Fussing about the Forum: Categories and Definitions as Stakes in a Professional Competition

This article seeks to show the way that professional competition, including academic competition, about the definitions and categories of dispute resolution transforms the field of business disputing. It draws on extensive interviews and focuses on two case studies. The first is "international commercial arbitration," and the second is the ADR movement, especially "mediation," in the United States. In each case, the article shows that there is competition about what can legitimately be termed arbitration or mediation; that there is competition more generally for the business of business disputing; that the competition is not played on a level playing field; that competitors compete in terms of the symbolic capital that they have to offer, which is changing over time and in relation to what others possess; and that the (always provisional) results are important for transforming the "rules of the game" for governing business transactions. The internal transformations in the field of business disputing also take place in close conjunction with transformations that can be seen as outside, above all, the international restructuring of business relations in the 1970s and 1980s.     

La grevè de 1976 à I'Office des Nations Unies à Genève et ses conséquences

Abstract. The strike by the United Nations personnel in Geneva in February-March 1976 confirmed the tendency of international civil servants to unionize themselves and to apply collective pressure within a framework which, traditionally, did not lend itself to this type of action. Even though the strikers obtained salary increases for themselves and for their colleagues in other United Nations agencies situated in Geneva (essentially the World Health Organization (who ) and the International Labour Office (ilo )), the strike had unfavourable consequences with regard to the international secretariats. Thus the local and international press accused the un ‘bureaucrats’ of being too numerous, over-paid and too political. Some civil servants protested against the over-militant attitude of their own associations or unions and dissension arose within the Federation of these associations. The salary increases entailed an additional expenditure of 25.3 million for all the organizations involved. This made the who and ilo reduce their staff and drew criticism over staff management at the un from the Joint Inspection Unit (jiu ) and several governmental delegations. The negative reaction of who member states to the demands for additional funds, together with an initiative of the ‘77’ group aimed at reducing administrative expenses in order to redirect the organization's resources towards technical cooperation, led to a staff reduction at the who headquarters of some 20 per cent in four years; at the ilo , the staff was reduced by 7.3 per cent in two years. Following the serious criticism by the Joint Inspection Unit concerning the lack of coherence and strictness on the part of the administrations, the General Assembly of the United Nations decided to transfer the responsibility for setting up new salary scales in Geneva from the heads of the Secretariats to the Commission of International Public Service; it also called upon the un Secretary General to speed up the reforms in staff policy and administration. Through its repercussions the 1976 strike brought to light the fragility of international institutions, whose existence is entirely dependent upon the goodwill of member states, as well as the limits of union activities by associations of international civil servants.     

Klage gegen die Verabschiedung der Liste von Gebieten von gemeinschaftlicher Bedeutung in der borealen Region

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Associative Learning of Nasonia vitripennis Walker (Hymenoptera:Pteromalidae) to Methyldisulfanylmethane

Traditional methods of volatile detection used by police typically consist of reliance on canine olfaction. However, dogs have some limitations such as cost of training and time of conditioning. The possibility of using parasitic wasps for detecting explosives and narcotics has been developed. Moreover, wasps are cheap to produce and can be conditioned with impressive speed for a specific chemical detection task. We examined the ability of Nasonia vitripennis Walker to learn and respond to methyldisulfanylmethane (DMDS), a volatile discriminator of cadaver. The training aimed to form an association between an unconditioned stimulus (pupae) and the conditioned stimulus (odor source). After the training, the time spent by conditioned wasps in the DMDS chamber was measured. Statistical analysis showed that the increasing concentrations involved an increase in the time spent in the chamber containing DMDS. This study indicates that N. vitripennis can respond to DMDS, which provide further support for its development as a biological sensor.     

How to stay populist? The Front National and the changing French party system

Abstract

The main aim of this contribution is to assess the relevance of the notion of ‘exclusionary populism’ for the characterisation of the Front National (FN) in France. Since its emergence in the 1970s, several categories or notions have been applied to this political party. Once considered as the resurgence of a traditional extreme right, it has since been classified as a case of a new European right-wing extremism, or as one of the neo-populist parties that obtained electoral successes in the 1990s. The recent evolution of the party has also been described as a sort of ‘normalisation’. Is therefore ‘exclusionary populism’ still a category that can grasp the evolution of the party, as well as its present position in the French party system? To answer this question, this article examines political discourses and various electoral platforms of the Front National to gather some empirical evidence. The argument is twofold: The Front National, despite its ‘dédiabolisation’ strategy, is still a classic populist party characterised by exclusionary populism and a sort of ‘catch-all populism’; its evolution is, however, dependent on the recent evolution of the French party system.     

e-Youth before its judges - Legal protection of minors in cyberspace

The present paper¹ aims both at introducing the legal aspects of the protection of minors in cyberspace and analysing and criticizing certain main features embedded in this legal approach of young people protection. After a short introduction underlining the concept of child’s rights and the reason why this right has been particularly proclaimed in the context of the cyberspace, the first section describes the new technological features of the ICT environment and linked to this evolution the increasing risks the minors are confronted with. A typology of cyber abuses is proposed on the basis of these considerations. A list of EU or Council of Europe texts directly or indirectly related to the minors’ protection into the cyberspace is provided. The second section intends to analyse certain characteristics of the legal approach as regards the ways by which that protection is conceived and effectively ensured. Different principles and methods might be considered as keywords summarizing the legal approach and to a certain extent, fixing a partition of responsibilities taking fully into account the diversity of actors might be deduced from the different regulatory documents.The third section comes back to the different complementary means by which the Law is envisaging the minors’ protection. The obligation to create awareness about the potential risks minors might incur definitively is the first one. The omnipresent reference in all the legal texts to the role of self-regulatory interventions constitutes another pillar of the protection envisaged by the Law. After having described the multiple instruments developed in the context of this self-regulation (labels, codes of conduct, hotlines, ODR…) or even co-regulation, the paper examines the conditions set by the European legislators as regards these instruments. Technology might be considered as a fourth method for protecting children. Our concern will be to see how the Law is addressing new requirements as regards the technological solutions and their implementation. The present debates about the liability of the actors involved in applications or services targeted or not vis-à-vis the minors like SNS or VSP operators are evoked. As a final point the question of the increasing competences of LEA and the reinforcement of the criminal provisions in order to fight cyber abuses against minors will be debated. In conclusion, we will address final recommendations about the way by which it would be possible to reconcile effective minors’ protection and liberties into the cyberspace.