Pluralistic legal system, pluralistic human rights?: teenage pregnancy, child marriage and legal institutions in Bali

This article examines how the existence of multiple legal orders can impact the defense of human rights, by discussing how state legal agents in Bali navigate state law through local concerns and adat (customary) law in cases dealing with teenage pregnancy outside of marriage. In such “emergencies” where the morality of the community is at stake, families, adat authorities and state agents collaborate to find a way to fit these emergency situations into the locally accepted normative system, resulting in what international institutions call “child marriage.” In assessing the interaction between state law and customary law, this study offers a basis for discussing how legal pluralism should be addressed in the realization of human rights.Article / Letter to edito

Pluralistic legal system, pluralistic human rights?: teenage pregnancy, child marriage and legal institutions in Bali

This article examines how the existence of multiple legal orders can impact the defense of human rights, by discussing how state legal agents in Bali navigate state law through local concerns and adat (customary) law in cases dealing with teenage pregnancy outside of marriage. In such “emergencies” where the morality of the community is at stake, families, adat authorities and state agents collaborate to find a way to fit these emergency situations into the locally accepted normative system, resulting in what international institutions call “child marriage.” In assessing the interaction between state law and customary law, this study offers a basis for discussing how legal pluralism should be addressed in the realization of human rights.Article / Letter to edito

Optical conductivity in the CuO double chains of PrBa_2Cu_4O_8: Consequences of charge fluctuation

We calculate the optical conductivity of the CuO double chains of PrBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ by the mean-field approximation for the coupled two-chain Hubbard model around quarter filling. We show that the $\sim$40 meV peak structure, spectral shape, and small Drude weight observed in experiment are reproduced well by the present calculation provided that the stripe-type charge ordering presents. We argue that the observed anomalous optical response may be due to the presence of stripe-type fluctuations of charge carriers in the CuO double chains; the fast time scale of the optical measurement should enable one to detect slowly fluctuating order parameters as virtually a long-range order.Comment: 7 pages, 5 eps figure

Superconductivity in Pr2Ba4Cu7O15-delta with metallic double chains

We report superconductivity with $T_{c,onset}$=$\sim$10K in Pr$_{2}$Ba$_{4}$Cu$_{7}$O$_{15-\delta}$ compound possessing metallic double chains. A reduction treatment on as-sintered samples causes not only the enhanced metallic conduction but also the appearance of superconductivity accompanied by the c-axis elongation due to oxygen deficiency

Child marriage as a choice: rethinking agency in international human rights

In the recent international campaigns against child marriage, there is a puzzle of agency: while international human rights institutions celebrate when girls exercise their agency not to marry, they do not recognize their agency to marry. ‘Child marriage’, defined as “any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age”, is considered always forced, assuming that children are not capable of consenting to marriages. In order to re-examine, reflect, and discuss this approach to agency, this dissertation offers empirical evidence of child marriage, based on findings from the author’s fieldwork in Indonesia. Why children marry and how this practice both informs, and is treated within, multiple competing normative frameworks in place? The dissertation starts from analysing child marriage discourse at the international level, moves to discuss the political contestation over child marriage at the national level (Indonesia), and then investigates child marriage as a social practice on the Indonesian island of Bali.This is a socio-legal study of international human rights, which contributes to the scholarly field of human rights and children’s rights by using ideas from the other disciplines in social science.Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

A micromechanics-based model for creep behavior of rock

Recently, various ideas on underground development have been proposed and associated technical problems have been studied. One of the issues of concern is the prediction of the long-term behavior of rock, such as creep phenomena and fatigue. The mechanical behavior of rock is known to be greatly affected by temperature, confining pressure, pore fluid pressure and pH. It is necessary to establish a prediction method for creep deformation and creep failure of rock in order to ensure the long-term safety of the underground structures such as vaults for nuclear waste and power stations. Studies with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) revealed that the mechanisms of creep deformation and creep failure is the growth of microcrack nucleated at a pre-existing defect. Under compression below the failure strength, the microcrack gradually grows and the rock specimen fails after a certain time. The mechanism of time-dependent crack growth is understood as the stress corrosion at the crack tips. The objective of this study is to establish a prediction method of creep behavior. It is necessary to understand the governing mechanism of phenomena and to build a model for the reproduction of creep behavior. In the present study, an analytical model of microcrack growth under compression on the basis of micromechanics is proposed. The analytical results of the proposed model are compared with the experimental results. It appears that the experimental data are reproduced by the model. Moreover, a constitutive equation is derived from the proposed micromechanical model and is implemented into a finite element program to analyze the creep behavior of underground structures. As an example, a problem of elliptical excavation under hydrothermal conditions is analyzed and a crack length field is predicted as a function of time at different temperatures. It is concluded that the results of the finite element analysis indicate the possibility that rock may fail due to the effect of high temperature

Structural Features of Layered Iron Pnictide Oxides (Fe2As2)(Sr4M2O6)

Structural features of newly found perovskite-based iron pnictide oxide system have been systematically studied. Compared to REFePnO system, perovskite-based system tend to have lower Pn-Fe-Pn angle and higher pnictogen height owing to low electronegativity of alkaline earth metal and small repulsive force between pnictogen and oxygen atoms. As-Fe-As angles of (Fe2As2)(Sr4Cr2O6), (Fe2As2)(Sr4V2O6) and (Fe2Pn2)(Sr4MgTiO6) are close to ideal tetrahedron and those pnictogen heights of about 1.40 A are close to NdFeAsO with optimized carrier concentration. These structural features of this system may leads to realization of high Tc superconductivity.Comment: 3pages, 2figures, 1table, proceedings of M2S 200

Anomalous behaviors of the charge and spin degrees of freedom in the CuO double chains of PrBa2_2Cu4_4O8_8

The density-matrix renormalization-group method is used to study the electronic states of a two-chain Hubbard model for CuO double chains of PrBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$. We show that the model at quarter filling has the charge ordered phases with stripe-type and in-line--type patterns in the parameter space, and in-between, there appears a wide region of vanishing charge gap; the latter phase is characteristic of either Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid or a metallic state with a spin gap. We argue that the low-energy electronic state of the CuO double chains of PrBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ should be in the metallic state with a possibly small spin gap.Comment: REVTEX 4, 10 pages, 9 figures; submitted to PR