Evaporated Responsibility: The Collapse of the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne on 15 October 1970

On 15 October 1970, at 11:50AM, part of the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne, span 10-11 of 367 feet length, disintegrated and triggered the collapse of the bridge. Thirty-five men were killed in the disaster. The bridge was still under construction, all those killed were workers or engineers employed on the construction site. The investigation of a Royal Commission revealed a mismatch between an ambitious structural design of the bridge plus an unconventional method of erection and a fragmented, conflict-ridden construction management whose detrimental effects remained unchecked by public authorities. Regulatory powers and enforcement competence had been delegated to a QUANGO—a quasi-non-governmental organization—which diluted responsibility structures and decisively weakened the coordination and control capacity of the agency.

LEMBAGA TUNGGAL PENGELOLA REGULASI: DASAR PEMIKIRAN DAN TAWARAN IMPLEMENTASINYA DALAM KETATANEGARAN INDONESIA

In this article the author seeks to answer, within the context of the Indonesia state organizational system, why and how Indonesia should establish a single government authority entrusted with supervising the making of ministerial policy regulations or regional government regulations. To that purpose a comparison with other countries is conducted. It is a fact in Indonesia that regulatory powers or function is shared by and among different ministries and by regional governments. The result of which is the problem of sectoral approach and the existence of numerous overlapping and conflicting regulations. To overcome this problem, in consideration of best practices in other countries, the author suggests the establishment of a single government agency entrusted with, inter alia, previewing ministerial or regional government draft regulations.

In Search of Limits of Regulatory Powers. Antin v. Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/13/31)

This submission analyses the award rendered in one of the ‘Spanish saga’ cases by a tribunal constituted under the Energy Charter Treaty. This group of cases concern renewable energy disputes and relates to the limits of states’ sovereign powers to amend their regulatory frameworks. The analysis commences by a short presentation of the relevant factual background of the dispute. It then proceeds to each stage of the arbitral proceedings: jurisdiction, merits and remedies. The submission finishes with a number of conclusions drawn from the award, referring to legal issues that can potentially serve as lessons learned for the future.

Human rights and modern biomedicine: problems and perspectives

The article is devoted to the emerging threats to human rights in the context of the development of biomedical technologies, as well as to the identification of social risks requiring legal resolution in this area. It suggests a human rights model for regulating innovative methods of diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of the article is to analyze legislation in the field of modern biomedicine, genetic engineering, and related innovative technologies. A comparative legal study applied in the work made it possible to substantiate a framework model for regulating modern biomedicine. The main task of such a model is to identify risks affecting fundamental human and civil rights and freedoms. With this approach, the details of regulation are the subject of bylaws or the corresponding prescriptions of professional medical organizations. Methods . The basis of this research was formed by such research methods as analysis of legal regulation, formal legal and comparative legal methods. The main results of the study are to determine the legal links between modern biomedical technologies and the concept of personalized medicine. In fact, the lack of interaction of new advances in biomedicine with the basic provisions of medical care has been revealed. The article proves the need to impose restrictions on the alleged popularization of innovative technologies by persons without medical education, using them for dubious social purposes. The risks of developing updated eugenics have been outlined. The tendency of relativism in consolidating the principles of mutual relations between a person, state, and society has been identified. Conclusions. The development of biomedicine requires an adequate response from the Russian legislation, which does not yet take into account most of its achievements. This creates certain risks for human and civil rights and freedoms. The article substantiates the introduction of bans on the most ethically questionable technologies and experiments. It is proposed to expand the powers of professional medical organizations (including the transfer of some of the regulatory powers to them).

Towards the issue on Ukraine’s compliance with its international obligations to establish the institution of information ombudsman: some conceptual and applied aspects

In recent decades, one of the priorities for Ukraine in domestic and foreign policy has been to establish and en-sure the high standards of human rights recognized by the Council of Europe.The article examines the obligations of Ukraine as a member state of the Council of Europe in terms of in-troducing an information ombudsman into the system of state bodies. It also analyzes the main world models for functioning of this state institution. The author considers the requirements of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, the Additional Protocol thereto, as well as the recommendations of the Council of Europe on the principles of formation and operation of information ombudsmen. Based on the content of Ukraine’s international obligations as a member state of the Council of Europe, the pa-per proves that the competence of the Information Ombudsman should mainly extend to legal relations concerning access to public information and protection of personal data. Special attention is paid to the shortcomings and advantages of each of the world’s most common models of in-formation ombudsmen. The author also identifies the features of the content of the competence of this body, as well as outlines the main means of its activities. In addition, the article considers the ways in which Ukraine fulfills the obligations of a member state of the Council of Europe related to the establishment of an information ombudsman, and defines the criteria for the effective implementation of these obligations.According to the results of the study, it is substantiated that the most optimal model for functioning of the infor-mation ombudsman for Ukraine is its formation as an independent collegial central executive body with a special status, which should be answerable to the President of Ukraine and accountable to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Along with this, the article proves the need to combine control and regulatory powers in the structure of the competence of the information ombudsman. The author also proves the need to empower this body with administrative and jurisdictional functions. It is proposed to impose on the Information Ombudsman the obligations of the authorized body in the field of cross-border processing of personal data.

