Law School

Additional restrictions beyond public notice.

Sex offenders on parole or probation in the United States are generally subject to the same restrictions as other parolees and probationers.

Sex offenders who have completed probation or parole may also be subject to restrictions above and beyond those of most felons. In some jurisdictions, they cannot live within a certain distance of places children or families gather. Such places are usually schools, worship centers, and parks, but could also include public venues (stadiums), airports, apartments, malls, major retail stores, college campuses, and certain neighborhoods (unless for essential business). In some U.S. states, they may also be barred from voting after a sentence has been completed and, at the federal level, barred from owning firearms, like all felons.

Some U.S. states have Civil Confinement laws, which allow very-high-risk sex offenders to be placed in secure facilities, "in many ways like prisons", where they are supposed to be offered treatment and regularly reevaluated for possible release. In practice, most states with Civil Commitment centers rarely release anyone. Texas has not released anyone in the 15 years since the program was started. In 2015, in response to a class action lawsuit, a Federal judge ruled Minnesota's Civil Commitment program to be unconstitutional, both for not providing effective treatment and for not fully releasing anyone since the program was started in 1994.

The U.S. state of Missouri now restricts the activities of registered sex offenders on Halloween, requiring them to avoid Halloween-related contact with children and remain at their registered home address from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., unless they are required to work that evening. Regardless of whether they are at work, offenders must extinguish all outside residential lighting and post a sign stating, "No candy or treats at this residence - sex offender at this residence".

In the United Kingdom, anyone convicted of any criminal offense cannot work in the legal, medical, teaching, or nursing professions. List 99 includes people convicted of sex offenses barred from working in education and social work, though it also includes people convicted of theft, fraud, corruption, assault, and drugs offenses.

Facebook and Instagram prohibit convicted sex offenders from using their websites.

Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Any individual or spy ring (a cooperating group of spies), in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.

Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However, the term tends to be associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage.

One way to gather data and information about a targeted organization is by infiltrating its ranks. Spies can then return information such as the size and strength of enemy forces. They can also find dissidents within the organization and influence them to provide further information or to defect. In times of crisis, spies steal technology and sabotage the enemy in various ways. Counterintelligence is the practice of thwarting enemy espionage and intelligence-gathering. Almost all sovereign states have strict laws concerning espionage, including those who practise espionage in other countries, and the penalties for being caught are often severe.

Law.

Espionage against a nation is a crime under the legal code of many nations. In the United States, it is covered by the Espionage Act of 1917. The risks of espionage vary. A spy violating the host country's laws may be deported, imprisoned, or even executed. A spy violating its own country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage or and treason (which in the United States and some other jurisdictions can only occur if they take up arms or aids the enemy against their own country during wartime), or even executed, as the Rosenbergs were. For example, when Aldrich Ames handed a stack of dossiers of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in the Eastern Bloc to his KGB-officer "handler", the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames was arrested by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he faced life in prison; his contact, who had diplomatic immunity, was declared persona non grata and taken to the airport. Ames' wife was threatened with life imprisonment if her husband did not cooperate; he did, and she was given a five-year sentence. Hugh Francis Redmond, a CIA officer in China, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison for espionage—and died there—as he was operating without diplomatic cover and immunity.

In United States law, treason, espionage, and spying are separate crimes. Treason and espionage have graduated punishment levels.

The United States in World War I passed the Espionage Act of 1917. Over the years, many spies, such as the Soble spy ring, Robert Lee Johnson, the Rosenberg ring, Aldrich Hazen Ames, Robert Philip Hanssen, Jonathan Pollard, John Anthony Walker, James Hall III, and others have been prosecuted under this law.

An oral will (or nuncupative will) is a will that has been delivered orally (that is, in speech) to witnesses, as opposed to the usual form of wills, which is written and according to a proper format.

A minority of U.S. states (approximately 20 as of 2009), permit nuncupative wills under certain circumstances. Under most statutes, such wills can only be made during a person's "last sickness," must be witnessed by at least three persons, and reduced to writing by the witnesses within a specified amount of time after the testator's death. Some states also place limits on the types and value of property that can be bequeathed in this manner. A few U.S. states permit nuncupative wills made by military personnel on active duty. Under the law in England and Wales oral wills are permitted to military personnel and merchant seamen on duty (see law report below) and it is common practice in Commonwealth countries.

An analogy can be drawn to the concept of last donations (donatio mortis causa) established by Roman law and still in effect in England and Wales.

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Attestation clause.

In the statutory law of wills and trusts, an attestation clause is a clause that is typically appended to a will, often just below the place of the testator's signature.

United States.

In the United States, attestation clauses were introduced into probate law with the promulgation of the first version of the Model Probate Code in the 1940s. Statutes that authorize self-proved wills typically provide that a will that contains this language will be admitted to probate without affidavits from the attesting witnesses.

An attestation clause modeled on the Model Probate Code's language might provide:

We, the undersigned testator and the undersigned witnesses, respectively, whose names are signed to the attached or foregoing instrument declare:

(1) that the testator executed the instrument as the testator's will;

(2) that, in the presence of both witnesses, the testator signed or acknowledged the signature already made or directed another to sign for the testator in the testator's presence;

(3) that the testator executed the will as a free and voluntary act for the purposes expressed in it;

(4) that each of the witnesses, in the presence of the testator and of each other, signed the will as a witness;

(5) that the testator was of sound mind when the will was executed; and

(6) that to the best knowledge of each of the witnesses the testator was, at the time the will was executed, at least eighteen (18) years of age or was a member of the armed forces or of the merchant marine of the United States or its allies.

The validity and form of an attestation clause is usually a matter of U.S. state law, and will vary from state to state. Many states allow attestation clauses to be added as codicils to wills that were originally drafted without them.

Non-economic damages caps are tort reforms to limit (for example, "cap") damages in lawsuits for subjective, non-pecuniary harms such as pain, suffering, inconvenience, emotional distress, loss of society and companionship, loss of consortium, and loss of enjoyment of life. This is opposed to economic damages, which encompasses pecuniary harms such as medical bills, lost wages, lost future income, loss of use of property, costs of repair or replacement, the economic value of domestic services, and loss of employment or business opportunities. Non-economic damages should not be confused with punitive or exemplary damages, which are awarded purely to penalize defendants and do not aim to compensate either pecuniary or non-pecuniary losses.

Non-economic damages caps are intended to reduce the ability of courts and, in the few jurisdictions which continue to maintain juries in civil cases, juries to award excessive or otherwise large damages for subjective harm that cannot easily be objectively assessed. The rationale underlying such caps is to curtail the impact of excessive damages on plaintiffs, particularly in the context of lawsuits against private individuals or companies for negligence causing personal injury or property damage and against medical professionals for malpractice claims brought by patients. With regard to the former, proponents of tort reform argue that large and subjective awards of damages against individuals who did not necessarily intend to cause harm is fundamentally unjust as it can severely impact the defendant's financial independence while large and unpredictable awards against businesses can increase the legal cost of doing business thus leading to unsustainably higher prices for consumers and decreasing overall economic activity to the detriment of society at large.

With regard to the latter, proponents of tort reform argue that large, unpredictable damages causes an increase in the cost of medical malpractice insurance for healthcare professionals and encourages the practice of defensive medicine whereby medical practitioners agree to unnecessary treatment in order to decrease the likelihood of future malpractice claims. Opponents of tort reform regard non-economic damages caps in both instances as unfair to plaintiffs, particularly in cases involving personal injuries whose financial cost to victims may greatly exceed acceptable economic damages. Additionally, opponents argue that limits on damages in cases of medical malpractice may create moral hazard as healthcare professionals face reduced liability. Consequently, the implementation of non-economic damages caps and decisions as to the extent to which different areas of tort law are subject to caps is more contentious than caps on purely punitive damages.

Trade dress is the characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers. Trade dress is an aspect of trademark law, which is a form of intellectual property protection law.

Overview.

Trade dress is an extension of trademark protection to "the design and shape of the materials in which a product is packaged, . 'Product configuration,' the design and shape of the product itself, may also be considered a form of trade dress."

Product configuration applies particularly to situations where the product can be seen within the packaging (for example a toy car sold in packaging that operates as a shadow box for commercial display within—the collective look it creates is trade dress), or where the packaging is part of the product (for example the bottle of a soft drink, along with its visible contents, are trade dress, though the bottle is actually part of the product that retains its value to the consumer for as long as its contents last).

Like all intellectual property law other than patent law, trade dress and other trademark elements are subject to the bar on functional features (for example a handle cannot be protected, though it may contain trade dress features that can prevent exact replicas of a particular trade dress handle). It is a question of which elements of the packaging are intrinsic to the basic function of the packaging.

In the United States, the Lanham Act protects trade dress if it serves the same source-identifying function as a trademark. It is possible to register a trade dress as a trademark, but for practical reasons most trade dress and product configurations are protected without registration under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a).

United Kingdom.

Trade dress can be protected as getup under the law of passing off in the UK. Passing off is a common law remedy for protecting an unregistered trade mark. Getup, packaging, business strategy, marketing techniques, advertisement themes etc. can also be protected under passing off.

United States.

Trade dress protection is intended to protect consumers from packaging or appearance of products that are designed to imitate other products; to prevent a consumer from buying one product under the belief that it is another. For example, the shape, color, and arrangement of the materials of a children's line of clothing can be protectable trade dress (though, the design of the garments themselves is not protected), as can the design of a magazine cover, the appearance and décor of a chain of Mexican-style restaurants, and a method of displaying wine bottles in a wine shop.

A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. Sex offender registration is usually accompanied by residential address notification requirements. In many jurisdictions, registered sex offenders are subject to additional restrictions, including on housing. Those on parole or probation may be subject to restrictions that do not apply to other parolees or probationers. These may include (or have been proposed to include) restrictions on being in the presence of underage persons (those below the age of majority), living in proximity to a school or day care center, owning toys or items targeted towards children, or using the Internet. Sex offender registries exist in many English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. The United States is the only country that allows public access to the sex offender registry; all other countries in the English-speaking world have sex offender registries only accessible by law enforcement.

In offense-based systems, registration is required when a person is convicted (or, in some jurisdictions, adjudicated delinquent, found not guilty by reason of insanity, or found not criminally responsible) under one of the listed offenses requiring registration. In the U.S. federal system, persons registered are put into a tier program based on their offense of conviction. Risk based systems have been proposed but not implemented.

In the United States, the vast majority of the states are applying offense-based registries, leaving the actual risk level of the offender and severity of the offense uncertain. The few U.S. states applying risk-based systems are pressured by the U.S. federal government to adopt offense-based systems in accordance with Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. Studies have shown that actuarial risk assessment instruments consistently outperform the offense-based system mandated by federal law. Consequently, the effectiveness of offense-based registries has been questioned by professionals, and evidence exists suggesting that such registries are counterproductive.

Some aspects of the current sex offender registries in the United States have been widely criticized by civil rights organizations Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, professional organizations Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, reformist groups Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc., Women Against Registry and USA FAIR, and by child safety advocate Patty Wetterling, the Chair of National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Virtually no studies exist finding U.S. registries effective, prompting some researchers to call them pointless, many even calling them counterproductive, arguing that they increase the rate of re-offense.

Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.

