How Expected Political and Legal Impact Drive Media Coverage of Supreme Court Cases

Media coverage of Supreme Court decisions is not well-understood, with studies typically focusing on features of decisions such as issue area and opinion authorship, and ignoring the political and legal importance of those decisions. Because the Court is both secretive and esoteric, and because it does not engage in traditional public relations activities, media must proxy importance by looking to available cues, such as interest group participation. Importantly, some indicators of importance are available before a decision is rendered; thus I examine both pre- and post-decision media coverage of cases. I show that expected legal and political impact drive media coverage of Court decisions, and that the decision-level features that prior studies have focused on are much less important in determining coverage than has been previously thought.     

Fighting rural poverty,inequality and low productivity through legal empowerment of the poor

The purpose of this essay is to introduce the work of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) to the broader academic community interested in the challenge of eradicating rural poverty and promoting the structural and institutional changes which underpin such a challenge. While rural development research in the past has included work on several components of the legal empowerment of the poor (LEP) agenda such as property and labour rights, much less attention has been given to the other two pillars of the framework – access to justice and rule of law and business rights – which together constitute the four pillars of LEP. However the real difference and value added is the power of the systemic interaction among the pillars and the empowerment approach to change. In this approach, change is initiated bottom up with legal identity, organisations, information, and voice of the poor. In other words an active citizenry, complemented by a democratic and effective state. None of this happens naturally as vested interests and skewed power and asset relationships are bound to get in the way of change to greater equity. Such change is only likely to come through iterative contestations between organisations of the poor, the middle class, and the state. This approach is not presented as a panacea but one which will hopefully complement and accelerate what is already working.     

Legal empowerment of the poor: with a little help from their friends?

In 2005 the initiative to create a High Level Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, to be co-chaired by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto and former US Foreign Affairs Secretary Madeleine Albright, was launched with strong support from the Norwegian government. This article first reviews some of the debate surrounding the initiative, giving special attention to the role of Norwegian civil society organisations that questioned central assumptions of the Commission as well as its composition and working procedures. Next, the article looks at the propositions made by the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor and argues that it was very much a top-down affair that called on those in power to behave in favour of the poor and relegated organisations of the poor and civil society to a supportive role. Issues of political power thus were downplayed. This also is reflected in the fact that the question of (re)distribution of assets is hardly addressed by the Commission. Questions of power or the distribution of assets were sidestepped by focusing primarily on the legal dimension and formalisation. And, although the Commission mentions macro-economic conditions it fails to critically analyse the conditions that account for poverty and informality, which basically are attributed to legal arrangements. Such an analysis would require a (critical) political economy perspective.     

Evaluating the shared and unique predictors of legal cynicism and police legitimacy from adolescence into early adulthood

In different theoretical traditions, negative social conditions, attachments, and interactions shape the way individuals view the law and its agents. Although most researchers acknowledge the conceptual distinction between different legal attitudes such as legal cynicism and police legitimacy, it remains unclear to what extent these attitudes stem from the same social sources. In the current study, therefore, we evaluate the social and individual factors that influence trajectories of legal cynicism and police legitimacy using a diverse community sample of youths in Zurich, Switzerland. Latent growth curve models were employed to examine patterns of change in legal cynicism and police legitimacy between 13 and 20 years of age. The findings show that legal cynicism and police legitimacy both decline into early adulthood and exhibit high rank-stability over time. Furthermore, we find that legal cynicism is closely related to individual characteristics that reflect one's inability to recognize or abide by their internal rules. By contrast, police legitimacy is shaped by socialization influences, particularly teacher bonds and police contacts. These results indicate a need to assess the measurement and interpretation of legal cynicism critically in relation to broader legitimacy beliefs and to investigate the shared and distinct sources of these different constructs.     

欧亚经济联盟的多重一体化目标及其法治困境

欧亚经济联盟作为区域一体化组织中的新成员,其政治、经济、社会、法律、文化等多重一体化的目标趋势与愿望在不同领域表现出功能性差异,即经济的先导性、政治的战略性、社会认同性、法律保障性、文化融通性等。在全球治理、互联互通和全球产业链正在生成的背景下,如何立足联盟多重发展目标,更好地发挥出欧亚经济联盟的应有作用,尚存诸多法治困境:从超国家制度与主权国家制度的衔接到成员国间的基础性不平衡对一致性规则形成的制约,再到联盟法律与成员国法律对接的阻却性因素的存在,以及联盟从初级一体化规则向高级一体化规则演进的迫切需求等。面向未来,欧亚经济联盟呈现出初级、中级和高级三阶段过程性发展的趋势,基于历史文化的多重合法性根基将促动多重一体化目标的实现,同时决定在国际法治与国内法治的交错并存中构建联盟法制机制,并促动规则治理的深化均是可期的。     

