General Obligation Research Articles

New tax reporting obligation Mandatory Disclosure Rules (MDR)

The aim of the article is to discuss new legal regulations of the MDR and to draw attention to some issues raising doubts regarding the social acceptance of the provisions of the Act (reporting tax schemes as aggressive tax optimization vs general obligation to report tax events) or violating the principle of non-retroactivity, as well as violation provisions regarding the competence of the executive.

Covid-19 and labour law in the Netherlands

Against the backdrop of an ‘intelligent lockdown’ the Dutch government has launched a threefold emergency package to support businesses and safeguard employment as much as possible. This ‘Emergency Jobs and Economy Package’ contains, amongst others, measures that aim to ensure the safeguarding of income and salaries for employees as well as self-employed workers. It concerns mainly subsidy law and the extension of social security legislation, not employment law. However, the safeguarding of income for employees (NOW) entails a fine on redundancies during the period of support. Not only employees, but also self-employed workers can apply for income support. From a health and safety perspective (during lockdown as well as going forward to relaxation), no specific national measures have been taken. The general rules on social distancing and hygiene have to be implemented as part of the general obligation to provide a safe working place. No specific care arrangements for working parents that have to work from home have been put in place.

The Marrakesh Treaty and Copyright in the Library Sphere

In order to facilitate access to works and their use for the visually impaired, on June 27, 2013, the Diplomatic Conference of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Marrakesh (Morocco) adopted the “The Marrakesh Treaty on the facilitation of access for the blind and visually impaired or with other disabilities to accept printed information to published works”. The accession of countries to the Marrakesh Treaty allows for adequate access for people with visual impairments to published works on the same terms as for people with normal vision. The provisions of the Marrakesh Treaty establish general obligations on restrictions under the Berne Convention, which authorizes the reproduction of works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not harm the normal use of the work and does not unduly affect the legitimate interests of the author. The article reveals the exceptional nature of the Marrakesh Treaty, which combines the law on rights of people with visual problems and intellectual property law, creates the first mandatory restrictions on copyright protection in order to expand access to books for a growing number of people. The implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty into national law will enable libraries to create and distribute copies of works in an accessible format for the visually impaired. In order to protect copyright in the production of works for the visually impaired, the Marrakesh Treaty provides for the establishment of a special “authorized body” in the country, which should be associated with at least one area of society: 1) education, 2) vocational training, 3) adaptive reading or 4) public access to information. Such an authorized body may be any library or other organization that provides services on a non-profit basis. The adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty at the Diplomatic Conference of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Marrakesh is an important step in implementing the basic provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stipulates that everyone, including the visually impaired, can participate fully and equally in political, economic and cultural life of society.

Regulation Best Interest: A new standard of conduct for broker-dealers in recommendations to retail customers

This paper analyzes the Securities Exchange Commission’s new Regulation Best Interest rule. Regulation Best Interest, which goes into effect on June 30, 2020, enhances the obligations that apply when a broker-dealer makes a recommendation to a retail customer. The new standard requires broker-dealers and their associated persons to act in the best interest of the retail customer at the time a recommendation is made without placing the interests of the broker-dealer ahead of the interests of the retail customer, and implement policies and procedures designed to identify and disclose conflict of interest. The Specific Obligations require Disclosure (providing specific disclosures before or at the time of the recommendation), Care (exercising reasonable diligence, care and skill in making the recommendation), Conflict of Interest (establishing, maintaining and enforcing policies and procedures reasonably designed to address conflicts of interest) and Compliance (establishing, maintaining and enforcing policies and procedures). This paper explains both the general and specific obligations, compares the current obligation against the enhanced Regulation Best Interest, and suggests practical compliance steps for the broker dealer.

Are Overlapping Local Governments Competing With Each Other When Issuing Debt?

Local public services are produced through various overlapping jurisdictions. This study examines how the issuance of municipal general obligation bonds is affected by the tax policies of overlapping local governments. The findings challenge the hypothesis that the shared tax base would be overused in a common‐pool resource scenario. Instead, the empirical results show that the issuance of general obligation bonds is more likely in jurisdictions where counties and school districts make more intensive use of the property tax. These findings highlight the importance of the signals local governments receive from their overlapping neighbors regarding voters’ demand for additional public spending.