Historically, in common law countries, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife or that of a master by his servant. Treason (for example disloyalty) against one's monarch was known as high treason and treason against a lesser superior was petty treason. As jurisdictions around the world abolished petty treason, "treason" came to refer to what was historically known as high treason.

At times, the term traitor has been used as a political epithet, regardless of any verifiable treasonable action. In a civil war or insurrection, the winners may deem the losers to be traitors. Likewise the term traitor is used in heated political discussion – typically as a slur against political dissidents, or against officials in power who are perceived as failing to act in the best interest of their constituents. In certain cases, as with the Dolchstoßlegende (Stab-in-the-back myth), the accusation of treason towards a large group of people can be a unifying political message.

United States.

The offense of treason exists at both federal and state levels. The federal crime is defined in the Constitution as either levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies, and carries a sentence of death or imprisonment and fine.

In the 1790s, opposition political parties were new and not fully accepted. Government leaders often considered their opponents to be traitors. Historian Ron Chernow reports that Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and President George Washington "regarded much of the criticism fired at their administration as disloyal, even treasonous, in nature." When the undeclared Quasi-War broke out with France in 1797–98, "Hamilton increasingly mistook dissent for treason and engaged in hyperbole." Furthermore, the Jeffersonian opposition party behaved the same way. After 1801, with a peaceful transition in the political party in power, the rhetoric of "treason" against political opponents diminished.

A codicil is a testamentary or supplementary document similar but not necessarily identical to a will. In some jurisdictions, it may serve to amend, rather than replace, a previously executed will. In others, it may serve as an alternative to a will. In still others, there is no recognized distinction between a codicil and a will.

Origins.

The concept of a testamentary document as similar to but distinct from a will originated in Roman law. In the pre-classical period, a testator was required to nominate an heir in order for his will to be valid (heredis institutio). Failure to nominate an heir or failure to observe the proper formalities for nomination of an heir resulted in an estate divided pursuant to the rules of intestacy. However, a testator was also able to institute a fideicommissum, a more flexible and less formal indication of the testator's intent, which could have the effect of transferring part or all of his estate after death, although with fewer rights to the beneficiary than those of a nominated heir.

A codicillus (diminutive of codex) was a written document subject to fewer formal requirements than a will (testamentum) that, in its initial use, could supplement or amend an existing will, provided that the codicil was specified, i. e. confirmed, in the will. However, if the will did not confirm the codicil, all provisions in the codicil were considered fideicommissa. Furthermore, a will that did not nominate an heir could be considered a codicil. Thus, when a testator did not nominate an heir, his will would be considered a codicil and his bequests would become fideicommissa. This "opened a way to save certain dispositions in a will which was invalid due to some formal or substantive defect": if a testator failed or chose not to nominate an heir, an estate would pass to heirs pursuant to rules of intestacy, but those heirs would be bound by the fideicommissa in the codicil. By the time of the Codex Justinianus, the formal requirements for wills had relaxed, while requirements for codicils had become more stringent. "There was thus little difference between the formalities for a will and for a codicil", and an invalid will, when for example, no heir had been nominated, could often be validated as a codicil.

It is acknowledged that classical Roman inheritance law was "highly complicated and to a large extent perplexedly entangled".

Modern development.

The codicil remained a distinct entity to a will (testament) to varying degrees throughout the Roman-influenced legal world. The concept of heredis institutio (a will requires an heir) was part of the jus commune up until modern times.

In the United States, a codicil is a document that changes an existing will. Amendments made by a codicil may alter, explain, add to, subtract from, or confirm – and otherwise amend a will in any other way, minor or major, short of complete revocation. It is subject to the same formal requirements as a will.

Tort reform refers to changes in the civil justice system in common law countries that aim to reduce the ability of plaintiffs to bring tort litigation (particularly actions for negligence) or to reduce damages they can receive. Such changes are generally justified under the grounds that litigation is an inefficient means to compensate plaintiffs; that tort law permits frivolous or otherwise undesirable litigation to crowd the court system; or that the fear of litigation can serve to curtail innovation, raise the cost of consumer goods or insurance premiums for suppliers of services (for example medical malpractice insurance), and increase legal costs for businesses. Tort reform has primarily been prominent in common law jurisdictions, where criticism of judge-made rules regarding tort actions manifests in calls for statutory reform by the legislature.

United States.

Tort reform advocates frequently contend that too many of the lawsuits filed in the United States each year are "frivolous" lawsuits. The term "frivolous lawsuit" has acquired a broader rhetorical definition in political debates about tort reform, where it is sometimes used by reform advocates to describe legally non-frivolous tort lawsuits that critics believe are without merit, or award high damage awards relative to actual damages. In the United States, tort reform is a contentious political issue. US tort reform advocates propose, among other things, procedural limits on the ability to file claims, and capping the awards of damages. Opponents of tort reform argue that reformers have misstated the existence of any real factual issue and criticize tort reform as disguised corporate welfare.

Tort reform advocates argue that the present tort system is too expensive, that meritless lawsuits clog up the courts, that per capita tort costs vary significantly from state to state, and that trial attorneys too often receive an overly large percentage of the punitive damages awarded to plaintiffs in tort cases. (The typical contingent fee arrangement provides for the lawyer to retain one-third of any recovery.) A Towers Perrin report indicates that U. S. tort costs were up slightly in 2007, are expected to significantly increase in 2008, and shows trends dating back as far as 1950. More recent research from the same source has found that tort costs as a percentage of GDP dropped between 2001 and 2009, and are now at their lowest level since 1984. High-profile tort cases are often portrayed by the media as the legal system's version of a lottery, where trial lawyers actively seek the magic combination of plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury. Advocates of tort reform complain of unconstitutional regulation caused by litigation, and that litigation is used to circumvent the legislative process by achieving regulation that Congress is unwilling or unable to pass.

In copyright law, related rights (or neighboring rights) are the rights of a creative work not connected with the work's actual author. It is used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". Neighboring rights is a more literal translation of the original French droits voisins. Both authors' rights and related rights are copyrights in the sense of English or U.S. law.

Related rights vary much more widely in scope between different countries than authors' rights. The rights of performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organizations are certainly covered, and are internationally protected by the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations signed in 1961.

Within the European Union, the rights of film producers (as opposed to directors) and database creators are also protected by related rights, and the term is sometimes extended to include the sui generis rights in semiconductor topologies and other industrial design rights. A practical definition is that related rights are copyright-type rights that are not covered by the Berne Convention.

International protection of related rights.

Apart from the Rome convention, a number of other treaties address the protection of related rights:

Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms (Geneva Phonograms Convention, 1971).

Convention Relating to the Distribution of Programme–Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite (Brussels Convention, 1974).

Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits (IPIC Treaty, 1989).

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS, 1994).

WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT, 1996).

Apart from the TRIPS Agreement, these treaties cannot truly be described as global: the Rome Convention had 83 signatories as of 2006, compared with 162 for the Berne Convention.

Rehabilitation is the process of re-educating and retraining those who have committed a crime. It generally involves psychological approaches which target the cognitive distortions associated with specific kinds of crime committed by particular offenders – but may also involve more general education such as literacy skills and work training. The goal is to reintegrate offenders back into society.

Methods.

A successful rehabilitation of a prisoner is also helped if convicted persons:

are not placed in health-threateningly bad conditions, enjoy access to medical care and are protected from other forms of serious ill-treatment,

are able to maintain ties to the outside world,

learn new skills to assist them with working life on the outside,

enjoy clear and detailed statutory regulations clarifying the safeguards applicable and governing the use and disposal of any record of data relating to criminal matters.

Applications.

Norway.

Norway's prison system is based on the principle of normalization and away from retribution to focus on rehabilitation. Inmates have access to amenities they would have outside of prison, such as an exclusive mini fridge, flat-screen TV, private bathroom, and access to the outdoor environment. This, along with a shared kitchen and living area "to create a sense of family" among inmates and the absence of traditional prison uniforms contributes to Norway's rehabilitative normalcy system. The prison's structure is composed of Units A, B and C, with Unit A housing those in need of psychiatric or medical attention, thus being the most prohibitive of the three. Halden Fengsel, referred to as the "world's most humane maximum-security prison", embodies the country's goal of reintegration by aiding inmates in sorting out housing and employment before leaving the prison. Rehabilitative measures involve education, job training, workshops to acquire a trade, and therapy along with the humane treatment they receive from personnel who have to complete three years of training to become prison guards.

The effectiveness of Norway's methods is evident as they hold the lowest recidivism rate worldwide at 20% as of December 2014. In comparison, in 2007, 14 prisons in England and Wales had reconviction rates of more than 70%, which cost an average of £40,000 a year for each prisoner. This has been accused of being "a huge investment in failure" and "a total lack of consideration for potential future victims of released prisoners". "Better out than in" is Norway's Correctional Service unofficial motto that is in view with their rehabilitative system as a justice to society by integrating inmates as functioning members of society upon release.

Meditation.

Vipassanā 10-day meditation courses were first taught in prisons in India in 1975. They have since been conducted in the US (1997–present), UK (1998), Spain (2003), Israel (2007) and Ireland (2015). Vipassana meditation aims to reduce negative mental states such as anger and aggression, and provide a path to inner peace.

Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction by omission (neglect) or by commission by humans of suffering or harm upon non-human animals. More narrowly, it can be the causing of harm or suffering for specific achievements, such as killing animals for entertainment; cruelty to animals sometimes encompasses inflicting harm or suffering as an end in itself, referred to as zoosadism.

Divergent approaches to laws concerning animal cruelty occur in different jurisdictions throughout the world. For example, some laws govern methods of killing animals for food, clothing, or other products, and other laws concern the keeping of animals for entertainment, education, research, or pets. There are several conceptual approaches to the issue of cruelty to animals.

Even though some practices, like animal fighting, are widely acknowledged as cruel, not all people and nations have the same definition of what constitutes animal cruelty. Many would claim that docking a piglet's tail without an anesthetic constitutes cruelty. Others would respond that it is a routine technique for meat production to prevent harm later in the pig's life. Additionally, laws governing animal cruelty vary from nation to nation. While it is routine practice in the United States, docking a piglet's tail as part of regular practice is prohibited in the European Union (EU).

It may be said that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals for human purposes, such as food, clothing, entertainment, and research, but that it should be done in a way that minimizes unnecessary pain and suffering, sometimes referred to as "humane" treatment. In contrast, some have argued that the definition of 'unnecessary' stated above varies widely and could include virtually all current use of animals.

Utilitarian advocates argue from the position of costs and benefits and vary in their conclusions as to the allowable treatment of animals. Some utilitarians argue for a weaker approach which is closer to the animal welfare position, whereas others argue for a position that is similar to animal rights. Animal rights theorists criticize these positions, arguing that the words "unnecessary" and "humane" are subject to widely differing interpretations and that animals have basic rights. They say that most animal use itself is unnecessary and a cause of suffering, so the only way to ensure protection for animals is to end their status as property and to ensure that they are never viewed as a substance or as non-living things.

Joint wills and mutual wills are closely related terms used in the law of wills to describe two types of testamentary writing that may be executed by a married couple to ensure that their property is disposed of identically. Neither should be confused with mirror wills which means two separate, identical wills, which may or may not also be mutual wills.

Joint wills.

