Search

A variety of direct democratic instruments allow “policy-making at the ballot box” (Gerber, 1999, p. 3), with the citizens having the last word on policy adoption and change. Criteria for the classification of direct democracy devices include who initiates a popular vote, who has control over the content of the proposal, whether it addresses statutory or constitutional law, or whether the result is binding or not. Interest groups use two main direct democracy instruments to influence policy-making: the initiative to put a new policy issue on the political agenda and the referendum to veto a policy adopted by the legislature. This chapter scrutinizes the effects of these tools on the policy process, on policy outputs, and on interest group populations. It shows that citizen groups benefit more than business groups from the initiative and referendum.

This paper deals with the need for a specific legal analysis, from a criminal law perspective, concerning multinational enterprises (MNEs), given their involvement in illicit conducts that transcend the territorial boundaries of any single State and generate negative effects of enormous dimensions. The topic presents a high degree of complexity in terms of territorial and material scope: indeed, MNEs face a “dilemma” between undercompliance and overcompliance, since even the most cooperative entity, honestly seeking to fulfil its legal duties, is confronted with a fragmented and uncoordinated legal and regulatory scene. The risk thus arises of setting an insufficient standard for compliance, or vice versa, making an effort that is counterproductive in terms of efficiency while being supererogatory from the legal point of view. The present analysis thus addresses how MNEs might strike the right balance in combining the different sets of regulations, first of all by fulfilling the requirements applicable in the "home country" as well as those applicable in the "host country": to do this, the need arises for an MNE to compare the legislative requirements it has to abide by under the legislation applicable to the mother company and the ones applicable to the foreign entities it controls. A further layer of complexity relates to the extensive reach of certain pieces of criminal legislation issued by “third countries,” especially concerning anticorruption policies. Moreover, other emerging elements have to be taken into account by MNEs: on the one hand, private bodies and organizations increasingly define the compliance standards, the main example being represented by the ISO standards; on the other, international or transnational soft law and hard law rules are in the process of being elaborated, as the field of human rights clearly shows. In conclusion, the analysis reveals a progressive tendency among MNEs to comply with the higher legal standards set in home countries or at the international level, instead of the lower ones provided at the local level. Yet this tendency is far from general and admits a large number of exceptions, in particular where the procedural and institutional dimensions of compliance rules are concerned.

Over the decades, law enforcement organizations have continued to screen and hire law enforcement employees based upon standards established through job task analysis that support knowledge, skills, and abilities with some degree of validity and reliability in the outcomes. Procedural adjustments to the employment process have occurred through court decisions, legislative mandates, and governmental policies. Most pre-employment assessments follow the medical disease pathogenetic model seeking to identify personality disorders, mental stability, and psychopathologies that could hinder an officer’s ability to perform his or her official duties.

This report is based on 14 country reports namely Iraq, Pakistan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Africa, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Greece, and Turkey. It aims at detecting the ways in which claims relating to cultural traditions, ethnic customs, religious convictions, and sexual orientation—or any other kinds of claims that are not officially accommodated in state law—are raised and dealt with in those jurisdictions. The comparison first sets family law in its historical and demographic context, including the implications of mobility and migration as well as of technological and social developments. Secondly it analyzes the actions and reactions of the entities involved, namely the legislature and the judiciary, but also civil society actors. Furthermore, it explores the reactions of the communities concerned and, finally, draws conclusions on some of the challenges that multiculturalism poses to family law today.

Although women’s participation in intangible cultural heritage has long been challenged by feminist groups in Spain, it is only in the past two decades that their claims have been taken up by government. In this article, we reflect on the application of the principle of equality to rituals in the festival context and argue that women’s demands to take part may be considered a vindication, a call for retribution of a historical offence: the exclusion of women from public and symbolic spaces of their community. We contend the symbolic efficacy of their actions, a transformative power that entails reparation both in the symbolic arena and in the social, political and legislative order. Rituals in festivals emerge as contexts where women might obtain compensation and reparation for the historical discrimination not amended in the judicial or legislative arena.

This Chapter split into two parts. The first part raises the general question, from a historical perspective (and following this book’s general theoretical premise), whether there exists an original function of ‘vindicatory justice’ in the Italian civil liability system. The Chapter will analyze this issue also studying the role of punitive damages, whose acknowledgment has been recently admitted in the Italian legal system. The second part examines some specific rules of the Italian civil liability system presenting peculiar profiles with respect to ‘traditional’ ones, to assess whether the legislative construction of these rules may have been affected by the ancient function of ‘restorative’ revenge.

