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This article examines the use of generative metaphors in the context of interference operations, particularly focusing on trolling and disinformation. It begins by emphasising the crucial role of metaphors in shaping perceptions of cybersecurity issues and subsequent government policies. To demonstrate this, the study delves into two case studies – the Philippines and Australia – analysing how their historical and political contexts have shaped the metaphors they employ to address trolling and disinformation. The article evaluates the effectiveness of these metaphors in both cases, considering their impact on policy formulation. It employs Allan McConnell's methodology to assess process and program success, ultimately concluding that, while the virus metaphor conveys urgency, it falls short in addressing the root causes of trolling. Conversely, the industry metaphor, as exemplified in the Philippines, promotes accountability and regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of penal policy is "submerged," in the sense that Suzanne Mettler uses the term. There are networks of rules and regulations that link public funds, services, and institutions to various private interests with far reaching consequences. These networks are largely a stealth presence in the lives of citizens and their subterranean status, I argue, warps the wider politics of punishment. Resources are circulated along this network in such a way revenue is generated for some, costs cut for others, all in the shadow of public law. To the extent that this kind of redistribution lacks citizens' consent and approval, it also represents a potentially undemocratic development. Here, I show how the obscured visibility of these public–private connections distorts public attitudes about, and public support for, the US prison state. The final pages draw out the normative implications of that distortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern mobile phones bear no resemblance to rotary-dial phones of the 1960s. The volume and nature of data extracted from intercepting a 'telecommunications service' in today's online world is fundamentally different to 'wire-tapping' a phone conversation. Yet the statutory threshold for ASIO to intercept a telecommunications service has not changed since 1960. There is no statutory requirement to consider privacy or proportionality when issuing ASIO a warrant. The situation is similar for access to telecommunications data (metadata), once just a list of numbers dialled but now a rich source of personal information. This article argues that it is time for the law to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cultural and critical study of 'proportionality review' as a legal knowledge format and practice. The setting for this study is German public law, and in particular a domain of German legal education that is rarely analyzed even in Germany: the classes and materials offered by Repetitoren. These are commercial providers that aim to prepare students for the all-important 'First Juridical Examination'. In this setting, proportionality is presented as a principle that matters, a doctrine that works, and a technique that jurists – lawyers, judges, but especially also law students – can learn to perform. Sustaining the sense that proportionality 'works', however, itself requires work, in particular in the form of largely invisible background constraints on what can count as suitable problems and appropriate solutions. In these processes of making proportionality into a 'doable' technical instrument, the German legal-constitutional order as a whole is presented as a feasible, achievable project. The article looks at how proportionality's success is produced and experienced, and at what its status as a foundational, near-ideal legal instrument means for the character of the German constitutional and legal imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the core work of government is now done pursuant to contract with private sector bodies, primarily for efficiency reasons. While the phenomenon of contracting out of governmental functions has attracted increasing scholarly attention in terms of public law accountability, the use of commercial arbitration for the resolution of contractual disputes involving governments has until recently attracted scant attention. The law regulating commercial arbitration does not distinguish between arbitrations between private actors and arbitrations involving governments, treating all commercial disputes as wholly private in nature. By controlling government action, arbitrators contribute to governance but without the hallmarks of the judicial process such as impartiality, transparency, the possibility for third-party participation and judicial oversight. As such, the law does not take into account the public dimension of disputes under government contracts or the role of arbitrators as adjudicators of public law disputes. Nor do there appear to be any constitutional constraints on the use of arbitration in government contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Had those decisions been available to the prosecution the prosecution would have been discontinued, or if not it could have been successfully challenged as an abuse of process. Hoshi acknowledged, however, that there was no hard, binding international law requiring a causation-based defence, and that both the CoE Convention Against Trafficking and the EU Trafficking Directive contained requirements that were compulsion-based or at best ambiguous. Keywords: Human trafficking; expert evidence; decision to prosecute; abuse of process; appeals EN Human trafficking expert evidence decision to prosecute abuse of process appeals 212 215 4 06/23/22 20220601 NES 220601 In three conjoined appeals, the Registrar of Criminal Appeals invited the Court of Appeal to give guidance on various matters relating to the prosecution of victims of trafficking ("VOTs"). [Extracted from the article]

