变更罪名实证研究

以最高法院示范性案例中的全部变更罪名案例为样本进行实证研究,可以发现其中存在几对实然关系。变更罪名未必都有失公正也不必然体现实体公正,择轻变更未必都有利于被告,合法的变更未必是合理的变更,变更罪名给法律适用带来的不确定性根植于现行法律和法理之中。对其进行法律解释学和犯罪定义学分析,将有助于对变更罪名现象的解读和限制。     

合同概念的历史变迁及其解释

对合同的概念,在不同的历史阶段和法律文化背景下,存在着各殊的构想模式。古典罗马法以形式主义和类型法定为契约概念的特质,构建了债一契约的制度模式;中世纪注释法学家遵循这一模式,以原因理论重构了合同的概念,这一传统为法国法系继受,使原因理论成为破译其合同概念及相关制度设计的密码;在德国,自然法理论、理性法学和历史法学结亲,以法律行为理论重组合同的要素,使其含义在历史上再一次发生根本性断裂;20世纪以后,制度的变迁又催生了新的合同说明模式。     

论合同附随义务违反的归责原则与法律后果

附随义务是债务人基于诚信原则,为维护债权人的固有利益,在给付义务之外所负担的必要注意及保护义务。在判断附随义务存在与否及其履行与否等问题上,债务人主观因素起着决定性的作用,因而附随义务的违反以过错为归责原则,这符合附随义务的性质、目的及交易实践。违反附随义务,债务人应当承担债务不履行责任,其最主要者,为承担损害赔偿责任,于例外情形还可成立强制履行和违约金责任,及构成合同解除之原因。     

"允诺禁反言"原则研究

"允诺禁反言"是英美契约法的独特内容,它以受诺人的"信赖损失"为基础而追究允诺人的法律责任.该原则兴起于19世纪末的司法实践,并在20世纪得以确立,美国《契约法重述》对该原则有明确的规定.英美两国契约法对"允诺禁反言"原则的适用不一样,对其法律性质的定位也不一样."允诺禁反言"无疑是对约因法理的重要挑战,但它并不能完全取代"约因".     

Is there a global environmental justice movement?

One of the causes of the increasing number of ecological distribution conflicts around the world is the changing metabolism of the economy in terms of growing flows of energy and materials. There are conflicts on resource extraction, transport and waste disposal. Therefore, there are many local complaints, as shown in the Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJatlas) and other inventories. And not only complaints; there are also many successful examples of stopping projects and developing alternatives, testifying to the existence of a rural and urban global movement for environmental justice. Moreover, since the 1980s and 1990s, this movement has developed a set of concepts and campaign slogans to describe and intervene in such conflicts. They include environmental racism, popular epidemiology, the environmentalism of the poor and the indigenous, biopiracy, tree plantations are not forests, the ecological debt, climate justice, food sovereignty, land grabbing and water justice, among other concepts. These terms were born from socio-environmental activism, but sometimes they have also been taken up by academic political ecologists and ecological economists who, for their part, have contributed other concepts to the global environmental justice movement, such as ‘ecologically unequal exchange’ or the ‘ecological footprint’.     

The Winter of Discontent Thirty Years On

Thirty years on, and in the context of our own crisis, it is perhaps useful to take stock of the last Winter of Discontent. The industrial strife that beset the Callaghan government in the winter of 1978/79 was seen at the time as a key factor in Labour's defeat in the general election of 1979; but its legacy is considerable and its significance enduring. These four themed essays come from a public seminar at the British Academy to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Winter of Discontent. Colin Hay argues that the Winter of Discontent was, in key respects, a manufactured crisis lived, experienced and responded to through a very particular construction of the events that is difficult to reconcile with the evidence itself. Reponses by Lords Baker, Lea and Lipsey follow and the section concludes with a transcribed and edited version of the lively discussion which ensued.     

Why Do States Commission the Truth? Political Considerations in the Establishment of African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

Although the use of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) has grown considerably over the last 3 decades, there is still much that we do not know concerning the choice and the structuring of TRCs. While the literature has focused primarily on the effects of TRCs, we examine the domestic and the international factors influencing the choice of a commission in sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to 2003 using pooled cross-sectional time series. We find that states which adopted a TRC prior to South Africa were generally repressive centralized regimes which used the truth commission as political cover. However, since South Africa’s TRC, democratizing states have been more likely to adopt a truth commission as a form of transitional justice.