Operationalizing the Comparative International Human Rights Law Method: A Case Study of CEDAW in National Courts

In this chapter, I focus on how the example of CEDAW illustrates the methodological and conceptual difficulties that future work in comparative international human is likely to encounter. Despite the challenges, I suggest that the worked example of CEDAW has raised interesting lines for empirical analysis, and additional perspectives which may enrich normative inquiry, sufficient to justify comparative international human rights law being regarded as likely to give rise to insights that might not otherwise have emerged, and therefore to be as an approach worth pursuing in the future.

Law and economics in the civil law world: the case of Brazilian Courts

Conventional wisdom holds that economic analysis of law is either embryonic or nonexistent outside of the United States generally and in civil law jurisdictions in particular. Existing explanations for the assumed lack of interest in the application of economic reasoning to legal problems range from the different structure of legal education and academia outside of the United States to the peculiar characteristics of civilian legal systems. This paper challenges this view by documenting and explaining the growing use of economic reasoning by Brazilian courts. We argue that, given the ever-greater role of courts in the formulation of public policies, the application of legal principles and rules increasingly calls for a theory of human behavior (such as that provided by economics) to help foresee the likely aggregate consequences of different interpretations of the law. Consistent with the traditional role of civilian legal scholarship in providing guidance for the application of law by courts, the further development of law and economics in Brazil is therefore likely to be mostly driven by judicial demand.

California digest supplement, 1915-1919; a digest of the cases decided by the Supreme and Appellate courts of California and by the federal courts on questions of California law since Kerr's California digest, as contained in Raymond's 1916 supplement and in the 1917-1919 California current digests, inclusive, up to volume 178 California Supreme court reports, volume 37 California Appellate reports, and up to 58 California decisions, page 137; California Appellate decisions, page 258; 182 Pacific reporter (California cases), page 991; 258 Federal reporter (California cases), page 161; 39 Supreme court reporter (California cases), page 568. With references to Ruling case law, and important notes in American decisions, American state reports, Annotated cases, Lawyers' reports annotated, and American law reports, also an alphabetical table, direct and reverse, of all cases digested, showing on what page and under what subject each case is found digested in this digest, and also where the various California cases are cited in annotations in "The American series of annotated reports".

Mode of access: Internet.

Green crime and the role of environmental courts

Environmental issues continue to capture international headlines and remain the subject of intense intellectual, political and public debate. As a result, environmental law is widely recognised as the fastest growing area of international jurisprudence. This, combined with the rapid expansion of environmental agreements and policies, has created a burgeoning landscape of administrative, regulatory and judicial regimes. Emerging from these developments are increases in environmental offences, and more recently environmental crimes. The judicial processing of environmental or ‘green’ crimes is rapidly developing across many jurisdictions. Since 1979, Australia has played a lead role in criminal justice processing of environment offences through the New South Wales Land and Environment Court (NSW LEC). This article draws on case data, observations and interviews with court personnel, to examine the ways in which environmental justice is now administered through the existing court structures, and how it has changed since the Court’s inception.

Export Cartels: Is it Legal to Target your Neighbour? Analysis in Light of Recent Case Law

Despite the growing sophistication of antitrust regimes around the world, export cartels benefit from special treatment: they are almost universally tolerated, if not encouraged in the countries of origin. Economists do not offer an unambiguous policy recommendation on how to deal with them in part due to the lack of empirical data. This article discusses arguments for and against export cartels and it identifies the existing gaps in the present regulatory framework. The theoretical part is followed by an analysis of the recent case law: a US cartel challenged with different outcomes in India and South Africa, as well as Chinese export cartels pursued in the USA. The Chinese cases are particularly topical as the conduct at stake, apart from being subject to private antitrust actions before US courts, was also challenged within the WTO dispute settlement framework, pointing out to the existing interface between trade and competition. While the recent developments prove that unaddressed issues tend not to vanish, the new South-North dimension has the potential of placing export cartels again on the international agenda. Pragmatic thinking suggests looking for the solution within the WTO framework.

