--The first edition is an essential reading for planning students as it is the only text available that focuses on planning law and practice in Northern Ireland. --Updated to address consequences of BREXIT, the impact of COVID-19 on planning procedures, and the emergence of Local Development Plans within the new 2-tier planning system of Northern Ireland

This work is a comparative examination of the uniform application of the Brussels and Lugano Conventions by courts in the UK,France, Germany, and various other European countries. It analyses evidence of inconsistent or divergent interpretations of certain contentious articles of these Conventions and the experience of litigation under them in other (French- and German-speaking) jurisdictions. The book acts as a unique repository of information and offers a detailed examination of both academic commentary and case-law from the Convention jurisdictions together with a critical appraisal of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. It thus encompasses, in an accessible English form, the laws of Continental Europe, which would otherwise be out of the reach for lawyers. At appropriate points, it provides a bridge to the new regime under the Brussels I Regulation 44/2001 and Council Service Regulation 1348/2000, and the reforms underway in the draft Hague Worldwide Judgments Convention. The book will be invaluable to practitioners acting for clients on a pan-European basis who may need to know the likelihood of their clients' being sued under the Conventions in other Contracting States, their opponents' potential strategies before their own national courts, and the possible tactics that should be employed to plan for, avoid, or even block such manoeuvring. Of eventual concern to practitioners is the availability, or not, of a sympathetic recognition and enforcement regime in other Contracting States. The work highlights certain pitfalls in this regard, and most likely hurdles that certain Contracting State judgment debtors may place in the way of recognition and enforcement, and the chances of receptive or hostile treatment before certain Contracting State courts.

The 2003 volume of the Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business deals with a variety of topics in the field of commercial law. These range from mergers in Nigeria and joint ventures in Thailand and Hungary to the fight against corruption on an international level, as well as corporate fraud in the United States, with attention being focused upon the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Some authors have dealt with subjects that involve finance, such as foreign investment in e-commerce in China, employees' stock purchases and option plans in the United States, pension funds in Nigeria and preferential tax regimes in Madeira. There is also a review of the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures. Other popular areas of commercial law that are covered in this volume include consumer protection in Bulgaria and alternative dispute resolution. Arbitration in Paraguay is discussed, along with the conducting of mediation by legal professionals. In addition, European Union law arises in relation to the likelihood of association, with another chapter detailing the economic association between Mexico and the European Union. The Commentators in this book are leading professionals in their respective fields and the interesting mix of topics should be of value to those involved in business in the international arena and their legal advisers.

This book discusses all critical privacy and data protection aspects of biometric systems from a legal perspective. It contains a systematic and complete analysis of the many issues raised by these systems based on examples worldwide and provides several recommendations for a transnational regulatory framework. An appropriate legal framework is in most countries not yet in place. Biometric systems use facial images, fingerprints, iris and/or voice in an automated way to identify or to verify (identity) claims of persons. The treatise which has an interdisciplinary approach starts with explaining the functioning of biometric systems in general terms for non-specialists. It continues with a description of the legal nature of biometric data and makes a comparison with DNA and biological material and the regulation thereof. After describing the risks, the work further reviews the opinions of data protection authorities in relation to biometric systems and current and future (EU) law. A detailed legal comparative analysis is made of the situation in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The author concludes with an evaluation of the proportionality principle and the application of data protection law to biometric data processing operations, mainly in the private sector. Pleading for more safeguards in legislation, the author makes several suggestions for a regulatory framework aiming at reducing the risks of biometric systems. They include limitations to the collection and storage of biometric data as well as technical measures, which could influence the proportionality of the processing. The text is supported by several figures and tables providing a summary of particular points of the discussion. The book also uses the 2012 biometric vocabulary adopted by ISO and contains an extensive bibliography and literature sources.

