1,721,035 research outputs found
The Covid 19 exogenous shock and the crafting of new multilateral trade rules on subsidies and state enterprises in the Post-Pandemic world
Full text linkThis Article discusses existing WTO rules on subsidies and state enterprises, relevant case law, and reform prospects in light of the geopolitical developments and changes in the global economy emerging in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The approach taken by the Article is openly analytical, the ‘ultimate goal’ being ‘to unravel and dissect the enduring problems and emerging deficiencies of extant multilateral trade rules, and, hence, lay the ground to investigate the direction taken by future possible reforms.’ After illustrating ‘three orders of problems – of practical, ideological/political and technical nature – that makes the reform of existing disciplines a daunting task’, it critically analyzes present WTO rules on industrial subsidies, focusing inter alia on the new problems raised by activist industrial policies pursued by global trading powers, foreign subsidization, and the climate change shock. He then shifts attention to the application of WTO rules on subsidies to the state sector and the increasing demands for new international trade rules on non-subsidies measures to address the adverse spillover effects on trade from government influence on SOEs. With respect to each matter, the Author first clarifies ‘the terms of the problem in relation to existing WTO rules and caselaw’, and next examines ‘the question of how, and to what extent, ‘deeper’ FTAs – those that experts designate as models for WTO reforms on the matter – establish new rules that permit to adequately address the trade concerns raised by SOEs’ commercial and financial activities.’ Based on this multi-layered analysis, the Article concludes by examining the prospects of reform of WTO rules on state interventionism
The achievements and limits of Italian anti-corruption legislation in light of the international legal framework
No full textThe past twenty years have seen unprecedented international initiatives aimed at combatting corrupt practices. Over the same period, Italy has ratified and implemented within its legal system five international anti-corruption treaties and amended its domestic legislation on different occasions. However, despite considerable efforts, corruption remains a serious challenge in the country. With particular reference to the aforementioned conventions, this article explores the main international rules on criminalisation and prevention of corruption in order to assess achievements and limits of the Italian legislation in light of such provisions. The article is thus divided into two main sections. The first considers the development of the regional and other anti-corruption initiatives which culminated in the United Nations Convention against Corruption; the second examines the main achievements and shortcomings of the Italian anti-corruption legislation in light of the outcomes of the monitoring procedures set by the international instruments ratified by Italy
The UN Security Council faces organized crime: fact-finding, regulation and enforcement strategies
No full textThis article analyses the United Nations (UN) Security Council’s (SC or Council) use of its powers under the UN Charter in the face of organized crime by drawing on an empirical analysis of the Council’s resolutions as adopted over the past 20 years. It argues that the UN executive organ, and its subsidiary bodies, have played an underexamined role in the fight against this challenge to international peace. It has done so by adopting an approach to law enforcement that draws increasingly on domestic criminal justice discourse and techniques, including: investigations on crimes; sanctions and responsive regulation. Specifically, the article focuses on the Council’s experimentation with UN’s direct involvement in fact-finding related to organized crime, and on the evolution in the use of sanctions as a preventive and control mechanism, i.e., to prospectively manage risks to international peace and security generated by organized criminal activities and illicit markets. This article offers a detailed illustration of the Council’s engagement with organized crime and elucidates, including in quantitative terms, the different strategies that the UN executive body uses in dealing with organized crime. It then discusses the notion of ‘threat to peace’ in Article 39 of the UN Charter as the main legal vehicle for the extension of Council’s action to organized crime and illicit markets. Against this backdrop, the article examines the involvement of the UN subsidiary bodies in fact-finding and monitoring, as well as the integration of regulatory elements and private enforcement techniques into contemporary sanctions practice. The article concludes by arguing that the Security Council’s complex response to organized crime demonstrates that the collective security system has evolved markedly. From a systemic perspective, the Council may now be seen as exercising functions of law enforcement and regulation far from the kind of functions it was originally intended to exercise
L’Unione Europea: attore ‘globale’ nella protezione e promozione dei diritti umani? Limiti e prospettive
Full text linkThe EU is increasingly perceived as a ‘normative power’, where human rights own a primary position. At the same time, despite its current problems, the role, models and identity of the EU as a global actor are steadily among the most investigated subjects of international relations scholars. The present article explores the role of the EU as a global human rights actor by analysing selected aspects of its external action with a view to assessing the main limits and potentials
La disciplina delle state-owned enterprises nel diritto del commercio internazionale tra stallo degli accordi commerciali multilaterali e accordi preferenziali di nuova generazione
