Volume 6, Issue 2

As a non-private-law scholar the author ventures on a journey into a territory virtually unknown to him and tells a rather sketchy story of his encounters with the indigenous and ingenious inhabitants of that territory and their work. The focus of this portrayal of the group of the Common Core Project takes place around some questions the author tries to answer: How may the unity and identity of the group be constructed? How do the group members define their adversaries of and the dangers to their project? And which goals do they proclaim to fight for? The author then takes a brief look at the tools the group uses to gather and order the data and tries to unearth what may be bones of contention.

The issue of respect in criminal proceedings of fundamental procedural rights has became more and more crucial after Nine Eleven, not only in the US justice system, but also in Europe. This paper questions if it makes sense to speak about a European dimension of the due process of law concept. A multi-level approach is suggested in order to develop this inquiry. The different spheres through which the analysis is performed are the European Convention of Human Rights system, the constitutional law of EU Member States and the EU legislation.

As agricultural biotechnology has become an agronomic alternative, discussion has emerged about what legal liabilities, if any, exists for those who create, distribute, and produce transgenic seeds and crops. Many governments have debated legal liability as related to agricultural biotechnology. In this article, the authors offer fresh insights on legal liability from comparative law and international law perspectives. The article begins by comparing Canadian and American legal liability regimes in agricultural biotechnology. Using this North American comparison as background, the article then discusses liability issues by contrasting the statutory regimes from Denmark and Germany. Once the comparisons and contrasts between Canadian, American, Danish, and German law have been presented, the article focuses on the on-going discussion of legal liability and agricultural biotechnology at the Meeting of the Parties (MOP) of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (BSP). The authors posit that understanding the comparisons and contrasts between Canada, the United States, Denmark, and Germany assists greatly in understanding the issues and debates about legal liability and agricultural biotechnology at the international level in the BSP negotiations.

Legal positivism is the Jurisprudential debate, which is primarily located with the writings of Austin, which gained ground after his death. This theory is all about keeping law separate from morals, with certain explanation to sovereign, laws, society, normativity et al. But long before Austin it was Thomas Hobbes who gave his explanations to the theory of sovereign, nature of law, morality and power. But he has been kept at bay; termed as a ``political Scientist", in the manufactured tradition of legal positivism. I have tried, in this paper, to locate the proper place of Hobbes in the lineage of positivist philosophy. Secondly, I have tried to capture the debate on “Judge Made Law” as “inherently paradoxical” by supplying examples two examples--one borrowed and one mine in the second half of the paper.

Analyzing some of the most general features of the hormones dispute settled before the WTO quasi-judicial bodies, this article tries to introduce the idea of a possible ``international democracy". While the evolution of international law in a time of globalization goes in the opposite direction from the typical model of democracy, meant overall as a representative one, it is still possible to find in it some aspects that are compatible with a democratic scene. We could speak of signals of ``external" or ``international" democracy, where subjects are not so much individuals, like in the classical democracies, but states, NGOs, corporations, international bureaucracies and other subjects or groups able to gain a role on that stage. International disputes before quasi-judicial bodies can help this international democracy, as occasions where global issues as risk, security, health, environment and similar, can be discussed and articulated coherently with different political visions of the world.

Outsourcing arrangements often involve cross-border transfers of indeterminately large proportions of a client's proprietary and confidential information assets. An increasing number of companies from developing countries is contracting with financial institutions, hospitals, and insurance companies to do their back office jobs. In most cases these companies deal with sensitive information, such as financial data, medical data, payroll and benefits information, social security numbers and purchasing histories. Virtually any outsourced business process may involve privacy violations arising from mistakes or negligence. In light of these developments, this paper examines the "other side" of outsourcing and identifies its paradoxical and adverse effects. Further based on a thorough analysis of privacy law the paper also determine the risk to privacy and data security posed by the 'offshore outsourcing' and strategies employed by institutions and regulators to identify, measure, monitor, and control the risk to personal data.