Capital punishment in tribal Montenegro: Implications for law,biology, and theory of social control

Clan execution among feuding tribal societies is proposed as a significant precursor to modern law. This form of ostracism is examined with respect to its social control functions and the indigenous assumptions about behavior, genes and demography that guide the behavior. It is suggested that there are very close parallels between modern legal systems and nonliterate ones based on “self-help”, when capital punishment is used by normal decision groups in the name of “national security”.     

A strategy to end parole dependency

This article explores the moral, political, economic and philosophical reasons for the expansion of the prisoner re-entry industry in the United States over the last several years. Tracing the influence of the military-industrial-prison complex and its mindset of “crackpot-cynical” realism rooted in a fear-based model of human nature, it argues that the very system and policies set up to control the “problem” of crime has led to an exacerbation of it, creating an ever-expanding, permanent “industry” that has traumatized both ‘ruler and ruled’ in a never-ending cycle of pain, mistrust, moral numbness and dysfunctional dependency. The article attempts to unite political and spiritual progressives and begin the mobilization necessary for radical structural and moral changes harkening back to the dissensus politics and ‘spiritual toughness’ of the civil rights and welfare rights tradition of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.     

The offshore jurisdiction of the states of the United States and the provinces of Canada—A comparison

Abstract

The coastal state has jurisdiction over the resources located in the seas and seabed adjacent to its coast. In federal states the question has arisen as to whether the rights in those resources are to be held by the national government or by the subsidiary territorial governments. It has been the focus of political activity and court litigation in the United States and Canada. This paper reviews in detail the status of the offshore claims of the states of the United States and the provinces of Canada. In delimiting these boundaries two systems of law have become relevant—modern public international law and historic common law. Both systems of law have advantages and disadvantages for the courts and interested parties. While the United States has chosen a route that relies very heavily on modern public international law, the Canadian situation is less clear. Litigation now in progress may resolve this issue in Canada by court decree unless a political settlement is reached first. A recent agreement between the Federal Government of Canada and the Gov eminent of Nova Scotia which calls for joint management and revenue sharing may point the way toward such a settlement.     

Can the United States Establish the Outer Limits of Its Extended Continental Shelf Under International Law?

Although most provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea are regarded customary international law and the United States views most of its provisions as such, the outsider status of the United States causes problems in some areas, especially concerning the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. This article asks whether it is possible for the United States to establish the outer limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in line with international law without becoming a state party to the convention, and if that is possible, how could the United States proceed?     

Imagining race and nation in multiculturalist America

Post-1965 demographic changes in the United States [US] have brought blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans into direct conflict, raising the question of how and whether law and public policy should attempt to adjudicate conflicts among racialized minority groups. I argue in this article that for the past few decades, national political leaders in the US have promoted an official multiculturalist discourse that actually discourages Americans from naming and addressing these intergroup tensions. This discourse superficially reimagines race and nation – by moving from a biracial, black-white focus to a formal acknowledgment of multiracial difference – while refusing to acknowledge the complex interminority inequalities and antagonisms generated by this new diversity. How might we refocus national attention on the serious interminority conflicts and racial justice struggles unfolding around us? I consider resurrecting the traditional notion of racial hierarchy as a counter-narrative to official multiculturalist discourse before arguing instead for one which involves a more complex notion of “racial positionality”.     

“The national music scene”: the analysis of the Nazi rock discourse and its relationship with the upsurge of nationalism in Poland

The article contains the analysis of lyrics created by bands associated with the “national music scene” in Poland, as well as the means of fascist propaganda used in music by far-right extremists. The article also shows the cultural and political similarities between the official right in Poland (PiS party) and extreme right wing movements. These environments are bridged by a similar cultural narrative, which is based on the cult of the nation and tradition, a dislike for immigrants, as well as the creation of conspiracy myths concerning “traitors of the homeland”.     

