Ein Supreme Court für das Vereinigte Königreich – ein Schritt zur Modernisierung der "unwritten constitution"?

Im Rahmen der Modernisierung des britischen Verfassungssystems wurde die Rolle des House of Lords als Höchstgericht auf ein vom Parlament unabhängiges Supreme Court übertragen und die gewaltenverschränkende Doppelstellung der Law Lords als Parlamentarier und Richter beendet. In diesem Aufsatz sollen vor allem die verschiedenen Faktoren, die Anlass zu dieser Verfassungsreform gaben, beleuchtet werden und auch auf die im Constitutional Reform Act 2005 verankerte Organisationstruktur und Funktion des neuen Supreme Court eingegangen werden.     

'This is the Time to Get in Front': Changing Roles and Opportunities for Women in Liberia

Most research on women in war focuses on female losses. Thisarticle demonstrates that wars may also bring gains. The scopeof political and economic roles that Liberian women performtoday appears to be larger than before the war. Both individuallyand collectively, certain women have gainfully used openingsthe war provided them. The article discusses the historicityof Liberian gender roles, examining the social subgroups ofpoliticians, businesswomen, women's organizations, employees,and school girls. Changes have also been fostered by the internationalpeace-building and development business. Although the realizationof female ambitions seems to be constrained by various institutionaland economic factors, Liberia may harbour a unique potentialfor sustainable shifts in gender roles.     

Kautionsrückforderung im streitigen Verfahren nach der WRN 2009 – Eine Erwiderung

Im Zuge der WRN 2009 hat der Gesetzgeber die Feststellung der H?he des rückforderbaren Kautionsbetrags ins (mietrechtliche) Au?erstreitverfahren verwiesen. In einer ersten Stellungnahme zu den Folgen dieser Verweisung hat der Verfasser ua die Ansicht vertreten, dass die Rückforderung im streitigen Verfahren vorübergehend – dh bis zur rechtskr?ftigen Feststellung der H?he des rückforderbaren Betrags im Au?erstreitverfahren – unzul?ssig ist. Der vorliegende Beitrag behandelt – in Form einer kurzen Replik – die jüngst von renommierten Autoren gegen diese Ansicht vorgebrachten Argumente.     

Domestic Courts’ Reading of International Norms: A Semiotic Analysis

This article focuses on a number of cases in international law in which US domestic courts have produced judgments that conflict with those given by the International Court of Justice. The nature of these courts’ judgments has been extremely closely tied to the interpretation given by the US national Executive to a certain international norm. This situation raises a number of questions, which can be broadly categorized into two spheres: the legal (regarding the overall legality of the courts’ decisions) and the semiotic (regarding the manner in which a ‘meaning’ for the norm has been claimed by the courts). In this article we aim to provide answers to a number of these questions, both from the standpoint of international law and from that of a reader-response model of semiosis. We also analyse the level of interdependency that exists between the two spheres.     

Books Received and Short Notices

This paper looks at how HSBC banking group represent themselves in their externally oriented discourse as a brand combining the global and the local. Drawing on a variety of samples such as history brochures, advertisements and websites, the study combines quantitative and qualitative methods in its analysis of how visual and linguistic elements function to construct the HSBC brand. It is argued that branding in this case relies on a stereotyped version of the local that is used to endow the brand with a “human touch” and create brand affinity with a globalised audience. In cognitive terms, the company is seen to blend the two schemas of the global and the local and to metaphorically emulate perceived consumer identities to the same end.