The allure of technology: How France and California promoted electric and hybrid vehicles to reduce urban air pollution

All advanced industrialized societies face the problem of air pollution produced by motor vehicles. In spite of striking improvements in internal combustion engine technology, air pollution in most urban areas is still measured at levels determined to be harmful to human health. Throughout the 1990s and beyond, California and France both chose to improve air quality by means of technological innovation, adopting legislation that promoted clean vehicles, prominently among them, electric vehicles (EVs). In California, policymakers chose a technology-forcing approach, setting ambitious goals (e.g., zero emission vehicles), establishing strict deadlines and issuing penalties for non-compliance. The policy process in California called for substantial participation from the public, the media, the academic community and the interest groups affected by the regulation. The automobile and oil industries bitterly contested the regulation, in public and in the courts. In contrast, in France the policy process was non-adversarial, with minimal public participation and negligible debate in academic circles. We argue that California's stringent regulation spurred the development of innovative hybrid and fuel cell vehicles more effectively than the French approach. However, in spite of the differences, both California and France have been unable to put a substantial number of EVs on the road. Our comparison offers some broad lessons about how policy developments within a culture influence both the development of technology and the impact of humans on the environment.     

关于修改我国《环境保护法》的若干思考

现行的《环境保护法》已远远滞后于我国社会发展和环境保护的现状,针对其存在的问题,文章就该法修改的总体思路和主要内容方面提出中肯的建议.     

论旅游开发与非物质文化遗产保护

非物质文化遗产是十分重要的旅游资源,发展旅游业和非物质文化遗产保护是当今社会的重要课题,两者既对立又统一。旅游开发对非物质文化遗产保护既有积极作用,也有消极影响。政府和社会各界应引起重视、提高认识、科学管理,实现非物质文化遗产保护和旅游开发的双赢。     

中国少数民族人权述评——基于政治权利的角度

中国少数民族人权从主体的角度包括集体人权和个体人权;其中基本的政治权利是人权的重要组成部分;少数民族人权的实现程度在一定程度上取决于人们对于基本政治权利内涵的理解和制度理性设计。     

落实民族区域自治法律变通补充权的法律保护研究

对法律法规进行变通或补充执行是民族区域自治立法权的重要内容,落实变通或补充法律的自治权对于实现民族区域自治权和民族自治地方建设全面和谐的小康社会具有重要保障作用.为了保障民族自治地方变通或补充法律法规自治权的有效行使,法律法规对其进行了专门保护.落实民族区域自治法律法规变通补充权取得了一些成绩,但也存在一些问题.为有效落实民族区域自治法律法规变通补充权,必须加强法律法规的多重保护.     

Merging content analysis and the policy sciences: A system to discern policy-specific trends from news media reports

In this article we set out to bridge a surprising methodological gap between two time-honored research traditions – news media content analysis and the policy sciences analytic framework. Lasswell, a recognized pioneer of both the method and the framework, discussed the mutual benefits of each decades ago. But few researchers, if any, have formally linked the two. To that end, in this article we (1) make the case for using news media content analysis to inform research studies using the policy sciences analytic framework; (2) introduce an original content analysis categorical system for that purpose; (3) demonstrate that system with a study of 90 national news articles about the stratospheric ozone hole; and (4) compare our system to others used to examine news content. We report that our system, used by human coders, is well geared to describing and mapping trends in the social process surrounding the development of the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty during the intelligence gathering and promotion phases encompassed by our data sample. We argue that other content analysis systems fall short – in structure and purpose – of meeting the promise ours holds to the policy scientist.     

论国际环境法渊源

国际环境法是国际法的一部分,其渊源与传统的国际法具有同一性,但也有其特殊性。国际环境条约具有五个特点:其制定的系统性(框架性)、发展和改变条约的程序方便性、可以在批准生效前临时适用、强调地球整体的观念和使NGO通过条约制度进入环境保护领域;在国际环境法中,有些习惯在很短的时间内被确认;一般法律原则对国际环境法的发展是有意义的,如善意原则、公平原则等;由于司法判例的一致性的要求、宣告性及决定国际环境法的存在和确定其内容,直接关系到争议各方的权益,是国际环境法重要的渊源之一;著名公法家学说,由于其主观性和可能的偏见,作为国际环境法的渊源,影响力比司法判例显然小多了;软法(没有法律拘束力的行为规则)在国际环境保护中扮演了基础性的作用,可以作为国际环境法的渊源之一。     

浅析沉默权保障

为提高刑事司法文明程度,我国刑事诉讼法应尽快确立受刑事追诉人享有沉默权。但仅仅有沉默权是远远不够的,更重要的是使沉默权从“书面中的法律”成为“行为中的法律”。鉴于目前司法实践中存在的一些突出问题,我国法律在赋予沉默权的同时,可以从完善讯问程序和刑事证据制度两个方面保障沉默权的实现。     

Personalizing solidarity? The role of self-tracking in health insurance pricing

Can data-driven innovations, working across an internet of connected things, personalize health insurance prices? The emergence of self-tracking technologies and their adoption and promotion in health insurance products has been characterized as a threat to solidaristic models of healthcare provision. If individual behaviour rather than group membership were to become the basis of risk assessment, the social, economic and political consequences would be far-reaching. It would disrupt the distributive, solidaristic character that is expressed within all health insurance schemes, even in those nominally designated as private or commercial. Personalized risk pricing is at odds with the infrastructures that presently define, regulate and deliver health insurance. Self-tracking can be readily imagined as an element in an ongoing bio-political redistribution of the burden of responsibility from the state to citizens but it is not clear that such a scenario could be delivered within existing individual private health insurance operational and regulatory infrastructures. In what can be gleaned from publicly available sources discussing pricing experience in the individual markets established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 2010 (ACA), widely known as ‘Obamacare’, it appears unlikely that it can provide the means to personalize price. Using the case of Oscar Health, a technology driven start-up trading in the ACA marketplaces, I explore the concepts, politics and infrastructures at work in health insurance markets.     

作为劳动基准的个人信息保护

劳动者的个人信息保护问题存在特殊之处,具体表现为资强劳弱和人格从属性背景下知情同意规则的失灵、工作数字化后劳动者被透视和被操控的风险、有组织生产的合作关系中个人信息处理的需要,因此不能完全适用《个人信息保护法》的一般规则。劳动基准法已经纳入立法规划,在其中就劳动者个人信息保护做专门规定,这是对数字时代人权保护新挑战的回应,对于其他劳动基准的实现也有重要意义。在劳动关系中仅遵循私法路径不足以保护个人信息,还需要配备公权力保障,劳动基准法的双重保护机制也契合了这一需求。作为劳动关系中保护个人信息的特别法,劳动基准法的相应条款应该考虑如何对一般规则进行调整,包括限制知情同意规则的适用,满足人力资源管理的正当需求,修改删除权、可携带权和自动化决策条款,协调主管机构、救济方式和法律责任。由于"必需"是一个语境依赖型概念,将来还应该通过配套文件来规制工作场所的视频监控等典型的应用场景。