Normative Objectives Research Articles

The ‘P-word’ in Indian juvenile justice: Toward a deeper understanding of legal rhetoric and practice

Although the Indian juvenile justice statute is rhetorically silent about punishment, nonetheless recognisably punitive ideas and practices remain ubiquitous. Standard interpretations do not go beyond legal analyses of the mismatch between discourse and practice. However, interviews with policymakers and practitioners arrayed throughout the juvenile justice field in India reveal the need for a nuanced and deeper understanding of legal rhetoric and practice. A more rigorous, qualitative analysis of penal practices foregrounds the interplay between a set of enabling factors that include, but are not limited to, social constructions of childhood deviance, and attitudes and interests of key juvenile justice actors. It also accounts for why Indian juvenile justice actors euphemise punishment as if it were an unspeakable ‘p-word’, while reinscribing punishment as a normal and normative objective to pursue.

The Vocabulary of Right Under the Indonesian Constitution: A Hohfeldian Analysis

This article demonstrates how the Indonesian Constitutional Court interprets the term ‘right’ when deciding issue-level questions involving constitutional doctrine. In doing so, we employ the Hohfeldian scheme that configures right into four different meanings of claim right, privilege, power, and immunity. By looking at the molecular configuration of rights in the context of freedom of religion, natural resource control, educational policies, and fair trial, this we contend that the right under the constitution is interpreted by the Court in a dynamic-yet-configured fashion. In this sense, ‘dynamic’ implies that the Court’s interpretation does not adhere to a fixed or consistent vocabulary, while ‘configured’ suggests that the vocabulary of right is fundamentally configured by both (1) non-relational liberty and (2) power that provides intervention, limitations, or even change over the nature of liberty into liability (i.e., duty to refrain from acting in a certain way). It is manifest that right is hardly expounded by the Court when the term is juxtaposed with any relevant governmental duties and powers. This demonstrates a judicial fabrication of a flexible legal concept used by the judicial authority to justify certain normative objectives.

Specification in the Soviet Law of Ensuring by the Court the Right of the Defendant to Protection in His Right to Questions in Interrogations

The object area of the study is the legal relations considered in the related normative construction of the principle of ensuring the right of the defendant to defense and his subjective right to questions in judicial interrogations, which arose on the basis of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR of 1960. As the main method, normative scaling is used, based on the axiom of the normative similarity of different-sized legal constructions (the normative principle of ensuring the right of the defendant to defense and a separate rule on the right of the defendant to questions in court interrogations). As a result of the study, the following conclusions are formulated. The implementation of the normative invariant that existed in the rule on ensuring the defendant’s right to personal defense by the court in the form of his use of questions during judicial interrogations did not have a complete concretization in the institute of questions during judicial interrogations. The large-scale normative object (the principle of criminal procedure) did not show full similarity in the rules on the questions of the defendant in judicial interrogations. The absence of a complete similarity between the principle of ensuring the right to defense and the defendant’s right to questions may indicate a conflict of laws in the bilateral structure of legal relations (the defendant has the right, and the court is obliged to ensure this right), the need to consider the application of a tripartite model of legal relations in the current criminal procedure law, in which the court»s duty will be presented differently.

Using Patient Preferences in Health Technology Assessment: Evaluating Quality-Adjusted Survival Equivalents (QASE) for the Quantification of Non-health Benefits.

Interest in using patient preference (PP) data alongside traditional economic models in health technology assessment (HTA) is growing, including using PP data to quantify non-health benefits. However, this is limited by a lack of standardised methods. In this article, we describe a method for using discrete choice experiment (DCE) data to estimate the value of non-health benefits in terms of quality-adjusted survival equivalence (QASE), which is consistent with the concept of value prevalent among HTA agencies. We describe how PP data can be used to estimate QASE, assess the ability to test the face-validity of QASE estimates of changes in mode of administration calculated from five published DCE oncology studies and review the methodological and normative considerations associated with using QASE to support HTA. We conclude that QASE may have some methodological advantages over alternative methods, but this requires DCEs to estimate second-order effects between length and quality of life. In addition, empirical work has yet to be undertaken to substantiate this advantage and demonstrate the validity of QASE. Further work is also required to align QASE with normative objectives of HTA agencies. Estimating QASE would also have implications for the conduct of DCEs, including standardising and defining more clear attribute definitions.

