What Limits for Government Control? Civil Liberties and Anti‐terror Measures after the Heathrow Bomb Plot

The threat posed by transnational terrorism has excited debate about how best to calibrate relations between government, the courts and parliament: how can the provision of internal security be facilitated, whilst respecting freedoms and ensuring that policies enjoy broad legitimacy? Attention has focussed primarily on the power of the courts. Sections of the government have mooted a curtailment of judicial competencies; by contrast, a broad range of actors calls for ‐ at the least ‐ the maintenance of current judicial powers as the best means to prevent government from exploiting its already large scope for manoeuvre, as well as to overcome public scepticism. Yet the current debate misses the point that relations between government, courts and parliament have already been altered. Government has gained extra political resources thanks to its participation in forms of international counterterrorist cooperation. This shift of power, and associated problems, were clear during the recent ‘Heathrow bomb plot’.     

Ghana's foreign policy and transnational security challenges in West Africa

This article focuses on Ghana's security culture as reflected in its foreign policy, and how it has influenced the way the country addresses transnational security challenges in the Economic Community of West African State subregion. In this sense, the article explores some of the linkages between national and subregional security cultures in West Africa and how effectively they have complemented each other in providing a holistic response to the transnational security challenges facing Ghana. The article argues that despite the existence of different subregional conventions and protocols made possible by an emerging subregional security culture, Ghana's strategies for addressing transnational security threats have not gone much beyond the rhetoric of addressing the problems. In reality, transnational criminal activities have not only intensified but have become more challenging. Several factors contribute to this including corrupt leadership and institutional practices, security lapses and lack of interagency coordination, and inadequate resources for addressing the problem. The article calls for adequately equipping the law enforcement agencies and the implementation of relevant laws to facilitate effective responses to transnational security challenges for Ghana and other countries in West Africa.     

Security culture,transnational challenges and the Economic Community of West African States

This special issue explores how one particular regional organisation, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has defined certain transnational issues as security threats and how it has addressed them. In this introductory article, we begin by providing an overview and analysis of some of the most important transnational security challenges facing West Africa. Specifically, we discuss some of the problems raised by cross-border insurgencies, health challenges, organised criminal activities, terrorism and environmental degradation. We then examine the different levels at which actors have responded to these challenges. The section ‘Security culture: shaping the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) response?’ sets out our approach to thinking about the concept of security culture and asks whether it might be relevant to understanding how and why ECOWAS has focused on responding to certain transnational security challenges and not to others. The final section provides an overview of the other articles in this issue.     

论企业核心竞争力

核心竞争力一词在 1990年《哈佛商业评论》出现以来便立即引起人们的广泛重视。企业核心竞争力是在市场竞争中一种能使企业长期持续发展、获得超额垄断利润并能为顾客带来更多独特价值的核心能力。这种竞争能力为企业创造的优势与一般竞争优势不同 ,它是建立在知识而非经验的基础上 ,具有价值优越性、模仿的高成本性、不可交易性、相对先进性、延伸性、整体关联性、阶段性、层次性与长期性等特性。如此多特性决定了企业核心竞争力的培育与获取不是一朝一夕之事。     

中国开拓俄罗斯建筑市场的一面旗帜——对布拉戈维申斯克市华富公司的调查与思考

苏联解体后 ,国内外很多企业家赴俄开拓新市场。由于转轨中的俄罗斯政局动荡 ,经济滑坡、法规不健全等原因 ,企业经营风险很大 ,为此绝大多数企业难以为继并先后离俄回国。中国华富公司却独辟蹊径闯出了一条成功之路 ,成为中国开拓俄罗斯建筑市场的一面旗帜。该公司成功的奥秘是根据俄国国情 ,审时度势 ,适时打好五张牌 :质量牌、信誉牌、经营牌、本土牌和远见牌     

THE SEXUAL SUBALTERN IN CONVERSATIONS “SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN”: LAW AND THE OLD POLITICS OF COLONIALISM

