Duration Of Proceedings Research Articles

The International Criminal Court: current problems and ways of their solution

The article examines the current problems of the functioning of the International Criminal Court, in particular the main problem – insufficient expected effectiveness, problematic issues of jurisdiction, initiation of proceedings, duration of proceedings and its influence on the effectiveness of the ICC, as well as the issue of proper cooperation between the ICC and states.
 It is emphasized that the establishment of international criminal justice bodies was a response to impunity for committed international crimes, which arises due to the ineffectiveness of national legal systems in the fight against international crimes. It is emphasized that the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court largely depends on cooperation with states and international organizations, as well as available financial and human resources.
 It is concluded that there is an urgent need for the international community to review the mechanisms of response to those states that, by not extraditing suspects, de facto contribute to impunity for committed international crimes; effective countermeasures and sanctions by states and international organizations should be applied to them.
 Emphasis is placed on the expediency of amending the Rome Statute in accordance with Article 121 of the Rome Statute, giving the International Criminal Court unconditional ratione materiae jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, as is the case with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It is emphasized that the International Criminal Court should become a permanent court that will have such jurisdiction; in its turn, this will reduce the risk of committing new armed aggressions.
 A partial solution to the problem of the excessive length of criminal proceedings at the ICC is proposed by increasing funding and recruiting additional personnel.

Modernization of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement System: reform or revolution?

INTRODUCTION. The UN Commission on International Trade Law established Working Group III in 2017. Within the framework of this Working Group, States’ delegations and representatives of international governmental and non-governmental organizations seek to work out solutions to the identified problems of the investor-State dispute settlement system. Such problems include: lack of consistency and predictability of arbitral awards, lack of independence and impartiality of arbitrators, cost and duration of proceedings. Part of the ways suggested by the UNCITRAL Secretariat and States to remedy problems could be estimated as reform of the system, but several proposals seem to be a revolution.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The authors researched the provisions of bilateral investment treaties, case law of tribunals demonstrating the problems of the ISDS system, as well as the works of Russian and foreign scholars. The methodological basis of the research contains general scientific and special methods.RESEARCH RESULTS. The authors have analyzed several ways of the ISDS system reform overviewed by the Working Group III. Firstly, the authors have considered the draft code of conduct for arbitrators, provisions on third-party funding and an advisory center in the ISDS system. It has been stated that each of these initiatives is able to solve certain problems of the system. Secondly, the authors have analyzed the documents on the creation of an appellate mechanism and a standing multilateral mechanism for the settlement of investment disputes. The authors have concluded that initiatives may bring the fundamental changes to the system.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The authors have concluded that the identified shortcomings of the ISDS system can be remedied only by its reform. Every problem of the system can and should be rectified through consistent work, and not by radical changes. The revolutionary ways considered, such as the appellate instance and the court, not only will not solve existing problems, but rather will add new ones. For example, such a “revolution” of the system may result in establishment of the two parallel regimes of investorstate dispute resolution.

Contestația privind tergiversarea procesului. Aspecte teoretice şi practice

"This article examines the legal institution of the challenge against the delaying of proceedings, having as premise the raison d’être of this institution. The Romanian legislator took a first step towards conducting proceedings if not within an optimal and foreseeable period, at least within a reasonable one, by amending the Code of Civil Procedure to introduce the institution of the challenge meant to expedite the conducting of civil trials. Throughout this article we will look at how the challenge against the delaying of proceedings has been regulated, but in particular at the problems that have arisen in practice. Finally, several proposals de lege ferenda are put forward, which should be implemented by the legislator in order for this legal institution to achieve the purpose for which it has been adopted, followed by a few conclusions reflecting the state of play of this institution, but especially answering the question of whether the challenge against the delaying of proceedings is an effective remedy, within the meaning of art. 13 of the Convention, against the excessive duration of proceedings."

