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Changes in Eastern Europe raise two sorts of questions: What is the relation between political, economic and moral autonomy? And is the economic system basic in that a change in it will bring about the necessary reforms, or does change depend on political or legal reform? One can abolish central planning and not create systems prey to the objection that market economies turn labour into a commodity, exclude too many people from effective participation in the system, and threaten the world through their endless expansion? It is argued that legal systems provide basic and necessary conditions which exert a profound influence on the shape of economic systems, that failure of legality in the Soviet Union made economic disaster inevitable, and that the rise of capitalism itself depended on legal forms. Some ideas of property and legality in early modern European thought are explored. Francisco Suárez grounded claims to freedom on the fact that each of us possesses a will before we ever come into contact with the law. We therefore have a right to freedom which is more fundamental than any system. But Suárez limited intrusions on freedom to the promulgated laws of a bona fide juridical community. He thus helped shape notions of private property. By developing such notions we may see how an economy can be efficient without doing violence to morality.

After the precipitated decline of the Soviet Empire and its satellite states, a system change seemed to be called for, and many countries embarked on social and political reforms focussing on property structures in the economy. This raised the issue of governance in the institutions that would constitute the structures in which production would have to take place. In particular, some Central European countries opted for mass privatisations of the means of production, on the face of it so as to have the people participate in the wealth of the nation. In fact, the wealth of the nation depends on the structures in which it is constituted. Dissipation of property rights will reduce the value of the nation's productive capital, whereas an intelligent structure that creates good governance structures at the same time, increases the value of the producing capital. This relatively simple insight lies at the heart of our understanding of how to analyse different processes of mass privatisation. This essay develops a theoretical framework by which different governance structures can be analysed. The framework consists of a blend of the economic theory of property rights, new institutional economics and Austrian economic theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explore legal information requirements of the legal community in India for a proposed online legal information system tailored to the Indian environment.

A needs assessment survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire circulated among 750 respondents from eight institutions in Delhi. A total of 397 filled-in questionnaires were personally collected by the investigator, showing a response rate of 52.9 per cent. All these questionnaires were selected for analysis and interpretation of data. Responses to 45 questions were analyzed and presented in the form of tables and figures using various statistical techniques.

The findings of the study show that majority of the respondents felt they faced a number of problems in using online legal resources such as accessibility of legal information in legal resources, lack of online help features, description of legal information sources, search screen too confusing and poor website design. In addition, respondents highlighted that access instructions on the online resources are not clear. Lack of expertise and insufficient knowledge of information and communication technology in using legal databases are also major hurdles. Majority of the respondents are somewhat satisfied in using open-access and commercial legal information resources and not aware of open-access resources in the field of law. Model online legal information system (OLIS) was designed and developed based on the findings drawn in the needs assessment survey to empower the common man with legal resources at no cost, and foster research in the field of law.

The model OLIS contains only a sample collection. It is expected that the proposed system will be implemented on a wider scale, so that lawyers, research scholars and common people can benefit.

The findings of the study will help libraries to subscribe to legal information resources and to design robust OLIS suitable in the Indian context. It is anticipated that the needs assessment survey of OLIS will help government agencies and law libraries to understand the problems of the legal fraternity in accessing legal information.

The present study designed a model OLIS for the Indian environment (www.olisindia.in) to aid the legal community in India, enabling them to save their valuable time. This system will help and foster interdisciplinary research learning and can be used as a tool for learning the basic concepts, as well as help deliberate on the emerging areas in the field of law.

This paper provides a political analysis of legal pluralism from a “new institutionalist” perspective. In response to question of why states recognize and incorporate non-state normative orderings into their legal systems, it is hypothesized that the decision of incorporation is made to enhance the capacities of postcolonial states with “rational” calculations. In this respect, two new categories of legal pluralism are introduced: capacity-enhancing recognition and capacity-diminishing recognition. The paper lastly assesses the implications of legal pluralism upon the state-society relations and individual rights and liberties of citizens in the case of Israel.

