Dominant Rail Undertakings under European Competition Policy

Abstract: For the last 30 years, railway transport has been in steep decline within the Community. It is argued that such a decline is not inevitable, but it is partly due to regulatory distortions that favour other transport modes. As a result of the delay in liberalisation, railways lose out in comparison to air and road transport where market opening triggered a restructuring process of the industry much earlier. An important step towards more competition has been taken with a new ‘railway package’, which liberalises rail freight transport from 2003 on. This article gives an overview of recent developments in the sector, including the status quo of liberalisation and the recently adopted legislation. Taking into account recent jurisprudence, it then analyses competition policy issues with a focus on obligations that arise for dominant railway companies under Article 82 EC. The article lastly discusses what structural changes are required to deal with structural obstacles to a competitive European railway market. It is argued that a complete separation of infrastructure operation and transport services would be the solution most compatible with the railway directives and Article 86 EC.     

The impact of the U.S. war on terrorism upon U.S.-China relations

Using a framework of geopolitical analysis. Oliver Lee argues that the fundamental geopolitical relationships between the United States and China, namely the relationship between the world’s strongest naval and air power and the world’s strongest land power, would not be upset even after the American military presence in central Asia since September 11, 2001. The relationship would remain essentially unaltered because — American initiation of the use of nuclear weapons against China being ruled out for fear of Chinese retaliation — China would be able to withstand any U.S. military offensive conducted with conventional land, sea, and air forces, regardless of whether the U.S. possesses permanent air bases in Central Asia or not, and regardless of how many troops it may station on them. His teaching and research interests include domestic and foreign policies of China and power in America and U.S. foreign policy.     

„Allgemeine Grundsätze“ als abweichungsfester Kern der Naturschutzgesetzgebung des Bundes

Die mit der F?deralismusreform erfolgte Neuordnung der Gesetzgebungskompetenzen markiert einen epochalen Einschnitt für die Naturschutzgesetzgebung. Der Bund hat nun die M?glichkeit umfassende Vollregelungen zu erlassen, jedoch k?nnen die L?nder hiervon abweichen. Beschr?nkt wird dieses Abweichungsrecht insbesondere durch die „allgemeinen Grunds?tze des Naturschutzes“ im Sinne von Art. 72 Abs. 3 S. 1 Nr. 2 GG, die im Fokus des Beitrags stehen. Eine verfassungsrechtliche Auslegung führt zu dem Ergebnis, dass der Bund verbindlich und unmittelbar geltend zentrale Inhalte und Instrumente des Naturschutzes und der Landschaftspflege abweichungsfest formulieren kann. Eine v?llige Zersplitterung des Naturschutzrechts ist somit zu verhindern.     

National Parliaments in the European Union: Are There Any Benefits to Integration?

Abstract: Scholars and observers alike agree that the European Union has weakened national parliaments. This article posits that such a view, while generally accurate, ignores ways in which the EU has helped national parliaments in their function as regulators of society. It identifies two key mechanisms: precedent setting and policy transfer. First, the EU has produced laws on topics considered beyond the traditional remit of national parliaments. The EU's intervention has justified the production of unprecedented domestic laws that go well beyond the incorporation of EU principles. This has expanded the legislative reach of national parliaments. The article considers the experiences of Italy and The Netherlands in the area of antitrust. Second, the EU has fostered an environment conducive to cross‐national lesson drawing. The resulting knowledge has helped the design of more effective domestic legislative frameworks. This has confirmed the viability of national parliaments as regulatory institutions. The article examines the Open Method of Co‐ordination and its application to the areas of employment and social inclusion. It concludes with a discussion of parliaments in future Member States and in Mercosur.     

Reliance and Obligation

Abstract.  The fact that A has relied on B to do something is often taken to be a relevant factor in judging that B has a moral or legal obligation to do that thing. This paper investigates the relation between reliance and obligation. Specifically, the question is whether reliance and moral obligation are connected by some relation of conditionality. I consider four such relations—necessary condition, sufficient condition, necessary part of a sufficient condition, and independent necessary part of a sufficient condition. I argue that only the third one connects reliance and moral obligation, and that it does so in a trivial way. There are nevertheless two justifications for the prominence given to reliance in morality and law. First, reliance appears to be a sufficient condition of states of affairs involving concepts related to obligation. Second, reliance is a fairly reliable indicator of obligation.     

Mobilfunk, Mensch und Recht

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Stress in small town and rural law enforcement: Testing the assumptions

Sandy and Devine (1978) theorized that small-town and rural police officers experienced Stressors different from their urban counterparts. They delineated four rural stress dimensions: security, social factors, working conditions, and inactivity. Despite the number of hypotheses annunciated by these authors from their exposure to small-town and rural police, they have never been tested. This study is an attempt to rectify this deficiency in the literature by testing their theory/hypotheses with data derived from a survey questionnaire of West Virginia law enforcement officers. The findings of this study lend support for many of the original hypotheses and all four of the dimensions.     

Taiwanese spies on campus

This article considers the following question: given sex workers' barriers to participation, how do they engage in political life, if at all? To answer this, I draw on semi-structured open-ended interviews with forty adults who have supported themselves with sex work in the San Francisco Bay Area. While these individuals do not represent all sex workers in the United States, they exhibit a variety of capacities and methods for expressing their voices in the polity. Even as they faced multiple disadvantages and barriers to participation, they engaged in civic and political life through voting and community-based advocacy work, and they indicated that nonprofit agencies provide spaces that potentially support and encourage these activities. Although my results are from a small sample, they provide an important contribution to political science by shedding light on a population that is rarely studied in the discipline, especially regarding their formal and informal political involvement. In so doing, this article adds to broader scholarship on participation among marginalized and often under-studied groups.