Law Commons^™

Constrained Choice: Mothers, The State, And Domestic Violence, Rona Kaufman Kitchen

Rona Kaufman Kitchen

Mothers who are the victims of domestic violence face unique challenges in their quest for safety. The legal response to domestic violence requires that mothers respond to abuse in specific state-sanctioned manners. However, when mothers respond accordingly, such as by reporting abuse and leaving the abusive relationship, their safety and the safety of their children is not guaranteed. Moreover, by responding in state-sanctioned manners, mothers risk a host of negative consequences including increased threat to their immediate and long-term safety, the loss of their children, undesired financial, health, and social consequences, and criminal prosecution. On the other hand, when mothers …

Holistic Pregnancy: Rejecting The Theory Of The Adversarial Mother, Rona Kaufman Kitchen

Rona Kaufman Kitchen

In its zealous effort to protect the lives and health of unborn children, the law frequently views the expecting mother with suspicion. In its most extreme form, the law regards the potential mother as a potential murderess. This perspective does not reflect the nature of pregnancy, it undermines the autonomy of loving mothers, and it is detrimental to children. Regardless of whether there is any conflict between mother and fetus, the State presumes the mother to be a threat to her fetus and subjugates her rights as a result. The State interferes with the mother’s autonomy, bodily integrity, parental rights, …

Rudolf Kjellén: Nordic Biopolitics Before The Welfare State, Markus Gunneflo

Markus Gunneflo

Evidence Summarized In Attorney’S Closing Arguments Predicts Acquittals In Criminal Trials Of Child Sexual Abuse, Stacia N. Stolzenberg, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

Evidence summarized in attorney’s closing arguments of criminal child sexual abuse cases (N = 189) was coded to predict acquittal rates. Ten variables were significant bivariate predictors; five variables significant at p < .01 were entered into a multivariate model. Cases were likely to result in an acquittal when the defendant was not charged with force, the child maintained contact with the defendant after the abuse occurred, the defense presented a hearsay witness regarding the victim’s statements, a witness regarding the victim’s character, or a witness regarding another witnesses’ character (usually the mother). The findings suggest that jurors might believe that …

Developmental Trends In The Process Of Constructing Own- And Other-Race Facial Composites, Narina Nunez

Narina Nunez

The current study examined developmental differences from the age of 5 to 18 in the creation process of own- and other-race facial composites. In addition, it considered how differences in the creation process affect similarity ratings. Participants created two composites (one own- and one other-race) from memory. The complexity of the composite creation process was recorded during Phase One. In Phase Two, a separate group of participants rated the composites for similarity to the corresponding target face. Results support the cross-race effect, developmental differences (based on composite creators) in similarity ratings, and the importance of the creation process for own- …

Governance Approaches That Can Be Used To Implement Sustainability Criteria, Evgenia Pavlovskaia

Evgenia Pavlovskaia

Implementation of sustainability criteria, both in legal frameworks and voluntary sustainability standards, is an urgent and important issue. In the article, three less state-centric governance approaches and their capacity to be used to implement sustainability criteria have been investigated. The chosen approaches are good governance, multi-level governance and selfgovernance. Their potential strengths and weaknesses have been pointed out. The research indicates that sustainability criteria can be implemented in different ways, which have the potential to highlight, strengthen or weaken different aspects of their function. The use of different governance approaches, or their combinations, can lead to different implementation results for …

Rtop's Second Pillar: The Responsibility To Assist In Theory And Practice In Solomon Islands, Charles Hawksley, Nichole Georgeou

Nichole Georgeou

This paper explores the implementation of a regional capacity-building program in Solomon Islands, a state that experienced significant violence and political tension between 1998 and 2003. The July 2003 intervention of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is a useful and relevant case study for understanding the operationalization of Pillar II of RtoP, which the authors have termed the “Responsibility to Assist” (RtoA). While RAMSI has not consciously adopted RtoP language in its operations, the rationale for the intervention included humanitarian as well as wider regional security concerns. The mission’s emphasis on developing the state’s capacities in policing …

Is Negligence A First Cousin To Intentionality? Lay Conceptions Of Negligence And Its Relationship To Intentionality, Narina Nunez

