Forensic science expertise for international criminal proceedings: an old problem, a new context and a pragmatic resolution

Expert witness testimony provides an important source of information for international criminal proceedings, and forensic science expertise from mass graves is no exception: findings from exhumations and examinations have featured in the ad hoc tribunals’ trials and judgments. Whilst the issues surrounding the law-science relationship have been explored within the realm of national legal systems, the mixed system adopted by these tribunals presents an established discussion with a new context. Using forensic archaeology as an example, this article explores some theoretical underpinnings and practical realities surrounding the use of forensic science during international criminal investigations into mass graves before looking at how Trial Chambers aim to establish the relevance and credibility of forensic science evidence. As little guidance regarding admissibility of expert evidence is provided, it is through the case-specific legal process of cross-examination and presentation of counter-expertise that methodological issues are resolved. This, together with reliance on normative principles, is the pragmatic approach adopted to discern reliability of expert opinion

PINS 1983 - 1998 and the construction of an alternative discourse : text and psychology in South(ern) Africa from apartheid to liberation.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.This study analyses the journal Psychology in Society for the period 1983 to 1998. It does so with a view to determining whether collectively the contributors fulfilled the editors' call for the construction of discourses alternative to those of mainstream psychology, both during apartheid and after liberation. In other words, it seeks to assess whether PINS constitutes a local critical psychology in print. Mainstream discourse is chiefly understood in terms of formulations in PINS and only indirectly from my readings of mainstream publications. Analyses suggest that, from 1983 to 1990, contributors to PINS aligned themselves with the editors' brief to challenge "mainstream conformist" psychology in "apartheid capitalist" South Africa. More than half of the articles have a critical Marxist thrust with the others given over to liberal humanist or progressive positions. Almost all the domains of psychology are represented. Black writers and women appear but in small numbers compared to their white, male colleagues. With the socio-political shifts of around 1990, a significant decline is evident in Marxistorientated discourses and an increase in those from liberal humanist, post-marxist, feminist and psychoanalytic sources. Africanisation also becomes an urgent issue. The dominant DA themes for the journal of "relevance", "critique", "oppression" and "indigenous" remain consistently in focus. While individual contributors cannot be said to have constructed an alternative discourse, they drew collectively on discourses mostly at odds with, or marginalised by, mainstream psychology. Some tried to include indigenous approaches to mental distress. Although the approach adopted is critical Marxist Discourse Analysis (DA), I have incorporated "deconstruction" theory. The difficulties posed by a combination of Marxism and poststructuralism are eased by employing Bhaskar's "critical realism". This allows for the analyst to '"discover" patterns of discursive features, to understand that these are also a "construction" based on assumptions and theoretical preferences, and to anchor the process in the historical contingencies of economics, power and language. The critical Marxism driving the analysis is located in the tradition of the Frankfurt School and active today in the work of social psychologists such as Ian Parker (1992, 1993, 1996). In testing my assumptions about PINS, I followed modified versions of Parker's theoretical stance and the methodological framework provided by Potter and Wetherell (1987, 1988, 1995)

Navigating Hate: The Public Deliberation of Matthew Shepard and Hate Crime Legislation

Since Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998, his narrative has been recirculated to justify a federal hate crime statute and Shepard has been used as a symbol for the demand for hate crime legislation. This study seeks to evaluate how Shepard is used in public deliberation, the role of private organizations in the public deliberation of hate crime legislation, and the discursive history of the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009. Through a rhetorical criticism, this study finds that the nuances of Shepard’s narrative are abandoned in order to construct him as a “permissible” symbol for LGBTQ+ protections. However, if the permissibility of the symbol is violated, the discourse surrounding Shepard becomes polemic. Second, I argue that private organizations are not only used to advocate on the behalf of private citizens, but in the case of hate crime prevention organizations, they are dually asked with being the primary center of information for private citizens. Finally, I argue that the legislative discourse surrounding HCPA’s communicate to the public the government’s position on the inclusion of vulnerable communities

Space, conversations and place: lessons and questions from organisational development

Physical workspace is distinguished from workplace. The latter embodies culture and should become the greater concern of FM. In the field of individual and group development spaces can add an extra gear to stimulate cognitive processes. We provide various examples and suggest modern workplaces, with their emphasis on interaction need to also focus on environments and spaces for individual and collective reflection

Model Based System Assurance Using the Structured Assurance Case Metamodel

Assurance cases are used to demonstrate confidence in system properties of interest (e.g. safety and/or security). A number of system assurance approaches are adopted by industries in the safety-critical domain. However, the task of constructing assurance cases remains a manual, lenghty and informal process. The Structured Assurance Case Metamodel (SACM)is a standard specified by the Object Management Group (OMG). SACM provides a richer set of features than existing system assurance languages/approaches. SACM provides a foundation for model-based system assurance, which bears great application potentials in growing technology domains such as Open Adaptive Systems. However, the intended usage of SACM has not been sufficiently explained. In addition, there has not been support to interoperate between existing assurance case (models)and SACM models. In this article, we explain the intended usage of SACM based on our involvement in the OMG specification process of SACM. In addition, to promote a model-based approach, we provide SACM compliant metamodels for existing system assurance approaches (the Goal Structuring Notation and Claims-Arguments-Evidence), and the transformations from these models to SACM. We also briefly discuss the tool support for model-based system assurance which helps practitioners make the transition from existing system assurance approaches to model-based system assurance using SACM