Public and Private Enforcement in European Union Food Law

What type of enforcement is the most effective to punish violations of food law or to prevent them from occurring in the first place? This article examines the question of which mix of private and public enforcement exists in European Union (EU) food law and whether this mix corresponds to the recommendations of existing social science research. Based on this research, we contend that EU-determined enforcement mechanisms differ in effectiveness across Member States. New technologies have the potential to stimulate a novel mix of public and private enforcement tools at the EU and national levels.

Public Interest in Spatial Planning Systems in Poland and Portugal

As the level of development increases, spatial planning is becoming more significant among public management tools. Although the issue of spatial planning and its mechanisms has been repeatedly investigated in the literature, the issue of clashing of interests of different actors remains to be examined. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the enforcement mechanisms of the public interest in the spatial planning systems of Poland and Portugal. The analysis was based on a comparative analysis of the legal basis of the spatial planning systems of the countries. The research confirmed the hypothesis that even with some sociocultural and economic similarities, different countries do not have to create similar mechanisms for the realisation of the public interest in spatial planning processes. The specific solutions adopted in Poland and Portugal differ so much that the enforcement of the public interest proceeds with very few similarities. The integrated Portuguese planning system, with its hierarchical elements, facilitates the achievement of the objectives of public entities. On the other hand, the Polish system, with the dominant position of the municipality, pushes great possibilities of influencing the planning by land administrators, and the poor location of spatial planning in all public tasks makes it difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to achieve public goals in space.

COUNTERACTING PAY DISCRIMINATION – A FEW REMARKS ON THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO ART. 943 § 2 OF THE LABOUR CODE AND ON THE PROPOSED DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL TO STRENGTHEN THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK OR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN THROUGH PAY TRANSPARENCY AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS

In July 2020, a Parliamentary draft bill was brought before the Polish Sejm amending the Act – Civil Code (print no. 463). Currently, the legislative process concerning that draft is underway. The draft proposes to expand the definition of mobbing – as specified in Art. 943 § 2 of the Labour Code – by adding a provision under which mobbing would also consist in persistent and long-term differentiating the level of pay on grounds of an employee’s sex. The intention of the authors is to strengthen the legal instruments guaranteeing respect for the principle of equal rights for women with regard to pay for equal work or work of equal value. At the same time, in March 2021 – at the EU level – a legislative procedure was initiated in respect of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms. This article discusses the legal solutions expressed in the draft amendment to Art. 943 § 2 of the Labour Code and in the proposed Equal Pay Directive. The article is an attempt to answer the question if the introduction of the proposed regimes will eliminate or at least reduce pay discrimination on grounds of sex.

Local Content Requirements in Nigeria's Extractive Sector and the Implications for Sustainable Development

This article examines the framework of Nigeria's local content laws and policy, and the implications for sustainable development. The legislation is geared towards safeguarding local productivity and aiding the progressive aspirations of Nigeria's citizens. While commendable in principle, there have been questions about policy articulation, implementation and enforcement mechanisms, especially with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals. The article examines the local content legislation in Nigeria, and how policies have shaped the community-corporate nexus. This exposes the challenges facing extractive resource governance in a jurisdiction such as Nigeria and the discourses that have permeated legal scholarship on the practical deference to local content by non-state actors. It considers that well designed and implemented local content requirements are catalysts for structural development. To achieve sustainable development of its extractive sector, Nigeria requires state-led determination to stimulate economic growth and development. The article argues for continuous consultation as a bedrock for meaningful engagement.

Fundamental Rights as the Cornerstone of Schengen

Although the Schengen Border Code (SBC) explicitly obliges Member States to apply the Schengen rules in full compliance with the fundamental rights, Member States’ adherence to this obligation can be questioned in light of recurrent and reliable reports about fundamental rights violations at the EU’s external borders. This contribution will examine why, apart from the deficiencies in the SCHE-VAL mechanism, the current response towards fundamental rights violations at the border is ineffective. First, it will analyse the legal framework, including the implementing rules, to see if additional guidance is needed. Second, the enforcement mechanisms will be examined: how are violations being addressed at the national level, and how does the EU Commission perceive and fulfills its role regarding enforcement of compliance? As the Commission has often referred to the monitoring mechanism as proposed in the draft Screening Regulation, the contribution will examine to what extent this New Pact file will help to resolve the current impunity. Finally, the article will analyse the role of Frontex regarding human rights violations by Member States. What is their responsibility, how do they perform it, and who is enforcing compliance by Frontex?

