The International Criminal Court and the Deterrence of Human Rights Atrocities

Research on human rights treaties has mostly reached depressingly similar conclusions – that such treaties and their resulting institutions have little or no impact on human rights. The International Criminal Court, however, possesses significant power to investigate and prosecute violations of international law that equip it with potentially more influence than previous human rights regimes. I suggest, however, that the impact of the ICC on human rights is conditioned by signatory governments’ commitment to good governance and acceptance of the role of the ICC in addressing violations of international law. I develop a two-stage model of ICC ratification and human rights abuse that shows that while many states have ratified the ICC Treaty, not all are committed to stopping the crimes under its jurisdiction. Rather, state commitment to human rights depends first on its commitment to the rule of law within its own borders. Second, commitment to human rights depends on states’ willingness to grant the ICC the powers necessary to carry out its mission. Through a number of statistical tests, I find strong support for these hypotheses on states’ human rights and propensity for violence.     

Walking a tightrope: the International Criminal Court and conflict prevention in Africa

Many African countries gained political independence in the 1960s. This era of independence came with promises and great expectations of economic, political and social development. Fifty years later, it is certain that the promises and expectations of independence have not been easily realised. Perennial violent conflicts have continued to ravage many countries in Africa, causing the catastrophic breakdown of law and order. Therefore, one of the major issues in conflict resolution discourse in Africa is how to develop functional mechanisms for the prevention of violent conflicts. This article examines the capacity of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to act as a mechanism for conflict prevention in Africa. Notwithstanding the doubts and uncertainties associated with the impact of law on conflict transformation, this article argues in the main that the ICC contributes to conflict prevention in Africa by expressing global norms of international law, challenging the culture of impunity in some countries, contributing to general deterrence, speedily intervening in some violent conflicts, and contributing to building some records of atrocities by identifying who did what.     

刑事证人出庭作证问题探析

证人出庭作证,是现代庭审方式改革的基本要求,是保证司法公证的基本措施。由于现行立法的缺陷以及传统观念的影响,证人出庭作证率偏低。这不仅破坏了法庭审判的严肃性和法律的威严性,而且严重的阻碍了依法治国的进程。本文针对这一顽疾,提出了相应的解决措施。     

宽严相济刑事政策及其所折射出的中国刑事政策走向

宽严相济刑事政策是我国当前控制犯罪的基本刑事政策。在宽严相济政策的基础上,我国刑事政策将会进一步体现中国传统文化,更好地尊重与保护公民的基本人权,进一步影响刑事立法、司法活动,进一步体现刑事司法活动的预防、教育功能。     

模拟法庭教学法在刑事诉讼法学教学中的价值与应用

模拟法庭教学是通过仿真现实法庭场景和流程的方式,模拟开展庭审中的各项工作,以提高学生的操作能力的一种实践性教学方法,它契合刑事诉讼法学实践性、操作性的需要,能促使学生成为学习主体,有利于培养学生法律素养。在刑事诉讼法学课程中,模拟法庭教学法通常遵循案例选取、角色分配、准备材料、开始庭审和庭审点评五个程式。     

International Involvement in Restructuring and Creating Security Forces: The Case of Haiti

The controversy over banning landmines in the past decade has removed matters of military technical expertise to the purview of civilian interest groups. According to a Huntingtonian perspective, this could be an indicator of unhealthy civil-military relations. Evidence of this includes political leaders' disregard of senior military advice and the initiation of a program to develop landmine alternatives after having already committed to banning them. The desire to ban landmines may represent a pragmatic revision of pacifist attempts to ban warfare altogether. Because of the development of self-destructing or deactivating mines, the landmine ban movement intrudes on technical military matters without redeeming humanitarian value. This intrusion may have further ramifications for civil-military relations.     

海上毒品案件实物证据的特点和收集

收集证据是办理刑事案件的一项重要工作内容。实物证据是海上毒品案件的一种重要证据形式,虽然收集难度大,但对于追查和打击毒品犯罪却能够发挥重要作用。因此,侦查人员要了解海上毒品犯罪案件实物证据的特点、种类以及收集方法,以便更有效地打击毒品犯罪。     

Globalization's Bastards: Illegitimate Non-State Actors in International Law

The international system has great difficulty in dealing with illegitimate non-state actors such as transnational terrorist groups and organized crime syndicates. This is due to two main factors: the quality and quantity of influence these illegitimate actors have obtained in an era of globalization, and the fact that international law considers only individual criminals and terrorists as subjects, rather than the entire illegitimate enterprise, and does not adequately link individuals, enterprises and states to more nuanced and complex forms of sponsorship of illegal activities. This work offers an outline for tools that should be embedded in the fabric of international law and agreements, to sustain credibility against illegal non-state actors, to hold accountable  sponsors of illegality and to reinforce the legitimacy of globalization.     

