THE SEXUAL SUBALTERN IN CONVERSATIONS “SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN”: LAW AND THE OLD POLITICS OF COLONIALISM

Ratna Kapur’s recent book entitled Erotic Justice proposes a new politics of postcolonialism whereby the sexual subaltern disrupts the normative principles of the universal, liberal, legal domain. Kapur traces legal strategies regarding censorship, sex-work, homosexuality, sexual harassment, trafficking and migration which travel a treacherous path, countering allegations of ‘unIndian’ and Western practice with cultural histories of ‘authentic’ sexual legitimacies, towards a new politics of desire. Kapur frames her analysis through postcolonial feminist theory as providing a tool for feminist struggle, yet distinct from and disruptive of a liberal project of global sisterhood. This review deeply values the role of the sexual subaltern which disrupts the tenets of a linear, progressive liberalism. Drawing upon Indian feminist and Western feminist perspectives, the review considers how the distinct position of the postcolonial sexual subaltern subject informs the generic role of law as a tool constructing relations of domination regarding gender, sexuality, caste, property and religion. Kapur observes that both the West and the Hindu Right have engaged with liberal legal principles. This engagement, I argue, exposes and informs law as a historical and contemporary tool of gendered legal colonialism, for sisters to disrupt across the Western and Eastern terrains.Review of Ratna Kapur’s Erotic Justice, Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism, London: Glasshouse Press, 2005, 219 pp., ￡26, ISBN 1-90438-524-9     

NOT (QUITE) A HORSE AND CARRIAGE

This note critically interrogates the Civil Partnership Act 2004. Through an examination of the legislative background and some of the provisions of the Act, it is argued that civil partnership mirrors a marriage model with some exceptions. In creating this new legal status, the legislation also exacerbates the exclusion of some relationship forms from dominant legal norms. It should be understood as part of an agenda for social inclusion, rather than as radical social change.     

Before Identity, Gender and Human Rights

This is the beginning of an exploration of before as the thesis ‘before’ (temporally) and ‘be-fore’ (spatially) difference. Before denotes the origin and the desired destination. Before (in the double sense of ‘before’ and ‚be-in-the-fore’) opens up a space of pre-difference, of origin and of forgotten memory, as well as a space of desire, objective, illusion of teleology, unity, completion. Applied to the two domains of Human Rights and Sex/Gender, the space of ‘before’ yields two slightly different vistas: in human rights, a premodern, functionally undifferentiated society which had to invent human rights as its safeguards of functional differentiation. In Sex/Gender, ‘before’ brings a self-referential construction: that of ipseity, as the form of identity beyond comparison that does not play with id but with ipsum. Ipseity is inoperable but not useless. It is inoperable because it cannot be observed from anywhere without suffering rupture. It is not useless because it offers a ground for the reconceptualisation of difference, both through awe and desire.     

Gender, citizenship and human reproduction in contemporary Italy

This article examines how the recently introduced law on assisted reproduction in Italy, which gives symbolic legal recognition to the embryo, came about, and how a referendum, which would have repealed large sections of it, failed. The occupation of the legal space by the embryo is the outcome of a crusade by a well-organised alliance of theo-conservatives. These groups see in reproductive medicine an uncontrolled interference with their notion of the natural order of things. Such a worldview requires a total ban on stem cell research, limitation of access to reproductive technologies and repressive laws to govern the area. This conservative dream scenario has come closer to being realised by the introduction of a law doing all of these things in the name of the protection of “Life”. In the case of this law, the “life” to be protected is the embryo. In the name of “Life”, scientific advances and individual liberty have been curbed. The politics of embryo citizenship is a politics which values the yet to come over the here and now, purgation over pleasure, and the transcendent over the material.     

论我国股东派生诉讼制度的完善

我国公司法确立了股东派生诉讼制度。股东派生诉讼制度具有许多突破一般性公司法规范的特点。建立、健全我国股东派生诉讼制度的途径有:采取诉讼费用担保制度、限制原告股东的处分权利、明确股东败诉时的赔偿责任等。     

禁止酷刑的人权司法保护——论适用“非法证据排除规则“和“不得强迫自证其罪原则“

要从根本上清除刑讯逼供的行为,必须进一步加大司法改革的力度,确保严格执法、公正司法,全面遵守刑事诉讼过程的人权保护,依据禁止酷刑和其他残忍、不人道的或侮辱性的待遇或刑罚的国际标准,适用“非法证据排除规则”和“不得强迫自证其罪原则”,将我国刑事司法与诉讼程序步入国际人权司法保障体系的轨道。     

暴力袭警事件原因及对策的深层思考

近年来,暴力袭警已经成为危及公安民警生命安全的重要因素。暴力袭警的根本原因在于社会矛盾激化的不利后果的转移和国家权力、警察权和公民权之间关系的失衡。针对这些原因,阻止暴力袭警事件频繁发生的突破口和根本出路是采取措施缓和社会矛盾和平衡国家权力、警察权与公民权之间的关系。     

Sharing natural resource management responsibility: Examining the New Zealand rock lobster co-management experience

Co-management, in which government and resource users share responsibility for managing a natural resource, is attracting considerable attention in both public policy and common pool resource research. However, little is understood about how this approach arises in a mature regulatory setting, or about its strengths and weaknesses. This study uses the experience of the New Zealand rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii and Sagmariasus verreauxi) industry to illustrate what co-management is and how it develops. This is followed by an assessment of co-management in this regime. Development of co-management is an evolutionary process that requires commitment from both government and industry. Strengthened property rights and management expertise provide the incentives and tools to develop a robust co-management regime. However the characteristics of the property rights bundle must be carefully matched to the regime’s biological, social, and regulatory setting.     

论人民警察执法权益的法律保障

侵害人民警察执法权益案件的多发,不仅使正常的警务执法活动受到干扰,更危及到法律的尊严。现有的人民警察执法权益保障体系,特别是其法律保障亟待加强。构建系统、明晰的警察职权保障的法律体系,完善警察职务防卫权的立法,对侵犯警察执法权益的行为加大制裁力度,是加强法律保障的主要内容。     

产权理论及其对国有资产管理体制设计之启示

公有制及其主导的经济社会里国有资产管理体制之设计和构建乃产权机制在宪政层面上的外化及展开,故此,产权机制的探讨对于我国国有资产管体体制的评判及完善具有参照意义.国有资产管理体制的合理设计在于把握产权理论实质的基础上揉和公共产品和私人产品两种运行机理,在主体体系、客体体系、权力机制和责任机制四个方面完成一种独特的制度构建.