Gérard Cornu,Dictionary of the Civil Code, 663 (Alain Levasseur trans., LexisNexis 2014)

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

Discourse and reality in international information society policy: the dominant scenario and its application in the developing world

Abstract

Since the early 1990s the concept of the information society has taken centre stage on the political agendas of several national governments in the North and South, as well as regional and international institutions, donor organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This article first sets out to analyse and describe both the content of, the evolution in, this policy discourse. It attempts to assess the validity of this discourse in light of the current changes at the global level and in the light of the problems associated with the practical implementation of policy in a developmental context. By so doing, it questions the basic – and overly simplistic – assumptions of the dominant scenario.     

Child support order: how do judges decide without guidelines? Evidence from France

The paper presents a model of family judges’ child support orders when no guidelines are available. Based on the French case, it argues that judges weigh up their wish to comply with their institutional environment against their discretion and their willingness to find a compromise, by basing their decision on the parties’ average offer. Using experimental data consisting of child support awards set by approximately 80 French judges, the findings of the paper suggest that family judges promote parents’ child support offer when there is an agreement between them, particularly when their offer is lower than the amount deemed necessary to preserve the child’s interest. There is also some evidence that female judges are likely to be more generous than male judges, although in small amounts and under certain circumstances.