Prosecutors are powerful actors in the criminal justice system. Scholars make the argument that prosecutors exercise far more control over criminal matters than any other agency (Thomas and Fitch, 1976, p. 509; McDonald, 1979, p. 18-19, Wickersham, 1931) . Over time, various changes have augmented prosecutorial power, ranging from the decision to make the office of the prosecutor an elected one, thereby affording prosecutors independence in carrying out their duties (Misner, 1996, p. 729), to the advent of determinant sentencing, resulting in shifting sentencing discretion away from the courts to the prosecutor (Vorenberg, 1981, p. 1525, 1529). This research hypothesized that community prosecution represents another development that will result in increasing the influence of the office of the prosecutor. Traditionally, prosecutors have been oriented toward successful case disposition. The case-by-case methodology has involved little contact with the community. In addition, the prosecutorial focal point is on felony cases, while lower level offenses generally receive little time or attention. The emergence of community prosecution challenges the traditional prosecution role and its emphasis on the more serious matters and winning cases, and promises positive effects for the "communities" targeted. Through a case study of its application in Kings County, New York, this dissertation explores community prosecution and its impact on the role of the prosecutor and for the community, in the context of a community court implemented in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Focusing on the Red Hook example, the study drew on three principal sources of data to examine the community prosecution innovation, including: a) arrest data, aggregated monthly, for the three police precincts that handle cases originating in Red Hook, covering the years 1998 through 2001 (46 months per precinct, n=138 ); b) precinct level arrest and court case filings for criminal incidents that took place in Red Hook and other Kings County locations for two distinct time periods (the third quarter of 1998, (n = 19,296) and the first quarter of 2001, (n = 22,988)); and c) court case data from the Red Hook Community Justice Center (hereafter, RHCJC) 2000 through 2001 (51 weeks, n=4,088). Several different types of complementary analyses, including HLM, contrasted changes in case types and defendant characteristics in the study locale over time associated with this community-oriented form of prosecution. The analyses also compared these changes to the caseloads from neighboring communities that did not have access to this innovation, where cases were processed in the traditional manner. Specific hypotheses tested about the effects of the community prosecution innovation included the following: 1) Implementation of the community prosecution initiative via the community court will result in an increase in the volume and/or proportion of arrests for minor offenses in precincts operating within the community court's jurisdiction. That increase will not be experienced by precincts not involved with the court. 2) The community prosecution strategy will draw defendants into the Red Hook criminal justice system who would not otherwise have been involved in the system, specifically including greater proportions of young minority males and individuals with no prior criminal histories. This research also involved a limited inquiry into how community members were responding to the community prosecution initiative. Given the purpose of community prosecution, to engage the community in handling its unique crime problems in an effort to make them feel safer, it was of interest to know whether there was any evidence that this happened in Red Hook. To that end, the research drew upon qualitative data, including: a) a series of non-probability based community surveys performed within the Red Hook jurisdiction in 1999 (n=980), 2000 (n=1,744) and 2001 (n=1,169) and b) two focus groups (n=12; n=18) conducted by this researcher in May of 2003. These other data sources provided context, allowing for better understanding the results of the analyses. Findings indicated slight effects of community prosecution in the anticipated direction: The volume of arrests from the Red Hook precincts (Data Set 1) increased slightly after the court was implemented. In addition, findings from the RHCJC caseload (Data Set 3) indicated that post-implementation, misdemeanor cases increased slightly but significantly. Comparisons of the post-implementation caseload filed from Red Hook precinct arrests with the control group (consisting of pre-implementation, Red Hook filings and both pre-and post-implementation filings from the arrests made by the rest of the Kings County precincts (Data Set 2)) indicated that the caseload proportion of misdemeanors in post-implementation Red Hook filings increased significantly when compared with the control group filings. In addition, analysis of Data Set 2 (comparison of caseload characteristics) indicated both a significant increase in the proportion of the post-implementation, Red Hook cases made up of Hispanic defendants, and a significant increase in the caseload proportion consisting of defendants with no prior record of criminal convictions. The primary findings from the qualitative data (Survey and Focus Group Data) indicated that community respondents appeared to be more satisfied with the court system and seemed to feel safer after the RHCJC was implemented. There was also some indication of race based differences in responses: White respondents seemed generally more positive about perceived post-implementation changes in Red Hook than minority respondents. / Criminal Justice