LA BONNE FOI ET LE PRECEDENT: BHASIN C. HRYNEW ET LA COMMON LAW CANADIENNE

En common law canadienne, la bonne foi dans les obligations contractuelles se limite à des domaines précis ; il n’y a pas d’obligation générale. Dans Bhasin c. Hrynew, la Cour suprême du Canada à cherché à pallier cette insuffisance en posant un principe directeur général de bonne foi et une obligation d’agir honnêtement dans l’exécution de ses obligations contractuelles. Elle laissait aux cours inférieures la tâche de déterminer les modalités de mise en application du nouveau principe. La Cour a utilisé la méthodologie de la common law pour sortir des limites analytiques restreintes de la common law et élargir la portée de la bonne foi. Or ce précédent n’a pas eu l’effet escompté. La définition limitée de la bonne foi donnée par la Cour suprême du Canada a conduit les cours inférieures à réduire Bhasin c. Hrynew à un cas d’espèce. Devant l’indétermination du principe et de sa portée, les cours d’appel ont utilisé une gamme de techniques pour le distinguer, entre autres, un recours aux règles de la common law pour limiter son champ d’application au lieu d’un recours à la nouvelle décision pour modifier les règles de la common law. Le Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) et le Code civil du Québec (CCQ), auxquels la Cour s’était référée pour justifier l’introduction du principe directeur général en common law fournissait une feuille de route pour son élaboration que les juridictions inférieures ont refusé de suivre.

Successful containment of Covid-19 outbreak in a large maternity and perinatal center while continuing clinical service.

With increasing number of SARS‐CoV‐2 infections and COVID‐19 patients to be taken care of by the health system, more and more health workers become affected by the disease. It has been reported that right from the beginning of the outbreak in Lombardy up to 20% of the doctors and nurses became infected. Under these circumstances, the regular operation of health institutions already suffering from a shortage of staff becomes difficult. This has led to complete or partial shutdowns of hospitals, either due to a lack of uninfected personnel or because of uncontrollable chains of infection endangering patients. In one of the largest university perinatal center in Bavaria with more than 3000 births per year, an outbreak of COVID‐19 occurred in March 2020, affecting 36 staff members, including doctors, nurses, and midwives. Here, we describe the outbreak and present the measures contributing to the successful containment of the outbreak within three weeks. At the same time, clinical services could be maintained, however, not without deployment of personnel exposed to employees infected with SARS‐CoV‐2. Apart from massive testing of personnel in pre‐defined phases and increased hygiene measures, including a general obligation to wear surgical face masks, we identified the need to monitor cases of illness across all groups of employees, to ensure social distancing within personnel and to evaluate contacts of clinical personnel outside of the hospital environment, in order to be able to interpret chains of infections and to disrupt them. Overall, only a bundle of measures is needed to contain such an outbreak.

The Role of the Law of the Sea in Climate Change Litigation

People around the world are turning to the courts to ensure that steps are taken to tackle climate change, using litigation as a tool to force action. An emerging trend in climate litigation is to look to other legal regimes for sources of climate obligation and there is a growing number of climate change cases looking at the relationship between human rights and climate change, and refugee law and climate change. This paper looks at the role of the law of the sea regime in climate change cases, in which some connections to ocean issues are identified – either because the activities that contribute to GHG emissions takes place in the ocean space, or because the effects are felt there. One main finding is that that the use of the law of the sea-based rights and obligations is almost non-existent in climate litigation. Another main finding, based on an analysis of one of the relevant cases, namely the Norwegian Climate Change Case, is that the general obligations established by section 1 of Part XII of the LOSC represent an untapped resource to legal obligations in climate litigation.

Pendampingan Pengisian dan Pelaporan SPT Tahun PPh Wajib Pajak Orang Pribadi dengan Menggunakan E-Filling

In principle, every individual who fulfills his subjective and objective obligations is obliged to register himself as a Taxpayer (WP) based on the "self assessment" system. When someone registers personally, they will get a Taxpayer Identification Number (NPWP), which consists of 15 certain digits that only the WP concerned has. General tax obligations for Individual Taxpayers (WPOP) are calculating Income Tax (PPh) for one year and depositing income tax with a Tax Payment Slip (SSP) if there is an underpayment of income tax and reporting taxes through the Annual Personal Tax Return (SPT). ). Today the Directorate General of Taxes has made it easy for all taxpayers, especially individual taxpayers to submit their SPT via E-Filing, namely electronic SPT submission which can be done online and in real time. Lamongan Accounting Vocational School located on di Jalan Sunan Giri LTC Blok.B No.16, Lamongan has 32 teachers and 675 students. This school has 4 majors namely Computer Network Engineering (TKJ), Office Administration, Banking and Accounting. At this school there are no teachers who can do their own annual SPT reporting using e-filling because they are used to reporting directly to the DGT. Therefore we want to help teach annual tax returns using this e-filling so that they can do their own tax reporting. The method of carrying out this activity is to give lectures on the meaning of taxation and training in filling out tax returns (SPT) via e-filling. The result of this activity is to increase the understanding of Lamongan Accounting Vocational School teachers about the obligation to report taxes and report SPT for individual taxpayers by e-filing.

