EU update

This is the latest edition of Baker & McKenzie's column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside websites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

The prevalence of drugs and alcohol found in road traffic fatalities: A comparative study of victims

Researchers have studied the involvement of drugs and alcohol in fatal road traffic incidents, but with particular emphasis on the possible impairment of the driver. This paper describes a comparative study of drug and alcohol findings in various victim groups (drivers of cars, vans or lorries, car passengers, motorcyclists, motorcycle passengers, cyclists and pedestrians) between 2000 and 2006. Post-mortem blood and urine specimens submitted were analysed by immunoassay, GC–NPD, GC–FID, GC–MS and HPLC–DAD. The results of 1047 cases indicated 54% of all victims were positive for drugs and/or alcohol, with the highest percentage of positive findings occurring in pedestrians (63%). Males between the ages of 17–24 were most likely to be involved in a road traffic accident, whether being in control of a vehicle (driver) or involved indirectly (car passenger, pedestrian, motorcycle passenger). A wide range of drugs were detected (e.g. drugs of abuse, anti-convulsants, anti-histamines, anti-inflammatories, anti-psychotics, cardiac drugs and over-the-counter products), but alcohol and cannabinoids were the most frequent substances across the victim groups. When detected, alcohol was commonly above the legal driving limit in blood and urine (> 63% in those in control and > 60% not in control). Overall, the presence of drugs and/or alcohol was of similar frequency in those victims in control (55% of driver, 48% of motorcyclists, 33% of cyclists) and not in control of a vehicle (52% of car passengers, 63% of pedestrians). This degree of frequency strongly implicates the involvement of drugs and alcohol in road traffic incidents and infers an effect on driving ability and individual impairment.     

Foreigners Everywhere,Nationals Nowhere: Exclusion,Irregularity, and Invisibility of Stateless Bajau Laut in Eastern Sabah,Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This article explores impacts of national and regional policies upon the Bajau Laut, who occupy the maritime border region shared by Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. It considers how maritime movements, ethnogenesis, visions for economic development and commercial interaction have evolved in the region. These processes, combined with contemporary nationalism, border securitization, and conservation render such populations both prominent as a target of governmental action and invisible in terms of provision of social services and implementation of conservation initiatives. These facets complicate issues of political belonging within the state of Sabah, the nation-state of Malaysia, and the wider ASEAN region.     

“I have always been so afraid”: Fearsome Encounters in Unni Lindell’s Rødhette

Norwegian crime writer Unni Lindell’s novel Rødhette [Red Riding Hood] (Oslo: Aschehoug & Co, 2004/2010) is a narrative about a woman whose feeling of safety transforms into a fear of violation, and how her defence against this fear takes the form of systematic violence. The novel is a rewriting of the traditional tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” and is a comment on the patriarchal premises of the most widely known version of this folktale. In the article, I discuss the representation of the female murderer as being in the grip of an affective economy based on the fear of male violence, represented in the novel by the metaphor of the “wolf”, and how fear grows into a comprehensive, moral and pragmatic, murderous orientation towards the world after an experience of violence. Theoretically, I draw on affect theory and particularly Sara Ahmed’s ideas about the affective politics of fear (The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014) and how this fear turns into a significant qualifier in encounters with people who are experienced as strangers (Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. London: Routledge, 2000). Fear is treated in Lindell’s novel as a psychological constriction and a tool for the construction of agency, through which the mechanisms of othering and violence are explored.     

Preface to Yoshimi Shun'ya's Voice Capitalism

Abstract

This article is a translation of the preface to Voice Capitalism by influential sociologist Yoshimi Shun'ya. The chapter ties together a wealth of discourse on the meaning of sound to society and to the individual, and its evolving role as a means of expression and connection to our environments. Yoshimi walks us through Nagai Kafū's reverence for tangible sound, R. Murray Schafer's schizophonic soundscapes, Marshal McLuhan's essays on the impact of the advent of sound recordings and electronic voices, Glenn Gould's theories on the blurring borders between musical performer and audience – amongst numerous other topics and writers.     

Power and Rights in the Community: Paralegals as Leaders in Women’s Legal Empowerment in Tanzania

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations. This article argues that paralegals can be effective actors in women’s legal empowerment where they are able to work as leaders, negotiating power relations and resisting the forms of violence that women encounter as obstacles to justice. Paralegals’ authority will be realised when their role is situated within community leadership structures, confirming their authority while preserving their independence.     

Women scientists in British industry: technical library and information workers,c.1918-1960

Technical librarianship and information work emerged as a new scientific career in interwar Britain and rapidly became one of the few types of professional industrial employment that was routinely open to both women and men. Drawing on a range of sources, including the records of professional organisations, industrial firms and individual practitioners, this article uses a study of the patterns and practices surrounding women's work in technical libraries and information bureaux to illuminate the ways in which ideas about gender shaped their early non-manual employment in industry. It argues that the hybrid and ambiguously gendered nature of the work involved, which spanned scientific research, librarianship and clerical work, opened up the field to female science graduates but frequently left them confined to those posts which did not confer full recognition of their status as scientists and offered few prospects for career progression. Nevertheless, within these limitations a striking number of women were able to carve out responsible, even pioneering, careers. They did so chiefly as technical librarians who, although usually expected to relinquish any pretensions to equal status alongside their scientific colleagues, could claim distinctive knowledge and expertise within an industrial organisation.     

‘If the Time is not Ripe,Then it is Your Job to Ripen the Time!’ The Transformation of the YWCA in the USA from Segregated Association to Interracial Organization, 1930–1965

This article explores the processes behind the transformation of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in the USA from a segregated organization in 1920 to an organization promoting racial equality, both within its ranks and in the wider community by 1965. Despite the continuation of segregated practices within some parts of the YWCA until the late 1960s, African‐American women were able to influence the YWCA within national divisions, notably the Negro Leadership Conference and the National Student Council. The influence of African‐American women within the national organisation made the YWCA’s toleration of segregation, both within its own association and in American society, untenable. The interracial friendships and relationships formed by women within the YWCA were crucial in breaking down the national organization’s acceptance of segregation and creating the will to overcome regional inertia, conservatism and hostility.