The author argues that the Court Challenges Program’s 2006 cancellation was based on claims that judicial review is undemocratic, including those made by three academics, Rainer Knopff, F.L. Morton and Ian Brodie; the Court Party Theorists (the “CPT”). Through a study of Charter equality cases, this paper examines the CPT’s arguments regarding judicial activism, interest groups and interveners and finds they are largely unsupported by statistical evidence. Further, the debate about judicial review and democracy obscures judicial review’s important auditing function over the legislature’s constitutional adherence. This audit depends on individuals’ capacity to pursue Charter litigation, an ability compromised by the access to justice crisis. The author examines this crisis and the efforts to fill the funding gap left by the CCP’s cancellation and concludes that a publicly-funded program like the CCP is best-placed to ensure that the Charter remains a relevant tool for enforcing fundamental human rights in Canada.

From the Proceedings of the 1972 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Assn. and the Hydrology Section - Arizona Academy of Science - May 5-6, 1972, Prescott, Arizona / Pressure is being brought to bear on national resources of air, earth, and water in the growing cities in the arid southwest. Legal questions involved in capturing urban runoff and putting it to a beneficial use are examined. Urbanization of a watershed results in a 3 to 5 fold increase in runoff amounts. Legal aspects include tort liability from floods, water rights to the increased flows, land use restrictions along banks and flood plains, condemnation of land for park development and flowage easements, financing problems, zoning applications, and coordination of governmental bodies responsible for parks, storm drainage and related services. Urban runoff is the most obvious legal problem in the tort liability area. It appears feasible to divert small quantities of water from urban wastes for recreational uses which provide flood control benefits. It appears that municipalities could appropriate increased flows caused by urbanization. The ultimate legal questions remain to be resolved by legislation, litigation or extension of the appropriative system.

No description available.

In the first part of the article, a development for the concepts of provisional remedies and real or personal property bond and covering loss and damage, is proposed, under the Constitutional Court and our national doctrine view; as well as the scope of the first as a fundamental right, and second as a condition of execution. On the following part of the paper, the inclusion and the subsequent amendments to the article 159° of Tax Code is exposed, also its scopes and reasons. Finally, a possible modification of the article, that respect state´s raising goals and due process citizens’ right, is proposed. / El presente artículo desarrolla los conceptos de medida cautelar y contracautela, a la luz de lo resuelto por el Tribunal Constitucional y lo establecido por nuestra doctrina, así como los alcances del primero como derecho fundamental y del segundo como requisito de ejecución. De la misma forma, se analiza los alcances de la incorporación del artículo 159° del Código Tributario, mediante Decreto Legislativo N° 1121, y su modificatoria a través de la Ley N° 30230. Finalmente, se propone una posible modificación al mencionado artículo, de conformidad con los fines recaudatorios del Estado y el derecho a la tutela jurisdiccional efectiva de los administrados.

The use of indigenous knowledge (IK) and indigenous bio-resources by pharmaceutical and herbal industries has led to concerns about the need to protect IK in order to prevent biopiracy and the misappropriation of indigenous knowledge and resources. While some commentators believe that intellectual property rights (IPR) law can effectively protect IK, others are more sceptical. In order to contribute to the growing debate on this issue, this study uses the relatively new and as yet largely critically unanalysed Masakhane Pelargonium case to address the question of whether or not IPR law can be used to effectively protect IK. It is argued here that discussion about the protection of IK is a matter that must be located within broader discussions about North-South relations and the continued struggle for economic and political freedom by indigenous people and their states. The Masakhane case suggests that IPR law in its current form cannot provide sufficient protection of IK on its own. Incompatibilities between IPR law and IK necessitate that certain factors, most important of which are land, organised representation, and what are referred as 'confidence and network resources', be present in order for IPR law to be used with any degree of success. The study also reveals various factors that undermine the possibility of using IPR law to protect IK. In particular, the study highlights the way in which local political tensions can undermine the ability of communities to effectively use IPR law to protect their knowledge. The thesis concludes with several recommendations that will enable indigenous communities and their states to benefit more substantially from the commercialisation of their bio-resources and associated IK.

