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Legal Protection (legal + protection)
Selected AbstractsThe Importance of the 1899, 1907 and 1999 Hague Conferences for the Legal Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed ConflictMUSEUM INTERNATIONAL, Issue 4 2005Adriaan Bos [source] Access to and Legal Protection of Aquaculture Genetic Resources,Norwegian PerspectivesTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 4 2006G. Kristin Rosendal A central socio-economic challenge in fish breeding arises from issues relating to access to and exclusive rights of genetic resources. Breeding companies need legal or biological protection measures to assure revenues from genetic improvement and investment in genetic material. Fish farmers and fish breeders need access to genetic resources for food production and further development and sustainable use of fish genetic material. How can a balance be created between the need for unencumbered and free access, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the need to ensure a right to the results from breeding and research? First, we provide a brief outline of the rationale for ensuring access to and for using legal measures for protection of breeding materials in aquaculture. Secondly, we examine how technological developments and biological features present options and barriers that will affect choices relating to access and property right issues to fish genetic resources. [source] The Challenges of Ambient Law and Legal Protection in the Profiling EraTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 3 2010Mireille Hildebrandt Ambient Intelligence is a vision of a future in which autonomic smart environments take an unprecedented number of decisions both for the private and the public good. It involves a shift to automated pattern recognition, a new paradigm in the construction of knowledge. This will fundamentally affect our lives, increasing specific types of errors, loss of autonomy and privacy, unfair discrimination and stigmatisation, and an absence of due process. Current law's articulation in the technology of the printed script is inadequate in the face of the new type of knowledge generation. A possible solution is to articulate legal protections within the socio-technical infrastructure. In particular, both privacy-enhancing and transparency-enhancing technologies must be developed that embed legal rules in ambient technologies themselves. This vision of ,Ambient Law' requires a novel approach to law making which addresses the challenges of technology, legitimacy, and political-legal theory. Only a constructive and collaborative effort to migrate law from books to other technologies can ensure that Ambient Law becomes reality, safeguarding the fundamental values underlying privacy, identity, and democracy in tomorrow's ambient intelligent world. [source] Improving the design and management of forest strips in human-dominated tropical landscapes: a field test on Amazonian dung beetlesJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Jos Barlow Summary 1.,The future of tropical forest species depends in part on their ability to survive in human-modified landscapes. Forest strips present a priority area for biodiversity research because they are a common feature of many managed landscapes, are often afforded a high level of legal protection, and can provide a cost-effective and politically acceptable conservation strategy. 2.,Despite the potential conservation benefits that could be provided by forest strips, ecologists currently lack sufficient evidence to inform policy and guide their design and management. 3.,We used a quasi-experimental landscape in the Brazilian Amazon to test the importance of four management-relevant variables (forest type, isolation distance, forest structure, and large mammal activity) on the potential biodiversity conservation value of narrow forest strips for dung beetles. 4.,Information-theoretic model selection based on AICc revealed strong support for the influence of large mammal activity and forest type on dung beetle abundance; isolation distance on species richness; and forest structure on the relative abundance of matrix-tolerant species. Multi-dimensional scaling showed a strong influence of forest type and isolation on community composition and structure, with riparian and dry-land strips having complementary sets of species. 5.,Synthesis and applications. To enhance the conservation value and ecological integrity of forest strips in human-modified landscapes we recommend that strip design considers both isolation distance and whether or not the strips encompass perennial streams. In addition, we identify the maintenance of forest structure and the protection of large mammal populations as being crucially important for conserving forest dung beetle communities. [source] The Implications of Trade Credit for Bank Monitoring: Suggestive Evidence from JapanJOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 2 2008Yoshiro Miwa Firms in modern developed economies borrow from both banks and trade partners. Using Japanese manufacturing data from the 1960s, we estimate the price of trade credit, and explore some of the ways firms choose between the credit and bank loans. We find that firms of all sizes borrow heavily from their trade partners, and at implicit rates that track the explicit rates banks would charge. They borrow from banks when they anticipate needing money for relatively long periods; they turn to trade partners when they face short-term unexpected exigencies. This apparent contrast in the term structures follows, we suggest, from the fundamentally different way bankers and trade partners cut default risk. Because bankers seldom know their borrowers' industries first hand, they rely on formal legal protection (like security interests). Because trade partners know the industry well, they reduce risk by monitoring their borrowers closely instead. Because the costs to creating legal mechanisms are heavily front-loaded, bankers focus on long-term debt; because the costs of monitoring debtors are ongoing, trade creditors do not. Apparently, banks monitor less than we have thought. [source] Private Enforcement of Corporate Law: An Empirical Comparison of the United Kingdom and the United StatesJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2009John Armour It is often assumed that strong securities markets require good legal protection of minority shareholders. This implies both "good" law,principally, corporate and securities law,and enforcement, yet there has been little empirical analysis