Stealing into the wild: conservation science,plant breeding and the makings of new seed enclosures

Faced with pressing climatic changes, scientific and industrial interests are vying to develop crops that can survive drought, floods and shifting pest regimes. Increasingly, they look for solutions in an unlikely place: the gene pools of wild plants. Crop wild relatives (CWR) – species closely related to crops, including their ancestors – offer breeders the allure of retracing the domestication bottleneck, infusing genomes of modern crops with ‘lost’ genetic variety. Yet wild relatives also confront threats from climate change, urbanization and expansion of industrial agri-food. Thus, CWR, seen as both salvational and threatened, have become an international conservation and food-security priority. It is my contention that, in their common project to harness wild-relative potential, conservation and breeding science are co-evolving to extend seed commodity relations into new spheres. I examine enclosures along two fronts: first within ‘systematic CWR conservation’, where ‘in situ’ approaches, typically regarded as empowering and sustainable alternatives to ‘ex situ’, instead may support a complementary system of value extraction; second, in breeding and biotechnology research, which produces new value for CWR while profoundly shaping upstream conservation priorities. An important finding is that although today’s ‘ex situ-centric’ complementarity favors dispossession, an ‘in situ-centric’ approach could foster democratic renewal of biocultural diversity.     

论以行为为标的的民事执行——以诉前停止侵犯知识产权裁定为基点

在解释论上,诉前停止侵犯知识产权的裁定经当事人申请后由作出裁定的审判机构执行,被申请人拒不履行的,适用妨害民事诉讼的强制措施。但是,从立法论的角度,此种裁定应当直接交付执行机构执行,既无需当事人申请,也不宜由审判机构执行。此种裁定的执行以行为为标的,妨害民事诉讼的强制措施并不能解决司法实践中存在的对行为义务的"执行难"问题。从制度上解决此问题的关键在于对间接执行方式的承认。     

美国行政法上案卷排他性原则分析

美国的案卷排他性原则起源于著名的第一摩根案件,该案确立“决定者必须听证”的原则,指出决定者只能以在听证中所确定的事实来作为决定的依据,而不能根据听证之外的事实材料。该原则司法审查中就体现为案卷是法官审查行政决定是否合法的唯一依据,即只能审查作决定当时考虑的相关事实,而不能把作决定之后新的事实、材料作为审查依据。     

Forensic determination of hair deposition time in crime scenes using electron paramagnetic resonance

Several types of biological samples, including hair strands, are found at crime scenes. Apart from the identification of the value and the contributor of the probative evidence, it is important to prove that the time of shedding of hair belonging to a suspect or victim matches the crime window. To this end, to estimate the ex vivo aging of hair, we evaluated time‐dependent changes in melanin‐derived free radicals in blond, brown, and black hairs by using electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR). Hair strands aged under controlled conditions (humidity 40%, temperature 20–22°C, indirect light, with 12/12 hour of light/darkness cycles) showed a time‐dependent decay of melanin‐derived radicals. The half‐life of eumelanin‐derived radicals in hair under our experimental settings was estimated at 22 ± 2 days whereas that of pheomelanin was about 2 days suggesting better stabilization of unpaired electrons by eumelanin. Taken together, this study provides a reference for future forensic studies on determination of degradation of shed hair in a crime scene by following eumelanin radicals by utilizing the non‐invasive, non‐destructive, and highly specific EPR technique.     

THE EFFECT OF CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS ON HIRING EX‐OFFENDERS*

Research Summary The rapid increase in the nation's incarceration rate over the past decade has raised questions about how to reintegrate a growing number of ex‐offenders successfully. Employment has been shown to be an important factor in reintegration, especially for men over the age of 27 years who characterize most individuals released from prison. This article explores this question using unique establishment‐level data collected in Los Angeles in 2001. On average, we replicate the now‐common finding that employer‐initiated criminal background checks are negatively related to the hiring of ex‐offenders. However, this negative effect is less than complete. The effect is strongly negative for those employers that are legally required to perform background checks, which is not surprising because these legal requirements to perform checks are paired with legal prohibitions against hiring ex‐offenders. However, some employers seem to perform checks to gain additional information about ex‐offenders (and thus hire more ex‐offenders than other employers), and checking seems to have no effect on hiring ex‐offenders for those employers not legally required to perform checks. Policy Implications One public policy initiative that has received considerable attention is to deny employers access to criminal history record information, which includes movements to “ban the box” that inquires about criminal history information on job applications. The assumption underlying this movement is that knowledge of ex‐offender status leads directly to a refusal to hire. The results of this analysis show that policy initiatives aimed at restricting background checks, particularly for those firms not legally required to perform checks, may not have the desired consequences of increasing ex‐offender employment. This result is consistent with an alternative view that some employers care about the characteristics of the criminal history record and use information about criminal history in a more nuanced, nondiscrete way.     

