Reaction to Grain Financialization: Protection of Farmer Client Rights about the Legislation on Grain Futures in China

Grain security should be emphasized to develop diversified grain market in the perspective of grain financialization, so as to realize the unification of grain spot market and futures market. New farmers should change from the traditional grain production to the hedging and risk aversion of the futures market and become the new and basic clients. Legislation on the grain futures should protect farmer rights for the unification with the rights of the grain futures company and the government financial security and grain security, which is guarantees the value of law to be free, fair and secure. Regarding the obviously weak position of farmers, major concern of academic study should focus on the frauds of grain futures company, such as the liability subject, subjective fault, fraudulent conduct, harmful aftereffect and causality. The Futures Act and Grain Act are supposed to contain the liability system that covers the civil liability, administrative liability, criminal liability and social liability in order to respond to the grain financialization effectively.     

Understanding Sexual Harassment a Little Better Reed and Bull Information Systems Ltd v. Stedman

This case note reviews the guidelines issued by Morison J. in the Employment Appeal Tribunal at the end of the decision in Reed and Bull Information Systems Ltd v. Stedman [1999] I.R.L.R.299. The author argues that while the judge’s decision is to be welcomed in adopting an approach more sympathetic to victims of sexual harassment, it also raises a number of problems by placing a burden on the victim to place the harasser on notice that she does not welcome his conduct. The guidelines are likely to be usefully applied in any jurisdiction that has rules forbidding sexual harassment. The author considers the guidelines from both a practical and a doctrinal angle and indicates that the right to be free from sexual harassment is one that the courts are reluctant to protect like other civil rights. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Does the Statutory Regulation of Advance Decision-Making Provide Adequate Respect for Patient Autonomy?

This paper considers advance decision-making in the context of healthcare. The common law recognition of advance decisions is contrasted with new statutory provision. This paper will examine the Mental Capacity Act 2005 framework for advance decisions and lasting powers of attorney. The ‚best interests’ test and substituted judgment as criteria for proxy decision-making are compared by application to a case example. The paper examines the statutory safeguards in respect of refusals of ‚life-sustaining treatment’ and postulates that these safeguards may render respect for autonomous advance decision-making difficult to achieve in practice.     

国际民事诉讼中的国家行为原则——以美国法为例

国家行为原则在国际民事诉讼中越来越多的被引用,对其展开研究对我国立法和司法实践有重要意义。文章以美国法为例,从该原则的概念、特点、历史等基本点入手,分析了国家行为原则产生的法理基础;从该原则适用例外的角度分析了其适用范围;依据不同案件类型,初步总结了国家行为原则的适用方法。     

试论内部行政处分行为的可诉性

我国现行《行政诉讼法》的受案范围一直是学术界争议颇多的问题,内部行政处分行为是否可诉即是其中之一。从行政法治主义、司法最终原则等理论基础出发,并参考国外的相关理论与实践,对我国行政诉讼制度中内部行政处分司法救济的欠缺、国家公务员合法、正当权利受到损害无法得到司法救济的现状进行探讨。应当给予内部行政处分行为的相对人,即国家公务员,以司法救济的途径。     

Points of departure: re-examining the discursive formation of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990

Leung’s article re-examines the political and legislative history of the debates that led up to the passage of the 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act, in particular the 1980 House committee hearing on Increasing Violence against Minorities and a 1983 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report entitled Intimidation and Violence: Racial and Religious Bigotry in America. Both identify organized white supremacy as the cause of the nation’s epidemic of racial intimidation and violent bigotry in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many significant recommendations were made, but data collection became the first piece of legislation to address the national problem of hate violence. Leung seeks to explain why. By analysing the relationship between committee hearings, the key report and the political context of the Reagan administration, he demonstrates how ‘hate crime’ became an object of knowledge, and how its definition had implications for policy development.     

The Impact of the Threat of Terrorism on U.S. District Court Decisions During Wartime

Federal courts are key actors in the U.S. government’s fight against terrorism because they adjudicate cases based on the USA PATRIOT Act, and accordingly make national security policy. We examine the extent that the terror threat influences judicial decisions in a dataset of 111 USA PATRIOT Act cases decided in the U.S. District Courts from 2001 through 2013, while controlling for other judicial decision-making variables. The results demonstrate that when a case involves a heightened terror threat, federal judges are more likely to defer to the government. Some key control variables are also significant.     

分洪与赔偿

分洪是政府的公用征调行为,其目的在于紧急避险,公司征调则是实现紧急避险的必要方法。政府向受损人赔偿的数额应取决于因分洪或转移财产而造成的实际损失。     

Breach of Confidence as a Privacy Remedy in the Human Rights Act Era

This article examines the impact of the Human Rights Act (HRA) on the current lack of a remedy for non-consensual publication of personal information by the media. It argues that the action for breach of confidence is now ripe for development into a privacy law in all but name and that the normative impetus for this enterprise can be found in the HRA which will require domestic courts to consider Convention jurisprudence. It will suggest that when Strasbourg decisions are examined in the context of more general Convention doctrines, they may be seen to suggest the need for an effective privacy remedy. Drawing upon approaches from other jurisdictions it seeks to demonstrate that principled solutions may be found to the thicket of legal problems associated with such development. It contends that the main objection to this enterprise, the perceived threat to media freedom, is largely misplaced, as analysis at the theoretical and doctrinal levels reveals that speech and privacy interests are in many respects mutually supportive and the areas of conflict small and readily susceptible to resolution.     

Future Uncertainty as a Challenge to Law's Programmes: The Dilemma of Parental Disputes

The article poses the problem of the need for judges to make 'right' decisions. It then describes how judges have attempted to meet this requirement in difficult cases concerning parental disputes over contact with children where there have been allegations of domestic violence. Applying Luhmann's concepts of the legal system, law's function, law's coding and law's programmes (Das Recht der Gesellschaft (Society's Law) 1997), offers a very different perspective on the issue to that of the judiciary or legal commentators who tend to see the issue of the law, determining, with expert help, what is best for the child. Law's function of stabilizing expectations over time obliges it to deal with all matters that come before the courts through the application of 'conditional programmes' and prevents it from applying the 'purpose oriented programmes' of politics and those who see the issue in terms of ideological conflict.