‘To bring out the best that is in their blood’: Race,reform, and civilization in the journal of race development (1910–1919)

The Journal of Race Development [JRD], published out of Clark University in the United States between 1910 and 1919, aimed, in its founder's words, “to present … the important facts which bear upon race progress, and the different theories as to the methods by which developed peoples may most effectively aid the progress of the undeveloped”. Its basic premise was that scientific knowledge could harness racial or civilizational “evolution” and turn it into “development”. This article examines that project, the conceptual apparatus that the JRD's writers and editors brought to bear on it, and how racial ideas informed their conceptions of development and progressive social change through elite scientific and political intervention. Central to this project was an organic notion of “civilization” in which “nature” and “culture” did not so much overlap as flow seamlessly one into the other.     

Will the new second generation experience ‘downward assimilation’? Segmented assimilation re-assessed

Research on the “new second generation” in the United States has been deeply influenced by the hypothesis of “segmented assimilation”, which contends that the children of immigrants are at risk of downward mobility into a “new rainbow underclass”. This article seeks to assess that assertion, focusing on the experience of Mexicans, the overwhelmingly largest of today’s second-generation groups, and a population of predominantly working- or lower-class origins. The empirical component of this article rests on analysis of a combined sample of the 1996–2001 Current Population Survey.     

Terrains of blood and nation: Haitian transnational social fields

As have a growing number of political leaders of emigrant-sending countries, Haitian government officials and immigrant leaders have envisioned Haiti as a transnational nation-state. This article explores the ways in which the vision of Haiti as a transnational nation builds upon the experiences, needs and aspirations of both persons living in Haiti and those who have settled in the United States. Using a concept of 'transnational social field', we examine how family obligations and the experiences of immigration are understood through a language of blood and descent that links individuals to broader concepts of a transnational homeland. Rather than celebrating transnational connections, this essay concludes by warning that the ideologies which undergird 'long distance nationalism' are problematic.     

Pukhtunwali: Ostracism and honor among the Pathan Hill tribes

The Pathan Hill tribes provide an example of the functional role of ostracism in a face- to-face, kin-based society. “Pukhtunwali,” the Code of the Pathans, regulates the uses of ostracism, as a response to the conflict between an individual's desire for freedom and the necessity of tribal unity. The most striking use of ostracism among the Pathans is the rejection by the tribe or clan of one of its own members whose behavior might lead to feud. If a member of a group has committed an act likely to provoke a reprisal, which may be directed against any individual of that group, the guilty person may be expelled. By ostracizing the person, the group is both punishing him, and withdrawing its support. In Pathan society ostracism functions simultaneously to deter behavior that violates customary legal norms, to punish specific acts that are culturally defined as improper, and to unify the primary reference group on which individuals depend for protection and economic support.     

Primate social behavior and ostracism

Ostracism, and its attendant processes, emigration and immigration, are now recognized as basic mechanisms intrinsic to the long-term adaptation of primate society. Ostracism, defined as socially determined exclusion from the resources and opportunities necessary to successful reproduction, is a basic mechanism by which individuals strive to maximize their own reproductive success at the expense of others. Among males this process most often involves exclusion from opportunities to fertilize females (zygote formation) whereas among females it leads to competition for the resources necessary to raise these zygotes to adulthood. Ostracism from intrasexual competition may be so intense that it leads to the migration of less successful individuals into social groups offering greater opportunity. The “passports” most often used in primate immigration are sexual affinity and kinship alliance. Migration carries high risk and is associated with increased mortality and morbidity. Nevertheless, ostracism, emigration, and immigration remain as the basic social processes by which the ratio of resources to individuals shifts and balances from one year to the next. Such adjustments are made through the process of individual “decisions” and “strategies” to optimize personal reproductive success, but their net effect is to constantly redistribute individuals in relation to resources vital to reproduction.     

International Law and Politics in U.S. Policymaking: The United States and the Svalbard Dispute

This article explains the position(s) of the United States in the maritime dispute adjacent to Svalbard. While the United States has regarded Norway's exclusive claim to the natural resources outside Svalbard as everything from “wishful thinking” to legally plausible, Washington maintains that it may have rights under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty to exploit the maritime zones adjacent to the archipelago. The U.S. reservation is the result of assessments and reassessments of legal considerations as well as national interests.     

