Innovation across cities

This paper examines the distribution of patenting activity across cities in the OECD, using a sample of 218 cities from 2000 to 2008. We obtain three main results. First, patenting activity is more concentrated than population and GDP. Second, patenting activity is less persistent than population and GDP, especially in the middle of the distribution. Third, in a parametric model, patenting does not exhibit mean‐reversion, and is positively associated with GDP and population density. Our results suggest that policymakers can influence the amount of innovative activity through the use of appropriate policies.     

“非遗”传承人权利保障机制地方法制评述:兼论“非遗法”的反思与完善

《中华人民共和国非物质文化遗产法》("非遗法")颁布实施以后,我国已就非物质文化遗产(非遗)传承人权利保障相关问题进行地方法制实践。这些地方立法不仅保留了"非遗法"相关规定之精华,同时亦在此基础上进行了创新。这些地方法制的做法不仅具有正当性,还具有诸多亮点和启示。为缓解非遗领域不同位阶法律适用冲突以及平衡、协调非遗传承人权利与义务之间关系,"非遗法"应就非遗传承人权利保障机制等问题进行规定,以最终实现非遗法律体系形式功能与实质功能的统一。     

Reflections on the First Meeting of the WAC Committee of Ethics

WAC needs to recognise that it is not a fully developed organisation but a developing one. There are standpoints or ways-of-thinking in the world which are difficult to perceive through the lens of different customs and/or languages and with which the people in WAC may not be familiar. In addition, we need to follow the laws under which we carry out archaeological activities, so that society can maintain public order. Therefore, when involved in an archaeological activity, we should collect as much information, and as wide a variety of standpoints, as possible, and we should act honestly with respect for law and for human life in the societies in which we work.     

Sexual citizenship in ‘the New Tasmania’

The state of Tasmania, the smallest in the Commonwealth of Australia, has recently reformed its law relating to relationships by amending over 100 pieces of legislation to include a range of relationships, including lesbian and gay partnerships, among those given recognition and legal entitlement. This government-sponsored legislation is represented as central to the program of economic revival, social reform and branding described as ‘the New Tasmania’. This article locates the relationship reform in this discourse of Tasmania's newness and in the context of neo-liberal approaches to globalisation. It argues that sexual citizenship takes a multitude of forms and its value, like the value of relationship reform legislation, cannot be easily determined. Indeed, it asks whether sexual citizenship as a form of belonging can ever be disentangled from the various contexts where it is performed. It concludes by privileging the desires and performances of sexual citizenship over the constitution of sexual citizenship in rights or recognition.     

张家山汉简《具律》的流变及“斩右趾”罪的弃市问题——读江陵张家山《二年律令·具律》札记

江陵张家山247号墓出土《二年律令》竹简中《具律》的发现对厘清失传已久的《具律》流变极有帮助。尤其是《具律》的筒明确记载了汉初肉刑的刑等及科罚,解决了帝时期废“斩右趾”肉刑为死刑的问题。     

Orthodox violence: “Critique of Violence” and Walter Benjamin's Jewish political theology

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology.     

Geographies of asylum, legal knowledge and legal practices

Law and legal discourses are an integral part of social life, a central means of producing social identities and exercising social power in day to day life. Critically informed geographical perspectives on law have illustrated in a number of ways how the legal and social (and therefore the spatial) are mutually constitutive. This paper argues that perspectives from critical legal geography can offer insights into the operation of asylum and immigration law in the UK in the late 1990s. This paper argues that legal practices and relations are organised in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic ways in different places and institutional contexts in London. In addition law and legal practices comprise a particularly important way in which ‘community’ can be constructed simultaneously across a variety of different scales in ways that can marginalise and exclude relatively powerless groups like asylum seekers. Thus refugee identities offer a particularly clear example of how social realities are constituted by law and legal practice.     

新中国成立初期中南区婚姻制度的改革

新中国成立前后,中南区由于长期受封建婚姻制度的束缚,各种陋俗在许多地方普遍存在,广大妇女的社会地位极其低下。1950年《中华人民共和国婚姻法》颁布施行后,中南区在全区范围内大张旗鼓地开展了一场宣传和贯彻《婚姻法》的群众运动,经过调查试验、宣传发动和总结表彰,彻底地摧毁了封建婚姻制度,建立起了新民主主义的新型婚姻制度,形成了男女平等、民主和睦的社会新风尚,从而促进了中南区整体性的社会文明与进步。     

边疆的概念与边疆的法律

本认为在中国古代,边疆的概念有其特定的化含义。不仅如此,边疆概念还有特定的、不同于西方以主权概念为中心的含义。边疆概念的这种特殊性质与中国古代特殊的、以汉化为主体的多民族国家的政治传统和多元一体的化格局有关,反映在中国古代的立法和司法制度上就是边疆的法律与边疆的概念和边疆的民族之间呈现出一种历史性的波动和相对稳定的统一。作从这一角度对之进行探讨,弥补了相关研究的不足。