Property Rights versus "Public Necessity": A Perspective on Emergency Powers and the Supreme Court

Chief Justice Earl Warren once wrote that a free government is continuously "on trial for its life." ¹ And never are the foundations of constitutional liberties more fragile than in periods of emergency, when government invokes extraordinary powers. Invariably, emergency powers involve the immediate curtailment of some rights; at their extreme in martial law, they can warrant an entire suspension of normal civilian governmental functions, as well as full suspension of due-process guarantees. ² Once the constitutional fabric has been stretched to accommodate urgent public necessity in such situations, moreover, restoration to its earlier condition is not automatic or inevitable. On the contrary, as Justice Robert Jackson presciently warned, once the Supreme Court validates as constitutional the abridgement of essential rights during an emergency—and especially when the Court does so in relation to "the vague, undefined and undefinable 'war power'"—any principle that is thus articulated to justify such emergency action "then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need." ³     

Conservative Philanthropists,Royalty and Business Elites in Nature Conservation in Southern Africa

Abstract: The article investigates the increasingly important connections between the private sector and nature conservation agencies. It looks specifically at the connections between two important philanthropists, the late Anton Rupert, a South African business tycoon, and the late Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands. Both have been highly successful in raising funds for nature conservation, and marketing the idea of transfrontier conservation. This paper explores the networks they formed and were part of to try and explain how they were able to do so. It also attempts to analyse how their donations and fund raising have shaped thinking about nature conservation in (southern) Africa.     

Recovery of DNA from archaeological insect remains: first results,problems and potential

We report the recovery of short fragments of PCR amplifiable ancient DNA from exoskeletal fragments of the grain weevil Sitophilus granarius (L.) extracted from Roman and medieval deposits in Northern England. If DNA preservation in archaeological insect remains is widespread then many applications in the spheres of evolutionary studies and archaeology can be conceived, some of which are outlined.     

Reaping the rewards: the potential of well designed methodology,a comment on Vardi et al. (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716–1724) and Goodale et al. (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192–1201)

The recent articles by Vardi et al., “Tracing sickle blade levels of wear and discard patterns: a new sickle gloss quantification method” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716–1724), and Goodale et al., “Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192–1201), are two papers that seek to address interesting archaeological questions through the development of new approaches to measuring the duration of stone tool use. Here comment is made on the fashion in which research design and analytic procedures contribute to limit the capabilities of each of the techniques presented. Whilst the authors support the investigation of novel techniques, in order for the results of any use-wear analysis to be accepted as reliable the methods employed must be demonstrably sound.