As lições da Bósnia

O artigo sugere sete lições principais, que enumera, desde a ilação de que mesmo os conflitos internos podem degenerar, extravasando para cená- rios internacionais, até à constatação de que a acção resoluta e oportuna pode proporcionar resultados compensadores, passando naturalmente pela evidência de que a Europa tem que passar a desempenhar um papel mais activo e determinante no seu próprio destino, flexibilizando os seus meios militares por forma a que eles possam posicionar-se com oportunidade nas áreas de crise. A participação portuguesa é aqui posta em destaque, mas o acento tónico vai para a necessidade de maior cooperação internacional, entre países, organizações internacionais e não-governamentais e outras instâncias relevantes. A NATO adopta justamente medidas destinadas a reforçar a coordenação e a interoperabilidade entre os Aliados, mas a gestão das crises não pode constituir responsabilidade exclusiva dos países membros. A cooperação com a UEO – já institucionalizada –, a colaboração dos Parceiros e o empenhamento construtivo da Rússia, são igualmente condições de sucesso. Na altura em que se dá início a uma nova missão no Kosovo, as lições da Bósnia podem revelar-se extremamente úteis, não devendo em caso algum ser esquecida

Climate change litigation as financial risk

Climate change litigation has been increasing rapidly and steadily for the past ten years, yet our understanding of the costs associated with this litigation are still very poor: policy frameworks are too shallow, estimations of these costs in the private sector are scarce and simplistic, and the academic literature on this issue is still very incipient and has a very fragmented focus. This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the different types of costs that can arise from climate change litigation. Financial institutions provide an ideal focal point for this analysis because their role as enablers of some of the activities that contribute to aggravate the climate emergency make their exposure to the risk of climate change litigation unique and complex: they can be directly exposed to the risk of litigation as potential defendants in a case, facing potential pay-outs and fines, legal and administrative costs, insurance costs, financing costs, and reputational costs; but they can also be exposed indirectly, through litigation that targets their counterparties, especially their clients, which can lead to losses if the client’s solvency is affected, and can impose additional reputational costs. This typology, as well as the exploration of several methodological challenges, can support the incipient efforts to estimate the costs of climate change litigation for financial institutions that we observe among financial supervisors, credit rating agencies, and financial institutions themselves. It can also help guide attempts to estimate these costs in other industries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change litigation

The power of the Eurosystem to promote environmental protection

The misalignment of the Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP), the latest iteration in the development of the Eurosystem’s unconventional measures of monetary policy, with EU environmental global commitments has stirred a lot of political debate in recent months. Critics of the CSPP typically point to Art. 3 TEU and to the binding nature of the Paris Agreement on the ECB as the main sources of legal obligations for the Eurosystem. This essay puts forward an additional argument: the Eurosystem is bound by Art. 11 TFEU, which integrates environmental objectives into the mandate of the Eurosystem and requires it to take those objectives into account when designing and implementing monetary policy. On this basis, the essay provides a critical analysis of the validity of the controversial CSPP and explores the potential implications of Art. 11 TFEU for monetary policy. The essay concludes that, besides a distinctive source of legal obligations, Art. 11 TFEU represents an opportunity for the Eurosystem to contribute to improving our embryonic understanding of the relationship between climate change and financial stability

Climate litigation in financial markets: a typology

Over the past few years, the number of climate cases being filed against corporations and public authorities around the world has been on the rise. Aware of the central role of finance in economic development, the financial sector has remained vigilant. Traditionally, climate litigation in financial markets had been rare, but that seems to be changing: in 2018 there were more cases filed than in any previous year. The development of existing and forthcoming private and public sector initiatives with the aim of promoting sustainable finance may usher in even greater numbers in the next few years. This article provides the first systematic overview of climate cases in financial markets and introduces a typology to classify this type of climate case. This classification reveals common issues across different financial systems and raises questions for further enquiry that define a new research area within the emerging literature on climate litigation