This study is an attempt at determining the normative legitimacy of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). At its core, it scrutinizes the current mandate of the organization following the layering of economic integration objectives with human rights protection, sustenance of democracy, and the rule of law. The study discusses the elements of legitimacy across disciplines mainly, international law, international relations and political science. Legitimacy is eventually split along two divides, the normative and descriptive/sociological aspects. The study traces the normative content (shared/common values) underlying integration in Africa, concluding that integration has been born on new ideals such as human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Expectedly, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as building blocks of the prospective African Economic Community (AEC) under the African Union (AU) regime are mandated to play a vital role in moving the continent forward upon these values. The inquiry is extended to the institutions of ECOWAS to determine their capacity to effectively implement the new mandate of the organization and operate supranationally. In the process, key legal and institutional shortcomings are discussed, particularly in relation to national institutions. It is argued that while human rights protection enhances the normative legitimacy of ECOWAS, it must not be pursued in isolation. Economic integration and protection of citizens’ rights are co-terminus and mutually reinforcing. Hence, community institutions must reflect this link if they are to be effective. The study concludes on the note that, while ECOWAS possesses layers of legitimacy, and have carried out legitimation steps, it cannot be considered a legitimate organization if Member States continue to be non-compliant with community objectives and if key legal questions remain unaddressed. It is submitted that ECOWAS is merely undergoing legitimation, whether it can eventually be considered a legitimate organization is dependent on addressing the identified challenges.

This thesis explores an alternative method of making Architecture based on ideas presented by Bruno Latour in “Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move” and concepts discussed by Peter Eisenman within “Diagram: An Original Scene of Writing.” The static nature of representation within Euclidian Space requires a re-evaluation of the generative qualities inherent within diagrams. Managed through an identified mechanism, the thesis investigates the excavation of potential within Pretoria Central’s lost spaces by generating programme, response and resolution from elements inherent in the diachronic context. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

L’internationalisation du droit communautaire de l’UE a engendré le développement de nouveaux centres de production juridique en dehors de l’espace juridique européen comme la CAN. Ce processus a stimulé un phénomène de pluralisme juridique mondial à double dimension : on note d’une part la création , à l’échelle régionale, de modèles alternatifs d’intégration ; d’autre part, au niveau national, l’émergence d’une discussion sur l’identité constitutionnelle et administrative des Etats au regard des systèmes juridiques supranationaux. La comparaison jurisprudentielle entre la CJUE et le TJCA montre une expansion du pluralisme juridique en Amérique latine et dans l’Union européenne, tant à l’échelle nationale que régionale ; constitutionnelle qu’administrative. Un tel pluralisme appelle la construction d’une jurisprudence de coordination-harmonisation régionale plutôt qu’une standardisation juridique mondiale telle qu’elle est envisagée par le droit économique de l’OMC, la doctrine du Global Administrative Law ou celle proposant des standards constitutionnels mondiaux. La jurisprudence comparée explique comment le dialogue –«spontané et débridé»- de juges nationaux et régionaux révèle les rapports conflictuels entre le droit économique du marché mondial (OMC) et la protection de l’ordre public à l’échelle régionale. La thèse aborde cette problématique du pluralisme juridique au prisme de la jurisprudence comparée de la CJUE et du TJCA. D’un point de vue constitutionnel tout d’abord, la notion de « savoir-pouvoir du juge » (se substituant à la notion d’activisme des juges) propose de comprendre le juge communautaire en tant que garant du pluralisme juridique national afin d’aborder une nouvelle configuration complexe du pouvoir juridique à l’échelle supranationale. D’un point de vue administratif ensuite, la notion de gouvernabilité régionale (se substituant à la notion de gouvernance mondiale) appelle à un espace d’étatisation juridique des pouvoirs économiques régionaux pour les placer sous le contrôle du droit. Il s’agit d’imaginer un droit public régional capable d’étatiser les pouvoirs régionaux en tant que contre-pouvoirs de régulation du marché face à l’indéfinition juridique de la gouvernance mondiale. / The internationalization of Community Law in the EU has led to the development of new centers of legal production outside the European legal space such as CAN. This process has stimulated a two -dimensional global phenomenon of legal pluralism: on the one hand there is the creation of alternative regional integration models and on the other hand, the emergence of a discussion on national level about the constitutional and administrative identity of States under supranational legal systems. The comparison between different jurisprudences shows an expansion of legal pluralism in Latin America and in the EU, as much as in a national or regional scale than in a constitutional or administrative scale. Such pluralism demands the construction of a regional coordination-harmonization rather than a standardization of the legal world as envisaged by the WTO's economic Law, the doctrine of Global Administrative Law or the constitutional providing of global standards. Comparative jurisprudence explains how the national and regional judges’ “spontaneous and unrestrained” dialogue reveals the conflicting relationship between the beneficial owner of the world market (WTO) and the protection of public order at a regional level. The thesis addresses the problem of pluralism through the comparative analysis of both the ECJ's and the ACJ's jurisprudences. First, from a constitutional point of view, the notion of “power-knowledge of the judge” (replacing the concept of judicial activism) suggests the understanding of the community judge as the protector of the national legal pluralism to address a new complex configuration of legal authority at a supranational level. Secondly, from an administrative point of view, the notion of regional governability (replacing the concept of global governance) demands the judicial nationalization of regional economic powers to place it under the control of law. The aim is to imagine the regional public law capable of nationalizing the regional authorities as counter-powers regulating the market to face the lack of legal definition of the global governance.