Local Disputes Research Articles

A Study on the Improvement of Methodologies for Establishing a Vulnerability Classification of Chemical Terrorism in Public Facilities

Chemical terrorism using toxic and flammable gases, which could be fatal to the health of the human body, poses a serious threat to the security of most advanced countries, as well as those that are suffering from local disputes, due to the asymmetric information that exists between terrorist actors and victims. The countermeasures against chemical terrorism can be roughly divided into three stages: prevention, response, and probation. The critical factors for each professional response agency, and the personnel that determine the degree and range of chemical terrorism damage, are performing missions successfully in the process of the prevention and the response stage against chemical terrorism. To do this, conducting objective and systematical assessments on facilities that could potentially be the subject of chemical terrorism is more important than anything. In this study, we compared the existing domestic and foreign vulnerable classification systems for chemical terrorism, reviewed the current direction of improvement in domestic classification systems, and suggested more scientific and systematic methodologies through the vulnerability assessment on an actual public facility sample.

The Unintended Consequences of the Goldstone Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Organizations in Israel

Abstract Scholarly writings on internationally constituted commissions of inquiry (COIs), as outlined in the introduction to this symposium, give inadequate attention to the effects that they might have on local disputes that these bodies are often created to address. The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (2009), popularly known as the Goldstone Commission, had unintended and unforeseen consequences at the domestic level. Specifically, the Commission caused a severe backlash against human rights organizations in Israel (IsHROs). This article analyses the backlash against the Commission and the effect of that backlash on human rights organizations and human rights advocacy in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the first few years after the release of the Goldstone report. This case study reveals how a government can use a COI intervention in an ongoing conflict to deflect criticism against it and to delegitimize local human rights organizations and, as a result, to intensify enemy–friend dynamics within a conflict. The findings of this case study thus challenge the assumption of much of the socio-legal literature that the interaction of international human rights institutions with domestic actors leads to positive human rights change. But the case study also adds a new dimension to the academic and policy literature that has been critical of the international human rights enterprise in recent years. Despite delegitimization campaigns, international funding has increased for many IsHROs, and, eventually, some groups have become even more visible and have enjoyed, internationally, a higher reputation and greater credibility. The Commission’s experience thus demonstrates that the establishment of COIs in deeply divided conflict societies can have negative, as well as positive, implications on human rights.

The Role of Village Court for Local Dispute Resolution: A Study on Mullapur and Tukerbazar Union

The Role of Village Court for Local Dispute Resolution: A Study on Mullapur and Tukerbazar Union

Water, Justice, and Local Government in Turn-of-the-Century Xinjiang

AbstractHow local government worked in late-Qing and early Republican Xinjiang (1877-1918) in Turkic Muslim-majority areas remains largely a mystery, since the few available official records obscure the very relationships between Chinese magistrates and local powerholders that made government possible. This article uses documents from a brief period in the early Republic when the provincial government actively intervened in local disputes over water resources to explore the expectations of Muslim commoners and practices of Chinese officials. It argues that the boundaries established within the provincial system and the unsuccessful transformation of structures of authority and communication disrupted preexisting long-distance arrangements for water distribution.

Eleições municipais e crise nacional: disputas eleitorais no Brasil de 2016

Resumo O ano de 2016 foi marcado por uma eleição municipal em meio a uma das maiores crises política e econômica desde a redemocratização brasileira, no início dos anos 1980. Um dos partidos mais afetados pela crise nacional foi o Partido dos Trabalhadores, que estava no poder. Resta saber o quanto a visibilidade negativa do partido na arena nacional impactou nas disputas locais. O artigo pretende analisar os resultados das eleições de 2016 a partir de variáveis agregadas. Utiliza-se o índice de democratização para identificar padrões de democracia local e para associar o desempenho dos principais partidos a esses padrões. O objetivo é verificar que partidos conseguiram melhores resultados na atual conjuntura política. São analisados os desempenhos dos candidatos a vereador e a prefeito, nos 5.600 municípios do país.

Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in King's Cross in the 1980s.

In the 1980s, prostitution resurfaced as the object of feminist politics as second-wave activists grappled with Thatcherism, prostitute rights, tenant activism, anti-violence movements, and changes in the street sex trade and in policing. These conflicting imperatives converged on King's Cross, London. Events in King's Cross highlight some general trends, especially shifts in policing and in the geographic dispersal of the street sex trade. King's Cross also possessed singular features. It was the epicentre of street prostitution in London and the destination for hundreds of northern women migrating to the metropolis to sell sex. Intensified policing of the street trade provoked a heated neighbourhood dispute between council tenants and a media-savvy prostitute rights group. The year 1982 also marked a new configuration in local politics: the control of Camden Council by Labour Left and the formation of the Camden Women's Committee. In this challenging environment, newly elected municipal feminists in Camden set out to devise a feminist practice around prostitution. They found themselves embroiled in local disputes over public space, gender justice, policing, municipal progressivism, and resident action.

Cross(ing) the peace walls in West Belfast: imitation, exemplarity, and divine power

ABSTRACTThis article examines a series of spatial practices called ‘cross walks’ and ‘cross vigils’ undertaken by a Pentecostal Christian church in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. It discusses the ways in which cross walk and vigil participants used imitative practices to bring divine power to bear on the urban spaces and place-specific issues of the church's local area. The article begins by discussing the church itself, and the ways in which participants understand themselves as situated within the ethno-political designations of ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’ in Northern Ireland. It studies the various exemplars set up for the spatial practices in official discourse, and the ways in which these exemplars created a gendered narrative. Finally, it examines the links to Northern Ireland's parading tradition and the church pastor's suggested response to a local dispute over parade routes.

From Private Sin to Public Shame: Sir John Digby and the use of Star Chamber in Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, 1610

ABSTRACTBy analysing one Star Chamber case from 1610 relating to an allegedly forged bond, this article examines how the gentry used local disputes to defend honour, fashion identity, and enforce authority locally and in central government. The often aggressive prosecution of suits at law was designed to send out a strong message not just to those involved but also to fellow élites about ambition, reputation, and political potency. This article explores these themes through litigation pertaining to Sir John Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol, an ambitious younger son who rose to become one of James I’s chief advisers. The article argues that beyond the protection of his assets, Digby’s management of the case comprised three main aims: to fashion a political image at court; to assert his authority as a newcomer in the localities; and to establish a patriarchal stance within his household following his marriage to a propertied widow who was older than himself. It also demonstrates how legal records can supplement other research materials to build a fuller understanding of how individuals responded under duress and manipulated the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres to build power.

Modern Position of the Traditional Ngoni Leaders (сross-cultural Research Experience)

This article is devoted to analysis of public opinion regarding the activity and position of traditional leaders of the Ngoni ethnic community using data from sociological surveys of the Afrobarometer 2005–2015. Apart from the Ngoni respondents as monitoring category, Chewa, Yao, Nyanja, and Tumbuka people, whose languages are currently spoken by the majority of the Ngoni, were also integrated into the survey. First and foremost, in all the ethnic communities under consideration, democratic attitudes of the respondent’s majority are being revealed, since nepotism and autocracy were condemned. It is necessary to highlight the care towards the traditional leader’s political neutrality (they have to remain non-party, to receive salaries from the government and to serve on the local government council, participating in the elections for this). According to the fact, there is no ethnical specificity in the evaluation of the activities done by the traditional leaders as well as the elected politicians. The direction of the leader’s authority is rather limited: resolving local disputes and land distribution only. The Ngoni traditional leaders have credibility of high level, approval of their authority and influence that according to respondent’s expectations will increase in future. It is possible to predict that the borders between elected politicians and the Ngoni traditional leaders will gradually vanish. Maintaining self-identification of those who identify themselves as Ngoni to a greater extent than the performance of basic administrative functions by traditional leaders is facilitated by their activities in organizing cultural festivals and reviving Chingoni language.

