The distance between the public and the judiciary takes two forms: a punitivity gap and an accessibility gap. This article discusses both types of gap and elaborates on the issue of whether the existence of these gaps influences confidence in the judiciary. From the literature, it appears that the public is generally of the opinion that courts sentence too leniently. However, experiments show that when citizens receive information on a specific case, they become less punitive. Information provision may also help to bridge an accessibility gap, as does actual citizen involvement in the administration of justice. The relation between the gaps discussed and confidence in the judiciary is not clear as yet. The article discusses methods generally used to assess confidence and suggests that confidence may be increased by a reduction of the two gaps.

When the Allied victory over the Axis powers is becoming certain, American officials start making plans for the occupation of Germany. In the aftermath of the invasion in 1944, some of these plans are brought to the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury in Roosevelt’s war cabinet, Henry Morgenthau. These plans infuriate him, because he considers them too lenient on Germany, which in his opinion should be reduced to an agrarian economy after its Nazi leadership has been summarily executed. The President at first agrees with this line of action as do most of the members of his cabinet. The only one opposing these ideas is the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, suggesting economic reconstruction and an international tribunal instead. His opposition seems in vain, when Roosevelt and Churchill publicly agree to this course of action towards Germany during a meeting in Quebec. But the ‘Morgenthau plan’ unravels when it is leaked to the press and it causes an uproar. Roosevelt fears for his re-election chances and hastily retreats. But he makes no decision on the issue and Stimson has to wait for his opportunity. It comes in the person of a new President: Harry Truman. He agrees to Stimson’s proposal for an international tribunal and this brings the United States on board of an allied majority for what is later to become the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Beate Sirota has been described as the ‘heroine of Japanese women’s rights’, because she contributed considerably to the inclusion of a forceful provision on the rights of women in the new Constitution of Japan as a member of the Government Section of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), headed by General Douglas MacArthur. Her role was serendipitous, because at first the Americans were not planning such a thorough revision of the Meiji Constitution (1890). Sirota was not a constitutional scholar, let alone an expert on the rights of women. She was hired only because she had spent her youth in Japan and spoke Japanese fluently. But once she got involved in the drafting of a new Constitution, her intimate knowledge of the position of women in Japanese society proved very useful. She proposed elaborate and detailed provisions on women’s rights in order to counter the expected resistance. This strategy turned out to be successful. Although Sirota was not substantially involved in the implementation of article 24, she returned to the United States in 1947. Since its introduction the provision has been a firm anchor for proponents of the emancipation of women in Japan.

With the help of a model of policy formation designed by John Kingdon, we seek to map the actors in the previous cases of legal change and to establish the way in which they performed their key role and what conditions allowed them to do that. It appears that only two of the actors are insiders, government officials. The rest are outsiders. According to Kingdon’s model, a particular kind of actors is most likely to play a key role in policy change. He calls them ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and they typically are experts in a particular field of policy, who spend time, energy and money to promote a proposal they favour. They spring into action when they seize an opportunity to push their proposal on the agenda of the decision-makers. In our small collection of actors, Lemkin, Sinzheimer and Leenen are prototypical ‘policy entrepreneurs’. The others do not fit this profile, but played an influential role nevertheless.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

In this contribution Ronald Leenes discusses the implications of technoregulation, i.e. regulation by means of technology. Starting from Julia Black’s definition of regulation he discusses how technologies are used to alter or modify human behaviour. One of the objections he raises concerns the intransparency of the norm that is thus enforced, and he argues that technoregulation easily becomes administration or discipline rather than law.