EU countries’ commitments “20/20/20” are the commitments that place the most tasks on the construction industry. By 2035, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Framework Energy Strategy provides the context and direction of energy development in Bosnia and Herzegovina and seeks the right balance in the context of “energy trilemma”. Typology of public buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina is necessary prerequisite for defining the appropriate strategy for managing public buildings in all aspects. The EPBD/Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is, the main legislative instrument for promoting the energy efficiency of buildings and encouraging renovation within the EU. Energy efficiency model represents a universally applicable, transparent, non-discriminatory and socially sensitive framework for the promotion, implementation and support of energy efficiency projects in Sarajevo Canton, and its main goal is long-term and systemic support to citizens in improving energy characteristics, i.e. warming of housing, under more favorable conditions. Low-energy houses are the foundation of applications of sustainable construction throughout their lifetime, ranging from building materials whose production has minimal impact on the environment, through their energy efficiency over the lifetime, to adequate waste management. Currently, there are only a few products on the BiH market for households with a special intention of financing energy efficiency measures: loans with special intent - energy efficiency.

This article examines a new type of crime that was not widely known previously-criminal attacks on Big Data in the digital economy. A definition of the concept of cybercrime is also proposed in the paper. The article examines global criminal law practices of fighting crimes related to the use of Big Data in the digital economy, studied by the author. Typically, such crimes are committed by groups. The main types of criminal activity in the field of IT concern the application and use of Big Data in the digital economy are considered in the study. Detailed statistical data on the considered crimes committed in Russia in the IT sphere are provided. The article examines the features of cybercrimes in Russia and substantiates the need for legislative expansion Chap. 28 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which punishment for digital crimes by introducing new norms into it that regulate liability for group crimes in the application and use of Big Data in the digital economy.

The article analyzes the characteristics and scale of platform employment in Russia and the world on the basis of surveys and research by international organizations. The authors have systematized and summarized the opportunities, risks and consequences of this type of employment for different actors of the labor market. Recommendations are proposed for solving the problem of the volatility of platform employment in Russia, taking into account the fact that its scale will grow over time. It was revealed that this area requires the development of regulatory methods, legislative initiatives and new solutions aimed at implementation of its advantages and limiting of threats. Platform employment policy should be an integral part of overall employment policy, and platform workers should have the right to decent work, social guarantees and recognition of their status as “employees”.

In this final chapter, the different ways to ratify an ultra vires act or transaction are taught. Likewise, the legitimated person to make it. To the extent that in ancient times there were no legislative provisions related to this issue, judges and courts have delivered many opinions some of them contradictory.

This chapter addresses the question: how does the environment and context of the public sector in which Departmental Secretaries practise shape their public administration craft? Australia’s Commonwealth public administration is situated within a number of intersecting and complex environments that include a political environment; a constitutional, legislative and regulatory environment; a financial environment, and a modern media environment. To a considerable extent, the environmental influences on Australia’s Public Service ensure that public administration is somewhat circumscribed and prescribed. While these are contrary to the notions of entrepreneurial and innovative activities proposed through much of the public sector reform literature, such as the New Public Administration (NPM), they are the reality of public sector life.

This Chapter examines the legal framework in the EU for preventing or combating domestic violence and dating violence among male same-sex partners. It provides an overview of the formation, composition, jurisdiction, and the activism of the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights on LGBT family rights. Concerning the protection and promotion of LGBT rights, it narrates how the courts have developed a more elaborate concept to reduce discrimination with the help of the EU legislature, which has indirectly influenced the member states to adopt effective directives. Furthermore, fundamental rights and collective action have been more enhanced by the ECtHR than the ECJ.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and its acquisition of human qualities necessitates the establishment of an appropriate legal framework. Today, various doctrinal concepts are being developed in order to define AI within the framework of subject-object legal relations: from traditional ideas about AI exclusively as an object of law to innovative ones that equate AI in legal status with a person. Among others, theories of fiction are also being used in order to fix in legislation a certain set of characteristics for AI. Their use has made it possible to identify significant legal aspects inherent in the problems of introducing AI as comparable to objects of literature, visual, or visual arts, as well as in the field of creating audio and video works. The creation of AI technologies requires a clear legal certainty; it seems relevant to develop unambiguous criteria for formulating the very concept of AI. As a result of considering the issues of AI’s legal regulation, it has been established that civil legislation does not adequately meet the requirements that have formed in everyday reality in connection with the rapid scientific progress. It is necessary to make changes to certain norms of the Civil Code, as well as to adopt executive legislative provisions, so as to determine how processes using AI should be regulated. This should meet both the interests of developers of new information devices as well as users who are faced with widespread adoption of the latest technological advances.