A joint will is a single document executed by more than one person (typically between spouses), making which has effect in relation to each signatory's property upon death (unless the will is revoked (cancels) the will during the signatory's lifetime). Although a single document, the joint will is a separate distribution of property by each executor (signatory) and will be treated as such on admission to probate. Mutual wills are any two (or more) wills which are mutually binding, such that following the first death the survivor is constrained in the ability to dispose of the property by the agreement the survivor made with the deceased. Historically such wills had an important role in ensuring property passed to children of a marriage rather than a spouse of a widow or widower on a remarriage.

The recognition of these forms varies widely from one jurisdiction to the next. Some permit both, some will not recognize joint wills, and many have established a presumption that one or both of these forms creates a will contract.

A joint will differs substantively from a mutual will in that the former is not intended to be irrevocable or to express a mutual intention; it is merely an administrative convenience. A will may be both joint (on one document) and mutual (see below).

Mutual wills.

Mutual wills have four basic requirements and a strict standard for enforceability:

The agreement must be made in a particular form.

The agreement must be contractual in effect. (Contrast Goodchild v Goodchild and Lewis v Cotton).

The agreement must be intended to be irrevocable.

The surviving party must have intended the will to reflect the agreement.

Mutual wills are rare, and often another form of constructive trust is imposed (Healey v Browne). It is also noted (Carnwath J in Re Goodchild) that a mutual will is a technical legal device requiring an intention to form a binding agreement and that this often differs from the "loose moral obligation" presupposed as binding by the layman.

Trover cases in the United States.

Trover is the name of the action which lay, at common law, for the recovery of damages for the conversion of personal property in his possession, usually involving chattels held in bailment. Although the old forms of action have been abolished or disappeared under modern civil procedure in the United States, the common law action for conversion still exists in fact, if not in form. (Extensive case law is reviewed.) 

A person who purchases personal property from one not authorized to sell the chattel may be held liable for the conversion of the article. This is regardless of the fact that the purchaser was honestly mistaken, or acted innocently, in good faith and without knowledge of the seller's lack of authority to make the sale. This rule also holds in cases where the purchaser takes possession of the goods, mixes them with his own property, holds them to his own use, refuses to surrender possession on demand, disposes of the goods to a third person by sale, lease or bailment or in general exercises rights of ownership as to the property purchased in denial of the real owner's rights after knowledge of the rights of the true owner.

Deaderick  Oulds, 1887.

In the 1887 case of Deaderick  Oulds, the Supreme Court of Tennessee ruled on a case of trover. The defendant, Oulds, cut 800 walnut logs, branded them with the letter "D", then proceeded to float them down a river with the intention of recovering them downstream. Sometime later, Oulds found an unmarked log among his other marked logs which had peculiar cracks at one end. He floated the unmarked log down the river, and it washed up on an island owned by the plaintiff, Deaderick, who then claimed the log as his in trover or replevin. The Tennessee court quoted the English case of Bridges  Hawkesworth where the plaintiff, being in the shop of the defendant, picked up a parcel containing bank notes. The defendant, at the request of the finder, took charge of the notes, to hold for the owner. After three years, no one had come forth to claim them. The defendant shop owner refused to deliver them to the plaintiff. The court held the defendant shop owner liable in trover for the notes.

The Tennessee Supreme Court observed it is essential in cases of trover, that the property must be found; it must at the time when the finder came upon it, to have been in such a situation as to clearly indicate that it was lost. It cannot have been placed there by the original owner who lost it by carelessness or forgetfulness, where it was later found by someone else. In such cases, the owner of the premises where the property is found is treated as a quasi-bailee (for example he holds the property for the original owner), and he may maintain trover against the finder. Since the log was not intentionally laid by the (unknown) owner on the land of the plaintiff (Deaderick), and hence he was not a quasi-bailee for the owner, he cannot hold against the superior right of the defendant (Oulds) arising out of his prior possession and earlier finding of the log. Judgment for ownership of the log was to the defendant Oulds.

In copyright law, related rights (or neighboring rights) are the rights of a creative work not connected with the work's actual author. It is used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". Neighboring rights is a more literal translation of the original French droits voisins. Both authors' rights and related rights are copyrights in the sense of English or U.S. law.

Related rights vary much more widely in scope between different countries than authors' rights. The rights of performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organizations are certainly covered, and are internationally protected by the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations signed in 1961.

Within the European Union, the rights of film producers (as opposed to directors) and database creators are also protected by related rights, and the term is sometimes extended to include the sui generis rights in semiconductor topologies and other industrial design rights. A practical definition is that related rights are copyright-type rights that are not covered by the Berne Convention.

International protection of related rights.

Apart from the Rome convention, a number of other treaties address the protection of related rights:

Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms (Geneva Phonograms Convention, 1971).

Convention Relating to the Distribution of Programme–Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite (Brussels Convention, 1974).

Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits (IPIC Treaty, 1989).

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS, 1994).

WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT, 1996).

Apart from the TRIPS Agreement, these treaties cannot truly be described as global: the Rome Convention had 83 signatories as of 2006, compared with 162 for the Berne Convention.

Relation to authors' rights.

Related rights are independent of any authors' rights, as is made clear in the various treaties (Article 1 Rome; Article 7.1 Geneva; Article 1.2 WPPT). Hence a CD recording of a song is concurrently protected by four copyright-type rights:

Authors' rights of the composer of the music.

Authors' rights of the lyricist.

Performers' rights of the singer and musicians.

Producers' rights of the person or corporation that made the recording.

Recidivism from recidive and -ism, from Latin recidivus "recurring", from re- "back" and cado "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense.

The term is frequently used in conjunction with criminal behavior and substance abuse. Recidivism is a synonym for "relapse", which is more commonly used in medicine and in the disease model of addiction.

Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. Prisons in Norway and the Norwegian criminal justice system focus on restorative justice and rehabilitating prisoners rather than punishment.

United States.

According to the latest study by the US Department of Justice, recidivism measures require three characteristics: 1. a starting event, such as a release from prison 2. a measure of failure following the starting event, such as a subsequent arrest, conviction, or return to prison 3. an observation or follow-up period that generally extends from the date of the starting event to a predefined end date as in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, or 9 years). The latest  reported that 83% of state prisoners were arrested at some point in the 9 years following their release. A large majority of those were arrested within the first 3 years, and more than 50% get rearrested within the first year. However, the longer the time period, the higher the reported recidivism rate, but the lower the actual threat to public safety.

According to an April 2011 report by the Pew Center on the States, the average national recidivism rate for released prisoners is 43%.

According to the National Institute of Justice, almost 44 percent of the recently released return before the end of their first year out. About 68 percent of 405,000 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years of their release from prison, and 77 percent were arrested within five years, and by year nine that number reaches 83 percent.

Beginning in the 1990s, the US rate of incarceration increased dramatically, filling prisons to capacity in bad conditions for inmates. Crime continues inside many prison walls. Gangs exist on the inside, often with tactical decisions made by imprisoned leaders.

While the US justice system has traditionally focused its efforts at the front end of the system, by locking people up, it has not exerted an equal effort at the tail end of the system: decreasing the likelihood of reoffending among formerly incarcerated persons. This is a significant issue because ninety-five percent of prisoners will be released back into the community at some point.

A cost study performed by the Vera Institute of Justice, a non-profit committed to decarceration in the United States, found that the average per-inmate cost of incarceration among the 40 states surveyed was $31,286 per year.

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel). The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century but became widely used internationally and gained worldwide attention in the 1970s during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque conflict, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The increased use of suicide attacks from the 1980s onwards was typified by the 2001 September 11 attacks in the United States.

There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Terrorism is a charged term. It is often used with the connotation of something that is "morally wrong". Governments and non-state groups use the term to abuse or denounce opposing groups. Varied political organizations have been accused of using terrorism to achieve their objectives. These include left-wing and right-wing political organizations, nationalist groups, religious groups, revolutionaries and ruling governments. Legislation declaring terrorism a crime has been adopted in many states. State terrorism is that perpetrated by nation states, but is not considered such by the state conducting it, making legality a gray area. There is no consensus as to whether terrorism should be regarded as a war crime. Separating activism and terrorism can be difficult and has been described as a 'fine line'.

The Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland, College Park, has recorded more than 61,000 incidents of non-state terrorism, resulting in at least 140,000 deaths, between 2000 and 2014.

Legislation.

Such were the principal stages in the history of the law as it affected wills made before 1838 or proved before 1858. The principal Acts in force in the early twentieth century were the Wills Act 1837, the amending Act of 1852, the Court of Probate Act 1857, the Judicature Acts 1873 and 1875, and the Land Transfer Act 1897. All but the Acts of 1837 and 1852 deal mainly with what happens to the will after death, whether under the voluntary or contentious jurisdiction of the Probate Division.

The earliest on the statute roll is an Act of Henry the 3rd  (1236), enabling a widow to bequeath the crops of her lands. Before the Wills Act 1837 uniformity in the law had been urgently recommended by the Real Property Commissioners in 1833. It appears from their report that at the time of its appearance there were ten different ways in which a will might be made under different circumstances.

The Wills Act 1837 affected both the making and the interpretation of wills. Excluding the latter for the present, its main provisions were these:

All property, real and personal, and of whatever tenure, may be disposed of by will.

If customary freeholds or copyholds are devised, the will must be entered on the manorial rolls.

No will made by any person under the age of twenty-one is valid.

Every will is to be in writing, signed at the foot or end thereof by the testator or by some person in his presence and by his direction, and such signature is to be made or acknowledged by the testator in the presence of two or more witnesses present at the same time, who are to subscribe the will in the presence of the testator. It is usual for the testator and the witnesses to sign every sheet.

Gifts to a witness or the husband or wife of a witness are void.

A will is revoked by a later will, or by destruction with the intention of revoking, but not by presumption arising from an alteration in circumstances.

Alterations in a will must be executed and attested as a will.

A will speaks from the death of the testator, unless a contrary intention appears.

An unattested document may be, if properly identified, incorporated in a will.

Rules of interpretation or construction depend chiefly on decisions of the courts, to a smaller extent on statutory enactment. The law was gradually brought into its present condition through precedents extending back for centuries, especially decisions of the court of chancery, the court par excellence of construction, as distinguished from the court of probate. The court of probate did not deal unless incidentally with the meaning of the will; its jurisdiction was confined to seeing that it was duly executed. The present state of the law of interpretation is highly technical. Some phrases have obtained a conventional meaning which the testators who used them probably did not dream of. Many of the judicial doctrines which had gradually become established were altered by the Wills Act 1837.

Trover is a form of lawsuit in common-law countries for recovery of damages for wrongful taking of personal property. Trover belongs to a series of remedies for such wrongful taking, its distinctive feature being recovery only for the value of whatever was taken, not for the recovery of the property itself.

Overview

Although actions in trover can be traced to the time of Bracton, and later Edward the 1st of England, it became more clearly defined later during the reign of Henry the 6th of England, 1422–1461 and 1470–1471. Action in trover became a mature legal doctrine during the reign of Elizabeth the 1st of England, 1558–1603.