Rationale for Access to Local Justice Systems: The Case of Village Court in Bangladesh

This article intends to highlight the rationale for access to local justice mechanisms and village court that can play a significant role towards access to justice for the rural community in Bangladesh. The paper is basically based on the review of secondary materials. Previously the term ‘access to justice’ had only been perceived as an individual's possibility to get justice through legal bodies or legal representation. But now the meaning is more than that and has gained new forefront and quest in development agenda. It is obvious that access to local justice is now regarded as a fundamental instrument of ensuring human rights, good governance, inclusive and sustainable development as well as a process of tackling poverty, inequality, lawlessness and discrimination. Yet, the majority of the people in the globe, particularly developing economics have the dearth of access to formal courts. Moreover, the quest for access to justice in Bangladesh has historically rooted in the formal and informal structure of local justice mechanisms. The evidence suggests that the village court in Bangladesh is the only state-sponsored local justice system and is also believed that village court is the most accessible, affordable, convenient and viable opportunity for grassroots community as opposed to the formal judicial process. Despite having drawbacks, village court has been playing a significant avenue of the marginalized people for access to justice and a mechanism in settling petty local disputes and helps the formal judicial system to lessen its workloads. Therefore, the article concludes that access to local justice mechanism is needed to promote and tackle broader structural, social and economic issues of the country.

A Kingdom Divided: Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era by April E. Holm

Reviewed by: A Kingdom Divided: Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era by April E. Holm Nathaniel Wiewora (bio) A Kingdom Divided: Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era. By April E. Holm. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Pp. 288. Cloth, $47.50.) How does a religious group remain in the world, but not of the world? This question drives April Holm's study of the ways that evangelicals in the Border States negotiated the crises of the Civil War era. Examining the three largest evangelical denominations—Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians—she traces how these groups worked out the relationship between religion, morality, and politics in a contested region. Holm's main historical contribution is uncovering the way these Border evangelicals made it their business to avoid conflict by separating religion and politics. They fashioned a theology of spirituality and political neutrality that argued that politics had no place in the pulpit. This politics of spirituality, she argues, influenced actions before and during the war, and this desire to avoid conflict decisively shaped the evangelical landscape after the war. Evangelical Protestantism had exponential growth in the western part of the United States during the Second Great Awakening. Holm writes in a nuanced fashion about how the importance of the West in the evangelical imagination led to an intense period of institution building that left these three evangelical denominations strong but resulted in unexpected consequences. Border evangelicals began to conceive of themselves as [End Page 599] distinctive from eastern evangelicals, with different needs and separate institutions. The quick growth of evangelicalism in the west was also brittle, leaving evangelical churches vulnerable to fracture. As northern and southern churches increasingly associated with their region during the Secession Crisis, regional identification with the West broke down amongst Border evangelicals. These churches faced internal conflict over church property and ministerial selection. The discord in the years leading up to the Civil War primed evangelicals in the border region to create a theology of conflict avoidance in response to the ways that local disputes damaged congregations and disrupted worship. Holm finds that Border evangelicals blamed outsiders for these disputes. Border evangelicals believed the problem was that both of these groups tried to answer the question of what to do about slavery in theological terms, while they believed it was a fundamentally political question. Border evangelicals thus concluded debates over slavery were incompatible with preserving unity in the church. Border evangelicals conceived of their theology of spirituality and political neutrality as a morally superior choice, according to Holm. In one of the most fascinating parts of the book, she traces how Border evangelicals took this theology into the Civil War. Holm finds that many Border evangelicals rejected northern admonitions and requirements to show loyalty through patriotic sermons, displays of the U.S. flag in church buildings, and prayers for the victory of the Union Army. She sees their attempts to separate church from state as impossible. The choice to remain neutral was itself a political action that chose ecclesiastical unity over racial equality. Political neutrality also became untenable because of Union military victories and the pressure of these loyalty tests. Union officials transferred property from disloyal to loyal ministers, making it difficult to be a neutral worshipper. This theology of spirituality and political neutrality drove Border evangelicals away from the North in the postwar period as efforts to secure their loyalty broke down outside of the explicitly political realm. Northern evangelical churches sent missionaries to the South and to the Border States during and after the war to establish churches for both African Americans and white Americans. These missionaries preached that the Union victory was providential as they rebuilt churches, demanding a kind of spiritual loyalty. Holm underscores how Border [End Page 600] evangelicals found these efforts more infuriating than those imposed by secular authorities. Holm's final contribution is tracing the ways this theology of spirituality and political neutrality affected reunion and memory during the post-war period. Border evangelicals joined southern churches because they accused northern churches of mixing religion and politics through the promotion of abolition. Southern evangelical churches embraced Border evangelicals because they offered monetary and...

