Transnational Private Regulatory Governance: Ambiguities of Public Authority and Private Power

The continuing proliferation of transnational private regulatory governance challenges conceptions of legal authority, legitimacy and public regulation of economic activity. The transnational law merchant or, lex mercatoria, is a case in point in this context, as it represents a laboratory for the exploration of “private” contractual governance in a context, in which the assertion of public or private authority has itself become contentious. The ambiguity surrounding many forms of today’s contractual governance in the transnational arena echoes that of the far-reaching transformation of public regulatory governance, which has been characteristic of Western welfare states over the last few decades. What is particularly remarkable, however, is the way in which the depictions of “private instruments” and “public interests” in the post-welfare state regulatory environment have given rise to a rise in importance of social norms, self-regulation and a general anti-state affect in the assessment of judicial enforcement or administration of contractual arrangements. The paper suggests the need to short-circuit and to read in parallel the justifications offered for a contractual governance model, which prioritizes and seeks to insulate “private” arrangements from their embeddedness in regulated market contexts, on both the national and transnational level

The Evolution of the Corporation: Organization, Finance, Knowledge and Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper, which selectively focuses on the contested concept of Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR], forms part of a larger research project on the evolution of corporate governance. This research posits the evolution of corporate governance along three historical paradigms: first, the economic/industrial organization paradigm, second, the financial paradigm, and third, the knowledge paradigm. With regard to CSR, the paper explores the promises and shortcomings of the concept against the background of an evolutionary theory of corporate governance. The identification of three historical-conceptual paradigms allows us to trace the development of the relation between a general discourse on corporate governance regulation [CGR] on the one hand and a more specialized, often polemic debate over corporate (social, environmental, human rights) responsibilities on the other. On the basis of the review of the three paradigms of CSR over the course of more than one hundred years, the paper concludes that there is no convincing justification to separate the general Corporate Governance from the more specific CSR discourse when assessing the nature of the corporation. Instead, it is argued that a more adequate understanding of what defines a corporation is gained when capturing its embedded nature in a continuously changing domestic, global and functional environment. Besides being both a legal fiction and an economic actor, the business corporation is assuming a host of other roles in a functionally differentiated global society. The paper suggests that the generation and dissemination of knowledge, both internally and externally, has become the defining feature of the firm. The corporation as a knowledge actor succeeds the prior stages of assessing it as a private, political or financial actor, without however erasing these dimensions of the firm. In that, the history of the corporation - as concept and reality - shares important features with that of the state - as concept and as fact.corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, financialisation, economic sociology, knowledge society, uncertainty, risk, management

Gated ‘communities’ - their lifestyle versus urban governance

Today there is a widespread fear of crime on a global scale. This can be seen as a response to social inequalities, social polarisation and the fragmentation of cities, which has been caused by neo-liberalism. Worldwide, an increasing number of higher income groups have looked to security measures, such as cameras, fences, walls and gates, to separate themselves from other people in the city. These physical measures, in combination with hired guards, replace the ‘older’ social control mechanisms, which are based on social cohesion within the community concerned. One may question whether those living in gated ‘communities’ indeed feel responsible for other urbanites. In other words, will such a hard closure (physically-marked segregation) lead to soft closure, reflected in social-cultural and political segregation. What is the impact of the lifestyle(s) of those living in gated communities on the dynamics of the city, urban identity and urban governance?

Law after the welfare state: formalism, functionalism and the ironic turn of reflexive law

