It is commonly believed among criminal justice scholars that sentencing guidelines increase uniformity in sentencing at the cost of fairness. They reason that guideline systems rarely take all relevant case characteristics into consideration, and as a result, impose sentences in particular cases that are biased relative to the ideal or best sentence. This bias effect is one of the primary theoretical and practical challenges faced by courts and sentencing commissions in the last 30 years, and provides one of the strongest arguments against mandatory sentencing guidelines. This article identifies a second effect of guidelines on fairness, which has not been sufficiently acknowledged by the scholarly literature: the variance effect increases the fairness of sentences directly by increasing uniformity. This article uses statistical simulation to examine the relationship between the variance effect and the bias effect. The results provide substantial evidence that the variance effect is comparatively large, and that it may often outweigh the negative effects of bias. Under these conditions, sentencing guidelines will both increase uniformity and increase fairness.

After a dam was built in Central Java, Indonesia, farmers who elected to move to higher ground rather than resettle in a another region remain poor and practice agricultural techniques that promote soil erosion. Due to population pressure and the lack of arable land, displaced villagers are cultivating greenbelt areas and tidal lands around the reservoir, encouraged by the government, which granted them oral permission to do so in order to calm unrest generated by farmers' complaints over the meager monetary compensation they received for lands flooded by the dam. Although the government requires farmers to plant tree crops, villagers are also planting annual crops to meet daily food needs, thus promoting erosion and rapid silting of the reservoir.

Mbesuk ing rejaning zaman yen ono iwak bader mangan manggar iku pratanda tlatah kene bakal antuk kemakmuran

(Tomorrow, in modern times, when the bader fish eats coconut flowers, that is a sign that prosperity will come to this area)

The continuing controversy over property rights, which began with efforts at land reform in the constituent assembly, has gone on at two levels: that of the battle between government policy-makers and legislative draftsmen on the one hand and the bar and courts on the other; and that between shifting political forces in India—those pressing for reform and those resisting. The initial struggle, in writing the Constitution, centered on the fate of the traditional rights of zamindars and similar intermediaries (often absentee landlords) whose holdings were sometimes very lucrative and drew protest from the exploited tenants. The main questions at this time were: should there be compensation and if so how much; should this decision be left to the state legislatures or should it be justiciable; what safeguards should be created to prevent extreme legislative action; should other kinds of property receive full compensation if taken by the state; should there be a distinction between major social reforms and property takings for public use? Article 31 of the Constitution was the compromise formula and its ambiguities left the issue quite open.

Studies on international legal mobilization often analyze the mobilization efforts of activists at a single international court. Yet we know little about how activists choose among multiple international institutions to advance social justice claims. Drawing on comparative case studies of Turkish and British trade union activists' legal mobilization efforts and case law analysis, I show that activists, guided by their lawyers, probe multiple avenues to identify the legal institution with the highest judicial authority and is most responsive to activists' claims. Once they identify their target institution, the iterative process between a responsive court and activists' strategic litigation can build a court's jurisprudence in a new issue area, even if the court provides limited de jure rights protections. Activists primarily use international litigation strategy to leverage structural reforms at the domestic level and to set new international norms through precedents.

The controlled experiment is undoubtedly the ideal instrument for testing the effectiveness of a new rule of law or legal procedure: have one random half of the cases operate under the new rule, the other half under the old rule, and see what difference there is in the outcome.

Income tax laws are the primary motivation for many to learn and use the basics of accounting. Three stages of preparing tax returns—collecting records, organizing the information into tax and accounting categories, and abstracting the information on tax returns—successively draw individuals further into the culture of accounting. The issues raised during tax audits provide a window into the problems taxpayers have understanding and following accounting concepts and procedures. An analysis of the stages of return preparation provides insights into how issues are handled during audits and how the accounting skills of taxpayers may affect their outcomes. Data from a sample of state audits generally confirm the hypotheses and illustrate the grounding of taxpaying in accounting. Tax laws may draw individuals into this culture, but the information taxpayers collect and process to meet the needs of the government often, after the fact, has utility for the taxpayers themselves.

We are in the midst of a quickening, if inchoate, dispute as to whether Americans are an inherently violent people. Whatever the merits of this metapsychological discussion, there is no disagreement that Americans have a propensity to interpret both officially and unofficially the violence we do have (Waskow, 1966; Silver, 1968). The final report of the “violence commission” stands in this tradition, and by its size and scope, taken together with its supporting studies, aspires to culminate it.

The work done by Sally Engle Merry around governance indicators provides a clear example of how her scholarship has been original and impactful. She devoted more than a decade to studying the emergence and use of indicators, a widely used strategy for assessing governance mechanisms. Her body of work on indicators includes three books and more than a dozen journal articles and book chapters. These contributions have reshaped the discourse and forced readers to confront the hidden truth about indicators: their imperfect nature as with any other human construct. I, selfishly, have borrowed from her work and used her lenses in contributing to the study and production of human rights indicators. I see my borrowing as a tribute to a must-read scholar whose ideas are worth entertaining and sharing through our work.