Individual Clauses Research Articles

Interview: Victor Crespo

INTERVIEW ❐ VICTOR CRESPO Trabajadores Unidos de Empornac (‘SITRUEMPORNAC ’) were waiting to assist me, and the airport workers union union Unión Sindical de Trabajadores de Aeronáutica Civil (‘USTAC’) helped me travel to Nicaragua by air, where I have been based in exile over recent months, We presented communications to the InterAmericans Court of Human Rights, seeking a protection order (medidas cautelares) but it has not yet reached its decision. Such an order would oblige the Government to ensure that I was protected against such threats. However, it is not a guarantee. Last year an agricultural workers’ leader, who was the recipient of a medidas cautelares , was murdered in Honduras. Unfortunately the Government does not accept our complaints, and says that we are just making up the threats that exist against us. I’d then like to get a sense about the docks where your union organises: how is it owned, is it public or privately owned, how many people work there, and is it well organised? And, is your union the only one organising in the docks? Until March 2013 the port belonged to the State. In that month a company from Philippines won the tendering process to run the port, for a period of 30 years. They took over operations in December 2013. There are two unions in the port. The other is the trade union of workers of the national docks company SITRAEMP. Until the privatisation they had 634 members, working for the national port company. Our union has 684 members. We negotiate with private companies contracted on the docks. When the privatisation occurred ICTSI won a 30-year concession and took over the port. They made 350 workers from the national port company redundant. They were going to be transferred to ICTSI, but instead ICTSI created a subsidiary company OPC. This new company re-hired those 350 workers, but during their legal probationary period (when the employment contract can be terminated) 200 workers were sacked. Because it was a probationary period they received no compensation at all. Despite the fact that the union had signed a legal document saying that the probationary period wasn’t going to apply. But the company added a contract to each individual’s contract, stating that the worker accepted the probationary period. Most of the workers signed, because they didn’t know what they were signing . The company argues that the document signed with the union was not relevant, because of the individual clauses signed by the workers. Another clause in the contract states that workers may not for any reason bring legal action against the State, against OPC, ICTSI, or the comDockers leader under threat Privatisation has brought many changes to the docks. Those attempting to preserve and improve labour conditions have faced threats, violence and harassment INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 24 Volume 21 Issue 2 2014 DANIEL BLACKBURN, Director of ICTUR interviewed Victor Crespo, President of the of the dockworkers’ union of Honduras Sindicato Gremial de Trabajadores del Muelle (‘SGTM’). L eaders of the dockworkers’ union Sindicato Gremial de Trabajadores del Muelle (‘SGTM’) have been attempting to secure negotiations with port operator ICTSI over a collective bargaining agreement for workers in the port. They have been facing resistance, victimisation and intimidation. SGTM president Victor Crespo spoke to IUR’s Editor Daniel Blackburn. Victor, could I ask you to introduce yourself to our readers, and perhaps describe the background to your situation? I have been the union’s President since 2010, and I am now in my second term. It is a complicated situation in the ports and also the country. There are many violations of labour rights and actions against trade unionists. We face harassment, dismissals , blacklisting, and many other problems. In August 2012 we presented collective bargaining demands to the company. In October 2012 I started to receive anonymous threats by phone. This continued until September last year, when three armed men arrived at my house, with the intention of killing me, following our presentation of bargaining demands. They could not break down the door of my house, but they shouted out that if I did not leave the city they would be back within eight hours to...

Do French speakers really have two grammars?

ABSTRACTI consider variation within French and its status in speakers’ mental grammars. I start with Massot's (2008) claim that, within relevant grammatical units, speakers in contemporary metropolitan France do not combine socio-stylistically marked L and H features, and his explanation of this in terms of diglossia (Ferguson, 1959), that is, the idea that speakers possess two (in this case massively overlapping but not identical) ‘French’ grammars which co-exist in their minds: one (français démotique, FD: acquired early, well, and in a naturalistic environment) comprises one set of grammatical features which generate unmarked forms and the marked L forms; the other (français classique tardif, FCT: learnt later, often unreliably, in a more formal context and under the influence of literacy) comprises a (partially) different set of grammatical features which generate the same unmarked forms as well as the marked H forms. Speakers switch between FD and FCT but do not use them both simultaneously, at least not within the context of an individual clause. While Massot's claim is controversial (see Coveney, 2011), I provisionally accept that it is correct, and move on to consider his explanation. I review instances of variation for which I suggest Massot's model needs to be revised in order to account for the phenomenon of surface forms which can be generated by both putative grammars, and which are therefore superficially part of the overlap, but which have a different linguistic status in each and underlyingly are not therefore part of any overlap. I then reconsider Massot's two-grammar hypothesis, raising issues surrounding the extent of the overlap between them, the nature of the differences between them, and their respective statuses in the minds of speakers. I suggest that in view of their massive overlap, their non-random differences, and their contrasting cognitive statuses, it does not make sense to view both FD and FCT as autonomous grammars. Rather, I suggest that only FD is an autonomous grammar. Since the differences between FD and FCT are instantiations of naturally occurring developments usually conceptualised in terms of cyclic grammaticalisation and renewal (the L features of FD are innovations with respect to the H features of FCT), I suggest that FCT should be seen as a dependent grammatical ‘bolt on’ which encodes its conservatism in an abstract and economical way.

Redefinition and Elaboration of an Obligation to Pursue International Negotiations for Solving Global Environmental Problems in Light of the WTO Shrimp/Turtle Compliance Adjudication between Malaysia and the U.S.

The linkage of the duty to negotiate over transboundary environmental problems to one of the requirements in the chapeau of Article XX of the GATT 1994, as shown in the original Shrimp/Turtle decision, proved to be indicative of the willingness of the WTO jurisprudence to embrace significant environmental mandates beyond trade rules. Yet, it remains an unsolved issue with respect to how and to what extent the United States that applied an import ban against shrimp products from Asian nations shall remedy the failure to seek negotiations with those complaining members, which should have been implemented before. In particular, such an omission, as Malaysia claimed, guaranteed the lift of the trade embargo. The article aims to examine whether the recent Shrimp compliance reports, based on Article 21.5 of the WTO’s Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, have fulfilled an accurate and balanced reinterpretation over the obligation to pursue negotiations. It is found that the WTO jurisprudence in this compliance adjudication generally favors the position of the United States, ruling that the flaw of non-negotiation on an international basis can be fixed by later performance without the removal of the trade restriction. It seems to imply that the multilateral negotiation’s obligation for solving international environmental problems does not definitely precede a unilateral measure in any circumstance, although a plain interpretation of the Shrimp ruling does warrant the supremacy of such an obligation. In effect, the compliance adjudication relatively reduced the burden of a country whose trade restriction has already been considered to be provisionally legitimate under individual exceptional clause, such as paragraph (b) or (g) in Article XX. Nevertheless, to reach a balanced result, the judicial organs of the WTO fairly commended the United States to continue the tasks of negotiations in good faith, though no conclusion of a specified multilateral environmental agreement is required.

United States constitutional law: an introduction

The great liberties and guarantees of the United States Constitution are stated as general principles, able to be perpetuated and reapplied to meet the needs of a changing America. This book aims to provide a basic understanding of Constitutional law, addressing both the history of the U.S. Constitution and each of its individual clauses. It explains the awesome power of the Supreme Court, whereby a bare majority of five justices, each with lifetime tenure, can overrule the president, the Congress, and state and local governments--effectively declaring the rights and obligations of persons and organizations across the land. Referencing more than 850 Supreme Court decisions, the book treats each subject objectively and without opinionated commentary.

An exploration of the other side of semantic communication: How the spontaneous movements of the human hand add crucial meaning to narrative

Past research has suggested that those spontaneous movements of the human hand made during talk convey significant semantic information over and above the speech, at least when the unit of speech analyzed is the individual clause. However, no previous research has tested whether this information is represented linguistically elsewhere in the narrative (or is directly inferable from the rest of the narrative). The first study, reported here, uses an experimental procedure to identify which specific imagistic gestures add semantic information to the speech. The second study analyzes whether the specific gestures still do this when respondents hear the whole narrative. It was found that two thirds of the semantic information, thought to be carried by the gestures, is, in fact, represented in the linguistic discourse, or is inferable from it. However, one third of the additional semantic information contained in the gestures is not represented linguistically in the narrative nor is it inferable from it. In other words, a proportion of the imagistic gestures that accompany speech are absolutely critical to semantic communication.

Max-SAT formalisms with hard and soft constraints

The study of Max-SAT formalisms and the development of fast Max-SAT solvers have become very active research topics in the last few years. This PhD dissertation focus on the design, implementation and evaluation of solving techniques for two Max-SAT formalisms that incorporate the notion of partiality. The first one, called Block-SAT, is a new formalism that deals with blocks of clauses instead of individual clauses. The second one is Partial Max-SAT, which has become a standard in the community. For each formalism, we compare our solvers with state-of-the-art solvers using an exhaustive test suite. The empirical results provide evidence that the proposed solving techniques are competitive and often produce important speed-ups.

Personalty interests at the Constitutional Convention: new tests of the Beard thesis

Charles Beard ([1913] 2004) argued that the U.S. Constitution was created to advance the interests of people who owned personalty, particularly those at the Constitutional Convention. Because delegate votes on individual clauses at the Constitutional Convention were not publicly recorded, prior empirical analyses have been limited to inferred votes on a specific set of unrelated clauses. We extend this inquiry by inferring votes related to currency and debt issues which Beard put forth as the prime issues for those who owned personalty. Our analysis on these votes generates little support for a narrow version of the Beard thesis, which states that all personalty groups voted in a unified coalition at the Convention and supported the Constitution. Our analysis provides some support, however, for a broader interpretation that personalty and realty interests affected delegate voting behavior at the margin.

Personalty Interests at the Constitutional Convention: New Tests of the Beard Thesis

Charles A. Beard ([1913] 2004) argued that the U.S. Constitution was created to advance the personalty interests of many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Because delegate votes on individual clauses at the Constitutional Convention were not publicly recorded, prior empirical analyses have been limited to inferred votes on a specific set of unrelated clauses. We extend this inquiry by inferring all votes related to currency and debt issues which Beard put forth as the prime issues for those who owned personalty. Our analysis on these votes generates little support for a narrow version of the Beard thesis, which states that all personalty groups voted in a unified coalition and supported final passage of the Constitution. Our analysis provides reasonable support, however, for a broader interpretation that personalty and realty interests affected delegate voting behavior at the margin.

Acquisition and change: On the robustness of the triggering experience for word order cues

Focusing on word order variation mainly from present-day Norwegian dialects, this paper discusses mixed verb-second (V2) both synchronically and diachronically and develops a theory of language acquisition and change which is based on the existence of micro-cues expressed in the input. Data from child-directed speech are investigated with respect to frequencies of particular clause types and examples requiring exceptional word orders (related to specific lexical elements). Child language data from Norwegian are presented to show that mixed V2 is acquired early, regardless of the different input frequencies, even in exceptional cases. Within a split-CP model of clause structure, it is argued that the search domain for word order cues is not the overall input, but restricted to individual clause types and other linguistically relevant categories and subcategories that children must be sensitive to in the acquisition process. Consequently, several micro-cues for V2 are identified. With respect to language change, this means that diachronic development should affect one micro-cue at a time, giving the impression that change is gradual.

Exact Max-SAT solvers for over-constrained problems

We present a new generic problem solving approach for over-constrained problems based on Max-SAT. We first define a Boolean clausal form formalism, called soft CNF formulas, that deals with blocks of clauses instead of individual clauses, and that allows one to declare each block either as hard (i.e., must be satisfied by any solution) or soft (i.e., can be violated by some solution). We then present two Max-SAT solvers that find a truth assignment that satisfies all the hard blocks of clauses and the maximum number of soft blocks of clauses. Our solvers are branch and bound algorithms equipped with original lazy data structures, powerful inference techniques, good quality lower bounds, and original variable selection heuristics. Finally, we report an experimental investigation on a representative sample of instances (random 2-SAT, Max-CSP, graph coloring, pigeon hole and quasigroup completion) which provides experimental evidence that our approach is very competitive compared with the state-of-the-art approaches developed in the CSP and SAT communities.

The role of mood marking in complex sentences A case study of Australian languages

This study investigates the role of mood markers in the semantic composition of complex sentence constructions, on the basis of a sample of Australian languages. The question of mood marking in complex sentences is theoretically significant because it involves a clause-internal category that plays a crucial role in the semantics of a construction above the level of the individual clause. Previous work on mood in complex sentences has shown that presence of mood marking in one of the component clauses tends to correlate with a feature of non-actualization on the level of the complex sentence. In this paper, I argue that this semantic generalization actually obscures a number of constructionally relevant distinctions, because there are two additional factors that determine the precise role of the mood marker in the complex sentence: (1) the presence or absence of specifically relational markers like conjunctions and (2) the semantically schematic or specific nature of these markers. In constructions without relational markers, mood markers do not strictly speaking encode the complex sentence relation, but pragmatically trigger it. In constructions with relational markers, on the other hand, mood markers and relational markers jointly encode the complex sentence relation, but their relative contribution depends on a principle of functional trade-off.

Kings, Barons and Justices: The Making and Enforcement of Legislation in Thirteenth-Century England

Introduction Part I. Politics and the Legislative Reform of the Common Law: 1. The making of the Provisions of Westminster: the process of drafting and their political context 2. The making of the Provisions of Westminster: the social and legal context and the evolution of the individual clauses (i) 3. The making of the Provisions of Westminster: the social and legal context and the evolution of the individual clauses (ii) 4. Enforcement of the Provisions of Westminster during the initial stages of their existence, 1259-63 5. The revision and reissuing of the Provisions, 1263-4 6. The revised Provisions in action, 1263-7 7. The final revision and reissue of the Provisions of Westminster: the Statute of Marlborough of 1267 Part II. Beyond Politics: The Enforcement and Interpretation of the Statute of Marlborough in the Courts, 1267-1307: 8. Contra formam feoffamenti: the statutory action for tenants contesting liability to suit of court after 1267 9. Other mechanisms for the enforcement of chapter nine other reforms affecting the lord-tenant relationship 10. Reforms in the criminal justice system 11. Reforms in the procedures of the Royal Courts 12. The extension of existing remedies 13. Enforcing the accountability of socage guardians 14. Controlling the use of distraint 15. Remedying abuses in the operation of local courts 16. Conclusions Appendices Bibliography Index.

Generalizing Boolean Satisfiability III: Implementation

This is the third of three papers describing ZAP, a satisfiability engine that substantially generalizes existing tools while retaining the performance characteristics of modern high-performance solvers. The fundamental idea underlying ZAP is that many problems passed to such engines contain rich internal structure that is obscured by the Boolean representation used; our goal has been to define a representation in which this structure is apparent and can be exploited to improve computational performance. The first paper surveyed existing work that (knowingly or not) exploited problem structure to improve the performance of satisfiability engines, and the second paper showed that this structure could be understood in terms of groups of permutations acting on individual clauses in any particular Boolean theory. We conclude the series by discussing the techniques needed to implement our ideas, and by reporting on their performance on a variety of problem instances.

The syntactic link between Thema and Rhema: the syntax-discourse interface.