Should We Sacrifice the Utilitarians First?

AbstractIt is commonly thought that morality applies universally to all human beings as moral targets, and our general moral obligations to people will not, as a rule, be affected by their views. I propose and explore a radical, alternative normative moral theory, ‘Designer Ethics’, according to which our views are pro tanto crucial determinants of how, morally, we ought to be treated. For example, since utilitarians are more sympathetic to the idea that human beings may be sacrificed for the greater good, perhaps it is permissible (or, even under certain conditions, obligatory) to give them ‘priority’ as potential victims. This odd idea has manifold drawbacks but I claim that it also has substantial advantages, that it has some affinities to more commonly accepted moral positions, and that it should be given a significant role in our ethical thinking.

The Information Value of Qualified and Adverse Audit Reports: Evidence from the Municipal Sector

SUMMARYThis study investigates whether qualified/adverse audit opinions on the fairness of the financial statements impact market yields for city/county general obligation bonds. Although state and local governments represent a significant part of the U.S. economy, the value of external assurance in this market is questionable given the untimely nature of municipal audit reports. We find evidence consistent with municipal bond market participants penalizing counties and local governments with qualified/adverse audit opinions for both primary market issuances and secondary trading. For example, in a propensity score matched sample, we find that, on average, primary market yields are higher by 34 higher basis points for municipalities receiving qualified/adverse audit opinions. Our primary market findings hold for two matched samples (attribute and propensity score), a within-sample analysis, and a number of robustness tests. The results suggest that municipal investors value the information content of an independent audit report.Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

The Legal Status of Decisions by Human Rights Treaty Bodies: International Supervision, Authoritative Interpretations or mission éducatrice?

Academic analysis of pronouncements of human rights treaty monitoring bodies has tended to focus on their contribution to the promotion of human rights in domestic jurisdictions, particularly to convey the desire of scholars to see more use of these pronouncements by domestic courts. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the issue of their legal status in light of the supervisory function of human rights monitoring bodies. The following paper focuses not so much on the use of such pronouncements by national bodies, but rather on their status according to the applicable rules of international law. Starting with an analysis of a few recent cases by national courts, which commented on the legal value of the work of these bodies, the paper then challenges two recurring arguments in the legal scholarship: their equation to judicial bodies, and the existence of a procedural obligation on States to consider their authoritative views. Next, it focuses on the interpretive weight of the pronouncements of these treaty bodies in international law, and, accordingly, in national jurisdictions. The paper argues that the alleged existence of a general procedural obligation on States to consider the pronouncements of human rights treaty monitoring bodies is controversial, and that their work does not have a specific, or privileged, legal position in defining the ordinary meaning of a treaty. The conclusions point out that supervisory bodies have a specific and important role in the international legal order, different from that of courts, which bears preserving.

Legislative Transparency and Credit Risk

Open governance requirements are designed to improve accountability, which implies that transparent governments are more trustworthy stewards of their publicly invested power. However, transparency may also reduce institutional effectiveness and inhibit political compromise, diminishing the capacity to manage resources responsibly. We assess empirical support for these competing perspectives in the context of American state legislatures, many of which have become exempt from state sunshine laws in recent decades. We leverage variation in the timing of these legislative exemptions to identify the effect of removing transparency in a crucial governing institution on investors’ risk perceptions of states’ general obligation bonds. Our analysis of these data during the period 1995–2010 suggests that removing legislative transparency reduces state credit risk. We conclude that while openness in government may be normatively desirable, shielding legislative proceedings from public view may actually be better for states’ debt repayment capacity, improving their overall fiscal health.

A Model of Infrastructure Financing

Infrastructure projects involve multiple parties: a government, private sector firms that build and manage, and outside investors who supply financing. Private sector firms need incentives to implement and maintain the projects well; governments may lack commitment not to extort cash flows (for instance, by limiting user fees) from projects once implemented. This double moral hazard problem limits the willingness of outside investors to fund infrastructure projects. To ameliorate these two moral hazards, we show that the optimal design of infrastructure financing features (I) government guarantees to investors against project failure; (II) bundling of development rights for the private sector and investors; (III) tax subsidies to the private parties out of infrastructure externalities; and, (IV) “general obligation” financing in the form of cross-guarantees between high-quality projects and “revenue only” financing without cross-guarantees for low-quality projects. These features are found to be relevant to the practice of infrastructure financing.