Lessons from International Space Law: The Role of International Relations in Governing Global Commons Regions

Drawing from an analysis of experiences in outer space law, this paper provides insights into challenges involved with managing the global common spaces of the polar regions. The literature concerning governance of the international commons regions focuses on justice and equity concerning natural resources, climate change, the speed, uncertainty and consequences stemming from key actor activity in the Polar Regions. This usually boils down to successes and failures of treaty noncompliance and enforcement mechanisms, or the lack thereof. This paper highlights a current political process aimed at dismantling agreed upon terms outer space international agreements. This offers a snapshot of a political process, likely to influence evolving polar legal norms for the rapidly melting Arctic and Antarctic regions. This is a conceptual paper borrowing theoretical and methodological approaches from political science and international relations such as a Gramscian analysis, constructivism theory and critical discourse analysis, to present several interesting ideas. The purpose is to enable people to understand and explain that future colonisation patterns are unfolding today. It calls attention to issues likely to challenge and define our world in the twenty-first century.

Special issue introduction: Collective redress for the enforcement of labour law

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Collective redress in labour law’. Even the best labour code in the world would be practically useless without procedural rules to enable its enforcement. The contributions in this special issue show that, while the mechanism of collective redress certainly functions with mixed results and often is underused in practice, it is nevertheless a valuable tool in the enforcement toolbox, where available. It might be particularly useful for some groups of workers, such as those who lack individual means for asserting their employment-based rights in their own name. While not an answer to all problems, and undoubtedly, not sufficient to close the justice gap for many European workers on its own, collective redress, if adequately constructed, could complement and improve existing enforcement mechanisms in both national and EU labour law.

Institutionally Speaking, are Global Standards Adoptable in a Given Jurisdiction? A Critical Analysis of the IFRS's Use in Ukraine through the Lens of New Institutional Accounting

This paper examines the consequences of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption in Ukraine through the lens of New Institutional Accounting theory. IFRS adoption's effects on management's reporting incentives, enforcement and institutional complementarities are analysed. I find that adoption at a technical level is not enough to be called "adoption" as profound changes at the institutional level are also required. Adopted IFRS are subjected to the same type of institutional and market pressures that gave rise to the old set of standards and as a result, the practice of financial reporting is unchanged at its core while only new technical rules apply. Hence, jurisdictions should not pursue only technical adoption but should also try their best to align as close as possible all institutional aspects of this issue. The best advice for all jurisdictions with an institutional infrastructure similar to Ukraine's is to strengthen management's reporting incentives and enforcement mechanisms.

Giving reasons as a means to enhance compliance with legal norms

The threat of sanctions is often insufficient to ensure compliance with legal norms. Recently, much attention has been given to nudges – choice-preserving measures that take advantage of people’s automatic System 1 thinking – as a means of influencing behaviour without sanctions, but nudges are often ineffective and controversial. This article explores the provision of information about the reasons underlying legal norms, as a means to enhance compliance, primarily through deliberative System 2 thinking. While the idea that legal norms should be accompanied by explanatory preambles – to complement the law’s threat of sanctions with persuasion – goes back to Plato, this technique is not commonly used nowadays, and scholars have failed to systematically consider this possibility. The article argues that reason giving can enhance compliance and reduce the need for costly enforcement mechanisms. The theoretical part of the article comprises three parts. It first describes the mechanisms through which reasons may influence people’s behaviour. It then distinguishes between reason giving as a means to enhance compliance and as a means to attain other goals and between reason giving and related means to enhance compliance. Finally, it discusses various policy and pragmatic considerations that bear on the use of reason giving. Following the theoretical discussion, the empirical part of the article uses vignette studies to demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of the reason-giving technique. The results of these new studies show that providing good reasons for legal norms enhances people’s inclination to comply with them, in comparison to not providing the reasons underlying the norms. However, whereas persuasive reasons may promote compliance, questionable reasons might reduce it. We call on scholars and policy makers to pay more attention to this readily available measure of enhancing compliance with norms.

Conformity Assessments and Post-market Monitoring: A Guide to the Role of Auditing in the Proposed European AI Regulation

The proposed European Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) is the first attempt to elaborate a general legal framework for AI carried out by any major global economy. As such, the AIA is likely to become a point of reference in the larger discourse on how AI systems can (and should) be regulated. In this article, we describe and discuss the two primary enforcement mechanisms proposed in the AIA: the conformity assessments that providers of high-risk AI systems are expected to conduct, and the post-market monitoring plans that providers must establish to document the performance of high-risk AI systems throughout their lifetimes. We argue that the AIA can be interpreted as a proposal to establish a Europe-wide ecosystem for conducting AI auditing, albeit in other words. Our analysis offers two main contributions. First, by describing the enforcement mechanisms included in the AIA in terminology borrowed from existing literature on AI auditing, we help providers of AI systems understand how they can prove adherence to the requirements set out in the AIA in practice. Second, by examining the AIA from an auditing perspective, we seek to provide transferable lessons from previous research about how to refine further the regulatory approach outlined in the AIA. We conclude by highlighting seven aspects of the AIA where amendments (or simply clarifications) would be helpful. These include, above all, the need to translate vague concepts into verifiable criteria and to strengthen the institutional safeguards concerning conformity assessments based on internal checks.