Unity Without Totalitarianism: Tensions Within Normativity

Although he did not invent the term, Jürgen Habermas has popularised “constitutional patriotism” as a form of political unity that avoids excessive nationalism. This paper attempts to examine the link between emotivism and normativity that has otherwise been excluded from Habermas’s notion of constitutional patriotism. Beyond Habermas, political theory as a whole has not yet taken emotivism as a serious component of normativity. Rather than developing it in isolation, this paper attempts to reconcile emotivism with cognitive-normative practices found within rational deliberation. Reconciling the two not only provides a better normative steering component for judging good from bad practices, but also depicts contemporary political practices more accurately. In sum, constitutional patriotism’s normativity must be sourced from a complex integration of emotion and cognition, or put another way, from the interplay between citizens’ moral sentiments and rational judgements.     

PAKISTAN’S CRISIS OF GOVERNANCE AND THE RESURGENCE OF TERRORIST VIOLENCE SINCE AUGUST 2016

Fifteen years since joining the US-led anti-terrorism coalition, Pakistan’s response to the challenges of terroristic violence and extremist indoctrination and propaganda remain military-centric and kinetic. Since August 2016, after a brief lull, Pakistan has experienced a resurgence of terrorist activity and violence that has struck all of its provinces and placed its capital on high alert. The re-escalation in the level of terrorist violence began with the August 8, 2016, attacks in Quetta, which left over 70 dead and more than 100 injured. The lack of response from the provincial and federal governments to this carnage, led the Supreme Court of Pakistan to exercise its authority under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and establish an Inquiry Commission to examine the state of the investigation and report on the challenges faced in the struggle against terrorism and extremism. This inquiry assumed the form and substance of an audit of the performance of Pakistan’s institutions and exposed the link between the country’s crisis of governance and its incoherent response to terrorism and extremism at all levels of government. The implications of the inquiry report are both broad and deep, and reveal that Pakistan’s trajectory remains that of civilian administrative breakdown and institutional exhaustion. This indicates that Pakistan’s civilian-military balance continues to shift in structural terms in favour of the latter and that beneath a veneer of constitutional democracy, the arbitrary, unwise, and inefficient, exercise of power by the political class continues to hollow out the country’s administrative institutions.     

调解兴衰与当代中国法院政治功能的变迁——以《最高人民法院工作报告》(1981年-2010年)为对象

上世纪80年代以来,中国调解制度经历了"着重调解———自愿调解———调解优先"的过程。在着重调解阶段,法院具有动员人们参与有中国特色社会主义建设和法律现代化的进程,消解经济发展带来的民众脱离政治依附性的离心力的政治功能;在自愿调解阶段,法院具有进一步强化中国特色社会主义建设和法律现代化这一基本方向的政治功能;在调解优先阶段,法院具有重新恢复民众对于社会现代化和法律现代化信心的政治动员功能。     

欧盟过境货物知识产权保护最新态势——兼评欧洲法院“NOKIA”案和“PHILLIPS”案

自2008年10月以来,在欧盟一些海关屡屡发生过境货物遭到扣押的事件,尤其是荷兰海关屡次扣押印度等国的过境药品,引起国际社会的极大关注.英国和比利时法院分别在审理“NOKIA”案和“PHIILIPS”案过程中对过境货物是否扣押产生疑问,并向欧洲法院提出咨询.近期欧洲法院对两案合并审理,做出一项里程碑意义的判决,厘清了过境货物、 “虚拟制造”理论等基本问题,对欧盟海关的知识产权执法和法院司法都有很好的指导作用,对于我国政府和企业也不无裨益.     

