Synthesizing Related Rules from Statutes and Cases for Legal Expert Systems

Abstract. Different legal expert systems may be incompatible with each other: A user in characterizing the same situation by answering the questions presented in a consultation can be led to contradictory inferences. Such systems can be "synthesized" to help users avoid such contradictions by alerting them that other relevant systems are available to be consulted as they are responding to questions. An example of potentially incompatible, related legal expert systems is presented here - ones for the New Jersey murder statute and the celebrated Quinlan case, along with one way of synthesizing them to avoid such incompatibility.     

The New Aerospace Diplomacy: Reconstructing Post-Cold War US-Russian Economic Relations

Post-Cold War U.S.-Russian diplomacy reveals the increased importance of new diplomatic actors and processes, whilst underscoring the continued key role of state-state negotiation in reconstructing the bilateral relationship between the United States and post-Soviet Russia. The Clinton administration and Yeltsin government negotiated measures to promote political stability, democratization, and conversion to a neoliberal market economy in Russia, a centrepiece of which was the integration of Russia’s globally competitive aerospace sector into the global production chain. Establishing the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, a top-level binational economic and technology policy committee, and signing a bilateral trade liberalization treaty on commercial satellite launch services paved the way for public-public and public-private bilateral space cooperation, and for major private joint ventures between US and Russian aerospace firms.     

Crossing the Organizational Void: The Limits of Agency Theory in the Analysis of Regulatory Control

This article critically examines the key assumptions of the positive theory of political control. The authors argue that the key assumptions of the theory are flawed and that these flaws seriously limit the importance of much research in the field of regulatory studies. The authors develop a set of new assumptions which would reorient the regulatory studies and force researchers to give greater attention to the role of the bureaucracy in political-bureaucratic relations.     

Britain and the Middle East

The address that follows was given before a joint meeting ofthe Royal African Society and the Royal Commonwealth Societyon December 4 1958. Mr. Richard Goold- Adams took the Chair