Narina Nunez

In three studies, we examined lay conceptions of negligence and how they are used when making judgments about actors’ intentions, negligence, and blame. Study 1 examined the extent to which participants agreed about what constitutes negligence and accidents. After finding a high level of agreement between participants, Study 2 explored the features that defined participants’ folk understanding of negligence. Additionally, we examined if definitions of negligence overlapped with key features of definitions of intentionality proposed in the literature. Study 2 suggested there were some key overlapping features and differences between negligence and intentionality. Finally, Study 3 examined how two key …

Children's Memory For Conversations About Sexual Abuse: Legal And Psychological Implications, Thomas D. Lyon, Stacia N. Stolzenberg

Thomas D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Young Children’S Difficulty With Indirect Speech Acts: Implications For Questioning Child Witnesses, Angela D. Evans, Stacia Stolzenberg, Kang Lee, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

Prior research suggests that infelicitous choice of questions can significantly underestimate children’s actual abilities, independently of suggestiveness. One possibly difficult question type is indirect speech acts such as “Do you know…” questions (DYK, e.g., “Do you know where it happened?”). These questions directly ask if respondents know, while indirectly asking what respondents know. If respondents answer “yes,” but fail to elaborate, they are either ignoring or failing to recognize the indirect question (known as pragmatic failure). Two studies examined the effect of indirect speech acts on maltreated and non-maltreated 2- to 7-year-olds’ post-event interview responses. Children were read a story …

Gay Parenthood And The Revolution Of The Modern Family: An Examination Of The Unique Barriers Confronting Gay Adoptive Parents, Nicholas Arntsen

Nicholas Benedict Arntsen

Abstract: In recent decades, the structure of the American family has been revolutionized to incorporate families of diverse and unconventional compositions. Gay and lesbian couples have undoubtedly played a crucial role in this revolution by establishing families through the tool of adoption. Eleven adoptive parents from the state of Connecticut were interviewed to better conceptualize the unique barriers gay couples encounter in the process adoption. Both the scholarly research and the interview data illustrate that although gay couples face enormous legal barriers, the majority of their hardship comes through social interactions. As a result, the cultural myths and legal restrictions …

Editorial: Social Implications Of Technology- “Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo”, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Late last year, IEEE SSIT was invited to put together a paper for the centennial edition of Proceedings of the IEEE that was published in May 2012. The paper titled, “Social Implications of Technology: The Past, the Present, and the Future,” brought together five members of SSIT with varying backgrounds, and two intense months of collaboration and exchange of ideas. I personally felt privileged to be working with Karl D. Stephan, Emily Anesta, Laura Jacobs and M.G. Michael on this project.

Befriar Leken Från Ansvar? Om Bdsm, Samtycke Och Social Adekvans, Linnéa Wegerstad

Linnéa Wegerstad

Våren 2012 arrangerade Juridisk Publikation i Lund en paneldebatt på temat ”BDSM och samtycke” som jag fick förmånen att moderera. Debatten utgick från det så kallade Malmöfallet som rör åtal för misshandel i samband med BDSM-utövning. Denna artikel tar avstamp i den fråga som fick avsluta debatten, nämligen om detta uppmärksammade fall har diskuterats klart. Min ståndpunkt är att genom fallet väcktes flera principiellt viktiga frågor som bör dryftas vidare. Dessa spörsmål, som rör hur sexuella praktiker som kan utgöra straffrättsligt relevant våld hanteras i straffrätten, vill jag synliggöra genom den här artikeln. Inledningsvis ges en redogörelse för samtyckes ansvarsbefriande …

International Soft Law, Andrew T. Guzman, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

Although the concept of soft law has existed for years, scholars have not reached consensus on why states use soft law or even whether “soft law” is a meaningful analytic category. In part, this confusion reflects a deep diversity both in the types of international agreements that states employ, and in the strategic situations that produce these agreements. In this paper, we advance four complementary explanations for why states use soft law. Our explanations account for a much broader range of state behavior than the existing literature is able to explain.

