Tag: <span>En</span>

Tag: En

学术论文

Revisit the Rule of Law

———————————————
Revisit the Rule of Law:
Concepts in Domestic and International Levels
———————————————- 
 
DONG Hao
July 2006 
 
 
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Rule of Law in Domestic Level
    A. Dicey’s Liberalism Concept
    B. Raz’s Positive Formalism Concept
    C. The Requirements to Rule of Law in Domestic Level
III. Rule of Law in International Level
    A. The Concept of International Rule of Law
    B. The Distinctions between International Rule of Law and Domestic Rule of Law
    C. Argument to the Fashionable Concept of International Rule of Law
    D. Case Study: Rule of Law in China and China in International Rule of Law
IV. Conclusion
 
I. Introduction
The term Rule of Law derives from Aristotle’s dicta, “the rule of law is better than that of any individual.”[1] In English, this term can be compared with various concepts, such as “equality before the law”, “government of law”, “Lex, Rex” and “the supremacy of law”, etc.[2] But the most broad and influential one is the Rule of Law. In German, the equivalent term to “rule of law” is “Rechtsstaat”, which was firstly used by J. W. Placidus in his Literatur der Staatslehre (National Theory).[3]
 
This essay is a brief review of the concept of rule of Law from domestic and international perspectives. To my knowledge, the term “rule of law” and the term “international rule of law” are very distinct from each other. Hence, when we are discussing one of these two terms, we should avoid to be wrongfully influenced by notions originally talking about the other one. By this logic, my argument is that although these two issues are highly relevant, they are not necessarily connected with each other. If we define the international rule of law as a norm of justifying some governments’ arbitrary actions to their people, we are actually discarding the international rule of law. On this basic idea, I briefly discussed the situation of rule of law in China and China in the international rule of law. This case study favored my argument. Nevertheless, this essay still focuses on the definition of rule of law respectively in domestic and international levels.

 

专业日志

It is not as Distinct as It Seems

It is not as Distinct as It Seems:
A Note on the Debates on the Separation of Law and Morals in the Contemporary World
 
 
Contents

I. Introduction
II. Topic One: Is there any Necessary Connection between Law and Morality?
III. Topic Two: Is It Necessary to Enforce the Morality with Law?
IV. It is Not as Distinct as It Seems
V. Revelations for Chinese Jurisprudence
VI. Conclusion

I. Introduction

After the Second World War, the German courts raised many problems that nearly destroyed the domination of so called “positive law” philosophy since Bentham, Austin and Kelson.[1] Executioners and talebearers defended themselves with this reason: they were enforcing the existed Nazi written law, which was the “positive law of Germany”, so what they did were lawful and could not be sentenced. Although this argument did not find it’s legitimacy in the very judgments to Nazis, it has brought a series of debates around the relationship between law and morals throughout the second half of twentieth century, and the endless debates may continue to the twenty fifth century, if the Marx’s communistic world still hangs on the sky at that time.[2]
 
The debates on the separation of law and morality throughout the twentieth century are so complicated that one may not accurately summarize all the discussions in a short essay. Nevertheless, this note will briefly introduce some core debates among scholars. Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate hereby that the differences among those prominent scholars’ arguments on this issue are not as tremendous as it seems, though they did distinguish from each other clearly in many aspects. Finally, from these debates, I am trying to find some revelations that may be applied into the legal research in the context of Chinese jurisprudence.

专业日志

"The news is just .MIL.CN"

I find the illustration of misunderstanding/mis-translation to the new promulgation of Declaration on China’s Domain Name System in Rebecca’s Blog. It is really funny in that some foreigners seem always interested in the censorship issues and this make them used to burst out "alarmists".

It is a matter of FACT that Chinese Gov will not relieve its censorship policy tomorrow morning. However, there is another FACT in that, at least up to now, this censorship is mainly technical but not legislatorial (for example, the gov dose not impose the installation of application that can identificate the ".公司" names). And even when some really questionalble regulations are promulgated (of course not including this one as Rebecca has clarified in her post), it is another matter of FACT in that the enforcement of these regulations are often not as effeciently as what those observers, who may live in a country under the rule of law, would anticipate. (sorry I will not take examples here).

Another important information from Rebecca’s entry is that CNNIC did not actually use any alternative/parellel root.

专业日志 itemprop="discussionURL"2

Case: No fault even mis-lading goods

 Case Name:

New National Assurance Company Limited Vs. Shanghai RIJIN-TOP Express International Forwarding Co., Ltd.
 
Citation:
Shanghai Maritime Court of PRC (SMC), Civil Judgment (2004) TMC (Chu) No. 492
Judges: Xin Hai (C. J.), Qian Xu, Sun Ying-wei
Date: 21 April 2005
 
Rules:
If the shipper did not notified the carrier the special features of the goods, the carrier should not be liable to the damages even there was an inappropriate lading by the carrier and/or his employees for no fault were found in the case.
 

专业日志

A case on recognizing the arbitral awards in China

Name:
Vysanthi Shipping Company Limited V. China Grains, Oils and Feedstuffs Co., Ltd, etc.
 
