Debt and relief: a holistic approach to the legal treatment of consumer debt

The awareness that consumer over-indebtedness is a problem which needs to be tackled through specific measures most clearly emerged at the end of a period in which increased availability of retail financial services was presented as a means to promote consumers’ welfare. While, on the one hand, over-indebtedness is regarded as a problem to be counteracted, European law and policy, on the other hand, promote indebtedness, leading to a fragile equilibrium between opposing purposes which permeate the regulatory framework. How can the two objectives be reconciled, allowing for well-ordered development of a credit-based economy in which debtors in financial trouble are not left behind? This paper suggests the necessity of taking a holistic approach to over-indebtedness, starting from the assumption that, rather than being the manifestation of individual inability to properly deal with finance, the phenomenon is inherent to a credit economy and that modern law must therefore tackle it systematically through a combination of measures: private and public, contractual and non-contractual, preventive and curative, national and supranational. While articulating a critique of some of the rationales underlying ‘debt law’, the paper highlights the necessary interrelation between the possible legal strategies against household over-indebtedness and the need to coordinate them in order to reach an adequate level of protection

Combatting Institutional Censorship of College Journalists: the Need for a Tailored Public Forum Category to Best Protect Subsidized Student Newspapers

College journalists are in a unique position. On one hand, they are typical college students, attending classes and cheering on the team at all the big games. On the other, they serve as investigative journalists, revealing the university’s deepest flaws on the front page of their newspaper. These roles should not be mutually exclusive, but at an alarming rate, universities are attempting to rid themselves of bad press by censoring their own campus newspapers. This Note argues that universities can get away with this because of the current structure of the public forum doctrine. This doctrine determines the extent to which the government can control speech on government property. Current juris- prudence leaves student newspapers, funded either wholly or in part by public universities, vulnerable to regulation by their administrations. This Note demonstrates that in order to prevent this, public forum doctrine should adapt to include a “Tailored Public Forum” category. This would allow universities to limit who can speak, but not what they can say. This change is critical to ensure that college news- papers can contribute to the marketplace of ideas and are afforded the degree of independence they deserve

Nationalism and private law in Europe

Een aantal argumenten tegen de Europeanisering van het privaatrecht blijkt gebaseerd te zijn op stilzwijgend nationalistische veronderstellingen. Deze veronderstellingen kunnen niet alleen worden gebruikt om bezwaar te maken tegen processen van denationalisering, maar ook om ze te bevorderen. Dit stelt Guido Comparato in zijn proefschrift. Hij beschrijft het conceptuele en historische verband tussen privaatrecht en nationalisme, en onderzoekt de vraag in hoeverre nationalisme nog een rol kan spelen in het proces van Europeanisering van het privaatrecht. In het debat over de Europeanisering van het privaatrecht zijn er juristen die beargumenteren dat dit niet haalbaar of wenselijk is, aangezien het geen respect zou tonen voor culturele verschillen die typisch nationaal zijn en die in de nationale wetgeving zijn weerspiegeld. Europees privaatrecht zou daardoor geen rekening kunnen houden met de verschillende culturen, ideeën over het begrip van rechtvaardigheid en economische voorkeuren die mensen in verschillende naties hebben. Uit het onderzoek Methodologisch nationalistische argumenten kunnen echter niet alleen worden gebruikt om bezwaar te maken tegen processen van denationalisering, maar ook om ze te bevorderen. De strategieën van natievorming die werden gebruikt om een nationaal bewustzijn te verspreiden, zouden kunnen worden herhaald op Europees niveau om een soort van ‘Europese identiteit’ te laten bloeien. Comparato betoogt dat niet kan worden uitgesloten dat ook het privaatrecht een rol kan spelen in de bevordering van een col

O direito e o avesso

Em todos os países, por trás do direito oficial, composto pela Constituição, pelas leis, as normas editadas pelo Poder Executivo e os precedentes judiciais, existe sempre outro ordenamento encoberto, fundado na estrutura de poderes dominantes na sociedade e legitimados pela mentalidade social. No Brasil, essa duplicidade de regimes jurídicos sempre existiu. Além do direito oficial, que acompanha os padrões de civilização vigentes nos países que consideramos culturalmente mais avançados, vigora um direito não escrito, cuja função consiste em proteger os interesses dos grupos sociais dominantes. O artigo ilustra essa realidade bifronte do direito brasileiro com os casos históricos da escravidão e da democracia. Para mudança dessa estrutura social cuja aparência não condiz com a realidade efetiva, o autor sublinha a necessidade de uma ampla e contínua denúncia de sua ilegitimidade.In every country, behind the official law composed of the Constitution, statutes, rules edited by the Executive branch, and legal precedents, there is also another concealed regulation, based on the structure of ruling powers within society and legitimized by social mentality. Such duplicity of legal systems has always existed in Brazil. Apart from the official law, which follows valid civilization standards of countries that we consider to be culturally more advanced, there is a tacit law in force, whose role is to protect the interests of dominant social groups. This article illustrates this twofold reality of Brazilian law with the historical cases of slavery and democracy. In order to change this social structure, whose appearance does not reflect effective reality, the author highlights the need for a wide and continual denunciation of its illegitimacy

Barcelona y Nápoles en la búsqueda de un modelo político: analogías, diferencias, contactos

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A afirmação histórica dos direitos humanos [10.ed.]

