So-called Law Research Articles

中国的非正规经济再论证

Abstract China’s economy-society today, excepting high officials and capitalists, is made up principally of two status groups. One is the formal employees-workers who are protected by the state’s so-called “labor” laws-regulations and enjoy good benefits, who include the white collar employees of state agencies-units and of the larger formal enterprises, and only small numbers of blue-collar workers privileged with formal status. The other is the informal workers-employees who are not protected by the state’s labor laws and do not have (or have only low level) social benefits, including mainly the peasant migrant workers and the other working members of their “half worker half cultivator” families. This article documents in detail that the former totals just one-sixth of the total workforce and is in fact in large measure something of a privileged status group, while the latter totals five-sixths. The so-called labor laws today in fact have little to do with the majority of true laborers. The gap between the two status groups are the key to the social-economic crisis confronting China today and cries out for reform. (This article is in Chinese.) 摘要 中国今天的经济-社会, 除了顶层的高级官员和资本家之外, 主要由两个等级组成。一方面是受到国家所谓 “劳动” 法规保护的、带有优厚社会福利的正规职工, 其中包括国家机关、事业单位以及正规企业的白领职员, 而只包含较少数享有正规身份的蓝领工人。 另一方面则是不受到国家劳动法规保护的、没有社会福利（或只有低等福利）的非正规职工, 主要包含农民工以及其 “半工半耕” 家庭的其他就业人员。本文详细论证, 前者总数只是全社会所有就业人员中的六分之一, 其实一定程度上是个具有特权的阶层, 后者则占到六分之五。事实上, 国家今天所谓的劳动法规已经脱离大多数真正意义上的劳动人民。两个等级间的差别是今天中国社会经济危机的关键, 亟需改革。

Kanonistik im Zeitalter von Absolutismus und Aufklärung: Spielräume und Potentiale einer Disziplin im Spannungsfeld von Kirche, Staat und Publizität (Canon Law in the Age of Absolutism and Enlightenment: Scope and Potential of a Discipline between Church, State and Publicity)

This article is devoted to the impact public opinion had on the development of canon law in the 18th century when the Catholic Church was judged increasingly critically and started to shift away from the centre of publicity. In view of the growing influcence public opinion exerted on the Church the question arises whether or not the science of canon law was still able to fulfill its traditional function of defining the universal Church juridically and to expound its law. As regards the second half of the 18th century, historiography traditionally presents a picture of canon law that is characterized by institutional crisis, academic decline and growing dissent (e.g. Juridisctionalism and Febronianism). This article aims at a critical ascertaining the extent of this view.After a general introduction as well as an overview of the history of canon law and its science in the 18th century the article first deals with the controversy regarding the Bull ‘In Coena Domini’ (1768-1770) which highlights the contemporary debate about Church and state. After a brief outline of the conflict some copper engravings from writings on ‚In Coena Domini‘ and canon law are analyzed with regard to their underlying concepts. Looking at the symbol of light the divergent philosophical and theological views about public opinion become apparent. Finally three examples are taken which show both the different forms of state influence on the development of canon law and the reactions of curialist authors. The respective examples are: the transformation of the science of canon law into a science of Austrian Church law in the age of Maria Theresia (1740-1780), the debate on the promulgatio in acie Campi Florae and the academic study of the so-called public ecclesiastical law (ius publicum ecclesiasticum). As a result of this inquiry a particular sustainability of canon law jurisprudence at the threshold of the modern era becomes apparent.

La memoria en la Ley de Víctimas en Colombia: derecho y deber

The article shares some thoughts regarding memory in the so-called Law on Victims in Colombia. First, the article contains an analysis of the extent to which the Law on Victims ensures the right to memory, taking as a theoretical framework the content and extent of this right as it has been developed by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, and that should encompass both an individual and a collective dimension. The article argues that this Law is not systematic enough and that it does not allow for the individual dimension of the right to memory to be properly ensured. Thereafter, the article analyzes the duty of memory established by the Law, which –in the opinion of the author– does not properly incorporate the victims’ perspective.

