For those on or near the islands tired of English/Welsh law, Scots law, Northern Irish law, Irish law, Isle of Man law and Jersey law: Guernsey Bar is a new website introducing Guernsey law and lawyers.

bq. The purpose of this site is to introduce the profession of Guernsey Advocate and Guernsey law itself. You will find on this website an introduction to the Guernsey Bar, contact details for Guernsey firms, an introduction to Guernsey law, and extensive advice about how to deal with a Guernsey Advocate in order to get the best out of that professional relationship. There is also a detailed glossary of legal terms and links to other helpful websites.

I fear quite some of the vocabulary in the law dictionary is familiar from English law (Calderbank offer), but I have been fond of Haro since I first encountered it:

bq. Haro: The Clameur de Haro is an ancient self-help remedy or injunction. Clameur literally indicates a great noise, like the English word “clamour”. If a wrong is being done by one person to another’s real property (e.g. by trespass (e.g. knocking down a wall) or nuisance (e.g. causing noxious fumes to spread into a neighbouring property) then the person being wronged may drop to his knees in the presence of two witnesses and say the following: “Haro! Haro! Haro! À l’aide mon Prince, on me fait tort.” Which means literally “Haro! Haro! Haro! Help me my Prince, I am being wronged.” The Lord’s prayer and grace are then recited in French. The appeal is thought to be to the first Norman Duke, Rollon, also known as Rollo, Rolf or Hrolfr. The person against whom the Clameur is raised must stop immediately the action complained of or face proceedings for contempt of court. The person raising the Clameur must register the act with the Court (which may refuse to register the Clameur if wrongly raised) and then commence proceedings against the alleged wrongdoer within a year and a day, or else the clameur will lapse. These days one would only use the Clameur where time did not permit any other more certain remedy and you were very confident of the circumstances. Seek the advice of an Advocate.

Whether it is a good idea to shout out Haro! when noxious fumes are invading your land (what the Germans like to think we call immissions) is another matter.

And usufruit sounds so much fruitier than usufruct, doesn’t it?

(via Delia Venables)

Craig Morris übersetzt und schreibt für heise.de. Im Januar war er zum ersten Mal seit acht Jahren in den USA und beschreibt seine Gefühle über Texas, New Orleans und Deutschland (er lebt in Freiburg im Breisgau). Benachrichtigung über neue Texte über KulturschockUSA-subscribe@yahoogroups.de, ein deutscher Text mit Links hier.

bq. Ich hatte natürlich auch mit vielen grün angehauchten Amerikanern zu tun, da ich Vorträge zum Erfolg der erneuerbaren Energien in Deutschland gehalten habe. Gerade solchen Leuten erscheint Deutschland wie ein Schlaraffenland. Immer wieder musste ich erklären, wie die Deutschen einen Konsens zur Novelle des Erneuerbaren-Energien-Gesetz gefunden hatten; wie sie erfolgreich den Verbrauch von PKWs durch die Ökosteuer gesenkt hatten, während der Verbrauch in den USA steigt; und wie der Müll in Deutschland gleich in den Haushalten mindestens dreifach geteilt wird, damit möglichst viel wiederverwertet werden kann, während die Amerikaner oft alles, was recycelbar ist, irgendwo hinfahren müssen, wenn sie es wiederverwerten wollen (sie müssen nicht), denn zu Hause gibt es nur einen Mülleimer, und der enthält neben Essensresten noch Coladosen, Plastikflaschen, Alu-Folie, Papier, usw.

Craig hat auch ein Buch über erneuerbare Energien geschrieben – auf Deutsch, keine Übersetzung! Es heißt Zukunftsenergien und erscheint auch in der Zukunft.

Craig Morris is a translator on environmental and ecological matters and he writes in English and German for heise.de. In January he visited the USA again for the first time in 8 years and he writes on the places he visited and compares Germany with the USA. Here is a link to be informed about new texts online – culture_shock_USA-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, and here is one of his recent texts.

bq. Of course, a lot of the Americans I met were on the green side of the political spectrum since I was holding lectures on the success of renewable energy in Germany. This group of people is prone to think of Germany as a kind of paradise. Again and again, I explained how Germans had reached a consensus on the Renewable Energy Act; how they successfully used environmental taxes to raise the average gas mileage of cars on the road, while gas mileage in the states has stagnated; and how Germans often have four small trash cans at home so they can sort everything out for the garbage trucks (compost, paper, plastic/metal, and non-recyclable waste), while Americans who want to recycle often have to drive somewhere to drop their trash off – but most of the time, Americans only have one trash can containing everything from leftovers to coke cans, plastic bottles, aluminum foil, paper, etc.

I don’t know how I overlooked the englishdroid.com site wittily described by Geoffrey Pullum at language log.

bq. PEQ Preparation/Execution Quotient: the time spent planning an activity divided by the time spent doing it in class. For example, the hour you spend searching the Internet for a ten-minute filler would have a quotient of 6. A fifty-minute role play that took you five minutes to dream up would be 0.1. (Any activity that has a PEQ greater than 0.5 should definitely be avoided.) There’s a present perfect activity in this book. – What’s the PEQ?

bq. pig’s bladder and bells
Equipment the teacher takes into class to amuse the students, like board games, dice, realia and pictures.

De lege agraria nova is a Portuguese weblog on agricultural, environmental and food law in the Portuguese-speaking countries. The authors are Professor Lucas Abreu Barroso (of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, in Brazil) and Manuel David Barroso.

When I was reading JuraBlogs (shows the newsfeeds of German legal weblogs), I clicked on ‘Slip Opinion: Todesstrafe’ at the German American Law Blog. Instead of the entry, the following appeared on my screen:

Kein Zugang aus impressumspflichtigen Staaten
Impressumspflicht verletzt US-Recht

Sollten Sie versehentlich über einen Dienst aus einem Staat mit Impressumspflicht hier gelandet sein, doch nicht aus einem Staat mit Impressumspflicht stammen, klicken Sie hier zum Besuch von German American Law Journal in Washington, DC, USA.

Impressumspflicht is hard to translate, isn’t it? Anyway, I live in Germany and I come from the UK, and both of those states are members of the EU. It’s widely believed that the Impressum is German law, but in fact it’s EU law (see my archives). So I am not allowed to access the German American Law Journal (German version) via its newsfeed. I am not sure why this is, though.

The first link took me to a Supreme Court decision, JOSEPH McINTYRE, executor of estate of MARGARET McINTYRE, deceased, PETITIONER v. OHIO ELECTIONS COMMISSION. Why do I have the feeling that this decision doesn’t apply to me because I’m not a US citizen?

I then – disobeying the rules – clicked through to the blog and found that slip opinion means vorläufige Begründung. Thanks!

The next thing I did was to see what happens if I click on a link to the English-language version of the German American Law Journal (there was an entry on Sunday). Well, what do you know – no nasty warning! But what about people from Ireland or the UK, or any other people from the EU who want to read that blog? It seems that only Germany and Austria are being banned here.

LATER NOTE: There is an explanation of the blocking at Die Blogelei.