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.

Liquidity: Water and Investment in Mandate Palestine

In this article, I illustrate two ways in which Zionist settlers appropriated water in Mandate Palestine. The first way was through the imposition of a new kind of property regime, one that measured and defined water rights in terms of volume. This differed from customary Palestinian practice, which distributed water in time-based shares. I argue that volume-based measures made water more easily bought and sold and, by extension, more like a commodity. The second method of appropriation I detail is the granting of concessions to generate hydroelectricity to the Palestine Electric Corporation. These concessions gave the company control over three of Palestine’s major rivers, which it then turned into an object of investment for foreign shareholders. As a result, water use cannot be understood separately from electricity during the Mandate. While these two processes might appear unrelated, I argue that they were both legalized methods of exclusion that, when taken together, reveal a larger process of gradual, albeit incomplete, dispossession of water resources. While Zionist settler colonialism legitimated itself by claiming to efficiently use natural resources, such as water, in actuality, it sustained itself by imposing exclusive property rights.

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.

Reindeer Pastoralism

The chapter focuses on intensive reindeer husbandry or reindeer pastoralism, which was a tenure system that emerged in the early modern period. Reindeer pastoralism and grazing are deeply interconnected and we therefore illuminate the ecological settings for reindeer grazing. A large part of the debate about governing common-pool resources has dealt with pastoralists and their grazing lands. Important features of reindeer pastoralism are described, including a discussion about how the number of tame reindeer developed in early modern era. The chapter ends with a portrayal of and a discussion about individual households’ rights to use certain areas for grazing, chiefly based on descriptions of contemporary court rulings from the local court in Jokkmokk. We show how a common-property regime evolved.

The Second Transformation of the International Intellectual Property Regime

This chapter focuses on the structural changes that international investment norms have posed to the international intellectual property regime. It begins by documenting the regime’s first transformation by the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement and the marriage of intellectual property and trade through the World Trade Organization. The chapter then explores the regime’s potential second transformation when bilateral, regional, and plurilateral agreements and new investor-state disputes have caused international investment norms to intrude into the intellectual property domain. It continues to identify three sets of problems that have emerged from such intrusion. The chapter concludes by proposing three solutions to curtail inappropriate and unnecessary intrusions and to improve the engagement of international intellectual property and investment norms.

TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AS A PROTECTED FORM OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN NEPAL: A LAW AND POLICY ASSESSMENT

A serious discourse is built around the world for proper and better protection of traditional knowledge associated with intellectual property rights. Traditional knowledge was considered as a leftover subject in intellectual property governance since the IP has been a talk of the town. Nepal is rich in terms of traditional knowledge associated with indigenous communities largely used in the medical sectors or what we generally name with “ home-grown medicines”. There is a lack of proper protection and also incentives for these communities and researches have shown that there are also possibilities of conflict over ownership over such knowledge. The traditional knowledge will not only benefit particular stakeholders rather in an extended way, it creates values for the nation and ultimately a global asset in the intellectual property regime across the world. The IP Policy, Law, and Regulations need further incorporation of elements as the subject of traditional knowledge specifically used for medicinal purposes. This paper is based on a theoretical analysis of law, policies, rules, cases, and practices for the protection of traditional knowledge for medicinal in Nepal. This paper has further analyzed the position of existing umbrella clauses as seen in intellectual property laws for the said purpose.

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.

Platformizing family production: The contradictions of rural digital labor in China

How is the rise of platform capitalism reinventing the traditional regime of familial production, while at the same time being energized by it? How do the historically informed, lived experiences of rural e-commerce entrepreneurs or workers in China help reconceptualize digital labor and platform studies? Deploying the analytic of platformized family production, this article addresses these questions through a deep description of the experiences of variously positioned platform-based and mediated laborers in an e-commerce village in East China. I argue that the ongoing process of platformizing family production is profoundly contradictory. As an alternative to a model of development based on unevenness and the rural-urban divide, village e-commerce has created opportunities for peasants and marginalized urban youth to achieve social mobility. However, it also shapes a new regime of value that privileges the individualized e-commerce entrepreneur as an ideal subject, and fetishizes and instrumentalizes innovation and creativity in conformity with the global intellectual property regime. These tendencies not only contradict the reality of collective labor organization both on e-commerce platforms and in villages, but also conflict with the indispensable role of manual labor in the production process—reinforcing rather than overcoming existing inequalities and stratification in rural China. JEL Codes: J16, J61, L86, Q55, R12

Marital Agreements in Vietnam from 1858 until Now

The institution of prenuptial agreement is a founder of contractual matrimonial property regime. The possibility of concluding a marriage contract contributes to ensuring the equal rights of the spouses, as they are free to agree on their pre-marital property. Recognizing the necessity of the contractual freedom in family law, the 2014 Act on Marriage and Family of Vietnam allows couples to choose between the statutory property regime and the agreed property regime. This article presents the history of the institution of marriage agreement in Vietnam, also with regard to the development of law in European countries.

Innovation in Indian Pharmaceutical Industry: Impact of Changing Regulatory Regime

Background: The Pharmaceutical industry has always been fostered with a culture of radical innovation. Nevertheless, the significance of radical innovation is yet unrealized by the Indian pharmaceutical firms. Introduction: The Indian pharma companies often seek immediate profit avenues rather than investing in radical innovation. They lead by imitation than innovation. This has been majorly due to the lax intellectual property laws in the country. Objectives: This paper ruminates on the significance of a stringent intellectual property regime and its impact on profitability and innovation. Result: The findings of the study indicate that increased R&D intensity enhances innovation. Furthermore, this relationship is bolstered in the presence of a stringent intellectual property regime. The findings also indicate that enhanced innovation activity increases the profitability of the firms. Conclusion: Innovation activity is enhanced in presence of a stricter intellectual property regime, and this indeed has a positive impact on the firm profitability as well. Hence, as the results of the study indicate, the pharmaceutical firms in India should be encouraged to invest in research and development, especially considering the stricter patent laws. It will help firms bolster their profitability and have a sustained competitive advantage in the industry.