Ratna Kapur’s recent book entitled Erotic Justice proposes a new politics of postcolonialism whereby the sexual subaltern disrupts the normative principles of the universal, liberal, legal domain. Kapur traces legal strategies regarding censorship, sex-work, homosexuality, sexual harassment, trafficking and migration which travel a treacherous path, countering allegations of ‘unIndian’ and Western practice with cultural histories of ‘authentic’ sexual legitimacies, towards a new politics of desire. Kapur frames her analysis through postcolonial feminist theory as providing a tool for feminist struggle, yet distinct from and disruptive of a liberal project of global sisterhood. This review deeply values the role of the sexual subaltern which disrupts the tenets of a linear, progressive liberalism. Drawing upon Indian feminist and Western feminist perspectives, the review considers how the distinct position of the postcolonial sexual subaltern subject informs the generic role of law as a tool constructing relations of domination regarding gender, sexuality, caste, property and religion. Kapur observes that both the West and the Hindu Right have engaged with liberal legal principles. This engagement, I argue, exposes and informs law as a historical and contemporary tool of gendered legal colonialism, for sisters to disrupt across the Western and Eastern terrains.Review of Ratna Kapur’s Erotic Justice, Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism, London: Glasshouse Press, 2005, 219 pp., ￡26, ISBN 1-90438-524-9     

Democratic Political Competence: Clearing the Underbrush and a Controversial Proposal

Though the link between democracy and an appropriately trained citizen is obvious, the theoretical and empirical nature of this association is murky despite mountains of scholarship addressing this topic. Part of this problem is that the term democratic competence has been stretched almost to the point of uselessness. This constant adding of desired traits—many of which are ideologically driven—misdirects effort away from such complex problems as the relationship between individual attributes and collective capacities. Moreover, recent research has often been guilty of using data of uncertain relevance to demonstrate a competence that seems largely an analytical artifact. We conclude by offering an approach that stresses old- fashioned traits such as patriotism that seem necessary to the existing, and quite democratic, status quo.     

涉税信息共享权限规范研究

税收是国家履行其职能的前提条件,是实现公平正义的方式之一。然而,在我国的税收征管过程中,征纳双方之间的涉税信息具有严重的不对称性,它已经成为国家税款应收尽收的最大障碍。因此,立法者必须以涉税信息共享权限规范的形式赋予税务机关共享由其他部门和机构掌握的纳税人涉税信息的权力。通过在理论上对涉税信息共享权限规范的含义、属性、特征、分类、意义进行深入的研究,以便形成圆满的涉税信息共享权限规范体系,为税务机关涉税信息共享权力的获得和行使奠定理论基础,切实保障国家税收收入。     

What's the point of voting advice applications? Competing perspectives on democracy and citizenship

Voting advice applications (VAAs) are interactive online tools designed to assist voters by improving the basis on which they decide how to vote. Current VAAs typically aim to do so by matching users' policy-preferences with the positions of parties or candidates. But this ‘matching model’ depends crucially on implicit, contestable presuppositions about the proper functioning of the electoral process and about the forms of competence required for good citizenship—presuppositions associated with the social choice conception of democracy. This paper aims to make those presuppositions explicit and to contrast them with two possible alternative perspectives on VAAs, associated with deliberative and agonistic conceptions of democracy and citizenship.     

“不得作为定案根据”条款的学理解析

由于我国的刑事证据立法及司法解释欠缺指导理论,在立法和司法解释制定过程中也未能清晰界定基本的证据法概念,刑事诉讼法和司法解释中将各类不同的证据规则都以"不得作为定案根据"条款的形式进行规范。从证据法理上可将我国的"不得作为定案根据"条款大致分为四类,即狭义的非法证据排除规则、证据的客观性保障规则、证明力评价规则、严格证明规则。对于这四类规则,要分别从法理出发探讨其合理性及适用问题。对于狭义的非法证据排除规则来说,要对其进行合理的解释,以典型案例等有效方式对其实践适用进行指引;对于证据的客观性保障规则来说,要使其具有必要的灵活性,并改变其适用方式;对于证明力评价规则来说,那些对法官采信证据形成不当限制的规则要根据具体情况谨慎适用;对于严格证明规则来说,要将严格证明解释为一个独立的成为定案根据的条件,并且完善举证质证方式、心证公开等配套措施。