An idea that has gained significant traction in both case law and academic commentary as a justification for the protection of legitimate expectations is the concept of 'good administration'. Going beyond the usual criticisms of the concept's ambiguity, this article aims to highlight an additional set of difficulties with the invocation of 'good administration' as the normative justification for the doctrine. This article's central argument is that the concept of 'good' invoked by the idea of 'good administration' inevitably falls to be substantiated by a particular conception of what the 'good' requires as a matter of political philosophy. And given that there are multiple competing conceptions of what 'good' law and government are, this magnifies the challenges of coming to a landing on the precise content of 'good administration'. This article will illustrate that the various formulations of the normative foundation of the doctrine track closely with four different conceptions of 'good' law and government and will explore the implications of this diagnosis for the formulation of the proper justification for the protection of legitimate expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a year of challenges from the novel coronavirus, the new Queensland Human Rights Act was applied in unexpected ways. Its new complaints process was particularly tested by hotel quarantine restrictions. Nonetheless, geographic and demographic differences between Queensland and other human rights jurisdictions are also emerging as especially relevant to how human rights protection will be applied in the state, particularly a new Australian right to health and the cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how a First Nations Voice to Parliament, if carefully designed, could strengthen the land-based sovereignty and autonomy of First Peoples in Australia. It critiques the proposals presented in the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process' Interim Report released January 2021 for its emphasis on the role of government and existing structures. It responds to Indigenous critiques of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, while arguing for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament that respects and defers to First Nations' Country-based authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit has unveiled previously hidden aspects of United Kingdom (UK) society, law and politics. It provides a valuable opportunity to investigate the social reception of law, and in particular the mediation of the law and constitution in the press. The distinctive constitutional arrangements and histories of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England have given rise to different territorial interpretations of the UK state. These asymmetries have parallels in the UK's territorial media landscape, yet we have little understanding of how this landscape contributes to constitutional discourses. This article offers quantitative content and thematic analysis of UK-wide media coverage of major court judgments which have served as critical junctures in the Brexit process. The analysis reveals striking territorial variation in the volume and substance of coverage. Here, the media appears to reinforce divergent understandings of the constitution: while English reporting chimed with a more unitary account of the constitution, reporting elsewhere was more consistent with a vision of the UK as union-state. In the light of these findings, we argue that media analysis can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the law and the constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, Martin Loughlin published his opus magnum Foundations of Public Law, the culmination of years of intensive research on the topics of public law and constitutional theory. In Questioning the Foundations of Public Law, Michael Wilkinson and Michael Dowdle put together a rich collection of papers that probe deeply into various facets of Loughlin's work. In this review article, I critically examine an aspect of this probing, articulated by Wilkinson, to do with the autonomy of the political as the basis of political jurisprudence. I argue that both the probing and Loughlin's response articulate horns of a dilemma that points to a deeper issue: the epistemological repercussions of the rise of the social sciences as forms of distinctively modern inquiry into the causes of social phenomena, where these include phenomena such as the autonomy of political power in modern states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity loss continues to be one of the greatest issues for this generation despite the development of International Environmental Law (IEL). By examining the anthropocentric nature of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) I will argue that how we attribute value to wildlife and the human-centric construction of law are the key reasons for the failures of IEL. Ultimately a shift in attitude is required if we are to effectively halt environmental degradation and protect wildlife species under IEL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's system of law and government contains a range of mechanisms through which the executive branch is held to account for its actions. However, in emergencies, these accountability mechanisms are often significantly eroded in a range of ways. This article examines how the forms and types of powers that Australian governments have relied on to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic have avoided many of the political, legal and administrative accountability mechanisms that ordinarily apply to government decision-making. It looks at whether these accountability limits are justified and asks whether we ought to be concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our federal, constitutional system of government, the