Law Enforcement Intelligence: A Call for New Strategies and Tactics in Countering Criminal Insurgency

This paper underscores the theory that efficacious law enforcement intelligence addresses current problems of criminal insurgency including acts of terrorism, asymmetric warfare and low intensity conflict, and suggests possible solutions. By introducing the notion of crime as insurgency, a new paradigm may be developed that could assist practitioners and academics alike in analyzing, solving and managing crime. By shifting the perspective for both military and civilian forces from their traditionally reactive stance, to a proactive posture, and merging national security with homeland defense on the most perplexing issues and threats facing US security, this work may provide a base upon which new and actionable policies can be designed. Public administrators must take seriously the lessons from past failures. The single most important supposition being, sound policy is reliant upon good intelligence.     

孙中山创立革命军队中的共产国际因素

孙中山是中国反对帝国主义、封建主义的先驱,是中国民主革命的先行者。孙中山自创建兴中会以后,领导多次武装起义,结果都失败了。辛亥革命后的十余年间,他依靠军阀打军阀,同样未取得革命的成功。其中,依靠陈炯明的失败,对他打击最大。失败的根本原因在于没有建立革命的武装。１９２０年以后,他在共产国际的帮助下,总结历史经验,最终使革命走上正确的道路。本文着重论述孙中山在创建革命军队中,共产国际对他的影响和帮助。一、共产国际建议孙中山建立革命军队以列宁为首的布尔什维克党早就注视着孙中山的革命事业,并给予深切的同…     

To Be or Not To Be: The Development of Soviet Deck Aviation

Few issues were as contentious in the development of the Soviet Navy as the role of aircraft carriers and sea-based aviation. Despite the continued insistence by the highest naval authorities and scientific experts that surface combatants simply could not be protected in the open ocean without the support of ship-borne aviation, Soviet leaders – for a variety of reasons – resisted aircraft carrier development until the final decades of the Cold War. In examining one of the most defining and telling asymmetries of the Cold War at sea, the author argues that while the USSR was economically and technologically capable of building aircraft carriers of any class, bureaucratic infighting, misperceptions of cost and practicality, and the inherent flaws of a totalitarian system ultimately created an impossible gap in capabilities between the two sides. The priorities and direction of Soviet weapons and defense technology development during the Cold War was largely a factor of the military-political situation taking shape at home, and in the world. As a rule, the navy was assigned missions that corresponded to its capabilities at a given point in time, rather than the other way around. Often, the navy lacked the material resources needed to implement its core mission. The availability of these resources, in turn, depended on the country's economic situation, its scientific potential, the technological state of its industry, as well as the subjective influence of political and military leaders on the priorities of technological development. The impact of the country's socioeconomic imperatives was undoubtedly also felt in the sluggish pace of development of ship-borne aviation and aircraft carriers in the USSR.     

某国际会展中心火灾烟气流动特性数值模拟

运用火灾动力学模拟软件FDS模拟计算出新疆国际会展中心采用自然排烟方式时在火灾状态下的烟气蔓延数据,以佐证该建筑消防设计方案的合理性和安全性,为进一步修改和完善消防设计方案提供科学的分析依据,并将其具体模拟结果运用于该建筑工程的实践中,以指导该类型建筑的消防设计。     

The inherent propensity toward peace or war embodied in weaponry

Thomas Schelling argues that armed adversaries face an inherent propensity toward peace or war embodied in their weaponry, geography and military organizations. Inherent propensity is the idea that there are characteristics embodied in the weapons that push adversaries toward peace or war, independent of the goals of the decision‐makers, the political disagreement between adversaries, and misperceptions about mutual resolve and hostility. We theoretically illustrate inherent propensity in conventional and nuclear arms settings using Lanchester and Intriligator war models. Our work extends the Intriligator‐Brito model, identifies when the competing Richardson and Intriligator‐Brito views of the relationship between arms races and war are correct, illustrates the stabilizing/destabilizing effects of alliances, and highlights the importance of arms quality control in the US‐USSR relationship.