Rethinking constitutional ontology

Karl Loewenstein devised an ontological classification of constitutions based on his study of constitutional enactment and operation. His typology, which became particularly known in Europe and Latin America, offers valuable insights into the complex interplay between political power and constitutional norms. However, it falls short in establishing a comprehensive ontology of the nature and purposes of constitutions. Loewenstein’s factually-based or sociological approach inadequately defines constitutions ontologically. His typology lacks recognition of constitutions’ normative objectives. While Loewenstein acknowledged the need for refinement of his classification, there has not been a rigorous critique and reconstruction of his classification in terms of the normative presuppositions that it entails. In the current paper, I spotlight some fundamental shortcomings and propose necessary corrections to Loewenstein’s ontological classification of constitutions. I argue that Loewenstein overlooks the intrinsic relationship between constitutional normativity and factuality. A robust ontological classification must acknowledge that constitutions are both inherently factual and normative.

Affordable Housing – Challenges and Constraints for Local Governance in Canada

Housing and sustainable development is interdisciplinary research that requires cross functional knowledge-sharing to address operational and policy issues—limitations in understanding housing dynamics and policy design and implementation lead to unintended negative consequences. Policy development for affordable housing requires better conceptual understanding, determination of normative objectives and operational constraints, and the effectiveness of governance structure. This paper investigates operational and governance barriers to housing affordability in the Canadian context. The article adopted a key informant interview method to analyze qualitative feedback from technical and administrative experts from the municipalities across Canada. The study helped to understand the contextual challenges in housing affordability in Canadian municipalities. The study confirms that the weaknesses in governance structure, distribution of responsibilities, and allocation of resources limit municipalities' capacity to deal with housing affordability. Pro-growth objectives will not solve housing affordability challenges. It is important to adopt human centered and contextually relevant housing policies. To overcome operational constraints, municipalities need more significant provincial and federal financial and constitutional assistance to meet capacity challenges and to guide a unified approach to meet sustainability targets.

A Tension in Some Non-Naturalistic Explanations of Moral Truths

Recently, there has been some excitement about the potential explanatory payoffs the newish metaphysical notion of grounding seems to have for metaethical non-naturalism. There has also been a recent upsurge in the debate about whether non-naturalism is implausibly committed to some acts being wrong because of some sui generis piece of ontology. It has, in response, been claimed that once we have a clear enough picture of the grounding role of moral laws on non-naturalism, this is not (objectionably) so. This move, I argue, is inconsistent with certain constraints on what non-naturalist-friendly moral laws must be for them to do the explanatory work non-naturalism requires of them elsewhere. In other words, there is tension between the grounding reply to the supervenience objection and the grounding structure implied by some responses to the normative objection.

Thoughts on the excessive margins of criminal policy in the state of Chiapas: Case of incest

The evolution of current societies has brought with it the disuse of certain crimes that in the past were conceived with paramount importance in the framework of the healthy order of community life and social coexistence. The object of our deliberation, on this occasion, is the configuration of the criminal type of Incest in the criminal catalog in force in the State of Chiapas. This crime has been chosen as a model for analysis to ponder the trend towards punitive populism that, from our perspective, embraces the state Penal Code, by proscribing a behavior that expresses, with the greatest possible emphasis, the human right to sexual freedom of its practitioners and that is seen as prohibitive even though in special assumptions and hypotheses, it does not transgress any protected legal interest, except that of public morality and good manners. We intend to wield conclusive arguments, in use of sexual self-determination and the free development of personality, that give light to our local legislators so that, in the near future, the penalization conducive to these behaviors in certain specific contexts is suppressed and the normative object of other criminal types that are closely related to it is updated.

The limits of the just‐too‐different argument

AbstractAccording to moral non‐naturalism, the kind of genuine or robust normativity that is characteristic of moral requirements cannot be accounted for within a wholly naturalistic worldview, but requires us to posit a domain of non‐natural properties and facts. The main argument for this core non‐naturalist claim appeals to what David Enoch calls the ‘just‐too‐different intuition’. According to Enoch, robust normativity cannot be natural, since it is just too different from anything natural. Derek Parfit makes essentially the same claim under the heading of ‘the normativity objection’, and several other non‐naturalists have said similar things. While some naturalists may be tempted to reject this argument as methodologically or dialectically illegitimate, we argue instead that there are important limits to what the just‐too‐different intuition can show, even setting all other worries aside. More specifically, we argue that the just‐too‐different argument will backfire on any positive, independent specification of the distinction between the natural and the non‐natural. The upshot is that the just‐too‐different argument can show significantly less than non‐naturalists have suggested.

Tongue strength and endurance among typically developing children and children with idiopathic speech sound disorders in the United Arab Emirates.

Tongue strength and endurance in adults have been extensively studied, but data on these parameters in young children remain largely unavailable. This study aimed to collect normative objective tongue strength and endurance data from a pediatric population in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to examine the effects of age and sex on these parameters. This normative study included a total of 65 typically developing (TD; n = 36) children and children with idiopathic speech sound disorders (ISSDs; n = 29). The participants were assigned to four age groups (range: 3-8 years) and stratified by sex. Data on their tongue strength and endurance were collected using the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument. Tongue strength scores and endurance time increased with age in both the TD and ISSD groups. Sex had no statistically significant effects on tongue strength or endurance in either group. Furthermore, tongue strength and endurance time scores were higher in the TD group than in the ISSD group. The data obtained in this study would add important normative data to the database of standardized measurements for maximal strength and endurance scores in the pediatric population of the UAE. Future research is encouraged to collect additional data that can help healthcare professionals objectively evaluate children with feeding, swallowing, and speech sound production difficulties.

Literary accountability and the future of human rights protection

Human rights are increasingly described as in crisis. One reason for this is that existing legal accountability mechanisms cannot adequately deal with intricate and multilayered human rights violations that occur in vastly complex social contexts. Thus, if human rights are to continue to offer a widely accepted framework for thinking about (social) justice, we urgently need to revisit the very notion of human rights accountability in ways that allow for better protection as well as for a more ambitious normative project. This requires re-focusing the debate about human rights accountability on questions of human rights normativity. This article explores which roles literature can play in this regard. It proposes the notion of literary accountability as a conceptual device to (a) recenter the debate around the normative objectives of human rights accountability, (b) offer modalities for ensuring some form of responsibility attribution, notably where other accountability venues are closed or deemed insufficient, and (c) operate within the paradigm of legal accountability to push the boundaries of this paradigm. What each of these three manifestations of literary accountability have in common is that they foreground the need for a more forward-looking and multi-dimensional approach to accountability that seeks to reconnect the normative reality of human rights on one hand, with their imbrication in the concrete worlds of law, politics, and practicalities on the other.

Understanding the Unforeseen Consequences of an Incomplete Transitional Justice Ecology in the Philippines

The Philippines is not typically the focus of transitional justice (TJ) scholarship. Yet, it has had to deal with violent legacies pertaining to each generation of TJ and has installed several TJ initiatives in response to this. This has given rise to a densely populated TJ landscape, spanning different periods and regions and including both formal and informal initiatives within various TJ pillars. In spite of this plethora of initiatives, the Philippines can hardly be called a ‘successful’ case of dealing with violent legacies – with the recent election of Bongbong Marcos as the most striking example thereof. In this article I argue that this can be understood in light of the absence of a genuine TJ ecology: there has not been an encompassing approach in which various kinds of initiatives interact with each other based on intersecting normative objectives. I argue that the case of the Philippines holds broader lessons regarding the importance of a more ecological understanding of TJ.

All Containment and No Engagement: Australia's Contemporary Policy towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Australia's interactions with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), henceforth known as North Korea, have ebbed and flowed throughout their seventy‐five‐year history. In times of détente on the Korean Peninsula, Australia actively engaged North Korea and sought to facilitate its integration into the international system. However, during the recent détente in 2018–2019, Canberra broke with tradition and watched on as Trump, Moon, and Kim sought to negotiate a deal towards Pyongyang's denuclearisation. Why has Australia not followed its security partners and engaged, despite being an Indo‐Pacific middle power and an advocate for non‐proliferation? Answers to this question remain unknown in the international relations literature. Therefore, I conducted process tracing and identified seven “critical junctures” in Australia's relationship with North Korea while analysing its responses using middle power theory. Australia's preference for non‐engagement is due to a shift towards a “maximum pressure” policy reliant on sanctions, reducing incentives to engage. This stems from a normative objection to Pyongyang's violation of the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and limited material capabilities to persuade North Korea to denuclearise unilaterally. I aim to give an up‐to‐date account of Australia‐North Korea relations and draw attention to a neglected area in Australia's non‐proliferation policy.

Reducing Wild Animal Suffering Effectively: Why Impracticability and Normative Objections Fail Against the Most Promising Ways of Helping Wild Animals

ABSTRACT This paper presents some of the most promising ways wild animals are currently being helped, as well as other ways of helping that may be implemented easily in the near future. They include measures to save animals affected by harmful weather events, wild animal vaccination programs, and projects aimed at reducing suffering among synanthropic animals. The paper then presents other ways of helping wild animals that, while noncontroversial, may reduce aggregate suffering at the ecosystem level. The paper argues that impracticability and normative objections against reducing wild animal suffering fail against these ways of helping wild animals.

The Management of Uncivil and Hateful User Comments in Austrian News Media

ABSTRACT Almost every news media outlet in Austria offers a comments section on their websites and/or on their social media pages. A growing problem in these frequently used forums is the posting by some users of uncivil and hateful speech, which must be dealt with by the news media outlets and their community management. Based on 39 semi-structured interviews with community managers and journalist-moderators, this study indicates that the approach of Austrian news media outlets to user comments differs between their websites and their social media channels; the provision of space for user comments on websites seeks the normative objective of serving the community and promoting the formation and exchange of opinions, whereas comments sections on social media often follow commercial interests. Differences between news media are primarily due to the size of the community management teams and thus depend on human resources.

Disruptive accountability? Temporal regimes and social change in decolonization struggles in Belgium

AbstractTo address the legacies of colonialism, several former colonial states have implemented a range of initiatives commonly considered to belong to the domain of transitional justice (TJ). These contexts are, however, very different from those for which TJ was initially conceptualized. As such, the implementation of elements from the TJ toolbox in these decolonization struggles raises several questions, which this article seeks to address. One of these questions relates to how diverging temporalities affect central normative objectives of TJ, such as accountability. The Belgian case is used to explore how a more pertinent approach to transitional temporalities enables a ‘thicker’ understanding of accountability that re‐centres the debate around accountability's normative objectives in ways that are aligned with the objectives of decolonization struggles. I call this encompassing approach to accountability ‘disruptive accountability’ to underline the normative objective of disrupting harmful social structures and relations.

The normativity question in Quine’s naturalism: The context of the language learning situation

Quine has been charged with eliminating the normative dimension from his naturalized epistemology. The aim of the paper is to look at the role of empathy in Quine’s language learning situation, which in its simplest form is constituted by the parent-child relation. We will explore the normativity of the role of empathy thereof by exploiting the sociality of the language learning situation. Since the sociality of Quine’s notion of empathy is implicit, to explore the normativity expression thereof, we will examine the explicit sociality of Wittgenstein’s language learning situation–also constituted in its simplest form by the master-novice relation–and the normative character of it. By explicating the normativity of the calibrating role of the master and of rule following generally, we will parse the moral dimensions of the empathizing role of the linguist in Quine’s language learning situation. Finally, by examining the nature of normativity in empathizing, we will establish that the normativity of empathizing involved in Quine’s language learning situation is socially grounded without denying its individual dimension. We will conclude that the normativity objection against Quine’s naturalism thus stands refuted.

Die Geschichte(n) gefalteter Bücher. Leporellos, Livres-accordéon und Folded Panoramas in Literatur und bildender Kunst. [The (Hi)stories of Folded Books. Leporellos, Livres-accordéon, and Folded Panoramas in Literature and the Visual Arts.

Die Geschichte(n) gefalteter Bücher. Leporellos, Livres-accordéon und Folded Panoramas in Literatur und bildender Kunst. [The (Hi)stories of Folded Books. Leporellos, Livres-accordéon, and Folded Panoramas in Literature and the Visual Arts.

Gussied up tighty-whities: On decoration, stains and exchange

Due to the homoerotic undertones of male underwear ad campaigns and their representations of sexualized bodies, male underwear and their packaging are formative objects in the realization of one’s same-sex desire. Underwear often projects a gay male gaze and becomes a symbolic object charged with ethos, desire and shame. In this article, I expand on my own relationship and encounters with this formative object, informed by this broader landscape of representations. I present projects from my fibre-based art practice that consists of the transformation and embellishment of male underwear. I contextualize the act of hand-embellishing a mass-produced object as a powerful agent for adaptation and appropriation, and I explore the potential to formally queer this normative object. Finally, I mention a project in which I receive worn and stained male underwear that I embroider on before sending them back to their owner. Accompanied by conversations with their owners, I trace individuals’ unique and similar relationship with this object. I argue that these different creative practices, which hand-alter, adapt or re-create the underwear, interrupt normative consumption cycles and misuse of undergarment functionality and can create a space ‘for us’.

Responsible Innovation (RI) in the midst of an innovation crisis

The concept of Responsible Innovation (RI) occupies a central place in the discourse on science and technology, especially in the context of the European Union (EU) but also within academia. This concept is guided by the idea of steering science and technology towards societally desirable outcomes, particularly in response to normative objectives such as Sustainable Development Goals. Visions of RI typically propose that to innovate responsibly requires a permanent commitment to be anticipatory, reflective, inclusively deliberative, and responsive. They also emphasize the need for open access, gender equality, science education, ethical standard in conducting experiments, and democratic governance.However, the societal purpose of RI fundamentally conflicts with the imperative of maximizing economic growth inherent in today’s innovation climate. This conflict points to a crisis in which innovation struggles to serve public interests insofar private interests continue to be prioritized. The magnitude of this crisis is also reflected within the RI literature itself, where the political ambition to exceed the privatization wave is summoned to a techno-economic concept of innovation. This issue of NOvation – Critical Studies of Innovation brings into question to what extent innovation necessarily relates to the market, whether it is possible to develop an alternative concept of innovation that is separated from economic ends, and how we can conceptualize, for example, a political understanding of innovation. What really is innovation? While all seven contributions share the aspiration to critically reflect on these questions, they each offer a distinct and original perspective in discussing the relation between innovation, technology, politics, economics, and responsibility.