Real-time camera operation and tracking for the streaming of teaching activities

The primary driving force of this work comes from the Lab’s urgent needs to offer students the opportunity to attend a remote event from home or anywhere in the world in real-time. The main objective of this work is to build a real-time tracker to follow the movements of the lecturer. After that we will build a framework to handle a PTZ (Pan Tilt and Zoom) camera based on the lecturer movements. That is, if the lecturer goes to the left, the camera will turn to the left. To tackle this project we will follow a project developed by Gebrehiwot, A. which involved building a real-time tracker. The problem of this tracker is that was implemented on Ubuntu and running with a very complex CNN which required the use a good GPU on our computer. As Gebrehiwot, A. rightly points out at the end of his report, not everyone has an Ubuntu partition or a GPU on their computers so we started moving the real time tracker to Windows. To achieve this objective we used Anaconda Windows which made our work much easier. After that we implemented a lightweight backbone of the tracker allowing us to run it on computers with a fewer processing power. Once that all this process was done, we put into practice the mentioned framework for handling the movement of the PTZ camera. This framework uses the implemented lightweight tracker to follow the lecturer moves and depending on these movements the camera will pan and tilt automatically. We tested this framework on streaming platforms like YouTube proving that can greatly improve the quality of online classes. Finally we draw conclusions from the work done and propose future work to improve the framework

Protecting mobile money customer funds in civil law jurisdictions

The provision of financial services through mobile phones is a powerful tool to foster financial inclusion, and thus economic growth, in developing countries. However, it raises important regulatory issues. Given the vulnerability of most potential customers of these services, the protection of customer funds is important. In common law countries, trust accounts are an effective response to these concerns. In civil law jurisdictions however, in the absence of trusts, protection of customer funds is more difficult. This paper identifies the theoretical and practical problems that regulators in civil law jurisdictions might face when trying to protect customer funds and explores how fiduciary contracts, mandate contracts and direct regulation might be used to achieve this goal. It offers a series of practical recommendations for policymakers in developing countries that provide a range of regulatory options that combine private law and regulation

The EU’s Winter Package for European Security and Defence. CEPS Commentary, 16 December 2016

THE SECURITY AND DEFENCE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION touches on a core area of national sovereignty. Lack of political will and mutual trust among EU member states has long been an obstacle to achieving the treaty objectives and has blocked the framing of a policy that could lead to a common defence. In recent years, defence budgets all over Europe have been slashed in an uncoordinated manner, hollowing out most member states’ capabilities. For this reason, the leaders of the EU member states meeting at the December 2013 European Council decided to buck the trend. But delivery has lagged behind

Bank Resolution and Creditor Distribution: The Tension Shaping Global Banking –part II: The Cross-border Dimension

New bank resolution frameworks that aim to address the complex task of managing the collapse of a large financial institution stand in considerable tension with basic principles and policy objectives of insolvency law. In this two-part study, we present an analytical framework that aims at helping us understand how this tension can undermine the effectiveness of the new bank resolution frameworks. In the first part of this article, we introduced our three-layered framework and explored its first two layers: the group dimension, and the duality of crisis-prevention and crisis-management tools. In this Part II, we explore the last layer: the cross-border dimension. As in Part I, we reflect on the practical challenges that resolution authorities are likely to face when implementing the new resolution frameworks. In addition, we use the insights from our analysis to reflect on the impact that these new bank resolution frameworks will have on the governance of international financial markets and conclude that these frameworks will fundamentally change how large banks do business at the global level

Bank Resolution and Creditor Distribution: The Tension Shaping Global Banking – Part I: “External and Intra-Group Funding” and “Ex Ante planning v. Ex Post Execution” Dimensions*

Banking has drastically changed since the 2007-2009 financial crisis and its aftermath. Of all the reforms that impinge upon the ability of global banks to run their business, none is more consequential than the new frameworks on bank resolution, which try to end “too-big-to-fail.” Yet bank resolution’s “macro” goals, such as systemic stability, limitation of contagion, and avoidance of moral hazard, run in the face of insolvency law and the more “micro” principles underpinning it. Among the latter, none is more pervasive than the need for fairness between creditors, and between (and within) creditor classes, enshrined in the ranking and priorities’ systems under insolvency law. At first glance, these demands could set bank resolution and insolvency laws on a collision course with each other. On closer examination, however, the picture is much more complex, for the tension between bank resolution and insolvency law is giving rise to a series of equilibria that are giving shape to the modern face of global banking. This and a succeeding article provide an analytical framework to aid in grasping the full picture, which is a difficult, and often overwhelming, enterprise. The proposed analytical framework breaks down the complexity of international banking into three different layers: the “individual bank v. group” dimension, the duality of crisis management (ex post) and crisis-prevention (ex ante) tools, and the cross-border dimension. We explore each of these three layers incrementally, drawing from precedent analysis as we progress. Part II of this article provides a general analysis of the tensions between bank resolution and insolvency law and introduces the analytical framework. It then moves on to explore the first two layers within that framework: the group dimension, and the duality of crisis-prevention and crisis-management tools. A separate article will address the cross-border dimension