The Case for Reasonable Accommodation of Conscientious Objections to Declarations of Brain Death

Since its inception in 1968, the concept of whole-brain death has been contentious, and four decades on, controversy concerning the validity and coherence of whole-brain death continues unabated. Although whole-brain death is legally recognized and medically entrenched in the United States and elsewhere, there is reasonable disagreement among physicians, philosophers, and the public concerning whether brain death is really equivalent to death as it has been traditionally understood. A handful of states have acknowledged this plurality of viewpoints and enacted “conscience clauses” that require “reasonable accommodation” of religious and moral objections to the determination of death by neurological criteria. This paper argues for the universal adoption of “reasonable accommodation” policies using the New Jersey statute as a model, in light of both the ongoing controversy and the recent case of Jahi McMath, a child whose family raised religious objections to a declaration of brain death. Public policies that accommodate reasonable, divergent viewpoints concerning death provide a practical and compassionate way to resolve those conflicts that are the most urgent, painful, and difficult to reconcile.     

Ostracism as a social and biological phenomenon: An introduction

Ostracism refers to the general process of rejection and exclusion, observed in human groups and in many other species. It occurs as “shunning” in small homogenous groups like the Amish or as rejection among children. Ostracism in various forms is also deeply embedded in our own legal tradition, and is used in the formal and informal legal procedures of other cultures, used to maintain order, to punish deviance, and to increase social cohesion. Hence, it is plausible to hypothesize that human ostracism may have physiological substrates or biological functions in addition to cultural, moral, and legal dimensions. Biological research shows that human emotions (anger, fear, reassurance, self-confidence) involve responses of the limbic system as well as ideas or thoughts in the cerebral cortex and that human behavior continually integrates biological and cultural factors. The legal system expresses and channels human behavior. For this reason laws should be more effective if their functions complement (rather than ignore) the function of the behavior being regulated. To look at law as it affects human behavior in the light of the life sciences does not imply the intention of finding a universally valid “natural law,” akin to theological or ideological doctrine. On the contrary, we find that humans can form radically different social systems due to the plasticity of their behavior. However, an interdisciplinary analysis of ostracism as a common area of behavior, combining biology, law, and the social sciences can produce insights that none of these fields alone can provide. Such an approach should increase our understanding of human nature and the functions of law.     

Technologies of hope: techniques of the online advertising of stem cell treatments

Recent media portrayals of developments in stem cell research underline the high expectations that surround this field. Trials for stem cell treatments are currently underway around the world; however, very few applications are widely available. In spite of this, a range of purported stem cell therapies are being marketed directly to patients, principally via the Internet. Scientists and clinicians have expressed concerns about the marketing of unproven treatments but responses thus far have been based upon a limited understanding of the dynamics of the advertising of such treatments. Drawing on the findings from a qualitative analysis of online, “direct-to-consumer” advertisements (DTCA) for stem cell treatments, this article examines the role played by such advertisements in the “political economy of hope.” It reveals the various techniques used by advertisers to effect a positive portrayal of treatments and thus help engender confidence in treatments and trust in providers. It concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for policy responses to the marketing of such treatments.     

Reproduction humaine: le point de vue du philosophe

This article discusses and essential aspect of the link between ethics and life, as expressed in the concept of bioethics. It discusses the various issues related to human reproduction from “the philosopher’s point of view”. This discussion is limited to the principles of this field. The author starts by justifying a philosophical approach to ethical problems in the context of medicine in general and reproduction in particular, a field which specialists, theoreticians or practitioners of medicine and legal medicine in particular, appear to have ignored. This leads to a discussion of the human aspects of reproduction, from questions concerning the nature of living beings (individuals and species) to the relationship between nature and culture (symbol and freedom). Although man “reproduces” and “procreates”, he is also technically able to “produce himself”. This shift from biological reproduction to procreation must take into account problems related to technological science in medicine (technical control of living material and so-called “neutrality” of the technique). The main bioethical issues involving an ethics of decision-making in the field of human reproduction (contraception, abortion, status of the embryo, medically-assisted procreation, desire to master the “form” of the “reproduced” human, or even the “product”, cloning) are then discussed. Finally, the author proposes elements of a “philosophy of point of view”, requiring responsibility for each decision in the context of an “ethics of discussion”.     

