《防止及惩治灭绝种族罪公约》引起的多边条约保留

《防止及惩治灭绝种族罪公约》的保留问题,在联合国大会讨论该公约时引起很大的争议,因此联合国大会请国际法院作出咨询意见。本文试对此保留问题和国际法院的咨询意见进行研究,探讨多边条约的保留问题及其对之后国际社会制定多边条约的影响。     

我国侦查人员出庭作证制度构想——基于司法实践的考量与制度设计

主流观点所主张的侦查人员的证人身份及以此为前提的制度设计,存在立法及实务上所难以解决的矛盾,其可行性令人怀疑。侦查人员作为国家司法工作人员,依职权出庭,通过言词的方式,向法庭说明行使职权过程中所了解的实体事实、程序性事实及相关技术性问题,接受法庭及控辩双方询问的作证方式,更为符合我国的司法国情;司法资源不足的困境,决定了对侦查人员出庭作证的范围进行合理限制,并设计若干例外之必要性;此外,具有可行性的程序设计也是解决侦查人员出庭率低之难题所不可或缺的措施之一。     

Don't Mention the War: The Court of Appeal,the Criminal Cases Review Commission and Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland

Despite the vast transitional justice scholarship relating to prisoner release, amnesties and prosecutions when conflicts end, there is a significant gap in practice and academic literature regarding wrongful convictions. Uniquely amongst post‐conflict societies, Northern Ireland has a body for investigating miscarriages of justice, albeit one designed for ‘ordinary’ appeals. In the absence of a formal truth‐recovery process, criminal appeals are becoming a proxy for addressing the role of the state during ‘The Troubles,’ as well as remedying individual injustices. This article examines the approach of the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal during the conflict. It charts the developments in its decision‐making following the cease‐fires and the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. It concludes that the current system is unsatisfactory as it ignores the effects of the conflict on the appeal process and offers no insights into the role of the Court during the conflict. Alternative models are suggested.     

韩日独岛争端及其借鉴意义

中国面临的岛屿争端与独岛争端有诸多相似之处。同样具有诸多重要价值的岛屿,同样存在法理之争,二战后遗留问题,一方实际控制且拒不承认存在争议,同样对海洋划界存在影响等。从韩日独岛的博弈中,总结分析韩国和日本围绕独岛的相关条约、主张及应对策略,从而为中国岛屿争端提供借鉴意义。     

Distrust as a hindrance to democratic governance in South Korea

This article focuses on the concept of trust and its implications for democratic governance in South Korea. Trust is an elusive concept that is often discussed using such synonyms as confidence, trustworthy, reliance, or anticipation of goodwill. Trust in interpersonal relations is different from trust in institutions. The case of South Korean politics and administration shows that the absence of trust hampers the process of building a mature democratic society and hinders the development of democratic governance. The article concludes by stressing the need to enhance trust in society, government, policy‐makers, and public administrators.     

Italy's changing defence policy

After the fall of Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) decided to act as a stabilising force, to abandon the street and to lend democratic legitimacy to the political process designed by the army. The outcome of this strategy was that the MB was first ‘burned’ politically and then harshly repressed after having exhausted its stabilising role. The main mistakes the Brothers made were, first, to turn their back on several opportunities to spearhead the revolt by leading popular forces and, second, to keep their strategy for change gradualist and conservative, seeking compromises with parts of the former regime even though the turmoil and expectations in the country required a much bolder strategy.     

The Supreme Court and Issue Attention: The Case of Homosexuality

Previous studies have shown that a small number of Supreme Court decisions that “rearrange[d] the … distribution of political benefits” have drawn the media's attention to the underlying issues involved in those cases. This article provides an additional test of that empirical claim, examining the effects of the Supreme Court's gay rights cases on media coverage of homosexuality from 1990 to 2005. The data indicate that Supreme Court decisions that expanded the scope of gay rights increased coverage of homosexuality in both The New York Times and USA Today, while cases that affirmed the existing scope of gay rights had no such effect.     

Media Coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court: How Do Journalists Assess the Importance of Court Decisions?

Agenda-setting theory is central to understanding the connection between media and American government. Indeed, legislative and executive branches of American government are often characterized by their publicity-seeking behavior. This is not true of the judicial branch. However, the importance of media coverage is magnified for the United States Supreme Court because, lacking the public affairs mechanisms of the other two branches, the Court is dependent on media dissemination of information about its decisions. Despite this important role, little is known about what attracts media to cover Supreme Court cases. We ask what case characteristics attract media attention. We examine the effect of case variables on general media coverage of Court decisions (a concept we call “newsworthiness,” measured by whether mention of a given case decision appears on the front page of the New York Times) and on inclusion of a case on a list of legally significant cases over time (a concept we call “legal salience,” measured by the appearance of a case in the Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the Supreme Court). Examining cases over a 54-year period, we identify characteristics of cases appearing in either the New York Times or the CQ Guide or both. We conclude media news values may not always lead to coverage of the most legally salient cases, but some overlap indicates several cues used to judge immediate newsworthiness of cases stand the retrospective evaluation of legal significance.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resources: issue area matrices and predicted probabilities of case characteristics.]     

刑事诉讼专家辅助人出庭的观点争议及其解决思路

我国2012年修改的《刑事诉讼法》和《民事诉讼法》对“有专门知识的人”的规定相当简略,尤其是其出庭“适用鉴定人的有关规定”表述．不仅存在“有专门知识的人”是作为专家证人还是专家辅助人之争论．而且还引发是否有必要界定为中立的鉴定人诉讼地位之分歧。基于此．“有专门知识的人”参与法庭是否需要准入限制、法庭如何行使审查权限以及是否适用回避制度、其权利义务如何确定、如何在法庭上进行质证、其质证的效力如何以及在法庭上应安排何种位置等问题需要理论予以澄清．而理论需要结合我国司法制度与诉讼制度的要求及其功能作出具有规范意义的诠释．     

Contamination of forensic DNA evidence in the light of Hungarian court decisions – A review of 25 years

The evaluation of forensic DNA expert opinions (in some countries expert witness testimonies) and the way it affects criminal judgement is of paramount importance. We have selected one of the largest challenges when it comes to the evaluation of forensic DNA evidence, contamination of DNA samples, and examined how it influences the decisions judges make about the credibility of DNA evidence in Hungary.