Early trover cases involved the keeping or taking of a bailment by the bailee (the person charged to hold the property with "ordinary care"). Others concerned the use of lost chattels found by another and determining who was the real owner. Early on, there was difficulty in dealing with situations where chattels held by a bailee were used by a third party. Examples could be sheep, horses, farm goods, grains or other chattels left in the care of a person who was required to exercise ordinary care. If negligence led to damages, an action could be had. A third person might use the chattel, returning it in a damaged condition. The early common law had some difficulty in dealing with this kind of situation. This led to expansions of actions in trover.

The theory of trover was that the defendant, by "converting" the chattel to his own use, had appropriated the plaintiff's property, for which he was required to make compensation. The plaintiff was not required to accept the chattel when it was tendered back to him. He could recover damages for the full value of the chattel at the time and place of conversion. The effect was that the defendant was compelled to buy the chattel at a forced sale, carried out by means of an action in trover.

Trover actions frequently concerned the finding of lost property. It could also involve cargo on ships, such as those lost at sea and later found. Trover often involved cases in which the only "most correct" owner could be determined. For instance, if an envelope of bank notes or currency were to be found, the court would attempt to identify the true owner, but this would often prove to be impossible. In that case, the finder would be the next best owner and be considered the rightful possessor. Trover cases have been described as "finders keepers, losers weepers" cases.

Trover damages came to be measured by the market value of the object, not necessarily its replacement cost if it were new. Sometimes, compensation for deprivation of use and compensation for other losses naturally and approximately caused by the wrongful taking could be added. Case law results are mixed. The plaintiff could also recover interest that would have been earned by the money value of the object and any expense (except attorney's fees) incurred in attempting to recover the object. If the taker sold the object for more than its market value, the plaintiff could receive the higher price. However, selling the chattel could change the action to that of a true conversion which was a form of theft. If the taker had made improvements on the object (for example, repainted it), the value of such improvements are not deducted from the plaintiff's recovery unless the taking was by mistake.

Plant genetic resources describe the variability within plants that comes from human and natural selection over millennia. Their intrinsic value mainly concerns agricultural crops (crop biodiversity).

According to the 1983 revised International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), plant genetic resources are defined as the entire generative and vegetative reproductive material of species with economical and or social value, especially for the agriculture of the present and the future, with special emphasis on nutritional plants.

In the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (1998) the FAO defined Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) as the diversity of genetic material contained in traditional varieties and modern cultivars as well as crop wild relatives and other wild plant species that can be used now or in the future for food and agriculture.

History.

The first use of plant genetic resources dates to more than 10,000 years ago, when farmers selected from the genetic variation they found in wild plants to develop their crops. As human populations moved to different climates and ecosystems, taking the crops with them, the crops adapted to the new environments, developing, for example, genetic traits providing tolerance to conditions such as drought, water logging, frost and extreme heat. These traits - and the plasticity inherent in having wide genetic variability - are important properties of plant genetic resources.

In recent centuries, although humans had been prolific in collecting exotic flora from all corners of the globe to fill their gardens, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that the widespread and organized collection of plant genetic resources for agricultural use began in earnest. Russian geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, considered by some as the father of plant genetic resources, realized the value of genetic variability for breeding and collected thousands of seeds during his extensive travels to establish one of the first gene banks. Vavilov inspired the American Jack Harlan to collect seeds from across the globe for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). David Fairchild, another botanist at USDA, successfully introduced many important crops (for example cherries, soybeans, pistachios) into the United States.

It wasn’t until 1967 that the term genetic resources was coined by Otto Frankel and Erna Bennett at the historic International Conference on Crop Plant Exploration and Conservation, organized by the FAO and the International Biological Program (IBP) “The effective utilization of genetic resources requires that they are adequately classified and evaluated” was a key message from the conference.

A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction.

Pardons can be granted in many countries when individuals are deemed to have demonstrated that they have "paid their debt to society", or are otherwise considered to be deserving of them. In some jurisdictions of some nations, accepting a pardon may implicitly constitute an admission of guilt; the offer is refused in some cases. Cases of wrongful conviction are in recent times more often dealt with by appeal rather than by pardon; however, a pardon is sometimes offered when innocence is undisputed in order to avoid the costs that are associated with a retrial. Clemency plays a critical role when capital punishment exists in a jurisdiction.

Pardons are sometimes seen as a mechanism for combating corruption, allowing a particular authority to circumvent a flawed judicial process to free someone who is seen as wrongly convicted. Pardons can also be a source of controversy. In extreme cases, some pardons may be seen as acts of corruption by officials in the form of granting effective immunity as political favors.

United States.

U.S. Constitution.

In the United States, the pardon power for offenses against the United States is granted to the President of the United States under Article 2, Section 2 of the United States Constitution which states that the President "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment". The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this language to include the power to grant many different forms of clemency (generally less sweeping than a full pardon), including not only pardons, but also conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines, forfeitures and other criminal financial penalties, respites and reprieves, and amnesties.

The pardon power of the President applies only to convictions under federal law. Additionally, the power extends to military court-martial cases as well as convictions in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Almost all pardon petitions are addressed to the President, who grants or denies the request. In some cases, the President will, of their own accord, issue a pardon. Typically, applications for pardons are referred for review and non-binding recommendation by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, an official of the United States Department of Justice.

A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon rules.

During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combat fought with swords (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols. Fencing and shooting continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century.

The duel was based on a code of honor. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era, it extended to those of the upper classes generally. On occasion, duels with swords or pistols were fought between women.

Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) outlawed duels, and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against dueling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years' War. From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced. Dueling largely fell out of favor in England by the mid-19th century and in Continental Europe by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the Eastern United States in the 19th century and by the time of the American Civil War, dueling had begun to wane even in the South. Public opinion, not legislation, caused the change. Research has linked the decline of dueling to increases in state capacity.

A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon rules.

During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combat fought with swords (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols. Fencing and shooting continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century.

The duel was based on a code of honor. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era, it extended to those of the upper classes generally. On occasion, duels with swords or pistols were fought between women.

Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) outlawed duels, and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against dueling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years' War. From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced. Dueling largely fell out of favor in England by the mid-19th century and in Continental Europe by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the Eastern United States in the 19th century and by the time of the American Civil War, dueling had begun to wane even in the South. Public opinion, not legislation, caused the change. Research has linked the decline of dueling to increases in state capacity.

Legal history of wills

Wills have a lengthy history.

Ancient Greece.

The Ancient Greek practice concerning wills was not the same in all places; some states permitted men to dispose of their estates, others wholly deprived them of that privilege. According to Plutarch, Solon "is much commended for his law concerning wills; for before his time no man was allowed to make any, but all the wealth of deceased persons belonged to their families; but he permitted them to bestow it on whom they pleased, esteeming friendship a stronger tie than kindred, and affection than necessity, and thus put every man's estate in the disposal of the possessor; yet he allowed not all sorts of wills, but required the following conditions in all persons that made them:

That they must be citizens of Athens, not slaves, or foreigners, for then their estates were confiscated for the public use.

That they must be men who have arrived at twenty years of age, for women and men under that age were not permitted to dispose by will of more than one medimn of barley.

That they must not be adopted; for when adopted persons died without issue, the estates they received by adoption returned to the relations of the men who adopted them.

That they should have no male children of their own, for then their estate belonged to these. If they had only daughters, the persons to whom the inheritance was bequeathed were obliged to marry them. Yet men were allowed to appoint heirs to succeed their children, in case these happened to die under twenty years of age.

That they should be in their right minds, because testaments extorted through the frenzy of a disease, or dotage of old age, were not in reality the wills of the persons that made them.

That they should not be under imprisonment, or other constraint, their consent being then only forced, nor in justice to be reputedly voluntary.

That they should not be induced to it by the charms and insinuations of a wife; for (says Plutarch) the wise lawgiver with good reason thought that no difference was to be put between deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion, since both are equally powerful to persuade a man from reason.

Wills were usually signed before several witnesses, who put seals to them for confirmation, then placed them in the hands of trustees, who were obliged to see them performed. At Athens, some of the magistrates were very often present at the making of wills. Sometimes the archons were also present. Sometimes the testator declared his will before sufficient witnesses, without committing it to writing. Thus Callias, fearing to be cut off by a wicked conspiracy, is said to have made an open declaration of his will before the popular assembly at Athens. There were several copies of wills in Diogenes Laërtius, as those of Aristotle, Lyco of Troas, and Theophrastus; whence it appears they had a common form, beginning with a wish for life and health."

Replevin or claim and delivery (sometimes called revendication) is a legal remedy, which enables a person to recover personal property taken wrongfully or unlawfully, and to obtain compensation for resulting losses.

Nature.

From medieval times, there has also come down to us a summary process, known as replevin, by which a man out of whose possession goods have been taken may obtain their return until the right to the goods can be determined by a court of law. Replevin arose out of the need of a turbulent society to discourage resort to self help and although for a long time primarily used in disputes about distress between landlord and tenant, it was gradually expanded to cover all cases of allegedly wrongful dispossession. If the plaintiff wanted return of his chattel in specie, replevin was a more appropriate remedy than either trespass or trover in which only damages could be recovered. Restoration of the property is, of course, only provisional, pending determination of title.

In common law, several types of action existed with respect to deprivation of possession (being subdivided into the wrongful taking of chattels and the unjust detention of them, even where the original taking was lawful):

In the case of wrongful taking:

A writ of replevin was available only for an unlawful taking in the nature of a wrongful distress, where restitution could be made for the goods wrongfully taken (being in the nature of a redelivery of the pledge or the thing taken in distress) with damages for the loss sustained by such action. As distrained goods are in the custody of the law, any attempt to take them back by force without a writ of replevin could be contested by writ of rescous or de parco fracto, with a remedy in damages.

A writ of trespass vi et armis was available in the taking of goods, with a remedy in damages.

An action of trover and conversion was available for the non-forcible taking of goods, with a remedy in damages.

In the case of unjust detention:

Replevin lay to recover goods still held after a tender of amends.

Detinue lay to recover lent goods where the holder refused to return them to the owner. However, the defendant was allowed to exculpate himself by oath, so this action was displaced by that of trover and conversion.

At common law, the ordinary action for the recovery of goods wrongfully taken was originally one of detinue, but no means of immediate recovery was possible until the action was tried. Replevin arose to deal with the matter of the illegal distress of goods for rent or damage feasant, in order to procure their restoration to the owner. Illegal distress has been held to occur where:

no relationship of landlord and tenant exists at all,

there is no demise at a fixed rent,

no rent is due, or none due to the person who has distrained,

goods have been released before the distress, or tendered before the impounding,

the entry was illegal, or

things privileged from distress (ie, neither goods nor chattel) have been seized.

Replevin will not lie where if any part of the rent claimed was due, but this defense is not effective where the only rent claimed by the landlord is not recoverable by distress

Governing laws.

The grant and enforcement of patents are governed by national laws, and also by international treaties, where those treaties have been given effect in national laws. Patents are granted by national or regional patent offices, for example national or regional administrative authorities. A given patent is therefore only useful for protecting an invention in the country in which that patent is granted. In other words, patent law is territorial in nature. When a patent application is published, the invention disclosed in the application becomes prior art and enters the public domain (if not protected by other patents) in countries where a patent applicant does not seek protection, the application thus generally becoming prior art against anyone (including the applicant) who might seek patent protection for the invention in those countries.

Commonly, a nation or a group of nations forms a patent office with responsibility for operating that nation's patent system, within the relevant patent laws. The patent office generally has responsibility for the grant of patents, with infringement being the remit of national courts.

The authority for patent statutes in different countries varies. In the UK, substantive patent law is contained in the Patents Act 1977 as amended. In the United States, the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ...". The laws Congress passed are codified in Title 35 of the United States Code and created the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

There is a trend towards global harmonization of patent laws, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) being particularly active in this area. The TRIPS Agreement has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. Conformity with the TRIPS agreement is a requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice.

Internationally, there are international treaty procedures, such as the procedures under the European Patent Convention (EPC) , that centralize some portion of the filing and examination procedure. Similar arrangements exist among the member states of ARIPO and OAPI, the analogous treaties among African countries, and the nine CIS member states that have formed the Eurasian Patent Organization. A key international convention relating to patents is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, initially signed in 1883. The Paris Convention sets out a range of basic rules relating to patents, and although the convention does not have direct legal effect in all national jurisdictions, the principles of the convention are incorporated into all notable current patent systems.

Compensation for wrongful conviction.

Article 14(6) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that when a miscarriage of justice has occurred and the defendant's conviction has been reversed or they have been pardoned, "the person who has suffered punishment as a result of such conviction shall be compensated according to law". The right to compensation is also authorized by Article 3 of Protocol Number 7 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Article 10 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

Four broad approaches allow for the payment of compensation following a miscarriage of justice: tort liability in common law; claims for a breach of constitutional or human rights; statutory relief where specific legislation exists to compensate individuals who are wrongfully convicted; and non-statutory relief by way of ex-gratia schemes based on the largesse of the government.

In a study of different approaches to the payment of compensation in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, only the US and the UK have statutory schemes in place. In the United States, the federal government, the District of Columbia, and 38 states have such legislation on their statutes. Twelve states have no laws requiring compensation to be paid. However, each state differs widely in regard to eligibility requirements, maximum payments, issues concerning factual innocence, the burden of proof, the behavior of the claimant which contributed to the (now overturned) conviction, and the claimant's prior criminal history. In some states, statutes of limitations also apply.

The significant benefits of statutory schemes is that they provide money and services in compensation to individuals who have been wrongfully convicted without regard to fault or blame; they do not require claimants to prove how the prosecution or police committed their mistakes. 

Implications.

The concept of miscarriage of justice has important implications for standard of review, in that an appellate court will often only exercise its discretion to correct a plain error when a miscarriage of justice (or "manifest injustice") would otherwise occur. In recent years, DNA evidence has been used to clear many people falsely convicted.

The risk of miscarriages of justice is often cited as a cause to eliminate the death penalty. When condemned persons are executed before they are determined to have been wrongly convicted, the effect of that miscarriage of justice is irreversible. Wrongly executed people nevertheless occasionally receive posthumous pardons—which essentially void the conviction—or have their convictions quashed.

Even when a wrongly convicted person is not executed, years in prison can have a substantial, irreversible effect on the person and their family. The risk of miscarriage of justice is therefore also an argument against long sentences, like a life sentence, and cruel prison conditions.

Repeal of anti-miscegenation laws, 1948–1967.

In 1948, the California Supreme Court ruled in Perez v Sharp (1948) that the California anti-miscegenation laws violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the first time since Reconstruction that a state court declared such laws unconstitutional, and making California the first state since Ohio in 1887 to overturn its anti-miscegenation law.

The case raised constitutional questions in states which had similar laws, which led to the repeal or overturning of such laws in fourteen states by 1967. Sixteen states, mainly Southern states, were the exception. In any case, in the 1950s, the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws was still a controversial issue in the U.S., even among supporters of racial integration.

In 1958, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, who escaped from Europe during the Holocaust, wrote in an essay in response to the Little Rock Crisis, the Civil Rights struggle for the racial integration of public schools which took place in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, that anti-miscegenation laws were an even deeper injustice than the racial segregation of public schools. The free choice of a spouse, she argued in Reflections on Little Rock, was "an elementary human right": "Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs." Arendt was severely criticized by fellow liberals, who feared that her essay would arouse the racist fears common among whites and thus hinder the struggle of African Americans for civil rights and racial integration. Commenting on the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka against de jure racial segregation in education, Arendt argued that anti-miscegenation laws were more basic to racial segregation than racial segregation in education.

Arendt's analysis of the centrality of laws against interracial marriage to white supremacy echoed the conclusions of Gunnar Myrdal. In his essay Social Trends in America and Strategic Approaches to the Negro Problem (1948), Myrdal ranked the social areas where restrictions were imposed by Southern whites on the freedom of African Americans through racial segregation from the least to the most important: jobs, courts and police, politics, basic public facilities, "social equality" including dancing and handshaking, and most importantly, marriage. This ranking was indeed reflective of the way in which the barriers against desegregation fell under the pressure of the protests of the emerging civil rights movement. First, legal segregation in the army, in education and in basic public services fell, then restrictions on the voting rights of African-Americans were lifted. These victories were ensured by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the bans on interracial marriage were the last to go, in 1967.

A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property (estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the property until its final distribution. For the distribution (devolution) of property not determined by a will, see inheritance and intestacy.

Though it has been thought a "will" historically applied only to real property, while "testament" applied only to personal property (thus giving rise to the popular title of the document as "last will and testament"), records show the terms have been used interchangeably. Thus, the word "will" validly applies to both personal and real property. A will may also create a testamentary trust that is effective only after the death of the testator.

History.

Throughout most of the world, the disposition of a dead person's estate has been a matter of social custom. According to Plutarch, the written will was invented by Solon. Originally, it was a device intended solely for men who died without an heir.

The English phrase "will and testament" is derived from a period in English law when Old English and Law French were used side by side for maximum clarity. Other such legal doublets include "breaking and entering" and "peace and quiet".

Freedom of disposition.

The concept of the freedom of disposition by will, familiar as it is in modern England and the United States, both generally considered common law systems, is by no means universal. In fact, complete freedom is the exception rather than the rule.: 654  Civil law systems often put restrictions on the possibilities of disposal; see for example "Forced heirship".

LGBT advocates have pointed to the inheritance rights of spouses as desirable for same-sex couples as well, through same-sex marriage or civil unions. Opponents of such advocacy rebut this claim by pointing to the ability of same-sex couples to disperse their assets by will. Historically, however, it was observed that "ven if a same-sex partner executes a will, there is risk that the survivor will face prejudice in court when disgruntled heirs challenge the will", with courts being more willing to strike down wills leaving property to a same-sex partner on such grounds as incapacity or undue influence.

Tracing is a legal process, not a remedy, by which a claimant demonstrates what has happened to his or her property, identifies its proceeds and those persons who have handled or received them, and asks the court to award a proprietary remedy in respect of the property, or an asset substituted for the original property or its proceeds. Tracing allows transmission of legal claims from the original assets to either the proceeds of sale of the assets or new substituted assets.

Tracing ordinarily facilitates an equitable remedy, and is subject to the usual limitations and bars on equitable remedies in common law countries. In many common law countries, there are two concurrent processes, tracing at common law and tracing in equity. However, because the right to trace at common law is so circumscribed, the equitable process is almost universally relied upon, as equitable tracing can be performed into a mixed fund.

Illustrations.

"Tracing is thus neither a claim nor a remedy. It is merely a process by which a claimant demonstrates what has happened to his property, identifies its proceeds and the persons who have handled or received them, and justifies his claim that the proceeds can properly be regarded as representing his property." - Foskett v McKeown

For example, if A has money in a solicitor’s account and the solicitor takes that money to buy a painting, then A may be able to make a claim against the painting. This claim will take priority even if the solicitor is bankrupt and has other unsecured claims against him.

Judicially, probably the most famous example of a tracing claim is Attorney‐General for Hong Kong v Reid, where Mr Reid, then a crown prosecutor for Hong Kong, received bribes for passing information to organized crime in Hong Kong. Under Hong Kong law, the proceeds of those bribes were held on constructive trusts for the government of Hong Kong. Mr Reid then invested the proceeds of the bribes in land in New Zealand, and the land increased substantially in value. When he was caught, Mr Reid admitted that the money was subject to a constructive trust, but argued that he should only be liable to repay the amount of the bribes, and then any profit attributable to the increase in value of the land in New Zealand was not connected with his wrongdoing. However, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held that the government of Hong Kong's claim to the money could be traced into the land, and thus the claimant was entitled to the full value of the land, as without his wrong, Mr Reid would never have made those profits and it would be grossly inequitable for him to keep them.

A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.

The procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims that define the scope of protection that is being sought. A patent may include many claims, each of which defines a specific property right.

Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) TRIPS Agreement, patents should be available in WTO member states for any invention, in all fields of technology, provided they are new, involve an inventive step, and are capable of industrial application. Nevertheless, there are variations on what is patentable subject matter from country to country, also among WTO member states. TRIPS also provides that the term of protection available should be a minimum of twenty years.

Definition.

The word patent originates from the Latin patere, which means "to lay open" (for example, to make available for public inspection). It is a shortened version of the term letters patent, which was an open document or instrument issued by a monarch or government granting exclusive rights to a person, predating the modern patent system. Similar grants included land patents, which were land grants by early state governments in the US, and printing patents, a precursor of modern copyright.

In modern usage, the term patent usually refers to the right granted to anyone who invents something new, useful and non-obvious. A patent is often referred to as a form of intellectual property right, an expression which is also used to refer to trademarks and copyrights, and which has proponents and detractors (see also Intellectual property § The term "intellectual property"). Some other types of intellectual property rights are also called patents in some jurisdictions: industrial design rights are called design patents in the US, plant breeders' rights are sometimes called plant patents, and utility models and Gebrauchsmuster are sometimes called petty patents or innovation patents.

The additional qualification utility patent is sometimes used (primarily in the US) to distinguish the primary meaning from these other types of patents. Particular species of patents for inventions include biological patents, business method patents, chemical patents and software patents.

A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.

Academic studies have found that the main factors contributing to miscarriages of justice are: eyewitness misidentification; faulty forensic analysis; false confessions by vulnerable suspects; perjury and lies stated by witnesses; misconduct by police, prosecutors or judges; and or ineffective assistance of counsel (for example, inadequate defense strategies by the defendant's or respondent's legal team).

Some prosecutors' offices undertake conviction integrity reviews to prevent, identify, and correct wrongful convictions.

Prevalence.

There are two main methods for estimating the prevalence of wrongful convictions.

Exoneration.

The first is the number of exonerations where the guilty verdict has been vacated or annulled by a judge or higher court after new evidence has been brought forward proving the 'guilty' person is, in fact, innocent. Since 1989, the Innocence Project has helped overturn 375 convictions of American prisoners with updated DNA evidence. However, DNA testing occurs in only 5 to 10% of all criminal cases, and exonerations achieved by the Innocence Project are limited to murder and rape cases. This raises the possibility that there may be many more wrongful convictions for which there is no evidence available to exonerate the defendant. Studies cited by the Innocence Project estimate that between 2.3% and 5% of all prisoners in the U.S. are innocent. However, a more recent study looking at convictions in the state of Virginia during the 1970s and 1980s and matching them to later DNA analysis estimates a rate of wrongful conviction at 11.6%.

A 2014 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences made a conservative estimate that 4.1% of inmates awaiting execution on death row in the United States are innocent.

