Medical and legal aspects of genital mutilation and circumcision part I: female genital mutilation (FGM)

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is considered to be against the law and against morality not only in Western countries, although a woman of age and able to consent may sometimes think differently. The procedure may have serious physical and emotional consequences for the girl or woman. Nevertheless there are attempts to justify the procedure with medical and hygienic pseudoarguments, ideology, freedom of religion, cultural identity and social adequacy. Outside the Western world, some people claim that religion and culture alone justify the practice. In Germany, parents can lose the right to determine the residence of their daughter, if she is faced with the risk of genital mutilation in order to prevent that the child or girl is taken to her home country. Genital mutilation as a gender-specific threat is recognized as a reason to grant asylum or prevent deportation. Proposals to make genital mutilation a separate punishable offence are presently discussed by the legislator.     

Tatort beim Verbreiten von Werkstücken über das Internet

Verbreitung ist zufolge § 16 Abs 1 UrhG entweder Feilhalten oder das In-Verkehr-Bringen eines Werkstücks, wodurch einem anderen die tats?chliche oder rechtliche Verfügungsmacht darüber – wie beispielsweise beim Verkauf, der Schenkung, dem Verleihen oder dem Vermieten – einger?umt wird. Aus der für das Angebot verwendeten deutschen Sprache, aus der gew?hlten Website " sowie aus dem für die Abwicklung der Bezahlung angegebenen Konto ist ein für die Dauer der Abrufbarkeit via Internet verwirklichtes Feilhalten in ?sterreich objektiv und subjektiv indiziert. Der Erfolg des unbefugten In-Verkehr-Bringens trat nach Postaufgabe in Deutschland durch Zustellung des Werkstücks im Inland ein, wo der Erwerber die Verfügungsmacht darüber erlangte. Der Tatbestand des Verbreitens wurde dadurch ebenso verwirklicht.     

Incentive effects of class actions and punitive damages under alternative procedural regimes

In an economic perspective, punitive damages and class actions can be viewed as sharing a common economic function—creating optimal deterrence. Building on Parisi and Cenini (Class actions for Europe: perspectives from law and economics, ELGAR, 2010), we study the effect of alternative procedural regimes on the effectiveness of punitive damages and class actions. Specifically, we compare the workings of punitive damages and class actions in the American and English (“loser-pays”) regimes. Our findings help explain the limited use and late adoption of class actions and punitive damages in Europe.     

Pubertal Development Moderates the Importance of Environmental Influences on Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Girls and Boys

Prevalence differences in depressive symptoms between the sexes typically emerge in adolescence, with symptoms more prevalent among girls. Some evidence suggests that variation in onset and progression of puberty might contribute to these differences. This study used a genetically informative, longitudinal (assessed at ages 12, 14, and 17) sample of Finnish adolescent twins (N = 1214, 51.6% female) to test whether etiological influences on depressive symptoms differ as a function of pubertal status. These tests were conducted separately by sex, and explored longitudinal relationships. Results indicated that pubertal development moderates environmental influences on depressive symptoms. These factors are more important on age 14 depressive symptoms among more developed girls relative to their less developed peers, but decrease in influence on age 17 depressive symptoms. The same effects are observed in boys, but are delayed, paralleling the delay in pubertal development in boys compared to girls. Thus, the importance of environmental influences on depressive symptoms during adolescence changes as a function of pubertal development, and the timing of this effect differs across the sexes.     

The retirement prospects of divorced women

For decades, policymakers have discussed how to remedy the high poverty rates of older widows. Yet older divorced women are more likely to be poor than older widows, and historical divorce and remarriage trends suggest that in the future a larger share of retired women will be divorced. This article uses the Social Security Administration's Modeling Income in the Near Term (version 6) to project the retirement resources and wellbeing of divorced women. We find that Social Security benefits and retirement incomes are projected to increase for divorced women and that their poverty rates are projected to decline, due in large part to women's increasing lifetime earnings. However, not all divorced women will be equally well off economic well-being in retirement varies by Social Security benefit type.     

The impact of changes in couples' earnings on married women's Social Security benefits

Women's labor force participation and earnings dramatically increased after World War II. Those changes have important implications for women's Social Security benefits. This article uses the Social Security Administration's Modeling Income in the Near Term (version 6) to examine Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiary wives. The projections show that fewer wives in more recent birth cohorts will be eligible for auxiliary benefits as spouses because their earnings are too high. If their husbands die, however, most wives will still be eligible for survivor benefits because, despite the increase in their earnings over time, they still typically have lower earnings than their husbands. Even so, the share of wives who would be ineligible for widow benefits is projected to double between cohorts.