The division of labour between different components within the theoretical linguistic frameworks, in particular that of clausal accent and its critical status for the unambiguous identification of the clausal parts such as subject and objects, has been a topic of much debate. Reinhart (1995, 2001), Zubizarreta (1995), Erteschik-Shir (1997), Horvath (2000), Abraham & Molnarfi (2002), Banerji (2002), among many others, are points in case. Which are the properties encoded in the syntax and which in other interface components like PF and LF? In the present paper this question is couched in two typological classifications: one class of languages that establish an unambiguous link between discourse functions such as thema and rhema, on the one hand, and the syntactic structure of the individual clause; and another typological class of languages where such a link does not exist and where the discourse functions and their systematics is based on unsystematic pragmatics. The languages of investigation are German (with SVOV) and Standard Indonesian (SOV). The argument will be demonstrated on a particular item of the Indonesian word interrogative clause, which is never clause-initial in normal, copulaless interrogative structures. It will be argued that the fact that subjects as WH-words cannot function in clause-initial position as in Standard Indonesian does not allow one to relegate the phenomenon to a more or less pragmatic module (as argued, at least partially, by Cole, Hermon, & Tjung 2002). Rather, it will be shown that the specific copulaless structure of the SI clause enables one to assume a deep expletive structure with covert subject expletive and a covert copula leaving the seeming clause initial subject in nominal predicates intact and functioning at the same time as a rhematic WH-word. In essence the present discussion is an exercise in typologically constrained WH-scope.

A comparison of the seismic design requirements in the New Zealand Loadings Standard with other major design codes

A series of ductile moment resisting reinforced concrete frames are sized to meet the minimum seismic provisions of the New Zealand Loadings Standard, NZS 4203-1992, the Draft NZ/Australian Loadings Standard, the Uniform Building Code, UBC-1997, the International Building code, IBC 2000 (1998 draft) and Eurocode 8 (1998 draft). The results of the analyses allow valid comparisons to be made between the different codes. It is shown that comparisons of individual clauses can be misleading due to the many interactions that occur between clauses.
 Comparative analyses were made for the buildings described above located in both high and low seismic regions. It is shown that the strength and stiffness requirements for both the New Zealand Loadings Standard and the Draft Standard are low compared with the other codes of practice in the high seismic zone. It is recommended that the required design strengths in the Draft NZ/Australian Standard be increased.

Legislating Pluralism

This article analyses and compares recent legislation relating to customary law in two Pacific countries: the Underlying Law Act 2000, of Papua New Guinea, and the Customs Recognition Act 2000, of Solomon Islands. The article first presents a historical analysis of the recognition and regulation of customary law during the colonial period and since independence. Each Act is then examined in detail. The individual clauses of the Acts, and in particular the drafting ambiguities are analysed in the context of comparison between the two statutes and discussion of earlier drafts, associated legislation and relevant case law. The differences between the two statutes, the reasons for those differences, and their likely consequences are considered. From this exposition and analysis conclusions are drawn regarding the future of customary law in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, and its compatibility with the introduced system of law.

ISO 9000:2000. New ISO, new responsibilities for top management

The world of quality is changing and the responsibility for implementing these changes lies firmly in the hands of top management. Organisations can no longer afford to leave this hot potato with the quality manager; everyone must be aware and involved. ISO 9000 is the quality system used by many organisations throughout the world. The current version, ISO 9000:1994, is being revised and the final version of the latest revision is expected to be published as ISO 9000:2000 in the last quarter of 2000. Firms that are registered with ISO 9001, 9002 or 9003 in the 1994 versions will have three years in which to bring their existing systems into line with the new requirements. The basis of the new ISO 9000:2000 series is rather different from before in the following respects: the '20 elements', so familiar in the 1994 version of ISO 9001, are not actually present in individual clauses, but are identifiable; the new structure is process based, more generic and clearly based on the Plan→Do→Check→Act principle; the major features are: management responsibilities, resource management, product and/or service realisation, measurement, analysis and improvement, and customer satisfaction; and ISO 9001:2000 aligns with ISO 14001, the environmental standard.

HIGHWAYS AGENCY SPECIFICATION (AUGUST 1994): PILING AND EMBEDDED RETAINING WALLS (SERIES 1600).

