program. Separate multiple regression analyses of each city sample indicated that greater child externalizing symptoms were associated with increasing parenting hassles for New York families (n = 46), but greater parent mental health symptoms for participants in Chicago (n = 108). Understanding such distinctions between communities is an important first step toward tailoring services to unique community needs.     

State science,risk and agricultural biotechnology: Bt cotton to Bt Brinjal in India

Agricultural biotechnology has been a project of India's developmental state since 1986, but implementation generated significant conflict. Sequential cases of two crops carrying the same transgene – Bt cotton and Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) – facing the same authorization procedures produced different outcomes. The state science that approved Bt cotton was attacked as biased and dangerously inadequate by opponents, but the technology spread to virtually universal adoption by farmers. Bt aubergine was approved by the same Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), but the decision was overruled, the GEAC downgraded and a moratorium imposed on the crop. Resultant conflicts engaged international networks, expanded the domestic arena in which science is contested and instigated restructuring of institutions for governance of genetic engineering. Divergent trajectories of the two crops corresponded to global patterns, but also reflected differences in agro-ecologies and state interests. In Bt cotton, state and cultivator interests dominated precautionary logics; in Bt eggplant, politics of risk dominated questions of agro-economics. The cases illustrate both the inherent vulnerability of science in politics and specific vulnerabilities of science embedded in particular institutions. Differences in institutional specificity of state science matter politically in explaining variation across countries in adoption and rejection of genetically engineered crops.     

Varieties of regional monetary cooperation: a tool for reducing volatility in developing economies?

Can regional monetary cooperation shield developing regions from global volatility? The article argues that the main contribution of regional monetary cooperation to enhancing the shock-buffering ability of its member countries is to provide short-term liquidity and to increase regional trade and financial links. In contrast, traditional optimum currency area (OCA) theories formulate the advantages of regional monetary cooperation in terms of allocative efficiency gains and aim at a full currency union as final stage. As such, traditional theory widely ignores the shock-buffering capacity of regional monetary cooperation as well as their varieties. In contrast, the article argues that intermediate stages of regional monetary cooperation have their own rationales related to such shock-buffering capacity. This paper systematically examines the variety of regional cooperation arrangements in the developing world that range from regional payments systems over the pooling of reserves to exchange rate coordination. We propose that the potential for shock buffering is dependent on the chosen form of cooperation. Furthermore, in contrast to full monetary integration, which is highly demanding in terms of policy coordination, the requirements for regional policy coordination are significantly lower, depending on the form and aim of the arrangement.     

The EU and Multidimensional Forms of Power: Critical Moments and Change in Actorness and Power

This article introduces a framework for studying the European Union (EU) as power by focusing on what EU does rather than what EU is. Conceptualizing EU as a regional international society, EU is constituted along multidimensional lines. While a code of conduct limits internal and external practices, critical moments are important junctures for practitioners to reinterpret norms and rules, leading to the reproduction of EU as power. The practice of minority rights illustrates how a lack of intersubjectivity limits the EU’s power. It is first through practitioners’ engagement with norms and rules that new practices are established.     

Trans‐System Social Ruptures: Exploring Issues of Vulnerability and Resiliency1

This essay takes up a recently introduced term, trans‐system social ruptures (TSSRs), and demonstrates its applicability to understanding ruptures to transnational systems. Using the relationship between Canada and the United States as a focus point, the article differentiates national from transnational system social ruptures. The article goes on to explore national and transnational system vulnerability to and resiliency from TSSRs. The distinction between the two types of TSSRs poses empirical, operational, and policy implications. The objective and subjective emergence of TSSRs as a social problem has much to offer to our understanding of disaster events and future crises. The article closes with several recommendations for theoretical development.