论刑事发回重审制度——评刑事诉讼法修正案草案第八十三条

刑事诉讼法修正案草案对二审中的发回重审仅仅提到了一点，即限制因事实不清证据不足而发回重审的次数。这种蜻蜓点水式的修改依然不能令人满意，而且存在着理解上的歧义。对比草案前后关于发回重审的不同规定，并结合草案和现行刑诉法中发回重审的规定。分析发回重审存在的矛盾，最后借刑诉法修改之际提出了关于二审中发回重审的修改意见。     

我国民事调解制度的法律性质及其完善

民事调解制度虽然存在于民事诉讼过程中,但属于非讼程序。私权自治、审判效益和司法文明的要求,促使民事诉讼契约化。民事调解协议本质上是一种诉讼契约,法院承担公证的角色。应从以下几个方面完善我国民事调解程序:单独设置调解机构和调解主持法官;合理设置调解员选任程序、回避程序和参加庭审程序;采用签字生效制度;合理界定达成调解协议的标准。     

Responding to Severe Parent–Child Rejection Cases Without a Parentectomy: A Blended Sequential Intervention Model and the Role of the Courts

There have been significant developments over the past two decades that have expanded our understanding of the dynamics of parent–child contact problems post‐separation, which have resulted in some changes in judicial processes to respond to these cases. One significant advancement is a more sophisticated differentiation of the nature and severity of contact problems, which better assists legal and mental health professionals to provide more suitable legal and clinical interventions. However, the issue of innovative court processes has received limited attention. The authors describe a subgroup of families within the “severe” category, for whom an expanded intervention model, referred to as a Blended Sequential Intervention is proposed. This approach involves a reversal of care with court mandated therapeutic support for the rejected parent and child, but also involves the favored parent in the therapeutic plan from the outset, and is intended to avoid a permanent “parentectomy” of the child from either parent. The authors discuss how the courts should respond to these cases, and posit that until all therapeutic treatments are exhausted, interim orders should be preferred to final determinations, and judges should maintain oversight. The authors discuss the critical role of judicial leadership in working with lawyers and mental health professionals to manage and address the issues in these high conflict cases.     

从传统合同到智能合同:由事后法院裁判到事前自动履行的转变

传统合同需要当事人履行具体义务以促使合同目的的实现,且允许各方在现实环境发生变化时加入新的合意或对原合同条款进行修改,产生纠纷后也可以依据法院的裁判机制使权利义务关系趋于平衡。但是,区块链技术的兴起使智能合同能够自动履行当事人约定的各项内容,对纠纷的解决也可以按照合同订立时确定的救济方式自动进行,甚至无需法院的裁判支持。从传统合同到智能合同,最显著的变革在于由事后法院裁判到事前自动履行的转变。技术的进步使法院裁判机制作为权利保障后盾的重要地位受到冲击,智能合同的事前自动履行具有高效率、低成本的优势,为商业世界的交易活动提供新的可能,具有极大的发展潜力。     

国际法视角下的柏威夏寺领土争端及其对我国的启示

柬埔寨、泰国间的柏威夏寺领土争端吸引了全世界的关注.联合国国际法院曾于1962年对柬埔寨与泰国间的柏威夏寺领土争端案进行裁判,该裁判对国际领土争端的相关原则进行了阐释和重申,在国际法上产生了广泛的影响.对这一裁判进行回顾和解析,不仅有利于我们更好地了解当前柬埔寨与泰国间关于柏威夏寺的争端,也可对我国边界争端的解决提供某种借鉴.     

The European Court of Justice and its political impact

This article reviews recent advances in the study of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and its political impact at the European and member state levels. New quantitative as well as qualitative analyses show with great empirical precision that member state preferences guide the Court. The article summarises these findings, but argues that greater attention needs to be given to the (over-)constitutionalisation of EU law in order to fully capture the political impact of ECJ jurisprudence. Even if European judges are less activist than is often assumed and individual decisions are more restrained in the face of member state opposition, incrementally, case law evolves in a highly expansive fashion. And, exercising caution regarding unrealistic expectations about quasi-deterministic judicial law-making, it is found that the Court’s constitutionalised jurisprudence impacts heavily on European and member state policy-making.