In the last three decades regulation as a public policy instrument has developed from a tool to manage markets to a means for government to offer protection or impose boundaries in areas associated with social and moral issues. Social regulatory mechanisms are broad, and have as their justification the public interest. It is one response by governments to the development of reproductive technologies. (For complete abstract open document)

This study details the Medically Assisted Procreation regulations in thirty-five nation-states, and explores the influence of national identity, social cultural and demographic differences on these regulations. Detailed data were gathered from ministries of health, offices of prime ministers, embassy staff, and others on regulations for each nation. These data were used to categorize the nations in regard to MAP legislation status and regulatory policy regarding marital or age restrictions; posthumous conception; sperm, ovum, or embryo donation, surrogacy; and policy on handling donors. Possible associations between national identity, social cultural, and demographic data for each nation and their regulations were explained. The thirty-five nations were treated as a population with common geographical and political ties. PRE methods, and eta coefficients were used to assess the associations. Sixteen nations have adopted MAP legislation, eight nations have either alternative regulatory guidelines or partial structures, four nations have legislation pending and possibly some laws, and seven nations are unregulated. Based upon statistical analysis, language group emerges as an important indicator for differences in MAP regulations. For example knowing a nation's language group enabled percent improved prediction of that nation's regulatory handling of embryo donation. The percent GDP spent on health care was found to have a substantial or moderate association with most regulations. The findings of this study indicate that the cultural roots associated with national identity as well as economic circumstances such as health care budgets impact the policy making process responsible for the regulation of MAP in Europe. Among other mediating circumstances, MAP related family law cases brought to the European Court of Human Rights create an accumulation of judge-made law, which help create a common European standard. This study of the European region provides a baseline for further research and a reference for cross cultural comparisons.

This research focuses on online payment methods which are premised on electronic funds transfer. It is a general discourse that the use of online payment methods is risky. It is held that the fear of fraud and abuse of a payment system is at the focal point of such risk. Banks which provide these payment systems are usually not prepared to negotiate with their prospective customers. Resultantly, banks contract out of the risk associated with online payments, specifically the liability for unauthorized electronic funds transfers. This culminates in bank’s customers bearing the majority of that risk as a result of the bank-customer contract. Some of the laws applicable to this relationship also ascribe to the notion above. They burden bank’s customers solely with the liability of the use of their cards until notification to the bank of its theft or misuse. This shows a completed disregard of the nature of how online payment methods operate. Such imposition of liability is excessively one-sided in favour of the banks and detrimental to the bank’s customers. Ultimately, the scope of application of the current applicable consumer protection laws is limited by factors such as non-applicability to juristic persons or limitation based on asset value for those that do. This thus denotes a large segment of online payment methods users who cannot avail themselves to measures of protection provided for by the current applicable consumer protection laws. The research aims to avert the issues as demonstrated above, provide clarity in pursuit of equity and compliance, plus a comprehensive consumer protection approach for online payment methods users. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Mercantile Law / LLM / Unrestricted

This dissertation consists of two separately published articles and one book chapter linked together by their investigation of the legal regulation of reproductive and genetic technologies. In "Fragmenting the Body" I explore how law is to understand the relationship between the person and the body, and the body and its parts in the context of the instrumental uses to which reproductive and genetic material can be put. Drawing on feminist and postmodernist theories, the article critiques the liberal legal conception of personhood and argues in favour of an embodied account of personhood as central to the legal metaphors and categories we should use in analyzing novel social and material arrangements. "Public Bodies, Private Parts: Genetics in a Post-Keynesian Era" analyzes the use of the new genetics and the role of geneticization in the privatization orientation of the Canadian state from 1990-2002. The chapter defines and explores the relationships among genetics, geneticization and privatization, and demonstrates how a new discourse of health is central to the privatization agenda. The chapter examines three policy/legal initiatives of the Canadian government regulating the new genetics and demonstrates how law operates to further the values and objectives of privatization. Finally, the chapter addresses the gendered impact of the relationship between the new genetics and privatization. In "Beyond Conception: Legal Determinations of Filiation in the Context of Assisted Reproductive Technologies" I argue that legal determinations of filiation are normative ideological constructions about how societal relations between children and parents should be ordered. They are based on particular understandings of the relationship between social and biological facts and operate to create asymmetrical relationships between the categories of maternity and paternity. I suggest that developments in reproductive and genetic filiation offer the potential for an expanded understanding of relatedness which does not take the two-parent -one of each sex--model of the family as its normative form.

