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Tax extraction is often low in absolutist regimes. Why are absolutists unable to convert power into revenue? Supported by evidence from Imperial China, we explain this puzzle with a principal-agent model which reveals that absolutists, unconstrained by rule of law and unable to commit to not predating on their tax-collecting agents (and the masses), may find it optimal to settle for a low wage-low tax equilibrium, while permitting agents to keep extra, unmonitored taxes. Our analysis suggests that low investment in administrative capacity is a conscious choice for an absolutist since it substitutes for credible commitment to refrain from confiscation from its agents.

This article shows the explanation of legal measure in confiscation related money laundering between the Anti-Money Laundering Act 1999 (AMLA 1999) of Thailand and the Money Laundering Control Act 1986 (MLCA 1986) of the United States to answer the research question that the confiscation under the AMLA 1999 is not the effective legal measure to handle money laundering anymore. By applying a comparative and descriptive method, this article shall be analyzed with two focuses such as (1) the definition of predicate offence under Article 3 of AMLA 1999, and (2) the method of confiscation under Article 51 of AMLA 1999. It has found that (1) Article 3 of AMLA 1999 does not have enough predicate offences definition to cover up all illegal activities which cause a risk of money laundering or financial crime, and (2) the method of confiscation under Article 51 of AMLA 1999 is the Property-based based confiscation which could not forfeit other assets not related to the offence. Therefore, the author suggests (1) adding the wide range of the definition under Article 3 of AMLA 1999 in predicate offences, and (2) adopting a value-based confiscation method into the AMLA 1999.

Tobacco use is the leading cause of some preventable deaths and it imposes a heavy burden on countries. Realizing the threat that tobacco use inflicts on global public health, the World Health Organization (WHO) has implemented the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) since 2003. Apart from controlling the consumption of legal tobacco products, the existence of illicit tobacco products in the market is becoming a prevalent problem and a severe challenge to public health. The term “illicit trade” has been well-defined in the WHO FCTC (WHO, 2003) as any practice or conduct prohibited by law and which relates to production, shipment receipt, possession, distribution, sale, or purchase, including any practice or conduct intended to facilitate such activity. To mitigate the illicit trade problem, WHO FCTC established a Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (WHO, 2013) based on Article 15 and entered into force on 25 September 2018 (WHO, 2018). This protocol consists of a package of measures in combating illicit trade issues and the forfeiture and confiscation of proceeds acquired from the illicit tobacco trade. Several strategies were implemented by Malaysia to minimize illicit tobacco trade, and Malaysia is considering the idea of ratifying the current protocol (Hassan et al., 2019).

Exotic pets are essentially animals that are non-native to a region and/or nondomesticated. The trade in and keeping of exotic pets has been frequently criticized for the commonly inhumane and harmful practices that are associated with supply and keeping, including animal welfare, species conservation, invasiveness, and public health and safety. Relatedly, a growing issue is that of unwanted exotic pets handed to animal care centers due to their overly demanding requirements and the confiscation of animals suffering from abuse. Mis-selling exotic species as "easy to keep" or "beginner" animals is widely regarded to be a major common and problematic factor. Efforts, after pet acquisition, to educate sellers and keepers to improve animal welfare and public health issues have proven unproductive. We propose that a system is required that facilitates decision-making at the interface between sale and purchase sectors and that uses clear evidence-based labeling. We review current options for developing such a pet labeling scheme and recommend a novel approach based on the EMODE ("easy," "moderate," "difficult," or "extreme") pet suitability assessment tool to provide a preventative educational approach to alleviating the multifactorial issues of concern.

Performance bonding is a common method to enforce logging standards and timber contract rules, yet their applications in tropical concessions are still uncommon, with prohibitively high cost of capital, imperfect enforcement, risk of corruption, and long payback periods cited as reasons. In the face of these factors, we derive conditions for a feasible bond scheme and the amount of additional insurance a landowner can ask from a harvester in the form of a higher than strictly needed bond payment. We then determine the effect of confiscation risk on the feasibility of bond schemes, with this risk stemming from the presence of a corrupt inspector and taking the form of either collusive or non-collusive corruption. We show that confiscation risk can seriously limit the range of possible bond payments and the effects differ between the corruption types. An empirical example evaluates these results in the context of enforcement of reduced impact logging techniques in tropical concession management. The results will help governments better apply bond schemes and in particular adjust them in the presence of risks and external constraints.

This paper explores an underappreciated factor which can be necessary for warfare to strengthen fiscal capacity. It argues that in contexts with lower respect for the rule of law and worse private property rights, rulers' predatory behavior should incline wealth holders to shelter their wealth and therefore tax compliance should be lower. This will make it unlikely that during armed warfare, when rulers engage in more predatory behavior such as confiscation, there will be any property or income to be taxed and hence states will be unlikely to invest in fiscal capacity. Under stronger rule of law and better private property rights, the constraints on the rulers' predatory behavior should provide higher security for wealth holders and they should be less likely to shelter wealth, bringing higher tax compliance. Such compliance makes it more likely that states can increase fiscal revenues during war and therefore will be more likely to invest in fiscal capacity. These expectations are tested with an original dataset of Ottoman waqfs in modern-day Greece between 1600 and 1912 in addition to annual Ottoman fiscal revenue data. Results indicate that wars increase wealth sheltering under lower rule of law, while it does not under higher rule of law. Furthermore, while wars do not increase fiscal revenues under lower rule of law, they increase fiscal revenues under higher rule of law.

