Socially Optimal Ex-ante Adjudication

The Ukraine crisis and the Western and Russian sanctions it has prompted are not only a geopolitical problem for governments but also a noteworthy contractual issue for private parties. Sudden and unexpected drops in supply and substantial increases in the cost of inputs due to the sanctions may lead to problems in contract performance or even to a risk of default. These problems are exacerbated in long-term contracts that were originally drafted in a very different geopolitical climate. It is therefore important to understand the impact of sanctions on existing contracts, on one hand, and to take the risks of sanctions into account in drafting new contracts, on the other hand. Sanctions are not a new phenomenon in business or in law. However, a trade war between the Western nations and Russia would have such major negative effects on the complex contractual networks in supply chains that it is more than reasonable to analyse this risk from the legal perspective. The Ukraine crisis might not be making the lead headlines anymore, but there is no sign as of now that the economic sanctions put in place during spring and summer would be lifted anytime soon. In addition, depending on the way the situation develops, there is always a risk of further Western sanctions on Russia or counter-sanctions by Russia. If anything, the present crisis has taught us that the geopolitical situation can change dramatically in just a few months, with direct and indirect effects on businesses. Sanctions pose serious risks to the supply of materials, goods and energy, which may lead to shortages in supply or significant hikes in the prices of inputs, making it harder for companies to deliver orders or perform long-term agreements according to contract. For example, sudden restrictions on natural gas and fuel imports can lead to difficult problems in the performance of contracts for industrial manufacturers or power companies, including risk of default. To manage sanction-related risks, companies should first consider whether they have the right to suspend performance or terminate existing contracts on grounds of force majeure if they face sanction-related difficulties in performance. Going forward, companies need to take sanctions and the threat of sanctions into account when drafting contracts and entering into new agreements, for example, by including suitably worded force majeure and hardship clauses.

This study aims to analyze the factors that influence the level of corporate taxpayer compliance in tax reporting. The method used is a literature study. The results of the study obtained that corporate taxpayer compliance is influenced by several main factors, namely the complexity of tax regulations, audit and sanction risks, and ethics and compliance culture within the company. Audit and sanction risks are also important drivers of tax compliance, where companies that feel the threat of audits and severe sanctions tend to be more compliant. Ethical culture within the company plays a significant role in encouraging compliance, where companies that have strong ethical values ??and social responsibility are more likely to comply with tax obligations. In conclusion, increasing tax compliance can be achieved through regulatory simplification, effective law enforcement, and developing a culture of compliance within the company

This chapter looks at international soft law against the background of broader issues about the normativity of law. It explores the ways in which “institutional normativity” operates across legal systems with special focus on the relationship between different constructs of validity. The chapter develops a narrowly defined “core” concept of validity that reflects the minimum conditions for providing effective normative guidance in institutional settings. This concept revolves around the idea that validity establishes a mediated relationship between the legitimacy of law and the internal processes of legal practices. The chapter argues that more specific constructs of validity are political constructs that reflect the concrete political and institutional dynamics of particular legal practices. This point about the coexistence of different constructs of legality and legal validity is demonstrated by an analysis of the relationship between international law and modern state law. The chapter characterise the proliferation of international soft law as one manifestation of the tensions that this coexistence brings about. The growing volume and significance of international soft law has a lot to do with a constraining model of legality in domestic legal systems which have a spillover effect on international law. Soft law often needs to fill normative spaces that have been made hard to access for hard international law. For a more concrete analysis, issues about international soft law in the field of human rights law are picked out. Using the General Comments of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as an example, the chapter looks at the legitimacy problems that the proliferation of soft law generates.

This third and final empirical chapter explores the majority experience of conditionality – the background knowledge of punitive conditionality, empty sanctions threats and one-off sanctions. Warnings and solitary penalties may seem like lesser versions of the crushing experience of repeat sanctions, but the menacing ubiquity of conditionality was insidious and deeply harmful. Widespread fear of sanctions was found among interviewees, even among those who had never been sanctioned. Dread of sanctions was accompanied with a strong sense of injustice and many of the interviewees felt that the system conspired against them because they had not been informed of appointments that they were later warned about or punished for missing. The consequences, as well as the causes, of sanctions were interdependent. Mothers faced risks of occasional sanctions because of their children’s illnesses. When mothers were sanctioned as a one-off, there was an amplified impact on their children. Connections were found between threat of sanctions and domestic violence, financial abuse and survival sex.

