Pub Date : 2022-09-26DOI: 10.1177/09646639221129107
Laura Lammasniemi
This article examines the origins of procurement offences and their historical development in England. Procurement offences were created in 1885 to tackle so-called white slavery, as trafficking in women was then sensationally called. Through an analysis of a series of lower-level and appeal cases heard between the years of 1885 and 1925 and their social context, this article dispels myths about procurement for prostitution as an international, organised crime, showing instead how it was localised and poverty driven. The article also shows how procurement transformed from a narrowly defined trafficking-related offence into a broadly applied sexual offence. It came to be used as a ‘catch-all’ sexual offence that had the potential to encompass various distinct offences, from trafficking, rape and child sex abuse to deceptive sex. The legal history of the procurement is of particular importance as deception and questions of conditional consent remain deeply contested in modern criminal law.
{"title":"Trafficking, Rape, or Deceptive Sex? A Historical Examination of Procurement Offences in England","authors":"Laura Lammasniemi","doi":"10.1177/09646639221129107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221129107","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the origins of procurement offences and their historical development in England. Procurement offences were created in 1885 to tackle so-called white slavery, as trafficking in women was then sensationally called. Through an analysis of a series of lower-level and appeal cases heard between the years of 1885 and 1925 and their social context, this article dispels myths about procurement for prostitution as an international, organised crime, showing instead how it was localised and poverty driven. The article also shows how procurement transformed from a narrowly defined trafficking-related offence into a broadly applied sexual offence. It came to be used as a ‘catch-all’ sexual offence that had the potential to encompass various distinct offences, from trafficking, rape and child sex abuse to deceptive sex. The legal history of the procurement is of particular importance as deception and questions of conditional consent remain deeply contested in modern criminal law.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86160090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-10DOI: 10.1177/09646639221124397
Irit Ballas
Both territoriality and political status serve as parameters for determining the extent of a state's obligation to uphold human rights. Scholars have shown that different actors may manipulate the scope of these parameters to serve their particular purposes. Based on interviews with lawyers from Israeli human rights organizations, this article shows how they also manipulate the relationships between these parameters. When representing different clients, lawyers from Israeli human rights organizations accentuate one parameter over the other, demand congruity between them, or reject both. The findings highlight how the movable intersections between territoriality and political status facilitate a multitude of discursive strategies from which lawyers can pick and choose, to address political predicaments they face in their praxis. Furthermore, by judiciously applying these strategies, lawyers are able to mobilize the indeterminate relationship between political status and territoriality to destabilize what they perceive to be the unjust boundaries promoted by the state.
{"title":"Territoriality and Status in Human Rights Litigation: The Case of Israel/Palestine","authors":"Irit Ballas","doi":"10.1177/09646639221124397","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221124397","url":null,"abstract":"Both territoriality and political status serve as parameters for determining the extent of a state's obligation to uphold human rights. Scholars have shown that different actors may manipulate the scope of these parameters to serve their particular purposes. Based on interviews with lawyers from Israeli human rights organizations, this article shows how they also manipulate the relationships between these parameters. When representing different clients, lawyers from Israeli human rights organizations accentuate one parameter over the other, demand congruity between them, or reject both. The findings highlight how the movable intersections between territoriality and political status facilitate a multitude of discursive strategies from which lawyers can pick and choose, to address political predicaments they face in their praxis. Furthermore, by judiciously applying these strategies, lawyers are able to mobilize the indeterminate relationship between political status and territoriality to destabilize what they perceive to be the unjust boundaries promoted by the state.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81851291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-06DOI: 10.1177/09646639221123028
M. Thomson
Health inequalities are a social injustice experienced globally. State action to address this has generally been insufficient, with inequities persisting, or - as in the case of the UK - worsening. This article contends that social epigenetics has a role in generating more robust state responses and makes two related arguments. First, it is argued that an epigenetic explanation of avoidable health inequalities has the potential to provoke change because it works within the gene paradigm. Second, epigenetics provides an opportunity to challenge a different paradigm, that of the liberal legal subject. This fictive figure has long impoverished understandings of harm and responsibility; including in the context of health inequalities. Martha Fineman’s model of the vulnerable subject is engaged as an alternative to this figure. The original and expansive articulation of the epigenetic landscape - an idea now significantly narrowed – is articulated as a space for an interdisciplinary exploration of the role of epigenetics in securing a state more responsive to inequalities.
