Search Results for: International law

BY ALAN OSBORN
BELGIUM has failed to comply with the universal service and interoperability provisions of the 1997 EU directive on telecommunications interconnection directive, the European Court of Justice has ruled. It has found in favour of the European Commission which brought a case against the Belgian government, charging that it had failed to introduce rules to monitor and verify compliance by telecommunication operators with mandatory cost accounting systems, as required by the directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government has been censured by the European Court of Justice for failing to write into its national laws a European Union (EU) directive, which would make it easier for lawyers to work across the EU.

Directive 98/5/EC on the practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the qualification was acquired imposes duties on national governments to register foreign EU lawyers and allow them to work on their territories.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler has resisted an attempt by the Greek government to bypass the European Commission in its bid to pay state aid to cotton producers. Greece asked a meeting of the EU Council of Ministers for agriculture to consider the matter as it has the power to authorise the payments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT maybe the size of Surrey, but pollution knows no boundaries and the European Commission is concerned about excessive nitrate usage in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Much of the tiny nation’s river system flows into the Moselle, which is its south-eastern border and it flows into the Rhine and hence to the North Sea.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has reached political agreement over the passing of a new legal aid directive, which would ease access to legal aid for litigants in cross-border civil and commercial disputes.

Once it becomes law, Member States will be bound to provide legal aid to citizens who cannot afford legal advice for such cases held within the EU, unless they deem that actions are “manifestly unfounded.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CONCEPT of nation building is not new. Powerful governments have for centuries sought to create pliant political administrations which would do their bidding, without being directly under their control. It is, after all, in noone’s interest for a territory to descent into chaos.…

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED Nations’ (UN) International Court of Justice has fixed the disputed maritime boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon, having decided that the contested Bakassi Peninsula should be considered part of Cameroon.

The court ruled that the maritime boundary should be set from the point of intersection of the centre of the navigable channel of the Akwayafe River with the straight line joining Bakassi Point and King Point, with many elements following previous Cameroon-Nigeria agreements dating back to the 1970’s.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW LEGISLATION limiting the amount of noise that employees may be exposed to at their place of work has been agreed by government ministers of the EU nations and the European Parliament and is likely to become European law before the end of the year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PUBLIC Power Corporation (PPC) of Greece will be able to honour a long term contract with Aluminium of Greece to supply it with cheap electricity at a loss, even after the part-privatised generating company faces full competition in the European Union (EU) energy market under EU liberalisation directives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has inaugurated new training facilities for developing country trade officials, a result of the Doha summit that led to the current so-called development trade round. There, governments agreed that officials from poorer countries needed assistance in grappling with complicated trade law talks, so they could play a full part in negotiations.…