This article explores regulation of insurable interest in insurance law from the European perspective in general and the perspective of Latvian contract insurance law in particular. At the beginning, the present article provides overview of regulation of insurable interest at international law and national law from the perspective of European countries. Furthermore, the article analyses essential aspects of insurable interest such as understanding of the concept of insurable interest both at the doctrinal (academic) level and legislative level; the person who shall demonstrate insurable interest; and time when insurable interest by that person should be demonstrated. The analysis is based on discussion of various approaches employed by different European countries and comparison with the approach of Latvian insurance contract law. This article finishes with conclusions following the discussion contained therein.

And the more important international economic interests grow, the more International Law will grow. Lassa Oppenheim, International Law , vol. I, § 51 (1905) Economic interests are among the driving forces for creating and forging legal rules. Law, as a consequence, does not impose only normative guidance for individual behavior, but is itself a product of society, its needs, and preferences, and has the objective of sustaining social exchange. This holds true not only in the domestic realm but also at the international level. In fact, international law is developing, growing, and being refined at an unprecedented pace as the need for international legal rules abounds in reaction to the social and economic phenomenon of globalization. Indeed, globalization, as one of the formative processes which affects today's cultural, political, and economic life virtually anywhere in the world, is gradually transforming international law from a simple tool to coordinate inter-State relations to an instrument that provides a legal structure for truly global social orders. One of the characteristics of globalization is the growth of trans border economic activities: goods, services, and capital have progressively cast off territorial ties and circulate increasingly freely across borders. This development not only enhances the options and choices of individual economic actors, both consumers and producers, but leads to expanding economic interdependences and to the increasing, yet still incomplete, integration of national economies into a global economic system. At the same time, the release of economic activity from territorial linkages challenges both the ability of States to regulate their economy and their capacity to provide the legal institutions that are necessary for the functioning of a global economy.

Book reviewed in this article:Reform of the Constitution. By O. Hood Phillips, q.cSome Constitutional Problems. By K. Subba RaoEntscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts. Edited by Members of the Court.Government Enterprise—A Comparative Study. Edited by W. Friedmann and J. F. GarnerUniform Commercial Law: an Essay on International Conventions in National Courts. By O. C. GilesJournal of Maritime Law and Commerce. Edited by David M. Sassoon.A Casebook on Company Law. By H. R. HahloThe Tax Consequences upon Conversion of Property's Use. By Yaakov Neeman.The End of Marriage. By David MorrisSouth African Criminal Law and Procedure (formerly Gardiner and Lansdown): Volume 1—General Principles of Criminal Law. By Professor E. M. Burchell and P. M. A. HuntCriminal Appeals. By Michael KnightSentencing Offenders in Magistrates' Courts. By Keith Devlin.Books and Publications Received:Revenue Law. Fourth Edition by Barry PinsonLand Law. Second Edition. Concise College Texts by E. Swinfen Greek and N. HendersonThe Sale of Fiats. Third Edition by E. F. George and A. George.Remedies for Unjust Dismissal. Proposals for Legislation by G. de N. ClarkA Casebook on Tort. Second Edition by Tony WeirFreiheitsverlust und Freiheitsentziehung by J. ZuttMegarry: The Rent Acts. Volume 8. Permanent Supplement by Anna Cowan.Practice and Procedure. Third Edition by Rowland G. Witchell.Life Assurance and Tax Planning. By Peter Harris and Derek Hewson.The Law of Insurance. Third Edition. By Raoul Colinvaux

The article considers the decision of the Helsinki County court on the claim of a Finnish citizen to be granted the right to use banking services in Finnish banks from the international law perspective. The Helsinki district court, in its decision promulgated on 13.01.2020, rejected Boris Rotenbergs claim against Svenska Handelsbanken AB, Nordea Bank Abp, Danske Bank, and OP Yrityspankki Oyj. The court recognized the financial risks of a Finnish citizens Scandinavian banks under US sanctions above international law and fair trial guarantees. There is no doubt that this court decision will have further consequences in the judicial proceedings of Western banks for foreigners who do not permanently reside in the European economic area (EEA), and in other similar cases, and in ensuring the judicial practice unity in EU countries. First of all, this applies to any foreigners who do not have the right to permanent residence in the EU countries, but who have real estate in the form of investments or regularly come for a holiday. Previously, buying real estate in Europe was considered a reliable investment of foreign funds and a guarantee for obtaining banking services in Western banks. Based on this legal precedent, the European courts can now recognize the risks of secondary US sanctions against any banks, not only in the case of Russians from the SDN sanctions list, but also on any suspicion of money laundering by bank employees. The courts decision was based primarily on the testimony given by the former head of OFAC, who stated that even before the decision was made in 2017, the US administration already had a legal tool for punishing foreign individuals and legal entities who interact with Russians on the SDN sanctions list. As long as the US dollar is one of the main currencies in the settlements between the states, the US Treasury will control not only the dollar transactions, but also the very principle of the global banking system functioning. This court decision may become the first legal precedent for most European banks in the EU countries wherein the real estate of foreigners who do not live in the EEA countries is located, regardless of their citizenship and residence permit.