Anti-miscegenation laws.

In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were passed by most states to prohibit interracial marriage, and in some cases also prohibit interracial sexual relations. Some such laws predate the establishment of the United States, some dating to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery. Nine states never enacted such laws; 25 states had repealed their laws by 1967, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Loving v Virginia that such laws were unconstitutional (via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868) in the remaining 16 states. The term miscegenation was first used in 1863, during the American Civil War, by journalists to discredit the abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of interracial marriage after the abolition of slavery.

Typically defining mixed-race marriages or sexual relations as a felony, these laws also prohibited the issuance of marriage licenses and the solemnization of weddings between mixed-race couples and prohibited the officiation of such ceremonies. Sometimes, the individuals attempting to marry would not be held guilty of miscegenation itself, but felony charges of adultery or fornication would be brought against them instead. All anti-miscegenation laws banned marriage between whites and non-white groups, primarily black people, but often also Native Americans and Asian Americans.

In many states, anti-miscegenation laws also criminalized cohabitation and sex between whites and non-whites. In addition, Oklahoma in 1908 banned marriage "between a person of African descent" and "any person not of African descent"; Louisiana in 1920 banned marriage between Native Americans and African Americans (and from 1920 to 1942, concubinage as well); and Maryland in 1935 banned marriages between black people and Filipinos. While anti-miscegenation laws are often regarded as a Southern phenomenon, most states of the Western United States and the Great Plains also enacted them.

Although anti-miscegenation amendments were proposed in the United States Congress in 1871, 1912–1913, and 1928, a nationwide law against mixed-race marriages was never enacted. Prior to the California Supreme Court's ruling in Perez v Sharp (1948), no court in the United States had ever struck down a ban on interracial marriage. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court (the Warren Court) unanimously ruled in Loving v Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. After Loving, the remaining state anti-miscegenation laws were repealed; the last state to repeal its laws against interracial marriage was Alabama in 2000.

Voluntary dismissal is termination of a lawsuit by voluntary request of the plaintiff (the party who originally filed the lawsuit). A voluntary dismissal with prejudice (meaning the plaintiff is permanently barred from further litigating the same subject matter) is the modern descendant of the common law procedure known as retraxit.

In the United States, voluntary dismissal in Federal court is subject to Rule 41(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 41(a)'s full text can be found below. Simply stated, Rule 41(a) allows the plaintiff to make a dismissal as long as the defendant has not filed an answer or filed a motion for summary judgment.

If the defendant has taken such action, dismissal is only proper under two circumstances:

a. all defendants stipulate to dismissal; or

b. the judge overseeing the case rules for the case to be dismissed

Once the case has been voluntarily dismissed, if it is brought to court again a dismissal in this second case will mean the case can never again be brought back to court.

If the defendant has a counterclaim, the case can only be dismissed if the counterclaim can still stand as its own case.

Involuntary dismissal is the termination of a court case despite the plaintiff's objection.

In United States federal courts, involuntary dismissal is governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) Rule 41(b).

Involuntary dismissal is made by a defendant through a motion for dismissal, on grounds that plaintiff is not prosecuting the case, is not complying with a court order, or to comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Involuntary dismissal can also be made by order of the judge when no defendant has made a motion to dismiss. Involuntary dismissal is a punishment that courts may use when a party to a case is not acting properly. Other punishments are found in FRCP Rule 11, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 38, sections 1927 and 1912 of Title 28 United States Code, and inherent powers of the court.

Involuntary dismissal bars the case from being brought to court again, unless the judge says otherwise.

State court rules may be different from the Federal rules and vary from state to state.

Incidental damages.

Incidental damages refers to the type of legal damages that are reasonably associated with, or related to, actual damages.

In American commercial law, incidental damages are a seller's commercially reasonable expenses incurred in stopping delivery or in transporting and caring for goods after a buyer's breach of contract, (UCC Sec. 2-710) or a buyer's expenses reasonably incurred, for example, searching for and obtaining substitute goods. (UCC Sec. 2-715(1)).

…

Injunction.

An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. "When a court employs the extraordinary remedy of injunction, it directs the conduct of a party, and does so with the backing of its full coercive powers." A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties, including possible monetary sanctions and even imprisonment. They can also be charged with contempt of court. Counter Injunctions are injunctions that stop or reverse the enforcement of another injunction.

Rationale.

The injunction is an equitable remedy, that is, a remedy that originated in the English courts of equity. Like other equitable remedies, it has traditionally been given when a wrong cannot be effectively remedied by an award of money damages. (The doctrine that reflects this is the requirement that an injunction can be given only when there is "no adequate remedy at law.") Injunctions are intended to make whole again someone whose rights have been violated. Nevertheless, when deciding whether to grant an injunction, courts also take into account the interests of non-parties (that is, the public interest). When deciding whether to give an injunction, and deciding what its scope should be, courts give special attention to questions of fairness and good faith. One manifestation of this is that injunctions are subject to equitable defenses, such as laches and unclean hands.

Injunctions are given in many different kinds of cases. They can prohibit future violations of the law, such as trespass to real property, infringement of a patent, or the violation of a constitutional right (for example, the free exercise of religion). Or they can require the defendant to repair past violations of the law.

International rights.

In 1957, in France negotiations took place concerned with the protection of new varieties. This led to the creation of the Union Internationale pour la Protection des Obtentions Végétales (UPOV) and adoption of the first text of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV Convention) in 1961. The purpose of the Convention was to ensure that the member states party to the Convention acknowledge the achievements of breeders of new plant varieties by making available to them an exclusive property right, on the basis of a set of uniform and clearly defined principles.

The Convention was revised in Geneva in 1972, 1978 and 1991. Both the 1978 and the 1991 Acts set out a minimum scope of protection and offer member States the possibility of taking national circumstances into account in their legislation. Under the 1978 Act, the minimum scope of the plant breeder's right requires that the holder's prior authorisation is necessary for the production for purposes of commercial marketing, the offering for sale and the marketing of propagating material of the protected variety. The 1991 Act contains more detailed provisions defining the acts concerning propagating material in relation to which the holder's authorisation is required. The breeder's authorisation is also required in relation to any of the specified acts done with harvested material of the variety, unless the breeder has had reasonable opportunity to exercise their right in relation to the propagating material, or if not doing so could constitute an "Omega Threat" situation. Under that provision, for example, a flower breeder who protects their variety in the Netherlands could block importation of cut flowers of that variety into the Netherlands from Egypt, which does not grant plant breeders' rights, because the breeder had no opportunity to exercise any rights in Egypt. Member countries also have the option to require the breeder's authorization with respect to the specified acts as applied to products directly obtained from the harvested material (such as flour or oil from grain, or juice from fruit), unless the breeder has had reasonable opportunity to exercise their right in relation to the harvested material.

The UPOV Convention also establishes a multilateral system of national treatment, under which citizens of any member state are treated as citizens of all member states for the purpose of obtaining plant breeders rights. It also sets up a multilateral priority filing system, under which an application for protection filed in one member state establishes a filing date for applications filed in all other member states within one year of that original filing date. This allows a breeder to file in any one member country within the one-year period required to preserve the novelty of their variety, and the novelty of the variety will still be recognized when the filing is done in other member countries within one year of the original filing date. However, if the applicant does not wish to make use of priority filing, he or she has four years in which to apply in all other member states, excepting the United States, for all species except tree and vine species in which case he or she has six years to make application. More information can be obtained in Article 10 (1) (b) of Council Regulation (EC) Number 2100 94 of July 27, 2004. The trigger to start the four- or six-year period is not actually the date on which the first filing is made but the date on which the variety was first commercialized.

Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially where new evidence is put forth after the execution has taken place. The transitive verb, "to exonerate" can also mean to informally absolve one from blame.

The term "exoneration" also is used in criminal law to indicate a surety bail bond has been satisfied, completed, and exonerated. The judge orders the bond exonerated; the clerk of court time stamps the original bail bond power and indicates exoneration as the judicial order.

Based on DNA evidence.

DNA evidence is a relatively new instrument of exoneration. The first convicted defendant from a United States prison to be released on account of DNA testing was David Vasquez, who had been convicted of homicide, in 1989. Recently, DNA evidence has been used to exonerate a number of persons either on death row or serving lengthy prison sentences. As of October 2003, the number of states authorizing convicts to request DNA testing on their behalf, since 1999, has increased from two to thirty. Access to DNA testing varies greatly by degree; post-conviction tests can be difficult to acquire. Organizations like the Innocence Project and Centurion are particularly concerned with the exoneration of those who have been convicted based on weak or faulty evidence, regardless of DNA evidence. As of October 2003, prosecutors of criminal cases must approve the defendant's request for DNA testing in certain cases.

Monday, April 23, 2007, Jerry Miller became the 200th person in the United States exonerated through the use of DNA evidence. There is a national campaign in support of the formation of state Innocence Commissions, statewide entities that identify causes of wrongful convictions and develop state reforms that can improve the criminal justice system.

As of December 2018, 362 people in the U.S. had been exonerated based on DNA tests. In nearly half of these cases, faulty forensics contributed to the original conviction.

Per February 4, 2014 NPR article, Laura Sullivan cited Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor stating that exonerations were on the rise, and not just because of DNA evidence. Only one-fifth of the exonerations last year relied on newly tested DNA, a little less than a third of exonerations occurred due to further investigation by law enforcement agencies.

According to a 2020 study, DNA exonerations in rape cases "strongly suggest that the wrongful-conviction rate is significantly higher among black convicts than white convicts."

Reverse censorship.

Flooding the public, often through online social networks, with false or misleading information is sometimes called "reverse censorship". American legal scholar Tim Wu has explained that this type of information control, sometimes by state actors, can "distort or drown out disfavored speech through the creation and dissemination of fake news, the payment of fake commentators, and the deployment of propaganda robots."

By media.

Books

Book censorship can be enacted at the national or sub-national level, and can carry legal penalties for their infraction. Books may also be challenged at a local, community level. As a result, books can be removed from schools or libraries, although these bans do not typically extend outside of that area.

Films.

Aside from the usual justifications of pornography and obscenity, some films are censored due to changing racial attitudes or political correctness in order to avoid ethnic stereotyping and or ethnic offense despite its historical or artistic value. One example is the still withdrawn "Censored Eleven" series of animated cartoons, which may have been innocent then, but are "incorrect" now.

Film censorship is carried out by various countries. Film censorship is achieved by censoring the producer or restricting a state citizen. For example, in China the film industry censors LGBT related films. Filmmakers must resort in finding funds within international investors such as the “Ford Foundations” and or produce through an independent film company.

Music.

Music censorship has been implemented by states, religions, educational systems, families, retailers and lobbying groups – and in most cases they violate international conventions of human rights.

Maps.

Censorship of maps is often employed for military purposes. For example, the technique was used in former East Germany, especially for the areas near the border to West Germany in order to make attempts of defection more difficult. Censorship of maps is also applied by Google Maps, where certain areas are grayed out or blacked or areas are purposely left outdated with old imagery.

Art.

Art is loved and feared because of its evocative power. Destroying or oppressing art can potentially justify its meaning even more.

British photographer and visual artist Graham Ovenden's photos and paintings were ordered to be destroyed by a London's magistrate court in 2015 for being "indecent" and their copies had been removed from the online Tate gallery.