“Red flag” laws, or “extreme risk protection orders”, have been enacted in several states. While the idea for these laws is reasonable, some statutes are not. They destroy due process of law, endanger law enforcement and the public, and can be handy tools for stalkers and abusers to disarm their innocent victims. Many order are improperly issued against innocent people. The Conference of Chief Justices asked the Uniform Law Commissioners to draft a national model red flag law, but the Giffords organization blocked the effort — lest it offer an alternative to the extreme and reckless system being pushed by Giffords and related groups, most notably the Bloomberg entities. When Confucius was asked what would be the first step if a government sought his advice, he answered, “It would certainly be to rectify the names. . . . If the names are not correct, language is without an object.” Bills that claim to be about “Extreme Risk Protection Orders” are not correct; the bills cover much lower-level risks, or just “a danger.” Likewise, the term “red flag” is dubious because some bills label as dangerous the peaceable exercise of constitutional rights. A more accurate name for these laws is “gun confiscation orders.” Such orders can be legitimate when fair procedures accurately identify dangerous individuals. Such laws include the following features: • Petitions initiated by law enforcement, not by spurned dating partners or relationships from long ago. • Ex parte hearings only when there is proof of necessity. • Proof by clear and convincing evidence that has been corroborated. • Guarantees of all due process rights, including cross-examination and right to counsel. • Court-appointed counsel if the respondent so wishes. • A civil remedy for victims of false and malicious petitions. • Safe and orderly procedures for relinquishment of firearms. • Strict controls on no-knock raids. • Storage of relinquished firearms by responsible third parties. • Prompt restoration of concealed carry permits for the falsely accused. • Prompt return of firearms upon the termination of an order. • Renewal of orders based on presentation of clear and convincing proof. • Not allowing time-limited orders to be bootstrapped into lifetime federal prohibition.

The present report is aimed at describing the concept, legal framework, and features of the public policy clause in the Portuguese legal order, and at giving an account of the main applications of this clause in modern Portuguese case law and literature (marriage, children, custodianship, succession, contract, non-contractual obligations, property, intellectual property, and corporate). The report deals mainly with choice of law, but reference is also made to the recognition of foreign judgments, since the public policy features and applications are to a large extent common in both contexts. Portuguese courts tend to respect the exceptionality of the public policy clause. In recent case law, only a few judgments have deviated from this guideline, namely concerning the right of some heirs to a legal portion of the estate. In the vast majority of situations, the arguments based upon international public policy considerations were not accepted by the courts.

This paper focuses on practices of non-violent resistance as they are played out in the ongoing Palestinian struggle against the Israeli settler colonialism in the occupied West Bank. By looking at the resistance of expanding settlements, demolition and land confiscation orders, and livelihood destruction in two Palestinian sites, the paper shows how Israeli settler colonial apparatuses, and the variety of techniques and practices of erasure they mobilize, can be fruitfully studied through site-specific ways of Palestinian resistance. In order to do so, the paper turns to discuss a peculiar form of non-violent resistance grounded in what Giorgio Agamben calls ‘destituent power’. It shows how the acts of destituent resistance in the two sites under study function by playing with the apparatuses of control in creative but non-violent ways; namely, by using the potentialities of that form-of-life that the settler colonial apparatuses try to cancel, overrule, control, weaken, criminalize, and erase. The idea of ‘destituent play’ is hence elaborated, and special attention paid to its ability to slow down and hamper the repressive functions of the settler colonial apparatuses through the creative use of the potentialities of Palestinian everyday life.

In this paper, I articulate a notion of ‘social dispossession,’ an optic that extends current theorizing on agrarian dispossession into the realm of social reproduction, by examining the testimonies of microcredit borrowers in rural Bangladesh. In recent years, research on microcredit has highlighted new forms of subject-making employed by microcredit and other NGO entrepreneurship development programs. These developments have received insufficient attention in scholarship on agrarian change, both globally and in specific places. I correct this by arguing that microcredit drives social dispossession through three specific mechanisms: the confiscation of assets necessary to social reproduction (as well as to production); the construction of debt relations within a community which reshape what reproduction can look like; and the re-configuration of women’s social status and subjectivities in relation to their communities.

The Illegal Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (Galamsey) ‘Menace’ in Ghana: Is a Military-Style Approach the Answer? The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector accounts for approximately 31 percent of the total gold production in Ghana and plays a significant role in the economic development of the country. However, the recent alarming levels of water pollution associated with illegal ASM operations have ignited serious debate, sustained media campaigns, mounting public condemnation, and sustained pressure on the government to find a lasting solution to ASM operations in the country. In response, the government has turned to the use of a military-style approach (military and police taskforce) to ‘flush out’ illegal ASM operators. Relying on key informant interviews, newspaper reports, and household surveys, this paper investigates the sustainability of the use of a military-style approach to eliminate illegal ASM operations. The evidence suggests that through arrests and confiscation and destruction of mining equipment, the turbidity levels of some water bodies improved. However, due to the powerful influence some politicians and traditional authorities command in the ASM sector, the military-style approach often becomes ineffective leading to a ‘catch and release’ pattern, which is discriminatory and promotes inequalities with disproportionate impacts on poor illegal ASM communities. The findings show that the use of a military-style approach fails to address the most fundamental issues, such as poor economic conditions, increased youth unemployment, and illiteracy which drive people into illegal ASM. Moreover, government forces are not immune to corruption. We argue that a military-style approach is not a sustainable solution to the illegal ASM ‘menace’ in Ghana. Therefore, we recommend the development and implementation of a comprehensive rural development plan that addresses dimensions of poverty, such as youth unemployment, rural illiteracy, and joblessness.

The right to property is a fundamental human right guaranteed by international conventions. In countries like Turkey, where the principles of private ownership apply, this right is guaranteed by laws. The right to property may be restricted by law only in the case of public interest. Nevertheless, the right of ownership of immovable property can be transferred to the public authority only with payment. However, in some cases, a person's immovable property may be de facto converted into a public facility without expropriation. This process is called “confiscation without expropriation”. This concept was introduced into the Turkish Legal System in 1956 by the unauthorized conversion of immovable property for a road. Today, especially in planned areas, a different type of confiscation without expropriation is often seen. Zoning plans are known to be public tools that reorganize properties in public interest. However, the uncertainty in the implementation process of these plans negatively affects the owners of parcels reserved for public use in the zoning plan. This situation is defined in terminology as “legal confiscation without expropriation”. In this study, the subject has been discussed in the light of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decisions and Turkish judicial decisions, and which institutions are responsible for what kind of zoning functions within zoning plans have been investigated. Official (ex officio) applications and voluntary applications have been compared. Conceptual illustrations on the subject have been prepared. According to the results obtained from the study, it has been stated that all public spaces in the zoning plan are not subject to legal confiscation. Due to their location or characteristics, protected areas, unsuitable geological areas and parcels remaining in agricultural areas can be allocated as public spaces in the zoning plan. In such a case, it is not possible to say that there is legal confiscation. In terms of plan classification, there may be legal confiscation in areas if only a 1/1000-scale implementary zoning plan is in practice. As a solution for legal confiscation, land and real estate arrangements should be made ex officio and without delay. In addition to this, alternative models are also needed. Otherwise, public institutions will be subject to severe financial burdens. Some of the proposals include: granting construction right to zone cadastral parcels affecting public facility areas, or granting the right to construct all cadastral parcels in the plan in specified amounts and also developing a zoning right transfer system.