This paper analyzes the contemporary emergence of neo-formalist and neo-functionalist approaches to law-making at a time when the state is seeking to reassert, reformulate and reconceptualize its regulatory competence, both domestically and transnationally. While the earlier turn to alternative regulation modes, conceptualized under the heading of legal pluralism, responsive law, or reflexive law in the 1970s and 1980s, had aimed at a more socially responsive, contextualized, and ultimately learning mode of legal intervention, the contemporary revival of functionalist jurisprudence and its reliance on social norms embraces a limitation model of legal regulation. After revisiting the Legal Realist critique of Formalism and the formulation of functionalist regulation as a progressive agenda, this paper reflects on both the American and German justifications of market regulation and the Welfare State in order to trace the different evolution towards responsive law and legal pluralism in the U.S. and post-interventionist and reflexive law in Germany. This comparison allows for an identification of the emerging transnational qualities of legal normativity in the face of a declining welfare state paradigm, which - at the beginning of the 21st century - appears to provide the stage for turning the progressive gains of the former era into a set of market-oriented justifications of private autonomy and de-regulation. - Der Aufsatz rekonstruiert die wechselhafte Geschichte des Rechts nach dem Wohlfahrtsstaat. Nachdem die Krise des Wohlfahrtsstaats in den 1970er Jahren vornehmlich als eine Frage der Regulierungs- und Steuerungskrise wahrgenommen wurde, traten responsive und reflexive Rechtstheorien gleichzeitig als Erben und Zerstörer des Rechts als Steuerungsmittel auf. Die Suche nach Alternativen zum Recht in den USA wie auch in Deutschland mündete aber schon bald in eine weitreichende Privatisierungs- und Deregulierungsbewegung. Die sich schon lange ankündigende Skepsis nicht nur gegenüber parlamentarischer Gesetzgebung, sondern auch gerichtlicher Rechts(fort)bildung im Namen der Selbstregulierungskräfte der Privatrechtsgesellschaft durch den Markt und social norms verstärkte diese Kritik am Staat diesseits und jenseits des Atlantik. Der Aufsatz geht vor diesem Hintergrund der Frage nach, inwiefern die gegenwärtige Betonung gesellschaftlicher Selbstregulierung die Kritik der Rechtsrealisten und der frühen Rechtssoziologie am Rechtsformalismus aufgreift, nur um sie im Namen von Marktfreiheiten zu verkürzen und ihres kritischen Potentials beraubt. --

Beyond Territoriality: The Case of Transnational Human Rights Litigation

Cases for civil damages that have been brought before Western courts by victims of torture and persecution against states officials or corporations, challenge the principles of state sovereignty and jurisdictional competence. While national courts can in cases of serious crimes hear cases that grow out of acts committed in another country, the same is not true for cases for civil compensation. A persisting and rising number of private law cases that attempts to empower disenfranchised victims of crime and abuse, points to the necessity of reconsidering the prevailing procedural and substantial obstacles that govern the so-far unsuccessful civil law suits. The law of transnational civil litigation [TCL] emerged with the US American decision in Filartiga in 1980 and perhaps culminated in the US Supreme Court's Decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain in 2004. TCL has become a laboratory for our inquiry into the relationship between laws that were developed within and for the nation-state on the one hand and an increasingly globalized political and legal human rights discourse, on the other. As such, TCL is a case in point for the dramatically changing nature of norm-creation, law, and law enforcement in an era of globalization.law; fundamental/human rights; sovereignty; globalization

An Automatic Human Face Detection Method

This article contains a proposal for an automatic human face detection method, that tries to join several theories proposed by different authors. The method is based on detection of shape features (eye pairs) and skin color. The method assumes certain circumstances and constraints, respectively. Therefore it is not applicable universally. Given the constraints, it is effective enough for applications where fast execution is required. Test results are given and at the end some directives for future work are discussed

Tetraodon genome confirms Takifugu findings : most fish are ancient polyploids

An evolutionary hypothesis suggested by studies of the genome of the tiger pufferfish Takifugu rubripes has now been confirmed by comparison with the genome of a close relative, the spotted green pufferfish Tetraodon nigroviridis. Ray-finned fish underwent a whole-genome duplication some 350 million years ago that might explain their evolutionary success

Capturing Panoramic Depth Images with a Single Standard Camera

In this paper we present a panoramic depth imaging system. The system is mosaic-based which means that we use a single rotating camera and assemble the captured images in a mosaic. Due to a setoff of the camera’s optical center from the rotational center of the system we are able to capture the motion parallax effect which enables the stereo reconstruction. The camera is rotating on a circular path with the step defined by an angle equivalent to one column of the captured image. The equation for depth estimation can be easily extracted from system geometry. To find the corresponding points on a stereo pair of panoramic images the epipolar geometry needs to be determined. It can be shown that the epipolar geometry is very simple if we are doing the reconstruction based on a symmetric pair of stereo panoramic images. We get a symmetric pair of stereo panoramic images when we take symmetric columns on the left and on the right side from the captured image center column. Epipolar lines of the symmetrical pair of panoramic images are image rows. We focused mainly on the system analysis. The system performs well in the reconstruction of small indoor spaces

Peer-to-Peer Healthcare

Analyzes how patients and caregivers use the Internet to obtain information about health concerns, care, and support, with a focus on online peer networks of those with chronic or rare conditions. Examines sources relied on by type of information sought