A Study on the Activation Plan of Local government dispute mediation committee

A Study on the Activation Plan of Local government dispute mediation committee

Poder y crisis. Ciclos de explotación y no-explotación minera en Cerro de San Pedro, México, y sus ecos contemporáneos (1950-2009)

El siguiente artículo indaga cómo algunos segmentos de la población de Cerrode San Pedro, pueblo minero del centro de México, percibieron la alternanciade marcados ciclos de explotación y no-explotación de los yacimientos mineralesde la zona entre 1950 y 2009. Para ello, se transcriben fragmentos deentrevistas realizadas entre 2007 y 2009 con miras a analizar de qué maneralos habitantes de la región explican, a los demás y a sí mismos, estos ciclos que,atados a la economía mundial, los afectaron durante todo el siglo XX. Además,teniendo en cuenta la problemática actual de Cerro de San Pedro, inmerso enun conflicto relativo a la oposición a la minería de oro a cielo abierto, se evalúaqué elementos de una supuesta “tradición minera” tienen peso en las disputaslocales contemporáneas.

Condições de emergência dos sem-terra em meio a reconfigurações do espaço estancieiro no Rio Grande do Sul

The objective of this article is to analyze the symbolic disputes around the legitimacy of the struggle for land in the context of a region historically constituted by ranching domains in Rio Grande do Sul (RS). Our intention was to comprehend the structural conditions leading to the insertion of social agents identified as landless in the space of relations established by the former inhabitants from the municipalities of that region, especially in a scenario that, since the 1980s, has been one of crisis for ranching reproduction based on the sale of meat. We opted for an analytical approach privileging social mobilization processes that tookplace between 2003 and 2008 in São Gabriel, RS, which preceded the implementation of rural settlements in the municipality. We analyzed action repertoires articulated in a setting of agrarian conflict composed basically of rural employers, rural social movements and the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), besides the interventions of other agents like the press and the Public Prosecutor ́s Office. It is argued that the state of tension that permeated such struggles around São Gabriel and that negatively marked the landless as people "coming from outside" is a tributary of the structural conditions found in the social space, which restricted the emergence of local disputes over the land tenure regime. Methodologically, this articleis constituted by documentary analysis of official INCRA/RS processes, publications in the local press and books regarding the events of the period which were written by legitimate spokespersons of the landless people and of the rural producers.ZANELLA, Francis Casagranda e Marcos Botton Piccin. Condições de emergência dos sem-terra em meio a reconfigurações do espaço estancieiro no Rio Grande do Sul. Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura, junho de 2018, vol. 26, n. 2, p. 285-308, ISSN 2526-7752.

Prácticas políticas de los sectores populares en Río de Janeiro: urbanización de la favela Santa Marta

Este artículo analiza las prácticas políticas de los habitantes de las favelas de Río de Janeiro a partir de un trabajo de campo etnográfico realizado entre los años 2010 y 2015 en la favela Santa Marta. La política es comprendida aquí en su sentido más amplio, es decir, como el ámbito donde se gestionan los desacuerdos y se construyen los consensos por los cuales regirse colectivamente. Investigar las prácticas referidas a este espacio implica indagar los mecanismos que subyacen a la construcción del sentido de lo legítimo y lo posible, así como de los caminos para llevar adelante estas disputas. Específicamente este trabajo estudia cómo se organizan los habitantes de este territorio para llevar adelante sus reivindicaciones en un contexto marcado por los proyectos de urbanización de las favelas y qué características tiene la relación que entablan estas organizaciones con el Estado.