In this minithesis I conduct a critical discourse analysis to take on a double-pronged task. On the one hand I explore the social phenomenon of the contestation between supporters of then-ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and supporters of his rape accuser. The trial, which took place in the Johannesburg High Court between mid-February and early May 2006, stirred intense public interest, both locally and internationally. The performance of thousands of Zuma’s supporters and a far smaller number of gender rights lobby groups, both of whom kept a presence outside the court building throughout the trial, received similar attention. Second, I examine how the Sowetan, a national daily tabloid with a black, middle-class readership, mediated the trial through pictures of the theatre outside the court and letters to the editor. The study is informed by post-Marxist and cultural studies perspectives, both approaches that are concerned with issues of power, ideology and the circulation of meaning within specific sociocultural contexts. A rudimentary thematic content analysis draws out some of the main themes from the material, while the critical discourse analysis is located within a theoretical framework based on concepts from Laclau & Mouffe’s theory of meaning, which assumes a power struggle between contesting positions seeking to invalidate one another and to either challenge or support existing hegemonies. This is further informed by, first, Laclau’s theorisation of populism, which assumes that diverse groupings can unite under a demagogue’s banner in shared antagonism towards existing power, and second, by concepts from Mamdani’s theorisation of power and resistance in colonial and post-colonial Africa, which explicates three overarching ideological discourses of human rights, social justice and traditional ethnic practices. The study, then, explores how these three discourses were operationalised by the localised contestations over the trial.

Submitted by Paulo André Nassar (paulo.nassar@gvmail.br) on 2012-01-24T19:26:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 NASSAR - JDMTC - BKAB - final.pdf: 4839362 bytes, checksum: 527a7cf0c0a74ce36854726d39768c25 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vera Lúcia Mourão (vera.mourao@fgv.br) on 2012-01-24T19:57:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 NASSAR - JDMTC - BKAB - final.pdf: 4839362 bytes, checksum: 527a7cf0c0a74ce36854726d39768c25 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-01-26T10:58:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NASSAR - JDMTC - BKAB - final.pdf: 4839362 bytes, checksum: 527a7cf0c0a74ce36854726d39768c25 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-09 / In this dissertation, I aim to assess Courts’ transformation performance on housing rights issues. I begin making reference to transformative constitutionalism theory, presenting its main thesis, and then I point out the transformative features of 1988’s Brazilian Constitution and make the distinction between dirigiste constitutionalism and transformative constitutionalism. Then I present and comment both the housing problem in Brazil and the Brazilian legal doctrine on housing rights. After that, I propose a multidisciplinary methodology developed to assess Courts’ transformation performance on housing rights issues. Finally, I present an empirical study that makes a systematic content analysis of 50 'class action' filled by the 'Defensoria Pública do Estado de Sao Paulo against the Municipality of São Paulo, which aims to modify the municipal housing policies to accommodate the interests of marginalized groups. I conclude that in these issues, Courts has a limited transformation capacity, since social change occurs only when political, social and economic agents are also engaged "out of court" and when there is political will of the government. / Esta dissertação tem por objetivo avaliar o desempenho transformador do Poder Judiciário em questões relacionada ao direito à moradia. O estudo tem como referência teórica o constitucionalismo transformador, razão pela qual apresenta-se suas as principais teses, aponta-se as características transformadoras da Constituição brasileira de 1988, e propõe-se uma distinção entre constitucionalismo transformador e constitucionalismo dirigente. Faz-se apresentação e crítica do problema habitacional brasileiro e da doutrina jurídica brasileira sobre direito à moradia. Propõe-se uma metodologia multidisciplinar desenvolvida para aferir o desempenho transformador do Judiciário em questões sobre o direito à moradia. Feito isso, apresenta-se um estudo empírico que faz a sistematização e análise de 50 ações civis públicas propostas pela Defensoria Pública do Estado de São Paulo em face da Prefeitura de São Paulo, em que se pretende modificar as políticas habitacionais municipais para contemplar os interesses de grupos marginalizados. Conclui-se que, nessas questões, o Judiciário tem um desempenho transformador limitado, uma vez que a transformação social pleiteada ao Judiciário só ocorre se forças econômicas, sociais e políticas estiverem mobilizadas 'extra-judicialmente' para tanto e se houver vontade política do Administrador.

Germany’s economic dominance in Europe, generous investment incentives, and technical manufacturing prowess has encouraged an influx of Chinese-led inbound activity, concentrated in high-tech sector mergers and acquisitions. A close examination of these M&As yields evidence of systemic Chinese state-financing through both state-owned and private vehicles that likely stems from China’s “Made in China 2025” policy, which hopes to stem capital outflow and to indigenize technological innovation. As Germany braces for what it sees to be continuous attempts by China to take patented German technology through M&As, it worries that Chinese patent law will allow for rampant patent infringement by copycat Chinese entities. This paper presents an overview of the root causes of China’s heavy economic activity in Germany, as well as an analysis of the legal concerns held by German firms based on a close reading of the Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China and strategic recommendations for German companies hoping to work with or in China.