Norberto Bobbio's Birth Centenary was celebrated in Turin in October 2009. This article acknowledges an important 20th century legal philosopher whose work is yet to be fully appreciated in the Anglo-American context. A short introduction is followed by an overview of his works in English, and intellectual profile. Relevant excerpts aim to convey some understanding of his legal scholarship. Three exemplars of his contribution to law: jurisprudence, legal sociology and the general theory of law are discussed. It is argued that a Bobbian lens can be usefully employed to consider some of the pressing 21st century legal-political and social issues.

The Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a unique identity. This study is based on a long period of research undertaken between 1995 and 2014. Permanent residents, the Chinese of Macau and all other MSAR residents constitute a body of model “citizens” which makes their legal identity understandable in the MSAR’s present social and economic context. Macau’s legal identity is based on centuries of trade and commerce. In Article 5 of the first chapter (I-5) of the MSAR’s Basic Law, the “way of life” in Macau’s society and economy are recognized as part of the MSAR’s legal framework. However, social change may play an important role in Macau’s development. The purpose of this paper is to look at the legal corpus as though it was a physical body with rights and duties, but also capabilities based on the nationality and residence statuses of its citizens, its companies and other entities (which will be studied more specifically in following articles).

This study has used the combined approaches of fieldwork carried out between 2010 and 2015, interviews, and questionnaires.

Way of life and the concept of One Country, Two Systems are key points that contribute to Macau’s contemporary identity. Way of life in the Basic Law constitutes a complex matrix formulation based on a series of particular facts and cultural traits, which leads to a better legal definition of important concepts such as nationality and residency in the particular case of Macau. The Basic Law is the constitutional law of the MSAR, but “Chineseness” still dominates the locals’ identity from day to day. More than 65 percent of the interviewees in the survey asserted their “Chineseness.” However, both Chinese and Portuguese, will continue to be official languages of Macau until 2049. The MSAR’s Chinese society speaks Cantonese and increasingly Putonghua, but it does not seem concerned by communicating using the Portuguese language. Clayton’s thesis emphasized the “unique cultural identity” of the MSAR and wrote that what made the Chinese of Macau “different from other Chinese, is the existence of a Portuguese state on Chinese soil.” Portuguese cultural tolerance is not mentioned, but it is a historical fact that has influenced Macau’s legal identity. The MSAR’s government has done its best to harmonize Macau’s multicultural society and it has particularly protected the Sino-Portuguese way of life in Macau.

To apply the law and maintain the existing harmony in its society and economy, legal actions have had to be taken by the Macau government and courts. The courts of the MSAR are structured in three levels and have final powers of adjudication, except in very narrow political areas. The judicial system includes the following courts, from the highest to the lowest: the Court of Final Appeal, the Court of Second Instance and the Court of First Instance (Tribunal de Primeira Instância).

This research is unique inasmuch as studies of legal identities focussed on large regions such as the MSAR of China are rare.

Despite the preservation of “One Country, Two Systems” for 50 years under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Basic Law, changes are palpable due to the emergence of a real contest between liberal and pro-China actors in the legal profession and the legal environment in Hong Kong. After celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s sovereignty transfer from Britain to China, it is valuable to study how the sovereign power influence the rule of law in its semiautonomous city by non-legal measures. This paper aims to offer a preliminary research on China’s political economic strategy, which is regarded as the “China factor”, in the legal system of Hong Kong, and its political, economic and legal-cultural impacts on the rule of law.

This paper argues that China exerts its influence over the legal system of Hong Kong in four domains, including ideology, political elections, legal organization and cross-border political economy. Based on media research and content analysis over published materials of various legal associations and institutions, it is found that China attempts to consolidate its control in Hong Kong by producing alternative legal ideology and discourse of the rule of law and by co-opting the legal profession under China’s united front strategy.

While there are liberal lawyers and legal scholars vocally engaging in defense of human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong, a network of legal profession promoting socialist and authoritarian legal values has become prominent. Hong Kong’s legal culture will continue to be shaped in accordance with authoritarian characteristics and will adversely affect developing the rule of law in this international city.

This paper contributes to the study of China’s influence over the legal profession of Hong Kong and in general Hong Kong’s jurisdiction by offering an example to the international community that contributes towards understanding how China adopts different strategies to expand political significance beyond its border.

