The European economic crisis has underlined the challenges that Member States of the European Union face towards ensuring adequate social protection provision for their citizens. The effects of the crisis have and can further impact on the capacity of pension schemes, both state provided and privately managed, that constitute a significant aspect of social protection, to deliver pension promises. This paper highlights the current situation that the common pension challenges pose for Member States and focuses on a particular issue around occupational pension provision, which has been on the European Commission’s agenda for a long time, and on which limited progress had been made. This is the issue of cross-border portability of supplementary pension rights. It is argued that current circumstances facilitate EU action to be taken in this area. In the first section, the paper identifies the main challenges around pension provision stemming from demographic ageing and the effects of the economic crisis. Section two provides a brief overview of the Commission’s holistic approach envisaged in its 2012 White Paper on safe, adequate, and sustainable pensions. Section three provides an overview of the issue of the portability of supplementary pension rights for EU workers. Section four outlines previous attempts and recent developments towards the adoption of legislative measures to promote the portability of such pension entitlements. The paper concludes by arguing that the renewed focus on pensions, in the context of current challenges and the need to enhance workers’ mobility and to provide adequate social protection, have paved the way towards the adoption of measures in this area. |
Search result: 37 articles
Year 2014 xArticle |
Addressing the Pension Challenge: Can the EU Respond?Towards Facilitating the Portability of Supplementary (Occupational) Pension Rights |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 4 2014 |
Keywords | Economic crisis, social protection, pension provision, occupational pensions, cross-border portability of pension rights |
Authors | Konstantina Kalogeropoulou |
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Beyond Financialisation?Transformative Strategies for More Sustainable Financial Markets in the European Union |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 4 2014 |
Keywords | financialisation, financial market integration, financial reform, financial innovation, financial crisis |
Authors | Dieter Pesendorfer |
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The global financial crisis has led many regulators and lawmakers to a rethinking about current versus optimum financial market structures and activities that include a variety and even radical ideas about deleveraging and downsizing finance. This paper focuses on the flaws and shortcomings of regulatory reforms of finance and on the necessity of and scope for more radical transformative strategies. With ‘crisis economics’ back, the most developed countries, including the EU member states, are still on the edge of disaster and confronted with systemic risk. Changes in financial regulation adopted in the aftermath of the financial meltdown have not been radical enough to transform the overall system of finance-driven capitalism towards a more sustainable system with a more embedded finance. The paper discusses financialisation in order to understand the development trends in finance over the past decades and examines various theories to describe the typical trends and patterns in financial regulation. By focusing on a limited number of regulatory reforms in the European Union, the limitations of current reforms and the need for additional transformative strategies necessary to overcome the finance-driven accumulation regime are explored. Finally, the regulatory space for such transformative strategies and for taming finance in times of crisis, austerity, and increased public protest potential is analysed. |
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Disintegration of the State Monopoly on Dispute ResolutionHow Should We Perceive State Sovereignty in the ODR Era? |
Journal | International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution, Issue 2 2014 |
Keywords | online dispute resolution, sovereignty, justification |
Authors | Riikka Koulu LLM |
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The interests of state sovereignty are preserved in conflict management through adoption of a state monopoly for dispute resolution as the descriptive and constitutive concept of the resolution system. State monopoly refers to the state’s exclusive right to decide on the resolution of legal conflicts on its own soil, in other words, in the state’s territorial jurisdiction. This also forms the basis of international procedural law. This conceptual fiction is derived from the social contract theories of Hobbes and Locke, and it preserves the state’s agenda. However, such a monopoly is disintegrating in the Internet era because it fails to provide an effective resolution method for Internet disputes in cross-border cases, and, consequently, online dispute resolution has gained ground in the dispute resolution market. It raises the question of whether we should discard the state monopoly as the focal concept of dispute resolution and whether we should open a wider discussion on possible justificatory constructions of dispute resolution, i.e. sovereignty, contract and quality standards, as a whole, re-evaluating the underlying structure of procedural law. |
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Journal | The Dovenschmidt Quarterly, Issue 4 2014 |
Keywords | investment constraints, collective decision-making, organizational complexity, agricultural cooperative, residual ownership rights |
Authors | Constantine Iliopoulos |
