The relevance of context in property law: a case for judicial restraint?

A distinction between the domestic and commercial context is commonly drawn in property law discourse and has been brought into focus by three recent House of Lords' decisions. The thesis of this paper is that while the distinction is a useful explanatory tool, it runs into difficulties when given legal effect by the courts. There is a definitional problem in understanding what is included within each context. Indeed, the distinction assumes the existence of a dichotomy when, in fact, the domestic and commercial spheres are better seen as a continuum. In Stack v Dowden, the majority of the House of Lords gave legal effect to context and considered that different rules should apply to determine ownership of the home. This paper locates its decision in the broader debate on judicial restraint and creativity. By analogy with current discussion of due deference in public law, it is suggested that, in light of the policy issues involved and the broader ramifications of the decision, insufficient justification was given for the approach adopted by the majority.

The international law implications of the Turkish/Kurdish conflict

This article considers the threaties and customs governing armed conflict in the context of the long standing insurgency in southeast Turkey. The first part of the article analyzes the existing treaty and customary law concerning the threshold of an armed conflict and concludes that the insurgency in Southeast Turkey existing since 1984 rises to the level of an armed conflict based on criteria identified both in treaty and customary international law. The next consideration is the classification of this conflict and this part concludes that this situation is a non-international armed conflict due to lack of involvement of forces of another country. Finally, this article considers international humanitarian law applicable to this non-international armed conflict and reveals that as a result of the monumental International Committee of the Red Cross customary humanitarian law study, particularly with respect to the law of targeting, that the rules applicable to international and non-international armed conflict have never been closer.

The Kurdish conflict: international humanitarian law and post-conflict mechanisms

This book is highly topical considering the recent resurgence of violence by the PKK, the incursions into Northern Iraq by the Turkish army and security forces and Turkey’s EU accession negotiations. Turkey has become an increasingly important player in Middle Eastern geopolitics. More than two decades of serious conflict in Turkey are proving to be a barrier to improved relations between Turkey and the EU. This book is the first study to address fully the legal and political dimensions of the conflict, and their impact on mechanisms for conflict resolution in the region, offering a scholarly exploration of a debate that is often politically and emotionally highly charged. Kerim Yildiz and Susan Breau look at the practical application of the law of armed conflicts to the ongoing situation in Turkey and Northern Iraq. The application of the law in this region also means addressing larger questions in international law, global politics and conflict resolution. Examples include belligerency in international law, whether the ‘war on terror’ has resulted in changes to the law of armed conflict and terrorism and conflict resolution. The Kurdish Conflict explores the practical possibilities of conflict resolution in the region, examining the political dynamics of the region, and suggesting where lessons can be drawn from other peace processes, such as in Northern Ireland. This book will be of great value to policy-makers, regional experts, and others interested in international humanitarian law and conflict resolution.

Construction contracts: law and management. 4th edition

This is a fully revised edition of the UK’s leading textbook on the law governing construction contracts and the management and administration of those contracts. Although the legal principles involved are an aspect of general contract law, the practical and commercial complexities of the construction industry have increasingly made this a specialist area. This new edition has been brought up to date with recent cases and developments in the law as it stands at March 2007. The basic approach of the book has been retained. Rather than provide a commentary on standard-form contracts, our approach is to introduce the general principles that underlie contracts in construction, illustrating them by reference to the most important standard forms currently in use. Some of the common standard-form contracts have been revised since the previous edition, and the text has been revised to take account of these changes. Practitioners (consultants, builders, clients and lawyers) will find this an extremely useful source of reference, providing in-depth explanations for all of the features found in contemporary construction contracts, with reasons. A unique feature of this book is the way that it brings together the relevant principles of law with the practical issues arising in construction cases. It is a key text for construction undergraduates and postgraduates as well as for those taking the RIBA Part III and CIOB Part II examinations.

The dynamics and measurement of commercial property depreciation in the UK

Beginning with an extensive literature review, this new research summary report analyses the process of rental depreciation, its effect on the performance of rents, and the impacts of capital expenditure on depreciation. It is based on an analysis of more than 700 commercial and industrial properties and newer property types and it is the most comprehensive national study of rental depreciation since the 1986 CALUS report. The report will be of interest to valuers, fund managers, institutional investors and their advisors and researchers.

A simplified spectrophotometric method for routine analysis of saccharin in commercial noncaloric sweeteners

A simple, rapid, and sensitive spectrophotometric method for routine analysis of saccharin in commercial noncaloric sweeteners is proposed. This method is based on the reaction of saccharin with tetrachloro-p-benzoquinone (p-chloranil) accelerated by hydrogen peroxide and conducted in an ethanol:acetone (4:1) medium, producing a violet-red compound (γ max = 550 nm). Beer's law is obeyed in a concentration range of 2.05 × 10 -4 to 3.00 × 10 -3 M with an excellent correlation coefficient (r = 0.9998). The detection limit was 1.55 × 10 -5 M, and the effect of interferences on the spectrophotometric measurements was evaluated. The proposed procedure was applied successfully to the determination of saccharin in noncaloric sweeteners. Recoveries were within 99.2-104.3% with standard deviations ranging from to 0.5-1.6%. Results of the proposed method compare very favorably with those given by the high-performance liquid chromatography method recommended by the Food and Drug Administration.

