The Right to Water, Law and Municipal Practice: Case Studies from India

Recognition of the right to water in Indian courts has had little impact on the ground. This paper explores the seeming disjuncture between what happens in the court and the everyday reality of living with a less-than-perfect claim on city water services in India’s urban slums. The paper seeks to understand and contextualise a court ruling which looks like it declares a right to water for people in urban slums, but in effect gives them little beyond what they already had. The paper also looks at the ‘everyday reality’ of municipal administration and the provision of drinking water in slums through in-house connections and community taps. In both case studies, the author looks to understand how the practice relates to frameworks of law and policy that shape the rationality and scope of action of the actors concerned, both judges and municipal officials. She found that the issue of land was the main stumbling block in both places, but it was conceptualized a little differently in each situation. These case studies underscore the critical importance of making the local interface between poor people and the state more empowering in order for rights to become local and meaningful.

IMMUNITY AND PROTECTION AGAINST RETALIATION GRANTED TO „WHISTLEBLOWERS” – PERSONS WHO REPORT VIOLATIONS OF EUROPEAN UNION LAW AND POLICY

The author analyzes the Directive 2019/1937 promoting the idea of cooperation between employees and public authorities regarding information on abuses of European Union law and policy. It outlines the purpose (to improve enforcement and EU policies), methods and techniques for this cooperation (internal and external reporting and follow-up). It discusses the immunity and legal protection (prohibition against retaliation) granted to persons who report a breach of EU law and policy. The author believes that due to historical events, the employed persons, potential whistleblowers, may be critical of the above idea. According to the author, the success of the existing directive depends on its effects, which will be known only in five years.

Conjugal Visits in Prisons Discourse: The Prisoners’ Voice in Malawi

The issue of possible provision of prisoners’ conjugal rights in jurisdictions not yet allowing them, such as Malawi, is still an intricate debate amongst the stakeholders. However, the most important stakeholder in the issue, the prisoner, is usually left out of the discourse. This study analyzed the perceptions of randomly sampled 305 prisoners on conjugal visits at one of the central prisons in Malawi. Both qualitative and quantitative data from prisoners’ perceptions were collected and used concurrently. The key finding was that prisoners (male and female) in Malawi generally had positive perceptions regarding conjugal visits since more than 80% of the respondents (n=305) reported that conjugal visits were good and recommended their possible introduction in Malawi. These incarcerated persons opined that conjugal visits reduced problems of homosexuality, sexual assaults, physical violence in prisons, supporting prisoners’ rehabilitation and reintegration efforts as well as helping prisoners in preserving and establishing family ties. Prisoners also viewed conjugal visits as another way of dealing with the HIV and AIDS problem in Malawi prisons. Though the potential challenge was reported to be its costs, it was opined that the programme was still worthy of introducing. It was therefore concluded that the prisoners’ voice is also valuable in not only conjugal visits discourse but also in all issues related to law and policy that concern them.

On the Legitimacy and Effectivity of the World Bank and Its Pandenic Emergency Financing Facility (‘PEF’) at the Time of the covid-19 Outbreak

Pandemic financing has in the current climate of disruption and turmoil of an ongoing global pandemic become the most highly debated and controversial issue within the field of international public health law and policy. From the perspective of international public health law and policy, a precondition for success is that financial resources and funds are employed in an effective manner. Whether the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (‘World Bank’ or ‘WB’) and the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (‘PEF’) – a financing mechanism housed at the WB – may be perceived as effective public health players shall be established by referring to their mandates, their inherent capacity for enhancing accepted global legal standards and rules on public health and their funding methods and practices. After the affirmation and consolidation of its role in the public health sector in the early 1990s, the WB has rapidly accredited itself as the most active intergovernmental institution dealing with pandemic and epidemic financing. Its direct involvement in public health trust funds, such as the Avian Flu Trust Fund Facility and the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Multi-Donor Fund (the HEPRF), and its lending practices and internal policies and procedures were of crucial significance in this respect. Considering that acceptance of international institutions, including international financial institutions, has always been conditioned by their acknowledgment as legally legitimate, legitimacy is regarded as closely connected to effectiveness. The criteria for establishing legitimacy in relation to international financial institutions are increasingly, amongst others, the respect and promotion of rule of law standards in the recipient states. From this perspective, the WB’s functional and management structures, but not the PEF’s structures and management, have made noteworthy progress, and notwithstanding some deficiencies and peculiarities they present several elements of legitimate decision-making.

The Principle of Mutual Trust in EU Law and Policy

Mutual trust is one of the central principles of the area of freedom, security and justice and the whole EU. Despite the fact, that mutual trust is not stipulated in founding treaties, this principle has been widely developed by the European Court of Justice. The purpose of this article is to identify the legal and political components of mutual trust in the EU, as well as the approaches to its implementation. The author comes to the conclusion that the principle of mutual trust originated from the internal market, however its development is mostly associated with the area of freedom, security and justice. Mutual trust in the EU presupposes that a member state does not need additional verification that another member state respects Union law and fundamental rights. Initially, the principle of mutual trust was given the absolute character, but in the post-Lisbon period, “blind trust” was replaced by the “earned trust”, which implies the possibility, in exceptional cases, to refuse mutual trust to another member state if the latter violates fundamental rights. Despite the development of the concept of mutual trust by the European Court of Justice and other EU institutions, recently there has been a serious deficit of interstate trust within the Union. In this regard, the principle of mutual trust is becoming declarative.

Language Politics

This chapter discusses linguistic practice, governance, and power. Topics covered include rights and freedoms, law and policy, research evaluation and gendered pronouns. Chapter contents: 6.0 Introduction (by Séagh Kehoe) 6.1 China’s Minority Language Rights: No Bulwark Against Upcoming Change (by Alexandra Grey) 6.2 Linguistic Hierarchies and Mandarin Promulgation: An Excerpt from Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860–1960 (by Gina Anne Tam) 6.3 The Hidden Language Policy of China’s Research Evaluation Reform (by Race MoChridhe) 6.4 War of Words and Gender: Pronominal Feuds of the Republican Period and the Early PRC (by Coraline Jortay)