Suchergebnisse

As is well known, the Plain language movement has been influential in a number of areas of public life over the last few decades. Within the legal sphere it has raised general awareness concerning the need to make legal matters and legal documents more comprehensible and accessible to non-experts, particularly in today's digitalized world where information is freely available to the general public. In this paper my aim is to provide an overview of the way the Plain language movement has evolved in the legal sphere since the 1970s. In particular, I will highlight the following points: (1) the reasons why the Plain language movement came into being; (2) the major successes of plain language in the legal sphere over the last 40 years; (3) the areas where legalese still predominates, and the reasons for the resistance to change; and (4) the way the Plain language movement has adapted to the digitalized world and the implications for future development. My observations will be mainly restricted to the English-speaking world, including international organizations where English is one of the official languages, but I will occasionally make reference to other plain language organizations outside the English-speaking world where this seems relevant. I also provide a list of the major organizations involved in promoting plain language in English in the legal sphere today as a reference guide.

As is well known, the Plain language movement has been influential in a number of areas of public life over the last few decades. Within the legal sphere it has raised general awareness concerning the need to make legal matters and legal documents more comprehensible and accessible to non-experts, particularly in today's digitalized world where information is freely available to the general public. In this paper my aim is to provide an overview of the way the Plain language movement has evolved in the legal sphere since the 1970s. In particular, I will highlight the following points: (1) the reasons why the Plain language movement came into being; (2) the major successes of plain language in the legal sphere over the last 40 years; (3) the areas where legalese still predominates, and the reasons for the resistance to change; and (4) the way the Plain language movement has adapted to the digitalized world and the implications for future development. My observations will be mainly restricted to the English-speaking world, including international organizations where English is one of the official languages, but I will occasionally make reference to other plain language organizations outside the English-speaking world where this seems relevant. I also provide a list of the major organizations involved in promoting plain language in English in the legal sphere today as a reference guide.

"Crowdsourcing" now gets 10 million hits on Google, and is being applied to research in commercial, media, academic, civil society and state spheres. Although appearing recent and technology-based, there are also relevant but overlooked manual precursors which embody the fundamentals of using large groups for research. This analytical review provides the bases for developing initiatives further, by assessing: What are the strategies, strengths and weaknesses of crowdsourcing research? What are the questions that should be asked when planning a research design? How is crowdsourcing being applied in relation to state crime, and why? What might be the implications for justice systems, and for criminal and international courts?

This study analyses the process of ethnic mobilization in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras and assesses the way in which history, memory and the treatment of the Volga Tatars by the Soviet state, especially under Lenin and Stalin, affected their long term desire for greater independence from Moscow. The central argument of this study is that Volga Tatar's nation building was influenced by changes introduced under Gorbachev and by the weaknesses of the post-Sovietstate particularly during the Yeltsin era of the 1990s. The article assesses the strategies the President of Tatarstan and his advisors utilized during this period,especially after 1985, to successfully negotiate a bilateral treaty with Moscow in February 1994 granting Tatarstan greater autonomy and independence.Within this framework, the article then provides a detailed analysis of the approach taken in Tatarstan to achieve this goal and to renew the treaty, despite Putin's recentralization policies from 2000-2008.(Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe)