In this article, the author will question the seemingly obvious boundary between civil disobedience, as conceptualised by Rawls and Arendt, and several examples of criminal, or simply annoying, activities which don't meet their criteria, such as the case of the ‘Top 50'. The ‘Top 50' are multi-problem Dutch-Caribbean men, who refuse to adapt to predominant norms in Dutch society. IThe author argues that political aspects of their behaviour should be acknowledged, even if they engage in criminal behaviour and don't present explicit political goals. Firstly, she questions the way in which Rawls based his definition on a centralistic conception of governmental power and contrast it with Foucault's conception of normalising power, in which power is diffuse and cannot be restricted to the enactment of formal laws. Secondly, she discusses what the minimum requirements are to be able to classifyacts as civil disobedience. Rawls and Arendt draw a clear line between criminal behaviour and civil disobedience, but their requirements may be too strict. We might miss signals of injustice if actions that do not meet these criteria are excluded from the political discourse. The conclusion is that comparing Arendt's and Rawls' conception of civil disobedience with the behaviour of a marginal migrant group may be useful in questioning the boundaries of this concept and in making it more inclusive. A wider conception of civil disobedience may help to explain the meaning of deviant behaviour in terms of social critique and to challenge the traditional understanding of civil disobedience.
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The main hypothesis underlying this article is that although arbitrators are not formally part of national justice systems, they have dealt with questions of EU fundamental rights and the European rule of law standards for quite some time, at least formally since the landmark CJEU judgment in Eco Swiss in 1999. In fact, in all forms of arbitration, be it national or international, taking place in or across (Member) States daily and not necessarily concerning the application by arbitrators of EU law stricto sensu, arbitrators can be seen as guardians of many crucial procedural guarantees that increase parties’ access to justice and advance the European rule of law, or so we wish to argue. This article is an exploratory piece. That is, it combines the format of the state-of-the-art review with the format of conference proceedings through which we present the main activities of the DG Justice TRIIAL project concerning arbitration. Our main goal is three-fold: (1) to advance the discussion on the relationship between the European rule of law and arbitration, (2) to present the main findings stemming from research and training activities within the TRIIAL training workshops on arbitration, and (3) to formulate future research and practical questions on the topic at hand.
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Accurate and reliable decision-making in the criminal justice system depends on accurate expert reporting and on the correct interpretation of evidence by the judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers. The present study aims to gain insight into the judiciary's capability to assess the accuracy and reliability of forensic expert reports by first examining the extent to which criminal justice professionals are able to differentiate between an accurate (or sound) expert report and an inaccurate (or unsound) expert report. In an online questionnaire, 133 participants assessed both a sound and an unsound expert report. The findings show that, on average, participants were unable to significantly distinguish between sound and unsound forensic expert reports. Second, the study explored the influence of institutional authority on the evaluation of forensic expert reports. Reports that were not recognized as flawed—particularly those originating from well-known and reputable institutions—were subjected to less critical examination, increasing the risk of evaluation errors. These results suggest that the perceived institutional authority influences the assessment of forensic evidence. The study highlights the need for tools to support criminal justice professionals in evaluating forensic evidence, particularly when experts are unregistered. Recommendations include adhering to established quality standards, consulting counter-expert evaluations, improving courtroom communication, and enhancing forensic knowledge through training. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of critical evidence evaluation to reduce the risk of misinterpretation and wrongful convictions in the judicial process.
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Forensic reports use various types of conclusions, such as a categorical (CAT) conclusion or a likelihood ratio (LR). In order to correctly assess the evidence, users of forensic reports need to understand the conclusion and its evidential strength. The aim of this paper is to study the interpretation of the evidential strength of forensic conclusions by criminal justice professionals. In an online questionnaire 269 professionals assessed 768 reports on fingerprint examination and answered questions that measured self-proclaimed and actual understanding of the reports and conclusions. The reports entailed CAT, verbal LR and numerical LR conclusions with low or high evidential strength and were assessed by crime scene investigators, police detectives, public prosecutors, criminal lawyers, and judges. The results show that about a quarter of all questions measuring actual understanding of the reports were answered incorrectly. The CAT conclusion was best understood for the weak conclusions, the three strong conclusions were all assessed similarly. The weak CAT conclusion correctly emphasizes the uncertainty of any conclusion type used. However, most participants underestimated the strength of this weak CAT conclusion compared to the other weak conclusion types. Looking at the self-proclaimed understanding of all professionals, they in general overestimated their actual understanding of all conclusion types.