states are often lauded as "laboratories of experimentation" for public policy, including for public environmental law. Yet private actors are playing an increasingly important role as parallel regulators through the adoption of private environmental governance. Private environmental governance can functionally advance one of federalism's core values: policy experimentalism. To the extent that private governance by business firms arouses skepticism for this experimental role because firms' motives to achieve profit in a competitive environment differ from the incentives motivating public regulators, private universities offer an alternative institutional locus for experimentalism. Using Yale University's recent adoption of a private carbon charge as a case study, this article argues that universities should play a greater role in private environmental governance experimentalism, and are worthy of more scholarly focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well-known Kable decision, and the line of authorities to which it has given rise, derives a doctrine of the integrity of state courts from Ch III of the Australian Constitution. The basis for this doctrine, however, as well as its meaning and extent, remains contentious. This article articulates a coherent basis for the Kable doctrine, which both reveals it to rest on a genuine implication arising from the text of Ch III and contributes to an understanding of the content of the doctrine. The method that the article adopts to achieve a rigorous grounding of the Kable doctrine is predominantly theoretical, combining three philosophical approaches: a speech-act analysis of the relevant constitutional provisions, the semantic externalist theory of reference developed by Putnam and Kripke and a sociological understanding of institutions (including legal institutions) along the lines developed by Selznick. As the Kable doctrine is one of the fundamental components of contemporary Australian public law, showing that it is not merely a product of judicial invention in pursuit of desirable policy, but rather is genuinely grounded in the text of the Constitution, is important for establishing not only the legitimacy of the doctrine itself but the legitimacy of that larger body of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suicide is the leading cause of firearm-related death in Australia. Mental health first aid (MHFA) training has demonstrated capacity to address the risk factors for suicide. This article proposes that online mental health first aid training should be a requirement for acquiring or renewing a firearms licence in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our federal, constitutional system of government, the states are often lauded as "laboratories of experimentation" for public policy, including for public environmental law. Yet private actors are playing an increasingly important role as parallel regulators through the adoption of private environmental governance. Private environmental governance can functionally advance one of federalism's core values: policy experimentalism. To the extent that private governance by business firms arouses skepticism for this experimental role because firms' motives to achieve profit in a competitive environment differ from the incentives motivating public regulators, private universities offer an alternative institutional locus for experimentalism. Using Yale University's recent adoption of a private carbon charge as a case study, this article argues that universities should play a greater role in private environmental governance experimentalism, and are worthy of more scholarly focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australia Acts accomplished more than symbolic change. They brought about a super-structural change to Australian constitutional law, and shortly afterwards a fundamental change to the public law jurisprudence in Australia emerged. This article presents an argument that these changes are inextricably intertwined and that the Australia Acts provided a significant catalyst and a tipping point for fundamental change to the Australian legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work takes compulsory helmet laws in Victoria and considers them from a new angle – namely that of someone living with a disability. While much has been written on mandatory helmet laws in terms of their broader societal implications, little has been done on their impact on society's most vulnerable such as the disabled, the impecunious and the mentally impaired. Drawing on the author's time at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court as a framework, this article analyses the existing state of the law and provides a critique of its shortcomings – prosecuting the argument that existing legislation can have an unexpected impact upon the marginalised in our community, particularly those with a cognitive impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As emblematic productions of folk legality, coins are significant in viewing the constitutive relationship between law and politics. Additionally, images on coined money legally manipulate our American cultural historical recollection. The harsh historical reality of the United States in terms of racial violence, imperialist conquest, and the elimination of native peoples is dim against picturesque images of palm trees, Magnolia blossoms, and sailboats. Because these historical controversies legally and socially shape who we culturally are today, that which is valued and semiotically crafted by law should reflect these important and defining struggles in American history. Legal images that appear on coins are visual connections to an American legacy of confronting injustice that is omitted by the bucolic and innocently trivial legal depictions of American history that these coinage programs promote. In this article, I consider the ways in which coined images represent a visual crafting