The "United Nations Convention on Carriage of Goods by Sea, 1978", referred to as the "Hamburg Rules", will enter into force between the Contracting States on the 1st November 1992. / This thesis examines the first five articles of the Convention and principally intends to depict their working in a structured and clear manner. It further reveals that their drafters primarily aimed: (1) at adjusting the distribution of the risks of sea-carriage between carrier and cargo-interest, which prevails under the "Hague Rules", to its contemporary legal and factual environment and (2) at promoting uniformity and certainty in the application of the Convention, as compared to the "Hague Rules". / The Convention indeed significantly, as compared to these "Hague Rules", strengthens the fault-based liability of the carrier and expands the documentary, geographic and temporal scope of application of the mandatory regime that both of these conventions contain.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 1911. / Lebenslauf. Includes bibliographical references and (p. 7-8).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Erlangen.

Thesis (Ed. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 9, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

LL.M. (Civil Procedural Law) / In this dissertation various topics regarding inchoate documents will be analysed and discussed. A brief historical background will set the scene, showing the development of bills of exchange in various countries around the world. Although the origins of the earliest bills of exchange can be traced back to Arabic traders in the eighth century, the development of the bill of exchange is generally traced back to the lex mercatoria, i~ the rules which were adopted by medieval traders, especially the Lombards in Italy, to conduct their business. As the lex mercatoria was absorbed into various countries, differences developed. It is clear that the English Bills of Exchange Act 1882 had a marked influence on the law relating to negotiable instruments in most Commonwealth countries and the United States of America. In the second chapter the distinction between the common law and statute law will be analysed. The recent Appellate Division judgment in the case of Thompson v Voges 1988 (I) SA 747 (A) will be discussed. In that case Acting Chief Justice Rabie held that an automatic estoppel could not operate against the signatory of an inchoate document who had signed a document and had handed it to another with the intention that it be issued and used as a negotiable instrument. A detailed analysis of Thompson's case, and the cases referred to by the learned Acting Chief Justice in the course of his judgment, will show that the conclusion reached by him can only be applied to holders who qualify as mere holders, and not to holders in due course. It is submitted, with the greatest respect, that an automatic estoppel will still operate in favour of a holder in due course...

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis examines the area of transportation bill auditing in the Federal Government. It reviews the history of transportation bill auditing, the mechanics of auditing freight transportation bills, and the various factors that impact on the causes and identification of overcharges. This thesis analyzes the current method of post-payment audits of all government transportation bills by GSA and reviews the ongoing initiatives by DOD to implement pre-payment auditing. It concludes that DOD is paying upwards of $48 million a year in freight overcharges alone and that pre-payment audits can significantly reduce this amount. / http://archive.org/details/auditinggovernme00karn / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

The first chapter explores the extent to which campaign contributions to politicians in the financial sector can influence the economic performance of the banks. In this paper, I study the relationship between campaign contribution, probability of failure and portfolio investment. I find that there is a significant effect of campaign contributions on the probability of failure and riskier investment portfolio using U.S. state banks. This effect is more pronounced for smaller and less geographically diversified banks. The results are robust for the overall risk taking measure ($Z-score$ and volatility of the return). The result is also robust using the magnitude of contributions. Using bivariate model and Blundell-Bond estimate to control for endogeneity of campaign contributions, I find that the results are robust. Using US legislative data on congressmen from congress.gov, the second chapter (co-authored with Aggey Semenov) investigates the effect of U.S. Congress legislators' non roll--call activity in bill sponsorship and co--sponsorship on campaign contributions from the financial industry. We found that bill sponsorship has positive and significant effect on campaign contributions in both Chambers. Co--sponsorship has positive and significant effect on contributions in the House but not in the Senate. We link this observation to a longer term of senators compare to congressmen; senators have more time to engage in more profitable sponsorship than congressmen. Legislators' efficiency in promoting bills to laws is rewarded by the financial industry. We also conduct robustness checks. Motivated by a large literature on the determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the third chapter (co-authored with Roland Pongou) is assigned to understand whether a leader's longevity in office promotes FDI inflows? We answer this question with a novel dataset on the personal characteristics of African leaders covering the period from 1960 to 2011. We find that political longevity increases FDI inflows. The effect is robust to controlling for leader heterogeneity using leader fixed effects. The results remain unchanged when using plausible instrumental variables for political longevity to address possible endogeneity issues, and when estimating a dynamic model. Importantly, the effect of longevity on FDI inflows is only positive for more democratic regimes. Exploring the mechanism, we find that longevity of leaders improves the rule of laws, bureaucracy, property rights, and infrastructure, and reduces corruption. We also find that unobserved characteristics of leaders such as his ability play a role in its longevity and the improvement of institutions.

