Implications of Pseudologia Fantastica in Criminal Forensic Evaluations: A Review and Case Report

Pseudologia fantastica, a psychological phenomenon that has been described in the literature for at least a century, is an understudied and poorly understood entity. Sometimes referred to as pathological lying, pseudologia fantastica involves disproportionate fabrication that may be present for many years or a lifetime. In a forensic context, it can significantly complicate the evaluation of capacity to stand trial and, in certain jurisdictions, criminal responsibility. We review the current literature regarding pseudologia fantastica and present a case to highlight the clinical and forensic challenges it may create. We specifically discuss the complications that pseudologia fantastica may have on the assessment of a defendant's rational ability to consult with an attorney, a required element of capacity to stand trial. In addition, we discuss the implications of pseudologia fantastica in the evaluation of criminal responsibility.     

德国刑法中的双重罪过立法及其对我国的借鉴意义

德国刑法中的双重罪过立法主要是指罪过由对行为的故意与对结果的过失组合而成的故意犯罪的立法,主要分布在公共危险之犯罪中,共涉及20余个罪名。双重罪过立法严格贯彻了明确性原则、责任主义和刑罚个别化,体现了较为鲜明的法治立场。我国刑法总则把罪过形式的判断根据明确限定为"危害社会的结果",但分则对部分犯罪的罪过形式规定不明确,致使难以解释抽象危险犯的罪过形式,在侵害犯和具体危险犯上难以贯彻责任主义,同时无法消除罪过形式解释上的混乱。从德国刑法中的双重罪过立法来看,在完善我国刑法中的罪过立法时,不仅应当满足判断罪过形式的实际需要,更应当注重贯彻法治对刑法的基本要求,同时还应坚持刑法文本的逻辑性和适度性。     

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power,Prosperity and Poverty

This study addresses compliance and business practices at the local level subsequent to the international adoption of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme by states and the adoption of the voluntary System of Warranties by the diamond industry. This paper also explores the distance between norm creation, norm sustainability and norm expansion. Interests of various stakeholders led to the creation of international norms, and evidence supports widespread compliance at the state level. Data gathered at the local level of retailer suggests, however, that the regulatory system is not leading to the education of consumers that potentially transforms beliefs. Central to understanding the challenge of deepening and broadening new global norms is exploring the distance between compliance within the regulatory regime and the awareness or change of beliefs of stakeholders. Recommendations include steps to make the process of bringing diamonds to market transparent and available to public scrutiny.     

论修改《环境保护法》的几个问题

贯彻"十八大"关于"大力推进生态文明建设"的精神,将1989年《环境保护法》修改成对我国今后环境资源生态保护工作具有基础指导作用、长期引导作用、全面激励作用的综合性法律、政策性法律。修改后的法律应该是将生态文明建设摆在国家"五位一体建设总布局"突出位置、具有生态法特征的综合性法律;应该申明、宣示和规定环境法的基本理念、基本原则;明确规定公民的基本环境权利和义务,公民有享用清洁、健康的环境的权利,有保护环境的义务;明确规定环境公益诉讼;明确政府的环境责任,健全政府环境责任问责制;规定基本的环境法律制度和重要的环境法律措施,规定政策环境影响评价。     

企业社会责任视域下的劳动者工作环境权保护

企业社会责任是劳动权实现的保障与推动力.本文认为,传统的企业雇员责任仅指企业的经济责任和法律责任,现代企业雇员责任还应包含更高层次的道德要求.企业社会责任视域下的雇员责任,应当以工作环境权的保护为核心,通过法律建立起工作环境权的独立体系,完善劳动者工作环境权制度,落实和保障劳动者享有的实体性和程序性权利,鼓励职工参与企业的经营决策,从而真正地改善劳动环境,落实企业社会责任.     

Sensibility in the era of global communication: a semioethic perspective1

This article proposes a phenomenological and semiotic analysis of sensibility in the era of globalization, which is the era of global communication. How are time, space, self, others, life, death, health, illness, work, employment, unemployment, free-time, development, underdevelopment, and so forth, perceived in today's world? As vast as this excursion may seem, these different issues concerning sensibility all bear on the problem of the relation between identity and alterity. The hypothesis guiding my analysis is that the common denominator in science and sensibility today is the ideology, or ideo-logic, of identity. However, taking Europe as our societal paradigm the ideo-logic of identity reveals itself as a menace to the difficult process of forming the European Union. In Europe – indeed, in world history at large – the logic of identity and of alterity can be traced in all the important phases that have determined peoples’ historical destiny. In the current phase of development in the social reproduction system of advanced capitalism, the contrast between identity and alterity is at an extreme, at the point of exasperation. In this article I intend to explore the possibility of opening sensibility to alterity not only in Europe, but in the anthroposociosemiosic sphere at large.     

"More than All the Others": Meditation on Responsibility

Abstract

This essay examines one aspect of the wide-ranging philosophical back ground of the intellectual and dissident movement for human rights in one-time communist Czechoslovakia. I shall meditate on Jan Pato?ka's finite responsibility, Derrida's aporetic emphasis on the infinite dimension of responsibility, and Lévinasian-Dostoyevskyan ethico-existential variations on in/finite responsibility. Havel alludes to hyperbolic ethics in a parenthetical remark on the birth of "Charta 77", the Manifesto for Human Rights in Czechoslovakia. The question before us is this: which dimension of responsibility appears at this birth or, to put it otherwise, what responsibility is born in care for the soul and polis?     

Nano‐Industry Operationalizations of “Responsibility”: Charting Diversity in the Enactment of Responsibility

The Collingridge dilemma—the problem of reacting to emerging technology either “too early” or “too late”—is one that is readily recognized by developers and promoters of nanotechnologies. One response can be found in the rise of a discourse of “responsible development” in the science and innovation policy landscape. While a number of commentators have discussed the potential of such initiatives, it remains unclear how responsible development is actually being configured “on the ground,” in private sector nanotechnology. This paper addresses this question by analyzing empirical engagements in Europe and the United States in order to map industry operationalizations of “responsibility” in these contexts. We show that a number of different articulations of “responsibility” are present, including as a response to public lack of trust and perceived public pressure, and as the management of risk. We close by relating these findings to the theoretical literature on responsibility, other contemporary accounts of the ways in which responsible development can be operationalized, and the possibilities that these articulations of responsibility may open up.     

Citizens,Partners or Patrons? Corporate Power and Patronage Capitalism

Abstract

The addition of new social roles in public service and civil society to large business corporations' enormous economic power and substantial political influence suggests novel but little-understood changes in the institutional relations between business, state and civil society. Sociological emphasis on the centrality of power relations in business conduct and radical diagnoses of a corporate ‘take-over’ of public and civil society institutions is contradicted by other literature which portrays corporations as socially responsible benefactors rather than all-powerful behemoths. The present analysis assesses rival emphases on power relations and normative shifts toward corporate social responsibility in the sphere of business–civil society partnerships. It argues that, in the United States and Britain, a new set of institutional relationships is emerging to fill a vacuum in tackling social and environmental problems. In this new institutional field, large corporations are taking on the role of patrons to a variety of clients amongst public and civil society organisations. This social relationship parallels similar episodes of patronage when systems of community and public welfare disintegrated during the rise of capitalism.     

JISB Interview: The Responsibility to Protect

Abstract

Dr Aidan Hehir interviewed Dr Francis Deng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, in New York on 20 August 2009