General exceptions under the GATS - A Legal Commentary on Article XIV GATS

The general and specific obligations undertaken under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) by Members in relation to non-discrimination and market access and a level playing field in services, may under certain circumstances, considerably restrict the pursuit of equally legitimate, non-economic policy goals and competing public interests and values, such as public health, public order, safety, public morals or the environment. WTO law seeks to establish a proper balance between these different policy goals, notably through general exceptions applicable to all provisions and existing commitments under an agreement. Art. XIV GATS follows the model of Art. XX GATT 1994, and given that the case law relating to Art. XIV GATS is still in its infant stage, WTO adjudicating bodies have recourse to precedents developed under Art. XX GATT 1994, albeit taking into account the different structure and flexibility of the GATS and commitments made by Members. Nonetheless, the experience in case law is still limited and it is difficult to anticipate future needs or developments in appropriately shaping and construing Art. XIV GATS. Any such effort to interpret Art. XIV should bear in mind that it is arguably only when Members’ regulatory concerns are accommodated that they will be willing to engage in enhanced commitments to liberalize trade. Both the requirement of necessity or proportionality and the function of the chapeau protect Members from excessive and abusive recourse to exemptions for purely protectionist or rent-seeking reasons of a particular domestic service industry.

Towards a better understanding of values in sustainability transformations: ethical perspectives on landscape stewardship

ABSTRACT Values are considered an essential but ill-defined element in sustainability transformations. This perspective article explores: What kinds of values guide thinking and action in the context of caring for nature and engaging for landscape sustainability? How do these different values relate to each other? To frame our study, we discuss three basic principles in ethical reasoning. Prudence highlights the instrumental values of nature. Justice puts general moral obligations at the center. The Good Life focusses on relational values that are important to people in terms of personal life-goals. We show that all three types of values are expressed in landscape stewardship conceptualizations. As two case studies demonstrate, the relevance of these ethical claims may diverge among actors, which can lead to different goals and pathways. It is therefore crucial to develop multifaceted strategies that are tailored to the complexity of values at stake. A lack of communication on ethical claims may result in conflict and blockade of sustainability initiatives. For harnessing the full potential of values for sustainability transformations, the specific ethical dimensions of reasoning need to be made explicit and partial interests and common goods and rights need to be distinguished as arguments with different levels of legitimacy and power.

Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market: A Fundamental Rights Assessment

Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSMD) was one of the most contested provisions in the legislative process of the EU copyright reform. Its adoption was accompanied by widespread protests by citizens, as well as criticism from academics and fundamental rights advocates. The Republic of Poland has brought an action for annulment of certain provisions of Article 17 CDSMD before the CJEU (Case C-401/19), arguing that provisions of Article 17 violate the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information. The case before the Court has far-reaching implications beyond the realm of copyright law, as similar sector-specific legislation is being considered in other areas, and the European Commission is in the process of drafting horizontal legislation on content moderation. While Poland has only raised concerns regarding the violation of the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information, we point out that the Court is entitled to a comprehensive assessment of the provisions in question, balancing all fundamental rights concerned. This paper analyses recent European case law to demonstrate that Article 17 CDSMD fails to strike a fair balance between the affected fundamental rights, including the platforms' freedom to conduct a business and the users' rights to privacy and data protection. We argue that platforms within the scope of the CDSMD are de facto obliged to employ content recognition technologies (upload filters). We show that the interpretation of the ban on general monitoring found in the literature, according to which upload filters as foreseen by Article 17 CDSMD are compatible with the ban on general monitoring, are incompatible with the CJEU case law. Article 17 CDSMD not only constitutes a prohibited general monitoring obligation but will invariably lead to ex-ante restrictions on legal forms of expression, a particularly serious interference with the right to freedom of expression and information that has consistently been rejected by the CJEU and the ECtHR. Drawing on the cases Digital Rights Ireland and Schrems II we demonstrate that Article 17 CDSMD lacks specific provisions to define the scope of fundamental rights restrictions and fails to provide for the necessary minimal safeguards. The legislator also failes to consider the shortcomings of content recognition technologies, underestimated their cost, left the scope of the best efforts obligations placed on platforms entirely unclear, and therefore failes to adequately balance the right to intellectual property on the one hand with the freedom to conduct a business, the right to freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy and data protection on the other.

