Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTTerrorism is not a new phenomenon. Nevertheless, since September 11, 2001, it appears that there has been a global consensus on the need for a more uniform and comprehensive response to terrorism. Thus, countries develop their counter‐terrorism strategy that comprises different approaches, including using the criminal justice system. The criminal justice response to terrorism covers special legislation, strategies, policies, investigation, prosecution, and sentencing. To combat terrorism and improve the criminal justice system in response to existing threats of terrorism, KRI legislated a special anti‐terrorism law. This paper investigates the trajectory of international and national terrorism law in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Accordingly, this research was set to examine international and national terrorism law critically. The focus is placed on the Anti‐terrorism Act No. 3 of 2006, emphasizing the principle of legality. As such, this paper adopted the doctrinal legal methodology that utilized qualitative techniques in analyzing the secondary data. The gathered information and data were then analyzed thematically. Based on the legal analysis, this study found that local circumstances and international pressure influence the trajectory of the counter‐terrorism laws in KRI. The absence of uniformity in the definition indicates the complexity of conceptualizing the phenomenon. The KRI anti‐terrorism law did not define international terrorism and may affect the principle of legality in counter‐terrorism strategy. Consequently, the study will benefit law, security, and international relations researchers. It serves as a basis for future empirical research examining the effects of anti‐terrorism laws in KRI or other jurisdictions.

Jury nullification is the ability of juries to acquit criminal defendants even against the apparent weight of the law and the facts. This commentary asks whether jury nullification is a "bug" or a "feature" of the American criminal trial, a question separate, for example, from whether it is good or bad. The commentary concludes, tentatively, that jury nullification, on one understanding, might be a "feature." In that understanding, jury nullification reflects the jury's authority, in exceptional cases, to particularize the applicable law by way of its existential engagement with a live defendant and the unique circumstances of a case. The possibility of jury nullification might therefore represent the legal system's implicit recognition that law can have a granular as well as a global quality. This power, if it exists, is necessarily controversial, though it has analogues in religious normative systems. Its embrace would require a more complex theory of law.

"Shadows of Law: Melville, Stowe, and the Government of Freedom" charts the shifting relations between legal authority and African-American civil rights from the 1850s to ratification of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments in the 1860s. Focusing on the function of trope of the law's shadow in Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) and Melville's Battle-Pieces (1866), the essay records the process whereby the law was transformed in antislavery discourse over the course of the 1850s from an incident of slavery into a necessary instrument in the maintenance of freedom. Where important early abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison often suggested that the law itself entailed slavery, the measures which actually effected the abolition of slavery imply that freedom is essentially a legal condition. "Shadows of Law" deploys careful readings of Stowe, Melville, and several contemporaneous legal landmarks (most importantly, Dred Scott v. Sandford)to explain how this reversal could come to pass.

From action research to validity, this innovative and informative text is an invaluable guide to a variety of core research concepts in both political science and international relations. Key Features: - Each entry is consistently structured, providing: a clear definition, a focused explanation, a summary of current debates and areas of research, further reading, and references to other related concepts. - Explains how and why particular research methods are used and highlights alternative research concepts and strategies. - Cross-relates entries, enabling you to dip in to topics.

Résumé La mise à l'agenda international de la question environnementale est récente. Elle peut être datée du début des années 1970. En moins de trente ans, une série de dispositifs et d'injonctions collectives se sont mises en place en modifiant pour partie l'organisation de la recherche, les actions publiques et privées, les comportements individuels et collectifs. Le point d'orgue de la coordination internationale a sans doute été le sommet de la Terre de Rio et l'adoption de la notion de développement durable comme horizon normatif en construction. Un contrecoup « réaliste » est pourtant perceptible qui met en cause le traitement de l'objectif substantiel environnemental par la coordination internationale.