Rituals and spaces in innovative courts

ABSTRACTInnovative justice forums form a small but important part of the justice landscape in Australia and elsewhere. These include many civil and protective tribunals, local dispute centres, special purpose courts like drug or Indigenous courts, restorative justice conferences and – particularly relevant to this special issue –neighbourhood justice centres. Innovative forums like these are designed to be problem-solving: the focus is on achieving outcomes that resolve the underlying issues. While the substantive results of any legal process are obviously important, one of the most ‘innovative’ features of innovative forums is the way they carry out their tasks. This paper examines the rituals and spaces of three innovative forums, examining in detail one case study from each: a Koori court hearing in a suburban Melbourne court, a family group conference in a suburban house in Dunedin, and a youth court preliminary hearing in the chambers of a juge des enfants in Paris. A comparison of the three hearings allows us to analyse the way spaces are managed and furniture organised, how authority is symbolised, how opening, closing and transitional ceremonies are arranged, and what sort of subjects are produced in the process.

Polycentric organizing and performance: A contingency model and evidence from megaproject planning in the UK

This study sheds light on polycentric forms of organizing and corresponding performance implications. Organizations with a polycentric architecture supplement their internal hierarchical decision-making structures with egalitarian, local structures in order to encourage collaboration with legally independent stakeholders. We ground our study on the planning stage for four capital-intensive infrastructure development projects (megaprojects) in the UK. We first establish that megaproject planning is carried on by polycentric organizations. We show that in this form of organizing the promoter has decision-making authority over the high-order choices, but shares the authority over the local choices with groups of autonomous stakeholders. We also show how this organizational architecture addresses local disputes and pressures to relax performance targets. Our main contribution is a contingency model that proposes four conditions linking performance to polycentric organizing, whether or not: i) the institutional environment empowers an ‘umpire’ to referee disputes; and ii) the system leader can mobilize substantial slack resources to reconcile conflicting interests. We argue that the four conditions reveal very different classes of managerial problems, and draw implications for practice and policy including but not limited to megaprojects.

Land Control, Authority and Political Economy, and a Planned Petroleum Infrastructure Project in Timor-Leste

Land in Timor-Leste had been a subject of national importance even before the government first announced a planned petroleum infrastructure ‘mega-project’ in 2009, the ‘Tasi Mane’ project, on the country’s south coast in Suai, Betano and Beaco. This project has brought again into sharp relief the question of land and its control. Much recent work has focussed on ‘land grabs’ or how foreign capital and the state have played a significant role in dispossessing smallholders of arable land in other settings. This paper highlights three aspects which are inherent in the process of control. First, authority lies at the heart of land control alongside political-economic factors that lead to relocation of residents from land in project areas. Second, problems of recognition of land rights in project areas have led to more strident claims to authority locally. This issue I demonstrate by showing the historical legacy of two communities that occupy Beaco land. Third, the case study of the two communities sheds light on the social relations inherent in local property relations and subsequent disputes catalysed by contests over land control.

The Challenge of Legal Pluralism: Local Dispute Settlement and the Indian-State Relationship in Ecuador By Marc Simon Thomas, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Press, 2017. 266 pp. ISBN: 978-1472480576, £110.00

The Challenge of Legal Pluralism: Local Dispute Settlement and the Indian-State Relationship in Ecuador By Marc Simon Thomas, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Press, 2017. 266 pp. ISBN: 978-1472480576, £110.00

Review of The Challenge of Legal Pluralism. Local dispute settlement and the Indian-state relationship in Ecuador, by Marc Simon Thomas

The Challenge of Legal Pluralism. Local dispute settlement and the Indian-state relationship in Ecuador , by Marc Simon Thomas. Routledge, 2016