This thesis analyses the nature, rationale, and implementation of United Kingdom and Australian regulation of research involving human embryos and cloning using legal materials, other documents and qualitative interviews with researchers, practitioners and regulators. It considers how law-makers have decided upon what to regulate and where to draw the line between permissible and prohibited activities, and the type of regulatory design strategies and enforcement approaches adopted in each jurisdiction (the ‘how to regulate’ question). It is argued that both jurisdictions have effectively decided upon permissible and prohibited activities as a result of thorough public consultation, research, reviews and the parliamentary process, and have appropriately balanced competing rationales for regulation. However, the type of regulation used in relation to those who are licensed to research in this area is unsuitable due to an over-emphasis on deterrence and the authoritarian approach taken by the regulatory bureaucracies. The central thesis is that a responsive regulatory system for licence-holders should be adopted. It is proposed that such a system would maintain the top level ‘command and control’ design strategies and deterrence approaches present in the current regulatory systems for breaches of legislation by non-licence holders and serious breaches by licence holders. However, greater use of co-regulatory design strategies and cooperative, educative and persuasive enforcement approaches should be used for regulating licensed research activities.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology of Technology: Business Information Systems in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology / This study evaluates the utilisation and effectiveness of contract clauses in Information Technology (IT) and Information System (IS) projects in South Africa to address and mitigate key risks associated with these types of projects. This study established whether specific clauses were being utilised to address key risks, and where clauses were being utilised, whether these clauses were effective in addressing and mitigating the impact of these key risks. The need for the study arose because the researcher had experienced on several occasions in his workplace that contracts which appeared fail-safe during the negotiation stage did not reach the proposed targets, let alone maturity of the agreement. To establish whether colleagues in similar positions in computer-based organisations experienced similar disruptions a quantitative questionnaire was distributed to organisations in the Johannesburg area to gain an insight into their risk profile. Risk could arise from the contract construction and/or wording. Reference was made to the contracts in the engineering environment where standard contracts have been in place for a number of years. Specifically the New Engineering Contract (NEC) of 2011 and the Professional Services Contract were consulted. The study concentrated on four categories of risk identified in a literature review, namely corporate management risk, project management risk, resource utilisation risk and technology risk, which resulted in 42 sub-factors examined. The population of suitable and relevant IT and IS companies could not be definitely established but the researcher made telephonic contact with known organisations and 24 participants agreed to participate in the exercise; 12 service providers and 12 clients of providers, where 78% of participants experienced one or more of the risk factors, and 53% used NEC standard contracts.

Orientador: Sérgio Luiz Monteiro Salles-Filho / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociências / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T04:55:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mattos_CarolinaVaghetti_M.pdf: 2720248 bytes, checksum: 6f08c6c657b9b103069ec6a8d4e71b0a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: A Lei de Informática (Lei n° 8.248/91) é o principal instrumento de incentivo à indústria de tecnologias da informação e comunicação (TICs) do Brasil. Mesmo sendo, também, o principal instrumento de incentivo à P&D do país, incoerentemente, a Lei de Informática não foi criada para ser uma política de inovação e talvez seja mais justo não avaliá-la como tal, muito embora essa opção seja extremamente custosa para o país. Criada para manter os produtos de TICs nacionais competitivos frente aos importados, concede redução fiscal (Imposto sobre Produto Industrializado - IPI) para empresas de TICs mediante: i) a fabricação de produtos incentiváveis com cumprimento de etapas básicas do processo produtivo no Brasil e ii) a exigência de investimento em P&D de parte do faturamento, incluindo parcerias obrigatórias com Instituições de Ciência e Tecnologia (ICTs). Consideramos, então, que esses dois elementos (produtos incentivados e parcerias com ICTs) são as variáveis mais importantes afetadas por esse instrumento. O objetivo do presente trabalho é identificar se, mesmo não sendo uma política de inovação, a Lei foi capaz de promover melhorias no sistema setorial de inovação da indústria de TICs brasileira por meio da aproximação das relações entre firmas e ICTs para atividades de P&D. Pretendemos verificar, também, se a Lei cumpriu seu objetivo de promover uma maior competitividade dos produtos nacionais frente aos importados / Abstract: The Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) Law is the main instrument to promote the ICT industry in Brazil. Despite also being the main instrument to encourage R&D investments in the country, the ICT industry was not supposed to be an innovation policy and it may not be fair to evaluate it such a way, yet this option represents a high cost for the country. Created with the aim of keeping the national ICTs products competitive compared to the imported goods, the ICTs Law concedes fiscal incentives (reduction of the IPI - a Brazilian tax over the industrialized products) to ICT companies under the following conditions: (i) manufacturing of a few basic phases of the production process of stimulated products in the national territory, and (ii) investing a percentage of sales in R&D activities, including partnerships with Science and Technology Institutions (STI) as part of this requirement. Thus, we consider these two elements (stimulated products and partnerships with STI) are the most affected by this instrument. The objective of the present research is to identify if, despite not being an innovation policy, the Law was capable of promoting enhancements in the sectoral system of innovation of the Brazilian ICT industry through closer relations between firms and STI for R&D activities. We also intend to verify if the Law has carried out the goal of promoting a greater competitiveness of the national products facing the imported goods / Mestrado / Politica Cientifica e Tecnologica / Mestre em Política Científica e Tecnológica

