The Recognition of the Chinese Government and the Convention on International Civil Aviation

This article traces the membership and representation of Chinain the International Civil Aviation Organization. It examineswhich of the two governments claiming to represent China, theGovernment of the Republic of China (ROC) or the Governmentof the People's Republic of China (PRC), has, at any one time,been regarded as competent to exercise China's membership rightsunder the Convention on International Civil Aviation (ChicagoConvention). In particular, the article asks which governmentcan today validly designate "customs airports" in China, includingTaiwan, and exercise the various other rights in respect ofnon-scheduled and scheduled flights referred to in Articles5 and 6 of the Chicago Convention. It explains why airlinescan operate direct international air services to non-designatedairports in Taiwan without the special permission or other authorizationof the Government of the PRC, despite the latter being regardedas having complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspaceabove Taiwan.     

Accuracy of the static-99 in predicting recidivism in Switzerland

The Static-99 is a widely used actuarial risk assessment instrument. Various international validation studies have found satisfactory to good predictive validity for the Static-99, with the area under the curve (AUC) between 59% and 95%. This study is the first evaluation of the predictive accuracy of the Static-99 among sex offenders in Switzerland. The Static-99 scores of 69 violent/sex offenders in Switzerland were assessed using data from their psychiatric assessments. Recidivism was operationalized as reconviction assessed from penal records. The Static-99 risk levels were predictive for recidivism (AUC = .758) among our population. The results are discussed on the basis of the literature.     

Political Conflict over Time

We study a model of electoral competition in which politicians must decide whether to initiate the provision of some public good and, afterward, how much of the public good to supply. The model illuminates how a project's implementation affects elections and, conversely, how electoral considerations influence decisions about implementation. Under well-defined conditions, politicians will either implement projects that they do not like or delay projects that, absent electoral concerns, they would support. The model further reveals how the perceived benefits of holding office can impede the production of public goods about which there is broad consensus. And depending on facts about the program's structure and the electoral landscape, a policy's implementation can either mitigate or exacerbate political conflict.     

Agile programming – Introduction and current legal challenges

Within the realms of software development, customers must specify the requirements of their new software before the start of the project. Today, this leads to considerable delays with respect to the start of the project. In addition, the integration of new requirements into a system already developed in parts is becoming increasingly time-consuming and cost-intensive. Yet the specifically necessitated functions of a software are often only revealed through the process of development. By means of agile programming, changes in the requirements of a software product can be handled flexibly in shorter development cycles. In the following, the framework of agile software development projects as it applies under German law is described and current legal problems of such projects – in particular, the issue of contract type and the new building contract law – are considered. The unplanned project design appears contrary to the legal approach. The article shows, however, that agile software products development provides customers with dynamic and quickly scalable products and that customers can leave the project after individual project steps. The new development of building contract law, which focuses on subunits and approvals, is also very much in line with the above-mentioned programming.     

Identifying the determinants of aggregate judicial performance: taxpayers’ money well spent?

There have been a sizeable number of studies trying to identify the determinants of judicial performance on the country level. Such a design is appropriate to identify underperforming individual judges or underperforming courts or court districts. However, it is not appropriate to identify institutions conducive to judicial performance. A dataset produced by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice contains very detailed information on the judicial systems of the 47 member countries of the Council of Europe. Drawing on robust regressions and using an objective variable, we find that (1) resolution rates are not a function of per capita income. In other words: poor countries can also afford them. (2) Countries belonging to the French legal tradition enjoy relatively lower resolution rates. (3) Resolution rates are negatively—and very robustly—correlated with court budget. As such, a higher budget will not “buy” more court decisions. (4) Resolution rates are never positively correlated with the presence of judicial councils. (5) Mandatory training for judges is correlated with higher resolution rates. Drawing on the subjectively perceived efficiency of the judiciary as the dependent variable we find that (6) countries belonging to both the French and the socialist legal tradition are less efficient and that (7) judicial councils are also negatively correlated with our measure of judicial efficiency, in other words: countries that do not have them should not introduce them.     

Self-Determination After Kosovo

This article discusses the meaning of self-determination in its historical and contemporary contexts and examines the different options available for the accommodation of contested self-determination claims. Among these, the creation of a new state, arguably, is the most radical of options and one that has significant regional and global implications beyond the territory to which it is applied. Detailing these implications in relation to the case of Kosovo, we make a broader argument that, even if secession is one mechanism to resolve self-determination disputes, this does not do away with the need to continue exploring settlements short of secession as alternatives to changing established international boundaries.