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This chapter considers the codifying role of the postcolonial dictionary. Such dictionaries, such as the Macquarie Dictionary, have been understood as declarations of linguistic independence. This chapter argues that the Macquarie Dictionary intervenes as a both a description and declaration of independence, working through what Jacques Derrida, writing on the American colonies’ declaration of independence, calls a fabulous retroactivity. On the one hand, these independent Englishes already existed, and on the other they required the dictionary itself to make them happen: these Englishes both already were and yet also ought to be. The chapter explores the interesting implications of such a structure in our understanding of World Englishes.

This chapter discusses conflicts between the statute of limitation of the forum state and the corresponding statutes of other involved states, particularly the state whose law governs the merits of the case. The traditional approach classified statutes of limitation as procedural and, subject to rare exceptions, applied the statute of the forum state unless a borrowing statute dictated otherwise. Twenty-eight states still follow that approach. The remaining states are divided between three new approaches developed in the meantime. This chapter discusses all four approaches (the new Uniform Act, new judicial approaches (Heavner), the new revision of the Restatement (Second), and the Louisiana and Puerto Rico Codifications), as well as representative cases from each approach.

Max’s PhD re-framed Weber’s (and Needham’s) classic question of why China failed to generate an industrial revolution in a remarkably novel way. His codification-diffusion matrix suggested Western economic institutions were better able to generate, manage, and apply their knowledge assets - the key driver. Notably, Max attacked Williamson’s markets and hierarchy thesis for his failure to consider federation as a third viable mode of institutional knowledge governance. In his second phase Max explored institutional contrasts between China and the West empirically and the codification-diffusion matrix evolved a third epistemological dimension - abstraction - to become the I-Space. In his third phase, drawing again on French thermodynamics and entropy theory, Max probed the I-Space’s self-regulating and self-organizing properties. Thus his thinking eventually returned to the complexity theory approach anticipated in his PhD. Finally these three phases formed the supporting arc of an entirely novel knowledge-based view of organizing.

This chapter presents a discussion on the contiguous zone i.e. the waters contiguous to and beyond the territorial sea in which States have limited powers for the enforcement of customs, fiscal, sanitary, and immigration laws. Although the Hague Codification Conference ended in failure, the contiguous zone was not eliminated, but began to be more and more a component of international practice. India has supported a twelve-mile (i.e. 24 nautical miles from the baseline of a coastal state) contiguous zone, though it did not make any formal proposal to that effect in the 1958 Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea. The chapter concludes by discussing contiguous zones and the Right of Hot Pursuit and other issues of general security. The creation of contiguous zones in the interests of security is also discussed.

Michail Bletsas, Director of Computing at the MIT Media Lab and Director of the Network Computing Systems Group at MIT, is convinced that the 21st century will see the emergence of biological intelligence. He starts the dialogue with an explanation of why the Internet and its huge computational system, - the most complex human-built system -, is forcing us to learn to engage with systems that are becoming even more complicated, with varying levels of complexity. He describes later the arrival of the finely granular Internet, which in consequence led to the concept of connectivity everywhere. Later he outlines the Internet of Things’ capabilities that he and his team have deployed inside the new MIT Media Lab building. Michael then goes on to argue why we have to separate issues of business from scientific arguments and prediction—the important thing in business is not only what’s going to happen, but when it will happen. Michael also relates why the best type of innovation is bottom up, before going on to explain how not only innovation, but also evolution, is gradually improving things.

This chapter deal primarily with the period following the first world war, and starts with a discussion of the relationship between overall changes in the Mashreq and the Maghreb. It then focuses on a number of crucial common areas. The one is women’s rights with regard to legal capacity, inheritance, dress, education and visibility. The other concerns civil legislation and the drawing up of civil codes. Controversies on both issues and attempts at pushing back by the religious institutions are discussed. The relative marginalisation of religious culture, cognitive challenges to religion, and the religious assault on the the cognitive and social goods of modernity, are addressed in detail. The incubation and early deployment of fundamentalism in politics and culture are analysed in relation to objective transformations in place.

“A Vice of Its Virtues” explores certain problems with attempts to codify broad bases for authoritative punishment and for justifying actions. The essay focuses on the Model Penal Code. The three specific topics addressed are the right not to retreat, general justifications, and dangerous utterances. Using a few examples that appear to be covered by the Code’s language, the essay suggests that the treatment that would entail is misguided. Codifying these subjects may be desirable, and it is probably impossible to dictate the correct outcome for all conceivable situations. Nonetheless, it is helpful to be aware of these risks, and to consider the possibilities of further development of some of a criminal code’s more general provisions.

This chapter describes the process of codification a process which has been accelerated in recent years following the setting up of a Commission Supérieure de Codification in 1989. Today's codes are aimed at clarifying, and making more accessible, law which has become more complex owing to the increasing number of statutes in particular areas. The most common current method of codification used is the restatement in one place of the law in a particular area which was previously to be found scattered in different documents. The Commission, meanwhile, has not only introduced a number of new codes but also redesigned existing ones found to be in need of reshaping. These codes are the result of the work carried out by ministries involved in the task of producing a draft in their relevant area. It is clear that, today, codification is less an ideological enterprise than a technical exercise.