Land Property Regime According to the Vidovdan Constitution and the Agrarian Question in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

Тhe paper discusses the attitudes of political parties on land property regimes in the context of the agrarian issue, and dynamics of the debate on this matter in the Constitutional Committee and in the Constituent National Assembly of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The very notion of “agrarian question” concerns specifically small peasant landholdings in the process of development of capitalism. This question was raised in the context of the debate on socio-economic problems that were invited by, and eventually, introduced into the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Vidovdan Constitution, 1921) under the pressure of progressive opposition parties and parts of the ruling political organizations.

The type individuation problem

Lockean justifi cations of intellectual property postulate the appropriation of immaterial entities, in various contexts called types, patterns, designs, or technologies. It is widely believed that the ownership of such entities gives the owner a right to control their physical embodiments and prohibit imitation. For the prohibition to be meaningful, a condition identifying forbidden objects must be formulated. It must cover not only objects which are identical to some original artifact or its exact, ideal description, but also those which are only similar. This requires systematic answers to three questions: (1) which material structures and which of their subsets should be compared? (2) which of their characteristics should be compared? (3) how to combine these characteristics into a decision rule for token identification? There is no underlying empirical reality that could be independently consulted by individuals in order to incontestably answer these questions. Meanwhile constant evolution in technology and arts requires addressing them repeatedly. Consequently, intellectual property regimes must rely on political institutions incessantly dictating the scope of prohibition, and hence they cannot originate or exist in a prelegal state of nature.

Dancing someone else's movements through someone else’s body

In this article, we will describe the uneven conditions in which dance practices are being extracted and circulated by looking at how online gaming platforms have digitised and commodified human movement. The study of these controversial cases contextualised within the legal aspects of dance copyright are the basis to offer speculative courses for both dance practitioners. The first section explores the issues of digitisation and ownership of bodily movement within virtual spaces by looking at notions of disembodiment and dance as a commodifiable object. The second section illustrates the complexities of copyrighting choreography through a critique on how intellectual property regimes disregard collective and social practices. Finally, we will present alternatives for dance practitioners going forward by looking at how to protect dance as a digital object; the current initiatives to engage dancers with technological affordances; and the decentralising potential of blockchain networks to build new collaborative landscapes for the circulation of creativity.

From Private to Common: Coevolution of Land-Use Practices and Property Rights

In the concluding chapter, we synthesize the results and discuss how changing land-use regimes among Sami in interior northwest Fennoscandia interrelated with the development of property rights between 1550 and 1780. During this period, a new tenure system, reindeer pastoralism, developed. For households that had amassed large reindeer herds, it became crucial to access both large pastures in the mountains and in the boreal forest to have enough grazing. This led to the establishment of common-property regimes in both the mountains and the boreal forest, where grazing became a CPR. The emergence of this kind of common-property regime is best described as a bottom-up process as it assumes that local users design and implement institutions for common use that all or most users adhere to.

Adverse commoning: Tracing contested legal geographies of the urban commons

Under threat of enclosure in rapidly gentrifying cities, some urban commoners are turning to legal tactics to ward off dispossession. In this article, I explore the contested legal geographies of urban commoning, considering some of the challenges, stakes, and opportunities that emerge in the effort to gain legal recognition. Specifically, I examine the use of the doctrine of adverse possession by Philadelphia gardeners to claim title to the community farm they cultivated as an urban commons for decades. In the context of a neoliberal settler colonial city, I argue that the gardeners’ adverse commoning, involving an il/legal counterclaim to property, facilitates consideration of the ways urban commoners are both enrolled in normative property regimes and have the potential to resist these regimes through errant performances of proprietary continuity, exclusivity, notoriety, and hostility.

The material conditions of non-domination: Property, independence, and the means of production

While it is a point of agreement in contemporary republican political theory that property ownership is closely connected to freedom as non-domination, surprisingly little work has been done to elucidate the nature of this connection or the constraints on property regimes that might be required as a result. In this paper, I provide a systematic model of the boundaries within which republican property systems must sit and explore some of the wider implications that thinking of property in these terms may have for republicans. The boundaries I focus on relate to the distribution of property and the application of types of property claims over particular kinds of goods. I develop this model from those elements of non-domination most directly related to the operation of a property regime: (a) economic independence, (b) limiting material inequalities, and (c) the promotion of common goods. The limits that emerge from this analysis support intuitive judgments that animate much republican discussion of property distribution. My account diverges from much orthodox republican theory, though, in challenging the primacy of private property rights in the realization of economic independence. The value of property on republican terms can be realized without private ownership of the means of production.

Estate Planning and Wills Across Borders: Sometimes a Quagmire in the Making

In this article a synoptic evaluation is made in respect of the estate planning and wills of South African nationals working, investing or living in foreign jurisdictions, in the broader context of globalisation and internationalisation. Estate planners and testators may inadvertently leave family members in a financially vulnerable position or diminish family assets due to a non-appreciation of international private law. The importance of international wills, the role of testamentary trusts, and the potential impact and reciprocity of international instruments are considered. The most applicable Hague Conventions and the EU Succession and Matrimonial Property Regulations are discussed in an attempt to give an overview of the current legal position. In discussing the role of international private law, its practical application is illustrated by way of reference to a few jurisdictions popular among South Africans with multi-jurisdictional estates, namely Malta, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Although there may be more popular emigration jurisdictions amongst South Africans, this contribution focusses on the South African who lives, works and plays in a European context, without necessarily cutting his or her ties with the homeland. Not all attempts to harmonise wills, deceased estates, succession and matrimonial property regimes have been met with the same levels of enthusiasm by the international community. Contributing hereto may be the fact that fiduciary law deals with sensitive and very personal aspects of individuals and is closely linked to the different worldviews of communities. It is argued that not only fiduciary advisers and will drafters, but also attorneys and notaries involved with prenuptial agreements, should be proficient in the workings and implications of the applicable international instruments. Lastly, an argument is made for more pragmatic and commercial style thinking in the arena of fiduciary law.

Current Intellectual Property Regimes in the U.S. Fail to Protect Fashion Designs

The United States does not offer adequate intellectual property protections for designs within the fashion industry. The quick pace and constantly evolving nature of the fashion industry creates obstacles for designers’ ability to obtain lasting protection in their fashion articles. The intellectual property regimes for trademark, trade dress, patent and copyright will be analyzed in the fashion industry context. These intellectual property regimes in the United States do not adequately protect designers in the fashion industry. Small fashion brands and independent designers are often left unprotected by the copying of their designs. Designers “remain vulnerable to knockoff artists who can steal ideas straight off the runway and produce copies before the originals even hit the stores.” Due to the lack of intellectual property protection for fashion designers in the United States, fashion companies and retailers are able to “steal American designs, make low-quality copies in foreign factories with cheap labor and import them into the U.S. to compete with original designs”. This presents a huge concern for young and emerging designers who can be “put out of business before they even had a chance.” Emerging designers are left vulnerable to the threat of copying [1].

Introduction to Exclusivity Rights

This chapter begins by defining intellectual property rights as the protection of the ‘creation’ of the mind and describing many different rights that are protected by both statute and common law. It divides intellectual property into two broad categories: industrial property and copyright. It also explores the various statutory and common law intellectual property regimes that have their own idiosyncratic criteria in order to qualify for the protection they offer. The chapter distinguishes relevant intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical product marketing authorisation holders from ‘traditional’ intellectual property rights to regulatory exclusivities. It explores the characteristics of regulatory exclusivities that are akin to other intellectual property rights but have their own unique criteria for qualification and enforcement.