of enforcement. We study private enforcement of corporate law in two common-law jurisdictions with highly developed stock markets, the United Kingdom and the United States, examining how often directors of publicly traded companies are sued, and the nature and outcomes of those suits. We find, based a comprehensive search for filings over 2004,2006, that lawsuits against directors of public companies alleging breach of duty are nearly nonexistent in the United Kingdom. The United States is more litigious, but we still find, based on a nationwide search of court decisions between 2000,2007, that only a small percentage of public companies face a lawsuit against directors alleging a breach of duty that is sufficiently contentious to result in a reported judicial opinion, and a substantial fraction of these cases are dismissed. We examine possible substitutes in the United Kingdom for formal private enforcement of corporate law and find some evidence of substitutes, especially for takeover litigation. Nonetheless, our results suggest that formal private enforcement of corporate law is less central to strong securities markets than might be anticipated. [source] Return to the River: Environmental Flow Policy in the United States and Canada,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 5 2009Lawrence J. MacDonnell Abstract:, This paper provides an overview and summary of United States and Canadian federal, state, and provincial laws that offer some form of legal protection for environmental flows. Special attention is given to the new "second generation" law established in Texas and to ways western states are beginning to encourage transactions that help restore dewatered streams. Progress in the eastern states and some Canadian provinces to provide environmental flow protection is addressed. Based on this review, this paper presents recommended elements of a "model" environmental flow policy. [source] Character merchandising: aspects of legal protectionLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2001Andrew McGee The article considers the present state of the law of character merchandising. It questions whether the law relating to character merchandising should be further developed and extended so as to give an individual a comprehensive right to prevent the unauthorised use of aspects of his personality by third parties in connection with the promotion or sale of goods or services. In this context the article rejects the creation of new comprehensive remedies such as a tort of appropriation of personality as being undesirable and impractical. The article maintains that unauthorised acts of personality appropriation or use are already subject to adequate legal control through the law of trade marks and passing 08In this regard the article further suggests that tortious remedies such as defamation, malicious falsehood, and, in restricted circumstances copyright, provide effective sanctions against the unauthorised use of an individual's persona in commercial enterprises in particular and special circumstances. These remedies supplement and complement the principal remedies provided by trade mark protection and passing off. [source] Multicultural democracy: can it work?NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 4 2002Pierre L. Van Den Berghe After differentiating multicultural democracy (MD) from other types of democracy (liberal, consociational, ethnic and Herrenvolk), this article explores both the conditions favouring MD and the problems it faces. The main obstacle to MD is the model of the ,nation,state', which has been the basis of legitimacy in most liberal democracies since the French Revolution. Multiculturalism has existed in many non,democratic states (such as colonial and traditional empires) and in city,states. A distinction is made between minimal MD (the simple tolerance and legal protection of cultural diversity) and maximal MD (the celebration, encouragement and official support thereof). The article concludes that minimal MD is the more feasible of the two, and that political and social conditions for it are the most favourable in urban environments, especially in city,states. [source] A Parliamentary Victory: The British Labour Party and Irish Republican Deportees, 1923PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY, Issue 2 2010IVAN GIBBONS After the 1918 general election the Labour Party became the official opposition party at Westminster. In response to the growing Irish republican campaign to establish an independent Irish state the Labour Party had to re-assess its relationship with Irish nationalism. The Labour Party was now acutely conscious that it was on the verge of forming a government and was concerned to be seen by the British electorate as a responsible, moderate and patriotic government-in-waiting. Although it had traditionally supported Irish demands for home rule and was vehemently opposed to the partition of Ireland, the Labour Party became increasingly wary of any closer relationship with extreme Irish nationalism which it believed would only damage its rapidly improving electoral prospects. Therefore the Labour Party supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 even though it underpinned the partition of Ireland and sought to distance itself from any association with Irish republicanism as the new Irish Free State drifted into civil war. In early 1923 the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) alighted upon the new issue of the arrest and deportation without trial, to the Irish Free State, of Irish republicans living in Britain who were obviously British citizens. The attraction of this campaign for the Labour Party was that it enabled the party to portray itself as the defender of Irish people living in Britain without having to take sides in the Irish civil war. In addition the Labour Party was able to present itself as the protector of civil liberties in Britain against the excesses of an overweening and authoritarian Conservative government. One of the main reasons the issue was progressed so energetically on the floor of the House by the new PLP was because it now contained many Independent Labour Party (ILP) ,Red Clydesiders' who themselves had been interned without trial during the First World War. Through brilliant and astute use of parliamentary tactics Bonar Law's Conservative government was forced into an embarrassing climb-down which required the cobbling together of an Indemnity Bill which gave tory ministers retrospective legal protection for having exceeded their authority. By any standard, it was a major