Litigation on Land Disputes in Rural Pakistan and it’s Effect on Litigant’s Family Health

Legal litigation on land disputes is a very serious social issue adversely affecting various aspects of family life. A study was conducted to explore the effects of litigation on family health in four major districts of the Punjab—Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Sargodha and Mandi Baha-ud-din—using a multistage sampling technique. A sampling frame was prepared by visiting the tehsil offices and the courts of the selected districts, with the help of lawyers dealing with land disputes. A random sample of 350litigants from the four districts, distributed on a representatively proportionate basis, was selected to provide the required information using a predesigned interview schedule. The results show that the participants face various problems dealing with revenue department and conflict with court staff over the documentation of cases and during court proceedings. Patwari in the revenue department and the court staff are reported by the participants as being involved in corrupt practices. Women were not given their proper share in the properties under dispute. The results showed that longer duration of proceedings adversely affects income, savings and expenditure pattern in households involved in land disputes. Such land disputes and the resulting litigation adversely affected health of the families involved. The government of Pakistan should accelerate the process of computerization of land records. The pattern followed by India could potentially be modelled. Thus court proceedings may be completed within a shorter time frame. Women should also be recruited to the revenue department and the court staff, in order to minimize the exploitation of the litigants, as the women employees were not reported to be not involved in corrupt practices.

The relation between duration of insolvency proceedings and their efficiency (with a particular emphasis on Polish experiences)

AbstractThe following article addresses the issue of the duration of insolvency proceedings (both winding‐up and reorganization) and its influence on the efficiency of the proceedings. The previous opinion presented in the literature, according to which shorter and cheaper insolvency proceedings contribute to establishing enterprises, has been recently reflected in a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventive restructuring frameworks. It expressly states that the excessive length of restructuring, insolvency and discharge procedures is an important factor triggering low recovery rates and deterring investors from doing business in jurisdictions where procedures risk taking too long and being too costly. It was also pointed out that reducing the length of restructuring procedures would result in higher recovery rates for creditors as the passing of time would normally only result in a further loss of value for the enterprise. Moreover, to promote efficiency and reduce delays and costs, the EU Directive recommends introducing flexible preventive restructuring frameworks. The research carried out within the ACURIA project, particularly interviews, allows us to answer the question about possible discrepancies between the law on the books and the law in action with respect to provisions on duration of the proceedings. Based mainly on the case study and the interviews with practitioners, this article shows that, despite a relatively modern framework, the length of the proceedings may not be satisfactory and ‐ in the case of Poland–is due to non‐legal factors and “law in action,” which are both basic barriers to the implementation of the time limits for proceedings introduced by the legislator. The study confirms that the thesis that the statement about the need to reduce the excessive length of insolvency procedures in many of the EU Member States resulting in legal uncertainty for creditors and investors and low recovery rates is true. It will also be demonstrated, however, that the duration of the proceedings is only one of the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the proceedings, along with the costs and recovery rate. It has been pointed out in the interviews that, in practice, there are proceedings in which, due to the deliberate extension of proceedings, all creditors ultimately have been fully satisfied.

Empirical Perspectives on Investment Arbitration: What Do We Know? Does It Matter?

Abstract Due to the problem-centric nature of its mandate, empirical research has been relatively central in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) investment arbitration reform process. In this article, the authors seek to provide a state-of-the-art summary and assessment of empirical studies on the six identified concerns of states: legal cost, duration of proceedings, consistency, correctness, diversity and independence. The article asks: (1) What do we know? and (2) Does it matter? The survey of evidence reveals an emerging base of quantitative, qualitative and computational evidence for justifying some but not all concerns and understanding their causes. However, there are challenges in accessing all relevant data, modelling outcomes and evaluating whether there was normatively a problem. The article concludes by indicating that some concerns are clearly justified, others not, and others fall within an unknown category.

Duration of Investor-State Dispute Settlement Proceedings

Abstract Speed is often touted as an advantage of arbitration. In recent years, however, some have worried that investment arbitration risks losing this advantage. Concerns about the length of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) proceedings have also been raised in the discussion about ISDS reform. This article analyses the duration of ISDS proceedings applying a data-centric approach and evaluates the impact of proposed ISDS reforms on the duration of proceedings. After some terminological clarifications on when proceedings are ‘excessively’ long, the article sets out the evidence on the length of proceedings using several data-sets. As a comparator, we present data on the length of World Trade Organization (WTO) proceedings, even though we urge caution as to the usefulness of such a comparator. The article then discusses the impact of various reform proposals on the duration of proceedings, namely improving ISDS, adding an appellate mechanism, establishing a multilateral investment court and abolishing ISDS.