The 2005 Special Issue of the Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business addresses issues relating to security in immovables. Each Chapter contains an overview of the security in immovables laws of a particular country. The laws vary widely among the countries; the word immovable (or real property in Common Law jurisdictions) even has different definitions in different countries. Crossborder transactions involving immovables are integral to international business dealings. This publication provides a general overview of the methods by which immovables are secured in various countries, and each chapter contains details such as the priority granted creditors and openness of the land registers. Each chapter contains a country-specific explanation of the method by which one obtains a mortgage, lien, or similar security, and an exploration of the possible problems that might arise during Such a process. In addition, special attention is given to the obstacles facing non-nationals interested in buying immovables. The book evidences the varied attitudes at governments towards the purchase of immovables by non-nationals. In some countries, such as The Philippines, non-nationals are prohibited from buying land. Other countries, such as the Slovak Republic, allow foreign acquisition of nearly any immovable, only forbidding purchase of items that no private citizen can own, such as the country's rivers. This publication reflects recent developments in security in immovables, especially in Eastern Europe. The chapter on immovables in Ukraine is based on the country's new property laws, passed in 2004. The chapters on the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Hungary all reflect thechanges brought by accession to the European Union, The acquisition of property in a foreign country is an integral facet of international business and practitioners will find this publication's in-depth instructions for the purchase of security in immovables useful as it pertains to individual countries. In addition to showing practitioners how transactions work for individual countries, readers will be able to compare diverse legal regimes to find the one most favorable for their particular business transactions.

In a number of important decisions such as Stovin v. Wise, X v. Bedforshire, Barrett v. Enfield London Borough Council and others, English courts have been forced to grapple with the important issue of tortious liability of statutory bodies. Following the Hill decision, they opted for a wide non-liability rule on a variety of policy and economic efficiency grounds. Yet many of their arguments have been considered and rejected by both German and French courts when deciding factually equivalent situations.

This study analyses five leading English cases in a comparative and economic way and questions the validity of their assumptions as well as their arguments in the light of the recent important decision of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights in Osman v. UK.

This thought-provoking book, written by two English academics from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, in collaboration with two leading authorities from the Universities of Paris and Munich, should provide food for thought for judges, practitioners, academics and students for years to come.

This book will be essential reading for scholars and practitioners interested in public law, human rights, comparative methodology, and tort law.

Professor Stazi's volume on biotechnological inventions is an excellent work that any scholar or practitioner in this complex area of law should not only read, but also frequently consult. This detailed, systematic and comprehensive explanation of the provisions on 'patentability of life' - both in the EU and the USA - is combined with the related theories and constructions as well as the relevant case law. In this regard, the author offers a balanced overview of the relevant provisions and their explicit or implied exceptions.' - Alberto Musso, University of Bologna, Italy'The appropriate protection of biotechnological inventions and the so-called 'patentability of life' are one of the most crucial questions of modern intellectual property. It is also one of the most debated, as it involves not only complex legal issues but raises high social, ethical and even sometimes religious concerns. Professor Stazi's book is thus a very timely contribution, managing the 'tour de force' of combining serious and comparative doctrinal analysis of the criteria (and the limits) of patentability, while at the same time offering a good overview of the challenges with regard to bioethics and fundamental rights. Without any doubt, this volume will enrich the already excellent series on New Directions in Patent Law.' - Christophe Geiger, CEIPI, University of Strasbourg, France In today's technological world, biotechnology is one of the most innovative and highly invested-in industries for research, in the field of science. This book analyzes the forms and limitations of patent protection recognition for biotechnological inventions, with particular regard to patentability of life. The author expertly compares the United States model, traditionally based on technical evaluations, with the European model, inspired by fundamental rights and bioethics. He highlights how the regulation of biotechnological inventions should guarantee a fair balance between protection of investment and access to information, which is essential for further research and innovation. Academics and practitioners dealing with intellectual property, patent law and biotechnological inventions will find this book to be of interest. The topics discussed will also be useful for patent offices and medical institutions, as well as medical researchers.

A significant part of the world's population lives under some sort of federal arrangement. And yet, the concepts of federalism and federation remain under-theorised. Federalist theorists have, for the most part, defined their object by opposition to the unitary state. As a result, they have not developed public law theories that capture the specificity of this type of polity. Bringing together contributions from leading public law theorists and intellectual historians, this volume explores the foundations of federalism. It develops novel perspectives on the core problems of traditional federalist theory and charts new departures in federalist theory and federal power-sharing. At a time when we look for more inclusive ways of ordering public life, the volume fills an urgent theoretical and political need.