Land reforms, which include restitution and redistribution of land, often accompany political transitions, as new regimes attempt to break with the past by establishing new modes of governance. The political transition that began in Myanmar in 2011 provides one such example. In Myanmar’s ‘rice bowl’, the Ayeyarwady Delta, widespread land confiscations during the 1990s and 2000s facilitated the establishment of large fish farms, often at the expense of smallholder cultivators who worked agricultural lands without formal use rights. Reforms initiated in 2011 appeared to offer the prospect of restitutive land justice for rural households affected by land confiscation, but this promise has been slow to materialize. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the Delta, this paper analyzes the narratives and strategies deployed by different groups of state and societal actors advocating for and against land restitution, focusing on the competing uses of two concepts: legality and legitimacy. In doing so, we explore how state-society relations in Myanmar have been reworked through these processes of contestation, and examine possibilities for, and limits to, progressive land reform during political transition.

Following a series of cases brought against Italy in relation to non-conviction based confiscation, the European Court of Human Rights engaged in a judicial dialogue with the Italian Constitutional Court over the correct interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights and in particular Article 7. This article elaborates on the background of this dialogue and analyses the European Court's position in its most recent judgement in this saga: GIEM and Others v Italy.

In an effort to tackle criminal groups, the Italian State allows the confiscation of properties belonging to individuals convicted for mafia-related crimes and their reallocation to a new use. This policy is considered both as an anti-mafia measure and as a way to partially compensate the society for the harm made by the criminal organisations. Whether and how this measure has had an impact on the local areas where it is implemented, however, has not yet been investigated. We test the hypothesis that the policy contributes to the regeneration of urban spaces by assessing its impact on the value of buildings in the vicinity of confiscated/re-allocated properties. To this aim, we perform difference-in-differences analyses, both at the level of local housing markets and at the level of individual buildings, investigating the externalities of the policy across the whole Italian territory. The results unveil a positive and significant effect of re-allocations of confiscated real estate assets on house prices, declining with distance from the re-allocation site. The impact is larger in cities with stronger mafia presence and in more deprived neighbourhoods. This suggests that the policy contributes to add value to the territory where it is applied and favours processes of urban revitalisation. These findings have important implications for the development of deprived urban areas characterised by a strong presence of criminal organisations.

The land confiscation that had its first usage under the US government that was utilized against the Loyalists failed in its subsequent use in the Civil War to redistribute land and power. Since the planter aristocracy retained, almost ubiquitously, their pre-war lands, they were able to reenter the political sphere and social elite. The former Confederate elites easily transitioned back into power during Johnson’s amnesty-focused reconstruction plan, which immediately followed with the suppression of black republicans, racist laws, and segregation under Jim Crow laws. Due to the land, power, and wealth being restored to the former masters and their descendants, at the expense of the promises left unfulfilled to the former slaves by the Freedmen’s Bureau and President Johnson, the remembrance of the Civil War was effectively won by the rebellion. As stewards of the “lost cause,” the heirs of the Confederacy built monuments to their cause, influenced the retelling of the Civil War for generations, and even today has a wide following amongst white Southerners. Yet, this remembrance is being challenged with the focal point being the Confederacy’s monuments and statues that embellish, reframe, and celebrate the supposed glory and honor of the Southern State’s heroic stand for states’ rights. In an ironic twist, the issue of the land in which these monuments stand is now the battleground in how the Civil War is memorialized for future generations. In this moment, across dozens of states, the Union is still fighting a war it had won in the field but lost in its remembrance.

Drug smuggling routes are chosen to maximize profit while minimizing costs. Routes with the least drug transportation costs and the lowest risk for drug confiscation and gang fight are most preferred. This study attempts to predict the ground trafficking corridors for transporting marijuana and opium derivatives from Mexico to the United States border. The cost surface, representing impedance to transport illicit drugs, is modeled by considering physical, socio-demographic, and drug violence factors. The impedance is then transferred to the road network to represent the cost for moving drugs along the roads, which becomes the main input for network analysis. The results from the routes simulation confirm largely the known territory divisions and the drug trafficking routes of the major Mexican drug organizations. The findings help us understand the development of drug trafficking routes in Mexico, which can potentially enhance our capability to predict the dynamics of drug smuggling routes.

“It is a notorious fact that professional and habitual criminals frequently take steps to conceal their profits from crime. Effective but fair powers of confiscating the proceeds of crime are therefore essential. ” (Lord Steyn) The Act was enacted to provide for the forfeiture or confiscation of the proceeds of certain crimes and for connected or related matters. This short and a brief paper intend to explain the applicability of the Act in Tanzania. The term proceeds of crime is the term given to money or assets gained by criminals during the course of their criminal activity. The aim here is to set out the law in relation to the recovery of assets with criminal being the most commonly used power. Confiscation usually occurs after a conviction has taken place. As I said earlier that a criminal cannot be benefit from any assets or money obtained from his/her criminal activities. So the Act intends to deprive and close the loophole that a criminal may use his/her assets after being found guilty of an offence. There is this saying that, “a person cannot be benefit from his/her own wrong”. In this case, the Act intends to show the society that commission of crime do not pay. Therefore, once you commit a crime which involves the accumulation of any assets including money or property, then you cannot be benefit from the wrong doing on such accumulation of assets, and therefore any properties resulting from criminal activities of serious or specified offenses cannot remain in the offender’s possession or ownership. Properties derived from criminal proceeds are properties acquired as the fruit of criminal proceeds, or properties acquired as returns on criminal proceeds or properties acquired as returns on these properties and properties acquired from the possession or disposal of criminal proceeds. Therefore, this short paper tries to show how the Proceeds of Crime Act, [Cap.256] of 2007 works particularly on its amendments of 2007 and 2012, and for the purpose of this paper, the term Act shall mean the Proceeds of Crime Act, [Cap.256] of 2007.