{"title":"Health Inequalities: Law & the Pain of Others","authors":"M. Thomson","doi":"10.1177/09646639221123028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221123028","url":null,"abstract":"Health inequalities are a social injustice experienced globally. State action to address this has generally been insufficient, with inequities persisting, or - as in the case of the UK - worsening. This article contends that social epigenetics has a role in generating more robust state responses and makes two related arguments. First, it is argued that an epigenetic explanation of avoidable health inequalities has the potential to provoke change because it works within the gene paradigm. Second, epigenetics provides an opportunity to challenge a different paradigm, that of the liberal legal subject. This fictive figure has long impoverished understandings of harm and responsibility; including in the context of health inequalities. Martha Fineman’s model of the vulnerable subject is engaged as an alternative to this figure. The original and expansive articulation of the epigenetic landscape - an idea now significantly narrowed – is articulated as a space for an interdisciplinary exploration of the role of epigenetics in securing a state more responsive to inequalities.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86611060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-06DOI: 10.1177/09646639221124182
Kellie Turtle
Patnaik U and Patnaik P (2021) Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present. New York: Monthly Review Press. Rana A (2022) SCOTUS, politics, and the law w/ Aziz Rana, Amna Akbar, & Marbre Stahly-Butts. In: The Dig. Providence. Available at: https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/scotus-politicsand-the-law-w-aziz-rana-amna-akbar-marbre-stahly-butts/ (accessed 18 May 2022). Rasulov A (2008) ‘The nameless rapture of the struggle’: Towards a Marxist class-theoretic approach to international law. Finnish Yearbook of International Law 19: 243–294. Reynolds J and Xavier S (2016) ‘The dark corners of the world’: TWAIL and international criminal justice. Journal of International Criminal Justice 14(4): 959–983. Robinson C (2020) Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Smith J (2016) Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: The Globalization of Production, Super-Exploitation, and the Crisis of Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Táíwò O and Bright L (2020) A response to Michael Walzer. In: Dissent Magazine. New York. Available at: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-michael-walzer (accessed 18 May 2022). Thomas C (2022) International economic law and racialized “others”. AJIL Unbound 116: 113–118. Wolfe P (2016) Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race. New York: Verso Books.
{"title":"Book Review: Sexual Violence on Trial: Local and Comparative Perspectives","authors":"Kellie Turtle","doi":"10.1177/09646639221124182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221124182","url":null,"abstract":"Patnaik U and Patnaik P (2021) Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present. New York: Monthly Review Press. Rana A (2022) SCOTUS, politics, and the law w/ Aziz Rana, Amna Akbar, & Marbre Stahly-Butts. In: The Dig. Providence. Available at: https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/scotus-politicsand-the-law-w-aziz-rana-amna-akbar-marbre-stahly-butts/ (accessed 18 May 2022). Rasulov A (2008) ‘The nameless rapture of the struggle’: Towards a Marxist class-theoretic approach to international law. Finnish Yearbook of International Law 19: 243–294. Reynolds J and Xavier S (2016) ‘The dark corners of the world’: TWAIL and international criminal justice. Journal of International Criminal Justice 14(4): 959–983. Robinson C (2020) Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Smith J (2016) Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: The Globalization of Production, Super-Exploitation, and the Crisis of Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Táíwò O and Bright L (2020) A response to Michael Walzer. In: Dissent Magazine. New York. Available at: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-michael-walzer (accessed 18 May 2022). Thomas C (2022) International economic law and racialized “others”. AJIL Unbound 116: 113–118. Wolfe P (2016) Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race. New York: Verso Books.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90940280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-29DOI: 10.1177/09646639221123029
S. Brophy
Embedded in early debates about the transition to capitalism is the idea that law and legal relations play a pre-determined yet artificial role. While this reflects Marx's general claims about law and capitalism, the more that the legal sphere is held as the realm of fiction, the more that the economic sphere's association to the natural realm grows in concert. This undermines Marx's broader objective to interrogate the apparent naturalization of economic rationales in Capital I. In this essay, I dissect the notion of law as artifice not simply to displace the conceptual association between law and derivation, externality, or fakery, but to rethink the definitive transformation of labour compulsion as it is portrayed in the transition debates. Aided by Elleni Centime Zeleke's Ethiopia in Theory, I ascertain the Eurocentric limits of the early debates, and I recuperate a constructive notion of artifice in a way that does not treat law as a derivative phenomenon prone to stagist interpretations. This perspective informs my call for an approach to law and ‘transitions to capitalism’ that is less enthralled by law's mystifying force and more attentive to the material conditions of labour compulsion.
