Belgium's new specialized judiciary

This brief national report was written for the First Siberian Legal Forum on the ‘Specialization of Judges and Courts: Comparative and Russian Context.’ It gives an overview of the Belgian judicial structure. After a short analysis of the judicial organization before 2014, that presents an outline of the Belgian first instance and appellate courts, particular attention is paid to the comprehensive judicial reforms of 2014. The enlargement of the judicial districts and the introduction of (internal and external) judicial mobility will lead to more specialized courts and judges. The creation of a Family and Juvenile Court and the re-allocation of some civil and commercial competences, between the Justice of the Peace and the Commercial Court, will have the same effect. Nevertheless, this report concludes that the 2014 reform is a missed opportunity to create a large ‘unified’ district court in which all first instance courts are merged.</span

Competition between Specialized Candidates

We develop a formal model in which the government provides public goods in different policy fields for its citizens. We start from the basic premise that two office-motivated candidates have differential capabilities in different policy fields, and compete by proposing how to allocate government resources to those fields.The model has a unique equilibrium that differs substantially from the standard median-voter model. While candidates compete for the support of a moderate voter type, this cutoff voter differs from the expected median voter. Moreover, no voter type except the cutoff voter is indifferent between the candidates in equilibrium. The model also predicts that candidates respond to changes in the preferences of voters in a very rigid way. We also analyze under which conditions candidates choose to strengthen the issue in which they have a competence advantage, and when they rather compensate for their weakness.issue ownership, differentiated candidates, policy divergence

Procurement with Specialized Firms

This paper analyzes optimal procurement mechanisms in a setting where the procurement agency has incomplete information concerning the firms’ cost functions and cares about quality as well as price. Low type firms are cheaper than high type firms in providing low quality but more expensive when providing high quality. Hence, each type is specialized in a certain quality level. We show that this specialization leads to a bunching of types on profits, i.e. a range of firms with different cost functions receives zero profits and therefore no informational rents. If first best welfare is monotone in the efficiency parameter, the optimal mechanism can be implemented by a simple auction. If first best welfare is U-shaped in type, the optimal mechanism is not efficient in the sense that types providing a lower second best welfare win against types providing a higher second best welfare.procurement;specialization;deregulation

COMMON LANGUAGE VERSUS SPECIALIZED LANGUAGE

This paper deals with the presentation of the common language and the specialized one. We also highlighted the relations and the differences between them. The specialized language is a vector of specialized knowledge, but sometimes it contains units from the common language. The common language is unmarked and it is based on the daily non-specialized exchange. The specialized languages are different from the common languages, regarding their usage and the information they convey. The communication of specialized information can take place within a small circle of specialists, or it can be addressed to the non-specialists (popularization). The popularization of the scientific discourse, to a smaller degree of specialization is very useful nowadays, because it is understood by many speakers.common language, specialized language, lexical unit, technical terminology, specialized terms, general language

Epiparasitic plants specialized on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

Over 400 non-photosynthetic species from 10 families of vascular plants obtain their carbon from fungi and are thus defined as myco-heterotrophs. Many of these plants are epiparasitic on green plants from which they obtain carbon by 'cheating' shared mycorrhizal fungi. Epiparasitic plants examined to date depend on ectomycorrhizal fungi for carbon transfer and exhibit exceptional specificity for these fungi, but for most myco-heterotrophs neither the identity of the fungi nor the sources of their carbon are known. Because many myco-heterotrophs grow in forests dominated by plants associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF; phylum Glomeromycota), we proposed that epiparasitism would occur also between plants linked by AMF. On a global scale AMF form the most widespread mycorrhizae, thus the ability of plants to cheat this symbiosis would be highly significant. We analysed mycorrhizae from three populations of Arachnitis uniflora (Corsiaceae, Monocotyledonae), five Voyria species and one Voyriella species (Gentianaceae, Dicotyledonae), and neighbouring green plants. Here we show that non-photosynthetic plants associate with AMF and can display the characteristic specificity of epiparasites. This suggests that AMF mediate significant inter-plant carbon transfer in nature

Should There Be a Specialized Ethics Code for Death-Penalty Defense Lawyers

State ethics codes based on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct address lawyers\u27 work in advocacy but do not target lawyers\u27 work in particular areas of advocacy or in other specialized practice areas. For more than forty years, critics have asserted that existing ethics rules are too superficial and should be supplemented by specialized rules. This article examines the utility of specialized ethics rules for one particular sub-specialty-death-penalty defense practice. After identifying arguments for and against a specialized ethics code for death-penalty cases, the article analyzes the arguments in the context of a particular ethics dilemma that some death-penalty defense lawyers have encountered-namely, whether to pursue post-conviction relief on behalf of an ambivalent or unexpressive mentally-ill death-row inmate. The article finds persuasive reasons for courts to develop specialized rules that would provide death-penalty defense lawyers more clarity in how to address this and other ethics dilemmas. Recognizing that courts will likely remain indifferent to the idea of developing specialized ethics rules, however, the article concludes by identifying other ways for courts to mitigate the uncertainties that specialized rules would address

How Specialized is “too” Specialized? Outmigration and Industry Diversification in Nonmetropolitan Counties across America

Outmigration and industrial composition have separately been the focal points of a significant amount of research related to nonmetropolitan counties; however, few (if any) studies have explicitly looked at the relationship between the two topics. The primary objective of this research is to identify what industry specialization level is “too” specialized with regards to outmigration – that is, to determine the level where specialization begins to have a damaging effect on population change. County-level data from a variety of sources is used to explore the impact of both earnings-based and employment-based definitions of specialization on net migration in nonmetropolitan counties from 2000 – 2009. Two distinct techniques (ordinary least squares and average treatment effects) are then used to assess both the impact and causality of being “too specialized.” The results suggest that a variety of specialization thresholds exist across various industries, including some surprising positive influences of industry composition on migration rates.Outmigration, Nonmetropolitan, Industrial Specialization, Industrial Diversification, Community/Rural/Urban Development,