Reconceptualizing sovereignty in the post-national state: statehood attributes in the international order

The Aims of this thesis are to understand the changes of the concept of sovereignty in the international system considering the role of regional and functional arrangements and the contribution of federalism as a political theory. Federal theory is particularly important to the concept of sovereignty, particularly if one considers the diversity of federal political systems and their different historical experiences. Thus the thesis examines the federal experience of the United States throughout history and the European tradition of federalism. The present research is an attempt to emphasise the diversity of federalism as a legal and political concept and to demonstrate that federal political systems can be applicable beyond the modern state. The EU is a paradigmatic case of a regional arrangement, ‘proto-federal’ that challenges the notion of sovereignty as an exclusive statehood attribute. The thesis examines the recent decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court concerning the Treaty of Lisbon, which can be seen as an archetype of the challenges posed to European integration. Moreover, the thesis analyses the concept of subsidiarity, considered by some as a potential replacement of the concept of sovereignty

Digital Rights Management (DRM) : a failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world. A paper for the International Telecommunications Union, ITU-R Working Party 6M Report on Content Protection Technologies

This paper is part of our ongoing effort to bring some sanity to the blind march toward DRM technologies. These technologies don't work for stopping copyright infringement - their supposed function - yet they've served as an anti-competitive cudgel, a set of shackles on the public's rights in copyright, and a rubric for censoring and even jailing security researchers. EFF is delighted to be able to get this much-needed reality check before policymakers worldwide as they consider the question: 'Which DRM is best for my country?' Our answer: 'DRM will exact a punishing toll on your national interest and yield no benefit at all.' The paper explores the ways that DRM has harmed the developed world, negatively impacting scientific research, speech, innovation, competition, legitimate consumer interests, access by disabled people, archiving and library functions, and distance education. The paper goes on to examine the risks to the developing world in terms of its potential to curtail the public domain, to criminalize free and open source software projects, to enable region-based discrimination, and to lock local artists, authors, and performers into the monopoly pricing of DRM vendors. DRM has no nexus with promoting culture or stopping infringement. The rent it exacts from the nations it colonizes is too dear for anyone to bear. As you will see, the answer to "Which DRM will spur the most development in my nation?" is "None at all.

Erzeugung von umweltfreundlichen Sekundaerprodukten aus Kunststoffabfaellen Endbericht

For the separation of different plastics we used the melting temperature of the material, sticking to a heated surface. In a laboratory scale a seperation kit was constructed, where mixed granulates of different plastics were seperated by a heated drum, which was feeded by a belt carrying the granulates in a mono-layer. The surface-temperature of the separating drum was selected depending on the melting temperatures of the granulates, starting with the lowest melting temperature of the granulates. Granulates with higher melting temperatures were not collected by the drum and so with increasing temperatures of the seperating drum a step by step separation of different plastic was achieved. Selected granulates of PE, PVC and PA were seperated with a separation rate of more than 90%. Experiments executed with granulates of plastic wastes from the recycling of cable-shredder were less successfull. Different aging-processes in the material, unsufficient cleaned granulates and problems resulting from the construction of the seperating-device declined the separation results (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F98B101+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn (Germany)DEGerman