Public confidence in the judiciary: the interaction between political awareness and level of democracy

Apart from the studies that focus on public attitudes toward higher courts in advanced democracies, we know little about the factors that can explain public confidence in the judiciary in a comparative setting. In this regard, the goal of this study is to explain whether, and to what extent, the country's level of democracy moderates the impact of political awareness on public confidence in the judiciary. This study uses hierarchical linear models to analyse the interaction between individual and country level factors by using the World Values Survey (2005–2009) data for 49 countries and various other data sources. Our empirical results show that in advanced democracies political awareness variables like education and political participation have a positive impact on public confidence in the judiciary, whereas in countries with weak levels of democracy higher political awareness leads to increased cynicism about the judiciary. These results suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to explain confidence in the judiciary is not possible when we are dealing with a wide range of societies that vary in terms of many characteristics, both institutional and cultural.     

Explaining Conflict Transformation: How Jerusalem Became Negotiable

How can intractable conflicts become negotiable after decades of bloodshed and disagreement? The question is addressed using two lenses—one conceptual, the so-called conflict transformation approach set out in the research literature, and one empirical, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem. The article discusses turning points in the transformation of Jerusalem from an intractable dispute to an intensively negotiated issue with the contours of a possible agreement emerging. It examines how far the conflict transformation approach helps to explain this critical development, as well as how Jerusalem points to areas in need of further development. The conflict over Jerusalem has become tractable through profound structural and relational change. However, this change is not necessarily permanent. A useful approach to conflict transformation needs to illuminate underlying causes better, and be able to explain relapses into intractability.     

Labour Law in a Service World

Drawing on the genealogy of the theoretical thought about services in economic and geographical economic literature, I argue in this article that in today's Service World it is highly important to develop an integrated approach that sees both consumption and production as impacting work relationships within legal thought. The current structure of labour law, which is based on the Fordist model of employment, is centred mainly on the production side, thus creating an incongruity between labour law and services. I propose thinking about work relations through a new framework –‘the nexus of service work’– that incorporates consumerism into the legal thought of work relationships, detaching it from the Fordist model of employment to achieve a more attuned approach to today's Service World.     

Research with human embryo stem cells. Foundations and judicial limits]

Research with human embryos, and particularly, the use for scientific purposes of human embryonic stem cells has given raise to different sort of problems at the international level. One of the most strict regulation in this field, is this lecture Professors Albin Eser and Hans-Georg Koch analyse the german legal framework in relation with the use of embryos and human embryonic stem cells for scientific purposes.