The rise and fall of communal liability in ancient law

In ancient societies, rules of communal responsibility permitted the imposition of retaliatory sanctions on a wrongdoer's clan. These rules followed the collective ownership structure of early communities. Over time, notions of personal responsibility emerged, terminating the transfer of responsibility from one member to the whole clan. This paper intends to provide an economic explanation for this transition.     

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.     

Simultaneous and Sequential Anticommons

This paper defines a framework for anticommons analysis based on the fragmentation of property rights. In differentiating between sequential and simultaneous cases of property fragmentation, we describe and assess the equilibria obtained under each scenario. Our model reveals how the private incentives of excluders do not capture the external effects of their decisions. Moreover, our model suggests that the result of underutilization of joint property increases monotonically in both (a) the extent of fragmentation; and (b) the foregone synergies and complementarities between the property fragments. Within this context, we can therefore explore important implications for possible institutional responses to a range of issues raised by the concept of property fragmentation.     

Amendment Rules in Constitutions

I study a formal model where the founder of a constitutiondetermines the amendment rule that minimizes constitutionalchanges by a future lobbyist. The founder has to consider thattoo flexible an amendment rule will make constitutional changevia amending too easy while too rigid an amendment rule willforce the lobbyist to look for other ways to achieve change. Icharacterize the optimal amendment rule under two alternativeformulations and study the comparative statics with respect tothe relative costs of amending and the other possibilities forchange.     

The paradox of legal harmonization

The legal landscape is changing, adapting to the global market. Differences between legal systems hinder transnational commerce. Countries reduce legal differences through non-cooperative and cooperative adaptation processes that alternatively lead to legal transplantation or harmonization. Switching costs render unification difficult. Cooperation reduces differences to a greater extent but rarely leads to legal unification. In this paper we unveil a paradox of legal harmonization. When switching costs are endogenous, countries engaging in cooperative harmonization may end up with less harmonization than those pursuing non-cooperative strategies.     

Duality in Property: Commons and Anticommons

Commons and anticommons problems are the consequence of symmetric structural departures from a unified conception of property. In this paper, we provide a dual model of property, where commons and anticommons problems are the consequence of a lack of conformity between use and exclusion rights. While commons and anticommons problems are symmetric in this sense, they are associated with asymmetric transaction costs. The paper formulates a hypothesis of legal rules for promoting unity in property and suggests a list of possible areas of application.     

Toward an asymmetric Coase theorem

Various reformulations of the Coase theorem have developed normative corollaries on the choice of optimal remedies in the presence of positive transaction costs. In this article, we consider the extent to which these propositions are affected by the presence of asymmetric transaction costs, and we offer a reformulation of the Coase theorem which takes into account asymmetrical transaction costs. Our analysis combines several insights from the existing literature on property-type vesus liability-type remedies, identifying the conditions for the superiority of each type of remedy. Further, we consider the possible use of mixed remedies and identify the optimal scope of such solution.     

The Role of Forensic Botany in Crime Scene Investigation: Case Report and Review of Literature

Management of a crime is the process of ensuring accurate and effective collection and preservation of physical evidence. Forensic botany can provide significant supporting evidences during criminal investigations. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of forensic botany in the crime scene. We reported a case of a woman affected by dementia who had disappeared from nursing care and was found dead near the banks of a river that flowed under a railroad. Two possible ways of access to crime scene were identified and denominated “Path A” and “Path B.” Both types of soil and plants were identified. Botanical survey was performed. Some samples of Xanthium Orientalis subsp. Italicum were identified. The fall of woman resulted in external injuries and vertebral fracture at autopsy. The botanical evidence is important when crime scene and autopsy findings are not sufficient to define the dynamics and the modality of death.