scholarly journals Prosecuting hate crime: procedural issues and the future of the aggravated offences

Legal Studies ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abenaa Owusu-Bempah

In 2012, the Ministry of Justice asked the Law Commission to examine the case for extending the racially and religiously aggravated offences in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, so that they also cover disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. The terms of reference for the project were narrow, and did not include an examination of whether the existing offences are in need of reform. The Commission recommended that before a final decision is taken as to whether the offences should be extended, a full-scale review of the operation of the existing offences should be carried out. This paper contends that, in determining the future of the aggravated offences, consideration should be given to the procedural difficulties that can be encountered during the prosecution stage of the criminal process. The paper highlights a number of significant procedural problems that arise from the structure of the existing aggravated offences. These problems are largely related to alternative charges, whereby the prosecution charge both the aggravated offence and the lesser offence encompassed within it, and alternative verdicts, whereby the jury can convict of the lesser offence if the aggravated element is not proven. This paper argues that the procedural problems, coupled with a failure to properly understand the offences, can lead, and have led, to unfair outcomes. If the offences cannot be prosecuted effectively, they become little more than an empty gesture to those affected by hate crime, and this may be counterproductive. Procedural problems also put defendants at risk of wrongful conviction. The paper concludes that the preferred way forward would be to repeal the racially and religiously aggravated offences and rely on sentencing legislation to deal with hostility-based offending.

1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hector L MacQueen

This paper,first presented on 21 October 1995 at ajoint seminar ofthe Scottish Law Commission and the Faculty of Law, University of Edinburgh, on the subject of breach of contract, considers the future development of the law in this area, first by considering its history and current state in comparative terms and drawing the conclusion that it is characterised by a mixture of Civilian and Common Law elements; second, by comparing Scots law with the provisions on breach contained in recently published proposals for a harmonised law of contract (the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, the Principles of European Contract Law prepared by the Lando Commission, and the draft “code”for the United Kingdom prepared on behalf of the English Law Commission by Harvey McGregor in the late 1960s) and in international conventions on the sale of goods. Although Scots law emerges reasonably wellfrom this exercise, there are a number of points to be taken on board in any future reform, as well as some insights into important underlying principles.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Petra Skolilova

The article outlines some human factors affecting the operation and safety of passenger air transport given the massive increase in the use of the VLA. Decrease of the impact of the CO2 world emissions is one of the key goals for the new aircraft design. The main wave is going to reduce the burned fuel. Therefore, the eco-efficiency engines combined with reasonable economic operation of the aircraft are very important from an aviation perspective. The prediction for the year 2030 says that about 90% of people, which will use long-haul flights to fly between big cities. So, the A380 was designed exactly for this time period, with a focus on the right capacity, right operating cost and right fuel burn per seat. There is no aircraft today with better fuel burn combined with eco-efficiency per seat, than the A380. The very large aircrafts (VLAs) are the future of the commercial passenger aviation. Operating cost versus safety or CO2 emissions versus increasing automation inside the new generation aircraft. Almost 80% of the world aircraft accidents are caused by human error based on wrong action, reaction or final decision of pilots, the catastrophic failures of aircraft systems, or air traffic control errors are not so frequent. So, we are at the beginning of a new age in passenger aviation and the role of the human factor is more important than ever.


2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

AbstractNegotiators for powerful, self-reliant states tend to be less responsive to weak states relative to domestic constituents, while negotiators for states entangled in ties of asymmetric interdependence with more powerful states tend to be more responsive to the demands of powerful states than to the demands of domestic constituents. Asymmetrical power does not necessarily lead to asymmetrical results, however, because negotiators in weaker states may, nevertheless, have more attractive non-agreement alternatives and a longer shadow of the future. Negotiators with attractive non-agreement alternatives will be more willing to put agreement at risk by withholding concessions in the negotiation process. Centralized and vertical institutions are often a bargaining liability precisely because weak states tend to be less responsive to domestic constituents, whereas divided government can be a major asset. These propositions are demonstrated through an analysis and reconstruction of the North American Free Trade negotiation process.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie de Bruin ◽  
Jannis Hoch ◽  
Nina von Uexkull ◽  
Halvard Buhaug ◽  
Nico Wanders

<p>The socioeconomic impacts of changes in climate-related and hydrology-related factors are increasingly acknowledged to affect the on-set of violent conflict. Full consensus upon the general mechanisms linking these factors with conflict is, however, still limited. The absence of full understanding of the non-linearities between all components and the lack of sufficient data make it therefore hard to address violent conflict risk on the long-term. </p><p>Although it is neither desirable nor feasible to make exact predictions, projections are a viable means to provide insights into potential future conflict risks and uncertainties thereof. Hence, making different projections is a legitimate way to deal with and understand these uncertainties, since the construction of diverse scenarios delivers insights into possible realizations of the future.  </p><p>Through machine learning techniques, we (re)assess the major drivers of conflict for the current situation in Africa, which are then applied to project the regions-at-risk following different scenarios. The model shows to accurately reproduce observed historic patterns leading to a high ROC score of 0.91. We show that socio-economic factors are most dominant when projecting conflicts over the African continent. The projections show that there is an overall reduction in conflict risk as a result of increased economic welfare that offsets the adverse impacts of climate change and hydrologic variables. It must be noted, however, that these projections are based on current relations. In case the relations of drivers and conflict change in the future, the resulting regions-at-risk may change too.   By identifying the most prominent drivers, conflict risk mitigation measures can be tuned more accurately to reduce the direct and indirect consequences of climate change on the population in Africa. As new and improved data becomes available, the model can be updated for more robust projections of conflict risk in Africa under climate change.</p>


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Ryan ◽  
W. Solano ◽  
R. Holland ◽  
S. Rahman
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Raffaella Biagioli

In the intersection with other dimensions such as ethnic, religious and social, the gender difference leads to dwell on aspects often neglected and to bring out the role of mothers in places of confinement that, together with their children, represent a population at risk for the difficulties inherent in the condition of restriction. The research is interested in understanding a mother-child relationship highly disturbed by some risk factors and the educational actions to be activated in the daily life of penitentiary institutions to support and accompany these women towards autonomy, to offer them possibilities of social inclusion and avoid marginalization that in the future could lead their children to seek radicalized insertion within groups.


Author(s):  
Jessica Marie Falcone

This ethnography explores the controversial plans and practices of the Maitreya Project, as they worked to build the “world's tallest statue” as a multi-million dollar “gift” to India. This effort entailed a plan to forcibly acquire hundreds of acres of occupied land for the statue park in the Kushinagar area of Uttar Pradesh. The Buddhist statue planners ran into obstacle after obstacle, including a full-scale grassroots resistance movement of Indian farmers working to “Save the Land.” In telling the “life story” of the proposed statue, the book sheds light on the aspirations, values and practices of both the Buddhists who worked to construct the statue, as well as the Indian farmer-activists who tirelessly protested against it. Since the majority of the supporters of the Maitreya Project statue are “non-heritage” practitioners to Tibetan Buddhism, the book narrates the spectacular collision of cultural values between small agriculturalists in rural India and transnational Buddhists from around the world. The book endeavors to show the cultural logics at work on both sides of the controversy. Thus, this ethnography of a future statue of the Maitreya Buddha—himself the “future Buddha”—is a story about divergent, competing visions of Kushinagar’s potential futures.


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