The President's Commission and Sentencing,Then and Now

The proposals made in 1967 by the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice on sentencing were sensible, humane, well informed, and ambitious. They were premised on an assumption that indeterminate sentencing, then ubiquitous, would long continue, and sought to remedy its weaknesses and build on its strengths. That assumption proved wrong. Within a decade, indeterminate sentencing and its rehabilitative aspirations lost credibility and legitimacy. Within two decades, American policies incorporated features such as determinate sentences, lengthy prison terms, and mandatory minimum sentence laws that the Commission explicitly repudiated. The Commission's influence is evident in successful sentencing reform initiatives of the 1970s and early 1980s, some of which survive in a few places in compromised forms. Many of the Commission's proposals to make sentencing fairer, more consistent, and less vulnerable to influence by political considerations and public emotion are as germane today as they were in 1967.     

Interdisciplinary research on international relations theory and international law in China over the past 10 years

From the origin, there has been a strong connection between international relations and international law. In the development of the history of different academic subjects, the research on international relations and international law are interdependently promoting each other. As a result, the realization of interdisciplinary research on international legal theory and the study of international law is inevitable. As a matter of fact, even though the interdisciplinary research of the two subjects has been separated for almost half a century, the need for the development of the subject and the changing world political and economical status give them a new chance for reunification. Recently, the interdisciplinary research on international relations theory and international law by the Western academic is becoming the order of the day, which has become the latest shining point of the recent development of the two subjects, which is even regarded as the new revolution of international relations theory and the study of international law. In this context, the past ten years is a period of emergence of Chinese international relations and the interdisciplinary research of international law. In the past ten years, some scholars have overcome “the difficulty of interdisciplinary research,” “the prejudice within the subject” and “the gap among different subjects,” and made pioneering research in the field of “systematic connection” and “issues in overlapping field.” Moreover, they gradually make the interdisciplinary research to be a popular method and a common recognition. Based on the current studies, interdisciplinary research will have a broad future in the fields such as “the interchange of concepts,” “the exchange of method,” and “the mutual assistance of materials,” which will provide scholars in this area with a broad space for research.     

严重国际犯罪事项上的中非司法合作：问题与挑战——基于哈布雷案视角的研究

随着国际社会围绕严重国际犯罪达成共识的增多,国家间司法合作日益受到影响。司法合作一方面能有效防止出现“有罪不罚”现象,另一方面能帮助完善一国国内法制。随着中非关系的更加密切与发展,中非司法合作将愈益增多。中国要在中非司法合作中占据主动,呈现更正面的建设性形象,就有必要首先完善本国国内法制。哈布雷案在此方面可提供若干借鉴。     

Impacts of the internet on traditional jurisdictional principles in international civil and commercial cases

Started as an undefined US military project to the current global network, the Internet has been developing and improved at an amazing speed, which also brought out enormous challenges to the traditional way of life worldwide. By analyzing the features of the Internet, this paper reveals the impacts of the Internet on jurisdictional principles applied in traditional international civil and commercial cases and aims to apply traditional rules under the new environment of the Internet. In addition, by referring to the international uniform legislation and from the US judicial theories and practices, this paper also brings out reflections and suggestions regarding this issue.     

Asymmetry as context: The rollercoaster of South Africa–US relations post 1994

The United States pictured a bright future with a strategic country when the new South African government took power in 1994. They envisioned a strong partnership in political, economic and security realms. The bilateral relationship did not turn out to be as easy as many in America might have envisioned. Despite notable camaraderie during the Mandela–Clinton administrations, there was a considerable downward swing in US–South African relations during the Bush administration. This situation has since appeared to reverse itself during the current Obama and Zuma administrations. This paper, through the lens of ‘asymmetry theory’ as developed by Brantly Womack, seeks to shed light on how a rollercoaster relationship such as this can go through such fluctuations and not end in extreme tension.     

Somali pirates: villains or victims?

The proliferation of piracy activity off the coast of Somalia has received a fair share of international attention. Its consequences have included a destabilising effect on trade, security and humanitarian aid. This has served to give reason for the deployment of multi-national forces by some of the countries affected by the scourge. While naval patrols have reduced the success rate of piracy attacks in some areas, there has been little respite in piracy incidents with the overall number of attacks and their geographic scope increasing. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has, in fact, evolved into organised syndicates with transnational networks. The problem is that various international actors have largely viewed piracy off the coast of Somalia in terms of threats to their own national interests and security. They have, thus, dealt with the issue in isolation from its wider context, which has not succeeded in ending the attacks. This article argues that to deal with the piracy problem more meaningfully, there is need for a contextual framework beyond addressing the ‘illegal’ activities. Piracy is a complex problem, with political, legal, social, economic, security and even human rights dimensions, and calls for a truly holistic approach that, especially, seeks to address the root causes on land. The article calls for a change in strategies in order to facilitate a ‘local Somali solution’ rather than an international one that is acceptable to the sensibilities of international actors. The article emphasises the need to extend the strong international cooperation demonstrated on the high seas in the fight against piracy to the fight against root causes of piracy onshore.     

South Africa and Myanmar: Beware the politics of perfidy

The article examines the repressive actions of the government of Myanmar, focusing on its continuing incarceration of a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, and questions the diplomatic route South Africa has chosen in terms of its relations with the country.     

The visual politics of corruption

Despite the fact that corruption is essentially invisible, communication campaigns by the global anti-corruption industry regularly feature photographic images. So far, however, we do not know much about the narratives that are encoded in these images. Through the theoretical lens of postcolonialism, this paper takes a first step towards developing an understanding of the visual representation of corruption. Specifically, the paper applies semiotic and iconographic methods to two photography competitions run by Transparency International – the major non-governmental player in the anti-corruption industry. The analysis shows, first, that the anti-corruption industry reinforces colonial stereotypes, suggesting that the ‘sinful’ and ‘irrational’ Global South is waiting to be civilised by the North. Second, through its visual imagery, the anti-corruption industry also emphasises ideas of a ‘humanitarian family’, which serves to cover up the North’s role in transnational webs of corruption. These findings are triangulated with semiotic/iconographic analyses of the Transparency International logo and the Corruption Perceptions Index map.     

Global international relations and the Arab Spring: the Maghreb’s challenge to the EU

Abstract

This article contributes to the Global International Relations project by critically evaluating the roles ascribed to Europe and the EU by Levitsky and Way in their model for explaining regime transitions. Focusing primarily on their international dimensions of linkage and leverage, it assesses both the normative geopolitical underpinnings and explanatory power of their thesis, drawing on the North African cases of Tunisia and Mauritania at the start of the Arab Spring to illustrate and substantiate its observations and arguments. It concludes that the EU’s failure to discipline either country’s competitive authoritarian regime raises important questions about the validity of the privileged role in which they cast Europe.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Acceptance of E-Procurement in the German Public Sector

The increasing governmental spending and simultaneously declining income of municipality are two of the most significant challenges of the 21^st century. The introduction of the Internet and innovative information and communication tools over the last few decades have led to a cost saving and efficiency advantage in many areas. By far, public administration has not fully profited from these opportunities and advantages. This article seeks to understand the underlying barriers of technology implementation, namely e-procurement, within the public administration area by analyzing the key barriers of central decision makers within the organization. The empirical findings of 289 respondents from the German public administration show that the barrier typologies are identified and that they have a strong impact on the resistance of implementation. However, the collected data could not verify the theoretically postulated relationship between high resistance and low implementation of the new technology.