The Brazilian FCC Catalyst Plant: An Example of a Successful Joint Venture between Petrobrás and Akzo Bringing about Technological Innovation

The creation of the Fabrica Carioca de Catalisadores (FCCSA) is presented in this article. After some brief background information on the reasons for its implementation, the methods used to choose the partner are discussed, as well as the technology transfer, with particular emphasis on R&D transfer. Finally, the plant's current stage of development is studied and its main characteristics are presented, as an example of a successful joint venture between culturally different and geographically distant countries.     

The Media’s Coverage of Domestic Terrorism

Scholarly interest in terrorism has grown dramatically since September 11. One important line of inquiry within this body of research has been the media’s coverage of terrorism. Although there have been several important studies published on this topic, there has been little research examining media coverage of domestic terrorism. This study fills this gap by examining the media’s coverage of terrorism in the United States from 1980 until September 10, 2001. The analysis is based on a list of terrorist‐related incidents and New York Times articles pertaining to each incident. This study documents the amount and type of coverage received by domestic terrorism incidents, and identifies the variables influencing whether an incident is covered and how much space it receives. The results indicate that most terrorism incidents receive little or no coverage in the news, but a few cases are sensationalized in the press. There are several characteristics that consistently explain which incidents are covered and receive substantial news space. Incidents with casualties, linked to domestic terrorist groups, targeting airlines, or when hijacking is used as a tactic are significantly more likely to be covered and have more articles and words written about them. This study concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings for the understanding of terrorism as a social problem.     

The structure and dynamics of the global network of inter-firm R&D partnerships 1989–2002

Research and development (R&D) partnerships are formed to share the risks and benefits of R&D. At the macro level, they result in a globe-spanning network that can be a valuable source of international knowledge spillovers. This network is the subject of a considerable body of literature. Often-made claims are that R&D collaboration is an important activity in a competitive environment, but that the importance of international partnerships has declined over time. Furthermore, it is claimed that collaborations are disproportionally concentrated within the developed economies. However, this literature fails to account for variations in the sizes of underlying firm populations between countries and over time. We argue that these population sizes create an opportunity structure of available collaboration partners for firms, and that ignoring variations in this structure potentially leads to erroneous conclusions about the structure and dynamics of the R&D network. To address this problem, we study the structure and dynamics of the global R&D network on an international and cross-industry scale using longitudinal data for 1989?C2002. We integrate data on public firms and their R&D partnerships and confront earlier findings with our data and a set of methods, which enables us to correct for the structure and dynamics in the firm population. While our study confirms previous findings concerning the worldwide trend in collaborative activity, it also shows that results on individual countries need correction. In particular, the importance of R&D collaboration for US companies is overestimated, while their openness towards foreign partners is underestimated.     

The Legal Dimensions of Whole-Process People’s Democracy

The concept of whole-process people’s democracy can be analyzed in terms of four the rule of law dimensions: continuous democracy, authentic democracy, extensive democracy and consultative democracy. Continuous democracy means that democracy provides a continuous and uninterrupted mechanism in terms of stage, time and space, which can ensure the continuous participation of the people in the management of state and social affairs. Authentic democracy is not only embodied creation of opportunities and conditions for the people to have more channels and methods of participation in the management of state and social affairs, but is also reflected in the process of democratic practice, including the protection of legitimate rights and interests of the minority. Extensive democracy means that the people are fully and deeply involved in the management of state and social affairs as well as their own affairs, from the operation of the state system to social life at the community level, and from pre-election to post-election. Consultative democracy is a means of realizing people’s democracy in the whole process. It applies consultation and seeks truth, aiming at building consensus. Moreover, it integrates various channels of consultation, and integrates democracy into all aspects of the work of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and government and in all aspects of the people’s political and social life.     