This book, containing research on transnational impacts on law from a South African and German perspective, is the culmination of collaboration between the University of Augsburg and the University of Johannesburg over the past decade. Topics of high current interest are introduced by South African scholars and responded to by their German counterparts, which leads to a deeper understanding of open legal questions in both legal systems.

The use of "auction-styled" procedures in the mergers and acquisitions field is gaining increased prominence. This volume is the result of a questionnaire circulated to lawyers in both Europe and North America. It tests the level of awareness of auction bids, the level of sophistication of practices and procedures which have grown up around auction bids, and the level of regulatory control in this field. As well as a compilation of the reports received from lawyers, the text includes a final report attempting to draw together the findings.

This book examines the law and its practice in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The objective is to understand the logic of the legal system in the UAE through a rounded analysis of its laws in context. It thus presents an understanding of the system on its own terms beyond the accepted Western model. The book shows how the Emirati law differs from the conventional rule of law. The first section of the book deals with the imperial, international, and cultural background of the Emirati legal system and its influences on some of the elements of the legal system today. It maps the state's international legal obligations according to core human rights treaties showing how universal interpretations of rights may differ from Emirati interpretations of rights. This logic is further illustrated through an overview of the legal system, in federal, local, and free zones and how the UAE's diversity of legal sources from Islamic and colonial law provides legal adaptability. The second section of the book deals mainly with the contemporary system of the rule of law in the UAE but at times makes a detour to the British administration to show how imperial execution of power during the British administration created forerunners visible today. Finally, the debut of the UAE on the international scene contributed to an interest in human rights investigations, having manifestations in UAE law. The work will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the areas of Comparative Constitutional Law, Legal Anthropology, Legal Pluralism, and Middle Eastern Studies.

What is more paradoxically democratic than a people exercising their vote against the harbingers of the rule of law and democracy? What happens when the will of the people and the rule of law are at odds? Some commentators note that the presence of illiberal political movements in the public arena of many Western countries demonstrates that their democracy is so inclusive and alive that it comprehends and countenances even undemocratic forces and political agendas. But what if, on the contrary, these were the signs of the deconsolidation of democracy instead of its good health? What if democratically elected regimes were to ignore constitutional principles representing the rule of law and the limits of their power? With contributions from judges and scholars from different backgrounds and nationalities this book explores the framework in which this tension currently takes place in several Western countries by focusing on four key themes: - The Rule of Law: presenting a historical and theoretical reconstruction of the evolution of the Rule of Law; - The People: dealing with a set of problems around the notion of 'people' and the forces claiming to represent their voice; - Democracy and its enemies: tackling a variety of phenomena impacting on the traditional democratic balance of powers and institutional order; - Elected and Non-Elected: focusing on the juxtaposition between judges (and, more generally, non-representative bodies) and the people's representation.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the term 'privacy' gained new prominence around the world, but in the legal arena it is still a concept in 'disarray'. Enclosing it within legal frameworks seems to be a particularly difficult task in the employment context, where encroachments upon privacy are not only potentially more frequent, but also, and most importantly, qualitatively different from those taking place in other areas of modern society. This book suggests that these problems can only be addressed by the development of a holistic approach to its protection, an approach that addresses the issue of not only contemporary regulation but also the conceptualization, adjudication, and common (public) perception of employees' privacy. The book draws on a comprehensive analysis of the conceptual as well as regulatory convergences and divergences between European, American and Canadian models of privacy protection, to reconsider the conceptual and normative foundations of the contemporary paradigm of employees' privacy and to elucidate the pillars of a holistic approach to the protection of right to privacy in employment.

This book explores the ambit of the notion of persecution in international law and its relevance in the current geopolitical context, more specifically for refugee women. The work analyses different models for interpreting the notion of persecution in international refugee law through a comparative lens. In particular, a feminist approach to refugee law is adopted to determine to what extent the notion of persecution can apply to gender related forms of violence and what are the challenges in doing so. It proposes an interpretive model that would encourage decision makers to interpret the notion of persecution in a manner that is sufficiently protective and relevant to the profiles of refugees in the 21st century, most particularly to refugee women. The book will be of interest to academics and students in the field of public international law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, immigration law, European law, and refugee law as well as those working in the areas of international relations.