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Agricultural cooperatives represent a key institutional arrangement in the world food and agriculture industries. Understanding these business organizations by adopting multi-disciplinary perspectives serves both scholarly and societal needs. This article addresses two issues: (1) how agricultural cooperatives choose from a plethora of ownership and governance features and (2) what are the main trade-offs cooperatives face in making these choices. Both issues have important implications for the efficiency of collective entrepreneurship organizations in food supply chains and thus for food nutrition security and food quality. The article proffers observations based on the extant literature and the author’s field experience. It is concluded that agricultural cooperatives choose ownership and governance features in an attempt to attract risk capital for investments while optimizing collective decision-making efficiency. The main trade-offs that cooperatives address while making these choices are between (1) investor mentality and member-patron control, (2) organizational complexity and vagueness of ownership rights, (3) the need for risk capital and member control, (4) organizational complexity and member control and (5) management monitoring costs and the costs of collective decision-making. These observations are highly relevant for organizational scholars, cooperative practitioners and policymakers as they inform decision-making in cooperatives in more than one way. |
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Fear of Autonomy for Minorities |
Journal | Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law, Issue 1 2014 |
Authors | Gábor Kardos |
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Journal | Erasmus Law Review, Issue 3 2014 |
Keywords | private international law, conflict of laws, foreign judgments, European Union, United States |
Authors | Christopher Whytock M.S., Ph.D., J.D. |
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In both the European Union (EU) and the United States (US), the law governing the enforcement of foreign judgments is evolving, but in different directions. EU law, especially after the elimination of exequatur by the 2012 ’Recast’ of the Brussels I Regulation, increasingly facilitates enforcement in member states of judgments of other member states’ courts, reflecting growing faith in a multilateral private international law approach to foreign judgments. In US law, on the other hand, increasingly widespread adoption of state legislation based on the 2005 Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act (2005 Act), which adds new case-specific grounds for refusing enforcement, suggests growing scepticism. In this essay, I explore possible reasons for these diverging trends. I begin with the most obvious explanation: the Brussels framework governs the effect of internal EU member state judgments within the EU, whereas the 2005 Act governs the effect of external foreign country judgments within the US. One would expect more mutual trust – and thus more faith in foreign judgment enforcement – internally than externally. But I argue that this mutual trust explanation is only partially satisfactory. I therefore sketch out two other possible explanations. One is that the different trends in EU and US law are a result of an emphasis on ’governance values’ in EU law and an emphasis on ’rights values’ in US law. Another explanation – and perhaps the most fundamental one – is that these trends are ultimately traceable to politics. |
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Culture-Sensitive Mediation: A Hybrid Model for the Israeli Bukharian Community |
Journal | International Journal of Conflict Engagement and Resolution, Issue 2 2014 |
Keywords | Community mediation, traditional communities, ethnic, conflict resolution, cultural sensitivity, Bukharian |
Authors | David Shimoni |
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Background: Attempts to practice standard (Western) mediation in a traditional ethnic community – Jewish Bukharians in Ramla, Israel – failed owing to the incompatibility of this mediation with the community’s customs and norms. Purpose: To develop a hybrid model for conflict resolution in this community and traditional communities in general, following an extensive inquiry that examined the cultural characteristics of the Bukharian community in Ramla and the preferences of its members with regard to intervention in conflicts within the group. Methodology: Mixed methods research, combining questionnaires, a focus group and three interviews. Findings: The findings provided an in-depth understanding of the Bukharian community in Ramla, its cultural characteristics and their preference when dealing with conflicts. Largely, from the sample I studied it can be suggested that the Bukharians accept power distances as something natural, that they can tolerate ambiguous situations and tend to avoid direct confrontation and expression of emotions. Most of the informants have a clear preference to turn to respected members of the community when they seek assistance in handling conflicts. These findings allowed the construction of the hybrid mediation model composed of six stages: Intake, Framework Formation, Opening Statements, Emergence of Interests, Options Generation and Agreement. This model calls for co-mediation of a traditional indigenous dignitary with a professional mediator who together conduct a tailor-made mediation. Practical implications: This unique model is most suitable for the Jewish Bukharians, but can also be used by other groups worldwide that share the same cultural characteristics of the Bukharian Jews. |
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Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 0 2014 |
Keywords | International Criminal Court, African Union, Kenya investigation, immunity, Heads of state |
Authors | Mia Swart and Karin Krisch |
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From initial African support for the establishment of the International Criminal Court to recent proposals that African states should withdraw from it, the article traces the history of the relationship between the African Union and the Court and the reasons for its deterioration. The discussion is focussed on the issue of immunity for sitting heads of state, which has emerged as a major sticking point between the two organisations. The disagreement is illustrated with reference to the ICC’s efforts to prosecute the Kenyan President and his deputy. We examine the legal position on head-of-state immunity at international law, and proceed to evaluate the AU’s proposal that the ICC should amend the Rome Statute to provide for immunity for sitting heads of state, as well as the amendment to the Protocol of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, in light thereof. |
