Environmental Security and New Middle Powers: The Case of South Korea

This article considers the role of new middle powers in the climate change debate. We focus on the issue of “green growth.” We argue that new middle powers such as South Korea are increasingly proactive in promoting this green growth agenda and, as a result, challenging conventional realist and liberal approaches and expectations to new middle powers. This diplomacy is aiming to bridge states, great and small, by leading to strategic breakthroughs in the current climate change negotiation deadlock. The article discusses South Korea’s green growth initiative and identifies how this initiative affects South Korea’s middle power role in the global environmental debate with respect to its inclusion in the Environment Integrity Group and its initiative the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).     

A comparative modeling of tax reform before and after the legislative process

This research modeled the extent to which the normative goals of equity and efficiency are embodied in three seminal tax reform proposals (Bradley-Gephardt, Kemp-Kasten, and the Treasury Department proposals) relative to the extant regime. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) is also modeled in the same manner. The objective of this study is to compare the equity and efficiency of the initial proposals with that of the final tax reform law. This before and after analysis is designed to ascertain the degree to which the legislative process undermined the normative goals of the tax reform movement. The National Tax Model was applied to model each regime and to measure the distributional and redistributional effects on tax burdens and wage efficiency costs associated with each system across ten income classes. The reform models, including TRA86, are shown as superior to the pre-reform system with respect to the normative criteria. The legislative process did not substantially compromise the goals as reflected in the seminal reform proposals in the development of a more politically acceptable tax reform law. This exercise demonstrates that it is possible for sound legislation to survive a political process that frequently permits the sacrificing of normative goals in favor of special interests.Financial support provided by the Arthur Young Foundation Tax Research Grant Program and The Ralph E. Kent Fund. The helpful suggestions of Jim Curtis were sincerely appreciated.     

A simple framework for analysing various real aspects of stabilisation and structural adjustment policies

This article shows how a simple geometric framework containing a real model based on the standard two‐good three‐factor trade theoretic model and a monetary model of the domestic banking system can be used to analyse the changes in the real and nominal values of various economic variables of concern resulting from stabilisation and structural adjustment policies     

Effects of Decomposition on Gunshot Wound Characteristics: Under Cold Temperatures with No Insect Activity

Abstract:  Information on gunshot wound characteristics has been well documented; however, there is little documented information on the effects of decomposition or environmental conditions on gunshot wound characteristics. This study was conducted in order to determine if decomposition would obscure or alter the physical surface characteristics of gunshot wounds when exposed to a low temperature environment. The study was conducted from November 2005 to January 2006 in Nova Scotia, Canada in forested and exposed environments, with air temperatures between −10°C and +10°C. Pigs were used as human models and were shot six times each at three different ranges (contact, 2.5 cm, and 1.5 m). Gunshot wound characteristics persisted until the wounds were covered with ice and snow, after which changes were observed. The changes were recognized as being unique to the different ranges of gunshots and it was concluded that changes due to decomposition under the conditions tested would not affect the collection and interpretation of gunshot wound evidence.     

History’s Challenge to Criminal Law Theory

After briefly sketching an historical account of criminal law that emphasizes its longstanding reach into social, commercial and personal life outside the core areas of criminal offenses, this paper explores why criminal law theory has never succeeded in limiting the content of criminal codes to offenses that fit the criteria of dominant theories, particularly versions of the harm principle. Early American writers on criminal law endorsed no such limiting principles to criminal law, and early American criminal law consequently was substantively broad. But even with the rise of theories in the mid-nineteenth century that sought to limit criminal law’s reach, codified offenses continued to widely and deeply regulate social life and exceed the limits of those normative arguments. This essay suggests that this practical failure of criminal law theory occurred because it was never adopted by an institutional actor that could limit offense definitions in accord with normative commitments. Legislatures are institutionally unsuited to having their policy actions limited by principled arguments, and courts passed on the opportunity to incorporate a limiting principle for criminal law once they began, in the Lochner era, actively regulating legislative decisions through Constitutional law. The one avenue through which criminal law theory has had some success in affecting criminal codes is through the influence of specialized bodies that influence legislation, especially the American Law Institute advocacy of the Model Penal Code. But the institutional structure of American criminal law policymaking permits an unusually small role for such specialized bodies, and without such an institutional mechanism, criminal law theory is likely to continue to have little effect on actual criminal codes.     

Utility of the Y-STR typing systems Y-PLEX 6 and Y-PLEX 5 in forensic casework and 11 Y-STR haplotype database for three major population groups in the United States

The Y-PLEX 6 and Y-PLEX 5 systems enable analysis for 11 Y-STR loci. We present here the utility of these systems in forensic casework. A total of 188 samples, including 127 evidence samples, were analyzed using either or both of the systems. The evidence sample types included fingernail scrapings, sperm or seminal fluid, epithelial cells, blood and other tissues. The Y-STR typing systems provided useful probative results in difficult cases. A reference database for Caucasian (n = 517), African American (n = 535), and Hispanic (n = 245) population groups within the United States was generated for estimating the haplotype frequency in forensic casework. Among the individuals profiled, 311 Caucasians, 412 African Americans, and 194 Hispanics provided unique profiles in their respective population datasets. This is the first report describing the haplotype database for the set of 11 Y-STR loci recommended by the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (SWGDAM). Linkage analysis reveals that the frequencies from forensically important autosomal loci can be multiplied with the Y-STR haplotype frequency. The results from Y-PLEX systems have been accepted in courts in the United States.