The legal aspects of the protection of minorities in the process of stabilization and association

Among the main conditions for joining the European Union (EU) is the protection of human rights, particularly the protection of minority rights. This paper will consider the protection of minority rights in Croatia since independence in 1991. In four chapters the paper analyses some of the essential segments of the protection of minorities in the international context as well as the obligations of Croatia in this context. The analysis centres on the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities adopted in December 2002. The position of minorities before and after this law came into force is compared

Croatian Accession to the European Union: Economic and Legal Challenges

Reform of the Croatian legal system and the adjustment of its legislation to EU law is one of the main conditions for the Republic of Croatia to be able to join the Union. This paper analyses the existing requirements for gender equality inside the EU, the current situation in the applicant countries and the existing problems and challenges for states that are only on the way towards European integration. In the Republic of Croatia gender equality is not guaranteed to a sufficient extent, which has resulted in negative public reactions from NGOs and organisations for the protection of human rights and the rights of women. In addition, individuals are exposed everyday to various forms of sexual harassment in the workplace, in schools, universities and public places. So far, except at the constitutional level, no kind of legal approach has been adopted to guarantee gender equality or freedom of sexual orientation, which is an obligation of Croatia according to international treaties and the SAA.gender equality, sexual orientation, equal opportunities principle,equal procedure principle, sexual harassment, European Union, Copenhagen criteria, Council of Europe, Stabilisation and Association Agreement, European Community Treaty, acquis communautaire.

Nutrition and Physical Activity as Modulators of Osteosarcopenic Adiposity: A Scoping Review and Recommendations for Future Research

Osteosarcopenic adiposity (OSA) syndrome denotes the confluence of bone, muscle, and adipose tissue deterioration. Being a complex entity, numerous uncertainties about OSA still exist, despite the extensive research on the topic. Our objectives were to evaluate human studies addressing dietary intake/nutritional status and the quantity/types of physical activity related to OSA. The search in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases was conducted to examine relevant articles published from inception to the end of December 2022, utilizing the MeSH strings in the search strategy. Only studies published in English and conducted in humans (≥18 years) without chronic conditions (cancers, kidney/liver disease) or pregnancy were used. Book chapters, abstracts-only, and studies in which participants did not have all three body composition components measured to identify OSA or when body composition components could not be related to the independent/exposure variables were excluded. A total of n = 1020 articles were retrieved from all three databases and eight more from the reference lists. After the exclusion of duplicates and other unsuitable articles, n = 23 studies were evaluated. Among those, eleven were from epidemiological or cross-sectional studies relating nutrients/dietary intake or nutritional status with OSA. Another four examined the relationship between serum biomarkers (vitamin D and ferritin) with OSA, while eight articles presented the results of the interventional studies with resistance training. Overall, higher protein, calcium, potassium, and vitamins D and C intakes emerged as nutrients positively modifying OSA, along with a diet higher in fruits and low-fat dairy foods. Higher serum vitamin D and ferritin were respectively positively and negatively related to OSA. Resistance training was a safe intervention yielding several beneficial outcomes for the OSA syndrome in older women