Criminal-executive characteristics and social-legal conditionality of negative duties of convicts sentenced to deprivation of liberty for a fixed term.

The article deals with criminal-executive characteristics and social-legal conditionality of negative duties of convicts sentenced to deprivation of liberty for a fixed term. It is noted that the social-legal significance of duties of convicts sentenced to deprivation of liberty for a fixed term is that they are means of forming the moral and legal consciousness of convicts, strengthening law and order, discipline and organization during serving a punishment. The essence of the legal duties of convicts is to require the necessary conduct from the point of view of the state, government and the law. This behavior of convicts is obligatory, indisputable and ensured by measures of state coercion. Such measures of state coercion include the establishment of the possibility of bringing convicts for failure to comply with their duties to legal liability of various types (disciplinary, material, criminal). The analysis of the legal nature of the legal duties of convicts testified to their two-element content (structure), namely: first, it is the need to take certain actions (positive duties); secondly, the need to refrain from performing statutory actions (negative duties). The article establishes that the activity of the colony staff to control the observance of negative duties by convicts has not only a criminal-executive, but also a criminological aspect and is aimed not only at achieving the purpose of punishment and criminal-executive legislation, but also at preventing convicts from committing offenses (including criminal ones) while serving punishments. The social-legal conditionality of the imposition of legal duties on convicts sentenced to deprivation of liberty is given, the main function of which is a special-preventing (criminological). It is noted that one of the main differences between the duties of convicts and their rights is that failure to comply the first ones has undesirable consequences for a person – the fact of bringing convicts to legal liability, which is differentiated by disciplinary, material, criminal.

Imperfect Duties to Oneself

This chapter covers both the imperfect duties of natural and moral self-perfection and the positive duties of conscience and moral self-scrutiny—these latter duties partly constitutive of the duty of moral self-perfection. Regarding the duty of conscience, the following questions are addressed: 1. What is conscience—its nature and role in moral life? 2. How is conscience experienced? 3. Can it be mistaken? 4. What are the duties of conscience and how are they justified? 5. What is the connection between conscience and blameworthiness? The duty of moral self-scrutiny foregrounds the moral importance of sincerity and impartiality in assessing one’s moral character. The chapter also explores the fundamental duty of moral self-perfection and Kant’s puzzling claim that it is both narrow and perfect yet also wide and imperfect. Also discussed are Kant’s views on the ethical treatment of animals, concluding with remarks on Kant’s moral teleology.

On the Expressive Limits of Kant’s Universalizability Tests

My goal in this piece is to show that there is a problem lurking in the shadows of recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests and, further, to show that the most obvious way of fixing these attempts renders them unable to fulfill their function. I shall begin by motivating and explaining such an attempt.

18. Article 11: freedom of assembly and association

Without assuming prior legal knowledge, books in the Directions series introduce and guide readers through key points of law and legal debate. It discusses European Convention law and relates it to domestic law under the HRA. Questions, discussion points, and thinking points help readers to engage fully with each subject and check their understanding as they progress and knowledge can be tested by self-test questions and exam questions at the chapter end. This chapter considers Article 11 and relates it, in outline, to aspects of public order law in the UK. Article 11 protects the rights of people to ‘peaceful assembly’—to hold and take part in peaceful meetings, marches, and demonstrations. Related issues such as the notion of peaceful assembly and positive duties in respect of facilitating political action are discussed. Article 11 also guarantees the right to ‘associate’: to join and be active in ‘associations’ such as political parties, pressure groups, religious organisations, and trade unions. Both these rights are subject to restriction under the terms of Article 11. The importance of Article 11 rights for democracy is fully recognised, and any restrictions must be consistent with the principles of tolerance and pluralism. Article 11 also permits significant restrictions on the political freedom of police, civil servants, and other public officials.

Vaccine Equity

COVID-19 has shown that today the world is more interconnected, yet it is more hierarchical and stratified riddled with disproportionate systemic structural socio-economic inequalities. The global humanitarian disaster has highlighted the despair state of human rights affairs across the planet. It has exposed the supremacy of the neoliberal, nationalist paradigm that is deeply entrenched affecting the poorest of the poor. The pandemic has also indicated how capitalism is eroding democratic values endangering the lives of billions. Today, the high-income countries and the pharmaceutical companies are advancing their strategic interest, whereas the persons in the middle and low-income countries are being deprived of their basic requirements. Inequities in vaccine distribution are obstructing the effective response to the pandemic at the global level. Discrimination in access to the vaccine is adversely affecting the marginalized. This essay argues for respecting human rights as global health justice and suggests for affordable, accessible, and quality vaccination and treatment to all in line with reasoning that health inequalities and cross border issues are morally and ethically troubling and therefore are morally justified. Based on positive duties to create conditions for the availability of health rights for all humans, it argues that no rich country or resourceful persons will be safe until the last person is safe. These moral duties, in turn, generate duties of cooperation and obligations at international and domestic levels to better align with values in line with the principles of global health governance. Leaving a large section of the population in the Third world behind is not going to eliminate the threats of the spread of the epidemic.

Wild Animals and Duties of Assistance

Is there a moral requirement to assist wild animals suffering due to natural causes? According to the laissez-faire intuition, although we may have special duties to assist wild animals, there are no general requirements to care for them. If this view is right, then our positive duties toward wild animals can be only special, grounded in special circumstances. In this article I present the contribution argument which employs the thought that the receipt of benefits from wild animals is one such kind of special circumstance. If this argument is correct, then the circle of moral agents required to assist some wild animals is significantly widened.