of law through which political memory is selectively depicted. Through a legal semiotics framework of symbolic articulation and analysis, I assert that the coinage issued under the United States Department of the Treasury's Coinage Programs since 1999 depicts the politicization of folk art as a type of legal currency that illustrates and memorializes a nationalistic cultural identity. Here, coins literally become specialized portrayals of American history in which discrimination, conquest, and injustice are intentionally visually unrepresented in favor of pictures of trees, animals, mountains, and even fruit. Through such legislation as The 50 States Commemorative Coin Program Act of 1997 [Public Law 105-124], The Native American $1 Coin Act of 2007 [Public Law 110-82], and The District of Columbia and United States Territories Quarters Program under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 [H.R. 2764], coins are being issued as legal statements of who we as Americans are and where we have come from. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated teacher evaluation practices used in Indiana as the state was implementing a mandated teacher evaluation system (Public Law 90) and early reporting of subsequent teacher effectiveness results by the Indiana Department of Education. The study surveyed public school administrators: (a) superintendents, (b) special education directors, and (c) K-12 building principals via e-mail using Qualtrics. A total of 2,444 administrators were invited to participate with a 28% return rate. Summative and formative teacher evaluation methods were used, but emergent methods (as mandated in PL 90) were not widely used. Recommendations for a more unified approach to teacher evaluation are emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of the Greek referendum of 2015 in the context of the Greek socio-economic and political crisis. The analysis of the mediating role of referendum in the process of class struggle leads to a more general argument relating to fundamental concepts of public law, namely, ‘general will’ and the ‘people’. Central to the analysis is the question of whether referendums are a remedy for the problems facing the institutions of representative democracy. By analysing the process of the Greek referendum, with a focus on the formulation of the question and the interpretation of the verdict of the Greek people by the executive power, a more general argument is constructed regarding the mediating role of the referendum in a crisis and the legitimating role of such concepts in a class-divided society. In a context of rising inequality and furthering distantiation of the popular strata from decision-making processes, the referendum is shown, on the one hand, as a remedy for the failings of representative institutions on behalf of capital and necessary for the reproduction of capitalist relations. On the other hand, on the background of a discussion of the relation between democracy and capitalism, it is argued that the referendum acts as a different kind of poison for the people themselves and the struggle of the popular classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal must be independent from inappropriate influence, and the perception of such influence, in order to effectively perform its duties of de novo merits review of government decisions. Drawing on recent controversies surrounding the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2017, this article concludes that the current mechanisms of Administrative Appeals Tribunal member reappointment exposes the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to a risk of inappropriate influence by the government of the day or at least a risk of public perception to that effect. After examining several possible reforms to minimise this risk, this paper proposes the creation of an independent reappointment committee for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers freedom of information in Australia and examines some of the practical barriers to access that persist following the 2009–2010 changes to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth). It considers, by way of case study, the issues of practical refusal, charges and delays, and draws a brief comparison with UK law and practice. It concludes that the current model in Australia must change if greater transparency is to result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly all systematic empirical work on the relationship between social diversity and the number of parties asserts the "interactive hypothesis"-- Social heterogeneity leads to party fragmentation under permissive electoral rules, but not under single-member district, first-past-the-post (FPTP) rules. In this article, we argue that previous work has been hindered by a reliance on national-level measures of variables and a linear model of the relationship between diversity and party fragmentation. This article provides the first analysis to test the interactive hypothesis appropriately by using districtlevel measures of both ethnic diversity and the effective number of parties in legislative FPTP elections and considering a curvilinear relationship between the variables. We find that there is a strong relationship between social diversity and the number of parties even under FPTP electoral rules, thus suggesting that restrictive rules are not as powerful a constraint on electoral behavior and outcomes as is usually supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New approaches to citizen-building are flourishing, yet theoretical tools are lacking and empirical research is limited. This article contributes in several ways. Theoretically, it offers a reconceptualization of the traditional “making of citizens” framework, aiming to adapt it to contemporary needs and concerns. Empirically, it offers an examination of the content of civics curricula as well as original data on the outcomes of an ambitious