刑事司法中的规范创制行为及其规制——以审判中心主义为视角

审判中心主义的确立是一个系统工程,纠正程序法层面上的侦查中心主义确属必要,但是在公安司法机关的“规范创制活动”中也存在一种侦查中心主义的倾向,值得警惕。公安司法机关的规范创制活动在诸多方面掣肘了法官的个案解释活动,造成了庭审虚化,背离了审判中心主义的要求。国家应在规范创制活动的权力配置、审查方式等方面加以改革,以实现法制统一和个案公正的有效衔接,保证审判中心主义的全方位确立。     

海洋命运共同体思想的内涵和实践路径

海洋命运共同体思想是人类命运共同体思想在海洋领域的细化,反映了国际海洋法的发展趋势和价值目标。它创造性的继承并发展了和而不同思想以及共同体思想,为全球海洋治理提供了新的价值指引。海洋命运共同体是共同体成员基于海洋共识和共同的海洋利益产生认同感和归属感,通过在海洋领域的共同合作形成的联合体,包括海洋政治、安全、经济、文化和生态命运共同体。中国在区域可以通过实施多边海洋行动,构建区域海洋命运共同体,实现区域合作关系的升级。海洋命运共同体是超越民族和国家的海洋观,中国在全球可以通过构建海上丝路命运共同体、提升国际制度性话语权和形成国际海洋法律新制度来践行海洋命运共同体思想。     

Theoretically,yes, but also empirically? How the corruption-turnout link is marginally explained by civic duty to vote

Corruption is generally associated with low electoral participation. A recurrent explanation of the negative correlation between corruption and electoral turnout involves the rational calculus of the costs and benefits of voting. More specifically, in a context of high corruption, citizens do not vote because they think that doing so will hardly affect policy decisions. A number of influential studies has argued that corruption affects citizens' electoral engagement in a different and more fundamental way as well: It erodes their sense of civic duty to vote in elections. Yet, a relation between corruption and civic duty and a mediation effect of the attitude remains empirically untested. This article examines empirically whether perceived corruption and sense of civic duty are correlated, as well as whether civic duty mediates the relation between perceived corruption and turnout. It does so with the pooled Making Electoral Democracy Work data, as these data contain measures on individuals’ sense of civic duty to vote in four election levels, namely, national, regional, European, and municipal elections, as well as on their perception of corruption in each of these government levels, and on their participation in these four election levels as well. I find a weak relation between perceived corruption and civic duty, and a low mediation effect of the attitude (compared with rational factors), irrespective of the election level.     

汉律“性越轨”治罪条令与汉代女性人身权益——基于简牍资料的研究

解读相关简牍资料可知,汉律"性越轨"治罪条令具有如下特点:轻视常人间的强奸罪,重视对和奸的判罚,为了维护夫权,量刑环节注重和奸中妇女的婚姻状态;在严惩乱伦行为的同时,客观上为某些特殊身份地位妇女群体架构起一个相对安全的空间;虽然汉律维护良贱等级界限,但对某些下层妇女权益有所关照。上述条令创制初衷乃为维护既有社会等级制度,而非实现社会公平正义,因此,对于汉代女性人身权益的法律保护而言,该条令虽产生过一定积极效用,但从根本上讲,无论是从立法条令内涵来印证,还是以司法实践效果来检验,均反映出该条令存在诸多局限。     

第二次世界大战后武力使用规范的演进

在国际法体系中,武装冲突法可谓编纂得最为完备的一个分支。经过数百年的积累和铺垫,第二次世界大战后武力使用规范逐渐发展成为完整的规范体系并呈现出四大特征:即为了适应国际关系的新变化武装冲突法扩大了适用范围;使用核武器是否合法成为国际法的重要问题;出现了在武装冲突中"反向"使用武力以达到实现和平目的的新方式——联合国维持和平行动以及在武装冲突中出现了大量作为作战手段而使用的性暴力行为等。然而进入21世纪以后,武装冲突的形态与样式均发生了重大变化,一方面,以无人机、自主作战机器人、纳米生物武器和网络战为代表的新型作战手段方法层出不穷;另一方面,非国家行为体在武装冲突中使用武力的情况有所增加,更出现了私人军事安保公司等法律地位在国际法上尚处于空白的交战主体。以朝核危机为标志,核武器对于国际和平与安全的巨大的潜在甚至是现实的威胁再次凸显,迅速成为国际政治和国际法中的热点核心议题。值得注意的是,即使武装冲突法的基本原则依然相对稳定,但是不断出现的新作战手段和方法,仍然给国际法和国际安全提出了一系列亟须应对的新挑战。