法律全球化与知识产权保护

随着经济全球化进程的加快,法律全球化过程中的知识产权法律制度能否全球化以及在全球化过程中面临哪些问题,是知识产权法学者值得深思的问题.认为知识产权的本质特征是知识产权法全球化的基础和前提,而知识产权法的功能和作用则是其全球化的必然结果,从区域化向全球化不断演变的动态过程则为其实现的途径.在这一过程中,基于各国政治、经济、文化、传统等差异,必然会遇到各种各样的冲突与矛盾,其主要问题表现为发展不平衡、地域性差异、利益冲突和不同的价值取向.     

Determinants of software piracy: economics,institutions, and technology

This paper determines the various influences on software piracy using a large sample of countries. In particular, our cross-sectional study estimates the effects of economic, institutional and technical factors on the piracy of software. A more comprehensive look at potential determinants of software piracy, including economic and non-economic factors, may be considered as the main contribution to a literature that is still in its infancy. Results show that a country’s stage of development and the quality of governance have the largest impact on the incidence of software piracy. Greater economic and political freedoms are shown to have opposite effects on piracy. Further, greater diffusion of the Internet and of computer technologies, other things equal, actually promote the legal use of software. Higher access prices also reduce piracy, with the impact of telephone charges being more pronounced than that of Internet access fees. There are significant variations in the impacts of different types of legal institutions and of fractionalization on piracy. The influence of digital divide between rural and urban areas does not significantly affect the piracy of software. Overall, economic, institutional, and technological factors exert important influences on software piracy, albeit with some qualitative and quantitative differences. Policy implications are discussed.     

关于国际医疗援助中相关法律问题的探讨

虽然和平与发展已成为世界的主流,但日益加剧的地区冲突和突发自然灾害引发的严重平民伤亡未能完全幸免,立足于人道主义的国际医疗援助亦方兴未艾。然而,由于各国在政治、经济、文化传统以及民族特性等方面均存在着多样性和差异性,加之援助国与受援国间存在不可避免的利益目标的冲突,国际医疗援助在如此特殊条件下开展工作,势必会遇到一系列的法律冲突。分析国际医疗援助的现状和组织机构,探讨国际医疗援助中应遵循的法律原则和当前国际医疗援助面临的法律障碍和解决对策,具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

Law and Firms' Access to Finance

This article examines how a country’s legal origin influencesthe operation of its financial system by using firm-level surveydata across a broad cross-section of countries on the obstaclesthat firms face in raising external finance. Using panel regressions,the article assesses two channels through which legal originmay influence the financial system. We find that the adaptabilityof a country’s legal system is more important for explainingthe obstacles that firms face in accessing external financethan the political independence of the judiciary.     

On the formal rationality of commercial law in common law system

Common law traditionally contains the formal rationality of commercial law. According to common law tradition, there is no possibility of preventing commercial law from being formalized. Formalization of commercial law in common law system is an institutional demand of market economy and is jointly promoted by the legal tradition of common law countries. The commercial law in the two legal systems indicates that the commercial law is made depending on the market economy and the form of commercial law is restricted by legal tradition. The formalization and assimilation of commercial law are an internal need as well as an inevitable trend in the course of economic development.     

Law, Finance, and Politics: The Case of India

The liberalization of India's economy since 1991 has brought with it considerable development of its financial markets and supporting legal institutions. An influential body of economic scholarship asserts that a country's "legal origin"—as a civilian or common law jurisdiction—plays an important part in determining the development of its investor protection regulations, and consequently its financial development. An alternative theory claims that the determinants of investor protection are political, rather than legal. We use the case of India to test these theories. We find little support for the idea that India's legal heritage as a common law country has been influential in speeding the path of regulatory reforms and financial development. Rather, we suggest there are complementarities between (1) India's relative success in services and software; (2) the relative strength of its financial markets for outside equity, as opposed to outside debt; and (3) the relative success of stock market regulation, as opposed to reforms of creditor rights. We conclude that political economy explanations have more traction in explaining the case of India than do theories based on "legal origins."     

