Epilogue

China is increasingly aware of the role and potential it can have to influence the world development. This has led it to reconsider and develop foreign policies, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) being a new flagship of them. The economic tone in China’s foreign policy has given it a soft flavor.Peer reviewe

Human rights, Public health and Medicinal cannabis use

This paper explores the interplay between the human rights and drug control frameworks and critiques case law on medicinal cannabis use to demonstrate that a bona fide human rights perspective allows for a broader conception of ‘health’. This broad conception, encompassing both medicalised and social constructionist definitions, can inform public health policies relating to medici-nal cannabis use. The paper also demonstrates how a human rights lens can alleviate a core tension between the State and the individual within the drug policy field. The leading medicinal cannabis case in the UK highlights the judiciary’s failure to engage with an individual’s human right to health as they adopt an arbitrary, externalist view, focussing on the legality of cannabis to the exclusion of other concerns. Drawing on some international comparisons, the paper considers how a human rights perspective can lead to an approach to medicinal cannabis use which facilitates a holistic understanding of public health

National Security vs Criminal law. Perspectives, Doubts and Concerns on the Criminalisation of Organised Crime in England and Wales

This paper will interpret and critically analyse the new offence for organised crime in England and Wales (Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015) from a criminological perspective in light of evidence found in research in the country. It will argue that changes in the law relate to changes in political narratives rather than to variations in the criminal panorama of organised crime. It will discuss these changes within three perspectives, which address various levels of concern: a narrative perspective, which reflects on the overlapping of meanings in the use of the words ‘organised crime’; an evolution perspective, which reflects on the origins of the new participation offences with reference to both national and international pressures; a management perspective, which reflects on some of the immediate effects of the new offences of organised crime on the criminal justice system. This paper will conclude that political narratives have indeed influenced criminal policy, while there is no significant change in the phenomenon of organised crime to justify such narratives

Global Simplification of Extradition: Interviews with Selected Extradition Experts in New Zealand, Canada, the US and EU

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2017. This paper explores the discernible long-term trend towards the simplification of the conditions for extradition in the law of many states. The process of simplification appears to be justified by the necessity of taking more effective action against transnational crime. It appears to be taking place in three main areas: the recharacterisation of extradition from a criminal to an administrative process, the reduction of the substantive conditions for extradition and the expansion of the international platforms for extradition. The process is being tempered by and partially justified by greater individual human rights protections. In an effort to gain a better grasp of the nature of this process, what is driving it, and where it is heading, this paper records the views of a number of expert practitioners from the state, defence, and judiciary in seven different countries with significant extradition practice on these justifications, changes, and human rights protections. The paper synthesises their views thematically before drawing some conclusions about the nature of the process of simplification of extradition and whether there is an emerging global standard for extradition. The research was funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellowship for 2015