Magistro darbas nagrinėja vekselių civilinės apyvartos Lietuvoje teisinius aspektus. Darbe įvedama į problemos kontekstą pateikiant trumpą istorinę apžvalgą apie vekselius ir jų naudojimą Lietuvoje, užbaigiant prisijungimu prie 1930 m. Ženevos konvencijos dėl Vieningo įsakomųjų ir paprastųjų vekselių įstatymo ir atnaujinto Įsakomųjų ir paprastųjų vekselių įstatymo bei poįstatyminių aktų priėmimu. Toliau aprašoma vekselio, kaip abstraktaus vienašalio sandorio prigimtis, tipinė vekselių apyvarta, nagrinėjamas vekselių atskyrimas nuo kitų panašias savybes turinčių instrumentų. Probleminėje darbo dalyje nagrinėjamos teorinės ir praktinės vekselių apyvartoje kylančios problemos, atsižvelgiant į įstatyminį reguliavimą, teisės doktriną bei teismų praktiką. Pradedama nuo vekselio formos problemų, vekselį išrašiusio subjekto trūkumų, ydingai (su trūkumais) atliktais įrašais vekselyje, išnagrinėjama įsakomojo vekselio galia mokėtojui. Toliau aptariamas vekselių su pasibaigusiu vienu iš terminų statusas, vekselio ir jo aptarnaujamo sandorio tarpusavio ryšys, dvigubo apmokėjimo (pagal vekselį ir pagal aptarnaujamo sandorio dokumentus) problema, išieškojimo pagal vekselį problemos. Darbas baigiamas įstatymo projekto, siūlančio atsisakyti užprotestuotų vekselių registro, kaip mažai naudingo, analize, ir argumentais paremtu pasiūlymu išplėsti tokį registrą iki neapmokėtų (pagal kuriuos išduoti vykdomieji įrašai) ir užprotestuotų vekselį registro, siekiant padidinti jo naudingumą. Darbe... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Vilnius University Master of Law thesis paper „Legal issues of using bills of exchange and promissory notes in civil circulation“ This Master of Law thesis paper is denoted to current legal issues of using bills of exchange and promissory notes in civil circulation. Paper starts with setting the context of the regulation for the bills of exchange and promissory notes, starting with short history and finishing with current laws – accession of Lithuania to the 1930 Geneva Convention providing a Uniform Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes and subsequent harmonization of the local Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, following with supporting bylaws. Next is described the origin of bills of exchange and promissory notes as an stand-alone unilateral contract, typical civil circulation of bills of exchange and promissory notes, differences from the similar legal and financial instruments. In the main part of the thesis paper the theoretical and practical issues of the civil circulation of the bills of exchange and promissory notes are examined, according to statute law, academic papers and court ruling precedents. Starting points are issues with a form of bills of exchange and promissory notes, deficiencies of the subject of bills of exchange and promissory notes, deficiencies in the written clauses on the bills of exchange and promissory notes, and then the power of the bill of exchange (called “unconditional order to pay” in the Lithuanian language) to the... [to full text]

