Search Results for: International law

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is toasting a victory over India at the World Trade Organisation in the long-running bed-linen anti-dumping duties case; a disputes panel rejected India’s claims that the EU had failed to implement an order made last year by another panel that it should reform its protection against Indian linen.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL scientists coordinated by the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for chemistry has discovered evidence of environmentally damaging high pollution levels over the Mediterranean Sea. They believe high levels of sulphate and soot particles in the troposphere could reduce evaporation of the sea and reduce the amount of rainfall in the Middle East and north Africa.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE THEORY of evolution is as relevant to the tobacco industry’s battle against counterfeiters as it is to the animal kingdom. As technology evolves to give the brand owners the edge, so the counterfeiter moves quickly to play catch up, with both cat and mouse becoming ever more sophisticated in efforts to gain the upper hand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is considering a range of requests from foreign governments to liberalise the access to its legal professions under commitments it will make in a future World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal, following the ongoing so-called Doha Development Round.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) Council of Ministers for competitiveness has failed to agree legal proposals for setting up a so-called ‘Community Patent’ that would give inventors the option of obtaining a single patent legally valid throughout the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) Council of Ministers is under pressure to agree proposals to set up a so-called ‘Community Patent’ that would give inventors the option of obtaining a single patent legally valid throughout the EU. Germany and Portugal are objecting to wording in the proposed texts and have succeeded in blocking the initiative, angering EU internal market commissioner Frits Bolkestein who said the Commission “cannot accept that the proposed central and specialised EU jurisdiction should be watered down.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW rules affecting the operations and supervision of multi-national groups of companies in the EU will come into force shortly following agreement by the European Parliament today (Wednesday) of the Financial Conglomerates Directive; MEP’s accepted the latest draft approved by EU ministers, clearing the last hurdle preventing it becoming European law.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AS with any organisation that represents members with a common basic purpose but often with radically different approaches towards achieving it, CANSO has had some difficulty in defining its voice in the community in which it operates. Indeed it is a fairly new organisation, formally set up in 1998, and composed of leading civil air navigation service operators who until then had been used to speaking their own minds without any need to temper their opinions.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE has escaped virtually scot-free over its six-year ban on exports of British beef in spite of a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last December that the ban was illegal. The European Commission announced today Thursday that it had withdrawn its application to the ECJ for the imposition of a daily fine on France for failing to implement the December judgement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is lending US$30 million to Brazilian footwear producer Sao Paulo Alpargatas S.A. (SPASA), to finance its on-going investment programme, modernising production facilities and increasing capacity. The company has been identified by the IFC as a company that would effectively use such finance; since 1997, it has improved performance and market position by upgrading product quality and lowering costs, notably through new manufacturing technologies and relocating production facilities to the impoverished north-east of Brazil, an area which the World Bank wants to help develop.…