The European Commission’s 2015 Better Regulation package has placed ex post evaluation at the centre of European governance. This strengthens a trend of gradual politicization of evaluation in European policymaking. This article analyses how the European Commission’s approach to ex post policy evaluation has changed over the last decade. It shows how evaluation has developed from a rather technical process to a more politicized process, which is clearly linked to political priority setting, subject to centralized control, and involving a wider set of actors. At the same time, the Commission avoids a profound debate on the merits and objectives of the process of evaluation itself. The article concludes on the merits and risks of evaluation at times of rising populism.

Ex post impact assessment (traditionally considered part of policy evaluation) received less attention in the preceding ‘Better Regulation’ package (2011) than ex ante impact assessment. Yet, the insights generated through ex post impact assessment provide crucial input for streamlining legislation. In recognition of its contribution, the current agenda (2015) extends the reach to policy evaluation, and from financial instruments to regulatory instruments. In light of existing experience with impact assessments in Commission Directorates-General (DGs), the European Union (EU) institutions have been increasingly aware of the need to develop staff expertise in ex post (policy) evaluation, which has in the past been largely outsourced to external parties. Making sense of collected input and incorporating it within impact assessment is time consuming. Indeed, taking up the findings for practical use is a challenge for political decision makers but essential for the purposes of accountability, scrutiny and institutional learning. The challenge is more so, given the wealth of information being generated by multiple parties and the increasing technical and financial complexity of certain policy areas. The role of the Commission as an advocate of ‘Better Regulation’ has been studied extensively. However, we know relatively little about the role of the European Parliament (EP) in ex post evaluation. This article contributes to the literature on ‘Better Regulation in the EU’ by shedding light on the EP activities in the realm of scrutiny and evaluation. In particular, it looks at the Parliament’s use of special reports produced by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) through its performance audit work and how it takes on board the findings and recommendations in its scrutiny of budgetary spending. Moreover, it examines the emerging role of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) in monitoring the outputs of the ECA and other bodies engaged in audit and evaluation, and thereby, the way in which the EPRS is helping increase the Parliament’s capacity for scrutiny and oversight.

EU legislation plays a key role in filling in the gaps in the framework created by the EU Treaties. The body of EU legislation known as the acquis has grown piecemeal over 60 years to a confused and confusing patchwork of over 100,000 pages. There is an urgent need for a more coherent approach to updating, condensing and revising that legislation to ensure that it is readily accessible. New mechanisms should be established for those tasks, or else the existing mechanisms should be enhanced and exploited to the full.

Legal and sociological theories of sovereignty disagree about the role of legal and social matters in grounding state power. This paper defends a constructivist view, according to which the constitution is a judgment of practical reason. The paper argues that a constitution sets out a comprehensive institutional architecture of social life in terms of principles and official roles that are necessary for any legitimate scheme of social cooperation to exist. It follows that legal and sociological theories of sovereignty capture only part of the truth of sovereignty. Legal reasoning engages with political power, but it is not determined by it. There is no causal chain between power and validity, as suggested by the legal positivists. The relation between power and law is interpretive, not causal. It follows that the circularity of law and the constitution, namely the fact that the law makes the constitution and the constitution makes the law, is not a vicious circle. It is part of an ordinary process of deliberation.

In considering how society generally is regulated, most times focus is always on Acts of parliament that are passed by the legislative arm of government. However, delegated legislation is another aspect of law making that is of immense importance for the regulation of any given society. This form of lawmaking being a deviation from the norm has some challenges in terms of control. This article seeks to examine some of these challenges emphasising that adequate parliamentary scrutiny will prevent the harbouring of bad-quality legislation.