This Article surveys federal circuit court of appeals cases on the Second Amendment from August 1, 2017, through July 31, 2018. The decisions of the last year continue the post-Heller approach of upholding all provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and of the National Firearms Act of 1934. As usual, the prohibited persons cases were easy under Heller and post-Heller circuit doctrine. However, one case was too glib, and earned a dissent: the Sixth Circuit’s decision upholding a lifetime gun ban for a misdemeanor committed decades previously. Restrictions on firearms commerce were easy as applied to unlicensed persons willfully selling arms to sketchy characters. But Fifth Circuit’s decision upholding the ban on handgun sales by federally licensed firearms dealers to residents of consenting other states had questionable reasoning. Far worse was the superficial analysis and shoddy history in the Ninth Circuit’s opinion upholding a county’s ban on all new gun stores. Nullification of the right to bear arms remains a continuing problem in a few states. In the Second Circuit, treating the Second Amendment as a second-class right would actually be an improvement from the current jurisprudence. There, New York City has been allowed to continue its mean-spirited policy of preventing handgun owners in Staten Island from practicing gun safety in New Jersey, prohibiting residents of the Bronx from participating in target competitions in Connecticut, and forbidding New York City residents to take their registered handguns from one home to another. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court failed to act when Ninth Circuit allowed California to nullify the right to bear arms. Hawaii’s similar nullification has been cast into doubt by a recent panel opinion from the Ninth Circuit, but whether that decision will survive en banc is uncertain. Also uncertain in the long term is California’s effort to confiscate standard magazines holding more than ten rounds. For the present, the confiscation is still enjoined. Although residents of the fifty States may not pay much attention to U.S. Territories, the citizens of the Territories are American citizens, and their rights are just as important as other citizens’. Accordingly, the final demise of the racial ban, handgun ban, and self-defense ban in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is a welcome development.

By choosing this dissertation, the author intends to leverage his background from the corporate America to contribute to the ongoing research on the effectiveness of Competition Act in Canada, and the efficacy of the current disciplinary measure to discourage dominant abuse. In the process, the writer aims to explore the European competition law (Competition Act) and the American Antitrust (Sherman Act) to paint a clearer picture of how the Competition Act in Canada is measuring up compared to other western countries. The author hopes the outcome of this research would validate the collective desire by the public for equality in telecom sectors. Depending on the conclusion drawn from the available facts, and the relevance of the recommendation made by the writer, the author may elect to share a copy of this dissertation with the Commissioner of the Competition Bureau in hope a discussion can be initiated to review the existing enforcement of competition act relative to the behaviour of the dominant firms. The author chose to research about this topic for various reasons that include: i) the plight of households, who have found telecom service in Canada expensive, largely due to limited service providers. ii) acquisition of small-medium firms by dominant firms iii) confiscation of the market share by the dominant firms iv) abuse of dominant status. By conducting a research in this important aspect, the writer hope to communicate a clearer message to the stakeholders about the shortcomings of the existing legislation, and the need to review the current punitive measures (Subsection 79) in line with the changing economic conditions.

ResumenLa labor emprendida por funcionarios y promotores de la desamortización eclesiástica se tradujo en el beneficio de algunos políticos liberales y, al mismo tiempo, en la división de la propiedad entre otros sectores sociales. El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar los mecanismos que permitieron a tres funcionarios del gobierno liberal beneficiarse del proceso de desamortización eclesiástica en la capital mexicana entre 1856 y 1858. La hipótesis fundamental de este trabajo es que el proceso de desamortización eclesiástica tuvo dos consecuencias: el acaparamiento de propiedades por representantes y funcionarios, pero también la búsqueda de adjudicaciones en beneficio de la sociedad mexicana de entonces.AbstractThe work undertaken by officials and promoters of the Alienation of Church Wealth, resulted in the benefit of some liberal politicians and, at the same time, in the division of property among other social sectors. The objective of this research is to analyze the mechanisms that allowed three Liberal government officials benefit from the process of ecclesiastical confiscation in the Mexican capital, between 1856 and 1858. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that the process of ecclesiastical confiscation had two consequences: property grabbing by representatives and officials, but also the pursuit of awards for the benefit of Mexican society then.

Since the creation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) in 2001, which is now known as the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 200l (the 2001 Act), money laundering and terrorism financing have been criminalized. Other legal measures to disrupt the flows and incidence of such crimes were also introduced involving freezing, seizure and confiscation or forfeiture of the proceeds of such crimes by the authorities. Prior to the 2001 Act, confiscation cases were almost exclusively centred on drug trafficking cases under the Dangerous Drug legislation. The 2001 Act entailed two current types of confiscation of criminal property, namely, the criminal confiscation that is based upon the prosecution of the accused person and the civil confiscation when there is no such prosecution. This paper seeks to examine these confiscation systems in Malaysia to understand their origin, nature and the extent to which such confiscation systems could be governed at the international and local levels. Of significance, is the legal implications of the non-conviction based confiscation that indicates that such confiscation law represents one of the most serious encroachments on private property rights. It is worse when the rule of such confiscation is making the property and not the property owner, guilty until proven innocent.

Southeast Asia is a hub for wildlife trafficking. Since 2001, the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT), a multi-agency law enforcement unit under the authority of the Cambodian Forestry Administration, has operated in Cambodia to counteract wildlife trafficking. We have analysed confiscation records from the WRRT for 2001–2018 to determine the compositional trends of trafficked species in Cambodia, and identify any detectable conservation gaps. Confiscations involved 95% native species. Over 60% of all confiscated species were either: (i) not listed in CITES; (ii) listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List; and/or (iii) Common under the Cambodian Forestry Law. These common, and usually less appreciated, species in trade may face greater future threats through trafficking and thus require better protection. Birds had the most number of animals confiscated, and songbirds were particularly heavily trafficked. In terms of the number of incidents, reptiles were the most confiscated Class. A small number of specific reptile species were consistently targeted, and particularly prominent was turtle and tortoise trafficking. Conversely, birds appeared to be trafficked opportunistically. Most bird species were only confiscated in a single year, and almost two thirds of all bird species were replaced by different species each year. We show that Cambodia is contributing substantially to the bird trade and this may be an under-reported element of the Asian songbird crisis.

