Switzerland and the Hague Convention

Any suggestion that 2006 has been a quiet year in the internationaltrust world is likely to be quickly denied. Of course, the worldof international trusts never stops changing. A popular conferencetopic is ‘Challenges of the trust today’ or a similartitle which calls upon the speaker to present his views on whatis happening preferably with some crystal ball gazing of impendinglegislation. The source of change offers ample opportunity for discourse.First, case law produces its finely ground decisions to resolveindividual disputes laying down jurisprudence for future settlorsand their advisers to follow. Sometimes it is favourable. Therecent re-adoption and expansion of the Hastings-Bass principle(Re Hastings-Bass (Dec’d), Hastings v IRC [1974] 2 AllER 193), whereby trustees may make good an oversight, has beenfavourable to trustees, provided (naturally) liberties werenot taken with the rules.     

论国际公约的司法适用--由一个案例引发的思考

本文从具体案例入手,笔者主张,我国司法适用国际民商事公约,应以涉外法律关系为必要,在国内法律关系中,一般应适用国内法,在国内法没有做出任何规定时,可以参照国际公约的规定判案,但是其性质不是适用国际公约,而是将国际公约作为国际通例填补国内法的漏洞.     

Salience and Symmetry-breaking in the Evolution of Convention

Law and Philosophy -     

试论宪法惯例的效力

以法律效力的本原说为指导,在分析关于宪法惯例效力的几种观点的基础上,认为宪法惯例效力的本原是知识和经验,并从妥当性和实用性的角度,提出了法律效力的两层次论,认为宪法惯例的效力表现为政治确认和制裁效力以及准法律效力两个方面。     

Adverse Possession and Article 1 of the European Convention

In the post-human rights era the question has arisen on several occasions as to whether the automatic and arbitrary termination of the registered owner’s title through the common law and statutory principles governing adverse possession of land is contrary to the Article 1, Protocol 1 of the European Convention. The matter fell to be decided in J.A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd v United Kingdom ([2005] 3 EGLR 1) where the European Court of Human Rights held that the automatic termination of a registered owners title after 12 years possession was indeed a violation of Article 1, Protocol 1. More recently, the decision of the European Court has been overturned by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights where the Grand Chamber has held that a squatters’ right to another persons land are not disproportionate (J. A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd and Another v United Kingdom, The Times, October 1st 2007). This short article examines the decision of the Grand Chamber.

Cyber Weapons Convention

World leaders are beginning to look beyond temporary fixes to the challenge of securing the Internet. One possible solution may be an international arms control treaty for cyberspace. The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) provides national security planners with a useful model. CWC has been ratified by 98% of the world’s governments, and encompasses 95% of the world’s population. It compels signatories not to produce or to use chemical weapons (CW), and they must destroy existing CW stockpiles. As a means and method of war, CW have now almost completely lost their legitimacy. This article examines the aspects of CWC that could help to contain conflict in cyberspace. It also explores the characteristics of cyber warfare that seem to defy traditional threat mitigation.     

Law as Convention

Abstract. The widely recognized impasse in legal theory, which requires an account of law as "both a social fact and a framework of reasons for action" has been most interestingly addressed in recent years by writers characterizing law as convention in the sense of a solution to a game theoretical "coordination problem." As critics have neutralized most of these proposals, the author advances an account of conventionalism, drawing on economic and sociological theory, which he claims makes the bridge between positivist and naturalist theories of law without compromising the basic insights of either. The result is a unified theory of law, politics and society.     

对UPOV公约91文本的分析与思考

采纳UPOV公约91文本是育种者权利知识产权保护的国际发展趋势。通过对91文本中有关育种者权利范围的解读和分析，以期消除人们对相关内容可能产生的误读；同时，通过对我国加入91文本的可行性的探讨和分析，指出采用91文本的有关条款修订我国的植物新品种保护条例，当是我国在全面加入91文本前的积极选择。     

The European Convention and the Relative Rights of Resident Aliens

By virtue of conceptual abstraction, the notion of nationality plays a pivotal role in liberal democracies, governing distinctions in the allocation of 'absolute' and 'relative' rights, and determining that while national citizens, as full member of a sovereign political community, enjoy both human and political/social rights, resident aliens are excluded from the scope of these latter, community-related, rights. Further, The European Convention upon Human Rights appears to countenance this dichotomy, allowing sovereign states to restrict the political activity of aliens. This paper nonetheless argues that such a distinction undermines the democratic imperative upon which liberal constitutional states are founded. A 'social integration thesis,' holding that individuals should enjoy, as a fundamental right, the possibility fully to develop their personalities though establishing and pursuing secure social contacts, as well as interpreting those contacts in the light of prevailing cultural perceptions, not only raises the right of stable residence to one of most fundamental attaching to the human condition, but also indicates that political rights—a mere extension of self‐expression and self-fulfilment within civil society—should be recast as a universal entitlement. Article Three of the First Protocol ECHR may be construed in line with the social integration thesis, and consequently, in the matter of the definition of the members of the national community, the political sovereignty of the Nation State must be limited.     

国际反腐败公约与惩治腐败犯罪理念

腐败的治理是以科学的理念为指导的社会治理活动。科学的腐败犯罪治理理念是建构完备、有效的腐败犯罪控制对策的前提。以《联合国反腐败公约》为代表的国际反腐败公约着力倡导了防范性、内抑性、综合性、经济性、一体化的腐败犯罪治理理念，由此推动世界腐败治理运动的深入发展。