Legal Regulation of Plant Genome Editing with the CRISPR/Cas9 Technology as an Example

The product-oriented and the process-oriented legal approaches to the regulation of genome editing technologies, CRISPR/Cas9 in particular, are considered. The relevant legislation of the United States and the European Union and some international treaties are analyzed. The issue of genome editing that is within the scope of GMO legislation and general legislation on risk assessment and regulation is addressed. The issue of patenting of gene editing technologies in the legislation of the United States and the European Union and under international law is considered. “Patent wars” between research teams that developed the CRISPR/Cas9 technology are described. The possibilities of obtaining patent protection for plants produced by genome editing are considered.     

What Does Africa Have to Do with Being African American? A Microethnographic Analysis of a Middle School Inquiry Unit on Africa

In the United States, "race" and "black identity" are becoming more complex with the increasing numbers of individuals who identify as "black and foreignborn." Emanating from a year-long study in an urban middle school classroom and a microethnographic investigation of a two-week unit on Africa, this article employs a Pan-African framework to examine how schools and the broader society serve as sites where black identity is contested. The article concludes with implications for education, society, and the study of race and black identity in classroom life.     

“Openness” and Article 76 of the Law of the Sea Convention: The Process Does Not Need to Be Adjusted

The establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles under Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which requires states to submit information to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), is a complex and costly process. States have an interest in being aware of the kind of information that the Commission is expecting to receive. States also have an interest in being able to assess whether the coastal state in establishing these outer limits has acted on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission, as is required by the Convention. Both these issues have led to calls for greater “openness” with respect to the consideration of submissions by the CLCS. This article takes a close look at the proposals that have been advanced to accomplish greater openness and concludes that there is no need to change the current process, which offers sufficient opportunities to deal with the above-mentioned concerns. It is further concluded that the proposed changes in any case do not stand any chance of being adopted.     

Petite bodies of the “robust” australopithecines

The “robust” australopithecines are often depicted as having large and powerfully built bodies to match their massive masticatory apparatus, but until 1988 the sample of postcranial remains attributed with certainty to this group was very limited. Almost nothing was known about the body of the East African “robust” australopithecine because taxonomic attribution of the postcrania was so uncertain. The body of the South African “robust” australopithecine had to be reconstructed from about a dozen isolated fragments of postcrania. Now a partial skeleton is attributed with confidence to the East African “robust” group along with several isolated bones. The South African sample has more than tripled. Analyses of this vastly expanded sample reveal that a large portion of postcrania attributed to “robust” australopithecines from Swartkrans Member 1 (35%) are from extraordinarily small-bodied individuals similar in size to a modern Pygmy weighing as little as 28 kg. These small elements include parts from the forelimb, spine, and hindlimb. About 22% of these Swartkrans 1 “robust” australopithecines are about the same size as a modern human weighing about 43 kgs and about 43% are larger than this standard but less than or equal to a 54 kg modern human. Approximately the same pattern is true for the Swartkrans 2 hominids, but taxonomic attribution is less certain. All of the Member 3 specimens are similar in size to the 45 kg standard. The partial skeleton of the East African “robust” australopithecine (KNM-ER 1500) has hindlimb joints that would correspond to a modern human of 34 kgs although the actual weight may be 5 to 10 kgs greater judging from shaft robusticity and forelimb size. The largest postcranial element attributed with some certainty to the East African “robust” australopithecine group (the talus, KNM-ER 1464) is about the same overall size as a modern human of 54 kgs, although its tibial facet is slightly smaller. Although many previous studies have hinted at the possibility that “robust” australopithecines had relatively small bodies, the new fossils provide substantial evidence that these creatures ranged from quite small to only moderate in body size relative to modern humans. These were the petite-bodied vegetarian cousins of our ancestors. Sexual dimorphism in body size appears to be greater than that in modern humans, similar to that in Pan, and less than that in Gorilla or Pongo, although such comparisons are of limited value given the small samples, poorly known body proportions, time averaging, and many other problems.