In November 1995 the Highways Agency published the August 1994 amendments to the Specification for Highway Works. A significant amendment which incorporates a complete re-write is Series 1600 on Piling and Embedded Retaining Walls, previously called Piling and Diaphragm Walling. The Agency has based this series on the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Specification for Piling (1988) with modifications and the draft Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Specification for cast-in-situ retaining walls with modifications. The series has eighteen clauses, of which ten are new. All of the previous clauses that have been retained have been retitled and considerably amended, retaining little if any of their previous text. The new series includes new clauses to specify secant pile walls, continuous flight auger piles and king post walls. Testing warrants individual clauses and the previous clause 'Proof loading of piles' has been replaced by 'Non-destructive methods for testing piles' and 'Static load testing of piles'. In addition there are new clauses to specify 'Integrity testing of wall elements' and 'Instrumentation of piles and embedded walls'.

Managers at Work: Confronting the Risks to Your Business

Whether the world is becoming more risky is open to disagreement. But the growing public concern about risks is beyond question. Surveys have repeatedly revealed increasing concern over natural and man-made risks to personal health and safety and to our collective well-being. As society becomes more complex and more networked in its relationships, it is likely that the number and kinds of risk will increase. More significantly, the likelihood of the manifestation of risks on a large scale will grow as systems expand and become more complex. This is already the case with brownouts as we inevitably experience imperfectly integrated grids. As we introduce new pharmaceuticals, and are increasingly able to detect side effects among users, risk factors grow in importance, as does the awareness of them. Indeed, at every scale of the human enterprise, risks are intrinsic, not accidental, to the systems involved. Even natural hazards present greater risks as we choose to live on the attractive terrain associated with floods, earthquakes, landslides, and storms. There are significant opportunities to reduce risks. But a too-limited perspective, in both time and space, in any future risk situation thwarts intelligent management and effective action. With the exception of regulatory requirements, which have grown steadily over the last several decades, there is little incentive in the market system to look ahead and anticipate risks; although liability is drawing businesses' attention ever more sharply to the implication of risk. Similarly, in terms of government action, whether legislative or executive, there is no incentive to look ahead at side effects that may incur risks, except in those areas where there is, by statute, a requirement such as the Environmental Impact Statements' requirement to show foresight. Even here, the issues are confounded by the overwhelming passion for detail and an often astigmatic focus on the limited questions. The statutory requirements for foresight lead to concentration on the tree while missing the forest. I propose a general risk analysis question that can become the starting framework for anyone--public or private, individual or group, corporate or public interest group, government agency or citizen-at-large--to quickly develop a comprehensive overview of any situation with regard to any risk they are concerned with. The generalized risk question, as I see it, is Who is at what kind of risk, when, where, with what effects, from what causes, with whom, responsible (for), by what instruments, in what value context, at what costs and benefits for its management? Being able to answer this complex question puts one in a great starting position to think ahead intelligently. Let me suggest that breaking the complex question into individual clauses offers further insight into the risks. …

Jews, Guardians, and Magna Carta, Clause 11

Clause 11 of King John's Magna Carta has not received as searching an examination as have other clauses of that document. For example, McKechnie's comment runs to only half a page. In the 295 pages which he devotes to the individual clauses of Magna Carta, only his comments on clauses 62 and 63, clauses which he describes as ‘entirely of a formal nature’, and on clauses 53 and 57 are shorter. True, some of the points which have relevance for clause 11 are made in his comment on clause 10. But nearly all such points concern the Jews, whereas it is the intention of the present article to argue that the Jewish aspect of clause 11 has been too much discussed, or too much assumed, at the expense of other aspects, particularly its connection with guardians. After all, the common assumption that clause 11 represents part of a baronial attack on the Jews has been coupled, rather paradoxically, with the admission that it was too superficial to have much effect on the Jews. It is worthwhile inquiring whether the paradox really exists. Is the superficial effect on the Jews an indication that the purpose of the clause, at least in its origin, lay in a different direction? This article will suggest the possibility that unscrupulous guardians were the primary target of clause 11.