A Genre-based Approach to the Translation of Private Normative Texts in Legal English and Legal Spanish

This paper aims at clarifying some of the most common issues that legal translators have to face when dealing with the translation of private normative texts, such as contracts or wills, which naturally emerge as the consequence and expression of legal or juristic acts in the scope of private law, in Spanish and English. To comprehend the differences and subtleties regarding legal communication between the common law and the continental law countries (specifically the United States and Spain, respectively), we must unveil some essential clues for their translation and application in the global scope of professional interactions, thus creating a process of inter-legal communication, which takes place through the mutual interpretation and application of two, or more, legal traditions. Through the deployment of a generic or pragmatic analysis at textual or discursive and formal or superficial, strata, of two types of genre within the domain of private law (namely wills and tenancy agreements, or leases) this work aims to prove that both the civil law and the common law private instruments are translatable with respect to each other. An important proviso, however, is that their legal traditions and the genres that constitute the communicative tools of their specialised communities must be duly respected and kept in equilibrium, so that one does not overshadow and obliterate the other. Only in that way can the ??convergence?? of the two traditions truly enrich and strengthen national and international legal culture.     

What do Household Surveys Really Tell Us about Risk,Shocks, and Risk Management in the Developing World?

We report on a project to explore empirical patterns in risk, shocks and risk management using recent household surveys with risk modules from 16 different developing countries. Natural disasters, health shocks, economic shocks, and asset loss are the most commonly reported types of shocks and, especially for the poor, often result in ‘bad’ coping responses that may perpetuate vulnerability. The information culled from these survey modules falls short of expectations in several ways.     

The new regulation of abortion in Spain

The enactment of Law 2/2010 on Sexual and Reproductive Health and on Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy represents a radical change in the regulation of abortion in Spain. The law moves from the medical indication model that has been in place since 1985 (which established certain cases in which abortion was legal) towards a time-limit model that, with some exceptions, allows free abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Along with the hot debate that this fundamental change has caused, other features of the law have also arisen as a source of conflict, including the regulation of the informed consent of underage women for having an abortion and the rules regarding the conscientious objection by healthcare professionals.     

All by Myself: Personal Qualifications versus Party Affiliation in Colombian Mayoral Elections

Political decentralization has been promoted as a way to devolve responsibility, bring government closer to citizens, and improve accountability. The shift prompted new local elections, but were the elected officials responsive to citizens or to national party elites? This study examines unique survey data from 125 Colombian mayors to identify the factors they believe were critical in their victories and thereby to identify the people to whom they believe they owe loyalty: citizens or party leaders. Examining the relative value mayors assign to their own actions versus those of the party, combined with information on how they financed campaigns, sheds important light on subnational electoral dynamics in Colombia.     

Haplotypic blocks of X-linked STRs for forensic cases: study of recombination and mutation rates

In complex kinship cases, markers situated in haplotypic blocks may provide additional clues to other unlinked markers. We have established a protocol to amplify six X-chromosome microsatellites, located in two haplotype blocks, using PCR with fluorochrome-labeled primers and capillary electrophoresis. The segregation stability was explored in 92 unrelated families with individuals from three generations. Sixty-one different haplotypes were found in the DXS10079-DXS10074-DXS10075 block in the grandfathers and 96 in the mothers, with estimated haplotype diversities of 0.9828 and 0.9842, respectively. Fifty and 73 different haplotypes were found in the DXS6801-DXS6809-DXS6789 block in the grandfathers and the mothers, with estimated haplotype diversities of 0.9711 and 0.9742, respectively. We observed 10 between-cluster and one within-cluster recombinations in 99 female meioses. The overall per-locus mutation rate was 0.0034. This protocol allows for the characterization of the alleles of two sets of linked markers of the X-chromosome that can be useful in complex forensic cases.     

Assessing reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the BEST-Index in measuring living skills among forensic inpatients

The assessment of behavioral change as a result of inpatient treatment in forensic psychiatry is an important precondition for violence risk prediction in forensic psychiatry. In relation to a multitude of diagnostically based risk assessment instruments, there is a shortage of appropriate instruments with which to carry out valid and reliable therapeutic assessments that are behaviorally based and therefore appropriate for use within varied psychiatric contexts. There is also a need for instruments which will offer assessors the opportunity to examine possible relationships between criteria of social risk and criteria of more general aspects of social functioning. Tapping the issues pointed out above, the authors present an overview of a normatively based social profiling instrument (the BEST-Index), and discuss evidence for its validity, reliability, and aspects of clinical utility.