{"title":"Law and Transitions to Capitalism","authors":"S. Brophy","doi":"10.1177/09646639221123029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221123029","url":null,"abstract":"Embedded in early debates about the transition to capitalism is the idea that law and legal relations play a pre-determined yet artificial role. While this reflects Marx's general claims about law and capitalism, the more that the legal sphere is held as the realm of fiction, the more that the economic sphere's association to the natural realm grows in concert. This undermines Marx's broader objective to interrogate the apparent naturalization of economic rationales in Capital I. In this essay, I dissect the notion of law as artifice not simply to displace the conceptual association between law and derivation, externality, or fakery, but to rethink the definitive transformation of labour compulsion as it is portrayed in the transition debates. Aided by Elleni Centime Zeleke's Ethiopia in Theory, I ascertain the Eurocentric limits of the early debates, and I recuperate a constructive notion of artifice in a way that does not treat law as a derivative phenomenon prone to stagist interpretations. This perspective informs my call for an approach to law and ‘transitions to capitalism’ that is less enthralled by law's mystifying force and more attentive to the material conditions of labour compulsion.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81621920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-29DOI: 10.1177/09646639221122443
Francis L. F. Lee
Given a concern with legal repression of protests and based on the premise that judges inevitably draw upon common sense ideas in judicial decision-making, this article examines how understandings of protests, protesters and protest policing are embedded in verdicts in protest-related court cases. A textual analysis was conducted on judgements in 21 cases about rioting and incitement associated with three prominent protest events in Hong Kong between 2014 and 2019. The analysis shows that the assumptions of risk aversion and perceptiveness were applied to the protesters and onlookers, whereas the assumption of professionalism was applied to the police. How police actions might influence protesters was ignored. The emergence of protest violence was typically understood in terms of emotional contagion within the crowd. Overall, such ideas and assumptions substantially constrain protests, though they sometimes benefitted the defendants in individual cases. The findings illustrate the cultural underpinnings of legal repression of protests.
{"title":"Judges’ Understanding of Protests and the Cultural Underpinnings of Legal Repression: Examining Hong Kong Court Verdicts","authors":"Francis L. F. Lee","doi":"10.1177/09646639221122443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221122443","url":null,"abstract":"Given a concern with legal repression of protests and based on the premise that judges inevitably draw upon common sense ideas in judicial decision-making, this article examines how understandings of protests, protesters and protest policing are embedded in verdicts in protest-related court cases. A textual analysis was conducted on judgements in 21 cases about rioting and incitement associated with three prominent protest events in Hong Kong between 2014 and 2019. The analysis shows that the assumptions of risk aversion and perceptiveness were applied to the protesters and onlookers, whereas the assumption of professionalism was applied to the police. How police actions might influence protesters was ignored. The emergence of protest violence was typically understood in terms of emotional contagion within the crowd. Overall, such ideas and assumptions substantially constrain protests, though they sometimes benefitted the defendants in individual cases. The findings illustrate the cultural underpinnings of legal repression of protests.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80188463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-15DOI: 10.1177/09646639221118862
Hannelore Van Bavel
Postcolonial feminists and anthropologists have criticised anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) efforts for being ethnocentric and for imposing ‘Western’ values onto African communities. Recently, a Kenyan medical doctor has petitioned against Kenya's Prohibition of FGM Act, arguing that the Act is unconstitutional and the entrenchment of Western values. This article critically interrogates the allegation that African legislation against ‘FGM’ (FGM) embodies the culturally-imperialist imposition of Western values by empirically examining how Kenya's anti-FGM Act was produced and became contested. The findings show that international power hierarchies influence who can speak and what can be said about FGM. However, the findings simultaneously challenge the Africa/West and cultural relativism/imperialism divide present in some of the critiques of anti-FGM legislation and interventions. I argue that the notion of ‘imposition’ does not adequately capture the African agency and the transnational collaborations that went into both producing and contesting the Act.
