N.E.H.M. Zeegers

Taking Account of Male Dominance in Rape Law

American legal scholar MacKinnon held that using consent as the legal criterion to draw the line between rape and intercourse would evade the issue of male dominance in heterosexual relations. Feminist lawyers in the Netherlands and England and Wales translated the insight that rape has to do with inequality between the sexes in alternative definitions of rape. They also struggled to get these alternative definitions incorporated in law. However, in the Netherlands as well as in England and Wales, feminist proposals to broaden the concept of coercion or non-consent to include submission met with serious obstacles from within the legal system. This article describes the process the feminist proposals to redefine coercion or non-consent in rape law went through in the Netherlands and in England and Wales. It tries to answer the following question: To what extent can the obstacles in this process of forming a broad definition of coercion be attributed to what MacKinnon called the inherent fallocentrism of law?

Distinghuishing true from other hybrids. A case study of the merits and pitfalls of devolved regulation in the UK

Abstract The model of “decentered regulation” was claimed to offer the ideal instrument to cope with the specific challenges of technological innovation in a society characterized by diversity in moral beliefs. The central question of this article is whether the “model of decentered regulation” indeed brought the solutions that were expected from it. This question will be answered by using the case study of the formulation of the rules concerning the creation of human animal hybrid embryos in the United Kingdom. The analysis of this issue will be used to reflect on four reasons that are brought forward in favour of the model of decentered regulation: 1) the inclusion of necessary scientific expertise; 2) a flexible and efficient mechanism of rule change; 3) coping with diversity in moral beliefs; 4) coping with the changeability of these beliefs in time.

Regulating Human Trafficking by Prostitution Policy

Is the Nordic model of combating the trafficking of women for sexual purposes to be followed by all member states of the eu? At the moment, the member states still differ considerably in their legislative approaches towards prostitution and the extent to which this is linked to the combat against sex trafficking. In this article the differences between the Nordic and the legalisation model as well as their effects on forced prostitution, human trafficking and women’s right to self-determination will be a central focus. The authors will discuss and compare the approaches and effects as found in Sweden and the Netherlands. By this comparison they will establish whether the Nordic model indeed should be endorsed.

The Democratic Legitimacy of Interactive Legislation of the European Union Concerning Human Embryo Research

Clear differences exist between European Member States’ and interest groups’ positions concerning the moral status of the early human embryo. Some adhere to absolute protection for such embryo from its very conception while others take a gradualist approach. However, human embryonic stem cell research promises great advances for human health and as such is one of the showpieces of innovation the EU wants to facilitate with Horizon 2020. In order to determine the norms that should guide EU funding of research with human embryos in the context of this financial instrument, the Member States have negotiated with each other and with the European Commission. As a result the EU only funds research activities involving existing human embryonic stem cell lines. However, the European Citizen’s Initiative One of us recently has pleaded for a total ban on human stem cell research.

Devolved regulation as a two-stage rocket to public acceptance of experiments with human gametes and embryos: A UK example to be followed by the Netherlands?

Kazancigil endorses governance to the extent that it has a greater capacity to cope with policy making on complex issues in our differentiated societies. At the same time, he is skeptical of how governance excludes ‘politics’ from the process of policy-making. Policy fields that are highly dependent on scientific knowledge are considered by him to be especially vulnerable for ‘policy making without politics’. In this article, the case of UK policy making concerning the creation of human animal hybrid embryos will be analyzed to provide insights into the problems that can be connected to governance as form of managing public decision making. In this case, it is not so much the exclusion of ‘politics’ in the sense of ‘the representative democratic institutions and processes’ that appears to be the problem of governance but rather the downplaying of differences in societal views concerning the issue and the lack of real reconciliation of such views.

How to theorise collective decision making concerning legal rules?: The need to acknowledge the rhetorical as well as the rational variables

Abstract Both scholars and practitioners of law have a lot to win from insights into how political and societal forces have influenced the form and content that is given to specific rules. This is because these forces often continue to play a role in the subsequent phase of implementation. The rational model for analysing collective decision making distinguishes as relevant variables the actors involved, their positions towards the issue at stake, the salience the issue has for these actors and the influence or power of the actors. However, a theory about the collective decision making concerning legal rules would be incomplete without the inclusion of the variables of the rhetorical model. In this article it is clarified why we also need the rhetorical model to explain such decision making. The Dutch Governmental decision making concerning Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in 2008 is analysed as case study. In addition, the rational and the rhetorical model for analysing collective decision making are with respect to the object of research, the main assumption, the kind of application and the questions of what is accepted as the proof of truth and how the researcher is positioned towards the object of his research. This comparison shows that the insights produced by the rhetorical model, contrary to what lawyers often are made to believe, are not necessarily less objective than the insights produced by the rational model.