First, and least significantly, states may use soft law …

Newspaper Theft, Self-Preservation And The Dimensions Of Censorship, Erik Ugland, Jennifer Lambe

Erik Ugland

One of the most common yet understudied means of suppressing free expression on college and university campuses is the theft of freely-distributed student publications, particularly newspapers. This study examines news accounts of nearly 300 newspaper theft incidents at colleges and universities between 1995 and 2008 in order to identify the manifestations and consequences of this peculiar form of censorship, and to augment existing research on censorship and tolerance by looking not at what people say about free expression but at what they do when they have the power of censorship in their own hands. Among the key findings is that …

Power, Exit Costs, And Renegotiation In International Law, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

Scholars have long understood that the instability of power has ramifications for compliance with international law. Scholars have not, however, focused on how states’ expectations about shifting power affect the initial design of international agreements. In this paper, I integrate shifting power into an analysis of the initial design of both the formal and substantive aspects of agreements. I argue that a state expecting to become more powerful over time incurs an opportunity cost by agreeing to formal provisions that raise the cost of exiting an agreement. Exit costs – which promote the stability of legal rules – have distributional …

Soft Law As Delegation, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

This article examines one of the most important trends in international legal governance since the end of the Cold War: the rise of “soft law,” or legally non-binding instruments that are given legal effect through domestic law or internationally binding agreements such as treaties. Scholars studying the design of international agreements have long puzzled over why states use soft law. The decision to make an agreement or obligation legally binding is within the control of the states negotiating the content of the legal obligations. Basic contract theory predicts that parties to a contract would want their agreement to be as …

Demarcating The Right To Gather News: A Sequential Interpretation Of The First Amendment, Erik Ugland

Erik Ugland

The recent spate of cases in which reporters have been subpoenaed, fined, jailed, or otherwise disciplined has laid bare the divisions among the courts over the existence and scope of the “reporter’s privilege.” The cases have also exposed the doctrinal, historical, and theoretical infirmities of the broader legal framework that governs newsgathering. Resolving these conflicts has grown more urgent with the democratization of media and the emergence of bloggers and other news providers who have challenged traditional conceptions of “journalists” and “the press.” To settle these controversies, this Article moves past the courts’ desultory analyses, focuses on core principles, and …

Afflicting The Comfortable: An Assessment Of The Stasis In International Bioethical Discourse, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Despite decades of clinical research being carried out in the 'developing' world, neither the socio-political and economic context of the global South, nor the nature and historical trajectory of global inequality have played a substantive role in determining the nature and extent of North-to-South bioethical obligations. Instead, context has been used to vacate obligation, shut out theories of justice, and collapse the “four principles' of bioethics” – sacrosanct in the 'developed’ world - into a singular, non-negotiable focus on autonomy as a procedurally-defined right. Proponents of a minimum-standards system of international clinical research conflate scientific, statistical, economic, and ethical issues, …

In Harm's Way: Justification, Excuse, And Civilian Safety In Just War Theory, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Just War Theory asserts that armed conflict can be fought in a way that safeguards moral and legal norms while responding to pragmatic/military imperatives. One of the ways in which it seeks to safeguard justice is through specific provisions for the immunity of, and due care for, the vulnerable and innocent. Unfortunately, two doctrines within Just War Theory – the Doctrine of Double Effect and the Doctrine of Supreme Emergency – suspend or vacate these provisions. The net effect is to render justifications inaccessible, leaving only excuses, the use of which establishes that no one is truly accountable, no meaningful …

Federalism And Accountability: State Attorneys General, Regulatory Litigation, And The New Federalism, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

No abstract provided.

The Presence Of Absence Of Personal Identity: Everyday Conditions Of Practicing Law, Matilda Arvidsson

Dr Matilda Arvidsson

No abstract provided.

Tattoos On Our Digital Skin: Anonymity, Privacy, And Accountability In Cyberspace, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

While it may be oddly flattering that Chapters, Amazon or HMV knew you would like the new Johnny Cash compilation album, you may be less than thrilled to discover that they also knew about your prescription drug addiction, your crabs, your bankruptcy, or your having skipped out on the rent one month back in 1993. When you add the possibility of your favourite e-retailer sharing your personal information- for a profit- to the frank probability of their having known it in the first place, what you initially found flattering may begin to appear more offensive and ominous. Simply put, there …

Waiting For Some Angel: Indigenous Rights As An Ethical Imperative In The Theory And Practice Of Human Rights, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

This article uses the stalled Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the impetus for an examination of arguments championing and opposing the framing of Indigenous rights as human rights. Failings both theoretical and practical – in the conceptualisation, promulgation and interpretation of human rights – have long left Aboriginal peoples at a disadvantage. The dual focus of Indigenous claims is unique in the rights lexicon, asserting the right to be simultaneously different from and equal to the majority population. Yet Indigenous rights are often perceived, by governments with the power to block their progress, as a threat …