In this dissertation, I argue that the Rule of Law is made vulnerable by technological innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that take power previously delegated to legal decision-makers and put it in the hands of machines. I assert that we need to interrogate the potential impacts of AI and ML in law: without careful scrutiny, AI and ML's wide-ranging impacts might erode certain fundamental ideals. Our constitutional democratic framework is dependent upon the Rule of Law: upon a contiguous narrative thread linking past legal decisions to our future lives. Yet, incursions by AI and ML into legal process - including algorithms and automation; profiling and prediction - threaten longstanding legal precepts in state law and constraints against abuses of power by private actors. The spectre of AI over the Rule of Law is most apparent in proposals for "self-driving laws," or the idea that we might someday soon regulate society entirely by machine. Some academics have posited an approaching "legal singularity," in which the entire corpus of legal knowledge would be viewed as a complete data set, thereby rendering uncertainty obsolete. Such "regulation by machine" advocates would then employ ML approaches on this legal data set to refine and improve the law. In my view, such proposals miss an important point by assuming machines can necessarily outperform humans, without first questioning what such performance entails and whether machines can be meaningfully said to participate in the normative and narrative activities of interpreting and applying the law. Combining insights from three distinct areas of inquiry - legal theory, law as narrative scholarship, and technology law - I develop a taxonomy for analysing Rule of Law problems. This taxonomy is then applied to three different technological approaches powered by AI/ML systems: sentencing software, facial recognition technology, and natural language processing. Ultimately, I seek the first steps towards developing a robust normative framework to prevent a dangerous disruption to the Rule of Law.

Theoretical understandings of war have been dominated by the thought of Clausewitz for a number of decades. His thought is valid in many respects, but for various reasons it is open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding; furthermore, a number of his observations (particularly on the prevalence of chance and uncertainty in war) are not fully explored and substantiated theoretically. This thesis is an attempt to present and elucidate a new theoretical understanding of war's nature which complements Clausewitz's theories and addresses these concerns: this is the understanding of war as a form of violent conflict which is not bound by rules. The thesis consists of five main chapters. The first is an in-depth study of Clausewitz, which will provide an exegesis of his theories and highlight the deficiencies in his thought, before positing how understanding war as ‘violent conflict without rules' could be used to address and explain them. The second chapter is a study of the theory of rules, examining in particular the role they play in moderating conflict: we can find that amongst other things, rules lend predictability and psychological security to a contest, restrict the scope of physical harm and tend to preserve the political and social status quo. As war lacks rules (in the sense that there are no ‘rules of war' as there are ‘rules of chess'), it therefore lacks these benefits. A following chapter on the laws and customs of war will address cases where war appears to be bound by rules, and clarify my position. The final two chapters explore the implications of war's lack of rules with reference to two areas which are most commonly associated with war. The fourth chapter on strategy will explore how this military concept is necessitated by war's ruleless nature; the final chapter will examine the uniquely violent, physical nature of war through the same theoretical prism, and will show how the technological innovation associated with war is a consequence of its lack of regulation, and a potent contributor to the chance and uncertainty which plagues warfare.

This dissertation utilized electrospray ion mobility mass spectrometry (ESI-IMS-MS) to develop methods necessary for the separation of chiral compounds of forensic interest. The compounds separated included ephedrines and pseudoephedrines, that occur as impurities in confiscated amphetamine type substances (ATS) in an effort to determine the origin of these substances. The ESI-IMS-MS technique proved to be faster and more cost effective than traditional chromatographic methods currently used to conduct chiral separations such as gas and liquid chromatography. Both mass spectrometric and computational analysis revealed the separation mechanism of these chiral interactions allowing for further development to separate other chiral compounds by IMS. Successful separation of chiral compounds was achieved utilizing a variety of modifiers injected into the IMS drift tube. It was found that the modifiers themselves did not need to be chiral in nature and that achiral modifiers were sufficient in performing the required separations. The ESI-IMS-MS technique was also used to detect thermally labile compounds which are commonly found in explosive substances. The methods developed provided mass spectrometric identification of the type of ionic species being detected from explosive analytes as well as the appropriate solvent that enhances detection of these analytes in either the negative or positive ion mode. An application of the developed technique was applied to the analysis of a variety of low explosive smokeless powder samples. It was found that the developed ESI-IMS-MS technique not only detected the components of the smokeless powders, but also provided data that allowed the classification of the analyzed smokeless powders by manufacturer or make.