清末改革司法职权配置考察

清末改革中按照立宪政体和三权分立模式建立起相对独立的司法权体系,但法部的司法行政权过大,处处与大理院争权,对审判权的独立行使构成阻碍。大理院内审判权与检察权初步实现了职权独立和相互制约,但对外都受到法部的制约,难以发挥各自应有的作用。清末缺少足够的新式法律人才、配套法律和财政支撑,社会也没有相应的思想准备,尤其是清政府力图强化中央集权和政策统一的指导思想都影响了新建立的司法权体系的独立运行。     

多元政治与西方法律传统

传统作为一种生活方式而存在。西方法律传统的形成是中世纪西欧特有的政治结构的产物,或者说是多元政治势力长期并存、不断竞争、不断妥协过程的副产品。这个传统在现代西方的延续,也有赖于“多元政治”的结构支撑。     

Institutional Paths to Policy Change: Judicial Versus Nonjudicial Repeal of Sodomy Laws

What variables lead judicial and nonjudicial decision‐making bodies to introduce policy change? In the theoretical framework proposed, the path‐dependent nature of law has a differential impact on courts and legislatures. Likewise, certain political institutions including elections and political accountability lead those bodies to introduce policy change under dissimilar circumstances. Global trends, however, affect both institutional paths equally. We test this theory with data for the repeal of sodomy laws in all countries from 1972–2002. Results from two disparate multivariate models overwhelmingly confirm our predictions. The unique institutional position of courts of last resort allows them to be less constrained than legislatures by either legal status quo or political accountability. Globalization, on the other hand, has a comparable effect on both. This work is path breaking in offering a theoretical framework explaining policy change via different institutional paths, systematically testing the framework comparatively and with respect to a policy issue still on the agenda in many countries.     

法律移植的理论与实践

近代以来,许多亚洲国家伴随着宗主国或占领国的殖民统治而进行了大量的法律移植;中国从晚清到民国政府,也对西方法律进行了大量的主动移植,使传统法律实现了现代意义的转变。历史表明,规则的稀缺和社会政治经济发展对规则的强烈要求,使得中国的法制建设必然首先是改变“无法可依”的状态。在需要通过立法创造某些制度以实现政策目标时,法律移植是最有效的手段,成为创造法律秩序和促进社会进步的方式。然而,移植规则的深层含义在于移植文化,也即规则和制度的移植必须要有文化的支持,否则,法律移植很可能仅仅是立法者的游戏。     

试论转型期中国行政法制度的变迁

随着改革开放的不断深入,中国的政治、经济、文化以及法制都进入了转型时期,其中政治体制改革对于国家发展和社会生活产生了巨大影响.行政法制度属于政治体制的一个重要部分,它的变迁反映出了中国政治体制中长期存在的诸多问题.本文分析了处于转型期的中国行政法制度变迁的类型、影响因素和社会环境,并对转型期中国行政法制度的变迁提出了相关建议.     

Breaking the Principle of Secrecy: An Examination of Judicial Dissent in the European Constitutional Courts

As “oracles of the law,” judges are trained to provide certainty and guidance within an often‐uncertain legal landscape. Nowhere is this statement truer than in the civil law tradition, where the idea of legal certainty has been prized as a “supreme value.” Despite this tradition, dissenting opinions are now quite common within most European constitutional courts. Using new data from five countries and interviews with constitutional court judges and clerks, I investigate factors that contribute to dissent on constitutional courts. Results indicate that legal and policy characteristics matter, but so do judicial backgrounds and the issues reviewed.     

Does media freedom improve government effectiveness? A comparative cross-country analysis

Government effectiveness could be explained by the level of well-informed electorate members, who use the press to learn more about politicians and public servants. Thus, a free press may improve citizens’ accessibility to this information, which in turn will make it more difficult for politicians and public servants to cover up or get away with corrupt behaviour, so the quality of the government could be affected by the media freedom. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to determine the effect of the freedom of the press on government effectiveness, considering additionally environmental, institutional, and political characteristics as factors that could determine the level of government effectiveness. To achieve this aim, we examined 202 central governments and compared them across countries using the World Bank data set of Governance Indicators for 2002–2008. The results show that the media, the organizational environment, and political characteristics may be determinants of the level of government effectiveness, taking countries’ economic development into account.     

欧共体金融利益的刑法保护

在对欧共体金融利益的欺诈日趋严重的背景下,如何实现对欧共体金融利益的充分保护是摆在欧洲联盟面前的迫切问题,这个问题从法律制度的层面看就是超国家刑法规范创制的合理性与合法性问题。由于国别法律制度与法律传统的差异,成员国在对欧共体金融利益的保护上有不同的模式。欧共体的机构是否根据欧共体的有关条约而被赋予了刑法创制权能,这是目前一个富有争议性的问题,而且由于欧洲宪法的接连受挫,使得这一问题变得更为复杂。本文通过对多方面观点的介绍与分析,指出虽然目前存在着超国家刑法规范的实际需要与现行欧盟制度之间的固有矛盾,但在泛欧洲层面,以超国家刑法规制手段来实现对欧共体财政金融领域的充分保护,是一个可以预见的必然性趋势。     