Using data elicited from a random sample of 1435 adults residing in Lviv, Ukraine, and Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, this study tests rational choice theory (RCT) across gender groups. It seeks to determine whether men and women have different perceptions of sanction risk and crime rewards, whether the formation of these perceptions is gender-specific, and whether RCT predicts criminal behavior equally for men and women. Results suggest that, for both genders, perceptions of crime rewards appear more important than sanction threats. Furthermore, perceived rewards of crime, but not sanction threats, partially explain associations between offending and personal and vicarious experiences with crime. Finally, the performance of RCT is consistent, but not identical, in explaining crime by men and women. The gender gap in offending appears to reflect differences between men and women in levels of perceived rewards, most likely acquired through direct and vicarious experiences with crime as well as through gender-variant emotional bonds.

Governing fossil fuel production in the age of climate disruption: Towards an international law of ‘leaving it in the ground’

The paper examines the realignment of the legal sources in an information society, by considering first of all the differences with the previous system of sources, dubbed as the “Westphalian model”. The current system is tripartite, rather than bipartite, for the sources of transnational law should be added to the traditional dichotomy between national and international law. In addition, the system is dualistic, rather than monistic, because the tools of legal constructivism, such as codes or statutes, have to be complemented with the rules of customary law and contracts. In light of the canonical version of the law as a set of commands enforced through the threat of physical sanctions, however, two further novelties must be stressed, namely the soft law-tools of governance as a source of the system and the aim to embed normative constraints into technology, in order to enforce the law through the use of filtering systems, self-enforcing technologies, etc. This latter approach impacts on functions and requirements of the system, by transferring the normative side of the law from the traditional “ought to” of legal commands to what actually is on the basis of automatic techniques, thus affecting the very notion of source. The overall aim of the paper is to show that rearrangements of the legal sources are intertwined with redistributions of power and hence, a normative standpoint is needed, so as to determine whether scholars can obtain the solution that best justifies the integrity of the law before its hard cases, or the answer is a reasonable compromise between many conflicting interests.

The report from the newest EU Member State – Croatia – explains that the constitutional system represents a break from the former socialist system, where the Constitution had been more ‘political’ and not directly applied in practice. The constitutional order is highly influenced by the German constitutional tradition, and the Constitutional Court often cites the German Constitutional Court. The Constitution has been amended with regard to the EU in a very extensive manner. No significant constitutional issues have arisen with regard to EU or international law. By way of some limited exceptions, trade unions and individuals unsuccessfully sought to contest austerity measures required as part of the EU Council’s excessive deficit proceedings in the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court has additionally adjudicated questions on whether referendums regarding privatisation of certain public services are permissible, given that the referendum outcome could lead to incompatibility with EU law. The increased cost of water in relation to a relevant EU Directive was the object of the first reference for a preliminary ruling from Croatia. With regard to the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), some legislative guarantees (such as the statute of limitations) were removed from an implementing law following severe criticism and the threat of financial sanctions from the European Commission. The move through the EAW system towards in absentia judgments has also led to some debate, given the historical experience with a high number of in absentia judgments during the 1991–1995 war and the subsequent finding that a vast majority of these trials had violated fair trial rights.

Nowadays, Prosper Weil's concerns about the emergence of international rules protecting so-called community values, and thus being endowed with special normative force in comparison to “ordinary” international rules, cannot but appear excessive. The existence of such rules as jus cogens or as rules establishing erga omnes obligations is undisputed. And yet Prosper Weil's prediction of their negative impact on the essential functions of international law has not materialized. Weil's concerns acquire instead significance in the field of international criminal law, whose development in the last decades is premised on the need to protect values fundamental to the international community as a whole through the threat of a criminal sanction against individual transgressors.

