The Meaning of Home: A Chimerical Concept or a Legal Challenge?

'Home' is not an easy concept to pin down. Although the term is instantly familiar, and the physical reality of home is an important and omnipresent feature of our everyday lives, the legal conception of home has received surprisingly little attention. The relative neglect of home is particularly striking, however, in light of the substantial body of research which has been carried out on the subject of home in other disciplines. This article discusses the meanings of home which have evolved from interdisciplinary research. It is argued that this research could provide a starting point for the development of a more clearly articulated socio–legal understanding of the meaning and value of home to occupiers. It is suggested that a legal concept of the meaning of home would be useful, for instance, when considering the conflict of interests between the occupiers of a property 'as a home', and other parties with 'non–home' interests in the property, for example, creditors. This article seeks to identify some of the values of home which might inform a legal concept of home, and so be 'weighed in the balance' on the occupier's side when decisions involving conflicts between home interests and commercial interests are considered.     

Integrating gender into index-based agricultural insurance: a focus on South Africa

Index insurance is an agricultural risk management tool that can provide a safety net for smallholder farmers experiencing climate risk. While uptake and scale-out of index insurance may be slow among smallholders, we can learn from experiences that demonstrate where crop insurance can protect smallholders’ livelihoods from climate risk. Integrating gender into climate risk management is necessary to ensure that the benefits of index insurance are experienced by both men and women. A dedicated intention to integrate gender may be required. Taking South Africa as a case study, the potential for gender-sensitive index insurance scale-out among smallholders is investigated.     

Violence and Mental Illness: A New Analytic Approach

Empirical studies of violence and mental illness have used many different methods. Current state-of-the-art methods gather information from both subject and collateral interviews as well as official records. Typically these sources are treated as additive. Any report of a violent incident from any source is treated as true and all reported incidents are added to generate estimates of frequency. This paper presents a new statistical technique that uses the level of agreement between the sources of data to adjust those estimates. The evidence suggests that, although the additive technique for using multiple sources correctly estimates how many people are involved, it substantially underestimates the number of incidents. The new technique substantially reduces both false negatives and false positives.     

The Impact of the Hague Conference's Proposed Judgments Convention for Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property Disputes

Since the OECD and other organizations issued model conventions and guidelines on various aspects of electronic commerce, the quest for harmonization and global agreement for electronic commerce laws and procedures has intensified. International private law has become one of the most contentious issues where the legislative development and practical application of electronic commerce is concerned. When an e-commerce contract (a contract concluded by electronic means) is disputed, questions of jurisdiction and choice of law have arisen with increasing frequency. Indeed, questions of jurisdiction and choice of law are even more pertinent when the parties to the contract are domiciled in different jurisdictions. Equally, when one party acquires an intellectual property right in one country and the infringement of this right is alleged in another country, the question of which jurisdiction the holder of the IP right should be entitled to raise proceedings.     

The ‘Economy of Communion’: a case study of business and civil society in partnership for change

The role of Northern‐based civil society organisations has undergone dramatic changes in recent years. In particular, their principal role as ‘redistributive’ agencies working in the South has come under criticism, leading them to seek new ways of defining their part in eradicating poverty. One widely adopted strategy has been an increasing emphasis on advocacy for social justice, while another is the creation of partnerships with non‐state and state actors, including the private sector. Such partnerships raise some difficult questions relating to the underlying values and civic legitimacy of the action, in particular of Northernbased development NGOs. This paper examines the question of partnerships between civil society organisations and business through a case study of the ‘Economy of Communion’, a global project bringing together small businesses and church‐based organisations whose shared aim is that of eradicating poverty.     

An evaluation of the quality of impact assessment in the European Union with lessons for the US and the EU

Governments throughout the world are requiring greater use of economic analysis as a way of informing policy decisions. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of impact assessment in the European Union, using US assessments as a benchmark. We find that recent EU impact assessments include more economic information than they did in the past, although important items are still missing. We also provide evidence that the quality of EU impact assessment increases with the expected cost of a proposal. Furthermore, we find that the quality of EU assessments that report high total costs is similar to that of US assessments.     

Assessing effective participation in vulnerable juvenile defendants

Effective participation in trial is outlined under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and refers to the ability to understand and engage in trial. Juvenile defendants are often referred to psychologists or psychiatrists by their solicitors to establish ‘effective participation’ capacity. In the USA, key components to participate effectively are defined and standardised assessments available. In the UK, no formal measures exist. A consecutive series of 20 adolescents aged 12–20 years, referred by their solicitors to our service, were assessed using a standardised battery and a semi-structured interview designed to assess effective participation. Fifty-five per cent had at least one neurodevelopmental disorder. Low IQ was common and 50% had age-equivalent language scores below 10 years. Rates of depression, anxiety and PTSD were high. Knowledge about trial was poor. These findings have implications for Criminal Justice System professionals and to ensure fair trials for young defendants.     

Taxonomies of Squatting: Unlawful Occupation in a New Legal Order

Legal responses to the activity of ‘squatting’ include criminal justice, civil actions, property law and housing policy. Some legal analyses of unauthorised occupation focus on the act of squatting, others on the squatter's claim to title through adverse possession. This paper explores recent developments in the law of adverse possession which have been shaped by particular discursive constructions of both squatters and dispossessed landowners. It develops a ‘taxonomy of squatting’ by mapping the positions adopted by the Law Commission, the legislature and various domestic and European courts, in respect of moral issues thrown up by the doctrine of adverse possession, including the distinction between good faith and bad faith squatting, the landowner's duty of stewardship, and the question of compensation. By unpacking the circumstances in which squatting occurs, the paper develops a series of matrices to classify legal responses to unlawful occupation and to facilitate a more systematic and coherent understanding of law's responses to squatting.     

The Effect of Attachment and Self-Control on Status Offending among Puerto Rican High School Students

This study tests the cross-cultural applicability of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime and self-control theory by examining self-reported status offenses among a sample of Puerto Rican adolescents. Data come from a 2005 sample of 298 youth ages 14–19, representing both the public and private school systems in Puerto Rico. Using a series of multivariate regressions, three hypotheses were tested. First, low attachment to parents, schools, peers, and church will positively and significantly predict status offenses among both public and private students. Second, low self-control will positively and significantly increase status offenses among each group. Finally, the effects of attachment on offending will be mediated by self-control. Results show support for both social control theory (via institutional attachment) and general theory of crime (via self-control). Both the measures of attachment and self-control contribute to explaining status offenses. Self-control partially mediates the effects of attachment on status offenses.