Introduction

This introductory paper seeks to provide an overview of the key themes that run through the papers in this special issue. Taking their cue from some ongoing current debates about the meanings of citizenship, multiculturalism and identity in the contemporary environment, Schuster and Solomos begin by exploring some of the most significant ideas in current political and academic controversies about these issues. In doing so they touch upon some of the main policy dilemmas faced both by nation-states and by migrant and minority communities. They then move on to engage with the question of what policies need to be developed to deal with citizenship and belonging in societies that are increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse. They conclude by analysing the direction of current research and policy priorities, and provide an overview of the key arguments to be found in each of the substantive papers that make up this issue.     

Articulating language oppression: colonialism,coloniality and the erasure of Tibet’s minority languages

ABSTRACT

Roche’s article discusses ‘language oppression’ as a form of domination that is coherent with other forms of oppression along the lines of ‘race’, nation, colour and ethnicity. Scholars have defined language oppression as the ‘enforcement of language loss by physical, mental, social and spiritual coercion’. It is part of an evolving suite of concepts from linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology that examines issues of language discrimination, or ‘linguicism’. Roche explores one aspect of linguicism—language erasure—and how it relates to language oppression, focusing on Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). He examines how language oppression is produced through practices of erasure: the ways in which certain populations and their languages are systematically rendered discursively invisible. He argues that the erasure of certain languages in the Tibetan context is systematically reproduced by two otherwise opposed political projects: the colonial project of the PRC state; and the international Tibet movement that seeks to resist it. He refers to the contingent cooperation between these two opposed projects as ‘articulated oppression’. In concluding the article he examines how the disarticulation of this oppression is a necessary condition for the emancipation of Tibet’s minority languages, and discusses the broader significance of this study for understanding language oppression, and its relation to other forms of oppression.     

促进企业劳动争议调解工作规范化和制度化的调查与思考

近期肥矿集团公司工会对全公司劳动争议调解工作情况进行了调研,对劳动争议组织建设、工作机制、工作情况、存在问题进行了全面掌握和分析。为进一步推进矿区劳动争议预防和调处工作的制度化、规范化,促进矿区的发展和和谐稳定,就必须进一步提高对劳动争议调解组织地位和作用的认识,不断加强劳动劳动争议调解组织建设和制度建设,切实履行劳动争议调解组织的职能,充分发挥劳动争议调解组织的作用,全面推进矿区劳动争议预防和调处工作向纵深发展。     

论我国刑法改革的价值取向

未来我国刑法改革应当强化刑法的明确性和刑罚的轻缓性,重视刑法的行为评价和引导功能,弱化刑法的威慑功能,切实保障人权;同时积极推进刑事法网的严密化和法益保护的早期化,积极防卫社会,努力实现保障人权与防卫社会两大价值取向的动态平衡。     

论弱势群体的宪法权利及其保护

从宪法学视角看,"弱势群体"系"制度保护不足的宪法权利主体",其宪法权利体系由"自由权"、"社会权"等实体性宪法权利与"请求保护权"等程序性宪法权利组成。弱势群体享有宪法上一般权利主体和特殊权利主体之双重地位,由此而可能发生的"权利竞合"与"权利冲突"现象,须借鉴域外宪法学原理,而透过法律条款作妥适之处理。弱势群体之宪法权利可经由立法路径转化为法律法规上之具体权利,亦可通过"合宪性解释"方式经由"行政保护"与"司法保护"两种路径而予以实现。     

Discrimination of transparent polyethylene films based on identification of inorganic antiblocking agents

Several nondestructive and semidestructive analyses were used to discriminate colorless transparent polyethylene bags. Transparent plastic bags made from low-density and linear low-density polyethylene usually contain antiblocking agents to prevent sticking of the film, which makes it difficult to open the mouths of plastic bags. Inorganic antiblocking agents are uniformly dispersed in polyethylene films, so they are easily observed using optical microscopy. The particle size distributions of the antiblocking agents were compared by statistical tests. Particle composition was examined by elemental analysis using energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry with a scanning electron microscope and by molecular vibration analysis using a sensitive microscopic Raman spectrometer. The compositions could be determined nondestructively on the basis of the results. These data reinforce the morphological discrimination. Morphological discrimination of the dispersed antiblocking agent powders, statistical comparison of particle size distributions, and compositional analysis of the antiblocking agents strengthen the ability to discriminate polyethylene films.     

Brown,Governor of California v Plata

This case note examines the controversial decision of the US Supreme Court which, by a majority of 5:4 held that California should reduce its prison population as overcrowding levels gave rise to cruel and unusual punishment. The implications of the case for the interpretation of when prisoners' rights under the Eighth Amendment are breached, the separation of powers are discussed; the possible impact on prison rates in the USA is also examined.     

Text Matters: Some Reflections on the Forging of a New Constitutional Jurisprudence in South Africa

The South African Constitution establishes a constitutional democracy with a strong form of constitutional review. The Constitutional Court is required to declare invalid any legislation or conduct of the President which is inconsistent with the Constitution. The author, a former judge of the Constitutional Court, argues that the text of the Constitution has been an important determinant of the Court's jurisprudence, both in relation to the Court's jurisprudence concerning the institutional structures established by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights jurisprudence.     

The Cyprus and other EU court rulings on data retention: The Directive as a privacy bomb

This paper discusses the controversy surrounding the Data Retention Directive with an emphasis on the 2011 decision of the Cyprus Supreme Court which has annulled several district court orders that allowed the police access to telecommunications data relating to certain persons relevant to criminal investigations. The annulment has been on the ground that the legal provisions upon which the orders have been issued are unconstitutional. It will suggest that the decision does not entail a direct rejection of the EU Data Retention Directive and that in any event, Cyprus is not a Member State resisting the particular measure. This is because the legal provisions are deemed unconstitutional, though part of the law that has transposed the relevant Directive into national law are provisions that go beyond what the EU legislator intended to regulate through that Directive. Still, the particular Directive sits rather uneasily within the ‘human rights’ regime, in particular the one governing the individual right of privacy.     

从所有权法向物权法的转型——以“《俄罗斯联邦民法典》完善计划”为向度

自"前苏联解体"20多年以来,俄罗斯物权立法逐渐摆脱计划经济时代的物权观念,不断地向着传统物权法的类型与体系回归。通过渐次的多级转换,俄罗斯物权立法从"所有权中心主义的物权立法"向"他物权日益凸显的物权立法"转化。近年来通过"《俄罗斯联邦民法典》完善计划"的实施使之具有了与大陆法系之德国法传统的物权法相类似的体系特征。