Law, technology and water conflicts in developing societies: a case study of tank systems in Tamil Nadu

The study examines the relationship between law, technology and water conflicts from colonial days to the present in traditional (water) tank systems in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tanks are man-made water systems developed for irrigation and many other purposes in semi-arid areas. The thesis adopts a historical approach to study the development of law, particularly property rights, and takes an empirical approach to investigate the tank conflicts. Archival documents on irrigation development, Case laws, Focus Group Discussions, Open ended Interviews and Field visits to selected tank chains are used as source material for the discussion. Case studies of conflicts are described and analyzed at three levels - Vaigai river basin for a macro level, Kothai Anicut system in Cauvery basin for a meso level, and twenty other interconnected tanks for a micro-level. The thesis deviates from the conventional understanding that tanks as traditional systems as simple and local technologies but considers them to be complex. It argues that the use of commonly held systems such as tanks within the colonial and post colonial laws as state ownership has been the source of many conflicts. In particular, it finds most tank conflicts are a product of progressive and absolute state control over water and the systems established using colonial land revenue administrative law. The law continues to treat tanks as pieces of landed property held by state and the individuals rather than as technology systems that presupposed the regime of property rights introduced after the colonial times. The modern interventions in water including the reservoir building, and altering the hydraulics of rivers and streams aggravate tank conflicts and lead to their further detriment. The study brings the focus to ground realities, and offers new perspectives on understanding tank systems in dynamic ways.

Reprint of Ohio cases published in the Weekly law gazette [1872- 1887], Law and bank bulletin [1857-1859], American law register [1853-1885], Ohio law journal [1880-1884] : reprinted for the Ohio decisions series of Ohio case law books ...

"Ohio decisions, and Ohio Decisions Reprints, Contain all the Decisions of Ohio Courts Below the Supreme."--t.p.

‘Abuse of Rights’ in Belgian and French Patent Law – A Case Law Analysis

This paper examines what types of actions undertaken by patent holders have been considered as abusive in the framework of French and Belgian patent litigation. Particular attention is given to the principle of the prohibition of “abuse of rights” (AoR). In the jurisdictions under scrutiny, the principle of AoR is essentially a jurisprudential construction in cases where judges faced a particular set of circumstances for which no codified rules were available. To investigate how judges deal with the prohibition of AoR in patent litigation and taking into account the jurisprudential nature of the principle, an in-depth and comparative case law analysis has been conducted. Although the number of cases in which patent holders have been sanctioned for such abuses is not overabundant, they do provide sufficient leads on what is understood by Belgian and French courts to constitute an abuse of patent rights. From this comparative analysis, useful lessons can be learned for the interpretation of the ambiguous notion of ‘abuse’ from a broader perspective.

Case studies of statutory interventions into the common law concept of charity

This paper considers four examples of statutory interventions into the common law concept of charity, namely, those of Pennsylvania, Barbados, the definition recommended by the Report of the Inquiry into the Definition of Charities in Australia, and the Recreational Charities legislation of the United Kingdom. It comments on some issues affecting each style of intervention. The paper does not argue against statutory intervention but submits that legislative changes are best made by deeming a particular purpose to be charitable, or not charitable, so that, except to that extent, the common law concept remains intact – this is the approach adopted by the Recreational Charities legislation.

Case study of Queensland state taxation

1. Like the Commonwealth Tax regime, state taxation legislation has now ballooned in size from the good old days when life and tax were relatively simple issues. 2. This case study of Queensland state taxation will examine the following taxes affecting churches and charities in this state: (a) Stamp Duty (b) Land Tax; and (c) Local Authority Rates 3. Each type of tax will be considered in turn. A brief legislative history of the statutory instruments governing these taxes will be given with a closer examination of the present schemes. Relevant judicial pronouncements will be considered and some open discussion of real life examples. 4. It is submitted that the regular donors to our worthy charities and the dedicated weekly churchgoers would have absolutely no idea: (a) that indirectly the value of their donations and weekly offerings are increasingly being eroded by the imposts of Government not only in terms of the amounts of those imposts but the enormous administrative burden of coping with the legislation; (b) of the complexity of the taxation legislation affecting their churches and charities; or (c) that their churches and charities are even paying taxes.

A pragmatic approach to intellectual property and development : a case study of the Jordanian copyright law in the internet age

On October 4, 2004, Brazil and Argentina requested that WIPO adopt a development-oriented approach to IP and to reconsider its work in relation to developing countries. In October, 2007, WIPO member States adopted a historic decision for the benefit of developing countries, to establish a WIPO Development Agenda. Although there have been several studies related to IP and development that call for IP laws in developing countries to be development-friendly, there is little research that attempts to provide developing countries with practical measures to achieve that goal. This article takes the copyright law in Jordan as a case study and shows how, in practical terms, a pro-development-oriented approach could be implemented in the copyright laws of developing countries. It provides specific recommendations for developing countries to ensure that their IP laws are aligned with and serve their social and economic development objectives.