西班牙宗教事务及其法律治理问题研究

西班牙的宗教传统十分浓厚。进入现代之后,西班牙通过宪法和宗教自由法确立了政教分离、宗教自由和平等保护原则,逐步形成处理宗教事务的法律框架,经历了兼有成功与挫败的法律实践。西班牙宗教事务法律治理的基本经验包括政府与宗教团体签订一系列双边协议、对宗教组织实行登记制度、建立社会多元化和共存基金会、尊重各宗教团体的特殊习俗、立法支持公立学校的宗教教学以及设立宗教自由顾问委员会等,形成了一种与时俱进、富于创新的宗教法律治理模式。     

试论国际商事仲裁中的友好仲裁制度

国际商事仲裁中,依法仲裁的仲裁方式本身存在一些缺憾,起到查漏补缺作用的友好仲裁得以发展,目前已经得到世界上大多数国家的立法、国际公约及示范法、仲裁机构的仲裁规则的普遍承认,成为一种重要的仲裁方式。本文从友好仲裁的概念及其与商人习惯法的区别等阐明其内在含义出发,并列举了有关立法和实践,具体论述设立友好仲裁制度的必要性,认为在我国的国际商事仲裁中确立友好仲裁有助于完善我国的仲裁制度,逐步与国际接轨。     

刑事诉讼法修改应以调整诉讼结构为切入点

我国刑事诉讼结构一直呈现强职权主义倾向。为改变这一模式下控、辩、审三种职能失衡所进行的庭审方式改革,又带来侦查、起诉结构中的强职权主义与审判结构中的弱当事人主义之间的冲突。据此,刑事诉讼法修改应继续将调整诉讼结构作为切入点,在巩固已有成果的同时把改革向前延伸,以构建完善和谐的新型诉讼关系。     

我国执行程序模式选择及完善-以执行标的为视角展开

执行程序是继审判程序之后实现判决给付内容的重要程序。执行程序模式历来就有当事人进行主义和职权进行主义的划分,前者以法国执行程序为代表,后者以德国执行程序的规定为典型。我国现行执行程序的模式定位出现了一定的脱离实际的偏差,是造成“执行难”的重要原因之一。执行模式的恰当定位能对解决“执行难”问题起着不可忽视的作用。然而执行程序模式的定位不应该仅仅根据比较法的视野来确定,更恰当的方式是根据执行程序本身内容进行分析,具体根据不同种类的执行标的进行划分。我们应通过对执行标的分析讨论,来确定直接执行与间接执行哪种方式更恰当,进而来确定不同执行程序的内容构成,以此探讨我国的执行程序模式定位。     

What the Trial Judge Needs to Know about the Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance

Since the 1950s, there have been several international multi‐lateral treaties for recognition and enforcement of child and spousal support orders. They operated, primarily, in civil law countries where “creditor‐based jurisdiction” allowed establishment of an order in the country of habitual residence of the child or the custodial parent. The United States, requiring “minimum contacts” with the debtor to establish personal jurisdiction, could not be a party to such agreements. For nearly fifty years the U.S., and a few states, sought to fill the need for international reciprocity by negotiating individual country‐to‐country or state‐to‐country arrangements. With ratification of the 2007 Family Maintenance Convention, the United States was finally able to join in a multi‐lateral treaty. The treaty took effect in the United States on January 1, 2017, establishing procedures for international recognition, enforcement and modification of family support orders with 35 other countries already party to the Convention (including the entire European Union). The grand bargain struck during the negotiations between 2003 and 2007 was that the U.S. would honor a foreign order if, under the facts presented, there were sufficient minimum contacts with the debtor that would have supported personal jurisdiction if the order had been entered in any state in the U.S. If unable to recognize a foreign order, the U.S. agreed to take steps to issue a new one. The treaty establishes administrative procedures that, in many respects, are nearly identical to interstate enforcement of domestic support orders in this country. But there are also aspects of the treaty that are entirely new and warrant explanation for family and juvenile court judges. This article focuses on several unique provisions of the treaty that judges and attorneys need to understand.