A party seeking summary judgment may refer to any evidence that would be admissible at trial, such as depositions (or deposition excerpts), party admissions, affidavits in support from witnesses, documents received during discovery (such as contracts, emails, letters, and certified government documents). The pieces of evidence should be accompanied by a declaration from the moving party that all copies of the documents are true and correct, including deposition excerpts. Each party may present to the court its view of applicable law by submitting a legal memorandum supporting, or opposing, the motion. The opposing party may also file its own summary-judgment motion (called a cross-motion), if the deadline still allows. The court may allow for oral argument of the lawyers, generally where the judge wishes to question the lawyers on issues in the case.

Deadline for filing of the dispositive motions in the U.S. federal court system is set by the judge in the initial discovery plan order. If a party wants to file a motion or a cross-motion for summary judgment after the deadline, it needs to ask for leave of court. Normally, federal judges require valid reasons to alter case-management deadlines and only do so with reluctance.

There are also freely accessible web search engines to assist parties in finding court decisions that can be cited as an example or analogy to resolve similar questions of law. Google Scholar is the biggest database of full-text state and federal court decisions that can be accessed without charge. These web search engines often allow one to select specific state courts to search. Summary judgment is awarded if the undisputed facts and the law make it clear that it would be impossible for one party to prevail if the matter were to proceed to trial. The court must consider all designated evidence in the light most favorable to the party opposing the summary judgment motion.

Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award.

Punitive damages are often awarded if compensatory damages are deemed an inadequate remedy. The court may impose them to prevent undercompensation of plaintiffs and to allow redress for undetectable torts and taking some strain away from the criminal justice system. Punitive damages are most important for violations of the law that are hard to detect.

However, punitive damages awarded under court systems that recognize them may be difficult to enforce in jurisdictions that do not recognize them. For example, punitive damages awarded to one party in a US case would be difficult to get recognition for in a European court in which punitive damages are most likely to be considered to violate public policy doctrine.

Because they are usually paid in excess of the plaintiff's provable injuries, punitive damages are awarded only in special cases, usually under tort law, if the defendant's conduct was egregiously insidious. Punitive damages cannot generally be awarded in contract disputes. The main exception is in insurance bad faith cases in the US if the insurer's breach of contract is alleged to be so egregious as to amount to a breach of the "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing", and is therefore considered to be a tort cause of action eligible for punitive damages (in excess of the value of the insurance policy).

National applications.

United States.

Punitive damages are a settled principle of common law in the United States. They are generally a matter of state law (although they can also be awarded under federal maritime law), and thus differ in application from state to state. In many states, including California and Texas, punitive damages are determined based on statute; elsewhere, they may be determined solely based on case law. Many state statutes are the result of insurance industry lobbying to impose "caps" on punitive damages; however, several state courts have struck down these statutory caps as unconstitutional. They are rare, occurring in only 6% of civil cases that result in a monetary award. Punitive damages are entirely unavailable under any circumstances in a few jurisdictions, including Nebraska, Puerto Rico, and Washington.

Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions.

The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. The preserving of the integrity of the work allows the author to object to alteration, distortion, or mutilation of the work that is "prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation". Anything else that may detract from the artist's relationship with the work even after it leaves the artist's possession or ownership may bring these moral rights into play. Moral rights are distinct from any economic rights tied to copyrights. Even if an artist has assigned his or her copyright rights to a work to a third party, he or she still maintains the moral rights to the work.

Moral rights were first recognized in France and Germany, before they were included in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1928.  Canada recognizes moral rights (droits moraux) in its Copyright Act (Loi sur le droit d'auteur). The United States became a signatory to the convention in 1989, and incorporated a version of moral rights under its copyright law under Title 17 of the U.S. Code. The Berne convention is not a self-executing treaty, and the US Berne Convention Implementation Act excludes the US from the moral rights section.

Some jurisdictions allow for the waiver of moral rights.  In the United States, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) recognizes moral rights, but applies only to a narrow subset of works of visual art. "For the purposes of VARA, visual art includes paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and photographs, existing in a single copy or a limited edition of 200 signed and numbered copies or fewer". A photograph must be taken only for exhibition purposes to be recognized under this subcategory. Independent art is not a focus of this waiver, for VARA only works in protecting artwork that can be considered as having "recognized stature"; Some of the items that are voided from VARA's protection include posters, maps, globes, motion pictures, electronic publications, and applied art. The VARA grants artists two specific rights: the right of attribution, and the right of integrity. The right of attribution allows an author to enforce the attribution of their work, prevent the misattribution of their work to another author, and permits the author to retain anonymous or pseudo-anonymous ownership of the work. The right of integrity does its best to prevent distortion or modification of their work, easing an artists' worries surrounding negative defamation directly applied to their work affecting their own personal, creative, or professional reputation through misrepresentation.

In the United States, moral rights are not transferable, and end only with the life of the author. Authors may, however, waive their moral rights if this is done in writing.

Some jurisdictions like Austria differentiate between narrow and wide moral rights. Whilst the former is about integrity of the work, the latter limits usages, which may harm the author's integrity. Some copyright timestamp services allow an author to publish allowed and disallowed usage intentions to prevent a violation of such wider moral rights.

Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.

In some jurisdictions, the term probation applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such as suspended sentences. In others, probation also includes supervision of those conditionally released from prison on parole.

An offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer. During the period of probation, an offender faces the threat of being incarcerated if found breaking the rules set by the court or probation officer.

Offenders are ordinarily required to maintain law-abiding behavior, and may be ordered to refrain from possession of firearms, remain employed, participate in an educational program, abide by a curfew, live at a directed place, obey the orders of the probation officer, or not leave the jurisdiction. The probationer might be ordered as well to refrain from contact with the victims (such as a former partner in a domestic violence case), with potential victims of similar crimes (such as minors, if the instant offense involves child sexual abuse), or with known criminals, particularly co-defendants. Additionally, offenders can be subject to refrain from use or possession of alcohol and other drugs and may be ordered to submit alcohol or drug tests or participate in alcohol or drug psychological treatment. Offenders on probation might be fitted with an electronic tag (or monitor), which signals their movement to officials. Some courts permit defendants of limited means to perform community service in order to pay off their probation fines.

History.

The concept of probation, from the Latin, probatio, "testing", has historical roots in the practice of judicial reprieve. In English common law, prior to the advent of democratic rule, the courts could temporarily suspend the execution of a sentence to allow a criminal defendant to appeal to the monarch for a pardon.

Begging (also panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public places such as transport routes, urban parks, and markets. Besides money, they may also ask for food, drinks, cigarettes or other small items.

Internet begging is the modern practice of asking people to give money to others via the Internet, rather than in person. Internet begging may encompass requests for help meeting basic needs such as medical care and shelter, as well as requests for people to pay for vacations, school trips, and other things that the beggar wants but cannot comfortably afford.

Beggars differ from religious mendicants in that some mendicants do not ask for money. Their subsistence is reciprocated by providing society with various forms of religious service, moral education, and preservation of culture.

United States.

In parts of San Francisco, California, aggressive panhandling is prohibited.

In May 2010, police in the city of Boston started cracking down on panhandling in the streets in downtown, and were conducting an educational outreach to residents advising them not to give to panhandlers. The Boston police distinguished active solicitation, or aggressive panhandling, versus passive panhandling of which an example is opening doors at a store with a cup in hand but saying nothing.

U. S. Courts have repeatedly ruled that begging is protected by the First Amendment's free speech provisions. On August 14, 2013, the U. S. Court of Appeals struck down a Grand Rapids, Michigan anti-begging law on free speech grounds. An Arcata, California law banning panhandling within twenty feet of stores was struck down on similar grounds in 2012.

In Baltimore, Maryland, several non-profits have been working with the "squeegee kids" to get them off the streets instead of the police having to enforce the law and have the teens arrested.

Canada.

The province of Ontario introduced its Safe Streets Act in 1999 to restrict specific kinds of begging, particularly certain narrowly defined cases of "aggressive" or abusive begging. In 2001 this law was upheld under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The law was further upheld by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in January 2007.

One response to the anti-panhandling laws which were passed was the creation of the Ottawa Panhandlers Union which fights for the political rights of panhandlers. The union is a shop of the Industrial Workers of the World.

British Columbia enacted its own Safe Streets Act in 2004 which resembles the Ontario law. There are also critics in that province who oppose such laws.

In law, a summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law or summary disposition) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, for example, without a full trial. Summary judgments may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case. The formulation of the summary judgment standard is stated in somewhat different ways by courts in different jurisdictions. In the United States, the presiding judge generally must find there is "no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." In England and Wales, the court rules for a party without a full trial when "the claim, defense or issue has no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason why the case or issue should be disposed of at a trial."

In common-law systems, questions about what the law actually is in a particular case are decided by judges; in rare cases jury nullification of the law may act to contravene or complement the instructions or orders of the judge, or other officers of the court. A fact finder has to decide what the facts are and apply the law. In traditional common law the factfinder was a jury, but in many jurisdictions the judge now acts as the factfinder as well. It is the factfinder who decides "what really happened", and it is the judge who applies the law to the facts as determined by the factfinder, whether directly or by giving instructions to the jury.

In the absence of an award of summary judgment (or some type of pretrial dismissal), a lawsuit ordinarily proceeds to trial, which is an opportunity for litigants to present evidence in an attempt to persuade the factfinder that they are saying "what really happened", and that, under the applicable law, they should prevail.

The necessary steps before a case can get to trial include disclosing documents to the opponent by discovery, showing the other side the evidence, often in the form of witness statements. This process is lengthy, and can be difficult and costly.

A party moving (applying) for summary judgment is attempting to avoid the time and expense of a trial when, in the moving party's view, the outcome is obvious. Typically this is stated as, when all the evidence likely to be put forward is such that no reasonable factfinder could disagree with the moving party, summary judgment is appropriate. Sometimes this will occur when there is no real dispute as to what happened, but it also frequently occurs when there is a nominal dispute but the non-moving party cannot produce enough evidence to support its position.

General damages.

General damages are monetary compensation for the non-monetary aspects of the specific harm suffered. These damages are sometimes termed 'pain, suffering and loss of amenity'. Examples of this include physical or emotional pain and suffering, loss of companionship, loss of consortium, disfigurement, loss of reputation, impairment of mental or physical capacity, hedonic damages or loss of enjoyment of life, etc. This is not easily quantifiable, and depends on the individual circumstances of the claimant. Judges in the United Kingdom base the award on damages awarded in similar previous cases. In 2012 the Court of Appeal of England and Wales noted that

this court has not merely the power, but a positive duty, to monitor, and where appropriate to alter, the guideline rates for general damages in personal injury actions.

General damages in England and Wales were increased by 10% for all cases where judgements were given after April 1, 2013, following changes to the options available to personal injury claimants wanting to cover the cost of their litigation.

General damages are generally awarded only in claims brought by individuals, when they have suffered personal harm. Examples would be personal injury (following the tort of negligence by the defendant), or the tort of defamation.

General damages in personal injury cases.

The quantification of personal injury is not an exact science. In English law solicitors treat personal injury claims as "general damages" for pain and suffering and loss of amenity (PSLA). Solicitors quantify personal injury claims by reference to previous awards made by the courts which are "similar" to the case in hand. Judicial College "Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases" are adjusted following periodic review of the awards which have been made by the courts since the previous review.

