No. 1: Towards the Harmonization of Immigration and Refugee Law in SADC

The MIDSA project on legal harmonization of immigration and refugee law in the Southern African Development Community had four main objectives: (a) to collect and collate information on national legislation in a single publication as a resource for policy-makers; (b) to identify points of similarity and difference in national immigration law between SADC-member states; (c) to investigate the possibilities for harmonization of national immigration policy and law; and (d) in the interests of good governance and regional cooperation and integration to make specific recommendations for harmonization. A second, parallel, SAMP study is investigating the issue of harmonization of migration data collection systems within SADC. For ease of inter-country comparison, the report contains a series of comparative tables covering all facets of the immigration regime of the SADC states. The tables can be used as a resource in themselves but are also used to supplement the analysis in the text proper. This executive summary focuses on the main findings and recommendations of the narrative report. The states of the SADC have committed themselves to increased regional cooperation and integration. This commitment is reflected in a series of Protocols to which the various states are signatory. The Protocol dealing with the cross-border migration of people within SADC (the so-called “Draft Free Movement Protocol”) owed too much to European (Schengen) precedent and too little to the political and economic realities of the region. As a result, the Protocol (and a modified version called the “Facilitation of Movement Protocol”) was rejected by certain states in the region (primarily the migrant-receiving states). The level of opposition was such that the Protocol was shelved by SADC in 2000. While this publication is not designed to promote or contest the idea of free movement, it is the belief of the MIDSA partners that good migration governance is a general aim to which all can subscribe. To that end it makes perfect sense for the individual states of SADC to re-examine their current legislation. Migration has changed dramatically in the last decade and a review of the adequacy of existing legal and policy instruments would be a positive development for all states. Beyond the issue of updating legislation and making it more relevant to current management challenges, it is clear that regional cooperation in migration management would be facilitated by a set of basic principles and laws that applied more-or-less across the region. Obviously each country has certain unique features and each state reserves the right to pursue its own immigration policy. However, there are many features of migration governance that are common to all and there is nothing to be lost, and a great deal to be gained, by simplification and standardization. A regional review of this nature also allows for an analysis of the degree to which individual states have been influenced by or subscribe to international conventions and norms in the migration and refugee protection areas. A secondary purpose of this publication is therefore to stimulate a regional debate on the extent to which individual SADC states do or should adhere to the principles of international conventions and guidelines on the movement of peoples and the protection of the persecuted

Regulatory Cooperation, Regional Trade Agreements, and World Trade Law: Conflict or Complementarity?

Today, the growing and aging population, and the rise of new global threats on human health puts an increasing demand on the healthcare system and calls for preventive actions. To make existing medical treatments more efficient and widely accessible and to prevent the emergence of new threats such as drug-resistant bacteria, improved diagnostic technologies are needed. Potential solutions to address these medical challenges could come from the development of novel lab-on-chip (LoC) for point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics. At the same time, the increasing demand for sustainable energy calls for the development of novel approaches for energy conversion and storage systems (ECS), to which micro- and nanotechnologies could also contribute. This thesis has for objective to contribute to these developments and presents the results of interdisciplinary research at the crossing of three disciplines of physics and engineering: electrokinetic transport in fluids, manufacturing of micro- and nanofluidic systems, and surface control and modification. By combining knowledge from each of these disciplines, novel solutions and functionalities were developed at the macro-, micro- and nanoscale, towards applications in PoC diagnostics and ECS systems. At the macroscale, electrokinetic transport was applied to the development of a novel PoC sampler for the efficient capture of exhaled breath aerosol onto a microfluidic platform. At the microscale, several methods for polymer micromanufacturing and surface modification were developed. Using direct photolithography in off-stoichiometry thiol-ene (OSTE) polymers, a novel manufacturing method for mold-free rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices was developed. An investigation of the photolithography of OSTE polymers revealed that a novel photopatterning mechanism arises from the off-stoichiometric polymer formulation. Using photografting on OSTE surfaces, a novel surface modification method was developed for the photopatterning of the surface energy. Finally, a novel method was developed for single-step microstructuring and micropatterning of surface energy, using a molecular self-alignment process resulting in spontaneous mimicking, in the replica, of the surface energy of the mold. At the nanoscale, several solutions for the study of electrokinetic transport toward selective biofiltration and energy conversion were developed. A novel, comprehensive model was developed for electrostatic gating of the electrokinetic transport in nanofluidics. A novel method for the manufacturing of electrostatically-gated nanofluidic membranes was developed, using atomic layer deposition (ALD) in deep anodic alumina oxide (AAO) nanopores. Finally, a preliminary investigation of the nanopatterning of OSTE polymers was performed for the manufacturing of polymer nanofluidic devices.QC 20140509RappidNanoGateNorosenso

The EU’s common foreign, security and defense policies and the Turkish perceptions

The EU's common foreign and security role is tied to the EU's normative role and this has been one of the critical aspects of the debate concerning Turkey's accession. Turkey's membership negotiations are critical in terms of the future of the European integration process, specifically with respect to the EU's role as a global actor. How Turkey perceives the EU's CFSP is critical in assessing Turkey's potential role in the larger integration process, as well as the future development of the EU's international role. The article investigates whether there are wide differences among the Turkish public vis-a-vis the EU's CFSP and to what extent these differences are visible in Turkey's negotiation talks with the EU. The paper explores the extent to which European norms in foreign policy has diffused into Turkey and how this diffusion might have impacted the process of foreign policy making in Turkey

Fiscal system and fiscal relations in the European Union: political restraints and alternative approach to public finance

Development of the European integration through the European Union (EU) considers not only strengthening integration from the economic aspect (internal market). It also considers the political aspect of the integration i.e. strengthening political integration of member states and their citizens. Political segment of integration considers strengthening of the internal policies of the EU in which fiscal system, i.e. public finances have extremely important role. The EU fiscal system presents reflection of the extremely strong and often confronted interests between the economic and the political integration. These issues are closely related to the second component of the European politic and economic integration, that are the fiscal relations between the EU “central” level and the national “lower” levels which bring the all important decisions in the EU. According to the theory of public finance (fiscal federalism) and the criteria of economic efficiency, fiscal functions (allocation, redistribution, stabilization) and activities are assigned to the different levels of government, as well as certain resources for their financing. On the basis of fiscal functions carried out by national levels in the EU, and the manner of their financing, the EU is a prominently fiscally decentralized complex community. The traditional approach to the fiscal federalism that fiscal authorities are transferred from central to lover levels means that this is a process of decentralization, while in the case of the EU this means centralization of fiscal authorities from the level on national states to the EU as a supra-national level. The main goal of this paper is to analyze fiscal relations in the EU according to basic fiscal functions: allocation, redistribution and stabilization. Methodology would include analysis and comparison of positive EU aspect with normative aspect of public finances in multi-level community. Induction of gained results will confirm thesis that, because of political restraints, development of common (central) system of the EU public finances is based on alternative approaches of harmonization and cooperation.fiscal system, fiscal relations, fiscal federalism, the European Union

On the European Union – Turkey Customs Union

The purpose of the paper is to study the European Union - Turkey customs union (CU) of 1995 covering trade in industrial goods. The customs union decision of 1995 tending to rules and disciplines on various regulatory border and behind-the-border policies covers in particular customs reform, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures. The paper after assessing in each case the status quo at the time of the entry of the CU into force evaluates the commitments undertaken under the CU, and assesses the degree of implementation of the CU requirements as well as the administrative costs of implementation of the CU. Finally, the paper shows how the CU has successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market based one.Economic Integration, Customs Union