Today, creativity is vital for building a successful career ladder. The evolving digital technologies contribute to the achievement of new goals, which gives the employee the opportunity to realize their potential. At the same time, the development of artificial intelligence transforms the workspace, setting the boundaries for workers’ creativity. The introduction of these technologies can have serious consequences for employees, thus, people can abandon solving analytical and creative tasks, delegating them to artificial intelligence. This is a serious threat to the anthropocentricity of society. Creativity enables human intelligence to compete with artificial intelligence, which means that the development of the creative abilities of future specialists is very important for preserving the anthropocentrism of society. The law should contribute to minimizing these risks. Since most professionals are involved in labor relations, labor laws can help develop creativity. For example, digital control restricts the employee's right for privacy, while creativity is a skill better developed by a free person. Therefore, it is necessary to limit the use of digital sensors and neurosensors to monitor employees on a legislative level.

This chapter seeks to diminish mythical arguments advanced against FOI. Self-explanatory sub-headings are laid bare and taken apart, in such a manner that makes it clear that they are myths which are derived from concerns surrounding or stemming from realpolitik or political pragmatism. This chapter begins by briefly sourcing FOI from international instruments, especially African conventions, and cites the Sierra Leonean Constitution and the RTAI Act 2013 as setting out to protect freedom of expression and FOI. It makes clear that legally prescribed FOI is for all persons, and briefly touches on the effect of FOI on the media. It addresses economic and financial concerns associated with the implementation of FOI, specifically citing how the RTAI Act 2013 operates to address such concerns, and cites arguments in favour of the overall economic benefit of the implementation of FOI. It pulls apart the myth that FOI is a threat to national security by explaining how the currently prevalent construction of FOI allows for national security exceptions. It argues that the absence of adequate information management systems is a developmental challenge that ought not to impede the implementation of FOI, and that, by contrast, provisions in FOI laws can help facilitate that momentum. It dispels the floodgates arguments with evidence from the United States and Liberia and details legislative safeguards against floodgates. Lastly, it argues that the FOI regime instituted by the RTAI Act is not doomed to failure, since the Act provides for the enforcement and sanctioning capacity of the information commissioner. It concludes on the note that FOI is the foundation for open government and democracy.

This chapter begins by identifying provisions in international instruments where FOI/RTAI has been recognized and suggests that a distinctive women’s RTAI is evolving at the international level. It highlights the instrumentality of the RTAI to critical human rights concerns that affect women (the absence of discrimination, sexual and reproductive health) and creates state obligations to ensure women’s effective exercise of RTAI. It sets out key statistics that illuminate women’s status in the world, and then narrows its focus, to critical national statistics on Sierra Leonean women. There is a detailed description of some of the social ills by which women are plagued in Sierra Leone, and the legislative reforms ushered in to address these.

On 24 September 2020, the European Commission presented its Digital Finance Strategy for the EU, a programmatic roadmap accompanied by a package of legislative proposals. This initiative forms part of the Commission’s broader strategy for ‘Shaping Europe’s Digital Future’, as announced by President von der Leyen in her speech on 19 February 2020, and aims at creating a legal framework for the adoption of recent technologies, such as online platforms, distributed ledger technology (DLT), cloud computing, in the field of financial services. In conjunction with other relevant regulatory initiatives, most notably the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts (DSA and DMA), it also seeks to address the impact of digital technologies on the structure and competitive dynamics of a variety of markets including, but not limited to financial services, and to provide safeguards against potential risks to financial stability and the welfare of citizens and retail customers. This contribution looks at the regulatory approach that informs the proposed legislation, in particular from an international perspective, and examines its potential impact on the development of digital financial services in the EU.

The use of mobile devices/phones among secondary school students is increasingly more common. However, mobile learning research in secondary education is still limited and this topic is not covered in the literature in the Greek context. This chapter presents the situation in Greek secondary education with regard to mobile devices and mobile learning, discussing the existing policy and recent empirical findings. The integration of mobile devices in Greek secondary schools is negatively affected by the current legislative framework. However, despite the ban, a few teachers take initiatives and allow their students to use mobile devices/phones in classrooms for educational purposes. Empirical findings revealed that teachers reported positive perceptions towards mobile learning, being aware of the pros and cons of mobile devices’ usage in classrooms. Students reported positive perceptions and high self-efficacy in using mobile devices, they could name educational activities they would like to do with their mobile phones in the classroom, but fewer students could name specific problems (and rules that should apply) associated with the use of mobile phones. Implications for students, teachers and educational policy-makers are discussed.

