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The author questions the degree to which political representation has been altered by information & communication technology (ICT). In order to chart the progress of political communication in advanced democracies, models of the political system & the spread of politics from the nation-state are drawn. Situations in which the center of democratic control or general political displacement have occurred include Colombia, Angola, & Liberia. Surveillance of "perverse connections" by the Pentagon & other institutions is noted. There is discussion of ICT's role in enabling & implementing sociopolitical dispersion & segmentation. Reactive state measures are elucidated. A comprehensive review of democratic models is followed by descriptions of four political information dissemination routes. Potentials for populist representation & linking via ICT are explored & accompanied by illustration of three Internet communication models & figures comparing online & offline political movement. 2 Tables, 4 Figures, 53 References. M. C. Leary

Can the ideals of digital democracy transcend the purported inequality of information access attending socioeconomic gaps? Initial commentary addresses complexities muddying the issue & the need for data on usage patterns, age, education, income, sex, ethnicity, & area. Detailed discussion of obstacles to equitable communication includes issues of computer illiteracy & fear, lack of access & "user-friendliness," & weak or unevenly distributed computing opportunities. Figures on gaps in US users' education, income, & age from 1984-1997, as well as those on the gender of worldwide Internet users, 1994-1998, are given. A table delineating kinds & levels of general political participation accompanies discussion of present information inequality, the background of & reasons for increases in such imbalances, & specific suggestions for circumvention of structural information gaps. 1 Table, 2 Figures, 21 References. M. C. Leary

"Entering into a transaction inevitably involves risks, including legal risks. If there is a Dutch connection, there may well be Dutch legal risks. The purpose of a Dutch law opinion is to analyse those risks. The opinion giver, an appropriately qualified legal expert (a lawyer (advocaat), civil law notary (notaris) or sometimes an in-house lawyer), confirms in the opinion that certain risks do not exist and highlights risks that do. This gives the opinion recipient a basis for determining whether, after weighing up the pros and cons, it is responsible from a Dutch law perspective to enter into the particular transaction. The expert giving an opinion must provide the care required by Dutch law. Since failure in his duty of care may render him liable for damage sustained by the opinion recipient, an opinion giver must know what level of care is required of him. Equally, an opinion recipient must know what level of care it can expect. As luck would have it, legal opinions have largely become standardised and this in turn has had the effect of standardising the opinion giver's duty of care. That duty of care is the subject of this book, which is intended as a practical guide to Dutch law opinions and the various elements that comprise them. Based on practice and with its focus on practice, the guide describes and analyses which risks will typically be indicated in an opinion and which risks will not, clarifying the level of care an opinion giver must provide and an opinion recipient may expect"--Back cover

The last three decades have witnessed an acceleration in the use, demand, and need of telecommunications, data communication, and mass communication transmitted and, increasingly, integrated into networks. This acceleration can be explained by a synthesis of the modernization theories of Giddens (the concept of time-space distantiation) and Beniger (the problems of control in a complex society). A central theme is the unity of scale extension and scale reduction that can be perceived in all spheres and at all levels of modern Western society. Extending Beniger's thesis of a control revolution at the last turn of the century, it is suggested that the present acceleration in communication and information is part of a second communication revolution.

Globalization is changing the victimological agenda by generating new types of victims, raising awareness of global responsibilities for their protection and eroding the capacity of states to offer it. Examples are victims of transnational organised crime including human trafficking, victims of cyber crimes, terrorism and cross-border environmental crimes. The concept of human security has been introduced as an analytical tool to understand how growing international interdependencies produce a need to protect new categories of victims regardless of national borders. Whereas the concept of national security focuses at threats to the sovereignty of the national state, human security looks at threats to the sovereignty of individuals. In this context, the individual human being is not just defined in terms of vulnerabilities, but also of strengths and capabilities to act as agents of change (victim empowerment). New international arrangements to protect victims in the emerging global arena are under development. Several international treaties have been elaborated in recent years to address the new global security threats. Modern concepts about victim involvement from national criminal law have been transposed into new international criminal law. In many of the treaties, victims of crime have been given procedural rights, transposed from national criminal law (eg. the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime and its three protocols have incorporated several elements of the UN Victims Declaration of 1985). It remains to be seen how these individual or collective rights will work out in practice in trials against maffiatype organisations or companies engaging in corrupt practices. Developments at the global or UN level are replicated at the level of the European Union. Although the development of European criminal law is resisted by many member states, there are incremental trends nevertheless. The European Council's framework decisions on human trafficking and on victim rights and the directive on state compensation for victims of violent crime are important instances of victim protection in the framework of EU-based criminal law. The further development of such EU legislation on crime victims as well as its implementation can illustrate how state formation at the European level impacts on victim issues. A related recent trend is the growing attention for international humanitarian law and specifically for the procedural role of victims therein, eg. the inclusion of an elaborate set of victim rights in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. This set of rights stands in stark contrast to the exclusion of the victim in the Neurenberg en Tokyo trials. It can be understood as the fruit of growing awareness of the responsibility of the world community for the protection of private besides collective interests against state violence regardless of national borders. It remains to be seen how these transposed rights, such as the right of reparation, will work out in the setting of the International Criminal Court and whether they will strengthen or weaken prosecution by the new, fledging international structures. A third implication of globalisation is the emergence of arrangements for liability for environmental damage across borders. Recent attention for the responsibility of Dutch companies and authorities for environmental damage caused in Africa by cargo departing from the Amsterdam port illustrates the emerging of new types of victims in the international legal arena. Still largely unchartered territory are the victimological dimensions of cyberspace, perhaps the most radical manifestation of globalisation. The weak roles of traditional national states as well as international structures in cyberspace may explain the absence of a discourse on victim protection in this domain so far but such discourse seems long overdue. The internationalisation of criminal law is in full swing and the emergence of rights and entitlements of victims in international criminal law treaties on crime, corruption and terrorism and in supranational settings such as the International Criminal Court, merits academic reflection. Equally topical seems reflection on the role of victims in international environmental law. Finally, there is an obvious gap in victim protection in cyberspace that calls for critical exposure and debates about remedies from state-of-the-art state authorities or public- private- partnerships. The leading theme of a collection of papers from Intervict researchers will be the relationship between processes of globalisation, emerging threats to human security and the development of new national and international arrangements to protect and empower victims.

""This book is important for students who want to put domestic crime and justice issues and criminological theories in an international perspective....It is more than likely that this book will also interest all those who are professionally or privately interested in issues of crime, corruption, terrorism, law enforcement, criminal justice and sustainable development.""-Johnson Thomas, BUSINESS INDIAIn today's interdependent world, governments must become more transparent about their crime and justice problems. The World of Crime: Breaking the Silence on Problems of Security, Justice and Deve