Citation:
Tianjin Maritime Court of PRC (TMC), Civil order in Writing(2004) TMC (Que) No.1
 
Summary of Facts:
The dispute between the applicant and the first defendant on the B/L of Joanna V Ship issued on 28 June 1996 had been heard by the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and an award was issued on 14 March 2001. According to the award, the applicant should obtain USD 367,136.86 in general average contribution (G.A.C.) and USD 28,500 in damages of resorting. The applicant should also obtain the interest on 7% per year of the above amount. The interest of damages of resorting (USD 28,500) will be calculated from 1 August 1996. The commencement time for calculating the G.A.C interest, however, would depend on the negotiation result between the applicant and the first defendant. If their negotiation failed, the arbitration court would decide the date. The end dates of both damages’ interest are the day when the first defendant made the de facto payment to the applicant. On 20 June 2001, LCIA made the second award in that the commencing date of calculating the interest of resorting damages should be 12 July 1996. In the same award, the arbitration fees in two arbitration procedure were decided to be paid by the first defendant. On 13 February 2002, the third award was made to confirm that the cost of the whole dispute should be paid by the first defendant….
 
专业日志

Case in Dutch may different to Baidu Case in China

Tech law Professor Blawg logged on 20 June that Dutch courts have shut down a web site that provided links to mp3 files even though it did not host the content itself.  The decision by the Dutch Court of Appeal overturns a lower court ruling that the site, Zoekmp3.nl, did not violate copyright.  Zoekmp3 did post notices asking users not to violate copyright, though the appellate court did not buy that argument, noting that the sites users were there looking for illegal downloads. 

Details are at the BBC, ZDNet, and Heise Online.

The http://mp3.Baidu.com was find illegal when it provided the downloading links to the visitors without any annoucement. According to the judgement, Baidu “行为已超出了其所定义的“给出查询结果、提供相应的摘要信息”的搜索引擎的服务范围，其行为不是在介绍涉案歌曲的艺术价值并提供查询信息， 而是直接利用MP3文件营利， 在未能明确相关MP3文件的合法来源、未经原告许可的情况下，此行为阻碍了原告在国际互联网上传播其录音制品， 应属侵权，故被告应立即停止侵权并依法承担侵权责任，赔偿原告的经济损失。”After this judgement, Baidu.com added an announcement before one hope to download the results of the mp3 search.

However, the decision of the case in Dutch sames different to that of BaiDu. In Ducth case, Zoekmp3.nl (defendent) had argued that it did not host the content itself and carried a warning to users not to breach copyright. But this failed to convince the Court of Appeals. "Such a warning ignores the reality that the lion’s share of visitors are looking for unauthorised MP3 files," 

专业日志

Why are Chinese Blawgs Like law Journals

Title: Why do Chinese Blawgs Represent themselves as Law Reviews and even Academic Libraries – A Historical Observation
Ver.:  1.1
Date: 20060624
By: Donnie H. DONG (http://blawgdog.com)
Licence: CC: by-nc-sa
For China Blawg Review Vol. 1 (Click here to JOIN US)

I have mentioned in last lawg that Chines blawgs are mostly like formal journals but not classical blogs. I am trying to analysis its reason in this post. Heh, follow the formal style of Chinese blawgs, I may name this essay as "An Empiristic Research form the Perspective of Sociology of Knowledge"…

Let’s recall the history of the personal legal website in China.

Around and/or after 1995, touched by the Internet, some pioneers established the first generation of Chinese personal pages conerning legal issues. The earliest and most famous one is "China Judge", found by Yau Zheng-hui, a judge in Fujian Province (I myself has one also, see its remains here). These websites had a common character: like a self-edited magazine as well as a personal book shelf which included articles, books and other things that did or did not created by the site owner. 

In the very beginning, contents created other than the founder of the sites often came directly from the authors. At that time, most legal researchers and practicers were not very familiar with the Internet. Normally being friends of the legal sites owners, they agree to publish their works in cyberspace freely after a rough consideration in that the publication in cyberspace would not affect their interstes.

专业日志 itemprop="discussionURL"2

Not LOG, But Publication: A Feature of Cn Blawgs

Title: Not BLOGs, But Publications: A Feature of Chinese Blawgsphere
Ver.:  1.1
Date: 20060624
By: Donnie H. DONG (http://blawgdog.com)
Licence: CC: by-nc-sa
For China Blawg Review Vol. 1 (Click here to JOIN US)

The number of Chinese blawgs  (NOT China Blawgs in English, BUT Blawgs in Chinese) is increasing in a geometrical rate. It is an impossible mission to surf all the blogs, so no one dare to say that he/she has grasped all the exactly features of Chinese blawgs, me neither. However, if you are a bilingual reader (Even not so fluent in Chinese or English, like me), and you are interested in the blawgsphere for a certain period (say, two months), I believe you may at least discover SOME characteristics of Chinese Blawgs, me either.