The long slumber of Dicey’s Indian monarch

AV Dicey treated amending power in written constitutions as an adjunct of sovereignty and he treated the body charged with the power of amending the constitution as the repository of sovereignty in the system – not any different in quality from the paradigm: the British Parliament. Debates of a piece with those surrounding parliamentary sovereignty reincarnate in systems with written constitutions as debates about the amending body’s power to amend the written constitution. This essay examines the points of contiguity between the debates about sovereignty in the unalloyed form they take in the British model and that of amending power in India and the methods of limiting parliamentary omnipotence adopted by the two systems. It will be argued that although for a while the Diceyian notion of parliamentary sovereignty reigned supreme, eventually India embraced a view of implied limitations on amending power qualitatively akin to common law constitutionalism that places implied limits on parliamentary sovereignty.     

The politics of misogyny: General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization of Pakistan’s legal system

General Zia-ul-Haq’s ambitious Islamization program vis-à-vis gender status in an Islamic Republic remains embedded in the legal system to the detriment of Pakistan’s females. Passage of the Hudood Ordinances of 1979 was a harbinger of things to come as the military junta moved to implement laws perceived to be congruent with Shariah (Islamic) law. This article examines specific discriminatory legal measures, which ensured the reversal of the slow but significant gains made by females since Pakistan’s creation in 1947; and explores how certain draconian measures enacted by Zia’s regime served to mobilize some Pakistani women to political activism.     

The Rule of Law in Today’s Africa∗

This article is based on the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in a case involving illness resulting from the consumption of a bottled drink which contained a dead cockroach. The main issues considered were manufacturers' duty of care; the liability of a retailer in negligence; burden of proof; and causation. Evidence showed that the drink manufactured by the second respondent was sold by the first respondent to the appellant in the same condition in which it left the second respondent. The Court held that in the circumstances of the case, only the second respondent was liable to the appellant.     

The return of the “Battered husband Syndrome” through the typification of women as violent

The process of the social construction of woman abuse includes the essential idea of typification: that how we typify abused women can be a part of justifying help, or it can provide the scientific justification for a male discourse which legitimates abuse and buffers batterers from guilt. Because Straus and Gelles are widely used by the press and academics as authorities, it is essential to recognize their return to an ideological position they once seemingly abandoned: that women are as violent as men, are not acting in self-defense, and may be ultimately responsible for male violence. As this debate is carried on in public, newsmaking criminology must be used to provide the media with alternative feminist views.     

The provenance of émigrés: the validity of measuring knowledge of places

Establishing the origin of those seeking asylum is essential but difficult as asylum seekers often cannot corroborate their origin claim with documents. The aim of the present study was to assess whether asking knowledge questions, sketch questions and impossible questions are valid methods to determine the veracity of an origin claim. Participants (N?=?105) from Tilburg (truth-tellers), Maastricht (partial liars) and Gothenburg (full liars) were asked to convince an interviewer that they originated from Tilburg. Half of them prepared and half of them did not prepare themselves for the interview. They were asked 10 knowledge questions typically asked to assess the credibility of origin claims, 4 impossible questions and 1 sketch question. Participants from Tilburg answered more questions correctly than participants from Maastricht and Gothenburg. Performance also improved with preparation. Even though the results did provide some support for the validity of assessing claims about origin by asking knowledge questions, the differences between the groups were modest, and it was impossible to correctly identify all truth-tellers and liars. Changing the output modality from verbal answering to sketching contributed to the credibility assessment of origin claims, whereas impossible questions were not discriminatory.     

The negligence of prison authorities and the protection of prisoner’s rights

This article looks at the potential for legal action brought by prisoners (and their dependants) who have suffered from the alleged neglect of the prison authorities. The article will examine the case law in this area to assess the success of prisoners’ negligence claims and whether such claims are unduly fettered by judicial attitudes and other more practical issues such as the difficulty in establishing a breach of duty. In particular the article will consider whether the law and its application has been, or should be, modified in the light of new obligations imposed on public authorities, including the courts, by the Human Rights Act 1998 and by the developing case law of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Convention rights such as the right to life and freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment.     

The Critic’s Love of The Law: Intimate Observations on an Insular Jurisdiction

This article, which should not in any sense be taken to reflect the views of the Editorial Board of Law and Critique, argues that the political project of critical legal studies in England remains overwhelmingly in the future. Lacking academic identity, political purpose and ethical conviction, critical legal scholarship in England has been too insecure in its institutional place and too unconscious of its individual and collective desires to resist absorption into the institution. Critical legal studies – as distinct from feminist legal studies, gay and lesbian studies or critical race theory –has tended to teach and so reproduce the core curriculum in a passive and negative mode. Resistant, ostensibly for historical and political reasons, to self-criticism and indeed to self-reflection upon their institutional practices, critical scholars have ended up repeating the law that they came to critique and overcome. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Jews of early modern Marburg, 1640s—1800

This article examines Jewish household and family organization in a middle-sized German city, the Upper Hessian regional center of Marburg, the population of which ranged from 2500 to 6000 from the Thirty Years War to the end of the 18th century. Some general hypotheses about population development, household structure, and family life conveniently summarized by Toch [Toch, M. (1995). Aspects of stratification in early modern German Jewry: Population history and village Jews. In R. P. Hsia & H. Lehmann (Eds.). In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (pp. 77-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] serve as an organizational frame for the case study. In Toch's view, Jews' comparative wealth, as well as governmental restrictions on their settlement and marriage in central Europe, led to their having larger and more complex households than those of the Christian majority. While household enumerations over time confirm several of Toch's observations, especially the larger size of Jewish families, neither Hessian settlement policy nor local Marburg opposition prevented the Jewish minority of about 1% from keeping pace with general population growth. Moreover, Jews did not respond to their regulated living conditions and status as cultural outsiders with a family organization exhibiting remarkably more internal complexity than did Christian households.     

The Evolution of the CPC’s Conception of Association and Regulation of Social Organizations in China

Freedom of association and all institutions coming with it have not been accepted by the Chinese government. Instead, Chinese social organization administration is based upon the concept of association held by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Chinese government had adopted a “total control” model of social organization administration in the era of totalitarianism before the “Opening-up and Reform”, leaving almost no room for social organizations to survive, because the CPC had regarded social organizations as “revolutionary” and “deconstructive”. The Chinese has adopted a graduated control system to administrate social organizations in the era of authoritarianism after the “Opening-up and Reform”, treating social organizations differently according to their threats to the ruling order and their utilities for economic development, because the CPC has viewed social organizations as a “challenging” but “auxiliary” power. The on-going “innovation of registration and administration of social organizations” is not a return to international standard regarding social organization administration in China, but only partial reform of the graduate control system still based upon the CPC’s conception of association as “challenging” but “auxiliary”. Social organizations capable of providing public goods in areas of economic development and social services are given more favorable treatment by the government while political and religious organizations are still tightly controlled by the government.     

The International Law of Naval Blockade and Israel’s Interception of the Mavi Marmara

In this article I discuss the legality of Israel’s interception of the Mavi Marmara on 31 May 2010. Although Israel’s stopping, boarding and inspection of the Mavi whilst on the high seas would undoubtedly constitute a violation of the law of the sea during peace time, I examine whether this violation can be justified on the basis of international humanitarian law. Specifically, Israel asserts that it was enforcing a naval blockade. I examine the legality of this blockade. I suggest that the blockade was unlawful on the basis that customary international humanitarian law permits the use of naval blockades only in times of an international armed conflict. I argue that on 31 May 2010 Israel was not engaged in an international armed conflict with Hamas. Moreover, I submit that customary international law prohibits the use of blockades where they are intended to deny the civilian population objects essential for its survival or where the damage to the civilian population is excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Israel argues that the intention of the blockade was to prevent war material from being delivered to Hamas fighters. This notwithstanding, I argue that because this blockade was causing a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza on 31 May 2010, it was incompatible with customary international law and therefore unlawful. Furthermore, even if the deployment of the blockade could be considered lawful, I argue that the enforcement of the blockade was unlawful because Israel’s use of force to capture the vessel went beyond what was necessary in the circumstances.