{"title":"Is Anti-FGM Legislation Cultural Imperialism? Interrogating Kenya's Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act","authors":"Hannelore Van Bavel","doi":"10.1177/09646639221118862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221118862","url":null,"abstract":"Postcolonial feminists and anthropologists have criticised anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) efforts for being ethnocentric and for imposing ‘Western’ values onto African communities. Recently, a Kenyan medical doctor has petitioned against Kenya's Prohibition of FGM Act, arguing that the Act is unconstitutional and the entrenchment of Western values. This article critically interrogates the allegation that African legislation against ‘FGM’ (FGM) embodies the culturally-imperialist imposition of Western values by empirically examining how Kenya's anti-FGM Act was produced and became contested. The findings show that international power hierarchies influence who can speak and what can be said about FGM. However, the findings simultaneously challenge the Africa/West and cultural relativism/imperialism divide present in some of the critiques of anti-FGM legislation and interventions. I argue that the notion of ‘imposition’ does not adequately capture the African agency and the transnational collaborations that went into both producing and contesting the Act.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91228084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-15DOI: 10.1177/09646639221119361
M. Clemente
Focusing on the Portuguese case, this article explores the role of feminism in counter-trafficking. Through analysing feminist discourse on human trafficking, the article interrogates feminism's ability and its limitations in challenging or reinforcing some of the most controversial policy outcomes. The article argues that, due to a structural weakness within feminism itself and the profound institutionalisation of counter-trafficking, any possibility of challenging dominant discourses on trafficking remains a distant dream. Rather, counter-trafficking attempts ultimately help create a controversial neoliberal space that strains feminism's transformative potential while simultaneously strengthening bureaucratic state feminism.
{"title":"Feminism and Counter-Trafficking: Exploring the Transformative Potential of Contemporary Feminism in Portugal","authors":"M. Clemente","doi":"10.1177/09646639221119361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221119361","url":null,"abstract":"Focusing on the Portuguese case, this article explores the role of feminism in counter-trafficking. Through analysing feminist discourse on human trafficking, the article interrogates feminism's ability and its limitations in challenging or reinforcing some of the most controversial policy outcomes. The article argues that, due to a structural weakness within feminism itself and the profound institutionalisation of counter-trafficking, any possibility of challenging dominant discourses on trafficking remains a distant dream. Rather, counter-trafficking attempts ultimately help create a controversial neoliberal space that strains feminism's transformative potential while simultaneously strengthening bureaucratic state feminism.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83981625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-09DOI: 10.1177/09646639221118654
Livia Johannesson
The legal right to be heard by a judge is an important human right. However, what happens if a claimant does not meet the requirements of legal communication when given the opportunity to be heard in court? In this article, I address this question by exploring how temporal, spatial, and relational conditions encourage or silence vulnerable claimants’ voices in asylum hearings and compulsory psychiatric care hearings in Swedish administrative courts. In addition, I analyze the multiple functions orality has when judges make decisions in these case types. The results provide nuance to claims in previous studies about the importance of enough time, spaces that signal solemnity, and flexibility in judges’ approaches to vulnerable claimants’ voices by demonstrating how these conditions interact with each other and generate different communicative atmospheres. Moreover, this study challenges the idea that oral hearings are necessarily beneficial for claimants as it demonstrates that under certain conditions orality can place claimants at a disadvantage and amplify their defenselessness. However, orality brings legitimacy to court proceedings even in these cases as it communicates justice to the public evaluating these procedures from a distance.
{"title":"Silence and Voice in Oral Hearings: Spatial, Temporal, and Relational Conditions for Communication in Asylum and Compulsory Care Hearings","authors":"Livia Johannesson","doi":"10.1177/09646639221118654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221118654","url":null,"abstract":"The legal right to be heard by a judge is an important human right. However, what happens if a claimant does not meet the requirements of legal communication when given the opportunity to be heard in court? In this article, I address this question by exploring how temporal, spatial, and relational conditions encourage or silence vulnerable claimants’ voices in asylum hearings and compulsory psychiatric care hearings in Swedish administrative courts. In addition, I analyze the multiple functions orality has when judges make decisions in these case types. The results provide nuance to claims in previous studies about the importance of enough time, spaces that signal solemnity, and flexibility in judges’ approaches to vulnerable claimants’ voices by demonstrating how these conditions interact with each other and generate different communicative atmospheres. Moreover, this study challenges the idea that oral hearings are necessarily beneficial for claimants as it demonstrates that under certain conditions orality can place claimants at a disadvantage and amplify their defenselessness. However, orality brings legitimacy to court proceedings even in these cases as it communicates justice to the public evaluating these procedures from a distance.","PeriodicalId":47163,"journal":{"name":"Social & Legal Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74869778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}