This book provides a critical socio-legal study that brings together the latest scholarly advances on corporate social responsibility, and, at the same time, addresses the pressing issue of corporate liability for harmful acts across the supply and production chains. Corporations have seldom been held responsible and virtually never liable for the acts of their subsidiaries and subcontractors. Actors as different as workers, investors, individual consumers, and shareholder activists claim that corporations should accept greater responsibility for communities and environments affected by their activities. The book argues that a global value chain's head corporations remain immune to any liability because of the 'economically dependent-legally independent' relationships between core corporations and their periphery suppliers and subcontractors. To tackle this problem, globally, the author acknowledges that 'we' as a society need to reduce the economic dependence as described above - which is far too excessive - by ensuring a level playing field both economically and socially. More concretely, she argues that in order to realise transnational corporate liability, 'we' as lawyers need to find a way (or ways) to establish legally effective relationships between head corporations and their economically dependent entities. Readers of this book will be able to export the concept of corporate social liability, developed in the context of value chains, and apply it to other contexts involving corporate activities where they need to tackle unrestrained corporate freedom and make global businesses responsible and socially useful.

This book explores the democratic underpinning of electoral systems and their evolution, as well as the methodological choices that constitutional judges are confronted with when managing electoral legislation. It presents a review of the case law in 13 legal systems, across North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, identifying the underlying concept of democracy which courts seek to advance. The authors critically discuss the ideas of democracy that can be detected in each jurisdiction, their drivers, including the use of constitutional borrowing, and the effects of the judgments on the relationship between courts, representative institutions, and voters. The book looks in detail at judicial scrutiny and asks: - On what premises is judicial scrutiny grounded? - Why is there an increasing global trend towards judicial scrutiny? - What are the consequences for representative democracy? Until now, scholars have focused their attention on a few countries and on selected judgments, such as the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v FEC. This book offers a comparative reading of the issue by analysing how the circulation of models and arguments between judges has triggered the progressive overcoming of a traditionally deferent approach towards electoral norms, which still survives in a few jurisdictions.

This book looks at regulation, policy and implementation of framework agreements, supplier lists and other similar public procurement tools, with a strategic and pragmatic perspective. Whilst procurements of huge volumes and value are performed worldwide through such tools on a daily basis, and despite their complexity and diversity, this topic has rarely been studied in a systematic way. The book fills this major gap. It examines a series of public procurement systems or legal instruments selected to ensure wide coverage – the UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement, the World Bank, the US federal procurement system, EU law, France, Romania, and the UK pre- and post-Brexit. By deconstructing over 20 ‘clusters’ of tools into their key features along a pattern for analysis, the book reconstructs a conceptual framework for purchasing uncertain or indefinite requirements through a transversal perspective across public procurement systems. In this way, the book provides valuable orientation to law and policy makers for improving or reforming this area, to procurement officers in interpreting existing regulation and identifying innovative practical solutions, and to lawyers and the judiciary for a balanced application of the regulation. The book delivers essential material for procurement of uncertain or indefinite requirements.

Changes in banking and securities regulation in many countries since 1980 have allowed banks to expand their range of financial services far beyond mere lending, an opportunity banks have been eager to grasp. This business development entails a responsibility; offering informed advice on the choices that customers must make. If we are to judge by a steadily increasing stream of lawsuits, as well as the clear results of customer surveys, most banks fail this part of the challenge. Should the law intervene? That is the basic question posed by this important book. In examining and evaluating the complex answer, and its critical implications for the banking industry, the author uses a comparison of legal systems, developments, and events in two major banking jurisdictions, England and Germany, investigating the relations in each system between the relevant legal rules and actual business practices.