Tax extraction is often low in absolutist regimes. Why are absolutists unable to convert power into revenue? Supported by evidence from Imperial China, we explain this puzzle with a principal-agent model which reveals that absolutists, unconstrained by rule of law and unable to commit to not predating on their tax-collecting agents (and the masses), may find it optimal to settle for a low wage-low tax equilibrium, while permitting agents to keep extra, unmonitored taxes. Our analysis suggests that low investment in administrative capacity is a conscious choice for an absolutist since it substitutes for credible commitment to refrain from confiscation.

Spanish Abstract: Algunos autores que han analizado la regulacion del decomiso de bienes transferidos a terceros previsto en el art. 127 quater Cp han destacado la similitud que existe entre este y el delito de blanqueo de capitales. Sin embargo, como analizare en este trabajo, a pesar de que el art. 127 quater Cp y el parrafo primero del art. 301 Cp tienen algunos elementos comunes, esto no supone que el tercero adquiriente de los bienes de procedencia delictiva sea autor de un delito de blanqueo de capitales siempre que se realice una interpretacion restrictiva de este o se tenga en cuenta el objeto sobre el que recae el decomiso. English Abstract: Some of the scholars who have studied the regulation of the confiscation of goods transferred to third parties provided for in art. 127 quater of Spanish Criminal Code have emphasized the similarity between it and the crime of money laundering. However, as I will analyze through this work, despite the fact that art. 127 quater of Criminal Code and the first paragraph of art. 301 of Criminal Code have some common elements, this does not mean that the third party acquiring criminal proceeds is the perpetrator of a money-laundering offense, as long as a restrictive interpretation of money laundering is adopted or the object of confiscation is taken into account.

This study exploits the confiscation and auctioning off of Church property that occurred during the French Revolution to assess the role played by transaction costs in delaying the reallocation of property rights in the aftermath of fundamental institutional reform. French districts with a greater proportion of land redistributed during the Revolution experienced higher levels of agricultural productivity in 1841 and 1852 as well as more investment in irrigation and more efficient land use. We trace these increases in productivity to an increase in land inequality associated with the Revolutionary auction process. We also show how the benefits associated with the head-start given to districts with more Church land initially, and thus greater land redistribution by auction during the Revolution, dissipated over the course of the nineteenth century as other districts gradually overcame the transaction costs associated with reallocating the property rights associated with the feudal system.

This paper investigates, by means of material flow analysis, the supply management of iron during a historical period of increased demand and induced shortage. The Austrian economy during World War I, when numerous raw materials had to be substituted by secondary sources, is analyzed as an example. The relative abundance of iron in the anthroposphere allowed a 40% increase in annual iron production in 1916 compared to peacetime, made possible by regulation. Almost half of the observed increase resulted from enhanced scrap utilization, covering up to 25% of total demand. By contrast, in peacetime, only 15% of iron consumption was covered by scrap. This sharp increase (from 330,000 to almost 600,000 tons/year) was accomplished by establishing authorities and regulations to guarantee sufficient metal supplies to industry and the military. Regulation was limited to pricing and inventories of scrap stocks. Purchase or confiscation of iron goods under civilian possession by the authorities proved unnecessary, while this was not the case for other metals. Although in-use iron stocks were not exploited, a severe shortage of civilian iron goods occurred since almost all iron produced was designated for military use. The historical data illustrate the short-term effectiveness and limits to extensive regulatory measures.

While numerous studies have examined the post-war contestation surrounding commemorative sites associated with the legacy of Nazi Germany, relatively little attention has been dedicated to the ways in which the Nazi regime itself sought to create places of memory congruent with the movement's political and cultural goals. Indeed, party leaders sponsored a variety of disparate, and at times contradictory, programs to re-orientate some of Germany's most prominent historic places to better serve the needs of the regime. To expand our understanding of this process, this article examines the practice and rhetoric of historic preservation in Bavaria during the Nazi period with a focus on the preservationist program sponsored by Bavarian President Ludwig Siebert. Nazi propaganda promised to rejuvenate and protect Germany's architectural heritage for the public good, but the regime's actual priorities and policies led to widespread confiscation, damage, and eventually destruction.

Background Drug market policing has been associated with various harms among injection drug users (IDU). However, little is known about instances in which drugs and injecting equipment are confiscated from IDU in the absence of a formal arrest. Methods We examined factors associated with being stopped, searched, or detained by police among participants in the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS) using logistic regression. We also examined actions taken by study participants immediately following instances in which drugs or syringes were confiscated by police. Results Among 465 active IDU, 130 (28.0%) reported being detained by police in the last 6 months without being arrested. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, factors associated with being stopped, searched or detained by police included homelessness (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR]=3.96, 95% CI: 1.86–8.45), recent incarceration (AOR=3.52, 95% CI: 1.75–7.10), frequent crack use (AOR=2.24, 95% CI: 1.34–3.74), requiring help injecting (AOR=5.20, 95% CI: 1.21–22.39), and lending syringes (AOR=3.18, 95% CI: 1.09–9.30). Of those who reported being detained, 34% participants reported having had drugs confiscated, and 70% of these reported that they immediately acquired more drugs. Fifty-one percent of participants who reported being detained also reported having had syringes confiscated, and of this group, 6% reported immediately borrowing used syringes. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that the IDU most affected by street-level policing tend to possess various characteristics, such as homelessness, that place them at heightened risk for various adverse health outcomes. Our findings also suggest that the confiscation of drugs and/or needles and syringes through discretionary policing practices have the potential to exacerbate drug market activity or prompt increased syringe borrowing. These findings indicate the need for ongoing evaluation of the public health impacts of discretionary policing approaches.