The Generic Drug Industry Embraces a Faster, Cheaper Pathway for Challenging Patents.

Most new brand-name drugs are protected by patents from generic competition, but these patents are occasionally granted in error. Invalidating such patents has traditionally been accomplished via court litigation by generic manufacturers, which is expensive and time consuming. In 2011, Congress created an administrative alternative to court litigation of patents, called inter partes review, intended to be much faster and less expensive. To evaluate the use of inter partes review to challenge pharmaceutical patents, including the number of challenges, the number of associated drug products, and the extent to which challengers have been successful. We obtained data pertaining to inter partes review proceedings, including identity of patent challenger, duration of proceedings, and outcome, from September 16, 2012 through April 24, 2017 from UnifiedPatents.com, and combined it with information about drug products and their associated patents, including patent type, contained in the US Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book. Generic drug manufacturers have embraced the new inter partes review process, succeeding in overturning all challenged claims in 43% of the patents they have targeted since 2011, and some challenged claims in an additional 8%. Inter partes review for drug patents has consistently been completed within 12months, as required by statute. Successful challenges have been brought most frequently against drug patents covering new formulations or methods of use, rather than drug patents covering active ingredients. In the pharmaceutical market, the inter partes review process can meaningfully contribute to ensuring that invalid patents do not block timely availability of generic drugs.

Country note: The Reasonable Time of Tax Proceedings in the Italian Legal System

The judicial protection of the taxpayer’s fundamental rights is still not fully implemented in Italy nor even in Europe. Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) – with its dichotomy of ‘rights and civil obligations/criminal charges’ – avoids guaranteeing a full and an effective protection. EU law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights possess a strong and wider legal force, despite their being effective only within the competences under Article 5 of the EU Treaty. The jurisprudence of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation currently still tends to exclude the automatic application of the guarantees of Article 6 of the Convention, even in tax penalty matters. In this context, the Italian Constitution and the so-called Pinto Law – which implements the remedy pursuant to Article 13 of the Convention to ensure that proceedings conclude within a reasonable time – should be taken into consideration. Although national legal systems cannot offer less protection than Conventional or EU law, it is entirely possible that national legal systems may provide greater protection than Conventional or EU law. From this perspective, the correct interpretation of Italian legal rules would allow the application of the principle of reasonable duration of proceedings, in the context of purely tax matters.

Towards a new court management?

Court management may be defined as the administration inside the court and outside the case. It is inside the courts, so court management does not concern the general administration of justice. It is outside the cases, so court management does not deal with the administration of cases, the so-called case management. Yet, these three fields belong to the same category of judicial management or judicial administration, and there is some overlapping and even confusion. As a matter of fact, the concept of court management is not completely settled. In a descriptive approach, it can be said that court management deals with leadership inside a court, the relationship between the judges and court staff, the allocation of cases, the evaluation of judges and court staff, the court budget, the real estate, the maintenance and security of the building, the new technology, human resources and judicial communication. Court management deals with the different councils and assemblies of the court as well as with specific planning. This General Report is based on fifteen national reports (outside China). The approach to court management may vary according to the organization, the tradition and the location of the country studied (for example, the role of the public prosecutor in court management may vary). Court management is becoming a common concern everywhere in the world as part of the efforts to avoid backlogs, unreasonable duration of proceedings and costly litigation. It seems that the tasks of management are more and more given to a specialized clerk (the director of clerks or court manager) while the role of leadership remains in the hands of the head of the court who is usually a judge.The management we are considering is a new management based on indicators, objectives and evaluations coming from the new public management. Could it be possible that the common law is more at ease with new management than the civil law? Since the judge is appointed at a certain mature age, usually forty-five in common law countries, and sometimes with the legitimacy of election, there is no risk of competition between court leadership and court management, and so between court management and procedural law. Conversely, in civil law countries judges are considered as civil servants and are chosen at a much younger age, around twenty-three, and without electoral legitimacy. As a result, there is a risk of competition between court manager (director of clerks) and judges. After the executive model based on hierarchy and the management model based on indicators and evaluation, this paper suggests that a third model of court administration is possible: the relational model based on coordination. The principle of cooperation between judges, parties and lawyers applies to case management and procedural law in general. It could be said that the principle of coordination is the equivalent of the principle of cooperation in the field of court management. One result of this is the formation of court committees and the holding of regular meetings so that staff, judges, citizen and lawyers can improve together the functioning of the court.

