Search Results for: International law

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is promoting a set of guidelines it has drawn up with anti-corruption groups Transparency International and Social Accountability International to help businesses confront bribery in their operations and commercial dealings. These Business Principles for Countering Bribery are, said Jermyn Brooks, Transparency International’s Executive Director, “essentially an anti-bribery framework based on best practice.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is promoting a set of guidelines it has drawn up with anti-corruption groups Transparency International and Social Accountability International to help businesses confront bribery in their operations and commercial dealings. These Business Principles for Countering Bribery are, said Jermyn Brooks, Transparency International’s Executive Director, “essentially an anti-bribery framework based on best practice.”…

BY MARK ROWE and ALAN OSBORN, in London, PHILIP FINE and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal, and RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

RATCHETING up security has been a prime concern of the nuclear industry since the September 11 attacks, with all countries possessing commercial reactors addressing the issue to some extent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WEAKNESSES in scientific advice leading the European Commission to propose often controversial catch restrictions in European Union (EU) waters has prompted Brussels to propose a major overhaul of its assessment of stocks.

In a new policy paper (called a Communication) on the subject, the Commission admits the shortcomings of existing systems and suggests ways to better involve the fishing industry itself and other international organisations.…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court (ICC) has welcomed the conviction of a band of pirates in an Indian court, as a welcome and rare example of a country prosecuting piracy in international waters. Seven-year labour camp sentences were handed down to 14 Indonesian pirates for hijacking the Japanese-owned Alondra Rainbow off Indonesia in October 1999, along with its aluminium ingot cargo.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) has agreed to admit officials from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and representatives from secretariats for other multilateral environmental agreements as observers to its ongoing Doha Development Round negotiations. The move has been welcomed by the European Commission, which wants these representatives to point out when the free trade talks are in danger of creating an agreement that may undermine or conflict with existing international environmental agreements.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission and the Algerian government are to cooperate to ensure that sub-standard shipping does not ply the seaways of the Mediterranean, notably through the phasing out of old single hull tankers.

European Union (EU) transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio and Algeria’s transport minister Abdelmalek Sellal agreed at a meeting in Algiers that a joint group of experts should draw up a cooperation programme on improving maritime safety.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is lending US$5.4 million to the Maritime Port Authority of St Petersburg to fund the construction of a maritime navigation safety system in the main Russian sector of the Baltic Sea, where a future surge in tanker traffic is anticipated.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A CENTRALISED and simplified European Union (EU) procedure for granting recognition of seafarer training certificates issued by non-EU countries has been tabled by the European Commission. It wants to prevent Member States from having to assess individual certificates that allow non-EU seafarers to work on board EU ships.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW international treaty significantly extending the public information required of companies over their output of pollutants has been agreed by 30 member countries of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and is expected to be formally adopted in Kiev in May.…