The Republic of Kosovo has issued several legal acts which are in place to prevent and combat the phenomenon of money laundering. These acts determine the issue of state response and other institutional mechanisms which have competence in the field of law enforcement to strike this criminal phenomenon. Until now, prevention of money laundering is regulated by: UNMIK Regulation, Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Prevention of Terrorist Financing and the Law on Extended Powers for Confiscation of Assets Acquired by Criminal Offence.

In an effort to dismantle the open drug market and improve public order, a large-scale police initiative named the Citywide Enforcement Team (CET), began in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) on 7th April 2003. This research sought to assess the CET's impact upon drug consumption activities as well as access to sterile syringes and health services among injection drug users (IDUs). Ethnographic research methods including participant observation and semi-structured interviews were employed. Interviews were conducted with 30 individuals recruited from an ongoing cohort study of IDUs and nine individuals who provide health services to drug users. In addition, an ongoing participant-observation program investigating public drug use in the DTES yielded data during the period of the CET, as well as seven months prior to its commencement. With regard to drug use patterns, intensified police presence prompted ‘rushed' injections, injecting in riskier environments, discouraged safer injection practices, and increased unsafe disposal of syringes. Service providers indicated that the CET negatively impacted contact between health services and IDUs, as outreach was compromised due to the displacement of IDUs. Police activities also negatively influenced IDUs' access to syringes and their willingness to carry syringes, and syringe confiscation was reported. The intensification of police activities led to less drug related activity in the area where the drug market was traditionally concentrated, but widespread displacement of drug use activities to other locations also occurred. The adverse impact of concentrated police activities upon urban drug problems and the implications for both public order and public health should be recognized.

This paper seeks to sketch a number of geographical patterns pertaining to the ongoing process of confiscation of Palestinian-Arab land in Israel and the 1967 occupied territories. It points out a geographical pattern and process of “enclaving” and “exclaving”, a form of spatial apartheid and exclusionary zoning which was adopted during the pre-state period of Jewish settlement and has continued down to the present day. The centrality of land possession and its transfer to Jewish national and state ownership is shared by almost all political classes in Israel. Even during key points in peace negotiations over the past several years, land confiscation never ceased nor was interrupted. The present paper employs the term “shrinking” to underscore that land confiscation is a continuous process in Palestine/Israel. This of course has both political and social ramifications for the type of state Israel seeks to be, declaring its desire to live in peace and harmony with its own Palestinian citizens and Palestinians elsewhere once a peace deal has been reached. Seen from the perspective of land, its control and use, this paper argues that there is no other alternative in achieving peaceful resolution between Jews in Israel and Palestinians except a return to square one: redefining a new geography for Palestinian villages and towns in Israel and for those many hundreds of villages which were demolished and have since been obliterated.

Romanian Abstract: Principalele mele constatari au evidentiat faptul ca, in multe cazuri, judecatorii nu sunt interesați sa dispuna confiscarea de catre terți, in ciuda dispozițiilor imperative care ii obliga sa aplice aceste masuri și sa ia masurile de precauție adecvate, pentru a garanta eficiența unui alt ordin de confiscare. In consecința, incerc sa apreciez cauzele slabei puneri in aplicare a confiscarii pe baza de terța parte / extinsa / non-condamnare și sa contrazic natura confiscarii. In sistemul juridic românesc, cea a unei masuri de siguranța și nu a unei pedepse. Garanțiile care ar trebui sa insoțeasca un ordin de confiscare ar trebui prezentate, de asemenea, intr-un mod cuprinzator, pentru a convinge practicantul sa nu pericliteze in continuare principiul pe care criminalitatea nu il platește. English Abstract: My main findings increased awareness that in many cases, judges are not interested to order third party confiscation, despite imperative provisions compelling them to apply these measures and to take appropriate precautionary measures, in view to guarantee the efficiency of a further confiscation order. Therefore, I am trying to assess the causes of the poor implementation of third party/extended/non-conviction based confiscation and to argue the nature of confiscation. In the Romanian legal system, that of a safety measure and not of a penalty. The guarantees that should accompany a confiscation order should also be presented in a comprehensive way, in order to persuade the practitioner not to further jeopardize the principle Crime does not pay.

Using a dataset of Supreme Court decisions in Indonesia between 2002-2012, this research estimates the likelihood and the severity of punishments handed out by judges in the highest court level the defendants litigate. Several empirical econometric methods were used in this study to assess five different categories of punishment: imprisonment, probation, fines, compensation and asset confiscation. In crime-economics, the certainty and severity of punishment increases the cost of committing a crime, which decreases crime rates. As a specific type of crime, corruption can be eradicated using this approach. The results of the study show that the independent anti-corruption agency in Indonesia, known as the KPK (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi/Corruption Eradication Commission) increases the cost of engaging in corrupt activities, as defendants handled by this agency have a significantly greater likelihood of being punished, and that any imprisonment, fines or and confiscation of assets will be more severe than those penalties imposed by other law enforcement institutions. Similarly, the activation of the KPK also has a significant positive impact on both likelihood and severity of punishment in terms of imprisonment and fines in the cases of defendants handled by the police and public prosecutors. In addition, the individual characteristics of the defendants have various and significant effects on each type of punishment, both in terms of likelihood and severity. Regarding the model, this research also finds that Cragg’s two-part model is more appropriate for assessing the severity of punishments, and also fits the data better than the Tobit model.

On December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama began the process of thawing the ice-cold relationship with Cuba by allowing additional travel to the island and relaxing some of the rules on doing business there. Full diplomatic relations were restored in July 2015, and a bank in Florida announced shortly thereafter that it would conduct business with Cuban banks. Nonetheless, as of the time of this writing, the 56-year embargo is still in force largely because of Cuba’s human rights record and the nearly seven billion dollars worth of claims for confiscated property. Even so, US companies are rushing to the island to be the first to stake their claims when they are able to conduct business legally. After all, before the Communist revolution and the confiscation of property US persons and businesses owned or controlled 80% of the island’s resources. When the embargo is lifted, US companies will compete with the EU and Canadian companies that have been there for decades, but what ethical challenges will US companies face? Cuba is one of five remaining Communist countries in the world, and US companies already do business in three of the others — the People’s Republic of China. Laos, and the Socialist Republic of South Viet Nam. What makes Cuba different? How can and will companies reconcile a values-based code of ethics with the realities of the Cuban marketplace?

