Audit for Whom? Time to Review Roles of Independent Auditors in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government has been reforming its laws regarding accounting practices in recent years, to pre-empt problems similar to that of Enron. It correctly recognizes an opportunity to enhance and distinguish the financial system in Hong Kong and create a competitive advantage for Hong Kong. The sixty-five billion dollar question is: what is the right approach for accounting practice reform? One obvious approach is to model reform after the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX). The SOX increases personal liabilities of senior management and introduces extremely cumbersome compliance processes (s 3 (b)(ix) of Minutes of Bills Committee of Financial Reporting Council Bill. (19 July 2005)). While this approach may be the right move for the United States, because rescuing investor confidence is paramount, a similar approach may not be optimal for Hong Kong. Hong Kong relies, to a great degree, on foreign investments and a heavy-handed approach may scare investments away (Charles E. Schumer &; Michael R. Bloomberg To Save New York, Learn from London, Wall Street Journal 1 Nov 2006). This paper, argues that failure of independent auditors was mainly caused by bad incentives. In particular, auditors were hired by and responsible to the management of companies. Thus, there is no surprise that auditors were less diligent in finding problems caused by management. Furthermore, proposing of an alternate to the SOA’s approach. Specifically, a new legal approach should be enforced that allows shareholders to sue auditors when failure to uncover accounting issues causes loss of shareholders’ values.     

工会工作要在广度、深度、力度上做出实效——扬州市工会工作的实践与思考

要使工会工作在广度、深度、力度和工作干劲、工作成效上不断取得新突破,就必须注意把握工会工作的特点和规律,努力做到讲政治,讲分寸,善借力,重宣传,聚人心,好心态.     

Murder in Mexico: are journalists victims of general violence or targeted political violence?

Journalists in Mexico face hundreds of attacks each year, ranging from online harassment and physical intimidation to outright murder. The official narrative typically claims that murdered journalists are the victims of general criminal violence. This article finds that despite the rampant violence in Mexico, the murder of journalists cannot be attributed to the country’s general criminal violence problem alone. Instead, the evidence points to the targeting, and even political targeting of journalists. First, journalists are at a much higher risk of being murdered than the general population. Second, the divergence between homicide rates among the general population and among journalists varies considerably between Mexican states. While recent scholarship has shown that subnational governments can successfully remain authoritarian despite democratization at the central or federal level, this literature has largely ignored the use of political killings in subnational undemocratic regimes. This article attempts to understand the murder of journalists not just as a problem of criminal violence, but also of political violence, and thereby connects the findings to the existing scholarship on subnational authoritarianism.     

“Value Grabbing”: A Political Ecology of Rent

This paper aims to redress the under-appreciated significance of rent for political ecological analysis. We introduce the notion of value grabbing, defined as the appropriation of (surplus) value through rent. A concept that is analytically distinct from accumulation, rent is both a social relation and a distributional process that is increasingly central to the reproduction of contemporary capitalism. Emphasis is placed on the “grabbing” of value in order to shed light on the processes at work by which surplus value is distributed unevenly between different classes and fractions of classes. A focus on rent within political ecology, we argue, can help us distinguish between two organically related but analytically distinct “moments”: (a) the creation of property rights that establish rent relations and (b) the struggle over the appropriation and distribution of surplus value generated by the rent relation itself. We explore some of the implications of this perspective for understanding new forms of socio-ecological struggles and their varied relations to the state. We maintain that a value-grabbing perspective has far-reaching consequences for political ecology, as it provides a sharp conceptual tool for situating a wide range of socio-ecological conflicts and movements as class struggles over value appropriation and distribution.     

全球化进程中法治基础的转变——以世界主义民主理论的全球治理为出发点

全球化进程使以主权国家为核心的世界秩序发生变化,以世界主义民主理论为基础的全球治理理论的兴起给传统法治理论提供了新的研究思路。在全球化背景下,从世界主义民主的视角来看待法治理论所面临的问题,就是要重新审视全球化背景下民族国家法治的政治基础问题,这也是中国法理学面临的重要问题。     

论警务活动人权保障与人的本性

人的本性给予人权,并在一定的历史条件下居于一定的经济结构和文化发展中。为了自身的自由生存、自由生活、自由发展以能够真正掌握自己的命运,必须具有人权。警务活动的主客体作为世界的主体,都具有人的一般本质属性。警务活动保障人权必须把警务活动的对象当做自然存在物、社会存在物、意识存在物、主体存在物来把握。     

以全争于天下——试析孙子的强国思想

从政治思想层面去解读《孙子兵法》,它无疑是一部深刻说明如何"强国"的纲领性著作,其核心是"全争"的战略思想,"争"的直接目的是取"胜"。孙子强调"知胜"、"能为胜败之政"、"奇胜"、"胜可为"、"胜可全"。孙子"全争"的思想具有强大的生命力。     

论法治政府下行政立法听证制度的构想

法治政府是法治国家的必然要求。要建设法治政府,需要规范行政立法听证行为,我国《立法法》虽然对行政立法听证制度有明文规定,但条文过于简单,不具有操作性。因此,我国行政立法听证的范围、听证的物质保障、听证的主持人制度、参与人制度、笔录效力制度、运行程序制度都有进一步探讨的必要。     

贸易对中日韩经济周期协动性的影响研究

对中日韩贸易对经济周期协动性的影响进行分析,可以得出结论:双边贸易强度对经济周期协动性的影响取决于双边产业内贸易强度的大小。产业内贸易强度大,则双边贸易强度与经济周期协动性为正相关;产业内贸易强度小,则双边贸易强度与经济周期协动性为负相关。另外,中日贸易中纺织纱线等6种行业的贸易有助于提高经济周期协动性,而服装等2种行业的贸易降低经济周期协动性;中韩贸易中有色金属相关行业等6种行业的贸易有助于提高经济周期协动性,而塑料等2种行业的贸易降低经济周期协动性。     

论合同诈骗罪及其他合同违法行为

文章通过对合同诈骗罪等三种合同违法行为的分析,特别是对合同诈骗罪与合同民事欺诈行为的比较,有助于在合同法理论与实践中更全面准确地把握这三种性质截然不同的违法行为,为依法处理合同民事经济纠纷、制裁合同行政违法行为与打击利用合同进行刑事犯罪活动提供了理论依据。