The chapter describes the top-down regulatory impact of the EU on local government and distinguishes between different types of legislation and policy fields. It covers the implementation of EU rules by local government, and the factors that determine this process, before it focuses on the European programmes and funding schemes. While participation in these policies is not obligatory, they provide an essential rationale for local government to engage with EU policies and contribute strongly to the European integration of local government.

Cannabis is one of the most omnipresent plants in the world and has been cultivated by mankind for thousands of years. Despite its near ubiquitous use throughout human history, it is considered a Schedule I controlled substance under the US Controlled Substances Act of 1970. In the last century, our society has regarded marijuana as a social menace and restricted its medicinal, scientific, and recreational use. However, organizations have fought for legislative and cultural reform over the last 50 years following the slowly growing scientific evidence to support the potential therapeutic and medicinal effects of cannabinoids. At the time of publication, 15 US states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for adults over the age of 21, and marijuana is legal for medical use in 36 US states. The end to cannabis prohibition may be in sight, but a long road still lies ahead.

There is no particular need to describe how the compromise on which the birth of the European common currency was based formed the foundation of the current crisis: the common monetary policy was accepted easily by national politicians but turned out to be incompatible with the maintenance of the national control over structural and fiscal policies. This weakness is described elegantly by Habermas (2011), as member states are functioning as the legislative and executive bodies of the Union, thus depriving the prerogative of power and implementation from the supranational bodies over the national legal systems.

This chapter analyses the development of legislatures in Kenya with a focus on their four core functions: law-making, oversight, representation, and constituent services. It highlights some of the unique aspects of legislatures in Africa and places the Kenyan development in comparative perspective, arguing like Barkan (2009) that Kenya has progressed more than other African countries. These achievements notwithstanding more still need to be done to strengthen the role of the legislative bodies at both national and county levels, especially in their relations with the executive and its bureaucracy. The 2010 Constitution of Kenya has raised the bar of what to expect of political actors in the country. Notably, legislators must strike a better balance in performing their functions making sure that the constituency service does not overshadow the more challenging collective action needed in the legislature to make laws, exercise oversight, and represent people. At the sub-national level, there is a question of how to reconcile the role that Constituency Development Funds play in allocating national resources when there is now already a functional devolution of local development funds to the county level.

Drafting tax law falls within the specialisation of drafting any law. In the case of tax law, particular factual considerations of how to organise sections, the type of language to be used that is comprehensible to the tax community, considerations of how simple the law should be to read without sacrificing necessary detail and more normative considerations regarding whether the law has achieved effectiveness in conveying the proper message to taxpayers and tax officers alike, all come into play in determining its usability domestically and quotability in the international sphere. Given the prevalence of some cross-country variation in definitions, there is little doubt that a domestic legislative drafting style with suitable definitions is preferred over blindly borrowing from international quarters. This is notwithstanding the awareness with which globally available styles have to be mastered by a drafter of any tax law. We consider some of these matters in this chapter.

This article is based on the following question: does Nordic procedural law exist? Procedural law is often regarded as a national matter, and, unlike in many other legal disciplines, there has not been any official Nordic legislative collaboration in this field. Whether one can refer to procedural law as Nordic or not also has an impact on our perception of procedural law as part of a Nordic community. One way of examining the ‘Nordic-ness’ of procedural law is to examine the sources of inspiration used when reforming procedural codes and acts. These sources are found in the preparatory works to the legislation. This article surveys the sources that have been used to reform the procedural codes and acts in the Nordic countries over the last three centuries and shows how the objects for the procedural reforms have an impact on the choice of sources of inspiration. The survey also shows that the object for the reforms changes over time, and this influences the choice of sources of inspiration. Further, the use of the sources found in the preparatory works is discussed, and this brings us back to the starting point—namely whether, based on the use of the sources of inspiration, the procedural law in the Nordic countries can be described as Nordic.

