Beyond Words : The European Court of Justice and Legal Certainty in Multilingual EU Law

This study addresses the issue of multilingualism in EU law. More specifically, it explores the implications of multilingualism for conceptualising legal certainty, a central principle of law both in domestic and EU legal systems. The main question addressed is how multilingualism and legal certainty may be reconciled in the EU legal system. The study begins with a discussion on the role of translation in drafting EU legislation and its implications for interpreting EU law at the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Uncertainty regarding the meaning of multilingual EU law and the interrelationship between multilingualism and ECJ methods of interpretation are explored. This analysis leads to questioning the importance of linguistic-semantic methods of interpretation, especially the role of comparing language versions for clarifying meaning and the ordinary meaning thesis, and to placing emphasis on other, especially the teleological, purpose-oriented method of interpretation. As regards the principle of legal certainty, the starting-point is a two-dimensional concept consisting of both formal and substantive elements; of predictability and acceptability. Formal legal certainty implies that laws and adjudication, in particular, must be predictable. Substantive legal certainty is related to rational acceptability of judicial decision-making placing emphasis on its acceptability to the legal community in question. Contrary to predictability that one might intuitively relate to linguistic-semantic methods of interpretation, the study suggests a new conception of legal certainty where purpose, telos, and other dynamic methods of interpretation are of particular significance for meaning construction in multilingual EU law. Accordingly, the importance of purposive, teleological interpretation as the standard doctrine of interpretation in a multilingual legal system is highlighted. The focus on rational, substantive acceptability results in emphasising discourse among legal actors among the EU legal community and stressing the need to give reasons in favour of proposed meaning in accordance with dynamic methods of interpretation including considerations related to purposes, aims, objectives and consequences. In this context, the role of ideal discourse situations and communicative action taking the form of interaction among the EU legal community in an ongoing dialogue especially in the preliminary ruling procedure is brought into focus. In order for this dialogue to function, it requires that the ECJ gives persuasive, convincing and acceptable reasons in justifying its decisions. This necessitates transparency, sincerity, and dialogue with the relevant audience.

Rigorous scaling law for the heat current in disordered harmonic chain

We study the energy current in a model of heat conduction, first considered in detail by Casher and Lebowitz. The model consists of a one-dimensional disordered harmonic chain of n i.i.d. random masses, connected to their nearest neighbors via identical springs, and coupled at the boundaries to Langevin heat baths, with respective temperatures T_1 and T_n. Let EJ_n be the steady-state energy current across the chain, averaged over the masses. We prove that EJ_n \sim (T_1 - T_n)n^{-3/2} in the limit n \to \infty, as has been conjectured by various authors over the time. The proof relies on a new explicit representation for the elements of the product of associated transfer matrices.

Philosophy as a Path to Happiness : Attainment of Happiness in Arabic Peripatetic and Ismaili Philosophy

The aim of the dissertation is to explore the idea of philosophy as a path to happiness in classical Arabic philosophy. The starting point is in comparison of two distinct currents between the 10th and early 11th centuries, Peripatetic philosophy, represented by al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, and Ismaili philosophy represented by al-Kirmānī and the Brethren of Purity. They initially offer two contrasting views about philosophy in that the attitude of the Peripatetics is rationalistic and secular in spirit, whereas for the Ismailis philosophy represents the esoteric truth behind revelation. Still, they converge in their view that the ultimate purpose of philosophy lies in its ability to lead man towards happiness. Moreover, they share a common concept of happiness as a contemplative ideal of human perfection, which refers primarily to an otherworldly state of the soul s ascent to the spiritual world. For both the way to happiness consists of two parts: theory and practice. The practical part manifests itself in the idea of the purification of the rational soul from its bodily attachments in order for it to direct its attention fully to the contemplative life. Hence, there appears an ideal of philosophical life with the goal of relative detachment from the worldly life. The regulations of the religious law in this context appear as the primary means for the soul s purification, but for all but al-Kirmānī they are complemented by auxiliary philosophical practices. The ascent to happiness, however, takes place primarily through the acquisition of theoretical knowledge. The saving knowledge consists primarily of the conception of the hierarchy of physical and metaphysical reality, but all of philosophy forms a curriculum through which the soul gradually ascends towards a spiritual state of being along an order that is inverse to the Neoplatonic emanationist hierarchy of creation. For Ismaili philosophy the ascent takes place from the exoteric religious sciences towards the esoteric philosophical knowledge. For Peripatetic philosophers logic performs the function of an instrument enabling the ascent, mathematics is treated either as propaedeutic to philosophy or as a mediator between physical and metaphysical knowledge, whereas physics and metaphysics provide the core of knowledge necessary for the attainment of happiness.

An Axiom of Military Law : Applicability of National Criminal Law to Military Personnel and Associated Civilians Abroad

States regularly deploy elements of their armed forces abroad. When that happens, the military personnel concerned largely remain governed by the penal law of the State that they serve. This extraterritorial extension of national criminal law, which has been treated as axiomatic in domestic law and ignored by international law scholarship, is the subject of this dissertation. The first part of the study considers the ambit of national criminal law without any special regard to the armed forces. It explores the historical development of the currently prevailing system of territorial law and looks at the ambit that national legal systems claim today. Turning then to international law, the study debunks the oddly persistent belief that States enjoy a freedom to extend their laws to extraterritorial conduct as they please, and that they are in this respect constrained only by some specific prohibitions in international law. Six arguments historical, empirical, ideological, functional, doctrinal and systemic are advanced to support a contrary view: that States are prohibited from extending the reach of their legal systems abroad, unless they can rely on a permissive principle of international law for doing so. The second part of the study deals specifically with State jurisdiction in a military context, that is to say, as applied to military personnel in the strict sense (service members) and various civilians serving with or accompanying the forces (associated civilians). While the status of armed forces on foreign soil has transformed from one encapsulated in the customary concept of extraterritoriality to a modern regulation of immunities granted by treaties, elements of armed forces located abroad usually do enjoy some degree of insulation from the legal system of the host State. As a corollary, they should generally remain covered by the law of their own State. The extent of this extraterritorial extension of national law is revealed in a comparative review of national legislation, paying particular attention to recent legal reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom two states that have sought to extend the scope of their national law to cover the conduct of military contractor personnel. The principal argument of the dissertation is that applying national criminal law to service members and associated civilians abroad is distinct from other extraterritorial claims of jurisdiction (in particular, the nationality principle or the protective principle of jurisdiction). The service jurisdiction over the armed forces has a distinct aim: ensuring the coherence and indivisibility of the forces and maintaining discipline. Furthermore, the exercise of service jurisdiction seeks to reduce the chances of the State itself becoming internationally liable for the conduct of its service members and associated civilians. Critically, the legal system of the troop-deploying State, by extending its reach abroad, seeks to avoid accountability gaps that might result from immunities from host State law.