Of form and format

At a conference of Russian media lawyers and programme producersin Moscow this June, considerable attention was devoted to thelegal status of television and radio programme formats. Partof the cause of this attention was the apparent ambivalenceof the law: if you want to adapt a format that has been developedby someone else, the developer will assert its ownership ofthe format right and threaten     

Criminal culpability: The possibility of a general theory

In this article, I try to do two things. First I analyse critically the suggestion that the principles of criminal culpability can be explained by reference to a single, all-encompassing concept, such as “defiance of the law”. I then go on to explain the foundations of criminal culpability by reference to three interlocking theories — the capacity theory, the character theory, and the agency theory. I conclude that even these three theories may not be sufficient to explain the complex structure of culpability, which is shaped as much by shared cultural understanding as by moral theory.     

ALMOST,BUT NOT QUITE: THE FAILURE OF NEW YORK'S GET STATUTE

The quandary of Jewish women unable to remarry because of their husbands’ refusal to grant them religious divorces is a real problem affecting real people. Husbands are wielding this lopsided power to “extort” money from their wives, obtain favorable child custody settlements, property settlements, and child support payments. The burgeoning divorce rate is certain to exacerbate this problem. Already, this situation has garnered international attention. In the wake of New York's legislative attempt to remedy this problem, countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have promulgated legislative solutions to this dilemma. New York is the only state in the United States to pass such a statute. Unfortunately, New York's statute is flawed because it is of limited applicability and still allows for situations in which the Jewish wife is civilly divorced but religiously married. This Note proposes amending New York's statute to make it applicable to any and all divorce proceedings and to any barrier to remarriage. This Note will further recommend that the proposed amended statute should be adopted worldwide.     

The future of Fair Trade coffee: dilemmas facing Latin America's small-scale producers

Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter-tendency to the neo-liberal globalisation regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America's coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade's economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years' research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small-scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.