La memoria en la Ley de Víctimas en Colombia: derecho y deber

The article shares some thoughts regarding memory in the so-called Law on Victims in Colombia. First, the article contains an analysis of the extent to which the Law on Victims ensures the right to memory, taking as a theoretical framework the content and extent of this right as it has been developed by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, and that should encompass both an individual and a collective dimension. The article argues that this Law is not systematic enough and that it does not allow for the individual dimension of the right to memory to be properly ensured. Thereafter, the article analyzes the duty of memory established by the Law, which –in the opinion of the author– does not properly incorporate the victims’ perspective.

Analysis of a class of nonconservative systems reducible to pseudoconservative ones and their energy relations

This paper analyzes a class of nonconservative systems, whose Lagrangian equations can be reduced to Euler–Lagrangian equations by introducing a new Lagrangian, which is equal to a product of some function of time f(t) and the primary Lagrangian. These equations formally have the same form as for the systems with potential forces, while the influence of nonconservative forces is contained in the factor f(t), and such systems are called pseudoconservative. It is further shown that the requirement for a nonconservative system to be considered as a pseudoconservative is the existence of at least one particular solution of a system of differential equations with unknown function f(t), or their linear combination with suitably chosen multipliers. Further on, the energy relations and corresponding conservation laws of those systems are analyzed from two aspects: directly, on the basis of the corresponding Lagrangian equations and via modified Emmy Noether’s theorem. So, it has been shown, even in two different ways, that there are two types of the integrals of motion, in the form of the product of an exponential factor and the sum of the generalized energy (energy function) and an additional term. For the existence of these integrals of motion, it is necessary and sufficient that there exists at least one particular solution of a partial differential equation, which is in accordance with the Lagrangian equations for the observed problem. The obtained results are equivalent to so-called energy-like conservation laws, obtained via Vujanovic-Djukic’s generalized Noether’s theorem for nonconservative systems (Vujanovic and Jones in: Variational Methods in Nonconservative Phenomena (monograph). Acad. Press, Boston, 1989).

New Evidence in the 'More Guns, Less Crime' Debate: A Synthetic Controls Approach

For nearly fifteen years, there has been a vigorous debate about the deterrence effects of laws that grant citizens the presumptive right to publicly carry concealed handguns (so-called laws). The proposition that state-level right-to-carry (RTC) laws reduce crime was first proposed and endorsed in a widely discussed 1997 paper by John Lott and David Mustard. Numerous studies of the More Guns, Less Crime premise have since been published, both supporting and refuting the Lott-Mustard hypothesis. What virtually all these studies have in common is that they employ difference-in-difference methods that are commonplace for analyses of legislation using panel data. Yet, despite general methodological consistency, studies of this topic have produced strongly conflicting estimates of the effects of RTC laws. In this study, we offer new evidence on the effect of state-level RTC laws using a recently developed econometric technique that allows for transparent, data-driven case studies of each RTC law adoption over a fifteen-year period. We apply the synthetic control case control method developed by Abadie, Diamond, and Hainmuller (2010) to compare crime rates of treated states (RTC adopters) with crime rates in a convex combination of similar but untreated states (non-RTC adopters). Contrary to previous studies of this topic, our results are generally unaffected by making changes to the model specification. We find virtually no evidence that RTC laws reduce crime. In most states, we find that RTC laws appear to have no strong effect on crime in either the positive or negative direction. There are some states, though, where we find modest evidence that RTC legislation led to higher rates of aggravated assault. This finding is in line with recent aggregate estimates of the impact of RTC laws.

