经营者安全保障义务的合理范围

在消费者权益纠纷案中,经营者是否尽到了安全保障义务往往成为案件争议的焦点。消费者与经营者往往各执一词,而不同法院的判决标准也不统一。如何将经营者安全保障义务的范围具体化成为亟待解决的问题。最高人民法院公报中的判决文书对各级法院的审判有指导及参考作用,因此可以在把握立法基准的前提下,通过对刊载于公报上的案例的研究,为经营者的安全保障义务确立合理的边界。     

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。     

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。     

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.     

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.     

论强制程序条款下辩方证人出庭

对质条款和强制程序条款作为保障被告人权利的重要条款,是证人出庭的两条基本依据。目前刑事诉讼领域的立法和实践主要聚焦于对质条款下的证人出庭,对依据强制程序条款下的证人出庭程序缺乏足够的重视,使得对质条款和强制程序条款的平衡性丧失。辩护律师依此条款申请辩方证人出庭,人民法院认为确有必要的应当同意;证人可以主张不得强迫自证其罪特权,但不能以近亲属特权、律师当事人特权或者国家秘密作为拒绝作证的理由;对拒不出庭或者出庭后拒绝作证的可以强制到庭和司法拘留;增加规定携带证据到庭的通知书等。     

Echoes of domestic silence: mechanisms of concealment in cases of ‘Family Honour Killings’ in Mandate Palestine

This article deals with the manner in which family and community in Mandate Palestine attempted to keep the criminal justice system from intervening in cases defined as ‘Family Honour Killing’. Drawing on criminal court cases, we argue that the familial, domestic and communal features of this crime and its social, predominantly rural, context were critical for the attempts to keep it within the community and to prevent state intervention by obstructing, concealing and denying evidence. We focus on the mechanisms used by members of the family and community for that purpose. Our case study is in line with previous findings indicating the under-reporting of domestic violence, especially when witnesses were closely related to both the victim and the perpetrator. This domestic and communal alignment was most likely reinforced under colonial rule, though it was not necessarily caused predominantly in opposition to it.     

The identity of ‘the other’ for sexual violence victims: is there anything new in sexual violence prosecutions before the International Criminal Court?

Despite the spectacular development in the field of international criminal law, critical feminism stresses the narrow scope of the sex and gender crimes in the Rome Statute establishing the first permanent International Criminal Court. The current international criminal law discourse, as expressed by recent case law, is geared towards the protection of certain groups targeted on account of their distinctiveness within the framework of a conflict situation, and gender is not recognized as one of these group identities. The question whether international criminal law on sexual violence applies only to inter-group conflicts brings to the fore an uneasy likelihood of exclusion of some recently emergent situations where identities of the conflicting parties transcend a particular ethnicity or nationality, and where victims of sexual violence belong to the same group as their perpetrators. The article argues that, rather than the Rome Statute or newly introduced rules and regulations, a significant obstacle in developing gender justice is the narrow interpretation of sexual violence to inter-group hostilities.     

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.     

How Expected Political and Legal Impact Drive Media Coverage of Supreme Court Cases

Media coverage of Supreme Court decisions is not well-understood, with studies typically focusing on features of decisions such as issue area and opinion authorship, and ignoring the political and legal importance of those decisions. Because the Court is both secretive and esoteric, and because it does not engage in traditional public relations activities, media must proxy importance by looking to available cues, such as interest group participation. Importantly, some indicators of importance are available before a decision is rendered; thus I examine both pre- and post-decision media coverage of cases. I show that expected legal and political impact drive media coverage of Court decisions, and that the decision-level features that prior studies have focused on are much less important in determining coverage than has been previously thought.