Regulating Occupational Health and Safety in EU and China

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is an important aspect of the labour protection field. This chapter compares OHS legal regimes of China and EU. Comprehensive workplace health and safety legislations of the two systems are described, and the different aspects, including for example, legislative aim, the legislation structure, general obligation, OHS insurance, moral harassment, law enforcement, etc., are detailed. Based on the analysis, conclusions are made and policy recommendations from both legislation aspect and enforcement aspect are provided.

TANTANGAN DALAM PENYELENGGARAAN PELAYANAN PUBLIK YANG EFEKTIF PADA PANDEMI COVID 19

State or government affairs shall be conducted in accordance with the principles of good governance. This is considered a must in normal times and more so when the government have to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. This general obligation is also in line with the theory proposed by Muchsan about the welfare state and the government’s obligation to provide public services. But reality shows a different picture. The Indonesian government seems to fail in providing good and reliable services in health care, public transport, social assistance, economy, and security. One solution proposed is to appoint a person in charge of managing public complaints. The expectation is that this will empower the public, raise public awareness and increase government capacity to provide for public services.

Protection of the Marine Environment

The general obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment is contained in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Increasingly, marine issues are addressed in regional or multilateral trade agreements, including the covered agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This article examines selected legal developments, such as provisions in regional trade agreements on marine capture fisheries, marine litter and waste management infrastructure. Rules on the use of trade measures to eliminate harmful fishing practices, and the prohibition of certain subsidies, are also explored. The article calls for attention to the impact of these developments on dispute settlement between states under UNCLOS, support for marine protected areas, and the capacity for regime interaction between relevant bodies. These issues have relevance for the conservation of marine living resources as well as other issues relating to the protection of the marine environment, including marine plastics and climate change.

National Security and Retention of Telecommunications Data in Light of Recent Case Law of the European Courts

The Court of Justice is once again clarifying the limits of the application of data retention laws – General obligation to retain data exceeds the limits of what is strictly necessary within a democratic society – The national security exception does not preclude a judicial assessment of the legitimacy of its application – The existence of a genuine and specific threat as a premise for the use of untargeted data retention measures – The possibility of searching for the gold standard of data retention based on algorithmic processing – Different perceptions of the Court of Justice position by the referring courts – The Conseil d'État’s position distorts the idea of the protection of fundamental rights that is enshrined in the EU legal order

The Obligation to Conduct Negotiations in Good Faith on the Conclusion of a Contract as an Element of the Content of a Pre-Contractual Legal Relationship

The article discusses the issue of the content of the pre-contractual legal relationship and the role of good faith in it. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that the content of the pre-contractual legal relationship includes only one pre-contractual obligation – to negotiate in good faith. It should be considered as a duty that includes separate elements – manifestations of the general obligation of the parties to behave in good faith, arising at the pre-contractual stage, or, in other words, requirements for good behavior. These elements include the obligation to inform; the obligation not to interrupt negotiations without giving reasons if the other party relied on the person's intention to conclude a contract; the obligation to keep the information received in confidentiality if the party knows that the information is secret and cannot be used by third parties. An attempt has been made to prove that the meaning of good faith is not in addition to the pre-contractual obligation, but in its specification.

Legislative Capacity and Credit Risk

Legislatures differ in their institutional capacity to draft and enact policy. While strong legislatures can increase the congruence of policy outcomes to the electorate's preferences, they can also inject uncertainty into markets with their ability to alter the political economic landscape. We argue that this uncertainty will manifest in a state's ability to borrow and hypothesize a negative relationship between legislative capacity and credit-worthiness. Using ratings of general obligation bonds issued by the American states over nearly two decades and data on the institutional capacity of state legislative assemblies, we find support for the claim that having a legislature that is better equipped to affect policy change increases credit risk evaluations. The results we present broaden our understanding of the importance of legislative institutions, the determinants of credit risk, and the economic implications of democratic responsiveness.

Discovering the Value of Liberty in Intellectual Property Adjudication: A Methodological Critique of the Reasoning in Discovery Ltd v Liberty Group Ltd 2020 4 SA 160 (GJ)

This article discusses the recent decision in Discovery Ltd v Liberty Group Ltd 2020 4 SA 160 (GJ), which concerned a claim of trade mark infringement in terms of sections 34(1)(a) and 34(1(c) of the Trade Marks Act 194 of 1993 and unlawful competition on a developed reading of the common law. This article argues that the court arrived at the correct conclusion by the incorrect means and failed to adequately construe the array of constitutional interests and considerations that pertained to the matter on the facts. Further, the lack of clarity on the appropriate constitutional port of entry for the judicial enquiry unnecessarily leaves future courts guessing regarding the correct methodology to employ in cases where intellectual property rights are asserted in opposition to constitutional rights and interests. It is argued that the transformative impetus of section 39(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, as well as numerous substantive constitutional provisions are undermined when courts neglect to anchor judicial reasoning in the constitutional context and merely apply a constitutional veneer to whatever outcome has already been reached. Accordingly, we argue that courts are under a general obligation to root all adjudication in constitutional norms and method, which, we submit, secures a thicker concept of the value of liberty than has been produced in this decision.

Trade union struggle for workwear in Swedish elder care

This article investigates why it took over 20 years of trade union struggle before workers in Swedish elder care were granted the right to free workwear. How did the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union (Kommunal) tackle the problem; what obstacles did the union face; and why was the matter finally regulated by the state (in 2015 and 2018) and not by collective agreement in line with the Swedish model of self-regulation? The study draws mainly on an analysis of important court cases. The results indicate that the process was protracted mainly because of the unclear legal basis for pursuing demands concerning workwear, municipalities’ (local authorities’) opposition to a general obligation to provide workwear, mainly for financial reasons, and the fact that the issue was deadlocked between the remits of two government authorities, representing patient safety and work safety respectively. The main reason why the union eventually preferred to fight for a legislative solution was that a negotiated solution would probably have come at the expense of other urgent union demands in this female-dominated low-wage sector. When Kommunal intensified the struggle for free workwear in the 2010s, the union also stepped up its struggle against the structural gender differences in wages in the municipal sector.

Inspekcja magnetooptyczna jako forma przeciwdziałania i zwalczania przestępczości motoryzacyjnej w kontekście ustawy ‒ Prawo o ruchu drogowym

The article analyzes the legitimacy of the development and implementation of legal regulations in the area of preventing and combating the vehicle crime. It discusses the introduction of a general obligation to perform non-destructive screening of vehicles’ origin, and authenticity of identification data, original serial numbers, and the key components, with the use magnetooptical inspection method in the procedures of obligatory technical inspections performed at vehicle inspection stations.