The study aims to identify gender differences and similarities in the awareness of legal information resources and problems faced by legal professionals. Further, the study identifies the differences on the basis of gender, regarding the requirements in developing an online legal information system (OLIS) for the Indian environment.

The study was carried out in eight law libraries in Delhi using a structured questionnaire. Data were collected through the questionnaire having 27 questions including dichotomous (Yes/No), multiple-choice questions, rating and opinion questions. A need assessment survey was conducted using the structured questionnaire circulated among 750 respondents of eight institutions in Delhi. In total, 397 filled in questionnaires were received back. A total of 246 of the respondents were males and 151 females. The design and development of an OLIS went through five phases, i.e. preliminary preparation, designing and planning phase, development of OLIS covering preparation of software, data structures, metadata, search form, testing and implementation phase and maintenance.

The study found that 100 per cent of the female respondents were aware of online legal information resources. Maximum 28.4 per cent female respondents rated legal e-resources “very good”, whereas only 19.9 per cent male ranked them “very good”. Female respondents were found less aware about open access resources. In addition, of 246 male respondents, 213 (86.6 per cent) responded “Yes” about awareness of open access resources and 33 (13.4 per cent) marked “No”. In comparison, 116 (76.8 per cent) female respondents revealed they are aware of open access resources; 35 (23.2 per cent) were not aware of open access resources. Fifty-eight (23.6 per cent) male respondents were very dissatisfied, and 60 (24.4 per cent) completely dissatisfied. However, in contrast, 29 (19.2 per cent) female respondents were very dissatisfied and 24 (15.9 per cent) completely dissatisfied in using open access resources.

The study covers only eight institutions in Delhi, India. High courts and law universities in other parts of the country are not covered. In addition, OLIS contains a sample collection.

The study explores the inhibitions faced by female and male legal professionals. A suitable legal information system is developed to match the requirements of female legal professionals, research scholars and faculty members. The study is expected to address problems faced by female legal professionals in accessing the desired judicial and legislative information.

OLIS (www.olisindia.in) has been developed on the basis of a need assessment survey conducted on male and female legal professionals in India. No study has been conducted so far to compare the viewpoints of male and female legal professionals in India for developing an OLIS.

The purpose of this study is to examine three governance structures (market, contract and vertical integration) that are commonly used to coordinate procurement relationships between grape growers and winemakers in the wine industry. This paper aims to adopt a multi-theoretical approach combining transaction cost and relational exchange theories to explore the influence that trust and a state’s legal system have on the choice of governance mechanism. The authors propose arguing that, in the absence of an efficient legal system, trust must exist between parties to facilitate the pervasive use of contracts.

The empirical results are derived from mail survey responses of 111 South African and 116 New Zealand wineries. These two countries were selected because of the variances in the efficiencies of their legal systems. Multiple regression models were used to investigate the importance that parties place on trust and the legal system when considering the use of incomplete contracts to govern supply chain relationships that are characterised by high asset specificity and high uncertainty.

It was found that contracts are frequently used to govern transactions in both countries, and that trust between parties is an effective substitute for an efficient legal system in governing contractual relations. Specifically, it was found that trust between parties is the major motivating factor for the use of contracts in South Africa, overcoming the weakness of the legal system, while reliance on the legal system to enforce contracts underpins the New Zealand industry.

This study offers a direct cross-country comparison drawn from a population study of two major wine-producing countries that has not been attempted before. In the three models, measures were included to capture the effectiveness of a state’s legal system to extend the governance literature.

Economic crime is too varied an activity to be explained by a single theory. Valuable insights are gained from theories that focus on individual characteristics and on the socio‐economic context of crime, but these theories are not sufficient explanations of economically motivated crime. They are usefully supplemented by legal responsiveness theory, which focuses on the capacity of the economic system to provide legal means to adapt to economic change. This theory acknowledges the insights of chaos and cellular automata theory into the inevitable and unpredictable nature of economic change. Variation in the system's capacity for legal responsiveness to unpredicted change is hypothesized to have an impact on crime. Economic crime can be an indication of dysfunction in the adaptation systems of the economy. The concepts of ecological and evolutionary economics such as stability, resilience, connectedness and adaptation offer an approach to analyzing the systemic property of legal responsiveness.