The return of financial variables in forecasting GDP growth in the G-7

The financial crisis and subsequent sovereign debt crisis together had a profound impact on the current economic environment. This study reexamines the established stylized facts and previous evidence regarding the predictive association between financial variables and real economic activity considering changed economic circumstances. This paper focuses on the predictive ability of the term spread, short-term interest rate and stock returns for real GDP growth in the G-7 countries. We compare the predictive content of nominal financial variables with that of real financial variables and consider the proper number of financial predictors and time variations of forecasting performance. The forecasting results unambiguously indicate that financial variables have regained their predictive power since the financial crisis. Moreover, this study shows that real financial variables are superior to nominal variables and that using several financial indicators for forecasting GDP growth is preferable.     

Liberal Rights versus Islamic Law? The Construction of a Binary in Malaysian Politics

Why are liberal rights and Islamic law understood in binary and exclusivist terms at some moments, but not others? In this study, I trace when, why, and how an Islamic law versus liberal rights binary emerged in Malaysian political discourse and popular legal consciousness. I find that Malaysian legal institutions were hardwired to produce vexing legal questions, which competing groups of activists transformed into compelling narratives of injustice. By tracing the development of this spectacle in the courtroom and beyond, I show how the dueling binaries of liberal rights versus Islamic law, individual rights versus collective rights, and secularism versus religion were contingent on institutional design and political agency, rather than irreconcilable tensions between liberal rights and the Islamic legal tradition in some intrinsic sense. More broadly, the research contributes to our understanding of how popular legal consciousness is shaped by legal mobilization and countermobilization beyond the court of law.     

Mortgage credit risk in EU countries: Constraints on exploiting the single currency market

The adoption of a single EU currency market raises questions about how individual country mortgage policies are likely to affect the gains that can be realized from this larger market. We use an option pricing model to provide some perspective on this issue. We address questions such as how does the risk exposure of a mortgage guarantee program in one country compare with those in other countries? What kind of effects do any such differences or varying legal restrictions on lender recourse have? Do the programs help complete financial markets? That is, are the programs structured as unsubsidized financial intermediaries which help allocate risks? Or, are the programs essentially wards of the state which encourage risk taking? In short, we aim to provide a simple, tractable way to think about how individual country policies affect the ability to exploit the potential offered by the larger market. Our conclusions are three. First, when correctly structured, mortgage default insurance can be expected to reduce non-price rationing at an actuarially fair price. It follows that to the extent that such programs lead to more complete markets without subsidies they are also more efficient than are the many schemes now used which rely on subsidies to address mortgage market incompleteness. Second, considerable care must be exercised in the development of such instruments. In a number of countries the pricing policies do not appear to be prudent. The program terms imply either that regulators often expect a much safer economic environment than seems likely, or, alternatively, the programs have been conveying either unbudgeted subsidies or incurring contingent liabilities. Such liabilities have already been realized in Sweden, and the current exposure in the Netherlands as well as with the restructured program in Sweden, appear to be large. Finally, we find that the potential geographical risk diversification provided by the single currency market can be expected to reduce mortgage rates and improve risk allocation. However, legal, fiscal, and regulatory issues with respect to credit risk limit the ability to exploit this larger market.     

论西部可持续开发战略的法治保障

本文认为 ,我国西部大开发必须坚持走可持续发展道路和建立强有力法治保障体系并举 ,为此 ,就应完善西部开发法律体系 ,营造良好的法治环境、社会环境及投资环境 ,为西部开发五大战略重点的实施提供有效可行的法律手段 ,并应在西部推行经济特区制度 ,健全行政合同法律制度以及充分利用BOT方式来促进西部建设。     

The contribution of the right to information laws in Europe to local government transparency on sustainability

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of the right to information laws on sustainability transparency in European local governments. This goal is novel, in that previous studies have examined the effects of various factors on the dissemination of government information (demographic, socioeconomic, political and financial) but not the contribution of legal factors to online transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our research question is this: Do information laws contribute to transparency on sustainability? Using the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and a statistical regression analysis, we studied the websites of 106 local governments in ten European countries. The results obtained show that when transparency laws clearly stipulate the rules applicable and the procedures established for appeals, exceptions, refusals and requests, this can favour transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our findings advance understanding of this field and reinforce the basis for legal reforms to enhance sustainability transparency.