“Regulation,I presume?” said the robot – Towards an iterative regulatory process for robot governance

This article envisions an iterative regulatory process for robot governance. In the article, we argue that what lacks in robot governance is actually a backstep mechanism that can coordinate and align robot and regulatory developers. In order to solve that problem, we present a theoretical model that represents a step forward in the coordination and alignment of robot and regulatory development. Our work builds on previous literature, and explores modes of alignment and iteration towards greater closeness in the nexus between research and development (R&D) and regulatory appraisal and channeling of robotics’ development. To illustrate practical challenges and solutions, we explore different examples of (related) types of communication processes between robot developers and regulatory bodies. These examples help illuminate the lack of formalization of the policymaking process, and the loss of time and resources that the waste of knowledge generated for future robot governance instruments implies. We argue that initiatives that fail to formalize the communication process between different actors and that propose the mere creation of coordinating agencies risk being seriously ineffective. We propose an iterative regulatory process for robot governance, which combines the use of an ex ante robot impact assessment for legal/ethical appraisal, and evaluation settings as data generators, and an ex post legislative evaluation instrument that eases the revision, modification and update of the normative instrument. In all, the model breathes the concept of creating dynamic evidence-based policies that can serve as temporary benchmark for future and/or new uses or robot developments. Our contribution seeks to provide a thoughtful proposal that avoids the current mismatch between existing governmental approaches and what is needed for effective ethical/legal oversight, in the hope that this will inform the policy debate and set the scene for further research.     

The establishment of the South African Development Partnership Agency: Institutional complexities and political exigencies

Since 2007 there has been discussion to formalise, rationalise, coordinate and provide structure to South Africa's development cooperation through the establishment of a centralised South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA). Progress in rolling out the new institution, however, has been extremely slow, owing to the political and technical complexities of South Africa's institutional environment. This paper elaborates on the rationale and driving forces which have led to the establishment of SADPA and the steps which have been taken to gradually operationalise the new agency and the partnership fund dedicated to providing development support on the continent. As plans move forward, will SADPA be expected to manage all of South Africa's development cooperation — bilateral, multilateral, regional, trilateral — as well as concessional loans, humanitarian aid and development financing, public and private? Clarity of roles and coordination is critical. The paper will examine the different mechanisms for the financing, implementation and oversight that need to be in place to take forward Pretoria's development cooperation, and the challenges of leadership, coordination, accountability and information management that face the new agency.     

Informed powerlessness: child marriage interventions and Third World girlhood discourses

Child marriage has gained increased international prominence over the past decades. Organisations working with the issue have promoted empowering girls as the best strategy to address it. Informed by postcolonial feminist theory, this article will locate these discourses in broader ‘turn to the girl’ and ‘turn to agency’ in international development, analysing how Third World girlhood, agency, resistance and voice are conceptualised. Girls are constructed as threatened by their families and communities, with agency exercised through resistance and materialised by their voice. I argue that this ignores the complexity of decision-making processes and broader structural factors related to child marriage, so that interventions providing ‘empowerment-as-information’ for girls to be agents of change instead leave them in a state of informed powerlessness.     

影响我国碳金融发展的原因分析

与西方发达国家较为完善的碳金融发展相比,我国碳金融发展相对比较滞后,造成这种状况的原因主要有：一是对碳金融的认识有待深化;二是碳金融的综合配套政策不完备;三是碳金融市场分割现象严重;四是中介服务机构发育不完善。对这些原因进行深入分析,有利于排除碳金融发展的障碍,开创我国碳金融发展的光明前景。     

与犯罪形态有关的三个特别问题

由于分别直接关联着共同犯罪、罪数形态和犯罪的阶段形态,故＂片面共犯＂、罪数标准和＂意志以外的原因＂,构成了与犯罪形态有关的三个特别问题。基于事物的真相,＂片面共犯＂问题应按共同犯罪定性或处置,而罪数标准问题应以＂犯意与刑法特别规定结合说＂予以解答。至于＂意志以外的原因＂对犯罪阶段形态的影响,应立足于＂意志以外的原因＂作用于犯罪意志的程度及最终结果予以解答。     

