This book undertakes a comparative analysis of the ways in which legal systems in all regions of the world deal with agreed sums payable upon breach of an obligation which is unique in its breadth. It shows divergences and convergences and indicates trends as to the future development of the law. The book also deals with the treatment of agreed sums under the 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG); to date it offers the first comprehensive solution to this issue based on comparative analysis. For practitioners as well as researchers this book is a valuable source of information and offers suggestions for solutions to current and future issues.

This book focuses on the question of whether European agricultural legislation and competition rules offer any scope for self-regulation in the European dairy market. Within this larger question, certain sub-questions also arise: what are the relevant legal rules applicable to the dairy market, and what type of self-regulation is possible within the present legal framework? The book offers a number of suggestions for modification of agricultural and competition policies in order to better serve the interests of dairy farmers. 

This volume contains the updated papers of the 3rd Annual MAA Peter Schlechtriem CISG Conference, which was held on 14 April 2011 in Vienna. The contributions cover a variety of topics. Subjects discussed include the trends in the relative importance of physical and non-physical attributes of goods in terms of conformity under the CISG, the characteristics of various forms of documentary performance and the outer limits of the CISG in relation to property damages. The book is a valuable resource for both academics and practitioners dealing with international sales.

This is the inaugural address delivered on the acceptance of the Chair of Empirical Legal Studies at the Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

This book deals with consolidation of arbitral disputes pending before either the International chamber of Commerce or the Swiss Chambers of Commerce. It is mainly concerned with determining both the logical and the legal justifications for these rules, using Switzerland as the seat country and Germany and the United States as sample enforcement countries. The book first covers the validity of choosing consolidation by reference to these institutional rules. Secondly, the choice of arbitrators is discussed in light of party equality and party autonomy versus mandatory local laws. Thirdly, procedural adjustments, made necessary by the use of a consolidation procedure, are analyzed. Fourthly, the logical justifications for consolidation will be tested. This work concludes that only a policy of restraint and a spelling out of criteria for consolidation will serve the purposes of consolidation and withstand judicial scrutiny. This work is of interest to legal academics and arbitration professionals.

There is erosion of trust in elected institutions in both well-established democracies and new democracies. Whether we locate the cause of crisis of democracy in the current financial crisis or in the structural features and quality of democracy in general, democrats are in need of strategies for overcoming this, seemingly, most crucial problem of contemporary politics. Crisis and Quality of Democracy in Eastern Europe addresses this need by bringing together political, legal, and economic scholars and analysts who tackle this worrisome backsliding of democracies, placing special emphasis on East European post-communist states. The book is organized around three central themes. The first provides theoretical assessment of the crisis and quality of democracy with examination of the tension between democracy and capitalism, the sources of disenchantment and cynicism about democratic politics, and conceptualization of quality of democracy. The second theme is the state of constitutionalism, democracy, and the rule of law in Eastern Europe, which is organized around four case-studies - Hungary, Serbia, Poland, and Macedonia. The final subject matter is the nature of a connection between economic performance and democratic mechanisms in the post-communist states. Ranging over political theory, political science, constitutional law, and economics, this book will be appealing to theorists as well as to empirical or policy-oriented experts working within democratic studies.

The book revolves around the public international law aspects of the destructive use of cyberspace by state actors and non-state actors, encompassing cyberwar, cyberterrorism, and hacktivism, but excluding cybercrime. For the purpose of delimitation, it also addresses cyberespionage and political activism in cyberspace. By providing an overview of the technical background, the book explains the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure. It outlines notable cyberincidents occurred so far and analyzes pertinent state practice and policies. Turning to the legal analysis, it primarily focuses on the contemporary jus ad bellum and jus in bello, exploring whether concepts like the use of force or self-defense, are applicable to cyberattacks, despite their lack of physicality, or whether state responsibility and the principles of International Humanitarian Law are applicaple to cyberspace, in particular in the light of an evident civilianization of battlespace in this area. Furthermore, the book encompasses destructive cyberterrorism and opposes it to the use of cyberspace for terrorist purposes, and puts this into context with human rights aspects of political activism in cyberspace. It also looks into jurisdictional pitfalls borne in cyberspace. After a brief summary of the research results, the final chapter is dedicated to providing recommendations to the international community, in order to address cyberthreats in a political process.

For centuries, courts of law have been faced with the problem of determining what type of innovation is an appropriate subject matter for a patent. With each technical advance, the question of what is, and what is not, patentable must once again be determined by the courts. This book traces the development of a legal structure for patents for invention during the earlier phase of the Industrial Revolution in England (1750s-1830s). The study charts the development of patent law by examining judicial decision-making in patent disputes in the late eighteenth-early nineteenth century. Its focus is on the attitude of judges to patents. It examines what factors judges may have taken into account in reaching their decisions and how these factors may have affected the moulding of the legal concepts of patent law. The type of technology at issue may have changed since the eighteenth century, but the legal discussions these developments have engendered show some remarkable similarities to the discussions that were taking place in the courts during the Industrial Revolution. In the final chapter, the author sets out recent legal discussions on the patentability of software. This book will not fail to be of interest to anyone dealing with patent law and innovation.

This book is concerned with the analysis of the pre-accession and post-accession process in the field of free movement of persons in the EU. It examines the extent to which nationals of states covered by Europe Agreements and Stabilisation and Association Agreements derive rights related to free movement and non-discrimination under three categories of economic movement - as workers, as self-employed persons and as service providers. The text discusses a number of controversial issues related to the topic of movement, such as access to the Member States' labour market, family reunification rights and transitional arrangements in the post-accession period. It reveals that the transformation of the status of economic migrants is not finalised immediately upon accession and the sensitivities surrounding free movement of persons from the new Member States remain much longer.

This is the second edition of the acclaimed 'International Air Law and ICAO', first published in 2008. The book has been fully updated to take the latest developments into account. Specialized legal literature dealing with different aspects of international air law is rare, the developments often overtake the existing writings and there is a continuous need not only for updating but also for future-oriented thinking. There is a practical need for a compact but exhaustive and easily comprehensible textbook or reference book that deals with the most general aspects of international air law, as well as with the constitutional issues and law-making functions of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). This book fills this gap as it is a general treatise of the law of international civil aviation aimed at the needs of university students and educators, government authorities, airlines, practising lawyers, journalists, international organizations and the general public.

The book examines the plurality of factors involving the proliferation of international courts and tribunals at global and regional level and also the reasons for their marked specialisation as well as the demand for international justice and the growing confidence in international judicial bodies and in their functions. The book also considers the details of each court and tribunal, the context in which it exercises its function and its case law.

This book contains the papers of the ILA panel on Islamic Finance and the Influence of Religion on the Law. First, the concept of Islamic finance is introduced, with the aim to foster a better understanding of Shar'ia compliant financial products and service providers. The second contribution discusses the wider issue that Islamic finance raises, namely the application of religion-based-law in multi-religious societies and in global transactions. The third contribution deals with the interface between law and religion from the perspective of religion in the wider context of striving for peace and justice, focusing on the economic approach shared by the monotheistic faiths and its application in Jewish law and practice. The last chapter covers Islamic finance and the financial crisis. The book also includes a bibliography.

One of the central values of a civil society is that its legal system makes fair and accurate de-cisions concerning fault and innocence. The legal decision-maker will bring a lawsuit to a conclusion by formulating the verdict. Jurists - and judges in particular - are consequently in the business of decision-making. They are expected to produce accurate and valid judgments.Judges have to establish or disprove human wrongdoing but in undertaking this business, they may err themselves. There are two reasons why the err. The first is following the wrong legal alley. The other possibility has to do with the facts. A decision may be based on an incomplete set of facts, the information may be incorrect or our interpretation of accurate facts may be inaccu-rate. All this confronts us with two fundamental and interrelated questions: how do judges decide and how should judges decide? This book contains a collection of papers confronting these issues from a seminar on determinants, dynamics and delusions of judicial decision making which was held on the occasion of the inaugural lecture of Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, accepting the Erasmus Chair of Empirical Legal Studies at Erasmus School of Law Rotterdam.