Magistro darbas nagrinėja vekselių civilinės apyvartos Lietuvoje teisinius aspektus. Darbe įvedama į problemos kontekstą pateikiant trumpą istorinę apžvalgą apie vekselius ir jų naudojimą Lietuvoje, užbaigiant prisijungimu prie 1930 m. Ženevos konvencijos dėl Vieningo įsakomųjų ir paprastųjų vekselių įstatymo ir atnaujinto Įsakomųjų ir paprastųjų vekselių įstatymo bei poįstatyminių aktų priėmimu. Toliau aprašoma vekselio, kaip abstraktaus vienašalio sandorio prigimtis, tipinė vekselių apyvarta, nagrinėjamas vekselių atskyrimas nuo kitų panašias savybes turinčių instrumentų. Probleminėje darbo dalyje nagrinėjamos teorinės ir praktinės vekselių apyvartoje kylančios problemos, atsižvelgiant į įstatyminį reguliavimą, teisės doktriną bei teismų praktiką. Pradedama nuo vekselio formos problemų, vekselį išrašiusio subjekto trūkumų, ydingai (su trūkumais) atliktais įrašais vekselyje, išnagrinėjama įsakomojo vekselio galia mokėtojui. Toliau aptariamas vekselių su pasibaigusiu vienu iš terminų statusas, vekselio ir jo aptarnaujamo sandorio tarpusavio ryšys, dvigubo apmokėjimo (pagal vekselį ir pagal aptarnaujamo sandorio dokumentus) problema, išieškojimo pagal vekselį problemos. Darbas baigiamas įstatymo projekto, siūlančio atsisakyti užprotestuotų vekselių registro, kaip mažai naudingo, analize, ir argumentais paremtu pasiūlymu išplėsti tokį registrą iki neapmokėtų (pagal kuriuos išduoti vykdomieji įrašai) ir užprotestuotų vekselį registro, siekiant padidinti jo naudingumą. Darbe... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Vilnius University Master of Law thesis paper „Legal issues of using bills of exchange and promissory notes in civil circulation“ This Master of Law thesis paper is denoted to current legal issues of using bills of exchange and promissory notes in civil circulation. Paper starts with setting the context of the regulation for the bills of exchange and promissory notes, starting with short history and finishing with current laws – accession of Lithuania to the 1930 Geneva Convention providing a Uniform Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes and subsequent harmonization of the local Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, following with supporting bylaws. Next is described the origin of bills of exchange and promissory notes as an stand-alone unilateral contract, typical civil circulation of bills of exchange and promissory notes, differences from the similar legal and financial instruments. In the main part of the thesis paper the theoretical and practical issues of the civil circulation of the bills of exchange and promissory notes are examined, according to statute law, academic papers and court ruling precedents. Starting points are issues with a form of bills of exchange and promissory notes, deficiencies of the subject of bills of exchange and promissory notes, deficiencies in the written clauses on the bills of exchange and promissory notes, and then the power of the bill of exchange (called “unconditional order to pay” in the Lithuanian language) to the... [to full text]

This thesis examines the practice of parliamentary constitutional interpretation. Parliamentary constitutional interpretation is a form of reasoning used by parliamentarians to articulate the constitutional effect of a Bill, within the legislative process in Parliament. The significance of the practice is explored through a combination of empirical study and theoretical enquiry. The first part of the thesis describes and analyses parliamentary constitutional interpretation in three case studies, each on a different Government Bill from the 2010-2012 parliamentary session. Each study provides a fine-grained account of how parliamentarians interpreted the constitutional effect of each Bill and the role this interpretation played during the passage of the Bill. In order to identify the constitutional effect of a particular clause, parliamentarians interpret a range of constitutional norms including: constitutional principles, constitutional statutes and constitutional conventions. In each case study, parliamentary constitutional interpretation played an important role in shaping the constitutional effect of each Bill and holding the Government to account. The second part of the thesis uses the reality of the practice, as described in the case studies, to identify the value of parliamentary constitutional interpretation and to situate the practice within political constitutionalism. Two principal values of the practice are identified. Firstly, parliamentary constitutional interpretation can enhance the level of justification within the legislative process. Secondly, it can facilitate a distinctively parliamentary contribution to the normative content of the constitution. By expanding the role of legislative politics within the constitution, parliamentary constitutional interpretation can develop and strengthen the political model of constitutionalism. These values also serve as both a template for analysis of parliamentary performance and as a guide to parliamentary reform.