The right to a fair trial and international cooperation in criminal matters: Article 6 ECHR and the recovery of assets in grand corruption cases

Are fair trial rights general principles of transnational criminal law (TCL)? If so, how do they protect individuals who are affected by transnational proceedings? Posing these questions in the context of international cooperation efforts aimed at ‘asset recovery’, this contribution asks whether State Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are likely to violate the right to a fair trial in Article 6 ECHR when they directly enforce confiscation orders that are issued abroad with respect to the proceeds, objects or instrumentalities of high-value, high-level political corruption offences or substitute assets. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) considers that ECHR State Parties might exceptionally violate Article 6 ECHR in cooperative cases if the alleged victim ‘has suffered or risks suffering a flagrant denial of a fair trial in the requesting country’. Surveying its case law, I argue that the ‘flagrant denial of justice’ standard greatly attenuates the right to a fair trial in cases of international cooperation in criminal matters. In practice, the Court appears unwilling to find violations of Article 6 ECHR in such cases when the foreign proceedings do not involve allegations of treatment contrary to Articles 2 or 3 ECHR. This, it is submitted, reflects the difficulty of assessing ‘fairness’ in globalised law enforcement situations, a factor that also complicates efforts to deduce a general principle of a right to a fair trial from ‘justice’ as an objective of TCL. If those principles are formulated inductively and comparatively, the ECtHR’s case law nevertheless goes some way towards showing that a weak transnational fair trial right may be a general principle of TCL within the ‘legal space’ of the ECHR

How extensive creativity is related to the escalation of violence in art?

Film, dramaturgy and literature exhibit increasingly more episodes of cruelty in the interactions between the characters. With its focus on the core ideas about escalation of violence, this paper examines the fundamental reasons for the upsurge in depictions of violence in art. The article demonstrates social, cultural and anthropological factors contributed to shaping the technosphere which impedes the comprehension of the relationship and the contrast between life and death. Without this comprehension, a cultural dysfunction entails the existential crisis, hinders feeling fully alive, and provokes a “safe” virtual way to generate a limit situation that restores “life’s integrity” experience. Art that demonstrates violent scenes is one of these methods. In addition, and this is the first paper to analyze this, the extensive type of creativity dominates the postindustrial society culture. Research demonstrates that extensive creativity does not contain an ethical component and nor foster immunity to violence. On the contrary, by directing an individual towards exploring and transforming the external world, it provokes violence, since the nature of expansion is a priori forced. The authors conclude that escalation of violence in art testifies to the deficit of cultural methods that allow to satisfy a person’s existential needs. Santrauka Filmuose, dramaturgijoje ir literatūroje vis daugiau demonstruojama žiaurumo epizodų personažų santykiuose. Susitelkiant į esmines idėjas augančio smurto klausimu, šiame straipsnyje nagrinėjamos pagrindinės priežastys, dėl kurių smurtas mene tapo ypač dažnai vaizduojamas. Straipsnyje atskleidžiami socialiniai, kultūriniai ir antropologiniai veiksniai, prisidėję prie formavimosi technosferos, trukdančios suprasti gyvenimo bei mirties santykį ir priešpriešą. Be šio supratimo kultūrinė disfunkcija sukelia egzistencinę krizę, neleidžia išgyventi pilnutinės gyvasties jausmo ir provokuoja „saugų“ virtualų būdą sukelti apribojimo situaciją, kuri atkuria „gyvenimo integralumo“ patirtį. Menas, demonstruojantis smurto scenas, yra vienas iš šių metodų. Be to, tai pirmasis straipsnis, kuriame analizuojamas šis plataus kūrybiškumo tipas, vyraujantis postindustrinės visuomenės kultūroje. Tyrimas rodo, kad platus kūrybiškumas neapima etinio komponento ir nestiprina imuniteto smurtui. Priešingai, nukreipiant individą į išorinio pasaulio tyrinėjimą ir keitimą, provokuojamas smurtas, nes ekspansijos pobūdis a priori yra priverstinis. Autoriai daro išvadą, kad smurto eskalavimas mene liudija apie kultūrinių metodų, leidžiančių patenkinti egzistencinius asmens poreikius, trūkumą. Reikšminiai žodžiai:  agresija, šiuolaikinis menas, žiaurumas, egzistenciniai poreikiai, platus kūrybiškumas, filmas, technogeninė civilizacija, smurtas.

HOW EXTENSIVE CREATIVITY IS RELATED TO THE ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE IN ART?

Film, dramaturgy and literature exhibit increasingly more episodes of cruelty in the interactions between the characters. With its focus on the core ideas about escalation of violence, this paper examines the fundamental reasons for the upsurge in depictions of violence in art. The article demonstrates social, cultural and anthropological factors contributed to shaping the technosphere which impedes the comprehension of the relationship and the contrast between life and death. Without this comprehension, a cultural dysfunction entails the existential crisis, hinders feeling fully alive, and provokes a “safe” virtual way to generate a limit situation that restores “life’s integrity” experience. Art that demonstrates violent scenes is one of these methods. In addition, and this is the first paper to analyze this, the extensive type of creativity dominates the postindustrial society culture. Research demonstrates that extensive creativity does not contain an ethical component and nor foster immunity to violence. On the contrary, by directing an individual towards exploring and transforming the external world, it provokes violence, since the nature of expansion is a priori forced. The authors conclude that escalation of violence in art testifies to the deficit of cultural methods that allow to satisfy a person’s existential needs.</jats:p