state-led social engineering campaign in the United Arab Emirates, where leaders seek to build more “globalization-ready” citizens—more entrepreneurial, market friendly, patriotic, and civic minded, yet still loyal to the regime. Using a difference-in-differences framework, I find evidence that social engineering is succeeding in some respects but backfiring in others, giving rise to citizens not only more patriotic but also more entitled—in other words, entitled patriots. Findings contribute to knowledge of state-led social engineering and citizen-building in the contemporary era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces one of the first attempts at photographing citizenship by examining some of the 7600 images produced for the Colonial Office Visual Instruction Committee’s lanternslide scheme, a series of geography lectures documenting the land and peoples of the British Empire that circulated in classrooms around the world between 1902 and 1945. This unusual government project brought together imperial propaganda and visual instruction to teach children what it meant to look and to feel like imperial citizens. The lectures on India, in particular, point to the speculative nature of COVIC’s project, which sought to predict which populations might pose a threat to the empire and how they might be safely managed and contained through colonial education. By reading COVIC’s photographs and texts against contemporaneous visual culture in the empire, the article analyses the inconsistencies in photographing imperial citizenship amongst the more recognizable visual categories of race, class and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without public law, there is and can be no public administration in a nation that is a constitutional republic founded on the rule and supremacy of law. Public law is the basis for authority and a foundation for discretion. It is also a basis for creativity and innovation. This article considers how public law empowers administration, why public service professionals cannot assume authority and discretion, and why they need to be alert to public law if they wish to build an innovative public administration for the future particularly in the contemporary context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the aims behind the incorporation of competition rules into the European project and studies how the development of the doctrine has been molded to the specific circumstances and outlooks encountered in postwar Europe. It argues that the objectives of competition law in the EU go beyond economic or legal standards that are applied in individual cases; rather, competition law and policy have been calibrated to contribute to allowing the EU project to harness the benefits of an open capitalist economy within the context of a democratic European society. The analysis aims to demonstrate that while Ordoliberal thinking played a role in the development of European competition law and policy, there were several other social, political, and macroeconomic influences at play as well. As such, the strain that competition policy has come under is a result of attempts to use competition policy to balance several public policy objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the legal definition of the smuggling of migrants in Article 3(a) of the Migrant Smuggling Protocol has a number of deficiencies, which might affect adversely the Protocol’s purpose of combating migrant smuggling set forth in Article 2. This will lead to the result that the criminal laws of state parties based on this definition will be weak and unable to prevent and combat the activities of migrant smuggling. This article proposes a number of amendments that might make the definition of the smuggling of migrants in the Migrant Smuggling Protocol more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Among the plethora of public values, one special class is that of “regime values.” This notion plays a central role in the constitutional approach to public administration mainly developed by the late John A. Rohr. In this article, an attempt is made to assess the viability of Rohr’s concept of regime values and its applicability outside the United States. After brief overviews of the constitutional approach in general and Rohr’s use of the concept of regime values in particular, it is argued that Rohr’s conceptualizations of “regime” and “values” are too narrow and result in ambiguities within the concept of “regime values” itself. The applicability of the concept of “regime values” is unnecessarily affected by the typically American reference points Rohr uses and can best be improved, it is suggested, by treating “regime values” more frankly as an inherently normative concept. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although Kant argues that a world republic with coercive public law is the only rational way to secure a lawful cosmopolitan condition, he states that it is an unachievable ideal, and he proposes a voluntary, non-coercive federation of states as a substitute. While some scholars have criticized Kant for moving away from this ideal due merely to pragmatic considerations, I argue that his rejection of a coercive world republic is based on his conception of state sovereignty and what is required for a lawful condition. I consider how we can institutionalize a lawful condition between states without a coercive world republic in ways that go beyond Kant’s voluntary federation. I also consider how we can resolve this dilemma in Kant’s account to support a federal world republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While advocates and critics of liberal republics disagree on whether “pure politics” requires ultimate authorization both call upon theories that explain all revolutions as attempts to transcend political theology for the sake of a purely immanent political realm. Their secularist, “political”/programmatic views and hopes