刑罚轻缓、人权保障与《刑法修正案(八)》——以相关国际公约为蓝本的分析

对照《公民权利与政治权利公约》分析,《刑法修正案(八)》在死刑改革方面的进步值得肯定,但与公约要求的、逐步限制死刑适用以最终废除死刑的目标仍有距离;参照《北京规则》、《美洲人权公约》等分析,新修正案对未成年人、老年人犯罪适用刑罚增加了从宽处理的规定,实现了对弱者的人权保障,但该修正案在建立未成年人及成年人前科消灭制度等方面仍有不足;比照《东京规则》等国际公约分析,其以社区矫正入刑化为代表的非监禁刑之完善,体现了我国对国际公约相关要求的积极回应。     

The Council of Europe Data Protection Convention reform: Analysis of the new text and critical comment on its global ambition

The year 2010 set an important milestone in the development of data protection law in Europe: both Europe's basic regulatory texts, the EU Data Protection Directive and the Council's Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108), were placed at an amendment process, having served individual data protection for many years and witnessed in the meantime technological developments that threatened to make their provisions obsolete. After briefly presenting Convention 108, the analysis that follows will highlight the Council's data protection system currently in effect as well as developments relating to the Convention's amendment so far with the aim of identifying improvements and shortcomings. While doing this two separate points of view shall be adopted: at first a micro point of view will attempt to identify improvements and shortcomings through an ‘insider’ perspective, that is, judging only the merits and difficulties of the draft text at hand. Afterwards a macroscopic view will be adopted, whereby strategic issues will be discussed pertaining to the important issue of the relationship of the suggested draft with the EU data protection system, as well as, the same draft's potential to constitute the next global information privacy standard.     

Privacy regulation cannot be hardcoded. A critical comment on the ‘privacy by design’ provision in data-protection law

‘Privacy by design’ is an increasingly popular paradigm. It is the principle or concept that privacy should be promoted as a default setting of every new ICT system and should be built into systems from the design stage. The draft General Data Protection Regulation embraces ‘privacy by design’ without detailing how it can or should be applied. This paper discusses what the proposed legal obligation for ‘privacy by design’ implies in practice for online businesses. In particular, does it entail hard-coding privacy requirements in system design? First, the ‘privacy by design’ provision in the proposed Regulation is analysed and interpreted. Next, we discuss an extreme interpretation – embedding data protection requirements in system software – and identify five complicating issues. On the basis of these complications, we conclude that ‘privacy by design’ should not be interpreted as trying to achieve rule compliance by techno-regulation. Instead, fostering the right mindset of those responsible for developing and running data processing systems may prove to be more productive. Therefore, in terms of the regulatory tool-box, privacy by design should be approached less from a ‘code’ perspective, but rather from the perspective of ‘communication’ strategies.     

Sustainable Development: Concepts and Rankings

One way of thinking about development - endorsed by the UNDP and the Brundtland Commission - involves improvements in the quality of life which are equitable. This conception invokes two values - equity and well-being - which can conflict. The potential conflict suggests that countries which are doing well in terms of well-being may perform badly on environmental concerns. Desai argued to the contrary that there are positive linkages between human development and environmental protection. He found tentative support for this claim in rankings of developing countries in terms of the HDI and indices of environmental exploitation. This result is not robust when similar exercises are carried out using a different set of countries and closely related indices.     

Evaluating the Efficacy of Protection Orders for Victims of Domestic Violence

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to gauge the efficacy of protection orders for victims of domestic violence. The theoretical basis for this analysis is Johnson's (1995) theory that there exist two distinct forms of domestic violence: “common couple violence,” which consists of low-grade, mild abuse that is equally perpetrated by both men and women, and “patriarchal terrorism,” which involves severe mental and physical abuse that is used primarily by men to control their female partners. Based on Johnson's theory, it is hypothesized that protection orders will be less effective for women who experience patriarchal terrorism than for women who experience common couple violence. The results of this analysis indicate that the primary independent variable, that is, whether a woman experiences common couple violence or patriarchal terrorism, is not a good predictor of protection order violation. However, several secondary independent variables were found to be significant, including victim's race and employment status, as well as the couple's living arrangements at the time of the protection order.     

中国海外利益面临的主要风险及保护

海外利益,是指一国处于境外的国家利益。中国海外利益从内容上可分为海外经济利益、海外安全利益、海外政治利益和海外文化利益,它们功能互补,互为支撑,共同构成了中国海外利益丰富的内涵。影响海外利益安全最核心的因素是外部因素,即来自复杂国际体系包括国际环境儿及与所在国双边或与其他利益相关国多边关系的影响,包括国际环境类风险、政治类风险、安全类风险等。可通过建立国家层面的专门协调机制和专门机构,强化国际合作,建立健全海外利益保护法律体系等途径和手段,在国家层面综合运用政治、军事、经济、外交等各方面资源,保护中国海外利益。     

欧洲人权法院视野下的质证权保障与证人保护

刑事审判中被告人享有质证权,应予以保障.然而在某些特殊情况下,为了保障证人的权利不得不采取一定措施对被告人的质证权进行适当的限制,二者存在此消彼长的矛盾关系.欧洲人权法院采取对被告人质证权的限制理由正当化与较佳防御手段优先适用的原则,以实现二者的平衡.欧洲人权法院的做法具有科学合理之处,值得我们学习和借鉴.     

美国对国际刑事法院的政策转变

美国对国际刑事法院的政策经历了从积极支持到极力反对的大转变。克林顿政府虽然积极参加法院规约的制订,但最终因为在管辖权、检察官独立启动调查起诉程序和侵略罪等问题上存在着重大分歧而投了反对票。布什政府则根据《美国军人保护法》采取了一系列极端敌视国际刑事法院的措施,其中尤以所谓的"第98条协定"为甚。但是,缔约国与美国签订的这种豁免协定实际上违背了规约的宗旨,与罗马规约第98条第2款不相符合,是非法的。     

The Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles

The Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles (Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbescherming) is an independent advisory, supervisory and judiciary board to the Netherlands Minister of Justice on matters relating to the prison system, the hospital order detention system, the probation system and the youth incarceration system. Members are recruited from a variety of backgrounds, such as magistracy, science, medicine, psychiatry and social work. As a rule, they have a full-time job in society. They are recruited by virtue of their expertise, competence and professional experience in relevant fields. Nowadays, there are about 60 members. The combination of the Council’s three tasks has been criticised. The argument is that the advisory and supervisory tasks of the Council could interfere with the independent and impartial nature of its judicial task. The supposed incompatibility of the three tasks has been one of the arguments of the Minister of Justice in defending his decision to set up an Inspectorate for the whole field of the administration of justice. This Inspectorate would overlap the Council’s supervisory task. So, legislation has been prepared in order to prevent overlap by taking away this task from the Council. The resistance to these plans was an important reason for the Dutch government to ask the Verwey-Jonker Institute to evaluate the performance of the Council. The Council performed very well in this evaluation. Its performance could not, therefore, really be used as an argument for curtailing its tasks. The independent nature of an Inspection Board is open to question, as it is functioning under the responsibility of the Minister of Justice. However, the Minister of Justice has not been convinced by this and other arguments, so there is a big chance that the Council will loose its supervisory task.

试论弱势群体的成因与职工权益保障

“弱势群体”是我国经济体制变革过程中阶段性的产物,造成职工群体中部分体力劳动者弱势的原因,主要是劳动力市场供大于求和经济体制转换过程中由于职工权益保障机制的不完善所造成的落差。强化工会维护职能,完善法制建设,保障职工的各项合法权益,是保护“弱势群体”的关键。