Rola słupów i faktycznych organizatorów przestępstw karuzelowych oraz skala współpracy z biegłymi sądowymi w przestępczości gospodarczej

Jednym z mechanizmów, który znacząco przyczynia się do istnienia luki w VAT są oszustwa podatkowe realizowane w ramach tzw. karuzeli podatkowej. Niestety skala tego zjawiska pokazuje, iż zarówno organy skarbowe, jak i organy ścigania nie radzą sobie z ograniczaniem tej skali. Dzieje się tak dlatego, że w prowadzonych postępowaniach często nie dochodzi do wykrycia faktycznego organizatora karuzeli VAT, co w konsekwencji powoduje, iż szuka on nowych słupów i niemal natychmiast tworzy kolejną karuzelę. Zdaniem autora za taki stan rzeczy odpowiada między innymi organ podatkowy wydający decyzje podatkowe na słupów nie korzystając przy tym z możliwości wynikających wprost z art. 55 kodeksu karnego skarbowego (firmanctwo). Nie można bowiem zapominać, iż faktycznymi beneficjentami korzyści finansowych pochodzących z oszustw podatkowych są organizatorzy, nie zaś osoby podstawione (słupy), które w efekcie swojej roli są bardzo nisko opłacani. Wydanie decyzji podatkowej na faktycznego organizatora umożliwia realne odzyskanie start jakie poniósł budżet państwa. Ponadto wyspecjalizowane komórki zajmujące się odzyskaniem mienia, które podlegają pod Wydział ds. Odzyskiwania Mienia w Komendzie Głównej Policji miałby realną szansę na zabezpieczenie majątku organizatora, pochodzącego z przestępstwa. Wydaje się, iż bez zmiany podejścia organów podatkowych i współpracy organów ścigania faktyczni organizatorzy pozostaną nadal bezkarni, a odzyskanie mienia niemal niemożliwe – mimo sprzyjających możliwości ustawodawczych. Do ustalania faktycznych organizatorów konieczna jest szeroka analiza schematu przestępczego procederu, a tym samym jak pokazuje praktyka bliższa współpraca wymiaru sprawiedliwości z biegłymi sądowymi, która w efekcie przyczyni się do efektywności ustalania faktycznych organizatorów zorganizowanych grup przestępczych działających w obszarach przestępstw karuzelowych. Artykuł stanowi kontynuacje badań podjętych przez autora w publikacji pt. Mechanizm przestępstw karuzelowych i metody ich ograniczenia1. Celem artykułu jest zwrócenie uwagi na konieczność zmiany podejścia do prowadzonego postępowania, co może realnie ograniczyć skalę przestępstw karuzelowych. Jednocześnie autor wskazuje na konieczność wykorzystania istniejącego stanu prawnego oraz współpracy z biegłymi sadowymi w celu poprawy efektywności prowadzonych postępowań (czas trwania postepowania, ustalanie faktycznych organizatorów). Wartością dodaną opracowania jest to, iż metody poruszone w artykule nie wymagają zmian legislacyjnych, a więc mogą zostać natychmiast zastosowane w praktyce. W celu przedstawienia zamierzonych celów zastosowano metody badań literaturowych oraz danych publicznych udostępnianych przez Ministerstwo Finansów, obowiązujących aktów prawnych. Ponadto przeprowadzono badania własne obejmujące skalę współpracy między wymiarem sprawiedliwości, a biegłymi sądowymi, co pozwala zweryfikować hipotezę, iż zakres tej współpracy w zakresie przestępczości gospodarczej jest niewystarczający. Zawarte w artykule rozważania mają charakter zarówno teoretyczny, jak i praktyczny.