This book of essays follows from and adds to the presentations, discussions and debates - the exchanges of ideas - of the Critical Legal Conference 2010, held in Utrecht 10-12 September at the Department of Legal Theory of the Faculty of Law (Utrecht University). The Critical Legal Conference is an annual gathering of legal scholars that share a critical outlook on law and legal scholarship. This year's conference focused, as a main theme, on exposing the normative abuse of law against the background of 'multiple modernities', i.e. the idea that modernity is not a single encompassing, Western concept but entails different traditions and ways of thought about contemporary society.

Onderzoek naar nieuwe benaderingen en aanpak van lokale regelingen voor landrechten in de derde wereld

Miljoenen mensen wonen en werken op land waarop zij geen officiële rechten hebben. Hun bezit wordt vaak wel beschermd door niet-statelijke rechten die wortelen in lokale gemeenschappen. Ontwikkelingsdeskundigen en donoren hebben lange tijd zulke onofficiële regelingen als een hinderpaal voor ontwikkeling gezien en gewerkt aan invoering van individueel eigendom en complexe registratie, teneinde investeringen in land, huis en bedrijfje aan te moedigen en de productiviteit te verhogen. Deze aanpak werkt niet en daarom wordt nu gezocht naar een nieuwe, pluralistischer aanpak die probeert lokale regelingen te erkennen en waar nodig te verbeteren. 

In dit boek worden zulke nieuwe benaderingen onderzocht. Experts uit acht landen in Azië, Latijns-Amerika en Afrika behandelen eerst de landwetgeving en -politiek van hun land en komen dan met een concrete gevalstudie van zon nieuwe aanpak. Steeds is de vraag wat zon nieuwe statelijke aanpak van landrechten betekent in het dagelijkse leven van kleine boeren (ruraal), van bewoners van onofficiële stedelijke wijken (urbaan) en van mensen die onder de rook van de stad wonen en werken (peri-urbaan). Hoe zeker voelen zij zich nu van hun rechten (tenure security), kennen ze de nieuwe regeling en kunnen ze zich er effectief op beroepen (legal empowerment), werken de overheidsinstanties controleerbaar (control of bureaucrats)?

In this monograph, the author aims to provide a comprehensive comparative study on modern sales law in the Eastern European and Central Asian states, covering 25 jurisdictions altogether. The paper is based on legislative acts, doctrine and case-studies. Taking into account the significant difficulties in accessing these materials in the English language, the work will serve as a source of information on a number of contract law issues for lawyers worldwide. This research aims to contribute to legal scholarship by providing a comparative-functional approach in the subject area of sales law. The approach taken should be useful for any law practitioner and researcher looking for a detailed and well-supported legal answer to any of the topics covered by this work.

Essaybundel over de grote invloed die kolonialisme tot op de dag van vandaag uitoefent op de islamitische juridische praktijk van het Afrikaanse continent. Deze essaybundel behandelt het Franse en Britse koloniale bestuur in Afrika en laat zien hoe deze machten omgingen met de diversiteit aan islamitische rechtsscholen, rechtsgeleerden en rechtspraktijken in Sub-Sahara Afrika. De bijdragen gaan in op de grote invloed die dit kolonialisme tot op de dag van vandaag uitoefent op de islamitische juridische praktijk van het Afrikaanse continent. De vergelijkende historische en antropologische artikelen belichten daarnaast de strijd van een aantal Afrikaanse regeringen met hun islamitische inwoners om de uitvoering van de Shariawetgeving, vooral rond het familierecht. 'Muslim Family Law in Sub-Saharan Africa' plaatst de verschillende perspectieven in een vergelijkende historische (koloniale) context. - Shamil Jeppie is docent Historische studies aan de University of Cape Town, Zuid-Afrika - Ebrahim Moosa is docent Religieuze studies aan Duke University, Verenigde Staten - Richard Roberts is hoogleraar Geschiedenis aan Stanford University, Verenigde Staten

This work is the outcome of a research project on the application and enforcement of EU law by national judges. The project focused on the experiences of national judges in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and the Netherlands and its aim is to understand the processes surrounding the application of EU law. Furthermore, the role of national judges as decentralized EU judges is examined. The research shows that EU law still has limited impact on the type of cases tried. The book makes several recommendations to foster the application of EU law.

