The legislative recreation of RICO: Reinforcing the ``myth' of organized crime

This paper uses historical content analysis to examine the implementation ofthe Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). It is argued thatthe historical events leading to the definition of organized crime as an alienconspiracy still affect RICO's use some 30 years after its passage. This paper applies state-centered theory to the theoretical frameworks of sociology of knowledge and innovation diffusion. This approach is used to relate the current implementation and controversy of RICO to the alien conspiracy view. Thought of in this context, legal implementation is the result of a knowledge creation and diffusion process. This paper demonstrates how one knowledge diffusionprocess (the acceptance of organized crime as a national conspiracy in 1970) leads to a new knowledge diffusion process (the use of RICO).     

INTRODUCING PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

This article provides an editorial introduction to the following three related articles on the growing use and influence of social science research in family law. It first considers why this has become problematic and identifies some common strategies used by advocates, sometimes under the guise of scholarship, to destroy the standing of research findings contrary to their ideological or political position. Then it discusses briefly the remedies proposed to mitigate these kinds of problems within the following three articles.     

The Revitalization of the Permanent Court of Arbitration

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Die Berücksichtigung von Auswirkungen auf charakteristische Arten der Lebensräume nach Anhang I der FFH-Richtlinie in der FFH-Verträglichkeitsprüfung Anmerkungen zum Urteil des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts vom 16. März 2006 – 4 A 1075.04 (Großflughafen Berlin-Brandenburg)

Das Bundesverwaltungsgericht hat in seinem Urteil vom 16.3.2006 zum Gro?flughafen Berlin-Brandenburg in einem Leitsatz festgestellt, dass das FFH-Schutzregime, dem bestimmte Biotope unterliegen, sich nicht auf V?gel erstreckt, denen das betreffende Biotop als Habitat dient. Diese Feststellung führt zu der Frage, inwieweit charakteristische Arten von Lebensr?umen nach Anhang I FFH-RL in der FFH-Vertr?glichkeitsprüfung nach § 34 BNatSchG überhaupt bewertungsrelevant sind. Der Beitrag setzt sich dazu mit dem Urteil kritisch auseinander.     

CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES

From a conflict resolution perspective, it is clear why the child support guidelines are not going to reduce the adequacy and compliance gaps in child support payment conflicts between parents. As it stands, the conflict over equally sharing child support is destructive rather than positive. The guidelines do not reframe the conflict for the parents, enabling them to believe the interests of children are more important than their own interests to win the child support battle. To transform conflict from destructive to positive, the elements of conflict–expression of the conflict, scarce resources and rewards, and interdependency–must be transformed. It is argued that the guidelines do not transform the conflict but facilitate it. Courts and attorneys are also significant players in the child support conflict.     

High performance liquid chromatographic determination of alcohols with reference to body distribution of methanol

A method has been developed on reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography for simultaneous determination of methyl, ethyl and isopropyl alcohols under refractive index detection using pure water as the mobile phase. A good separation has been achieved between these alcohols. Detector response was linear with a detection limit of 5 mg/100 ml. Recovery studies were performed by adding known amounts of methyl and ethyl alcohols to blood, lung and liver within the range 80–90%. The reproducibility of the results was always >90%. The quantitative distribution of methyl alcohol in postmortem body tissues and fluids has been reported in three cases of poisoning.