The Court of the Eurasian Economic Union: Challenges and Perspectives

The Court of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU Court) is a new structure operating since 2015, and whose mission is to ensure the uniform interpretation and application of EAEU law. The article focuses on the main challenges the Court is presently facing: limited competence; a lack of procedural mechanisms to ensure the dissemination of its case-law among national courts; and a low number of applications. Consequently, it is divided into three sections. The first section is devoted to an analysis of the Court ’s competence and focuses on the loss of the preliminary reference procedure that existed under the EurAsEC law. The authors analyze its role and the possibility of compensating for its lost powers. The second section explores the other tools available to the Court in order to influence the case-law of national courts indirectly. It explores the practical difficulties which economic entities face when bringing parallel proceedings before the EAEU Court and a national court, or when trying to obtain a review of a national court judgment following a positive outcome in the EAEU Court. The third section tackles the issue of the low number of applications, linked to a lack of trust from the business and legal communities. Thus, it is vital for the Court to earn a reputation based on accessibility, professionalism and efficiency. To this end, the authors analyze such issues as the duration of proceedings, the locus standi of economic entities and the way in which judgments should be drafted to ensure the protection of rights and legitimate interests of economic entities.

Strengthening the Powers of National Competition Authorities: The Austrian View

Since the lift and escalator cartel marks one of the highest fines ever imposed in Europe on five companies involved in a cartel in the European countries Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg and the Netherlands and a quite similar cartel in the same market in Austria, which is still the highest fine ever imposed here with around E 75 million, it is undoubted that cartels do not know any boundaries. That is the reason why national competition authorities—on their own as well as in cooperation with other national competition authorities within the European Competition Network (ECN) and the European Commission—play an important role in the enforcement of competition rules. But the situation for competition law enforcers is unequal across Europe. Some national competition authorities suffer from insufficient human resources, low budgets, and limited legal powers. In this regard, efficiency plays an important role. Authorities have to spend their human resources as good as possible and pick up cases with higher priority at first. So, the first thought of this contribution is spent on efficiency. Further on, because of the need to be more efficient, settlements were developed and nowadays are simply a success story. Finally, new challenges for competition authorities arise in the field of digital markets, and their effects on national competition authorities will be part of this article as well. At first, we should take a closer look on the Austrian example. The origins of the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (FCA) date back to the year 2002 when it was founded. Since then, the Austrian authority launched investigations in several economic sectors with a focus on the food sector, the transport and steel sector, and recently the online trade sector. To be more concrete, the FCA enforces competition rules in a national market with more than 400.000 undertakings. In 2014, the FCA conducted investigations in 51 cartel cases, 23 abuse of dominance cases, cleared 322 national mergers, and checked 317 European merger notifications. With 20 conducted dawn raids in the year 2014, the Austrian competition authority is on the fourth position worldwide as far as the number of dawn raids is concerned. The FCA achieves to fulfill its legal obligations with an annual budget of 2.8 million and a staff of 25 case handlers. This situation makes it very important for the FCA to work as efficient as possible because the number of cases is huge but human resources are rare. The main question in this context is: How can this situation be improved for European competition authorities? Of course, national legislative bodies should provide their competition authorities with adequate resources, and their competition policy should focus on this project; but whenever national legislative bodies fail to do so (justified because of other priorities or simply because of reluctance), European legislation could provide alternatives. A legislative body that sets a common European framework and a minimum standard of equipment for a competition authority could be a solution and needs to be found. The second aspect is the one of settlements. When companies do not contest the circumstances of a case and make a settlement statement in which they agree to certain circumstances, they can get a reduced fine. For competition authorities, such settlement decisions shorten the duration of proceedings extremely. It would be a progress if all European competition authorities tried to harmonise their settlement procedures as much as possible to reach common European standards. Digital markets also offer a vast field of competition questions. Many authorities already focus on competition cases, and lots of infringements have been found and judged, for example in the online trade sector. The digital media create two main fields. On the one hand, certain practises like exclusionary agreements in the online industry harm competition, and on the other hand, since the World Wide Web offers many different ways to trade with goods, new phenomena have turned

La garantía del plazo razonable en el proceso

This paper seeks to embody the principle of reasonable duration of proceedings in the civil procedure of Cordoba. The issue is attempted from a Constitutional vision, taking into account that since the reform of our Constitution in the year 1994 the International Traits were incorporated to its text and taking into account the unification of the Civil and Commercial Code. The principle of reasonable time of the procedures is analyzed from the conventional and national perspective with particular reference to the normative rules and to the jurisprudence of both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of the Nation. But the greatest contribution of this work is given by a detailed analysis of the various procedural edges which we believe should be modified to ensure judicial service through an agile, simple and flexible process witch harmonizes the principles of judicial economy with efficiency democratic institutions.