Statutory interpretation is quickly becoming the primary function of our courts. Ambiguity, unexpected scenarios, and drafting errors in legislation compound this challenging task, obliging many judges to turn to debate transcripts and other legislative materials in search of our elected representatives’ intent.
Legislatures are intrinsically the products of the societies that create them, however, with each possessing a diverging structure and rules of procedure. These institutional differences affect bills’ drafting, consideration, and passage, and represent the mechanical process of how legislative bargains are translated into binding statutory text.
Through the lenses of the United Kingdom Parliament and the United States Congress, the fundamental logic behind these institutions’ legislative bargains will be explored, assessing the impact of procedure and the interests that shape the enacting process. Parliamentary tradition emphasizes the foundational role of Her Majesty’s Government in managing virtually all legislation, maintaining a unity of purpose without compromise, amendment, or purposefully ambiguous provisions. Conversely, unique procedures and the multiplicity of veto players within Congress necessitates that compromise is a de facto requirement for passage. The diverging logic behind these legislative bargains offers powerful evidence that institutional characteristics have a dispositive impact on the utility of legislative materials in statutory interpretation.

To ensure its continued viability, the International Criminal Court must find “practical” ways to appeal to its African (and global) audience, options that do not require substantial additional funding or revisions to the Rome Statute while remaining true to fundamental principles of international justice. Subject to such limitations, this article examines the “end product” of the ICC – the judgments authored by the Trial Chambers to date. Unfortunately, these opinions are simply incomprehensible to any but a few specially trained, highly interested stakeholders. They are extraordinarily complex and lengthy and fail to emphasize or address issues that are clearly important to the audiences in states where atrocities have occurred. The article reviews existing judgments and provides suggestions for future improvements, thereby increasing accessibility to African leadership, civil society organizations, and the public at large. Such efforts will contribute to increased legitimacy and, consequently, the long-term impact and relevancy of the Court.

Intangible assets account for 60%-75% of the market capitalization value in most developed stock markets around the world. The US GAAP and IFRS Goodwill and Intangibles accounting regulations (ASC 805, Business Combinations; ASC 350, Goodwill and Intangible Assets; IFRS-3R, Business Combinations; and IAS 38, Accounting for Intangible Assets) are inefficient and create potentially harmful psychological biases. These regulations facilitate earnings management and money laundering, reduce competition within industries, and are likely to increase the incidence of fraud and misconduct. This article introduces a new goodwill/intangibles disclosure/accounting model that can reduce the incidence of fraud, information asymmetry, moral hazard, adverse selection, and inaccuracy. The article also introduces new economic psychological theories that can explain fraud, misconduct, and non-compliance arising from the implementation of the goodwill/intangibles accounting rules.

This article looks at the clarity of the legislation of the European Union (EU), in particular the clarity of the language used. It sketches out the basic EU rules on transparency and openness, past expressions of concern for clearer EU legislation, and the response of the institutions. Finally, it considers briefly some ways to make EU legislation clearer.

Any legal system plays a significant role in the principle underlying its legal doctrines. The legal system works in compliance with, or as a consequence of cultural order. In other words, any legal system is restricted to a certain environment and subject to cultural impact. Culture and law operate in conjunction. Politics and economy are, among others, the main disciplines affecting that legal system including environmental laws and natural resources. The present article attempts a comparative analysis of three different legal systems and their approaches to environmental law, contributing to the extensive literature on this area of law in numerous areas of the world such as the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. However, that literature appears to have had little coverage of the treatment of environmental law in Islamic law, one of the three main global legal systems together with common and civil law. The bold spread of Islamic tendency in the Middle East that followed the so-called “Arab Spring” assures major changes in the political and economic sphere, including environmental and natural resource levels. Environmental threats are very pressing all over the world, as the Earth needs to be protected through the adoption of universally applicable legal rules and the right to a healthy environment needs to be elaborated on in international instruments. It is very significant to understand Islam's overall view of the universe to comprehend the gap between Islamic theories and practices in Muslim countries. The universe is full of diversified creatures that aim to fulfill man's needs and prove God's greatness. The Qur'an states: “Have you not seen that God is glorified by all in the heavens and on earth, such as birds with wings outspread? Each knows its worship and glorification, and God is aware of what they do.”All creatures in the universe perform two specific roles: a religious role of evidencing God's perfection and presence and a social role of serving man and other creatures. The final outcome is the solidarity of the universe and the realization of its common good (benefit).
Man's position in the universe is premised on two principles: the stewardship of man which means that man is not only a creature but also God's khalifa (steward) on earth; God is the only proprietor of earth; and man is a mere beneficiary, and man can exploit nature for his/her and other creatures’ benefit without depleting it and the principle of trust that all natural resources created by God are placed as a trust in man's hand and needs of coming generations must be taken into consideration by man. Islamic environmental law uses a “duty paradigm” in the sphere of the right to healthy environment, as human beings must not destroy, deplete, or unwisely use natural resources but have an obligation to develop and enhance natural resources. Any disturbance of God's equilibrium in the universe is a transgression and athm (sin) against the divine system. Last but by no means least, Islamic law regards man as a creature with elevated status. In Islamic environmental law, the human is not the owner of nature, but a mere beneficiary. Islamic environmental safety is based upon the principle of “use” without “abuse”. Environmental protection under the Islamic legal scheme does not differ from any modern environmental legal system.

