Baker & McKenzie's annual review of developments in EU law relating to IP,IT & telecommunications

This is a summary of the Baker & McKenzie columns on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This summarises the principal developments in 2009 that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas and which were reported on in this column in 2009. It seeks also to update any further development which may have taken place in relation to the specific topics since originally reported. 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 new world [dis] order in the complexity of multi‐polarity: United States of America's hegemonic decline and the configuration of new power patterns

History tells us that the United States of America (US)'s hegemonic predomination materialized from a very long‐ideological battle and/ Cold War, sometimes referred to as the war of words lasted for about five decades from the mid‐1940s to 1989, and consequently stopped after the fragmentation of the Soviet Union Empire. Thus, in contemporary times, it is lamentably regrettable that USA has come to face oligopolistic challenge in the context of both political and economic dominion. The international system is slowly but surely experiencing the emergence of brand new political and economic power patterns vis‐à‐vis China, European Union (EU) and Brazil, Russian, India, China, South Africa (BRICS). In light of the aforementioned, this article assesses the symptoms of US hegemonic decline and how this helps shape the current global academic and/ scholarly debates on the strategic environment. Equally important is the adoption and application of Afrocentricity as the theoretical framework in the quest for ”relocation from the knowledge production margins” and the spirit of the anticipation of the DE‐colonial Political contemplation in South Africa's life‐time. As a theory, it is employed to answer the central question: Is it a reality or a myth that USA's dominion over the international system is coming to an end? Methodologically, this article relied on interdisciplinary discourse analysis and thematic content prevailing documents.     

Differential Voter Turnout in a Post-Communist Muslim Society: The Case of the Kyrgyz Republic

Borrowing the dominant theoretical frameworks of studies of voter turnout in the developed world, this paper tests the applicability of these frameworks to a transitional democracy in a Muslim society. Using logistic regression, we estimate an individual’s likelihood of voting in Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 parliamentary and presidential elections. We find that traditional rural networks, rather than networks of voluntary associations, play the central role in the mobilization of voters. In addition, turnout is affected by long-standing cultural cleavages based on religion and ethnicity, and by education, occupation, and trust in government. Our findings suggest that the political behavior of the people of the Kyrgyz Republic is supportive of democracy, in spite of elite-level obstacles to a successful transition.     

Beyond deterrent enforcement styles: Behavioural intuitions of Chinese environmental law enforcement agents in a context of challenging inspections

This article extends the study of regulatory enforcement on three levels. First, it separates enforcement style elements during inspections and sanction decision‐making work, creating a more realistic measurement. Second, it focuses on how these elements function in a context where it is hard in practice to achieve deterrence. Third, it assesses how agents view the effectiveness of combinations of style elements in such a context. To do so, it uses survey and interview data with street‐level environmental officials in Guangzhou, China. It finds that the agents studied practise enforcement that goes beyond deterrence and uses education and persuasion more effectively. It finds that the behavioural assumptions of these agents are to a large extent in line with the available regulatory literature, although agents are very unlikely to have consulted such studies. Therefore, the article concludes that law enforcement agents can develop nuanced and appropriate behavioural intuitions through their everyday work experiences.     

A decision analytic model to guide early‐stage government regulatory action: Applications for synthetic biology

Synthetic biology (SB) involves the alteration of living cells and biomolecules for specific purposes. Products developed using these approaches could have significant societal benefits, but also pose uncertain risks to human and environmental health. Policymakers currently face decisions regarding how stringently to regulate and monitor various SB applications. This is a complex task, in which policymakers must balance uncertain economic, political, social, and health‐related decision factors associated with SB use. We argue that formal decision analytical tools could serve as a method to integrate available evidence‐based information and expert judgment on the impacts associated with SB innovations, synthesize that information into quantitative indicators, and serve as the first step toward guiding governance of these emerging technologies. For this paper, we apply multi‐criteria decision analysis to a specific case of SB, a micro‐robot based on biological cells called “cyberplasm.” We use data from a Delphi study to assess cyberplasm governance options and demonstrate how such decision tools may be used for assessments of SB oversight.     

The Dialectical Liberalism of Richard Hofstadter

This essay examines Richard Hofstadter’s The American Political Tradition, alongside some of his unpublished writings from the 1940s, in order to reassess his contributions to the history of American political culture and thought. After exploring some of the implications of Hofstadter’s critical analysis of mid-century liberalism, the essay then considers how we might bring his insights into the present.     

Public choice and the economic analysis of anarchy: a survey

Public choice economists began studying anarchy in the 1970s. Since then, the amount of research on anarchy has burgeoned. This article surveys the important public choice contributions to the economics of anarchy. Following early public choice economists, many economists are researching how individuals interact without government. From non-public-interested explanations of the creation of government to historical studies of internalizing externalities under anarchy, public choice scholars are arriving at a more realistic perspective of human interaction with and without government. Although the economics of politics receives more attention, the economics of anarchy is an important area of research in public choice.     

The impact of Illicit Financial Flows on the South African political economy under Jacob Zuma, 2009–2018

South Africa has also fallen a victim of a greater major concern over the scale and negative impact of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) on the country's governance and developmental agenda. However, there is an unjustified observation that as one of Africa's biggest economies, South Africa is not a victim of IFFs. This observation shows that scholars and academic practitioners have not yet uniformly come to a cul‐de‐sac on this subject, and as such, this confusion constitutes a huge dichotomy on the subject matter. Based on Afrocentricity as the alternative lens, this article argues that there are after effects of the practice of IFFs in South Africa and that IFFs need to be given a special attention in order to curb them from destabilising South Africa's economic and political stability. Although this article discusses IFFs in general and how they come about, the central focus of this article is to unpack the impacts of IFFs under the Zuma administration and provide possible solutions. Methodically, this article relied on the prevailing continental and South African discourse circulating and thematic content analysis on conversations.