A “shift in attitude”? Institutional change and sexual and gender-based crimes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

ABSTRACT

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has been slow to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) crimes perpetrated during the Democratic Kampuchea regime. However, there appears to have been a tentative “shift in attitude” at the ECCC toward the investigation and prosecution of these crimes. This article draws on feminist institutionalist theories, first to explain the ECCC’s initial failure to prioritize SGBV and then to explain how and why this may have changed. The article suggests that such change has not arisen from the ECCC’s formal rules. Instead, various actors working with and around these “old rules” have drawn on these provisions, civil society initiatives and international and national gender norms to modify “informal” practices concerning the prosecution of SGBV at the ECCC. Sensitivity to SGBV is particularly important in hybrid, or internationalized, international criminal structures, which may be hindered by prohibitive practices emerging from both the international and national components of the institution.     

All Data are Wrong,but Some are Useful? Advocating the Need for Data Auditing

In a recent article from the Annals of Applied Statistics, Cox discussed the main phases of applied statistical research ranging from clarifying study objectives to final data analysis and interpreting results. As an incidental remark to these main phases, we advocate that beyond cleaning and preprocessing the data, it is a good practice to audit the data to determine if they can be trusted at all. A case study based on Ghanaian Official Fishery Statistics is used to illustrate this need, with Benford's law being the tool used to carrying out the data audit. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Assisting the High Administrative Court in Restricting Too Broad a Concept of Academic Judgment

I have received substantial monetary compensation and a formal apology from my first doctoral school, and a Ph.D. from another university. This essay describes my personal view on discussing the boundaries of academic judgment and research supervision with the ombudsman agency for higher education, and at the High Administrative Court of England and Wales. The Court’s judicial doctrine addresses substantial research accountability matters. It clarifies that although the Court and ombudsman agency must not interfere with academic judgment, not everything done by an academic can be considered as academic judgment. A Ph.D. supervisor can seriously fail to perform his/her duties.     

西方平等理论从古典自然法学到新自然法学的嬗变

平等是一个非常复杂和抽象的范畴,西方法学对平等理论的热爱和追逐从未停止过,从古典自然法学追求的抽象的平等的政治理想,到新自然法学对平等的制度设计的现实关怀,平等理论随着自然法学的发展实现了其自身的嬗变,这种改变也是时代的要求、历史的必然。     

Access to justice for Aboriginal People in the Northern Territory

This article discusses research in the Northern Territory on Aboriginal civil and family law needs. It is based on focus group discussions and interviews with legal services providers and other associated organisations. The article argues that key areas of legal need involve discrimination, housing, child protection, social security, credit/debt and consumer law problems. It further argues that welfare conditionality, particularly as embodied in the NT Intervention and subsequent Stronger Futures policies, has exacerbated the need for legal assistance and advocacy for Aboriginal people.     

A Security Model and Legal Guarantee for Chinese Maritime Shipping: As Exemplified in the Response to Piracy along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road

The Belt and Road Initiative is an important decision for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Maritime security has a significant place in this process. In recent years, there have been frequent violent terrorist incidents at sea, including piracy, armed hijackings and terrorist attacks, posing a dire threat to both international and Chinese maritime transport interests and seriously challenging the fulfillment of the maritime part of the “Belt and Road Initiative.” Five direct measures can be taken to protect ocean shipping from violence at sea. One example is the defensive measures taken against the Somali pirates. The employment of armed guards from professional security companies on board ship is an effective model for guaranteeing maritime security; it not only meets the standards of international law, but is also legally permitted in many developed countries and regions, and is thus strategically significant for overall Chinese maritime security. In the Chinese context, this model carries its own legal risks. We should embrace a new approach to national security law, strengthen legal guarantees and make concerted efforts to provide warship (military aircraft) escorts to jointly build an optimum model of Chinese maritime security in order to ensure the realization of core Chinese maritime interests.     

A note on mixingale limit theorems and stable convergence in law

A gap in the proof of a non stationary mixingale invariance principle is identified and fixed by introducing a skipped subsampling of a partial sum process and letting the skipped interval vanish asymptotically at an appropriate rate as the sample size increases. The corrected proof produces a mixingale limit theorem in the form of a mixing convergence in law, occurring jointly with the stable convergence in law for the same σ-field relative to which they are stable and mixing. The applicability of established results to a high-frequency estimation of the quadratic variation of financial price process is discussed.     

Mighty Crime Victims: Victims' Rights and Neoliberalism in the American Conjuncture

Over the last 30 years, the victims' rights movement has expanded the role of victims in the American criminal justice system. As a result of this movement, judges, prosecutors and parole boards must now hear victims' views at all stages of the criminal justice process, including plea bargains, and sentencing and parole decisions. Legislative efforts have been spearheaded by victims' families, and legislation has been named after deceased victims. Also, victims' families can now view executions in states across the country. The victims' right movement assumes that the criminal justice system should privilege victims' interests over those of society. In so doing, it denies society as a consideration, which is tantamount to a denial of society itself. This article positions victims' rights' denial of society within the current conjuncture, marked as it is by the contradiction between neoliberalism and American liberalism. Victims' rights' denial of society is an expression of the denial of society implicit in American neoliberalism, which seeks to privilege individual interests over those of society. This paper argues that victims' rights is a powerful element of the neoliberal project for three reasons. First, victims' rights imputes the authority of legal discourse to neoliberalism's denial of society. Second, important actors in the rise of neoliberalism have also worked to establish victims' rights. Finally, victims' rights comprehensively circulates throughout America and offers powerful points of identification that incorporate Americans into the victims' rights formation. I explore the denial of society in three victims' rights practices: naming criminal legislation after crime victims and passing such laws in honour of victims; allowing victims' families to view executions; and prosecutors, judges and police personnel making legal decisions according to victims' wishes. I examine the consonant denial of society in three neoliberal practices – monetarism, supply-side economics and welfare reform – and demonstrate how neoliberal advocates like Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Paul Gann worked to advance victims' rights. I also describe the production, consumption and comprehensive circulation of victims' rights texts. Finally, I consider Cultural Studies' unique contribution to legal studies.     

International Rule of Law and Rule of Law Construction in China

The rule of law has international as well as domestic attributes, so it can be divided into two levels: the domestic rule of law and the international rule of law. Using the thinking behind the international rule of law to build the rule of law in China is both necessary and inevitable. China should put into practice the idea of the international rule of law at the institutional and the governance levels, and should at the same time participate in the UN’s rule of law activities and in international rule-making, thereby extending its rule of law discourse power and influence in the international sphere.