What I find in Chinese blawgs is: A good many of them are actually not "blogs" but  online academic magazines. The following list can be an empirical example, which is a part of the list of today’s "hot posts" in the index page of Law Blog (http://www.fyfz.cn), a well-known site providing blawg service. The topics are oringinally in Chinese, so I translated them roughly.

One Must Regard the People’s Indignation Seriously 
The Translation of Surya Prakash Sinha’s Jurisprudence (Part 83)
Deng Zheng Lai: Preface for Silhouettes of Chinese Lawyers in 100 Years (Author: Chen X. H.)
My Opinion on the Legislation of Lawyer’s Fee
A bit Coolness in this Hot Summer
A Discussion with Prof. Lin: On the Legislation of…
Beijing, What Makes You So Luxurious
Feelings during Supervising the theses
A Facet for Constructing in the Regime of Administrative Aidance
Some Ideas in Reading
The Distance to the Humanism in Our Legal Education
The Ideology of Entertainment
Constitution-Government-Market: A New Analytic Approach of Consti-Economic
Patents Will Never Be Unlawful Registered
The Rule of Law is the Base of the Democracy
A Benificial Attempt in the Study of Civil Law
The Issues on Gender and Minorites among the U.S. Legal Professionals
……

Most of the above topics are as serious as articles in law journals, and after clicking the links, one will find that the contents of the posts are mostly in very formal formats and with very academic tones. In my view, these posts are NOT LOGs, BUT PUBLICATIONs.

One may get further evidences of this feature easily. Academic theses with dozens of footnotes appeared frequently in Chinese blawgs. Some sites have been turned to be a collection of academic works: "blawggers" classified their "logs" with names of famous researchers, then uploaded bunches of those researchers’ academic achievements.

At the same time, some features of classical blogs are missing. While copy other’s articles entirely onto their sites, few Chinese blawggers employ copyright licences like those of Creative Commons (that means these blawgs reserved all their own right). The typical logs that embedded links navigating readers to further related web pages are rare. Chinese blawggers are not used to "log" what happens every day but keep uploading their (or others’) formal publications.

The owners of most popular Chinese blawgs are mainly researchers. Some famous law professors have their own blawgs, such as Deng Zheng-Lai, He Wei-fang, Lin Lai-fan, Xie Hui, etc. Among them, prof. Xie Hui and Prof. Lin Lai-fan’s blawg follow the suit of classical blogs: they post diaries, sentiments, scribbles and even poetries on their blawg site. But their style are not standing on the mainstream.

In another log, I will discuss why many Chinese blawgs represent themselves not logs but publications. Here gose the influences of this characteristic. To readers are looking for research materials, libraries are better than caffs. A researcher may find many useful references from Chinese blawgs and some times he even need not follow the links – blawggers copy the articles entirely! To readers are interested in Chinese lawyer’s life, however, they may feel disapointed. There are not so many practical cases as well as practice experiences be shared in Chinese blawgsphere. Solicitors, barristers and attoneys are still standing in the corners of the blawg club.

专业日志

Philosophy of Law

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Philosophy of Law

Philosophers of law are concerned with providing a general philosophical analysis of law and legal institutions. Issues in legal philosophy range from abstract conceptual questions about the nature of law and legal systems to normative questions about the relation between law and morality and the justification for various legal institutions. Topics in legal philosophy tend to be more abstract than related topics in political philosophy and applied ethics. For example, whereas the question of how properly to interpret the U.S. Constitution belongs to democratic theory and hence falls under the heading of political philosophy, the analysis of legal interpretation falls under the heading of legal philosophy. Likewise, whereas the question of whether capital punishment is morally permissible falls under the heading of applied ethics, the question of whether the institution of punishment can be justified falls under the heading of legal philosophy. Topics in legal philosophy fall roughly into three categories: analytic jurisprudence, normative jurisprudence, and critical theories of law.

Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of this article)

专业日志

A Book on "Psychotechnology"

Cyberseduction: Reality in the Age of Psychotechnology
By: Dr. Jeri Fink    Table of Contents in Amazon.com
Prometheus Books, New York. 1999

Psychotechnology was born from two decades of living with computers, virtual realities, and the Internet. Equally as important, it was nurtured through the willing ears and imagination of some very special people. These are minds that took those first tentateive steps into a new philosophy, considering some of the exciting and chilling possibilities of a future infused with virtual reality simulations…(p.9)

From caves to cyberspace, virtual reality has been an integral part of human life. What is this strange, illusive place that we all recognize and have such difficulty defining? Why is there cyberseduction? In order to understand the nature of a virtual reality we need to first identify reality. Scientists, artists, philosophers, and ordinary people have been trying to firgure that out since the dawn of human consciousness.  Some say it’s everything that is physical and concrete. Many believe that it is what the group agrees on, a consensus reality. But then strange questions are raised. Does the tree that falls in the forest make any sounds when there is no one to hear? What is the difference between brain and mind? (p.15-16)

…Simply put, when reality is replaced by virtuality in cyberspace, anything can happen. Cyberseduction grabs us, tantalizes us, and irretrievably snares us. (p.17)