Administrative Justice and Market Dynamics: The Italian Case and the European Framework.

The recent financial crisis has highlighted once again the irrelevance of political borders between Countries, but also pointed out with alarming clearness the close link between Rules (lack of), Institutions and Economy; between Market dynamics and Law, between Public Liability and protection tools; between Justice Promised (and expected) and Justice Guaranteed.The borders between Nations and the national and the transnational – and even global – laws and economies have become “porous” and subsequently facing new challenges need to overcome the boundaries between disciplines also in the academic reflection.Dealing with global phenomena makes us reflect on the consistency of models of justice and systems of the citizen protection against the public administration adopted in single Countries, also taking into account the market dynamics. In the light of the effects of the law and justice systems of justice on the market and the need to evaluate rules also in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, here we want to consider the Italian model of public liability and administrative system of justice as a case of failure to achieve the effectiveness and fullness of protection of the citizen and economic operator on the market.Proper protection against possibly harmful public administration action is considered a high priority value. Such protection must be effective. In Italy, the provision of a special judge for the public administration aims at ensuring full protection of the citizens and of administrators’ work. In many cases, however, the decisions of the administrative courts end up having a paralyzing effect on the normal course of institutional life. This adds a source of uncertainty for private investment decisions.This paper focuses on the link between administrative justice and market dynamics and contributes to the current debate on the limits of the Italian public administration system and on possible reforms.The starting point is given by the emergence of new needs of protection for the market and the citizens that the administrative judge is required to protect. Such needs are universal, but within the European Union fall into the harmonization process of different systems of justice. Some distortions given by Italian regulation and judicial review impacting on the proper protection of the market and the citizens are highlighted in the paper. These distortions have a strong negative impact on the duration of proceedings, who is a symptom of the inefficiency of the judicial system as a whole.The paper argues in favour of a reform of the system, where the public administration’s “limited liability” model could be replaced by a different one based on a clear and effective action for damages. This aim asks for a different regulation, based on few, clear and effective rules and on a judicial system less litigious and closer to the interests of the citizen and the market, to the pursuit of objectives for speed of judgment, deflation of the litigation, the fullness of protection.

EC Competition Law vs. Greek Competition Law: Conscious Parallelism or Unconscious Competition?

On April 30, 2009, one day before the 5th anniversary of the entry into force of Regulation 1/2003 on the reform of EC competition law procedural rules, the Commission of the European Communities published a Report on the functioning of the Regulation. In this Report, the Commission outlines its decision-making practices over the last five years and examines the impact of the new procedural arrangements on its productivity and duration of proceedings. Furthermore, the Commission describes its experience from its cooperation with National Competition Authorities (“NCAs”) and National Courts. One of the most radical reforms that Council Regulation 1/2003 brought about was the abolishment of the prior notification system of agreements for individual exemption under Art. 81(3) and the introduction of the “self-assessment” system, which allowed the parties to decide whether their agreement qualified for an exemption and was therefore legal. The main purpose of such reform, which rendered Art. 81 (3) directly applicable, was to reduce the Commission workload associated with hundreds of notifications — many of which concerned agreements without any anticompetitive effects — and allow it to “concentrate its resources on curbing the most serious infringements, while also relieving undertakings from considerable costs.” According to the Commission Report, this aim has been largely fulfilled, unnecessary bureaucracy has been reduced, and the Commission has been able to focus its resources on important competition issues requiring extensive analysis. The Report also points out that the majority of Member States have followed the model of Regulation 1/2003 and abolished the notification system of their national competition law; to date, national competition laws of more than 20 Member States operate without any notification obligation. A further success of Regulation 1/2003, pursuant to the Commission Report, was the creation of the European Network of Competition Authorities (“ECN”), which allowed NCAs and the Commission to effectively cooperate towards the uniform application of competition law within EEA — a very challenging goal of the Modernization Package which has created concerns as to its feasibility. Such concerns are acknowledged by the Commission, which notes in its Report that there are still areas which merit improvement, such as the negative impact of national divergences in the NCAs’ fining powers, procedural rules, and treatment of unilateral conduct. The aforementioned Commission Report has major importance for Greece as it coincided with the presentation of a Bill aimed at reforming the existing national competition law, namely C.L. 703/1977. The Bill has two main goals, according to its preamble: a) to reinforce the role of the Hellenic Competition Commission (“HCC”) and b) to harmonize the Greek Competition Law to the acquis communautaire. The current legal regime indeed presents quite many discrepancies with the EC legislation; the main ones are stated below:

Care Proceedings: Exploring the Relationship Between Case Duration and Achieving Permanency for the Child

Summary The 1989 Children Act in England and Wales and the derivative 1995 Children (NI) Order in Northern Ireland provide the legislative framework within which issues per taining to the care and supervision of children that come before the Courts are exam ined. Both pieces of legislation were intended to address a number of problems with the way that such issues were dealt with by the Court, particularly the tendency for proceedings to become protracted and for children to 'drift' in care as a consequence. The imposition of the 'No Delay' principle in both jurisdictions was designed specifically to address these concerns. However, since the introduction of both the 1989 Children Act (implemented in October 1991) and the 1995 Children (NI) Order (implemented in November 1996), there has been a steady increase in the average duration of proceed ings and concerns remain about the impact that this may be having upon the children involved. This paper presents the findings of a research study (McSherry et al., 2004) that explored the complex relationship between the duration of care proceedings and costs to children in terms of the likelihood of achieving permanency.

Equilibre et régulation du marché de la justice. Délais versus prix

Equilibre et regulation du marche de la justice. Delais versus prix ; ; En France, offre et demande de justice s'equilibrent grâce a des variations du temps qui s'ecoule entre la mise en delibere et le jugement. Ce rationnement de la demande de justice par le temps apparait inefficace puisque le delai d'obtention d'un jugement s'allonge. Cet article se propose donc d'etudier d'autres politiques de regulation des flux de contentieux et d'en mesurer les effets. Les politiques de reduction du delai imparti au debat contradictoire, d'augmentation de l'offre de justice, d'accroissement du cout d'acces a la justice et de re-allocation des couts de proces entre les parties sont ainsi envisagees successivement.

Interim Measures of Protection in the International Court of Justice

Two recent cases in the International Court of Justice have given new prominence to the role of interim measures of protection in international controversies. The circumstances of both the Icelandic fisheries litigation and the Australian and New Zealand application to prevent the holding of French nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean were such as to promise an enhanced role for interim measures in interstate conflicts. First, the jealousy with which states guard their natural resources and the continuing competition for those resources, especially in the high seas, have occasioned disputes in which a potential conflict management role for interim measures has been foreshadowed. The classic award of interim measures of protection, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Case (Interim Measures o f Protection) (United Kingdom v. Iran) 1 was made in this context, as was the order in Fisheries Jurisdiction (United Kingdom v.Iceland), Interim Protection.2 Secondly, in both cases, the indication of interim measures was disregarded. The effective role of interim measures is thus related to the general problem of improving the acceptability of the Court to states. Interim measures of protection, as an adjunct of the ,judicial process, reflect the perennial judicial concern for effective decisionmaking.The present debate on the role of the International Court of Justice has, to a large extent, concentrated on the lack of confidence shown by states in the Court. The length of time which elapses before final judgment has constituted a serious objection to the proceedings of the Court. Interim measures may have a role to play in ameliorating this situation3 for the duration of proceedings is of less concern when the rights of the parties receive interim protection. Thirdly, interim measures, may prove a unique means of preventing abuses of the human environment at the international level. The current emphasis on problems of the environment, especially pollution in international areas such as the high seas and pollution transcending state borders, has given rise to a growing demand that environmental abuses be nipped in the bud. States are unlikely to be satisfied with final judgments after irreparable damage to the environment has been caused. Increasing awareness of the global dimensions of these problems, the greater consciousness of the interdependence of states and of the inevitable impact of natural activities upon the environments of other states, should lead to a strengthening of the preventive role of the international judicial process. In this area, the institution of interim measures of protection, such as the injunction, has a potential role of great significance.