Apart from BITs there are other types of treaties relevant for ensuring definite rights to foreign investors even if not focused on investment protection, most of them predating BITs, on which we will focus in the present contribution. This is the case with treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation (FCN treaties) typically entered into by the USA, or Consular and Establishment treaties, some of them dating back to the XIX century. This was the case in the well-known ELSI dispute, in which the United States invoked certain provisions of the bilateral FCN Treaty of 1948 before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1986-89 against Italy. In another case, Italy successfully exercised diplomatic protection towards Switzerland in 1991-92 in favour of Italian citizens faced with confiscation of immovable property because of alleged violations of Swiss legislation restricting acquisition of land by foreigners. Another avenue, distinct from invocation of the BIT by a protected foreign investor itself through direct arbitration against the host State, is its invocation by the home country through diplomatic protection of aggrieved national investors against the host country in a State-to-State arbitration. This is provided in BITs but rarely resorted to. One such case is a recent dispute between Italy and Cuba, where Italy espoused the claims of several Italian investors against Cuba in direct State-to-State arbitration pursuant to Art. 10 of the BIT of 1993 between the two countries. Through the examination of the treaty provisions invoked in the above-mentioned cases, of the procedural features of each of them and of the outcomes we intend to contribute to a better understanding of available options and their respective value, highlighting the differences from recourse to direct arbitration by the foreign investor concerned under a BIT.

In 1850s New Zealand, the British Crown forced the purchase of indigenous Maori land at Taranaki, an event that hastened the brutal land wars of the 1860s. A group of British church and government officials and their wives voiced their opposition to this land confiscation, participating in what became known as the «pamphlet war» over Taranaki. The authors compare the anti-colonial writings of a number of prominent colonial men and women, drawing out the significance of both ideological and embodied gendered differences and the discursive representations of place produced out of them. In addition to differences and similarities in genre, content, and audience, the authors highlight the significance—and spatiality—of anti-colonial Maori testimony that appeared in one of the pivotal texts.

The purpose of the present paper is to explore both the motivation for confiscating illegal gain and also to look at some of its legal aspects and economic effects. It is argued that the removal of illegal gain may be able to play a significant complementary role, if only by closing the gap between the maximum punishment the law will allow and fines sufficient to represent a credible deterrent. The paper develops a deterrence model and applies it to confiscation powers introduced to help combat drug trafficking.

In an overlapping generations equilibrium model, the macroeconomic effects of confiscation of financial assets as occurred in the Collor Plan are studied by means of numerical simulations. The model is built on many features specific to the Brazilian economy, including a financial system dominated by banks that offer indexed assets and an uneven distribution of wage income and wealth. The framework permits the analysis of the aggregate and redistributive effects of the Collor Plan in a general equilibrium context. The simulation technique developed in this article generates both stationary equilibrium paths and transitionary paths. A temporary confiscation of assets simulation replicates the outcomes of the Collor Plan and thus provides insights as to why this stabilization plan failed. This simulation result, plus those of three other simulation experiments, highlights the difficulties in subduing inflation in an indexed economy when inflation taxes are an important source of revenue for the government. These results suggest the need for fiscal reform to enlarge Brazil's fiscal base and enhance its tax administration in order to win over inflation once and for all.

This study used interrupted time series analysis to evaluate whether implementing a law in California allowing peace officers to impound/forfeit vehicles operated by drivers with suspended/revoked driver licenses was associated with changes in the crash rates among such drivers. The effects of the impoundment/forfeiture laws on crashes for suspended/revoked drivers were examined using crashes among validly licensed drivers as a control. While statistically significant intervention effects were found for suspended/revoked drivers, significant effects were also discovered for validly licensed drivers. Models examining crashes for suspended/revoked drivers that statistically controlled the effects of crashes for validly licensed drivers found only borderline statistically significant results. Thus, this study found no evidence that simply threatening to impound/forfeit the vehicles of suspended/revoked drivers affected their crash rates. This contrasts to a previous study, which showed that actually impounding the vehicles of such drivers substantially lowered their rates of subsequent crashes and traffic convictions.

Until recently economists have tended to ignore what Jack Hirshliefer calls “the dark-side way of confiscation, exploitation, and conflict.” That is to say, economists have tended to ignore how societies or political regimes choose to allocate resources over productive activities and expropriation. Ignoring this allocation problem means too that the implications of expropriation for growth have been neglected. By way of ameliorating this relative neglect, I consider a simple model of conflict between two regimes in which each is trying to confiscate resources from the other. The amount of such confiscation in a non-cooperative Nash equilibrium and the implications for growth are derived. Considered also are the prospects for cooperation in which regimes reduce or completely eliminate plunder.

The unprecedented development of international relations in the contemporary society has been accompanied by a similar unprecedented rise in international crimes by the proliferation of certain forms of organised crimes on the territory of several states. In our contemporary world, whose main characteristic is the extraordinary cross-border mobility, the problem mentioned above acquires a new dimension that is of essence for the performance of justice.

Corruption is the economic crime with the furthest reaching implications in Uganda. Corruption has been the subject of legislation and litigation in Uganda. Some of this legislation focuses specifically on corruption, while other legislation serves an ancillary role in the fight against corruption. But it is impossible to attempt to benefit from the proceeds of corruption without laundering them first. To this extent, these vices are not mutually exclusive. To add to the considerable list of anti-corruption legislation already on the books, the Uganda Parliament recently enacted the Anti Money Laundering Act of 2013 (AMLA). This paper examines the AMLA, which now forms the main axis of AML legislation in Uganda. The paper is limited in its analysis to the context of corruption. The paper analyses the various parts of the Act, highlighting how useful they might be in the fight against corruption. The paper also examines the usual ways in which the proceeds of corruption are laundered and some vulnerabilities to which attention should be paid. At the time of writing, there are ongoing efforts to amend the Anti-Corruption Act to deal largely with evidence gathering and enforcement of confiscation orders. The paper considers to what extent these amendments might relate with or affect the AML enforcement regime. In the final analysis, the paper concludes that although some parts of the Act were fairly drafted and in line with both international standards and best practices, there are key areas for improvement. There is also need to adopt an approach that harmonizes the legal regime and enforcement mechanisms on AML and anticorruption in Uganda. Additionally, the gravity of the effect this law will have on the fight against corruption will depend on the political will of those charged with its enforcement.

