From security to justice? The development of a more justice-oriented approach to the realisation of European minority rights standards

The aim of this article is to reassess the development and consolidation of minority rights in Europe with reference to Kymlicka’s liberal theory of minority rights and to his own critique of the European minority rights framework

Bulgaria's evolving legal framework for private sector development

Bulgaria is in the midst of a historic transformation from a planned to a market economy. The Bulgarian government is working steadily to create a legal framework in which the private sector can develop. The authors describe the current legal framework in Bulgaria in the areas of constitutional, real property, intellectual property, company, foreign investment, bankruptcy, contract, and antimology law. These areas of law define property rights, the means for exchanging property rights, and the rules for competitive market behavior - the bedrock of a legal system for a market economy. But the administrative and judicial machinery for implementing these laws is slower to develop. Laws by themselves are only paper; the legal framework comes to life only when legal and administrative institutions can enforce the laws and readily resolve the disputes they inevitably spur, and only when the public accepts that the laws are binding. Moreover, the laws by necessity provide only a general framework. Their content must be filled by more detailed regualtions and practice in individual cases, a process that takes time. The challenge of legal development is as immense as that of economic reform, and the two are inexorably intertwined.Municipal Housing and Land,Municipal Financial Management,National Governance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

European Neighbourhood Policy in the Mashreq Countries: Enhancing Prospects for Reform. CEPS Working Documents No. 229, 1 September 2005

This report assesses ways in which the Action Plan process that has been launched under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) could become a more effective driver of political and economic change in the Mashreq region (covering Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories), compared with the modest results from the Barcelona process to date. The development of the ENP has already provided a valuable systemic/institutional advance in Euro-Med relations and has been an important confidence-building measure in an increasingly uncertain political environment. But it has yet to provide momentum for economic, political and social advance in the partner states. Key elements in making the Action Plan process more effective would be the following: · The Commission needs to deepen the policy content of the ENP with sketches of different degrees of desirable EU acquis compliance as a function of different economic structures and capabilities of the partner states. · The task of policy-shaping in different sectors of the Action Plans with the partner states needs to be shared by the Commission with other international organisations, most importantly the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). · The policy-shaping recommendations in support of the economic parts of the Action Plans should be explicitly linked to financial or market-access incentives (or both) on offer from the EU and international financial institutions. The promotion of political reform in the partner states is a more delicate affair. Yet there is still some room for ‘positive conditionality’ if the Commission were to define more substantively the package of incentives that are offered to partner states

National Co-ordination of the Fight against Trafficking in Human Beings: Recommendations for Poland as a 'New' EU Member State

As a world-wide problem, trafficking in human beings now attracts some well-deserved attention after years of political reservation and operational hesitation in European Union Member States. This working paper examines a particular aspect of the EU policy against this phenomenon: its change vis-à-vis the 2004 enlargement to the East. As the topics, actors and activities on the anti-trafficking scene multiply, national co-ordination of the fight against trafficking in human beings is in need of several improvements. The following ideas derive from research performed in Florence, as well as from consultations with anti-trafficking experts and the study of official documents of international organisations and governments. 'Pooling of resources', together with the creation of a national coordinator, are the key concepts of the envisaged enhanced model of Poland's policy.Poland; immigration policy; asylum policy; cross-border crime; enlargement

A Preliminary Assessment: 2001 Court Restructuring Plan Impacts on Three Iowa Counties

A preliminary study is one that is conducted to develop an initial framework of analysis and/or to gain an initial assessment to provide enough understanding of the research issue so as to inform the direction of a more complete and comprehensive data collection, study analysis, and policymaking deliberation. On November 8, 2001, the Iowa General Assembly and Governor approved a 4.3 percent across-the-board state budget reduction. This reduced the Judicial Branch budget by $5.5 million. In anticipation of and in response to fiscal concerns, the Judicial Branch announced plans for restructuring the Iowa court system. Iowa citizens and community and interest group leaders are interested in having the impacts of the proposals identified and assessed to assist in informing state and local discussions and future decisions. It is the result of this interest for which the Department of Economics and Iowa Vitality Center at Iowa State University have undertaken this study. The Iowa State Bar Association contributed funding for the project. The author has developed a significant track record and expertise in conducting numerous studies on related public finance and government structure issues for Iowa policymakers, leaders and citizens during the past 15 years. He is solely responsible for directing this study, the study findings and the conclusions. The purpose of study is to provide an objective assessment of the impacts and to gather local observations and perspectives that may be useful in public discussions and planning next steps toward future public decisions.

