Punishing wars of aggression: conceptualising Nazi State criminality and the US policy behind shaping the crime against peace, 1943-1945

This paper refocuses attention on what has been seen as one of the most important limbs of the Nuremberg Charter – the crime against peace, or aggressive war. It looks at the legal and political dimensions that motivated such a characterisation by figures behind the debate, and the various, at times uncertain steps, in bringing forth the designation based on breaches of the Kellogg–Briand Pact within the milieu of other traditional offences. Particular attention is given to the philosophical underpinnings of the crime against peace regarding individual German guilt, notably members of the Nazi leadership, with an examination of influences that proved critical in creating a punishable crime at international law. This paper argues that, despite being of continuing interest to civic groups, such an offence continues to trouble legislators and lawyers, rooted as it is in the focus on war as itself criminal.     

The ICC pre-trial chamber decision on jurisdiction over the situation in Myanmar

The transfer and deportation of ethnically Rohingya people from Myanmar into Bangladesh is a crime against humanity demanding an international response. What role, however, should the International Criminal Court (ICC) play? On 6 September 2018 an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that the Court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute such crimes as they are completed on the territory of a State party, Bangladesh. Myanmar is not a party to ICC Statute and has invoked the principle that treaties do not bind third parties without their consent. The case put in this commentary is that while the Pre-Trial Chamber’s approach to the law was arguable as an interpretation of the ICC Statute, it was unwise as a matter of policy. The argument is threefold. First, the Pre-Trial Chamber’s ruling is as a matter of legal method only the first-move in a process of norm-creation and persuasion. Second, it does not follow that because territorial jurisdiction in international law includes ‘objective’ jurisdiction over transboundary acts completed on a State’s territory that such jurisdiction was delegated by member States to the ICC in all cases. Finally, it is argued that international criminal tribunals do not succeed when the cooperation of necessary territorial governments (here, Myanmar) is withheld. Proceeding in this case risks becoming a quagmire of the ICC’s own creation at a time when it can little afford further risks to its legitimacy.     

建国初期"联苏抗美"国防战略思路论析

建国初期"联苏抗美"的国防战略是"一边倒"外交战略的延伸,但不能将两者混淆。"一边倒"外交战略着眼点在于社会制度的一致和意识形态的价值取向,"联苏抗美"的国防战略着眼于国家安全和国防巩固,它的提出既有历史经验的因素,更取决于新中国国家安全环境;它经受了历史的检验,证明是一个符合当时新中国国家安全利益的正确的决策,应给予充分的肯定。     

HISTORY AS PHILOSOPHY

Historians have taken a beating in recent times from an array of critics troubled by our persistent unwillingness to properly theorize our work. This essay contends that their criticisms have generally failed to make headway among mainstream historians owing to a little noticed cognitive byproduct of our work that I call history as philosophy. In so doing I offer a novel defense of professional history as it has been understood and practiced in the Anglophone world over the last half‐century or so while suggesting, in conclusion, that historians could not do other than they do without serious psychic and societal loss.     

The Science of Empire: Darwinism,Human Diversity,and Russian Physical Anthropology

Summary : The article explores deployment of the Darwinian narrative of the “natural history of humanity” in Russian physical anthropology in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. It traces two narratives developed by the leading Russian school of physical anthropology: one narrative advanced a universalist vision of collective scholarly enterprise working toward clarifying the missing links in the a priori accepted developmental evolutionary model. The other constructed a new language that undermined the idea of species/subspecies/races/nations/ as stable, externally bounded, and internally homogeneous units and attempted to rationalize imperial hybridity. The article's main focus is on the latter classificatory narrative, its relational methodology, and the protostructuralist units of comparison that it produced.     

International law and ‘humanity’ in the making and unmaking of European solidarity, 1830–1915

Abstract

The Janus-faced character of nineteenth-century Europe presents unique challenges to historians. Concurrent to spiralling industrial growth, working-class revolts, transatlantic migration and imperialism, the stark social and economic upheaval of the period has virtually belied the solidarity achieved on the Continent. In recent years, however, a number of superlative scholarly studies have excavated and illuminated the intellectual, legal and technological revolutions that ushered in an era of promise and potential unity. In this article, the author examines the degree of interdependence and interconnectedness across the Continent and the world by melding extant scholarship, introducing primary-source research, and offering new perspectives on the relationship of the increasingly globalized world and the European efforts to harness its potential by attempting to create lasting norms for peace and prosperity through international law and the benchmark concept of ‘humanity’.     

制约缺位：苏联政体的陷阱——陈独秀晚年对社会主义民主的思考

陈独秀晚年对前苏联的政治体制进行过冷峻的思考.他的结论是:斯大林的个人独裁,斯大林对民主的粗暴践踏,根本原因不在于他"个人心术特别坏",而在于政体存在严重弊端--最高统治者手中的权力缺乏起码的制约;是独裁制造就了独裁者,而绝非相反.陈独秀晚年对社会主义民主的思考,是独到的,具有前瞻性的.他明确地告诫人们:社会主义革命后建立的"民主政权",离真正的民主自由制度还差十万八千里;不吸收、借鉴资本主义时代的政治文明机制,不搭建权力分立、监督、制衡框架,不真正确立和完善民主选举、民主决策、言论自由等等具体的制度和程序,社会主义民主必然有其名而无其实,个人集权专断的悲剧便难免重演!陈独秀晚年的这些思考和见解,不仅在20世纪已经得到了验证,在刚刚迈入门槛的21世纪,依然具有现实的启示意义.     

北赵晋侯墓出土叔 方鼎铭文研究

本文分四段：(1)叔 方鼎铭文释文。(2)叔 是第二代晋侯之名,(M114)之墓主即叔 。(3)铭文所提示的历史事件。(4)附记：十四月。唐叔虞是武王之弟。     

司徒美堂与抗日战争

美洲著名爱国侨领司徒美堂为祖国抗战做出了重大的贡献。他从九一八事变后即率先投身于抗日救亡运动,积极声援自发奋起抗战的国民党官兵;全国抗战爆发后,他出任抗日救国侨团的首领,带领广大华侨开展抗日救亡活动;他万里迢迢回国慰劳抗日军民,为祖国抗战出计献策,在途经香港陷入日军魔掌的危险时刻,表现出了铁骨铮铮的民族气节;他团结美洲洪门侨胞,报效祖国抗战,使这一古老的帮会组织焕发青春;他呼吁祖国团结抗战,反对妥协投降,有力地维护了国共合作抗战的大局。他是广大华侨抗日救国的领袖和楷模,其爱国思想在支援祖国抗战中进一步得到升华。     

关于加强党风廉政建设的几点思考

党风廉政建设是执政党建设面临的重大课题。深入分析现阶段反腐败斗争存在的主要问题,积极探索新形势下惩治和预防腐败的有效对策,以切实改进党的作风和着力加强反腐倡廉建设,是全党必须始终抓好的重大政治任务。