Italian Abstract: Il lavoro analizza le relazioni fra imprese sequestrate alla criminalita organizzata e banche. Nella prima parte viene esaminata l’evoluzione della normativa di settore e le criticita che permangono nonostante gli sforzi per giungere a un assetto organico nella lotta alla criminalita sul piano economico; nella seconda parte l’analisi dei profili creditizi e gestionali delle imprese suggerisce che non vi siano, dopo l’adozione di un provvedimento giudiziario, trattamenti penalizzanti da parte delle banche rispetto a quelli utilizzati con altre aziende operanti negli stessi settori, nelle stesse aree geografiche e con profili gestionali simili. English Abstract: This paper analyzes the relations between businesses seized from organized crime and the banking system. The first part of the paper examines legislative developments regarding seized and confiscated assets and highlights the persistence of problem areas despite the efforts to create a systematic framework for measures to combat crime on the economic plane. The analysis of firms’ credit and operational profiles in the second part of the paper finds no evidence that banks, following the confiscation order, impose more onerous terms and conditions with respect to other companies in the same sectors, located in the same geographical areas and having similar operational profiles. This finding appears to be linked to the observation that the deterioration of the main indicators dates back to the years before the confiscation order, presumably in part following preventive action by the banks, prompted as a precaution to reduce their exposure at the first hint of a firm’s involvement in anti-mafia investigations. The paper concludes with implications for policy, taking into consideration the crucial role of expectations, the need to restore firms to healthy conditions through timely planning and the importance of economically efficient operational choices.

The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is often criticized for having declared that corporations are persons with the same constitutional rights as human beings. Using standard theories of the nature of the corporation as a guide, this paper traces the concept of corporate personhood from its mythical birth in the 1886 Santa Clara case. This historical perspective reveals that the Court has never settled on one theory of the nature of the corporation. Even after Citizens United the concept of corporate person remains little more than a metaphor or legal fiction. The real significance of Citizens United is that it ignored the traditional limitation on corporate constitutional rights. The idea of corporate constitutional rights springs from early Contract Clause doctrine holding that a state could not deprive a corporation of the essential object of its grant or confiscate corporate property. By ruling that the rights of corporations are not limited to issues that materially affect its business or property, the majority in Citizens United casually dismissed this principle of confiscation. It thus rejected both the most significant limitation on corporate constitutional rights and underlying rationale for giving corporations constitutional rights in the first place.

Hacia La Medicion De La Confiscatoriedad I: Reflexiones Iniciales - Para todos debe quedar claro que la confiscatoriedad es un antivalor, una suerte de injusticia, contraria a la normativa constitucional de muchos paises (aunque no todos) entre ellos el Peru. Resulta logico pensar que una expropiacion (total) de una cosa, patrimonio riqueza, entre otros puede ser confiscatoria. ?Pero realmente lo es?For all should be clear that tax confiscation is a negative value, a kind of injustice, contrary to constitutional law of many countries (though not all) including Peru. It sounds logical that an (total) expropriation of a thing, revenue, wealth, among others, can be confiscatory. But does it really?

In article the possibility of using depositors’ funds to rescue problem banks is considered and it is noted that though in Cyprus this practice was implemented incorrect and without depositors’ agreement it is worth noting that the idea in general, is reasonable and, in fact, means the participation of depositors in the profit/loss of banks. In article benefits of participation of depositors in the profit/loss of banks is shown.

The increase of crime that directly or indirectly acquire proceeds, necessarily causes an increase of the methods and means which has influence to the suppression of this type of crime. In this respect, the modern penal legislation, special attention and space, devoted to the promotion of the measure, confiscation of property and proceeds acquired by criminal act, either as a penal sanction, punishment or a separate criminal legal measure.Applying this measure should establish the former legal situation, before committing the offense, it saps the power of criminal offenders for further illegal activities and the potential perpetrators are referred to a message that will be no able to retain proceeds from offense, or that the perpetration of the offense would not worth. Hence, the seizure of proceeds acquired by criminal act logically tends, as an influential tool in crime prevention aimed at acquiring property.

Since 2010, Paul Krugman has been suggesting that Greece, Spain, Ireland and other European countries should consider abando-ning the euro and devalue their currencies in order to solve their fiscal difficulties. In January of 2011 Krugman repeated the same prescription, but added that the Argentine default and devalua - tion of 2001-2002 should be taken as an example of what Greece and other European countries in trouble should do to escape the crisis in which they are immersed. In Krugman’s own words: Some economists, myself included, look at Europe’s woes and have the feeling that we’ve seen this movie before, a decade ago on another continent - specifically, in Argentina. […] Argentina didn’t simply default on its foreign debt; it also abandoned its link to the dollar, allowing the peso’s value to fall by more than two-thirds. And this devaluation worked: from 2003 onward, Ar-gentina experienced a rapid export-led economic rebound. (Krug-man, 2011a).1 The Argentinian government could not resist the temptation to use the unfortunate words of this Nobel Prize winner to con-gratulate themselves on the success of policies implemented over the last decade. My objective is to try to clarify what happened in Argentina’s recent economic history, in order to shed light on a current and controversial topic in the field of economic policy.

In this paper the eciency of the confiscation as a tool against organized crime is studied by using a general equilibrium model that considers the existence of a representative criminal organization that generates profits that need to be laundered. The main result of the paper shows that if on one hand confiscation diminishes the optimal amount of money laundered on the other it increases the fraction of resources allocated to the criminal activity. This result suggests that confiscation has to be connected to further repressive measures in other to be an ecient tool against organized crime.