- Divulgação dos SUMÁRIOS das obras recentemente incorporadas ao acervo da Biblioteca Ministro Oscar Saraiva do STJ. Em respeito à lei de Direitos Autorais, não disponibilizamos a obra na íntegra.- Localização na estante: 342.7 C737

A Neo-Institutional Explanation of State Supreme Court Responses in Search and Seizure Cases*

To better understand the relationship between the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts, we examine how Supreme Court precedent affects state supreme court decision making. Examining state supreme court decisions in search and seizure cases decided by the Supreme Court between 1983 and 1993, we specifically test hypotheses about how state judicial context and Supreme Court behavior influences when the lower court is likely to be affected by Supreme Court precedent. We find that there is substantial variation in the responses to precedent by state supreme courts. We find that precedent has a substantial influence on the behavior of state supreme court justices, but judicial ideology and the level of historical conflict between the Supreme Court and the state supreme court also influence the dissemination of precedent to the states. Most interesting, the effect of judicia

Visualization, Exploration and Data Analysis of Complex Astrophysical Data

In this paper we show how advanced visualization tools can help the researcher in investigating and extracting information from data. The focus is on VisIVO, a novel open source graphics application, which blends high performance multidimensional visualization techniques and up-to-date technologies to cooperate with other applications and to access remote, distributed data archives. VisIVO supports the standards defined by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance in order to make it interoperable with VO data repositories. The paper describes the basic technical details and features of the software and it dedicates a large section to show how VisIVO can be used in several scientific cases.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures, accepted by PAS

(¿Re?) producción científica en el campo de los estudios turísticos: ¿qué pasa en América Latina?

En un marco de crecimiento pero a la vez de marcadas desigualdades en el sistema científico, el presente trabajo de investigación pretende generar un aporte a partir de un doble alcance. Por un lado, problematizar una serie de postulados generales que frecuentan los estudios de segundo orden del turismo y, por otro, abordar un área de vacancia de la literatura relacionada a la caracterización de las revistas especializadas dentro de América Latina en el periodo 1990-2017. En este sentido, y a partir de una muestra no probabilística de 13 revistas, se consideró oportuno y necesario reconstruir ciertas tendencias bajo un marco de “sociologías de las ausencias” (de Sousa Santos, 2006). Dentro de los resultados se concluye que un buen número de afirmaciones que, sin necesariamente pecar de erróneas o falaces, incurren en importantes omisiones. En efecto, se planteó como denominador común que para cada uno de los enunciados conviven escenarios variables, contrastantes y hasta duales en lo que respecta al desarrollo científico. Lo cierto es que estos matices también se territorializan a nivel regional. Para ello, y en función de la ponderación de las mismas a partir de su factor de impacto y otros índices, se procedió a compararlas en función de sus indexaciones, citaciones, niveles de endogeneidad y posicionamiento. Por tal motivo, se entiende el trabajo que no solo puede resultar de interés dada la escasez de investigaciones sino también por sus implicancias prácticas. Es decir, que dicha información adquiere no solo una importancia académica-analítica, sino que práctica e instrumental para el investigador, en su carácter individual, o a modo colectivo en tanto insumo para el desarrollo y la mejora de políticas científicas.In a framework of growth but at the same time of marked inequalities in the scientific system, the present research work aims to generate a report from a double scope. On the one hand, problematizes a series of general postulates that frequent the second-order studies of tourism and, on the other, address an area of vacancy in the literature related to the characterization of specialized journals within Latin America in the period 1990-2017. In this sense, and based on a non-probabilistic sample of 13 journals, it is considered opportune and necessary to reconstruct certain tendencies under a framework of “sociologies of absences” (de Sousa Santos, 2006). Within the results it is concluded that a good number of affirmations, without sinning of errors or fallacies, incur important omissions. In fact, it was proposed as a common denominator that for each one of the statements coexist a variable, contrasting and even dual scenarios in what respects scientific development. The truth is that these nuances are also territorialized at the regional level. To do this, and based on their weighting on their impact factor and other indices, the journals were compared according to their indexations, citations, endogeneity levels and positioning. For this reason, the work is understood not only to be of interest given the lack of research but also for its practical implications. It is considered that this information not only acquires an academic-analytical importance, but also practical and instrumental for the researcher, in his individual character, or in a collective way as input for the development and improvement of scientific policies