The Emperor’s new clothes? Perceptions of the EU’s strategic partnerships in Asia

Asia Europe Journal - In order to adapt to a changing global order, the European Union (EU) has established an important mechanism for cooperating with some of the world’s most influential...     

THE EVOLUTION—OR END—OF MARRIAGE?: REFLECTIONS ON THE IMPASSE OVER SAME‐SEX MARRIAGE

The debate over legalizing same‐sex marriage implicates the question of whether doing so would signal the end—or destruction—of the institution of marriage. The appeal to preserving a millennia‐old tradition of marriage against change fails to reckon with the evolution that has already occurred. Invocations of gender complementarity between parents as essential to child well‐being also conflict with growing recognition in family law that children's best interests can be served by gay and lesbian parents. Canada's path toward same‐sex marriage suggests that impasse need not be inevitable. In the United States, this impasse stems in part from the problem that same‐sex marriage serves as an emblem of everything that threatens marriage.     

A SHORT COMMENTARY ON TIMOTHY M. TIPPINS AND JEFFREY P. WITTMANN'S "EMPIRICAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS WITH CUSTODY RECOMMENDATIONS

In this commentary, the call for clinical humility and judicial vigilance in custody recommendations is confirmed as valid and the Australian experience, where the child custody report writer has for some years been permitted to express an opinion on the ultimate issue, is considered. The inherent risks are briefly discussed, and the question of who of the judge and the social scientist might be better placed to decide the exquisitely difficult children's issues after family breakdown is touched upon. It suggests that a combination of the expert's opinion and judicial fact finding probably produces a result that is as good as it gets. But a greater danger is highlighted. It is the impact of the adversary system, and whether it is suitable in any event to these sensitive court decisions.     

“The Spectacle of Fearsome Acts”: Crime in the Melting P(l)ot in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gangs of New York</Emphasis>

This paper explores the multi-layered representations of violence and crime in the recent Hollywood film Gangs of New York [Scorcese (2003) Miramax]. We use our exploration of this film to suggest that popular culture, even through its most mainstream products, can be seen as a critical criminological space where alternative views of law, crime and the state are made available. Rather than understanding Hollywood movies simply as vehicles for disseminating conventional mores, we suggest that they can furnish critical (and complex) points of view on law and crime and that the project of a critical criminology can be strengthened by engaging more forthrightly with these ubiquitous cultural forms.     

STUDYING FEDERALISM: PERSPECTIVES AND PROSPECTS

Governing Federations: Constitution, Politics Resources , edited by MICHAEL WOOD, CHRISXIPHER WILLIAMS, CAMPBELL SHARMAN (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger in association with the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, 1989, 281 pp).
Federalism in Canada t Australia: Historical Perspectives 192088 , edited by BRUCE W. HODGINS, JOHN J. EDDY, SHELAGH D. GRANT, JAMES STRUTHERS (Peterborough: Frost Centre for Canadian Heritage and Development Studies, Trent University, 1989, 511 PP).
Australian Federalism , edited by BRIAN GALLIGAN (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1989, 278 pp).     

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Step Towards Stronger Involvement of Business in MEA Implementation?

This article explores the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It offers an overview of the linkages, a survey of relevant provisions of key MEAs, and a review of the relationship between global trade rules and MEAs. Finally, the article highlights three ongoing discussions with relevance to linkages between CSR and MEAs: (1) whether, and if so how, to identify minimum global business standards in the environmental sphere; (2) the rapidly evolving 'sub-theme' within the CSR agenda which addresses the business/development interface, and the contribution of business to poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods and achieving the Millennium Development Goals; and (3) the development by the International Organization for Standardization of an international guidance standard on 'organizational social responsibility', which, if adopted, will become ISO 26000. The risk of seeing CSR as a new pathway to MEA implementation is that the role of MEAs in informing the development of minimum acceptable environmental norms of business behaviour will be 'watered down'. If MEAs are to learn from CSR, their competitors and often stronger counterparts in the international architecture – intergovernmental trade and investment arrangements – also need to be equipped not only to be sensitive to CSR, but actively to support it. ¹     

A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman's Point of View

Taiwan's political democratization has engendered a contradiction in its legal regime: consolidation of rule of law at the macro-institutional level is matched by the persistent marginalization of legal authority in ground-level social practices. This article uses an ethnographic study of neighborhood police to explore certain practical and structural elements involved in maintaining this contradictory sociopolitical order. I examine some of the processes through which state authority is invoked and applied to the policing of public space, focusing on the ideals of legitimacy that animate these processes. The argument of the article is that historical and cultural factors embodied in contemporary Taiwan's "idea of police"—exemplified in the trope of a balance between reason, law, and sentiment—are crucial to understanding how solidification of the rule of law within state institutions is kept within the boundaries of a social sensibility that does not take law as the last word.