The Code of Dušan 1349–1354

AbstractIn 1349 Stefan Dušan enacted a code that was part of a tripartite codification with the Abridged syntagma and the so-called Law of Justinian. The Serbian emperor introduced in his empire a Byzantine legal system, even if elements of Slavic customary law were preserved. Physical mutilations and punishments, death penalty, public penal system, personal liability were unknown to the Slav populations and have to be connected to the Greek-Roman law influence. This influence is evident both in civil and criminal law and in this sense the dispositions of the Code of Dušan must be connected to the two other Byzantine compilations. Dušan's attempt failed just a few years after his death because of the fall of the Serbian empire due to the Ottoman advance.

The Impact of Economic Crises on Changes in Corporate Governance

Over the last 10 - 15 years significant changes took place in principal systems of corporate governance i.e. in the Anglo-Saxon and German systems. These changes were of similar or the same character. This was an effect of economic crises, mainly crises of 1997 – 1998 and 2007 – 2009. The crises have influenced the changes either directly through amendments in the so-called hard law of national systems of supervision or indirectly through recommendations on corporate governance issued by international institutions and organizations. The OECD and the European Commission played the most important part in this respect. These organizations had a big impact on the formation and shape of the so-called codes of good practice, whose principles are generally implemented by companies, mainly listed companies. The principles happen to be of the so-called soft law character and after some encouraging experience with their use take on the form of legislation.

Determinants of Attitudes Toward Transitional Justice

Much has been said about the institutional determinants of transitional justice (TJ), yet scholars still know little about the determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward restorative policies aimed at addressing human rights violations of the past. This article draws on an original survey of a representative sample of Spanish citizens conducted in 2008. One year earlier, the Spanish socialist government had approved the so-called Law of Historical Memory, aimed at providing restitution for victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Francoist dictatorship (1939-1975). We analyze individual-level attitudes toward a set of TJ policies (i.e., truth commissions, trials, and symbolic reparations) in a comprehensive overview of the field. We study the effects of different sets of variables: individual sociodemographic and ideological factors, family and socialization variables, and context-related factors. Individual ideology, family victimization during the dictatorship, and regional context appear highly relevant in explaining individual attitudes toward TJ policies.

Émile Ovide Joseph Mathias. Thermodynamics of saturated fluids

Émile Ovide Joseph Mathias (1861-1942) was a multifaceted scientist who started his activities in the area of thermodynamics and then switched to magnetic phenomena and electrical phenomena in the atmosphere. He collaborated with Cailletet in the development of methods for measuring and correlating the density of liquefied gases and their saturated vapors. His name is particularly known for the so-called law of rectilinear diameters that allows an easy determination of the critical volume.

La justiciabilidad de los derechos sociales ante los jueces interamericanos

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has elaborated standards in the field of so-cial rights. These standards are embodied in the so-called American Human Rights Law. The American Human Rights Law would delimit an American space of public order. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has not declared the breach of article 26 American Con-vention on Human Rights yet, but it has started to develop its teachings on social rights. The most important features of it are justiciability of socio-economic rights; principle of indivisi-bility; principle of minimum of subsistence and State duty of protection even though private actors provide for the service.

Ranking banks, and classifying national banking systems according to their cybernetic efficiency

The paper investigates efficiency in national banking systems by fitting the so-called simple canonical law, a generalization of Zipf’s law, to publicly available data. This law is expected to be applicable to any system that is optimizing the cost of delivery of outcomes under the constraint of a fixed quantity of outcome. The parameters required to fit the data are the cybernetic temperature and a “competitivity parameter”, reflecting dynamical and structural aspects respectively. A novel classification of banking systems emerges from a comparison of the data from different countries. Additional qualitative insight emerges from examining the variation of the parameters during the last few years. A key finding of the analysis is that underlying structural weakness (and strength) can be revealed, features which, as recent financial turbulence has shown, may remain hidden in conventional analysis.

