A collaborative study of the EDNAP group regarding Y-chromosome binary polymorphism analysis

A collaborative study was carried out by the European DNA Profiling Group (EDNAP) in order to evaluate the performance of Y-chromosome binary polymorphism analysis in different European laboratories. Four blood samples were sent to the laboratories, to be analysed for 11 Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs): SRY-1532, M40, M35, M213, M9, 92R7, M17, P25, M18, M153 and M167. All the labs were also asked to submit a population study including these markers. All participating laboratories reported the same results, indicating the reproducibility and robustness of Y-chromosome SNP typing. A total of 535 samples from six different European populations were also analysed. In Galicia (NW Spain) and Belgium, the most frequent haplogroup was R1b*(xR1b1,R1b3df). Haplogroup F*(xK) is one of the most frequent in Austria and Denmark, while the lowest frequency appear in Belgium. Haplogroup frequencies found in this collaborative study were compared with previously published European Y-chromosome haplogroup data.     

Law and Finance in Emerging Economies: Germany and Britain 1800–1913

By most standards, Britain in the 19th century was the world's leading financial nation, with more developed capital markets than any other country. An influential view in the law and finance literature argues that, holding macroeconomic factors constant, the different financial development can be attributed to more stringent disclosure regulation in Britain. Presenting a granular analysis of regulatory reform in Britain and Germany, this article shows that the level of disclosure regulation was largely comparable in both countries during the relevant period and that reform initiatives were not an exogenous stimulus of financial development, but evolved incrementally in response to changing market conditions. On the other hand, the legal regime governing the formation of stock corporations developed in diametrically opposed directions in the two countries as a result of concerted efforts by policy makers to change market conditions. The article argues that these rules, which were relevant to organisational choice and the availability of different sources of financing, stand out as the most striking difference between Germany and the UK.     

Against the odds: How policy capacity can compensate for weak instruments in promoting sustainable food

Policy Sciences - There has been revived scholarly interest in policy capacity recently. While it is widely assumed that capacity is important for policy performance, it is difficult to separate...     

COMPLEMENTARITY AND COOPERATIVE JUSTICE AHEAD OF THEIR TIME? THE UNITED NATIONS WAR CRIMES COMMISSION,FACT-FINDING AND EVIDENCE

Today, many international criminal lawyers claim that the future of international law is domestic. The example of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) shows that this might not only be the future, but also the past. This article analyzes the practice of the Commission (1943–1948), with a particular emphasis on facts, evidence and interaction with domestic authorities. It argues that the UNWCC marked an early counter-model to the idea of military justice that prevailed in many World War II accountability initiatives, and an alternative to the centralized and situation-specific enforcement model under the umbrella of United Nations (UN) peace maintenance. The Commission represents a cooperative approach to justice and sovereignty that has got lost in the course of the second half of the twentieth century. In the mid-1940s, attention shifted quickly, and perhaps too early from the UNWCC itself to the idea of centralized enforcement under the umbrella of an International Criminal Court. The work of the Commission foreshadows many core dilemmas of contemporary international justice, including debates over independent investigative authority, proprio motu powers, the labelling and origin of core crimes (e.g. aggression, crimes against humanity), the treatment of group criminality (e.g. attribution of conduct) and evidentiary standards in proceedings. Similar structures are gradually re-emerging in the context of regional integration (e.g. ‘mutual trust’ under the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice) or the operationalization of complementarity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). But in terms of cooperation between major powers and use of international expertise and advice in criminal proceedings, international criminal justice is still in search of a modern UNWCC 2.0.