A smart city represents a complex approach to the development of all systems, directions and spheres aimed at providing comfortable living conditions for citizens and qualitative management and reliable infrastructure for the city. The paper answers questions about how to estimate the ability of the implementation approach within a smart city, and how the stakeholders, such as energy policy makers, governance, utilities and municipalities, can choose a model that would promote maximum efficiency by the implementation in the energy sector of the city. The paper has three main sections, the first of which provides a literature review with a classification of different approaches to the implementation of a smart city depending on the scope and tasks. The main emphasis is placed on the analysis of the energy component of smart city decisions. The second section proposes a series of criteria for evaluating the existing approaches to a smart city. The ability to flexibly react to the changes in consumption, unpredicted situations, changes in the needs, sustainability in generation and the supply of electricity and heat, as well as considering alterations in the legislative base, has been taken into account when analysing smart city infrastructure. Finally, the third section presents a decision-making scheme related to choosing the development methodology in a smart city that enables accounting of multifaceted nature of urban environment development, as well as describing a scheme of the block-integrated approach to the methodology of smart city development. In the authors’ opinion, it can have the largest potential for flexible, sustainable and stable development and will produce the greatest qualitative impact on smart city development. As a result, convolving the approaches to the development of a smart city according to various criteria makes possible highlighting the most optimal decision-making process.

This paper provides a critical overview of legislative attempts to strike a good balance between academic freedom, autonomy and accountability, through an analysis of the Italian constitutional model of academic freedom and the Italian legislation introducing accountability into the previous self-referential model of internal university governance.

Lawmakers are often expected to legislate on the basis of the weighing of rival social claims or demands, and to enact rules that yield a reasonable conciliation of interests. But sometimes they refrain from even attempting to strike any balance between competing interests, and pass legislation which gives its end users (organisations, companies, individuals) a power to weigh such interests by themselves and to determine, in a variety of settings, whether the conduct or decision they envisage is (dis)proportionate and hence (un)lawful. Recipients of laws are thus eventually entrusted with the task of establishing—through balancing—a general rule under which they subsume their own case. The present chapter discusses and explores the implications of this “proportionality-promoting legislation” (PPL). After introducing the 2016 EU Data Protection Regulation as a case in point and stressing the singularities of PPL as compared with related forms of legislative indeterminacy, I try to make sense of it under a legisprudential light, with my focus being on the lawmakers’ duties of balancing and the so-called communicative mode of legislation. To conclude, I touch upon the bearing of PPL on both legisprudence and legal theory.

Rebuilding public administration in conflict-affected contexts is vital for the achievement of effective state-building. In post-war Kosovo, most legislative framework and governance institutions at local and central level have been (re)built. Although these institutions deliver public goods and services to citizens, they remain weak due to widespread problems which are deeply rooted in the governance system built by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and reinforced by the individual and political interests of a number of local stakeholders. Indeed, the outcomes show that public administration in Kosovo exists and functions to some extent, but it lacks highly skilled public servants, is highly politicised and suffers from nepotism practices, and, as a result, it is oversized all the while underperforming. It requires leadership, vision and commitment to transform Kosovo public administration into a professional public administration, which can only happen with a new generation of politicians and a strong civil society.

This chapter will examine the critical clinical and public health importance of adherence to prescribed tuberculosis (TB) treatment and approaches and interventions which have been tested and scaled to reduce nonadherence. Despite adherence being central to achieving TB elimination, it remains under-researched and under-resourced internationally. Patient autonomy, ability and choice to take TB treatment raise important ethical and, in some countries, legislative challenges. New and emerging digital technologies provide opportunities to better assess adherence in real time and guide differentiated patient-centred care. Recommendations for policy, practice and future research are also presented.

Current early childhood education (ECE) in China is a hybrid of multiple discourses which mainly consist of traditional Confucianism, Soviet socialist values and Western educational theories. Among these discourses, children’s rights, as one of the influential Western discourses, bring new ways of speaking and thinking about young children and their education to China. Based on a child right perspective, this chapter briefly reviews ECE policies in China in the last 30 years, summarizing key progress of Chinese government in achieving children’s rights in ECE. One example of progress is that young children’s rights have been gradually highlighted within policies, establishing a legislative link between children’s rights and their citizenship. Another example of progress is that a rights-based perspective is now being infiltrated into ECE curricula and practices through a series of policies, which emphasize children’s well-being, individuality and their rights to be heard. This paper argues that ECE in China has been influenced by multiple discourses, and therefore some contradictions about children’s rights exist. More attempts to construct a context-specific approach to young children’s rights are necessary and potential areas for future research are proposed and discussed.