Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa - Volume 25, Issue 1, March 1992

A comparison between the aims and values which underlie, respectively, the International Convention and the draft Community Trade Mark Regulation, reveals the fundamental change in emphasis which has occurred over the last century in the field of international protection of trade mark rights. The essentially negative concern with preventing discrimination by one country against the nationals of another has gradually given way to the positive objective of harmonising the trade mark systems of different states. The Madrid Arrangements and the Trademark Registration Treaty evidence the drive towards harmony at the procedural level, while the Community Trade Mark Regulation goes further, by making available the acquisition of substantive trade mark rights on a uniform basis in a number of countries. Would it be fanciful at this stage to contemplate the possibility of a "world trade mark" that knows no national boundaries? Perhaps it would. As far as South Africa is concerned, membership of the International Convention is probably adequate to meet its present needs.

More than ever before, states are becoming aware of the need not only to employ the waters of their watercourses to the fullest economic benefit but, where such a watercourse is shared by other states, to do so in conjunction and consultation with other interested parties. Only in this way can potentially explosive international disputes be avoided. The emergence of international riparian organisations on the African continent over the last two decades or so is an indication of this awareness. As will be shown in this discussion, this thinking informs the current efforts by the eight Southern African states lying within the Zambezi River Basin towards the creation of a joint international authority to oversee their common utilisation and management of the resources of the basin, and the conclusion of an international con version in this regard. The article includes a proposed Convention based on the signed Agreement on the Action Plan for the Environmentally Sound Management of the Common Zambezi River System.

The general response to the increasing isolation of the citizen from the law for financial rasons, has been proposals for institutional and procedural reform, and the introduction of devices such as legal aid and small-claims courts. These schemes aim at increased accessibility to justice for the man in the street and the making of law more applicable to, and meaningful for, him. However, another and more radical response begins with the assumption that because of the problems associated with it, litigation is declining in importance in the eyes of the citizen. This response is less concerned with the existing legal process and concentrates rather on the creation of new institutions operating in a less formal manner, providing "participant justice" in relatively inexpensive forms, in locations more accessible to those involved. This response is generally known as alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and requires further examination. In this article a specific working example of ADR is analysed, followed by a number of issues which jurists will have to consider.

Many complex and subtle debates surround the framework of the legal profession in Europe, 1992. One such issue is the reform of the basic organisation of the legal profession, and how EC law interacts with the internal debates on this issue. Several unifying and dividing forces have been at play ever since the promise of a completely free market in legal services was made. In the field of lawyers' rights, areas remain where the internal market is incomplete, for example the rights of audience or the freedom to conduct litigation equaling that of local lawyers. This article intends to give an overview of how the legal profession is regulated in the Treaty of Rome and how these provisions have been implemented. A study of EC professional mobility legislation supplies indicators as to the pragmatic effects of these developments in the realm of the internal debates raging on enforced separation of function or unification of the legal profession.

The recognition of foreign divorces is a very important aspect of private international law. Divorce changes a person's status. After divorce that person may wish to remarry. He or she may also be anxious to settle issues of custody of the children of the marriage and matrimonial property. Failure to recognise the foreign divorce causes injustice and hardship, and destroys the uniformity and certainty that private international law is intended to achieve. The Mthethwa case is a very good illustration of the unfortunate circumstances that could flow from non-recognition. The state of the law in Botswana in this regard is unsatisfactory and uncertain. As Jaffey correctly points out, the rules governing the recognition of foreign divorces should strike the right balance between being too restrictive, thus unnecessarily creating limping marriages, and being too generous, thus sanctioning bogus divorces. In the present writers' opinion, the English rules to a great extent achieve this objective. The best way forward for Botswana is for Parliament to enact legislation clearly settng out the rules governing the recognition of foreign divorces in Botswana.

Genetic fingerprinting, as a discription, assumes, quite correctly, the accuracy of the test to equal that of the accuracy obtained by a conventional fingerprint identification. Even though the genetic fingerprint produced for Rapid Elimination Mass Screening (REMS) is a "cut-down" version of the original DNA profile proceedings, in a contradistinction to the tests for identification currently being applied, DNA fingerprinting and the REMS "cut-down" version of the original DNA profile proceedings, in contradistinction to the tests for identification currently being applied, DNA fingerprinting and the REMS procedure both, nevertheless, produce a virtually certain positive identification. The full introduction of this high-tech methodology into the South African legal system should not be delayed. Practical assessment and implementation is well under way internationally and South Africa may well wish to adjust to what seems to be the most significant development in forensic science this century.

In this contribution the current legal developments in Botswana, Ciskei, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Transkei and Venda with regards to principal legislation, government notices and judicial decisions are briefly descriptionbed.