The law commission and judicial law reform*

This article explores ways in which mooting can provide high school students with insight into life as a law student. In gaining high school students’ insights on their early exposure to a legal research skills environment involving oral argumentation exercises, the authors argue that law schools can incorporate experiential learning pedagogies into student recruitment efforts to ensure that both law school and prospective student are better prepared for each other during the delivery and study of law at university level.     

The rise and fall of EU labour law

EU labour law—namely that heterogeneous, unstable combination of interventions, tools, measures, sources through which the EU directly or indirectly impacts on the normative and functional frameworks of individual and collective labour law systems of the Member States in a relationship of mutual interference and interaction–is experiencing a progressive loss of relevance, with an unprecedented decline of its normative rationales, functions, regulatory techniques, and constitutional hierarchies. This article offers a critical reflection on the reasons behind such a regressive path in the context of the EU crisis.     

The AFSP Standard - a lesson for law enforcement agencies

Compliance with the AFSP (Association of Forensic Science Providers) Standard [1] which concerns the formulation of an evaluative opinion requires consideration of the defence case. This can be problematic for forensic scientists working with or for law enforcement agencies. Among the aims of law enforcement agencies is to secure a conviction while in many jurisdictions the forensic scientist owes an overriding duty to the Court. This casework report demonstrates that early consideration of the defence case by a forensic scientist complying with the AFSP Standard may help rather than hinder the prosecution. The dichotomy as to a conflict of interest for the scientist between supporting the police/prosecutors and being scientifically objective is shown to be a false dichotomy. Compliance with the Standard ensures that science is a better servant of justice.     

The rise and fall of communal liability in ancient law

In ancient societies, rules of communal responsibility permitted the imposition of retaliatory sanctions on a wrongdoer's clan. These rules followed the collective ownership structure of early communities. Over time, notions of personal responsibility emerged, terminating the transfer of responsibility from one member to the whole clan. This paper intends to provide an economic explanation for this transition.     

从普通法与大陆法的比较看中国法制改革

离开了对本国法律制度进行重大的改进和提高,中国经济要想获得持续、健康、全面的增长是很困难的。中国之所以可以在法律制度并不健全的条件下开始经济发展,是因为中国经济主要依靠国有企业和出口。国有企业在与其商业伙伴发生纠纷时,可以依靠和政府的关系来保护它们的利益。那些外国企业在同这些企业做生意时,可以依靠中国政府树立一个信守承诺的良好声誉的愿望,正式的法律制度相对并不是那么重要。这些都是经济发展早期阶段的通常特征——企业依赖名声、政府的影响以及其他的非正式机制来防止商业伙伴欺骗或不守合约。然而随着经济的增长,…     

Economic status,social status,and rate of internationalization in US law firms

We note that in the legal industry, socially constructed status may be an especially powerful type of firm position, and may also relate to internationalization through opening offices in new foreign markets. Hence, in this analysis we offer the first effort to simultaneously consider relationships between socially derived firm status and internationalization, and economic status and internationalization in a legal industry context. Specifically, we use longitudinal data on large US corporate law firms from 1984 to 2008. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between social status and rate of internationalization. Additionally, we identify an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic status, or domestic market share, and rate of internationalization.     

The rise and fall of the criminal law of the German Democratic Republic

Dr. jur., University of Munich 1963; Dr. jur. habil., University of Munich 1968.     

Use of facial composite systems in US law enforcement agencies

Abstract

Facial composite images are often used in the criminal investigation process to facilitate the search for and identification of someone who has committed a crime. Since the use of facial composite images is sometimes relied upon as an integral part of an investigation, it is important to ascertain information about the various decisions made and procedures implemented by law enforcement regarding the use of composites. A 39-item survey was developed to examine the prevalence of a number of procedures related to composite production, including the systems implemented, criteria for selecting systems, law enforcement training, satisfaction with systems, legal challenges, and procedural issues with respect to interviewing multiple witnesses and the distribution of composite images. Surveys were distributed to 1637 city, state and county law enforcement agencies nationwide; 163 completed surveys were returned. This paper summarizes our survey results and discusses the implications for investigative procedures, law enforcement training, and future research needs.