With the aim of probing into the life satisfaction of retired urban elderly in China with respect to old age support systems, this study examines the effect of pension reform with its existing inequalities across demographic and social groups on the life satisfaction of retired urban residents. The complementary role of intergenerational assistance and self-support on the life satisfaction of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the pension scheme was analyzed using an ordered logit regression model with 2015 national representative data from China's Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey. Our sample consists of a cross-sectional data set of 3815 retired urban elderly aged 60 and above. The empirical results depict that though enjoying benefits from the public pension scheme generally enhances life satisfaction, beneficiaries of the Government and Institution Pension and Enterprise Employee Basic Pension are more advantaged than beneficiaries under the Urban-Rural Social Pension Scheme. The pension inequalities existing at provincial levels and across social groups such as gender and residence registration status also affect life satisfaction adversely. Women and rural 'Hukou' registered retired urban residents are at an apparent disadvantage. Getting financial and emotional support from children broadly improves life satisfaction. Non-beneficiaries of the public pension benefit more from the financial support of children than public pension beneficiaries. There is also a positive effect of cohabiting with children on life satisfaction when retired urban residents are single as compared to being married. Financial and physical self-support ability in forms of good health, home ownership and wealth management enhance life satisfaction significantly. However, largely, retired urban elderly have a higher life satisfaction when they are financially independent of children and are supported by state pension schemes. Our findings indicate that self-support ability of the elderly together with pension benefits are ...

INTRODUCTION: Hispanic patients comprise the largest minority population in the United States. The federal government mandates that healthcare providers be able to communicate with those patients who have limited English ability. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the English-language proficiency of self-declared English-speaking Hispanic patients in the emergency department (ED). The secondary purpose was to determine concordance between patients' tested English proficiency and perceived proficiency by nurses and physicians. We hypothesized that many patients who state that they are able to speak English do not in fact possess sufficient ability to communicate in English. METHODS: A convenience study was conducted in an urban level-1 pediatrics and adult trauma center with 45,000 annual visits. Participants included adult patients and parents of pediatric patients, all of which spoke Spanish as their first language. Since there were no verbal tests of English-language ability used in medicine, two written tests were used as surrogates-the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) and the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (STOFHLA). Research assistants administered these tests to patients with Hispanic surnames to assess the English comprehension of patients who stated that they spoke English. Score of seventh grade or better on the REALM and > or = 23 on the STOFHLA was considered a level of English competency. Data was entered into SPSS and analyzed for correlations. This study was approved by the institutional review board as exempt. RESULTS: Three-hundred-fifty-four patients with Hispanic names were approached and asked if they spoke English, Spanish or both. One-hundred-five patients, all self-proclaimed English speakers, were enrolled in the study. Patients ranged from 18-89 years of age, with 37.1% (39/105) male and 62.9% (66/105) and female; 49% (50/102) patients had only completed grade school. Sixty-five of 98 (66.3%) of self-proclaimed English speakers ...

The article summarizes the outcomes of the implementation of the Water Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020 in its part concerning international politics and assesses the new challenges to international cooperation in the field of protection and use of transboundary waters that Russia is expected to face in the coming decade. 2010s witnessed both the changing situation in the field of water availability in Russia, its neighbor countries and the whole world, and the changing scholarly approaches to the impact of water scarcity on international politics. Most of the approaches agreed that water scarcity more often leads to international cooperation. While agreeing with this approach, the authors critically assess the assumption that water scarcity is more often a source of conflicts, and that multilateral international institutions are the best tool to mitigate these conflicts. The authors find that this approach is based on Hobbesian notion of the natural condition of war of all against all for scarce resources, the only alternative to which are institutions of coercion, albeit not always perfect. The authors also find that other approaches based on Hobbesian political philosophy separate the international political processes caused by fear and by scarcity, the two most important "passions that incline men to peace", according to Hobbes. Fear, including fear of scarcity, tends to drive conflicts, but scarcity as such is more likely to generate cooperation. While multilateral institutions are sometimes capable of mitigating conflicts, in conditions of water scarcity bilateral and minilateral, i.e., created by a small number of parties, institutions of cooperation turn out to be more effective. The experience of Russia's interaction with its neighbors in the field of protection and use of transboundary water resources considered in the article provides with yet another evidence of that. The authors conclude that the international politics component of Russia's water strategy for the coming period is more consistent with the approach that assumes that water scarcity generates cooperation rather than conflicts. They also conclude that bilateral and minilateral institutions of cooperation offer countries destined to share a common river basin instruments of interaction that are more suitable for the conditions of a particular basin than multilateral institutions can offer.