The German Ministry of Defense decided in 2000 to commission a study comparing various European systems of military law. The present book contains not only the original study but also all national reports in English. It provides a comparative analysis of different European military law systems on the basis of national reports.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Several instances of war crimes trials are familiar to all scholars, but in order to advance understanding of the development of international criminal law, it is important to provide a full range of evidence from less-familiar trials. This book therefore provides an essential resource for a more comprehensive overview, uncovering and exploring some of the lesser-known war crimes trials that have taken place in a variety of contexts: international and domestic, northern and southern, historic and contemporary. It analyses these trials with a view to recognising institutional innovations, clarifying doctrinal debates, and identifying their general relevance to contemporary international criminal law. At the same time, the book recognises international criminal law's history of suppression or sublimation: What stories has the discipline refused to tell? What stories have been displaced by the ones it has told? Has international criminal law's framing or telling of these stories excluded other possibilities? And - perhaps most important of all - how can recovering the lost stories and imagining new narrative forms reconfigure the discipline? Many of the trials examined in this book have hardly ever before been discussed; others have been examined only in the most cursory manner. Indeed, until now, no volume has been dedicated to telling the story of these trials, that have yet to find a place in the international criminal law canon. Providing a detailed analysis of these trials, which took place in Europe, Africa, South America, and Australasia, in both historical and contemporary contexts, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the development of international criminal law.

Due to rapid developments in the communication sector, the right to privacy faces new challenges. The increasing digitization and internationalization of communication processes have raised a number of issues, and lead to conflicts wherever national legal systems and moral concepts collide. Particularly in the areas of data protection and liability of online service providers, universal approaches are required. This title presents positions of specialists in Europe, Australia, the US and Canada which contribute to the international dialogue and thereby offer a starting point for a sustainable policy for the protection of privacy rights

The book is the result of a joint research project on the tax treaties concluded between the People's Republic of China and European countries. Each chapter was jointly prepared by European and Chinese experts. A particular focus of the work is an analysis of the extent to which Chinese tax treaties follow the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and Capital, the UN Income and Capital Model Convention or an emerging "Chinese Model"; and the rationale behind the deviations. The book also considers differences in Chinese tax treaty policy between EU and Non-EU member states as well as relevant policy changes over time. Among the topics covered are the following:;Treaty entitlement (Art 1 and Art 4 OECD Model);Business Profits (Art 6, 7, 8, 9 and 14 OECD Model);Passive Income (Dividends, Interest, Royalties: Art 10, 11 and 12 OECD Model);Capital Gains (Art 13 OECD Model);Employment Income (Art 15 and 16, 18, 19 and 20 OECD Model);Artistes and Sportsmen (Art 17 OECD Model);Methods to Avoid Double Taxation (Art 23);Non-Discrimination (Art 24 OECD Model Convention);Mutual Agreements, Exchange of Information, Collection of Taxes (Art 25, 26 and 27 OECD Model)

The subject of this Conference concerns the impact the enlargement of the Euro pean Union has on the constitutional provisions of both levels of European ad ministration, the national and the European level. This subject is the more attractive because the 'constitutional' impact of en largement is an essential element in the context of the 'rule of law' as one of the 1 general principles of the Union. Here a relationship does exist with objectives such as a good and transparent system of governance, a democratic legislative process, an independent judiciary and an adequate system of legal protection. As to the national level, the implications membership of the Union has for the constitutional texts of the (candidate) member States have a connection with the fundamental characteristics of Community law such as priority of European law (over national law), direct applicability and direct effect. These principles reflect the interest in ensuring that European law, once applied in the national context by the public authorities or the judiciary, is made fully effective, for the benefit not only of the public authorities but also of the ordinary citizen."

Environmental regulation came of age towards the end of the 20th century as the blunt methods of command-and-control were subjected to trenchant criticism from both economists and lawyers in the United States and Europe. As a result of this intellectual development, as well as continuing and increasing severity of environmental problems, there is a need for fresh thinking about regulatory methods that are rational from both economic and legal points of view. This text focuses on the viability of one particular regulatory innovation - the use of agreements or contracts for environmental regulation - as it has been practised in the United States and Europe. The various contributions explore the general idea that certain kinds of environmental problems may best be addressed through contracts among interested parties, including representatives of various levels of government, business, local community and employment representatives, and public interest groups. The parties get together to discuss a particular problem and then agree to an agreement or contract designed to address key issues and interests. At least in some situations, this approach may yield greater flexibility, stronger commitment, and more creative outcomes than traditional command-and-control regulation. Experiments in the use of environmental contracts have begun on both sides of the Atlantic, a fact which makes the comparative study offered here especially timely and valuable.