achievement by a novice opposition party. It enhanced the party's reputation and its growing sophistication in the use of parliamentary tactics benefited it electorally at the next election which led to the first Labour government. [source] Friendship, Identity, and Solidarity.RATIO JURIS, Issue 3 2003An Approach to Rights in Plant Closing Cases My focus is on the problem of plant closings, which have become increasingly common as the deindustrialization of America has proceeded since the early 1980s. In a well-known article, Joseph William Singer proposed that workers who sued to keep a plant open in the face of a planned closure might appropriately be regarded as possessing a reliance-based interest in the plant that merited some protection. I seek to extend this sort of argument in two ways. In the first half of the paper, I point to the way in which "tacit obligation" emerges in friendship between persons in the absence of explicit commitments. Employers and employees are of course not as such friends. But I argue that the development of tacit obligations binding friends provides a useful analogy for understanding the growth of similar tacit obligations binding plant owners to workers and local communities. In the second half, I draw on Margaret Radin's work on property and identity to ground a related argument. I suggest that the potential contribution of plants,and the traditions and networks of relationships they help to create and sustain,to the identities of workers and communities provides reason for at least some legal protection of employee and community interests. [source] Pervasive threats within a protected area: conserving the endemic birds of São Tomé, West AfricaANIMAL CONSERVATION, Issue 3 2009M. Dallimer Abstract The importance of the rainforests on the island of São Tomé for biodiversity is well known. However, the area only recently received full legal protection as a National Park and currently few resources are available to enforce that legislation. With rapid economic development forecast for the island, active conservation efforts are essential. Here we study the distribution and density of the island's endemic bird species, including nine that are Globally Threatened, within the National Park. Sites, covering the full range of primary forest types, were surveyed using distance sampling methods. No introduced species were observed. The highest number of species, including eight Globally Threatened species, were found in lowland rainforest, although many were infrequently encountered. Higher altitude sites were less diverse, but supported some of the common endemic species at extremely high densities. The least diverse assemblage, with generally lower species population densities, occurred at the most accessible mid-altitude forest site. Distance from settlements was a key explanatory variable for the presence of all Globally Threatened species, indicating that human habitation has negative effects on the suitability of nearby forest habitats. This suggests that, as infrastructure improvements proceed, populations of endangered species will come under growing pressure. Integrating the needs of biodiversity conservation and development represents a major challenge for many biodiverse countries and on São Tomé, as elsewhere, may best be achieved by preserving the still intact functioning forest ecosystem. [source] CRIMINALIZATION OF MEDICAL ERROR: WHO DRAWS THE LINE?ANZ JOURNAL OF SURGERY, Issue 10 2007Sidney W. A. Dekker As stakeholders struggle to reconcile calls for accountability and pressures for increased patient safety, criminal prosecution of surgeons and other health-care workers for medical error seems to be on the rise. This paper examines whether legal systems can meaningfully draw a line between acceptable performance and negligence. By questioning essentialist assumptions behind ,crime' or ,negligence', this paper suggests that multiple overlapping and partially contradictory descriptions of the same act are always possible, and even necessary, to approximate the complexity of reality. Although none of these descriptions is inherently right or wrong, each description of the act (as negligence, or system failure, or pedagogical issue) has a fixed repertoire of responses and countermeasures appended to it, which enables certain courses of action while excluding others. Simply holding practitioners accountable (e.g. by putting them on trial) excludes any beneficial effects as it produces defensive posturing, obfuscation and excessive stress and leads to defensive medicine, silent reporting systems and interference with professional oversight. Calls for accountability are important, but accountability should be seen as bringing information about needed improvements to levels or groups that can do something about it, rather than deflecting resources into legal protection and limiting liability. We must avoid a future in which we have to turn increasingly to legal systems to wring accountability out of practitioners because legal systems themselves have increasingly created a climate in which telling each other accounts openly is less and less possible. [source] The Challenges of Ambient Law and Legal Protection in the Profiling EraTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 3 2010Mireille Hildebrandt Ambient Intelligence is a vision of a future in which autonomic smart environments take an unprecedented number of decisions both for the private and the public good. It involves a shift to automated pattern recognition, a new paradigm in the construction of knowledge. This will fundamentally affect our lives, increasing specific types of errors, loss of autonomy and privacy, unfair discrimination and stigmatisation, and an absence of due process. Current law's articulation in the technology of the printed script is inadequate in the face of the new type of knowledge generation. A possible solution is to articulate legal protections within the socio-technical infrastructure. In particular, both privacy-enhancing and transparency-enhancing technologies must be developed that embed legal rules in ambient technologies themselves. This vision of ,Ambient Law' requires a novel approach to law making which addresses the challenges of technology, legitimacy, and political-legal theory. Only a constructive and collaborative effort to migrate law from books to other technologies can ensure that Ambient Law becomes reality, safeguarding the fundamental values underlying privacy, identity, and democracy in tomorrow's ambient intelligent world. 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