Detecção do TCoV (Turkey Coronavirus) a partir de amostras provenientes de perus (Meleagris gallopavo) com quadro agudo de enterite

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Banking Regulation in Turkey and Russia: An Economic Analysis

The importance of the banks and financial markets relies on the fact that they promote economic efficiency by allocating savings efficiently to profitable investment opportunities.An efficient banking system is a key determinant for the financial stability.The theory of market failure forms the basis for understanding financial regulation.Following the detrimental economic and financial consequences in theaftermath of the crisis, academics and policymakers started to focus their attention on the construction of an appropriate regulatory and supervisory framework of the banking sector. This dissertation aims at understanding the impact of regulations and supervision on banks’ performance focusing on two emerging market economies, Turkey and Russia. It aims at examining the way in which regulations matter for financial stability and banking performance from a law & economics perspective. A review of the theory of banking regulation, particularly as applied to emerging economies, shows that the efficiency of certain solutions regarding banking regulation is open to debate. Therefore, in the context of emerging countries, whether a certain approach is efficient or not will be presented as an empirical question to which this dissertation will try to find an answer.

Law, Informal Institutions and Trust: an Experimental Perspective

This dissertation has studied how legal and non-legal mechanisms affect the levels of trust and trustworthiness in an economy, and whether and when subtle psychological factors are crucial for establishing trust and even for recovering trust from a breach of contract. The first Chapter has addressed the question of whether formal legal enforcement crowds out or crowds in the amount of trust in a society. We find that formal legal mechanisms, especially formal contracts backed by a powerful authority, normally undermine trust except when they are perceived as legitimate, or when there are no strong social norms of fairness (i.e. the population in a society is considerably heterogeneous), or when the environment in which repeated commercial relationships take place becomes highly uncertain. The second Chapter has examined whether the endogenous adoption of a collective punishment institution can help a society coordinate on an efficient outcome, characterized by high levels of trust and trustworthiness. The experimental results show that the endogenous introduction of collective punishment by means of a majority-voting rule does not significantly improve coordination on the efficient equilibrium. Not all subjects seem to be able to anticipate the change in behavior induced by the introduction of the mechanism, and a majority of them vote against it. The third Chapter has explored whether high-trustors adapt their behavior in response to others’ trustworthiness or untrustworthiness more quickly, which in turn supports them to maintain higher default expectations of others’ trustworthiness relative to low-trustors. Our experimental results reveal that high-trustors are better than low-trustors at predicting others’ trustworthiness because they are less susceptible to the anticipated aversive emotions aroused by the potential betrayal and thereby have a higher willingness to acquire the valuable information about their partner’s actions.

Copyright Exhaustion Rationales and Used Software: A Law and Economics Approach to Oracle v. UsedSoft

This article aims to provide courts and policymakers with an analytical framework that, building upon the traditional rationales of IP exhaustion doctrine, identifies factors which advocate for a modulation or flexibilization of the role of exhaustion in copyright law. Factors include (i) the personal features of acquirers of copies of copyrighted works, distinguishing between consumers and commercial users; (ii) whether post-sale restrictions have been adequately communicated to acquirers and have been agreed in the contract or license; (iii) the degree of complexity of the acquired goods and their prospects of productive uses and interoperability; (iv) the role of other exclusive rights in providing rightholders with indirect control over uses of the copies in the aftermarket; (v) the impact of post-sale restraints in preventing opportunism in long-term contracts and in reducing deadweight losses created by IP pricing; and (vi) the temporal scope of post-sale restraints. After setting out this analytical framework, the ECJ Judgement in Oracle v. UsedSoft is discussed.

Misunderstanding Creativity : User Created Content in Virtual Worlds and its Constraints by Code and Law

Virtual worlds have moved from being a geek topic to one of mainstream academic interest. This transition is contingent not only on the augmented economic, societal and cultural value of these virtual realities and their effect upon real life but also on their convenience as fields for experimentation, for testing models and paradigms. User creation is however not something that has been transplanted from the real to the virtual world but a phenomenon and a dynamic process that happens from within and is defined through complex relationships between commercial and non-commercial, commodified and not commodified, individual and of the community, amateur and professional, art and not art. Accounting for this complex environment, the present paper explores user created content in virtual worlds, its dimensions and value and above all, its constraints by code and law. It puts forward suggestions for better understanding and harnessing this creativity.

A Preliminary Impact Assessment of Doha Round Results on Agricultural Policies in Turkey

Turkish agriculture has been experiencing a period of unique policy experiment over the last couple years. A World Bank-initiated project, called the Agricultural Reform Implementation Project (ARIP), has been at the forefront of policy change. It was initially promoted by the Bank as an exemplary reform package which could also be adopted by other developing countries. It was introduced in 2001 as part of a major International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank-imposed program of “structural adjustment” after the country had been hit by a major financial crisis. The project has finally come to an end in 2009, and there is now an urgent need for a retrospective assessment of its overall impact on the agricultural sector. Has it fulfilled its ambitious objective of reforming and restructuring Turkish agriculture? Or should it be recorded as a failure of the neo-liberal doctrine? This book aims at finding answers to these questions by investigating the legacy of ARIP from a multi-disciplinary perspective.