The book aims at providing a state-of-the-art overview and assessment of the status quo and future of the ODR field by the leading ODR scholars in the world. International, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches have been utilized, and the book is divided into two main parts. In part one, in-depth assessment of ODR, its applications, and future is provided in a comparative and analytical context, and part two provides a regional oriented approach, where the prospects, challenges, and success of ODR and its applications in the North America, Latin America, Africa, Australia, Europe, and Asia is mapped and fully addressed. The book is a must read text by scholars, practitioners, academics, and researchers in the dispute resolution and information technology field. 

Private Law 2.0: On the Role of Private Actors in a Post-National Societyis the inaugural lecture delivered by Jan M. Smits as Maastricht University-HiiL Chair on the Internationalisation of Law on Tuesday 30 November 2010. Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL) Shaping the Law of the Future | HiiL is an international research institute that studies the challenges globalisation poses to legal systems, in particular at the national level. Fundamental research for practical solutions | HiiL joins the best thinkers from top-level universities with practitioners in bottom-up knowledge partnerships to generate real solutions for the challenges of the law of the future. Flexible and global | HiiL is a networked organisation with a Small in-house staff and over 140 HiiL Fellows from around the world working on its projects. www.hiil.org 

This volume contains the proceedings of the 54th Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space held in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2011, including the 26th IAA-IISL Scientific-Legal Roundtable, as well as the papers presented at the IISL-ECSL Space Law Symposium held on the occasion of the 50th session of the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in Vienna, Austria in March 2011, and of the 6th Eilene M. Galloway Symposium on Critical Issues In Space Law, held in Washington D.C., United States in December 2011. It also contains the report and best written memorials of the World Finals of the 20th Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition.

The International Institute of Space Law (IISL) was founded in 1960. The purposes and objectives of the Institute include the cooperation with appropriate international organisations and national institutions in the field of space law and the carrying out of tasks for fostering the development of space law. It also includes the studies of legal and social science aspects of the exploration and use of outer space and the holding of meetings, colloquia and competitions on juridical and social science aspects of space activities. See for more information www.iislweb.org. 

This work presents the peer-reviewed and updated conference papers presented at the 12th Winelands Conference on Public Leadership for Added Citizen Value. In order to produce good results, public leadership must be ethical and effective. Context is important when seeking to understand the concept of public leadership as well as to provide guidelines for action. Such an understanding is imperative when the focus is on effective and ethical public leadership that adds value to the lives of citizens. Proper analysis is required on the nature and scope of public leadership in terms of institutions as well as leaders who deal with the challenges. Public leaders need specific competencies that provide guidelines as well as to inform processes of research, education and development in the field. The contributions are from experts in the field.

Racial discrimination is a topical subject, given the increased migration and movement of people of different ethnic origins and cultural backgrounds throughout the world, when most of the countries are multiethnic and multicultural. This book deals with racial discrimination and covers a myriad of aspects, such as its definition, categories of persons protected against racism, commitments taken by States, problems and difficulties of States in fulfilling their commitments, and activities of international bodies monitoring the implementation of the international instruments, mainly the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The author combines theoretical aspects of racism with States practice in implementing the 1965 International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Activities of human rights treaty bodies and other international mechanisms dealing with the protection of human rights are also covered. The book provides a guide to the application of the ICERD and is aimed at government officials, human rights activists and non-governmental organizations. Scholars and students who seek indepth information on the topic will also find this book a valuable work. 