论井冈山革命根据地斗争经验的普遍意义

井冈山革命根据地,是毛泽东率领湘赣边界秋收起义军创建的中国第一块农村革命根据地,井冈山根据地创造性地提出和总结的丰富斗争经验具有普遍指导意义,得到中共中央的充分肯定和积极推广,井冈山革命根据地的星火在中国大地上迅速形成了燎原之势,“工农武装割据”的局面不断巩固扩大,以农村包围城市的武装革命道路胜利实现。     

浅谈食品安全风险评估机构独立运行的必要性

目前,我国风险评估机构属行政序列,其评估工作不能独立、科学的运行,导致食品安全风险预警职能无法发挥,食品安全事故频发。食品安全风险评估机构有独立运行的必要性,为实现食品安全风险评估机构独立运行,应列入人大序列进行理论探讨,以求为实践提供借鉴。     

俄罗斯金融服务市场监管法律制度评介

俄罗斯金融服务市场监管法律制度承继了前苏联的部分理念和框架,随着自由化和私有化进程的加速,逐渐形成了自己的特色。监管主体以中央银行为核心,联邦金融市场管理局为辅助,同时推动行业自律和社会监督的发展。在法律体系方面以《银行法》、《保险法》和《证券市场法》作为主要规范金融服务市场的依据,其他单行法规和个别部门法中的特殊规定也发挥着调控作用。金融危机之后,俄罗斯金融服务市场的监管法律逐步完善,法律规定比较全面,更加重视消费者权益的保护,但还应继续转变立法理念,加强部门法的协调统一,平衡好国家利益和个人权利的关系。     

Governing disorder: the Australian Federal Police and Australia's new regional frontier

Abstract

The Australian Federal Police has in recent years become an important actor in both the implementation and design of Australian-led state building interventions in Australia's near region of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. The article focuses on the recent expansion of the Australian Federal Police as a way of understanding the emergence of a new partly (and strategically) deterritorialized, ‘regional’ frontier of the Australian state. Within this new frontier, whose fluctuating outlines the Australian Federal Police not only polices but also to a considerable extent shapes and reshapes, as one of the primary expert agencies on identifying and managing transnational security risks, Australian security is portrayed as contingent on the quality of the domestic governance of neighbouring states, thereby creating linkages between the hitherto domestic governing apparatus of the Australian state and those of other countries. This allows for the rearticulation of the problems affecting intervened states and societies – indeed, their very social and political structures – in the depoliticized terms of the breakdown of ‘law and order’ and the absence of ‘good governance’, which not only rationalizes emergency interventions to stabilize volatile situations, but also delegitimizes and potentially criminalizes oppositional politics. The Australian Federal Police, however, does more than merely provide justification for intrusive state transformation projects. Its transnational policing activities open up a field of governance within the apparatus of intervened states that exists in separation from international and domestic law. The constitution of such interventions ‘within’ the state leaves intact the legal distinction between the domestic and international spheres and therefore circumvents the difficult issue of sovereignty. As a result, police and other executive-administrative actors obtain discretionary ordering powers, without dislodging the sovereign governments of intervened countries.     

Values,imaginaries and templates of journalistic practice: a Critical Discourse Analysis

This article shows that templates are not only crucial for the ways in which journalists construct or structure the media discourse but also for how they perceive themselves and others in the process of journalistic practice. A Critical Discourse Analysis of interviews with Polish journalists on their practices related to reporting migration – a topic largely discarded and ignored by the Polish media – shows that the construction of practice in the journalistic field constantly negotiates the contradiction between “knowing-it-all”, a key element of the template of journalistic habitus/identity, and the frequent lack of experience or limited knowledge of practice and of journalistic work. The analysis reveals that, while often using a discursive strategy of pre-legitimation, journalists enact templates that blur the boundaries between discourses about experiences of journalistic work and imaginaries or scenarios of actions they would only potentially undertake. Journalistic discourses of practice thereby become increasingly displaced, that is, they run along similar templates of discourse of/about quasi-universalised ethics and values of journalism almost irrespective of media organisations of the informants. By the same token, it is emphasised that, rather than being limited by the ideologies and powers of media organisations, agency seems to be often self-constrained by journalists in their self-entrapment in values, templates and imaginaries of journalism.