The guidance solicitors will take into account to help quantify general damages are as hereunder:

The age of the client.

The age of the client is important especially when dealing with fatal accident claims or permanent injuries. The younger the injured victim with a permanent injury the longer that person has to live with the PSLA. As a consequence, the greater the compensation payment. In fatal accident claims, generally the younger deceased, the greater the dependency claim by the partner and children.

Industrial design right.

An industrial design right is an intellectual property right that protects the visual design of objects that are purely utilitarian. An industrial design consists of the creation of a shape, configuration or composition of pattern or color, or combination of pattern and color in three-dimensional form containing aesthetic value. An industrial design can be a two- or three-dimensional pattern used to produce a product, industrial commodity or handicraft.

Under the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs, a WIPO-administered treaty, a procedure for an international registration exists. To qualify for registration, the national laws of most member states of WIPO require the design to be novel. An applicant can file for a single international deposit with WIPO or with the national office in a country party to the treaty. The design will then be protected in as many member countries of the treaty as desired. Design rights started in the United Kingdom in 1787 with the Designing and Printing of Linen Act and have expanded from there.

Registering for an industrial design right is related to granting a patent.

Law making.

United States.

U.S. design patents last fifteen years from the date of grant if filed on or after May 13, 2015 (fourteen years if filed before May 13, 2015) and cover the ornamental aspects of utilitarian objects. Objects that lack a use beyond that conferred by their appearance or the information they convey, may be covered by copyright—a form of intellectual property of much longer duration that exists as soon as a qualifying work is created. In some circumstances, rights may also be acquired in trade dress, but trade dress protection is akin to trademark rights and requires that the design have source significance or "secondary meaning." It is useful only to prevent source misrepresentations; trade dress protection.

Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or else they may be rearrested and returned to prison.

Originating from the French word parole ("speech, spoken words" but also "promise"), the term became associated during the Middle Ages with the release of prisoners who gave their word.

This differs greatly from pardon, amnesty or commutation of sentence in that parolees are still considered to be serving their sentences, and may be returned to prison if they violate the conditions of their parole.

Modern development.

Alexander Maconochie, a Scottish geographer and captain in the Royal Navy, introduced the modern idea of parole when, in 1840, he was appointed superintendent of the British penal colonies in Norfolk Island, Australia. He developed a plan to prepare them for eventual return to society that involved three grades. The first two consisted of promotions earned through good behavior, labor, and study. The third grade in the system involved conditional liberty outside of prison while obeying rules. A violation would return them to prison and they would start all over again through the ranks of the three-grade process. He reformed its ticket of leave system, instituting what many consider to be the world's first parole system. Prisoners served indeterminate sentences from which they could be released early if they showed evidence of rehabilitation through participation in a graded classification system based on a unit of exchange called a mark. Prisoners earned marks through good behavior, lost them through bad behavior, and could spend them on passage to higher classification statuses ultimately conveying freedom.

In an instance of multiple discovery, in 1846, Arnould Bonneville de Marsangy proposed the idea of parole (which he termed "preparatory liberations") to the Civil Tribunal at Reims.nusual punishment.

United States.

Early history.

Penologist Zebulon Brockway introduced parole when he became superintendent of Elmira Reformatory in Elmira, New York. To manage prison populations and rehabilitate those incarcerated, he instituted a two-part strategy that consisted of indeterminate sentences and parole releases. This was significant in prison reform due to its implication that prisoners began their rehabilitation during incarceration, which would be recognizable by a parole board. It also provided a newfound emphasis on prisoners' protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding.

Like most other crimes in the common law system, to be convicted of perjury one must have had the intention (mens rea) to commit the act and to have actually committed the act (actus reus). Further, statements that are facts cannot be considered perjury, even if they might arguably constitute an omission, and it is not perjury to lie about matters that are immaterial to the legal proceeding. Statements that entail an interpretation of fact are not perjury because people often draw inaccurate conclusions unwittingly or make honest mistakes without the intent to deceive. Individuals may have honest but mistaken beliefs about certain facts or their recollection may be inaccurate, or may have a different perception of what is the accurate way to state the truth. In some jurisdictions, no crime has occurred when a false statement is (intentionally or unintentionally) made while under oath or subject to penalty. Instead, criminal culpability attaches only at the instant the declarant falsely asserts the truth of statements (made or to be made) that are material to the outcome of the proceeding. It is not perjury, for example, to lie about one's age except if age is a fact material to influencing the legal result, such as eligibility for old age retirement benefits or whether a person was of an age to have legal capacity.

Perjury is considered a serious offense, as it can be used to usurp the power of the courts, resulting in miscarriages of justice. In Canada, those who commit perjury are guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years. Perjury is a statutory offense in England and Wales. A person convicted of perjury is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years, or to a fine, or to both. In the United States, the general perjury statute under federal law classifies perjury as a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to five years. The California Penal Code allows for perjury to be a capital offense in cases causing wrongful execution. Perjury which caused the wrongful execution of another or in the pursuit of causing the wrongful execution of another is respectively construed as murder or attempted murder, and is normally itself punishable by execution in countries that retain the death penalty. Perjury is considered a felony in most U.S. states. However, prosecutions for perjury are rare.

The rules for perjury also apply when a person has made a statement under penalty of perjury even if the person has not been sworn or affirmed as a witness before an appropriate official. An example is the US income tax return, which, by law, must be signed as true and correct under penalty of perjury (see 26 U.S.C. § 6065). Federal tax law provides criminal penalties of up to three years in prison for violation of the tax return perjury statute. See: 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1).

In the United States, Kenya, Scotland and several other English-speaking Commonwealth nations, subornation of perjury, which is attempting to induce another person to commit perjury, is itself a crime.

In law, a summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law or summary disposition) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, for example, without a full trial. Summary judgments may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case. The formulation of the summary judgment standard is stated in somewhat different ways by courts in different jurisdictions. In the United States, the presiding judge generally must find there is "no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." In England and Wales, the court rules for a party without a full trial when "the claim, defense or issue has no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason why the case or issue should be disposed of at a trial."

In common-law systems, questions about what the law actually is in a particular case are decided by judges; in rare cases jury nullification of the law may act to contravene or complement the instructions or orders of the judge, or other officers of the court. A fact finder has to decide what the facts are and apply the law. In traditional common law the factfinder was a jury, but in many jurisdictions the judge now acts as the factfinder as well. It is the factfinder who decides "what really happened", and it is the judge who applies the law to the facts as determined by the factfinder, whether directly or by giving instructions to the jury.

In the absence of an award of summary judgment (or some type of pretrial dismissal), a lawsuit ordinarily proceeds to trial, which is an opportunity for litigants to present evidence in an attempt to persuade the factfinder that they are saying "what really happened", and that, under the applicable law, they should prevail.

The necessary steps before a case can get to trial include disclosing documents to the opponent by discovery, showing the other side the evidence, often in the form of witness statements. This process is lengthy, and can be difficult and costly.

A party moving (applying) for summary judgment is attempting to avoid the time and expense of a trial when, in the moving party's view, the outcome is obvious. Typically this is stated as, when all the evidence likely to be put forward is such that no reasonable factfinder could disagree with the moving party, summary judgment is appropriate. Sometimes this will occur when there is no real dispute as to what happened, but it also frequently occurs when there is a nominal dispute but the non-moving party cannot produce enough evidence to support its position. A party may also move for summary judgment in order to eliminate the risk of losing at trial, and possibly avoid having to go through discovery (for example, by moving at the outset of discovery), by demonstrating to the judge, via sworn statements and documentary evidence, that there are no material factual issues remaining to be tried. If there is nothing for the factfinder to decide, then the moving party asks rhetorically, why have a trial? The moving party will also attempt to persuade the court that the undisputed material facts require judgment to be entered in its favor. In many jurisdictions, a party moving for summary judgment takes the risk that, although the judge may agree there are no material issues of fact remaining for trial, the judge may also find that it is the non-moving party that is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages.

Compensatory damages are further categorized into special damages, which are economic losses such as loss of earnings, property damage and medical expenses, and general damages, which are non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and emotional distress. Rather than being compensatory, at common law damages may instead be nominal, contemptuous or exemplary.

History.

Among the Saxons, a monetary value called a weregild was assigned to every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code. If property was stolen or someone was injured or killed, the guilty person had to pay the weregild as restitution to the victim's family or to the owner of the property.

Proof of damages.

Proximate cause.

Recovery of damages by a plaintiff in a lawsuit is subject to the legal principle that damages must be approximately caused by the wrongful conduct of the defendant. This is known as the principle of proximate cause. This principle governs the recovery of all compensatory damages, whether the underlying claim is based on contract, tort, or both. Damages are likely to be limited to those reasonably foreseeable by the defendant. If a defendant could not reasonably have foreseen that someone might be hurt by their actions, there may be no liability.

This rule does not usually apply to intentional torts (for example, tort of deceit), and also has stunted applicability to the quantum in negligence where the maxim 'Intended consequences are never too remote' applies: 'never' is inaccurate here but resorts to unforeseeable direct and natural consequences of an act.

Expert testimony.

It may be useful for the lawyers, the plaintiff and or the defendant to employ forensic accountants or someone trained in the relevant field of economics to give evidence on the value of the loss. In this case, they may be called upon to give opinion evidence as an expert witness.

Tambunan Statement, February 1995.

Indigenous people of Asia met at Tambunan, Sabah, East Malaysia, to assert rights of self-determination, and to express concern about, and fear of, the threat unfamiliar 'western' intellectual property rights systems may pose to them. It was agreed, in the Tambunan Statement on the Protection and Conservation of Indigenous Knowledge:

For the Indigenous peoples of Asia, the intellectual property rights system is not only a very new concept but it is also very western...with  intellectual property rights, alien laws will be devised to exploit the Indigenous knowledge and  resources of the Indigenous peoples.

Suva Statement, April 1995.

Participants from the independent countries and "nonautonomous colonized territories" of the Pacific region met in Suva, Fiji, to discuss internationally dominant intellectual property rights regimes, and at that meeting they resolved to support the Kari Oca, Mataatua, Julayinbul, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and Tambunan initiatives(above). In their statement, the Suva Statement on Indigenous Peoples Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights, participants:

Declare Indigenous peoples are willing to share our knowledge with humanity provided we determine when, where and how it is used: at present the international system does not recognise or respect our past, present and potential contribution...

Seek repatriation of Indigenous peoples  resources already held in external collections, and seek compensation and royalties from commercial developments resulting from these resources…

Strengthen the capacities of Indigenous peoples to maintain their oral traditions, and encourage initiatives by Indigenous peoples to record their knowledge... according to their customary access procedures.

Kimberley Declaration, August 2002.

Indigenous people from around the world attended an international Indigenous peoples' summit on sustainable development in Khoi-San Territory, Kimberley, South Africa, in August 2002, where they reaffirmed previous declarations and statements, and, among other matters, declared:

Our traditional knowledge systems must be respected, promoted and protected; our collective intellectual property rights must be guaranteed and ensured. Our traditional knowledge is not in the public domain; it is collective, cultural and intellectual property protected under our customary law. Unauthorized use and misappropriation of traditional knowledge is theft.