The Harvest Ceremony Seú as a Case Study of the Dynamics of Power in Post-Emancipation Curaçao (1863–1915)

IntroductionOn 8 August 1862 the so-called Emancipation law was passed in the Netherlands: the enslaved in the Dutch colonies would become free on 1 July 1863. Accordingly, the 67 government slaves and 6,958 private slaves in Cura?ao gained their freedom on the latter date (Lant?rnu 2003:17). The group of Afro -Cura?ao ans comprised approximately 85 percent of the total population, of which thirty- five percent became freed people at this time (Oostindie, 1995:158; Oostindie, 1997:56).The sociologists Harry Hoetink (1987) and Ren? R?mer (1979) who studied the post-Emancipation society of Cura?ao stated that in this society, policy and the locus of political, social and economic power continued in place after slavery. The upper class remained predominantly white and continued to lead the economic, political and cultural spheres in society, while most blacks remained subjected - even though no longer enslaved. The economic standing thus continued to follow color lines with power lying in the hands of a select few.An important element to consider is the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the daily lives of the Afro -Cura?ao ans. Before emancipation, this Church was allowed by the colonial state, Protestant Dutch Reformed oriented, to convert the Afro-Cura?aoans. The Roman Catholic Church played a very important role by way of its attempts to change the way of life of the Afro-Cura?aoans and to bring about, through Catholicism, a type of culture which it considered civilized and respectable.In this paper I focus on the post-Emancipation social life of Afro-Cura?aoans within the dynamics of culture and power. It examines the social life of Afro-Cura?aoans in the period between 1 863, the year of emancipation, and 1915, the year in which the establishment of Shell oil company on the island triggered the beginnings of an industrialized society.My concern in this paper is to explore how the state, the plantation owners and the Roman Catholic Church exercised power affecting the social life of Afro -Cura?ao ans and to explore how Afro -Cura?ao ans, within the parameters of these key power groups/institutions, were able to shape their daily life around their own expectations and aspirations. I look at how this manifested itself in the harvest ceremony named se?. This celebration originated during slavery and continued afterwards. It developed around the harvesting of millet (sorghum vulgare) ? a very important economic product both during and after slavery.The paper is based on archival sources as well as oral history, including interviews about the past conducted by Elis Juliana and Father Brenneker and also by myself with elderly Afro -Cura?ao ans.The Harvest Celebration Se?Cura?ao did not have a plantation economy as most other parts of the Caribbean did. Commerce was one of the main economic pillars. During slavery, enslaved in Cura?ao produced subsistence products and occupied roles in the small trades and crafts rather than labouring in the mass production of an export crop such as tobacco or sugar. This significantly differentiated them from the enslaved on most other Caribbean islands. More importantly for the present discussion, this trade economy shaped a different type of social system in Cura?ao than the one found in most other parts of the Caribbean.The island's strength as a commercial area was countered-balanced by the fact that subsistence was a major concern on the island. How to feed the people was a matter of greater importance than the export of a plantation crop. This affected the ways in which enslaved could live their daily life and establish their social, economic and cultural spheres. It also affected the daily lives of freed people both during and after slavery.The planting and harvesting of millet was an important aspect of daily life. During slavery, millet was an important economic product, primarily used for self-consumption for the enslaved. …

Law of one price: evidence from the Spanish wheat market

In the analysis of market development, the issue of integration among regions is of central importance. In an integrated market, the so-called Law of One Price should hold, and transport costs are an important factor in this respect. In this paper, we present an alternative method to analyse this question based on the spectral decomposition. We apply this methodology to agricultural integration which is a controversial issue in Spanish economic history as long as it is an indicator of the market maturity. The evidence is in favour of a progressive regional integration pattern.

