The longmont community justice partnership: Restorative justice practice as collaboration

This paper documents the application of restorative justice principles using a model which was developed by the Longmont Community Justice Partnership (LCJP) and is being used in other communities in Colorado. It explains the structure and operation of this model as well as addresses some of the challenging issues program participants faced during the startup, development, and maintenance phases of the program. Among other issues we consider community support, team development, evaluation, restorative language, funding, and the limitations of the model. Finally we discuss the way in which this program has potential for other communities which seek to implement restorative justice practices.     

Resolving the Kashmir Conflict: Pakistan,India, Kashmiris and Religious Militants

This article introduces a conflict resolution framework to address the Kashmir ¹ 1. Henceforth in this article, ‘Kashmir’ refers both to the independent territory under Dogra dominion since 1846 to 1947 and to the territory that nowadays encompasses ‘Jammu and Kashmir’ (JK), under Indian control, and ‘Pakistan Administrated Kashmir’ (PAK), under Pakistan. Throughout the article the term ‘Pakistan Administrated Kashmir’ encompasses both Azad Kashmir and the Federally Administered Northern Areas. View all notes conflict. Firstly, Kashmir is mapped out as a multi-dimensional dispute between various parties: besides the interstate dispute between India and Pakistan, Kashmir is also an armed conflict both between India and the Kashmiris over the right of self-determination and between India and the religious militants who are waging a jihad to create a theocratic state. Secondly, in order to understand the complexity of Kashmir, I introduce an original framework based upon six levels of sovereignty that helps us in underscoring the implications of the bargaining process between India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Based on this, I propose a roadmap for peace, which comprises three successive steps: confidence-building measures, restoration of the asymmetric original status of Jammu and Kashmir and, finally, shared sovereignty (partial or total condominium) between India and Pakistan.     

From Helping Court to Community‐Based Services: The 30‐Year Evolution of Australia's Family Relationship Centres

As a centrepiece of Australia's 2006 family law reforms, the community‐based Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) represented a major development in the Government's commitment to incorporate family relationship services into its family law system. This paper sees FRCs as a logical development of the original conceptualising the Family Court of Australia as a “helping court”. The paper suggests that the aspiration to create a helping court was partially achieved in 1976 via the creation of an in‐house family court counselling service, which was primarily focused not on law and legal principles, but on supporting the ways in which family members were managing the task of redefining relationships. While generally valued by judges and others, this service nonetheless found itself in tension with the Family Court's continued primary commitment to legally informed and adversarially driven negotiation and decision‐making processes. Since 2006, the creation of FRCs has spearheaded a family law system that provides relationship‐focused interventions away from the courts as the default option for most parenting disputes. Consistent with this aim, there is evidence of a diminished percentage of cases now requiring judicial intervention. The 2006 legislation also provides for courts to conduct “less adversarial trials.” Paradoxically, this has occurred alongside unequivocal evidence from the Australian Institute of Family Studies’ evaluation data that judicial officers are dealing mainly with families displaying seriously dysfunctional attitudes and behaviours. The legal challenge in dealing with these cases is for courts to provide child focused, fair and non‐destructive internal processes. In addition, however, it is increasingly clear that to support and help facilitate their decisions, courts also need good working relationships with FRCs and other community based services. FRCs and the 2006 reforms offer the possibility of moving beyond the ideal of a “helping court” to the broader concept of helping family law system.     

Identity and security in Korea

The summit meeting between the two Korean heads of state, which took place in Pyongyang in June 2000, constitutes a major turning point in the peninsula's history. As the effects of the meeting are gradually unfolding, a period of détente no longer seems impossible. But major difficulties remain unsolved and Korea will continue to be one of the world's most volatile areas. The task of this essay is to identify and analyse some of the entrenched political patterns that will challenge policy-makers in the years ahead. To do so it is necessary to portray the conflict in Korea not only in conventional ideological and geopolitical terms, but also, and primarily, as a question of identity. From such a vantage-point two components are essential in the search for a more peaceful peninsula. Substantial progress has recently been made in the first realm, the need to approach security problems, no matter how volatile they seem, in a cooperative and dialogical, rather than merely a coercive manner. The second less accepted but perhaps more important factor, revolves around the necessity to recognize that dialogue has its limits, that the party on the other side of the DMZ cannot always be accommodated or subsumed into compromise. Needed is an ethics of difference: a willingness to accept that the other's sense of identity and politics may be inherently incompatible with one's own.     

党的十九届六中全会决议中的法治要义

十九届六中全会通过的《中共中央关于党的百年奋斗重大成就和历史经验的决议》是党关于历史问题的第三个专门性决议。该《决议》全面总结了新中国成立以后社会主义革命和建设的历史经验,对一些重大历史事件和重要历史人物作出了实事求是的评价。该《决议》对我们党尊重法律、遵守法律、依靠法律和捍卫法律的百年奋斗历史作了全面系统的概括和总结,对党依法执政的历史成就和重要经验进行了系统性地归纳,为中国特色社会主义法治建设指明了继续前进的方向。该《决议》关于我们党依法办事、依法执政重大成就和历史经验的全面系统归纳和总结是通过决议文本中的139个“法”字以及由“法”构成的词组来科学地加以表述的。对十九届六中全会通过的《决议》中的“法”字进行系统性的归纳和总结,可以提炼出十九届六中全会决议中的法治要义,全面和系统地呈现中国共产党依法执政、依法治国、依法办事的百年奋斗的历史脉络。     

仲裁制度的经济分析——以纠纷解决方式的成本比较和竞争互动作为考察点

在一个纠纷解决机制的经济学视角下,仲裁和诉讼作为其中的两种主要公共产品,如何在其竞合的商事纠纷解决领域实现互补并进而形成良性的竞争,将是使得商事纠纷解决秩序有效率运转的一个途径。基于纠纷解决需求的信息不对称模型和仲裁诉讼的寡头竞争格局模型的建构,可以得出关于仲裁定价的分析,并能为如何协同诉讼提供量化依据。     

论我国劳动争议处理立法的基本定位

我国劳动争议处理程序在市场经济的发展过程中正走向失灵的边缘。劳动争议处理程序的症结在于工会、政府、仲裁机构与司法机关在部门利益上的相互纠葛，致使现行制度用其所短，无法发挥应有的功能。我国劳动争议处理立法的基本定位应该是在对各方利益进行协调处理的基础上，做实协商、做大调解、做强仲裁、做精诉讼，完成对法律制度的改造。     

The Interdisciplinary Settlement Conference: A Grassroots Alternative for Resolving High‐Conflict Parenting Disputes in Lean Times

This article describes a court‐connected alternative dispute resolution program, the Interdisciplinary Settlement Conference. The key feature of this program is the participation of two volunteer panelists, one a family law attorney and the other a mental health professional experienced in parenting disputes, who assist the judicial officer in working with the parties and their attorneys (if any) to reach a resolution of their parenting dispute. Significantly, in addition to addressing the parties’ legal issues, the panelists also address the parties’ psychological and emotional issues relevant to the dispute on an as‐needed basis. Findings from six years of experience with the program are discussed, including evidence of high satisfaction with the program, a high rate of settlement, a decrease in relitigation, and a concomitant savings of scarce judicial resources.