Corporate criminal liability (in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland)

The book present to its readers in which ways the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland dealt within their national legislations with demand of European Union to adopt liability of legal entities and whether they choose genuine or false criminal liability of legal entities or they just remained with administrative liability.Uvedená monografie seznamuje své čtenáře, jakým způsobem se Česká republika, Slovensko a Polsko vypořádaly v rámci svých vnitrostátních právních úprav s požadavkem Evropské unie na zavedení odpovědnosti právnických osob a zda se v konečné fázi rozhodly pro zavedení pravé či nepravé trestní odpovědnosti nebo zda nadále setrvaly pouze na odpovědnosti správní.The book present to its readers in which ways the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland dealt within their national legislations with demand of European Union to adopt liability of legal entities and whether they choose genuine or false criminal liability of legal entities or they just remained with administrative liability

Contrasting Norway spruce disturbance dynamics in managed forests and strict forest reserves in Slovakia

Forest disturbances are intensifying globally, yet regional drivers of these dynamics remain poorly understood. We investigated recent disturbance intensities in Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) forests in Slovakia (Central Europe) with different management objectives in 2000–2017 based on Landsat imagery. We focused on 122 strict reserves without any management, their actively managed surroundings (500 m and 2000 m buffers), and managed production forests beyond the buffer areas. We used generalized additive mixed models to test for differences in temporal trends of disturbance intensity among these management categories. We found that disturbance intensity was increasing in all management categories during the studied period. The increase was more pronounced in the managed forests (compound annual disturbance rate 1.76% year−1) and the 2000 m buffer (2.21% year−1) than in the strict reserves (0.58% year−1). The predicted cumulative disturbance during the 18-year period was 9.9% in the reserves and 30.5% in the 2000 m buffer. We found that forests in nature reserves can be more resistant to disturbances than forests managed for timber production, despite management efforts to control disturbances in managed forests. Our findings can help reconcile the different perceptions of natural disturbances and their management in Central Europe and support climate-adapted management strategies that consider natural disturbances as an indispensable component of ecosystem dynamics.peerReviewe

Influence of weather and day length on intra-seasonal growth of Norway spruce (Picea abies L. (Karst.)) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in a natural montane forest.

Intra-seasonal growth responses of co-occurring European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies L. (Karst.)) to weather variability in montane forests can provide useful information on their future growth trends. To improve growth predictions, we aimed to identify: i) the main seasonal windows during which weather variability influences tree-ring growth; ii) species-specific differences in the response to weather fluctuations; and iii) teleconnections to remote sites in the Western Carpathians. We monitored intra-seasonal growth dynamics based on proxies extracted growth signals detected by high-resolution dendrometers in transition zone between beech and spruce altitudinal belt. Within 12 consecutive seasons in the natural montane forest (1350 m a.s.l.), the main part of spruce (68% to 10 July) and beech (95% to 26 August) annual increment was under the prevailing influence of temperature. After this, precipitation pattern (regarding spruce) and day length became the most influential variables during deceleration and cessation of growth. In addition, synchronous patterns with remote sites in the Western Carpathians were found. The results emphasize the importance of studying the influence of shorter-term weather fluctuations during the season. Our findings suggest that montane spruce tends to be less temperature-demanding and more drought-sensitive than beech, which may favor beech over the spruce under the future climate.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

The Forbidden Fruit of Federalism: Evidence from Romania and Slovakia

Territorial autonomy is one aspect of power-sharing in multi-ethnic societies. Nevertheless, the multi-ethnic countries of Central and Eastern Europe are still among the most centralised in the European Union. This article analyses the failure of any attempts to establish (symmetric) federalism or (asymmetric) autonomy, creating self-governed regions by the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia. The analysis focuses on the positions of the main parties of the ethnic majorities and the Hungarian minority parties in the two countries. In both cases, the parties representing the Hungarian minorities have favoured territorial autonomy along ethnic lines, but this demand has been rejected by the parties of the ethnic majority. Against the historical legacy of unstable borders, the parties of the ethnic majority argue that territorial autonomy or federalisation might be a first step for a revisionist agenda and separatism. Instead, supported by the European integration, the parties have been able to agree on decentralisation as a half-hearted compromise