on revolution are here contrasted with a reading of Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy’s Out of Revolution whereby “revolution” is read as the autobiography of western man written through a series of great European Revolutions. As products of changes in the vocabulary of occidental Christian political theology these revolutions were structurally unable to transcend authority; but they were able to project western power around the world. Lacking in awareness of its religious vocabulary the late-modern subject inherits this global western power but can no longer rebel as before. The article summarizes Rosenstock-Huessy’s genealogy of revolution in Section II; in Sections I and 3 his insights are brought to bear on theories of revolution-qua-secularization be it in the form of the utopian overcoming of “religion” (Arendt) or in the form of overcoming Christianity’s fabulous and real history – its political theology – while retaining its universality for the sake of emancipation of a “universal” – not western – victim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The credibility revolution in the social sciences has placed new emphasis on research designs that provide strong evidence of cause and effect. The next generation of hate crime research must move in this design-based direction. This essay reviews recent examples of experiments and quasi-experiments in criminology, political science, and economics that provide useful design templates for hate crime researchers. At the same time, we caution that advances in design must also be accompanied by advances in measurement if researchers are to gauge the long-term effects of interventions designed to reduce the risk of hate crime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From its first publication in 1964--2014, 890 articles have been published by The Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency (JRCD). During that period, the criminal justice field has experienced major transformations in its policies, theories, and practices. This article identifies major periods in the development of criminal justice policy; which are Prepolitical Era (1964-1972), Tough on Crime Era (1972-1980), National Consensus on Crime Policy Era (1980-1996), and Retrenchment Era (1996-2012). It then traces changes in the subject matter of JRCD over those periods. The articles published by the JRCD over the past half century reflect the changes in eras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a lot to be said about how environmental issues are reshaping the way we are living in the twenty-first century. Not only are those issues affecting the human race, but they are also affecting legal orders, sometimes even in their most conservative 'parts'. The Charter for the Environment was integrated in the French Fifth Republic Constitution in 2005. It became the legal basis of many unforeseen changes, particularly the important recognition of its value by the 'public law' courts. Environmental rights seem to have become human rights after the 2008 landmark decision of the French Constitutional Council on the constitutionality of the statute on GMOs. In that decision, the Council reaffirmed the constitutional value of every right and duty defined in the Charter. The impact of this statement has recently been amplified with the introduction by the 2008 constitutional amendment of an ex post constitutional control. It is, therefore, time to consider whether the rights declared in the Charter are becoming 'true' constitutional rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors focus on the concept of sociology and explore for whom and what purpose it serves, citing the highlights of the 50-year career of the Association for Humanist Sociology's first president, Alfred McClung Lee. Topics discussed include the ideas of marketplace citizenship, the move of universities toward an apparent denotative endorsement of corporatization, and an analysis of Lee's statement of purpose for humanist sociology.

Soft law is a pervasive phenomenon which is highly effective as a means of regulation in Australia, as it is in many other jurisdictions. This article will not focus on the regulatory aspects of soft law, but will examine the capacity of individuals to obtain remedies where public authorities fail to adhere to the terms of their published soft law. The available judicial remedies apply in very limited circumstances, both in private law actions (in tort or equity) and public law (judicial review) actions. Ultimately, the most effective ways to remedy breaches of soft law appear also to be 'soft', such as recommendations of the Ombudsman and discretionary schemes for ex grada payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong provides an interesting case study on the increasingly dynamic interaction between international law and domestic public law regimes. In a trilogy of cases, the Hong Kong courts have examined the domestic application of the international law of nonrefoulement. These decisions addressed the potential influence of international law on constitutional rights, statutory interpretation, principles of judicial review, as well as the scope of the common law doctrine of incorporation. Having regard to common law dualist principles and Hong Kong constitutional law, this paper critically assesses the judicial use of international law in fashioning a domestic law duty of nonrefoulement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores research methods that accommodate queer approaches to legal writing in international law. She defines queer as the sense of self-contained, idiosyncratic, peculiar and open-ended visions on the water-gender nexus. She proposes a three-dimensional approach to writing about gender and the human right to water, including thinking about gender and the human right to water in the form of power. She also presents examples of images that appear when googling gender and water.