Company tax integration in the EU is yet to be realised. This article first outlines the main benefits of company tax integration for the Economic and Monetary Union, and also discusses the main legal obstacles the EU Treaties pose for harmonisation of company tax. The main problem identified is the unanimity requirement in the legal basis of Article 115 TFEU. As this requirement is currently not feasible in the political climate of the debt crisis, this article assesses possible reasons for and ways to further fiscal integration. It considers Treaty change, enhanced cooperation, soft law approaches and also indirect harmonisation through the new system of economic governance. Eventually, a possible non-EU option is considered. However, this article recommends making use of the current EU law framework, such as soft law approaches and the system of the new economic governance to achieve a more subtle and less intrusive tax harmonisation, or instead a Treaty change that would legitimately enhance and further economic integration in the field of taxation.

At the heart of the European Union legal order lie values directed collectively to the idea of European integration. As a body with significant governmental and lawmaking powers, the Union also presents itself as an institution based upon the rule of law. The Union ‘constitution’ therefore expresses both regulatory powers direct­ed towards European integration as well as rule of law principles whose scope of application is limited by the terms of the Treaties. In this article I consider how this distinctive amalgam of values operates as a constitution for the European Union, by comparison with domestic constitutional values within the Member States. I also consider how Union constitutional demands condition and inform the legal practices of the Court of Justice. Here I identify the interpretive effects of superior Union laws –‍ the core Treaty objectives as well as rule of law principles found within the General Principles ‍– as of particular significance in developing the legal influences of the entire Union project of integration.

Ever since its creation and coming into force in 2003, the Kimberley Process has elicited a number of academic commentaries coming from different backgrounds. Legal scholars who have contributed to the commentaries, simply projected the regulatory regime as an international soft law without further analysis, based on an evaluation of the text of the agreement. This article in contrast, explores its practical effects and the manner of obligations that it imposes on its participant countries. It argues that although the regime may have been a soft law by classification, its obligations are hard and are no different from those of a conventional treaty. Those obligations enhance its juridical force, and are a factor by which the regime on its own tends to nullify the traditional criteria for distinction between hard and soft law in international jurisprudence, because it has elements of both.

The article analyses the implementation of better regulation measures in the internal security (IS) strategies, draft legislation and administrative routines of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior. The article includes the results of five substudies: (a) the research problem emerged from the studies of the explanatory memoranda of draft laws 2004-2009 according to which the Ministry has some deficiencies in fulfilling the better regulation requirements; (b) mapping of better regulation and internal security policy concepts; (c) content analysis of Estonian IS strategy documents; (d) systematization of Estonian IS laws; and (e) sociological e-survey of officials. Theoretical framework integrates the concepts of institutional theory, discursive democracy, realistic legisprudence and the adaptive strategic management.The main conclusions drawn by the article are as follows: the analysis of the knowledge of draft legislation and the excessive amount of laws in the IS field gives evidence of a lack of systematic regulatory impact assessment (IA); the concept of better regulation is not integrated into IS policy documents (insufficient planning and budgeting of IA); and a sociological e-survey of the officials of the Ministry indicates discontent with the management of the IA of policies and draft legislation. According to institutional analysis, this shows readiness for changes in the context of risk society challenges and adaptation with budgetary contractions.

