Consensus or compulsion?

When a person receives the same message often enough, from intelligentpeople whose opinions are not only valued but are handsomelypaid for, he is apt to believe it. Yet, acceptance within thecanon of generally accepted wisdom does not of itself qualifya widely held belief as being true. In the field of IP as elsewhere, opinions are often accepteduncritically on the trusting assumption that     

Office politics

The main focus of the IP student is on the substantive law:what can you patent, which acts infringe a trade mark, whenwill freedom of speech arguments trump a copyright-based actionfor an injunction, and so on. Once in practice, this focus broadensto take in wider interests, for example how to advise and guidea client without misappropriating its decision-making capacityor how to work within a team     

Adaptation,conflict and cooperation in pastoralist East Africa: a case study from South Turkana,Kenya

The control and management of resources is an implicit focus of many recent studies that trace the role of environmental factors in the onset and duration of conflict. According to the resources scarcity approach, as scarcities of natural resources worsen they become unmanageable leading to violent conflict between groups competing to use the same resource(s). However, the resources scarcity perspective is misleading by de-emphasising the socio-economic and political factors that are crucial to understanding contested uses and control of resources. This paper introduces the concept of adaptation as an entry point into debates surrounding the role of resources in conflict. The notion that resource uses are socially embedded and politically contingent underlines a key argument in the paper that adaptation is a contentious process and is tightly linked to resource struggles that are laden with material and symbolic importance. It is argued that social relations and political forces shape different vulnerabilities, enlarging options for some to adjust to environmental changes while potentially limiting options for others. A case study of conflict and cooperation among interacting groups of livestock herders in Turkana, Kenya lends contextual support to these views.     

Treatment, diagnosis--or just testing the water?

The Gowers Review of IP was published in early December. Nowthat its contents have been revealed, the IP community in Britainand elsewhere is coming to terms with its contents. Althoughthe Review proposes relatively few changes to the IP systemas we know it, many are wary of its potential impact. One reason for the wariness lies in the approach taken by theReview. The most natural avenue for investigation is that whichtackles IP rights in turn: patents,     

Redrawing the Boundaries of Self-Defence

Suzanne Uniacke, Permissible Killing: The Self-Defence Justification for Homicide , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, ix + 244 pp, hb £35.00.     

Programme Evaluation and Effectiveness Auditing in Sweden: The Changing Swedish Policy Style*

Modern governments must increase their capacity for analysing and evaluating public programmes. Evaluations, however, take place in a political context and many policies have unstated political goals. Sweden appears to have a highly developed evaluation and effectiveness auditing system and the Swedish case is instructive, not only because of its experience in the evaluation field, but also because it illustrates the changing policy style. Two main agencies are involved in the evaluation process and they both experience some difficulties in their evaluation studies. These difficulties stem in part from the political environment in which they both operate but also relate to their own organisational styles. The resource squeeze could bring broad environmental charges which could be conducive to a greater influence for the two agencies.     

Epistemological Limits of the State: Reflections on Popper's Open Society

The ethical theory of Popper's Open Society threatens, against his wishes, to lapse into a form of relativism. This consequence is avoided if a closer parallel than Popper himself allows for is drawn between hs ethical theory and his epistemology. This produces a fallibilistic ethical intuitionism, in which the judgements of the individual are subject to criticism by the judgements of others. From this, however, an epistemological rationale is provided for the autonomy of the individual and moral limits are drawn to the sphere of legitimate action by the state.     

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation and North American Migratory Bird Conservation: The Potential of the NAAEC Citizen Submission Procedure

This article examines the citizen submission process laid out in Articles 14--15 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the 1993 environmental NAFTA “side agreement.” These articles set out a process by which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or individuals may file a submission alleging that one of the Parties to the agreement “is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law.” The paper traces developments set in motion by two submissions alleging failure to enforce migratory bird legislation. The first targets the United States, the second, Canada. Developments in these and other Article 14--15 cases have enfeebled an instrument that, from the outset, many regarded as having quite limited potential. These cases indicate, nonetheless, that the procedure still has some limited usefulness as a way of highlighting implementation failures. NGOs that do choose to invest in pursuing a citizen submission process would be advised to combine these efforts with other approaches to mobilizing public pressure.