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Journal | International Institute of Space Law, Issue 11 2014 |
Authors | Martha Mejía-Kaiser |
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Report of the Symposium |
Journal | International Institute of Space Law, Issue 10 2014 |
Authors | P.J. Blount |
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Legislative Drafting in Plain Urdu Language for the Islamic Republic of PakistanA Question of Complex Intricacies |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2014 |
Keywords | Urdu, Pakistan, multilingual jurisdictions, legislative drafting, plain language movement |
Authors | Mazhar Ilahi |
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The plain language movement (PLM) for the writing of laws calls for improving legislative clarity by drafting the laws in a clear, simple, and precise manner. However, the main purpose of this aspiration is to facilitate the ordinary legislative audience to understand the laws with the least effort. In this respect, turning the pages of recent history reveals that this movement for plain language statutes has mostly been debated and analysed in the context of English as a language of the legislative text. However, in some parts of the multilingual world like India and Pakistan, English is not understood by the ordinary population at a very large scale but is still used as a language of the legislative text. This disparity owes its genesis to different country-specific ethnolingual and political issues. In this context but without going into the details of these ethnolingual and political elements, this article aims to analyse the prospects of plain Urdu legislative language in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan by by analyzing (1) the possibility of producing a plain language version of the legislative text in Urdu and (2) the potential benefit that the ordinary people of Pakistan can get from such plain statutes in terms of the themes of the PLM. In answering these questions, the author concludes that neither (at present) is it possible to produce plain Urdu versions of the statute book in Pakistan nor is the population of Pakistan likely to avail any current advantage from the plain Urdu statutes and further that, for now, it is more appropriate to continue with the colonial heritage of English as the language of the legislative text. |
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Making EU Legislation Clearer |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2014 |
Keywords | European Union, transparency, openness, clarity of legislation |
Authors | William Robinson |
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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. |
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Journal | The Dovenschmidt Quarterly, Issue 3 2014 |
Authors | Tineke Lambooy and Jelena Stamenkova van Rumpt |
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Journal | The Dovenschmidt Quarterly, Issue 3 2014 |
Keywords | groups, limited liability, veil piercing, consolidation, pooling |
Authors | Richard Stevens |
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Limited liability is one of the cornerstones of company law. This is also the case where companies form part of a group of companies with one controlling holding company. In South African law, as in most jurisdictions, there are exceptions to limited liability. These exceptions usually lead to the piercing of the veil between the company and its shareholders. In New Zealand company law the legislature has introduced measures to enable courts to consolidate or pool together the assets and liabilities of companies within a group in cases of liquidation of one/all of the companies in the group of companies. This article investigates whether South African company law should consider introducing these New Zealand measures into South African company law to better protect creditors of the liquidated company. The article concludes that the New Zealand measures could serve as a useful presumption to enable courts to consolidate assets and liabilities within a group of companies in cases of liquidation of one or all the companies in the group. |
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Space Activities in the Jurisprudence of International Dispute Settlement Institutions |
Journal | International Institute of Space Law, Issue 8 2014 |
Authors | Mahulena Hofmann |
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A New Experience on the International Transfer of Space Technology |
Journal | International Institute of Space Law, Issue 8 2014 |
Authors | Álvaro Fabricio dos Santos |
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Article |
Capacity-Building of the National Space Legislation in Post-Soviet Countries: The Recent Contribution of Kazakhstan |
Journal | International Institute of Space Law, Issue 8 2014 |
Authors | Bernhard Schmidt-Tedd and Olga S. Stelmakh |
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Journal | The Dovenschmidt Quarterly, Issue 2 2014 |
Keywords | Private International Law, Commercial and Insolvency Law, EU Law reforms |
Authors | S.F.G. Rammeloo |
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Business contractors increasingly find themselves involved in a private or commercial law relationship with cross-border elements. In case commercial disputes have to be adjudicated in court proceedings questions to be answered are: the court of which legal order has competence, the law of which country shall be applied, and is a court order from a foreign legal order enforceable or not? The strive for a (European) Single Market presupposes the breaking down of (procedural as well as substantive) legal barriers emanating from the cross-border nature of private law relationships, notably business transactions. |
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Security and Potential (Anti-)Terrorism Aspects of High Resolution Earth Observation Data |
Journal | International Institute of Space Law, Issue 7 2014 |
Authors | Fabio Tronchetti |
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