[pt] O acesso à justiça é uma preocupação constante dos juristas, em todo o mundo. No Brasil, a regra geral, com poucas exceções, é a necessidade da assistência de um advogado, na relação entre o litigante e o juiz. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de demonstrar que a atuação compulsória do advogado, no diálogo entre a parte e o Estado julgador, é indevida. Como método, foram utilizadas as técnicas de argumentação jurídica e de exame de proporcionalidade, propostas por Robert Alexy. Inicialmente, foram analisados a semântica das normas que fundamentariam tal imposição, a intenção do legislador, os antecedentes históricos, as exceções à regra, um sistema estrangeiro que não aceita tal imposição, os princípios jurídicos envolvidos no problema, as normas de direito constitucional, de direitos humanos, de direito internacional não-internalizado e de direito internacional internalizado, os conceitos já arraigados na dogmática processual brasileira, a jur isprudência, os dados estatísticos, os argumentos analógicos e razões de índole prática. Em um segundo momento, foram examinadas a legitimidade dos fins escolhidos pelo legislador, a necessidade da imposição do advogado, a adequação de tal medida e a ponderação entre os direitos fundamentais conflitantes. Ao final, concluiu-se pela impossibilidade de manutenção da atuação obrigatória dos advogados, nos processos judiciais. Conseqüentemente, ficou claro existir o direito de litigar sem advogado, de maneira irrestrita. / [en] One of the most important concerns for jurists, worldwide, is access to justice. In Brazil, the general rule, with few exceptions, is the necessity of the assistance of a lawyer, in the relationship between litigant and judge. This work intends to demonstrate that the obligatory presence of a lawyer, in the dialogue between the party and the Judiciary, is uncalled for. The method used was the technique of legal argumentation and examination of proportionality, as proposed by Robert Alexy. Firstly, the semantics of the norms, that would be the grounds for such requirement were analyzed, as well as the legislator´s intention, the historical antecedents, the exceptions to the rule, a foreign system that does not accept such imposition, the legal principles involved in the problem, the principles of constitutional law, of human rights, of non-internalized international law and of internalized international law, the already well-established concepts in brazilian procedural dogmatics, the legal precedents, the statistical data, the analogical arguments and the reasons of a practical nature. Secondly, the legitimacy of the ends chosen by the legislator, the need of the obligatory intervention of a lawyer, the suitability of such measure and the balance between the conflicting basic rights were examined. Finally, a conclusion was reached pointing to the impossibility of the maintenance of the obligatory performance of lawyers, in judicial procedures. Consequently, the right to litigate without a lawyer, in an unrestricted way, became clear.

Embora os direitos de Propriedade Intelectual (PI) sejam supostamente instituídos de forma a fomentar a inovação e o bem-estar em longo prazo, seu uso pode ensejar comportamentos oportunistas e abusivos como os Artigos 8.2 e 40 do TRIPS expressamente admitem. Sempre que tal tipo de comportamento afetar a concorrência em determinado mercado excluindo concorrentes, impondo barreiras à entrada, prejudicando consumidores por meio de aumento de preços ou redução da oferta o Direito de Concorrência será chamado a intervir. Considerando tais questões, o objetivo desse trabalho é identificar um quadro de trabalho brasileiro para tratar de questões envolvendo questões de Direito de Concorrência relacionadas à Propriedade Intelectual. O autor buscou delinear os conceitos de uso abusivo de direitos de Propriedade Intelectual, Dominação de Mercado por meio de uso da Propriedade Intelectual e de abuso de posição dominante, considerando o novo quadro regulatório introduzido pela Lei 12.259/2001. / While intellectual property (IP) rights are usually claimed to be designed to foster innovation and welfare in the long run, their use may give rise to opportunistic, abusive behavior - as Articles 8.2 and 40 of TRIPS openly admit. Whenever such sort of behavior affects competition in a given market - whether by dislodging competitors, imposing barriers to entry, harming costumers, raising prices or reducing output - competition law is called to intervene. Considering these issues, the purpose of this paper is to identify a Brazilian legal framework for dealing with IP related competition issues. The author sought to draw the legal concepts of abusive of IP rights, market domination and abuse of dominant position considering the new regulatory framework introduced by Law 12.259/2011.