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This article examines the network structure, criminal cooperation, and external interactions of cybercriminal networks. Its contribution is empirical and inductive. The core of this study involved carrying out 10 case analyses on closed cybercrime investigations – all with financial motivations on the part of the offenders - in the UK and beyond. Each analysis involved investigator interview and access to unpublished law enforcement files. The comparison of these cases resulted in a wide range of findings on these cybercriminal networks, including: a common division between the scam/attack components and the money components; the presence of offline/local elements; a broad, and sometimes blurred, spectrum of cybercriminal behaviour and organisation. An overarching theme across the cases that we observe is that cybercriminal business models are relatively stable.
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This study seeks to explore the characteristics of cyber-organised crime (OC), and focuses on the criminal activities of cyber-OC groups, their modus operandi, the organisational structures, the ‘profiles’ of the involved offenders, and the characteristics of criminal investigation into these cases. For this purpose we will focus on the following research questions:1.Is organised crime involved in cybercrime? What kind of cybercrime do organised crime groups commit?2.How do organised crime groups use the Internet to commit ‘traditional crimes’?3.Does the Internet provide windows of opportunity for the development of new business ideas and for the identification and approaching of new targets?4.Does the Internet lead to structural changes in organised crime?5.Is cybercrime organised? How, why and when?6.How does the criminal investigation of (organised) cybercrime work in practice and which best practices and challenges can be identified?
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The principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) have evoked considerable debate in the practice of humanitarian support, particularly in terms of emerging tensions with sovereign (national) law. Drawing on organization studies, we examine the emergent strategies aimed at resolving the ambiguous legal context in which humanitarian support operations in a conflict context are embedded. Our analysis of two missions revealed two types of emergent strategies, namely network and negotiation strategies, differentiated by particular contextual dimensions. We extend the humanitarian law debate by showing the strategic interplay between the operational humanitarian context and international humanitarian principles, thereby connecting the fields of international law and organization science.
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The past two decades, a disproportionate growth of females entering the criminal justice system and forensic mental health services has been observed worldwide. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the background of women who are convicted for violent offenses. What is their criminal history, what are their motives for offending and in which way do they differ from men convicted for violent offenses? In this study, criminal histories and the offenses for which they were admitted to forensic care were analyzed of 218 women and 218 men who have been treated between 1984 and 2014 with a mandatory treatment order in one of four Dutch forensic psychiatric settings admitting both men and women. It is concluded that there are important differences in violent offending between male and female patients. Most importantly, female violence was more often directed towards their close environment, like their children, and driven by relational frustration. Furthermore, female patients received lower punishments compared to male patients and were more often considered to be diminished accountable for their offenses due to a mental illness.
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Full text via link. Project objectives Radicalisation research leads to ethical and legal questions and issues. These issues need to be addressed in way that helps the project progress in ethically and legally acceptable manner. Description of Work The legal analysis in SAFIRE addressed questions such as which behaviour associated with radicalisation is criminal behaviour. The ethical issues were addressed throughout the project in close cooperation between the ethicists and the researchers using a method called ethical parallel research. Results A legal analysis was made about criminal law and radicalisation. During the project lively discussionswere held in the research team about ethical issues. An ethical justification for interventions in radicalisation processes has been written. With regard to research ethics: An indirect informed consent procedure for interviews with (former) radicals has been designed. Practical guidelines to prevent obtaining information that could lead to indirect identification of respondents were developed.
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Snelle technologische ontwikkelingen bieden kansen voor de maritieme sector. Zij maken de scheepvaart efficiënter, veiliger en schoner. De techniek heeft regelgeving en professionals nodig die ook klaar zijn voor de toekomst. Het lectoraat Maritime Law voert praktijkgericht onderzoek uit op de scheidslijn van recht en (maritieme) techniek samen met studenten, docenten, het bedrijfsleven en kennisinstellingen.
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