NGOs and Ethnic Conflict: Lessons from the Work of the Project on Ethnic Relations in the Balkans

This article examines the impact of nongovernmental organization-sponsored contact and communication on fostering peaceful solutions to ethnic conflict via case studies of the activities of the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) in Romania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia. It explores five operational principles that guide PER activity: creating credible, neutral forums for dialogue; maintaining momentum; working within political realities; encouraging indigenous solutions from within existing processes; and acting with the backing of powerful states. These principles explain PER's success as a "weak mediator" of ethnic conflicts. According to this analysis, PER also exhibits organizational characteristics that contribute to success, including nonpartisanship, area expertise and extensive networks of local contacts, and an ability to secure the trust of local actors.
A significant indicator of the success of PER activities is the establishment by conflicting parties of institutionalized mechanisms for addressing their differences. Contrary to the view that electoral competition contributes to conflict, this study finds that the possibility of achieving an electoral advantage by participating cooperatively in conflict resolution activities creates incentives for local actors to recognize opportunities offered by PER activities and leads local actors to heed PER's advice. Finally, the article offers a cautionary observation. While PER's perceived influence with major international actors may contribute to its local successes, once a state actor with the power to impose a solution has committed itself to ending a conflict, its preferences outweigh any local interests in determining the outcome and renders the efforts of a "weak mediator" such as PER irrelevant.     

英国的调解制度--近期发展

本文分析了英国近来的一些案例,介绍了英国在采取非诉方法解决争议方面的最新发展,强调了法院在一些案件中的态度.     

US Patent and Trademark Office refuses registration of flavour trade mark

In a case of first impression, the Trademark Trial and AppealBoard of the US Patent and Trademark Office has held that theflavour orange is not registrable for use with quick-dissolvingantidepressant tablets and pills.     

S&;T Parks and business incubators in middle-sized countries: the case of greece

This paper links the policy context regarding S&T parks to the objectives and characteristics of the established parks and incubators in a relatively small, converging European country. S&T parks and incubators in Greece during the past decade and a half have gradually shifted in terms of ownership and management from university/research institute to the private sector and in terms of financing from public to private funds, also involving the provision of seed capital and access to venture capital. This gradual shift toward more private engagement has created a variety of models out of which, it is hoped, successful innovative companies will emerge in larger numbers than in the past.

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Comments on the Comments

Abstract. The paper replies to Bix and Soper ( Bix 2007 ; Soper 2007 ). Bix's paper raises methodological questions, especially whether a form‐theorist merely needs to reflect on form from the arm‐chair so to speak. A variety of methods is called for, including conceptual analysis, study of usage, “education in the obvious,” general reflection on the nature of specific functional legal units, empirical research on their operation and effects, and still more. Further methodological remarks are made in response to Soper's paper. Soper suggests the possibility of substituting “form v. substance” of a unit as the central contrast here rather than form v. complementary material or other components of a unit. Various reasons are given here for not doing this. Among other things, it is also argued here that form does not, contrary to Soper's suggestion, always follow substance.     

A Desultory Defense of Democracy: OAS Resolution 1080 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

This article evaluates the effectiveness of OAS mechanisms for safeguarding democracy through multilateral diplomacy, what some scholars have dubbed the interamerican defense of democracy regime. Drawing on a range of international relations theories, this study derives competing hypotheses about member states' responses to democratic crises in the Americas. It then analyzes all instances in which a collective response—that is, an application of Resolution 1080 or the Inter-American Democratic Charter—was debated in the OAS between 1991 and 2002. Patterns of state behavior suggest that domestic politics, rather than the structural or systemic traits of the interamerican system, best explain foreign policy responses to crises of democracy in the region. The OAS record in confronting such crises is uneven.