Uloga služenja vojnog roka u razvoju srpske strateške kulture

The general obligation to do military service in Serbia was introduced in the second half of the 19th century with the national standing army. The authors show that this obligation has played an important role in the development of the Serbian strategic culture in the young modern Serbian state, but also in encouraging the Serbian military and political elite to hear the "whisper" of the Serbian social character and understand those structures of national culture that are important, perhaps determinative, for what is today called strategic culture. The development of the Serbian strategic culture has been considered through the analysis of the actions of two differently directed, but complementary currents, one being marked as elitist, and the other one as structuralist. Regardless of the obvious differences, both currents are important for the establishment of the Serbian military doctrine, at the dawn of the 20th century, before the historical storm of the Balkan wars and the First World War. The obligation to do military service was maintained until the Decision on the suspension of the obligation to do military service, which was passed by the National Assembly in December 2010. Having in mind that the Republic of Serbia has made the decision to be military neutral, the authors suggest that the reconsideration of the decision to suspend the obligation to do military service is a logical consequence of this choice. The decision on military neutrality requires not only that others (the international community) respect such a decision of a state, but also the respect within the state itself. This means that a state that aspires to neutrality does not give up on defending its own values or handing them over to the others at the mercy and/or protection, but establishes (or preserves) the ability to credibly defend its identity and values. The burden of the consequences of this decision is even harder because it does not count on military alliances. The neutral countries in Europe base their ability of credible defense mainly on the concept of total defense, but it also implies a large number of citizens trained for the military tasks and the tasks of civil protection, which calls for the obligation to do military service. At the same time, military service is the best way for citizens to understand the impact of the decision on military neutrality, but also to accept it as their own free choice and a part of a collective identity. Thus, the obligation to do military service remains an important fulcrum point of the state in actively shaping its strategic culture.

Cooperation and collaboration between the Polish Police and Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland in terms of ensuring security and public order

Ensuring security and public order is one of the most important, constitutional objectives of the State and at the same time the task of many public authorities. The Police is leading, uniformed and armed formation in a system of public safety authorities whose overriding operating objective, determined by the legislator is to serve the society by protecting people’s safety and maintaining security and public order. However, in carrying out tasks related to such vast area of activity, the Police does not have to be unassisted. Natural partner for the Police is the army, despite the fact that the main task of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland is to protect the State and society from external military threat. This study aims to characterize formal foundations and scope of cooperation between Polish Police and Armed Forces in terms of ensuring security and public order. For this purpose, legal basis for providing support for the Police by the Polish Armed Forces under the laws on: state of emergency, natural disaster, crisis management, the Police, counter-terrorism actions and general obligation to defend the Republic of Poland and issued regulations based on them were examined. This article also refers to the issue of cooperation of the Police with the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland on the basis of concluded agreements.

Contemporary Adaptations of Excess Condemnation and Benefit Districts: The Primary Vehicles for Financing Nineteenth Century Urban Parks in the United States

Large public parks in the United States emerged in the 1850s and 1860s with the development of Central Park in New York City and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Their development was predicated on the conviction that they would be self-financing and not be a drain on the public purse. To meet this criterion, the financing plans for both of them embraced the concepts of excess condemnation and benefit assessments. Because these two parks were the high-profile landmark bellwethers that inspired and informed widespread adoption of public parks by cities throughout the U.S., the two financing vehicles were widely emulated. The use of excess condemnation essentially ceased early in the 20th Century when the courts ruled that eminent domain was an abrogation of private property rights and unconstitutional when it was used to take land from an unwilling seller and subsequently re-sell parts of it to private interests for a profit. Nevertheless, in contemporary times its core principle has re-emerged in three different forms: the property lease model, which links a park with income-producing property that provides initial capital and/or dedicated ongoing resources to maintain and operate the park; reimbursement clauses in parkland dedication ordinances, which enable parkland to be acquired and developed ahead of development by using certificates of obligation or general obligation bonds for which a city will subsequently be reimbursed from the fees received from future fees; and tax increment funding, by which proximate property owners ostensibly pay for redevelopment costs rather than general taxpayers. Instead of funding parks with taxes collected citywide, benefit districts were used to levy assessments on properties within the use radius of a park. The tax was apportioned according to a formula reflecting the proportion of benefits accruing to each property owner. In contemporary times, local governments may similarly facilitate a majority of property owners agreeing to assess themselves an additional property or sales tax to pay for a higher level of service. Alternatively, businesses may do this by establishing a Business Improvement District, whereby businesses levy an assessment on themselves to develop or upgrade a park. Subscribe to JPRA