Suchergebnisse

Corporate responsibility for crimes that require thought, or lack of thought, has been the subject of much debate both in the UK and worldwide. This article investigates the current position in the UK, where a Bill is currently (October 2006) before Parliament, and briefly in Australia, where the law has been reformed at Commonwealth level, but not yet implemented in individual States. In line with developments in Australian and the UK law a realist rather than nominalist position is taken that explicitly recognises genuine corporate fault. The article looks forward to the cases that are likely to be brought under the "corporate culture" provisions. It suggests that the practical methods of providing evidence of corporate 'attitudes, policies, systems or accepted practices' could very well include the records of meetings, very much in line withthe method attempted in the failed Transco prosecution in Scotland. It issubmitted that the conceptual foundation for the realist approach is sound and that there are practical ways of bringing the company before the court. However, there are also some conceptual and practical difficulties to be faced. Issues identified include the question of responsibility for sub-cultures and the practical problem of a proliferation of different sorts of evidence and expert opinions that could be put before the courts.

This article argues, first, that new theoretical ways of thinking about companies are coming to the fore and, second, that these new ways of thinking are finding their way into some aspects of company law and regulation. Snider's device of tracking the emergence of new ideas as `journey from academic journal to economic policy to law' is employed in support of the article's main argument. In particular, it is submitted that the idea of the firm as a `nexus of contracts' is being replaced by the idea of the firm as a `behavioural entity'. While management and economics theorists have gone `inside the black box' in order to ask different questions and produce better theories, the law has arrived there via a much more pragmatic route. However, recent developments in two areas of company law and regulation, corporate criminal responsibility in the UK and Australia and corporate governance in the UK, can be seen in terms of a move away from a focus on the individual decision maker and towards the concept of corporate culture.

In May 2000 the government proposed the introduction of a new offence of corporate killing founded on the concept of "management failure". Two specific corporate risks are investigated; the risk that the company's operations will kill one of its employees or a member of the public and the risk that the company will be convicted of an offence indicating corporate responsibility for that killing. The article demonstrates, firstly, that the risks associated with corporate killing fall within the ambit of the Turnbull Guidance. More importantly, it uses this particular, not directly financial, example to illustrate the proposition that Turnbull should not be associated with closure; rather it should be associated with the opening of a new level of corporate governance debate that will focus on corporate behaviour rather than corporate policy.

The Forest Products and People programme (FPP) of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) undertakes research to better understand the true role of non-timber forest products as tool to achieve development and conservation goals. The programme is undertaking an international comparative analysis of cases of forest product development, and a series of thematic case-based research projects designed to answer specific questions. An example is provided from a case study in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, where a traditional rattan cultivation system has been severely stressed by a combination of policy and economic factors. Government policies designed to encourage the domestic processing industry and monopsonistic manufacturing association have sharply depressed demand and prices. Other factors such as development of roads, industrial plantations, mining, and other economic activities offered alternatives that have led some rattan farmers to shift to new activities. And, recent wide spread of forest fires have destroyed large areas of rattan gardens, effectively forcing some rattan farmers out of business. This set of conditions offers a good opportunity to study people's responses and to analyse wheter and under what circumtances this particular intermediate forest product management system is a viable economic option now and in the future. As rattan remains an important commodity in Indonesia and internationally, and as the current farm-gate price for rattan appears to be artificially low, due in large part to the prevailing policy environment, the rattan garden system may remain viable, at least in the medium term.

Feminist debate has moved away from an emphasis on how women differ from men and towards acknowledgement of differences among women. This article explores a division of growing importance for the new millennium: the division between women who choose to remain childless and those who choose to become mothers. The article demonstrates that more women are choosing to remain childless in the UK and the USA. It claims that the increase in childlessness is a demographic trend that is affecting the whole of the western, developed world. The main point of the article is to suggest that the way sex discrimination law is currently structured means that the demographic change identified will work to the disadvantage of both mothers and not-mothers.

Captive trials were undertaken to determine whether tiger quolls and eastern
quolls could detect baits that were either buried or covered with soil
following the methods employed in normal buried-poisoned-bait programmes. Both
tiger quolls and eastern quolls detected, dug up and consumed buried FOXOFF
baits. Consumption trials showed that tiger quolls were capable of consuming
2–3 FOXOFF baits in a single meal and more than three baits overnight.
Eastern quolls could consume up to 1.5 baits in a single meal.
Field trials were undertaken to investigate whether tiger quolls in the wild
could also detect and consume buried baits. Trials with both fresh meat and
FOXOFF baits were undertaken at a site near a tiger quoll latrine, using a
remote camera to record visits to the site and bait uptake. The results
confirmed that tiger quolls in the wild can detect and consume both fresh meat
and FOXOFF baits that have been buried or placed on the surface and covered
with soil to a depth of 5–8 cm.
The results indicate that the buried-bait technique is not specific for
introduced predators, and free- feeding may not preclude non-target species
from taking buried baits. Reliance on the identification of the species
visiting bait stations from tracks may also be unreliable as foxes dug up bait
stations searching for baits, even after the bait had been removed,
potentially obliterating other tracks.

The diet of the tiger quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) in East Gippsland, Victoria, was investigated by
systematically collecting scats from two latrines between December 1990 and May 1993. From the analysis
of these scats, the tiger quoll was found to be a predator of vertebrate prey, largely dependent on mediumsized
mammals (500 g to 5 kg). The most important prey species were the European rabbit, the common
brushtail possum and the common ringtail possum. Other prey included Antechinus species, bush rats,
echidnas, macropods, wombats, birds, invertebrates and reptiles. Some variation in diet occurred between
seasons, due to seasonal availability of prey. A shift in diet detected between years was attributed to the
variation in rainfall and the effect this had on prey species abundance. Significant differences in diet were
found between adult and subadult tiger quolls. Subadult quolls consumed significantly more small
mammals, ringtail possums, invertebrates and reptiles and significantly fewer rabbits than did adult quolls.
Further analysis of the tiger quolls' diet, by estimating the mass contribution of prey taxa to the diet,
revealed that medium-sized prey contributed more than 80% of the biomass of prey consumed.

In the 1950s the South African Government developed a broad strategy aimed at maintaining the supply of forced labour, namedapartheidor 'separate development'. Much more than a system of segregation, the programme involved moving large numbers of Africans from the urban centres into the underdeveloped Reserves, comprising 14 per cent of the least arable land in South Africa. Industry would then be shifted to the borders of these Bantustans. This last element of the scheme, the policy of industrial decentralisation, has been the main instrument for providing income to Africans in the rural areas. By examining this element in South African state planning, within the context of theapartheidsystem as a whole, I have tried to isolate some of the crucial dynamics of forced labour.