No full textStates-owned enterprises (SOEs) have for long constituted, and are likely to remain, an important instrument in any government’s toolbox for a variety of economic, public and societal goals. However, the significant extent of state ownership among the world’s top companies and their hybrid nature raise the issue of their impact on international trade. The article addresses the question of how multilateral and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) discipline SOEs with a view to guaranteeing the international contestability of markets, while, at the same time, allowing governments to provide support to SOEs that deal with market failures and provide public goods. The argument is developed in three main parts. The first briefly outlines the main reasons why increasingly numerous international legal instruments ttempt to regulate SOEs. The second assesses how WTO agreements deal with the potential trade effects of SOEs and highlights the main shortcomings of the multilateral trade discipline. The third part analyses the provisions on SOEs of the most recent PTAs negotiated — and under negotiations — by the USA and the EU. Against such backdrop, the article formulates a number of conclusions on the substance and the procedure of the international trade regulations of SOEs. The main inference is that the search for binding rules has not led yet to a balanced and effective regime
Tutela della privacy e protezione dei dati personali a fronte della sicurezza pubblica e dell’integrità del sistema finanziario europeo
No full textThe article investigates the problematic interaction between the rights to privacy and data protection and the legislation the EU adopted in 2015 to preserve financial system integrity and, in this way, public security. To this end, it examines the recent EU legislation on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing. While it notes that the accommodation within the EU legal order of the international standards in the field admittedly creates tensions with certain EU fundamental freedoms and rights, the article explains show the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights have both reconciled certain measures of the legislation at issue with the right to a fair process, the right to privacy and the freedom to provide services, by envisaging the interest to the financial system integrity as an objective of general interest for the Union and its Member States and by carefully assessing its impact on those rights in the light of the principle of proportionality. Such approach – especially, the thorough use of the proportionality test – should guide the CJEU also for the more contentious issues of compatibility of the legislation at issue with the rights to privacy and to data protection. In this respect, the article argues that, whilst the EU secondary law adopted in 2015 acknowledges the existence of a EU interest to modulate data protection prerogatives for the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering, certain provisions of the same remain highly problematic when weighted against the afore-mentioned rights and the legislation on data protection
The North Korean gauntlet, international law and the new sanctions imposed by the Security Council
No full textThe Security Council’s reaction to the nuclear tests conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) in 2016 through Resolutions 2270 and 2321 have significantly changed the picture of UN sanctions regime against this country and created the most comprehensive, legally-binding, sanctions program imposed against a State since Iraq in the 1990s. While raising questions on their lawfulness under international law, the DPRK’s military actions have repeatedly challenged the international community. At the moment of finalising the present article, the situation seems more precarious than ever: despite the severity and comprehensiveness of the sanctions regime, the DPKR’s launches of ballistic missiles hit the headlines again, and its military aggressiveness does not appear reversed. The article examines this regime against the background of the Council’s past practice and the international rules on non-proliferation, also by discussing legal issues related to the different actions by Pyongyang. Ultimately, it seeks to assess the DPRK’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests vis-à-vis relevant international law and to determine the main limitations of the new set of binding obligations placed upon Member States to thwart the “North Korean threat”. For, in order to succeed, sanctions must be capable of coercing their targets into adjusting the particular course of behaviour that, according to the Security Council, poses a threat to international peace and security, the article concludes that the new sanctions regime is still affected by weaknesses that impair its effectiveness
‘Not such a retrospective’: riflessioni sull’origine, sviluppo e conseguimenti della cooperazione internazionale anti-corruzione
Full text linkThe article is a retrospective on the origin and evolution of the international legal framework against corruption. It is developed in two main parts. The first sketches the genealogy of the international legal framework regarding corruption, with a view to showing the multiple elements that have driven its advancement. The second offers a tour d’horizon of the international anti-corruption norms, by
showing their main features, common elements and divergences and, ultimately, their achievements, complementing the discussion by highlighting their main deficiencies
L’espulsione della Federazione Russa dal Consiglio d’Europa e le conseguenze giuridiche della cessazione della qualitá di membro
No full textThis study moves from the premise that armed aggression by one member State against another is one of the most serious violations of the fundamental values of the Council of Europe, and consequently of article 3 of its Statute. In light of this premise, it aims at clarifying the main legal aspects and consequences of an event, that of the expulsion of a member country from the organization, which was unprecedented in the history of the Council of Europe. Specifically, it first analyzes the expulsion of the Russian Federation from the organization, which, in a short period of time, followed the suspension of its rights of representation within the organization’s main bodies, as well as the Russian withdrawal from the Council of Europe pursuant to art. 7 of its Statute. Secondly, the different legal and institutional consequences of the termination of Russian membership in the pan-European organization are clarified and critically discussed
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