Search Results for: International law

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN online book retailers are likely to be upset by the decision of the European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to approve its proposed new VAT requirement for books downloaded from the Internet. The system allows for online EU exporters to sell their goods without charging sales tax, but penalises websites based in the United States, (or other third countries), selling to consumers in the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TIGHTER noise restrictions on commercial aircraft visiting European Union airports have been proposed by the European Commission; it has tabled a new directive that would allow the worst affected airports to ban aircraft that marginally comply with the existing Chapter 3 standard accepted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW report from the European Environment Agency has described the wide gulf between Member States’ performance on renewable energy generation and highlighted a number of reasons for this. The top performer for 1993-9 was Germany, which surged ahead with the development of photovoltaics, solar thermal installations and wind generated energy output.…

Keith Nuthall
AN INTERNET legal advice service for companies wishing to learn about European Union legislation affecting e-commerce, has been launched. The site, eLexPortal.com, will provide updated information on EU and national laws and regulations on the subject; it is free of charge, and allows users to e-mail queries to its online experts.…

Keith Nuthall
CHANGES to a European Union directive, which forces employers to make provision for their employees of they become insolvent, have been accepted by the European Parliament; the proposals aim to extend the scope of the legislation to include subcontractors and the officially self-employed who work mostly for one company.…

BY MIKE FOX
ENVIRONMENT officials and ministers from more than one hundred countries meeting at a United Nations conference in Montreal have renewed their commitment to trying to protect the world’s oceans from land-based pollution.

They framed a comprehensive communiqué, after hearing from an environmental body representing more than 400 local governments, which outlined how its members can play a major role in protecting the oceans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled that an EU national government cannot insist that waste shipments to another Member State are disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way, as a condition of allowing a cargo to leave its territory.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN has been ordered by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to “devise, as appropriate, measures to prevent pollution of the marine environment” maybe resulting from the operational launch of a new MOX (mixed oxide fuel) plant, in Sellafield, next summer.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN Health Minister, Allan Rock has launched a campaign focusing on alerting consumers to six pollutants released when cigarettes are smoked, information that has been forced onto packs because of a federal labeling law. A direct mail package will be sent to family doctors, dentists, and oncologists across the country describing the health effects that benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, nicotine and tar.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DON’T hold your breath, but it looks as if the European Union may soon be moving away from the worst features of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yes, this has been said many times since Britain joined what we once called the European Economic Community and critics say every reform effort until now has failed – even the ambitious Agenda 2000 reforms could be said to have only really tinkered with the system at the edges.…