Umweltschutzrecht in Tschechien

After 40 years of a totalitarian regime, the state of the environment in Czechoslovakia was catastrophic. The revolutions that swept through Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 1989/1990, including Czechoslovakia, sparked enthusiastic hopes for a better, democratic and perhaps “greener” future for this region. The major strategic goal of all the post-communist CEE countries was to join the European Union. The “eastern” enlargement was to take place under strict conditions in order to ensure that the EU does not suffer the negative consequences of an ill-prepared expansion. In the light of joining the EU, Czechoslovakia managed to adopt the whole series of progressive environmental legislation. However, after the parliamentary elections in June 1992 and the split of Czechoslovakia, environmental protection had to give way to economic growth and the overall transformation of society. This paper describes the development of Czech environmental law from a legal and a political perspective, providing examples illustrating the Czech Republic’s performance in implementing the EU environmental law and policy. After 17 years of membership in the EU, the Czech Republic and the implementation of the EU environmental law is still in conditional mode - the availability of the EU funds is the main leverage and motive to comply with the EU law.

Are Crypto-Assets Green Enough? – An analysis of draft EU Regulation on markets in crypto assets from the perspective of the European Green Deal

In 2019 European Commission announced “The European Green Deal” a “a new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use”. The digital sector must also participate in the Green Deal effort. This articles analyzes questions of sustainability in the context of crypto assets, with particular emphasis on the question of whether Bitcon acutally represent a crypto asset, energy consumption, energy drain, the proof-of-work consensus protocol, the environmental footprint of crypto assets. The article concludes that Bitcoin’s current effect on environment remains controversial at best.

Russland und das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker im postsowjetischen Raum

As a concept of international law, the right to self-determination is widely renowned for its unclarity. Broadly speaking, one can differentiate between a liberal and a nationalist tradition. In modern international law, the balance between these two opposing traditions is sought in an attempt to contain or ‘domesticate’ the nationalist conception by limiting it to ‘abnormal’ situations, i.e. to colonialism in the sense of ‘alien subjugation, domination and exploitation’. Essentially, this distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ situations has since been the heart of the matter in the legal discourse on the right to self-determination, with the important qualification regarding the need to preserve existing borders. This study situates Russia’s approach to the right to self- determination in that discourse by way of a regional comparison vis-à-vis a ‘western’ or European perspective, and a temporal comparison with the former Soviet doctrine of international law. Against the background of the Soviet Union’s role in the evolution of the right to self-determination, the bulk of the study analyses Russia’s relevant state practice in the post-Soviet space through the prisms of sovereignty, secession, and annexation. Complemented by a review of the Russian scholarship on the topic, it is suggested that Russia’s approach to the right to self-determination may be best understood not only in terms of power politics disguised as legal rhetoric, but can be seen as evidence of traits of a regional (re-)fragmentation of international law.

Zur Frage der doktrinellen Auslegung des Artikels 61 Pkt. 3 der Verfassung der Republik Kasachstan

This article examines the issues of differentiation of legislative and subordinate regulation of public relations. It is noted that in the process of law-making activities, including the legislative process, practical questions often arise about the competence of various state bodies to establish various legal norms and rules. These issues are related to the need to establish a clear legal meaning of the constitutional norms devoted to the definition of the subject of regulation of laws. In particular, there is a need to clarify the provisions of paragraph 3 of Article 61 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan in terms of the concepts "the most important public relations", "all other relations", "subsidiary legislation", as well as to establish the relationship between these concepts. Interpretation is also required by the provisions of p. 4 of Article 61 of the Constitution in terms of clarifying the question of whether the conclusion follows from mentioned provisions that all possible social relations in the Republic of Kazakhstan are subject to legal regulation, including those that are subject to other social and technical regulators (morality, national, business and professional traditions and customs, religion, standards, technical regulations, etc.). Answering the questions raised, the author emphasizes that the law and bylaws, as a rule, constitute a single system of legislation, performing the functions of primary and secondary acts. However, the secondary nature of subsidiary legislation does not mean that they regulate "unimportant" public relations. The law is essentially aimed at regulating all important social relations.

Umweltschutzrecht in Ungarn

Until 1990, Hungary’s environmental legislation had been broadly incomprehensive. Since then, several laws and judicial decisions were passed, and scholarly literature on this topic exists in abundance. However, as yet, there is no exhaustive evaluation of the development of the legal and legislative development of the country’s environmental law of the past thirty years. This article provides a historical overview of Hungary’s environmental law, followed by an outline of the developments of the 1990 s; it then presents Hungary’s post-millenial environmental law, shedding light on the first decade. The next chapter covers Hungary’s environmental law after 2010, which was a turning point in the country’s environmental policies, associated with the FIDESZ party’s accession to power and several controversial environmental policies. The article concludes that environmental law cannot be observed separately, but must always be reviewed in conjunction with, and in the context of, changes in the entire legal system and the political changes taking place in a country at large. Despite EU approximation of environmental law, there are still cases of Hungarian environmental law contradicting European domestic market fundamental freedoms and competition law.