2021 Handbook of Florida Water Regulation: State Regulatory Powers

This handbook is designed to provide a summary of the principal federal and state (Florida) laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. Because these laws are subject to constant revision, portions of the handbook could become outdated at any time. The reader should use it as a means to determine areas in which to seek more information and as a brief directory of agencies that can help answer more specific questions.

Policy and Regulatory Reforms in Teacher Education in India

Teacher education regulation in India is generally perceived as an apolitical technical domain that operates on a set of given norms. In principle the regulatory instruments are believed to be pursuing the goals of professionalizing and enhancing quality in teacher education, which have been longstanding issues in the country. Given this perception, teacher education regulations (and policy) remain much understudied by educationists and social scientists. However, an analysis of the developments and debates in the regulatory policy points otherwise. A critical analysis of the successive national regulatory frameworks and norms which consists of tracking changes and reforming ideas highlights that policy and regulatory decision making in teacher education is highly contested, with different coalitions of scholars and practitioners claiming stakes in the domain. These contestations are inherently connected with the tensions that underlie or constitute the “discipline” of education. These contestations and dynamics allude to various issues of which at least three need much greater attention. The first among these concerns is the centralization of regulatory powers and standardized regulatory norms for different kinds of institutions in teacher education, which makes it difficult to allow for diversity in the domain. The second issue concerns limited autonomy of university departments of education and of location of teacher education in the university space that has its own regulatory frameworks. The third issue is the lack of dialogue between research, policy, and practice in teacher education that makes it more challenging to arrive at “generally-agreed-upon” rational bases for regulating or policy thinking for quality in teacher education. These issues have been persistent in the grammar of the regulatory instruments and illustrate the peculiar challenges of imagining and implementing “reform” in a praxis-based nationally regulated domain.

Independent Economic Regulators in Belgium: Contextualising Local Resistance to a Global Trend in the Light of the Belgian Economic Constitution

Inspired by the American experience, the European Union has made it compulsory for Member States since the 1990s to entrust certain regulatory powers to national authorities independent from the government in several sectors of the economy. Such a development is part of a larger trend that has taken place at the global level since the 1980s. The choice for independent regulators with wide powers must ensure credible and effective regulation of the economy, away from the shortterm thinking that plagues politicians. Yet, the creation of independent regulators of the economy does not fit well with the constitutional, political and economic traditions of several European states, such as Belgium. In Belgium, the creation of independent economic regulators has faced resistance. Using Belgium as a case-study, this paper seeks to contextualise this resistance and argues that it should be understood in the light of the mismatch between the (neo-liberal) view regarding the respective roles of 'experts', politicians and economic actors in the regulation of the economy that is behind the creation of independent economic regulators and the Belgian economic constitution.

Administrative Functions of Implementation, Control of Administrative Decisions, and Protection of Rights

This essay includes a comparative analysis of the traditions of administrative law in Latin American and their impact on the contemporary scene and trends in the general orientations of its administrative justice systems. This analysis is limited to Latin American countries of Iberian origin under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“I/A Court H.R”). The method followed by the author is to point out the roles attributable to the administrative authorities and to attempt to identify a distinction in Latin America between the “administrative function of implementation”, “control of the legality of administrative decisions” (unrelated to any adjudicative function) and the “protection of rights” (by means of an adjudicative function) while examining their historical genesis and possible future trends. From that perspective, the text discusses certain administrative powers, such as disciplinary or other regulatory powers, and their forms of concrete application; the prerogatives and instruments of the authorities and of their decision-making employees in the exercise of the functions of implementation; the control of administrative decisions by those authorities themselves and by external bodies; and judicial and extrajudicial protection of rights against administrative decisions. The author concludes that Latin American administrative law, despite the fact that its civil-law substantive roots have always coexisted with judicial review typical of common law, is currently tending, on the one hand, to approximate the U.S. model of administrative adjudication and, on the other, to adapt to I/A Court H.R case law with respect to the administrative function of implementation in harmony with the fundamental right to good administration which, combined with a critical re-examination of diffuse control of the legality of administrative rules in court, would safeguard the true role of adjudicating bodies (administrative authorities or courts) in their function of protecting individual rights for the sake of more fair and equitable administrative justice.