Lawmaking is an essential attribute of a state. Laws differ from one country to another, and compliance with different legal rules may create problems. Uniformity of laws is an end in itself, and its value lies in its practical benefits. Interest in the quality of legislative instruments is a major concern, especially as regards the effectiveness of the national legislation.

The hypothesis of this paper is that clarity, precision and unambiguity are the essential tools for expressing retrospective intent, which is a pre-requisite for quality and validity of retrospective legislation. The main objective of this work is to show that retrospective laws are valid, if the retrospective intent is expressed in clear, precise and unambiguous words within the statute. The term retrospectivity is used broadly to describe any legislation or decision affecting pre-enacting conduct. It encompasses statutes affecting the pre-enactment events, administrative regulations or decisions which look back in time and judicial decisions that overturn prior decisions. All these areas cannot be covered in this limited piece of work. Thus, the emphasis in this work will be put on retrospectivity of statutes at the drafting stage. Although it may be referred to generally, retrospective delegated legislation is outside the scope of this work. Particular attention will be directed towards the importance of clarity, precision and unambiguity in attaining quality and validity of retrospective legislation.

This report is the result of the collective work of 26 Rwandan civil servants from a number of ministries, who set out to offer the Ministry of Justice a report on legislative drafting in Rwanda. The work was undertaken under the umbrella of the Diploma in Legislative Drafting offered by the Institute for Legal Professional Development (ILPD) in Nyanza under the rectorship of Prof. Nick Johnson. The authors have used their experience of practising drafting in Rwanda, but have contributed to the report in their personal capacity: their views are personal and do not reflect those of the Government of Rwanda.
My only contribution was the identification of topics, which follows the well-established structure of manuals and textbooks in drafting; the division of the report into two parts: Part 1 on the legislative process and Part 2 on drafting techniques; and the methodology of each individual entry to our report: what is current Rwandan practice, what are international standards, what is the future of Rwanda, and a short bibliography to allow the readers and users of the report to read further, if needed.
The strength of this report lies both in the methodology used and in the content offered. The breakdown of topics, their prioritization and their sequence allow the reader to acquire a holistic view on how legislation is drafted in Rwanda, but there is nothing to prevent its use in the context of surveys on legislative drafting and legislative quality in other jurisdictions. The content offers a unique insight into the legislative efforts of a jurisdiction in transition from civil to common law: both styles are assessed without prejudice, thus offering a unique fertile ground for critical assessment and practical impact analysis.
June 2013

‘Fragmentation’, ‘pluralism’, ‘constitutionalisation’ and ‘global administrative law’ are among the most dominant narratives of international legal order at present. Each narrative makes a descriptive claim about the current state of the international legal order, and outlines a normative vision for this order. Yet we must not lose sight of the conflicts between, and the contingency of these, and other narratives. This article seeks to recover both conflicts and contingency by showing how each may be used to explain a given event: the inauguration of a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation between the United State and India, better known as the ‘India-US nuclear deal’. I explain how the four narratives may be, and were, co-opted at different times to justify or critique the ‘deal’. This exercise serve two purposes: the application of four narratives reveal the various facets of the deal, and by its example the deal illuminates the stakes attached to each of the four narratives. In a final section, I reflect on why these four narratives enjoy their influential status in international legal scholarship.

This article seeks to explain the significance of carrying out extensive legislative scrutiny in any jurisdiction, with emphasis being placed on the Ugandan experience as far as legislative scrutiny is done. As Parliaments all over the world continue to make laws that govern their citizens, it is only right that before any law is enacted, there must be adequate mechanism to ensure quality in the law in terms of substance and effect of the legislative proposal which ultimately impacts on good governance. Best practices and emerging trends in legislative scrutiny is drawn from the United Kingdom and Australia, which have put in place elaborate procedures and mechanism to ensure that all their legislative proposals are thoroughly scrutinized before they passed into law: and that even after the law has been enacted, it can be evaluated to see the effect of the law. Pre-legislative scrutiny and post-legislative scrutiny are thus important tools to ensure quality in legislation.