Ion guiding through capillaries in uncoated Al2O3 membranes

We made an experimental study on ion guiding through capillaries in uncoated Al2O3 membranes using a variety of ions such as O1+, O3+, and O6+. The incident energy was varied within the range of 30-150 key. The results were compared with others using coated PET and Al2O3 capillary membranes as well as with the so-called scaling law discovered by Stolterfoht and his co-workers. Good agreement of our results with the scaling law was found. However, our membranes showed extraordinarily strong guiding ability. The reason lies in that our membranes were uncoated. A slower charge drift speed along the insulating capillary wall and a much larger equilibrium charge Q(infinity) seems to exist in our experiment. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language and Judgment's Reach: Reflecting on Limits on Rights

This is a review essay on The Limitation of Charter Rights: Critical Essays on R. v. Oakes (Luc Tremblay and Gregoire Webber eds., 2009), a collection celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada's leading judgment on proportionality and limits on rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The essay reflects on language in Canadian constitutional law, both the importance of the words used in talk about rights and the challenges of bilingualism. Sustaining scholarly reflection and dialogue in English and French, based on the equally authentic English and French versions of constitutional sources, remains difficult. The essay also reflects on the disjuncture between the legislative judgment in Oakes - the Court set out, prospectively, a test of general application for constitutional proportionality analysis - and the traditional conception of the judge's role in the common law tradition. Fidelity to that tradition would have inclined the judges, more modestly, to allow rules to emerge from the resolution of concrete disputes over time. Peculiarly, the question as to how judges, formed in the common law tradition, might interpret and apply a written constitution seems not to figure among the concerns of those who declare themselves the standard bearers of the so-called common law constitution.

Entre a forma e o conteúdo na desconstituição dos negócios jurídicos

O estudo tem por objeto a chamada desconsideração do negócio jurídico praticada pelo Fisco em razão da dita interpretação econômica do direito. Trata o tema sob a perspectiva da dicotomia forma e conteúdo, procurando vislumbrar, no sistema do direito positivo, os mecanismos admitidos para promover a prevalência de uma forma contratual sobre a outra.

The history of the rectilinear diameter law

The formulation of the so-called law of rectilinear diameter for the determination of the critical volume of substances in the concluding decades of the nineteenth century became in a very useful and acceptably exact alternative tool for researchers in the field of critical phenomena. Its corresponding original expression, and even those of its early few modifications, were so mathematically simple that their use did not limit to exclusively contribute to remove the by then experimental obstacle for the estimating of this critical parameter, but also extended along several decades in the increasing applications of the principle of corresponding states.

Gnomon shadow lengths recorded in the Zhoubi Suanjing: the earliest meridian observations in China?

The Zhoubi Suanjing, one of the most important ancient Chinese books on mathematical astronomy, was compiled about 100 BC in the Western Han dynasty (BC 206 – AD 23). We study the gnomon shadow lengths for the 24 solar terms as recorded in the book. Special attention is paid to the so-called law of ‘cun qian li’, which says the shadow length of a gnomon of 8 chi (about 1.96 m) high will increase (or decrease) 1 cun (1/10 chi) for every 1000 li (roughly 400 km) the gnomon moves northward (or southward). From these data, one can derive the time and location of the observations. The results, however, do not fit historical facts. We suggest that compilers of the Zhoubi Suanjing must have modified the original data according to the law of ‘cun qian li’. Through reversing the situation, we recovered the original data, our analysis of which reveals the best possible observation time as 564 BC and the location of observation as 35.78° N latitude. We conclude that this must be the earliest records of solar meridian observations in China. In the meantime, we give the errors of solar altitudes for the 24 solar terms. The average deviation is 5.22°, and the mean absolute deviation is 5.52°, signifying the accuracy of astronomical calculations from that time.

Sober and Elgin on laws of biology: a critique

In this short discussion note, I discuss whether any of the generalizations made in biology should be construed as laws. Specifically, I examine a strategy offered by Elliot Sober (1997) and supported by Mehmet Elgin (2006) to reformulate certain biological generalizations so as to eliminate their contingency, thereby allowing them to count as laws. I argue that this strategy entails a conception of laws that is unacceptable on two counts: (1) Sober and Elgin’s approach allows the possibility of formulating laws describing any biological phenomenon whatsoever; and (2) on Sober and Elgin’s view, any interesting contrast between so-called laws and obviously accidental generalizations collapses. I conclude by offering suggestions to refine their view in order to avoid these theoretical problems.