This book provides a roadmap of the law applicable to the food sector in the EU. Rules and regulations are to be found at the international level, the European level and the private sector level. National legislation of the individual Member States is not covered in this book. International food law largely is a meta-framework providing models and setting limits to the way states and other entities, such as the EU, regulate the food sector. The Codex Alimentarius plays a central role at the international level. European law comprises a mix of rules. In the food sector the core of European food law can be found in a Regulation best known as the 'General Food Law' Regulation. An increasing number of EU Regulations applicable in this field directly address consumers and businesses in the same way national legislation does. In addition, there are EU directives requiring Member States to include harmonized provisions in their national legal system. Finally, the private sector has formulated schemes consisting of private standards that are embedded in certification procedures. These schemes are based on EU legislation taking it beyond the borders of the EU, elaborating it in more detail or simply ensuring compliance. Some schemes are based on international models. The roadmap provides an overview of the structure and content of food law in such a way that it is clear which rules are applicable. As the food sector has become one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the EU, a book that specifically deals with the law in this field cannot fail to be of importance to anyone interested in food law. 

This work presents a collection of essays about Russian Law and Economics with respect to the Russian federation's relations to the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It confronts the challenges facing a transition economy in its struggle for economic development through market forces and its efforts to impose the rule of law, not men, on a former dictatorship. The topics addressed range from Russia's relationship to the EU and other CIS states to a variety of commercial law topics: key contemporary issues in Russian intellectual property, tax, and M&A law are addressed by Russian jurists writing in English. The problems of corruption or bureaucracy are addressed directly and openly in the hope that increased EU and U.S. cooperation with the Russian Federation will lead to better international relations.;

This book features the European approach to enhance global aviation safety. The EU SAFA programme, with its legal basis in Directive 2004/36/EC, will focus on air carrier operational performance and compliance. Its main objective shall be to establish and maintain a high uniform level of aviation safety to protect the interests of European citizens. In recent decades civil aviation has been one of the worlds leading economic growth sectors. To control civil aviation safety records, the European Union is focusing on enhancing safety by ensuring that air operators and aviation oversight authorities shall fully comply with international safety standards defined by the Chicago Convention. Deregulation, emerging low-cost air carriers and subsequent fierce competition are forcing air carriers with heavy financial commitments closer to the neglect of safety. In addition, there is concern that the tremendous increase in civil air traffic, particularly through the participation of third-country aircraft, that would not or insufficiently meet the minimum safety standards and consequently might pose a potential safety threat, could lead to an increase in the number of fatal accidents. Safety assessment of foreign aircraft and inclusion of defaulting air carriers on the EU blacklist are instruments to counteract adverse safety deterioration. This publication is aimed at academics, involved in air law research, government authorities, airline experts and practising lawyers.

In the course of the last one hundred years, quite a lot has been achieved especially in the 'Western' world. Life standards have risen considerably. All kind of serious diseases belong to the past. People get older than ever before; the progress of technology has proven beneficial to mankind. Primarily the 'developed' countries have gained a lot from all this, although these developments have also had spin-off effects on the 'developing' countries. For example, extreme poverty has been eradicated to quite some extent. The BRICS-countries have become new economic powers in the world. Despite all these advances, the world still faces many threats and challenges. This book aims to provide thoughts about the role the law could possibly play to ward off man-made crises. The focus will be on global threats which are, unless checked in due time, going to stir the world at large. What follows tries to provide stepping stones for shaping the law to cope with the major challenges of our time, such as climate change, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.

This book deals with the topic of shareholder democracy from a comparative point of view. Shareholders have important rights which they can exercise democratically at the general meeting. They have the power to control and supervise management of the company. The term shareholder democracy relates to the different ways in which shareholders can influence or even determine a company's course of life. One of the disadvantages of shareholder democracy is a risk that most democratic systems face - it can lead to opportunistic behaviour of, in this case, influential shareholders with personal interests which are not in line with the interest of the company. Globalizing financial markets call for a general debate of this topic in an international context. Shareholder democracy does not only play a part in takeover situations, it touches the very core of every company law system. The position of shareholders within the company model, for example, influences the corporate interest definition, which in turn has significant consequences for the position of the board of directors. This book places the topic of shareholder democracy in an international context. It contains contributions from authors from various Legal systems discussing the issue of shareholder democracy within their own jurisdiction. The book covers among other topics the power of shareholders in Germany, the UK, South Africa, Belgium and the Netherlands.