The aim of this article is to study the suspect nature of private campaign finance, understood as the donors’ hidden intentions and delayed exchange of reciprocities with incumbents. In particular, I explore whether electoral contributions from private corporations lead to political corruption. On the basis of a cross-national analysis, I find that, first, private financing reduces corruption because the use of this legal mechanism is enough to guarantee that the donors’ interests will be achieved. Second, donors recognize that they have gained influence over policy outcomes, although in the spirit of the electoral laws this is not intended to occur. This increases corruption because incumbents use their positions of power to bend the rules and to adjust regulations and decisions in favor of their financial supporters. This paradox suggests law neutralization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some researchers argue over the existence of a “litigation explosion,” while others seek to understand the causes of variation in citizen legal mobilization and rates of litigation among states. Existing studies have provided important insight into citizens’ propensity to invoke the state courts to settle disputes; however, there remain unresolved questions concerning state litigation rates. The authors argue that the structural aspects of state judicial systems, specifically the professionalism of the courts and method of judicial selection, have important implications for litigiousness. They further suggest that the effects of these institutional structural characteristics are conditioned on the political environment of the state in which they operate. The authors consider tort litigation rates in ten states over twenty years to assess the proposition that these institutional structural characteristics of state court systems affect state citizen legal mobilization, expressed as litigation rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the rule that criminal liability does not normally attach for the causing of emotional harm or mental distress in the absence of proof of a 'recognised psychiatric injury'. It considers what is involved in the diagnosis of psychiatric injury, and to what extent the difference between such injury and 'ordinary' mental distress is one of degree rather than one of kind. It reviews the situations in which the law already criminalises the infliction of emotional harm without proof of psychiatric injury, and assesses the policy arguments for drawing the distinction in the normal case. The article concludes that the law can and should adopt a more flexible approach to cases of this sort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to understand long-standing structural changes within the executive--Senate relationships that govern the judicial appointment process. Utilizing a new source of data that comprises district court appointments from 1901 through 2006, the analysis models the duration of selection and confirmation events to find evidence of interbranch constraint. Temporal variance and heteroskedasticity in these measures suggest that the last century of appointment activity can be divided into four distinct regimes that reflect a repeating cycle of executive independence and senatorial constraint, which in turn helps integrate existing accounts of change and conflict within the appointment process of federal judges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical trial disclosure has received much international attention. The US Congress has enacted the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA), also known as Public Law 110-85. Section 801 of FDAAA requires public registration of new or ongoing clinical trials and disclosure of results for completed clinical trials on the public database ClinicalTrials. gov. FDAAA has provisions for proof of compliance and authorizes penalties for noncompliance; several phases will be implemented over 3 years and completed by 2010. In the European Union (EU), the European Parliament enacted the Clinical Trials Directive (Directive 2001/20/EC of April 4, 2001), which governs public access to information on clinical trials in the European Community. Article 11 of the Clinical Trials Directive, enforced by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), deals with the exchange of information among the EU member states. In some cases, it also deals with the countries of the European Economic Area. The directive is accompanied by two regulations; one refers to clinical trials in general, and the other applies specifically to trials in the pediatric population. These regulations describe how some of the protocol and results information in the EudraCT database at EMEA will be automatically released to the public through the EudruPharm database. The public release is planned for 2010 and 2011. Requirements for clinical trials disclosure have also been established at the national level in several countries. A summary is presented here of the key global requirements for public disclosure of clinical trial information on drags, biologics, and medical devices, with a brief overview on the position of various stakeholders involved in this important and evolving topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Wilsonian foundations, this article present the normative case for a special, central role for public servants in the design and redesign of public law, including constitutions. Central to the author's argument are Wilson's characterization of public administration as "the State's experiencing organ" and his contention that public administration is the primary institution engaged day to day in negotiating the dynamic tension between public and private in a liberal democracy. The author identifies and counters three probable objections to public administrators fulfilling this distinctive role. He concludes with a defense of this role conception for public administration, stressing the obstacles to full realization, and the obligations it imposes on future scholars and public servants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Planning Act 2008 which has received Royal Assent on November 26, 2008 and was implemented in 2009. It states that the Act changes the planning application process in Wales and England that comprises the influence on development consent regimes including for water, waste development, and transport. It mentions three main concentrations such as the consenting system for infrastructure projects and the amendments to the planning regimes of the city.