Liability and Environment by Prof. Lucas Bergkamp analyzes the role of law, in particular civil liability, in controlling environmental pollution and risk. modern environmental policy, liability has become a popular instrument. this book, Prof. Bergkamp takes a fresh look at civil liability for environmental harm in an inter- and transnational context. Over the last decades, environmental regulations have mushroomed, and liability exposure for environmental harm has expanded significantly. At the international, EC, and national level further proposals for onerous strict environmental liability regimes are pending. The pays which is an articulation of the cost internalization theory in the environmental area, is believed to justify such liability regimes. Applying an instrumental approach to law, Prof. Bergkamp aims to redefine the role of liability in the heavily regulated environmental area. He shows that in the regulatory state liability for environmental harm is not required by the polluter pays principle, is an uncertain and unreliable instrument for achieving prevention, results in an inefficient insurance scheme, and plays a dubious role in adjusting activity levels. Based on an analysis of the basic characteristics of alternative legal instruments, Prof. Bergkamp concludes that civil liability should play a more modest, limited role in an environmental law system dominated by public law. Where deterrence is the objective, objective fault liability can play a useful role as a sanction for violations of applicable standards. Where deterrence is not the objective, first party insurance or other public law regimes should be preferred over liability rules. addition to civil liability of private parties, Liability and Environment discusses state liability under international, EC, and national law. Under international and EC law, breach of a primary obligation triggers a state's liability. Prof. Bergkamp argues that this rule should be applied also to liability of private parties. the environmental area, a business' primary obligations are spelled out in detailed permit conditions, regulations and statutes. According to Prof. Bergkamp, only if a polluter breached a primary obligation, he should be liable for environmental harm. The system that Bergkamp advocates is an objective fault liability regime, in which public environmental law defines the standard of care for both government and industry. In rebuilding our civil liability system, we should keep in mind that what we believe to be good for industry should be good for every one (or it is not good for anyone), and what is good for private parties should be good for the state (or it is not good for either). rebuilding our civil liability system, the international law of state responsibility, which is unpolluted by risk spreading and activity level considerations, will guide us a long way. Liability and Environment covers also current trends and controversial issues in environmental law. It, for instance, analyzes corporate veil piercing theories that are invoked to impose liability on shareholders, and liability for natural resource damage and related assessment and valuation issues. Unreserved discussions address such topics as the stakeholder model of the corporation, sustainable development, and risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. Following an assessment of the concepts of market and government failure, prof. Bergkamp presents a default-displacement model of liability, in which liability essentially serves as a stopgap against abnormal behavior in areas that are not yet regulated and as a sanction in regulated areas. This book is aimed at advanced law students, academic scholars, and practitioners. addition, it is of interest to policy and legislative analysts, legislators, and government officials. Economists, philosophers, free trade and laissez faire-supporters, as well as environmentalists may benefit from its wide-ranging, thought-provoking perspectives. the engaging analysis presented in the book, many current issues of modern environmental law and policy are discussed. It is written in plain, direct language, and tries to avoid excessive use of legalese and technical terminology, so that it is accessible to any reader.

Managing human activity in outer space requires a mixture of tools, including technology, economics, and law. Though technology and economics are of prime importance, the space sector needs a clear, coherent, and adequately granular regulatory environment that ensures its sustainable development and also serves sustainability on Earth. No doubt the law can be a tool for introducing sustainability into the space sector’s daily life. To serve as such, law should be almost as dynamic and agile as the space activity and space environment. The space law should not only be descriptive, but it should also address new concepts such as in-orbit servicing, asteroid mining, etc. By doing so, it should also embrace the technical aspects of space activities even if they are not mandatory by international law. The lawmakers, especially national legislators, must also not be afraid to tackle new areas. The primary duty of national governments is to enhance safety and minimize risk in all, traditional and emerging space ventures, both in material and financial contexts that do not only directly affect their citizens and their assets, but also the environment, which obviously serve the entire society in an inclusive way and on a long-term basis. The purpose of this paper is to provide a voice in the discussion on the concept of sustainable development of space activities and suitability of the existing space regulatory framework. In order to draw some conclusions, it seems necessary to analyse the notion of sustainability against the existing legal framework, so as to state whether it is still up to date in this respect and whether it may contribute to materializing the sustainable development of the space sector. In particular, it is interesting to consider whether the liability regime, including the notion of damage and prerequisites of claims for compensation as adopted in the Liability Convention may still serve its purpose and answer the needs of the shift in the priorities of space exploration. Finally, I intend to consider the possibility of drawing on principles from other branches of law, including in particular, environmental law and insurance law and practice, in order to build legal mechanisms to implement the demands of sustainable development of space. Thus, among other issues, the topic of space environmentalism as well as the coherence of space and earth sustainability instruments will be analysed.