Misplaced Boldness: The Avoidance of Substance in the International Court of Justice’s Kosovo Opinion

The International Court of Justice\u27s Kosovo Advisory Opinion is a masterpiece of avoidance. The Court has lived to run another day, and one can only admire the judges\u27 skill in arriving at the vacant place between difficult and clashing conclusions of substance. Still, in the wake of the Opinion, questions inevitably arise: Of what use is this document? Has it advanced a project of justice, or of law? The Opinion has done something, though not, perhaps, what it purports to do. To understand it, we must engage this cautious, crimped document in its full context—or rather, we must understand the ways in which the Opinion itself comprehensively avoids any engagement with context. Its caution and its crimped nature are themselves features illuminating the self-image, role, and limited value of the Court. This Article argues that in the Kosovo Opinion, the International Court of Justice assiduously asserted its own jurisdictional, interpretative, and institutional prerogatives, at the cost of avoiding the momentous questions about secession and self-determination with which the Court was so clearly confronted. These two outcomes are related: The avoidance of substance and the assertion of prerogative were achieved by the selfsame maneuvers of definition and interpretation. Faced with a choice between emphasizing its own authority and actually engaging the question, the Court chose to invest in itself—but it did not, in turn, use that investment to any substantive end. The Opinion exhibits a misplaced boldness, advancing its procedural agenda but saying—almost literally—nothing in the process. This Article also considers what a bolder Opinion might have looked like, by comparing the Opinion to the Canadian Supreme Court\u27s seminal Reference re Secession of Quebec. This comparative exercise helps us to understand why questions of self-determination are easier to avoid than to decide—why it is hard even to talk about them in coherent and productive terms, and thus why one must feel sympathy for the seemingly impossible task facing the ICJ—but also to see that another, bolder language is in fact possible

Fostering an EU strategy for security sector reform in the Mediterranean: learning from Turkish and Palestinian police reform experiences

In the absence of an overarching strategy, Turkey and the Palestinian territories depict how the EU has adopted different approaches to security sector reform (SSR) which have not facilitated the consolidation of a common EU foreign policy, though the situation might soon change given respective SSR-related documents from the Council and Commission. This report contributes to the security sector debate by stressing that in conflict and post-conflict scenarios endurable SSR requires fomenting synergies between the police and judicial sectors and the inclusion of DDR, in tandem with the institutional implementation of transparent, accountable and democratic oversight mechanisms. There is an adamant need for constructive consistency when applying this central facet of EU foreign policy in the Mediterranean basin and beyond. SSR is an emerging phenomenon in conflict, post-conflict and development scenarios that has acquired a prominent role within the policy agendas of key international actors. As a prelude to the two case studies, and in order to better understand the EU’s end goal, a brief analysis of the two pivotal European SSR documents is provided with particular emphasis on their contribution to develop a more coherent and effective EU presence in this field. More specific consideration is then given to the role played by SSR-related matters within the framework of two EU foreign policy mechanisms towards the Mediterranean: the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), also known as the Barcelona Process, and the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The two case studies - Turkey and the Palestinian territories - are exceptional due to the nature of their geopolitical position in regional and international politics. Both demonstrate different levels of state development and different degrees of monopoly over the legitimate use of force, which have contributed to the development of different EU approaches to SSR, tailored to the specific needs of the local context in which the Union is operating. Both cases also demonstrate how the EU emphasizes democracy or security depending on the respective circumstantial differences. Turkey exemplifies by and large the EU accession process of fulfilling democratic reform in return for EU membership. The Palestinian case illustrates how security demands precede democratic apertures. Together, both highlight the lack of a consistent and comprehensive EU SSR strategy, the lack of which continues to impede the emergence of a common EU foreign policy. This study makes a set of recommendations for the two case studies, and concludes with more general ones applicable to the broader Euro-Mediterranean area. These are mainly addressed to the European Commission, Council of the EU (and thus, Member States) and European Parliament. Moreover, the conclusions and recommendations included in this report could inspire the work of various advocacy groups in the fields of SSR, conflict resolution and democracy and human rights promotion given that, based on the “human security” logic, this report departs from the assumption that police reform encapsulates both modernising and democratising processes