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The Concept of the Responsibility to Protect, Is There Anything New under the Sun?
67-78Views:225The concept of the responsibility to protect has emerged in the practice of the United Nations in the past years, inducing much criticism in the literature. The aim of the author was to present the concept in Hungarian and to analyze it from international legal point of view. According to the author the concept is just a paraphrased principle, responsibility has already existed under the relevant norms of international law. Nevertheless, the content of the obligation and responsibility is not fully clear, especially with respect to the exact meaning of prevention.
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Issues of Public Social Responsibility in Great Britain and Hungary
122-136Views:370Social responsibility has undergone significant development in recent years. The concept has spread into every aspect of life: personal life, the economic sphere and finally the public sector. It is proven that currently many states are struggling with various problems in the public sector. We believe that public social responsibility is one of the guidelines that is able to help, for example, in the realization of a comprehensive public administration reform. This paper examines public social responsibility in Great Britain and Hungary. Even though we have the example of the United Kingdom to follow, their way of practicing PSR may not be suitable for the rest of the European countries because of the fundamental differences in our legal systems and mindsets.
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The Responsibility of the State in the Prevention and Management of Environmental Damage with Regard to Spatial Planning
156-174Views:271The study aims to examine the constitutional responsibility of the State for environmental damage from a specific new perspective; it analyses its constitutional framework with regard to recent regulatory tools on spatial planning of the contaminated areas. To this end it briefly outlines the history of the remediation of areas falling within the State’s responsibility, its different regulatory and institutional models to date and the extent to which the newly introduced legal instrument in the act on formation and protection and of the built environment of brownfield action areas reflects this quarter-century process.
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Defences in International Criminal Law
35-53Views:126The Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. The ICC Statute contains rules regarding grounds for excluding criminal responsibility but this list is not exhaustive since other defences are recognized in international (criminal) law. This essay will not examine the special procedural defences and other obstacles of punishability which are explicitly rejected by the ICC Statute but focus on the substantial defences in international law: the lack of responsibility under a certain age; insanity and intoxication; justifiable defence; necessity and duress; mistake; superior orders; belligerent reprisals and military necessity.
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In Contrast: Responsibility for Environment and Regulation in Finance
128-155Views:277The more environmental policy comes into the focus of fiscal policies of governments, the more prevailing are the interests in it influencing the governance as a whole. In the context of the European Union, the governmental role of the Member States’ increased less for initiating the (often invoked) environmental protection but such an increase is rather an end in itself. The responsibility for environment seems to represent the bright side, while the reality of financial regulations shows the dark side of government priorities.
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The assertion of fundamental principles relating to civil law notaries in the 21st century with special focus on Hungary
25-45Views:187In our present paper, we tried to introduce the principles of notaries through the Hungarian notary's glasses. We did this through the challenges of the 21st century. Prior to the detailed description of the principles, we introduced the position of the Hungarian notary, where we also discussed the provisions of the Hungarian Constitution. Subsequently, more important legislation on Hungarian notary was mentioned and we discussed the diverse notarial procedures. In this connection, it is important to note that not only the notarial deeds are found in the Hungarian notary's procedures, but also the keeping of notarial registers. The paper deals with the responsibility of notary, the notary's and advertising relationships, the emergence of electronization and digitization. The paper presents the most important principles of notaries, including the principle of independence, impartiality and public authenticity.
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Limits of Environmental Liability: Summary of the Guest Editor
189-198Views:207This summary is an attempt to demonstrate that despite all the differences in how limits of environmental liability are perceived by the authors of this special issue due to different approaches to environmental liability, a common framework can nevertheless be drawn encompassing them all. Each article of the special issue elaborates some of the aspects of the concept of environmental liability. Despite the differences in the evaluation and assessment by the authors of the role of stakeholders and of the facts having an impact on the concept of environmental liability, it is shown that all of them are analysing the very same subject. The apparent differences are due to the different contexts in which environmental liability is examined and evaluated. Thus, the summary underlines that there is a need for system thinking related to environmental liability.
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One step back. The Hungarian Constitutional Court’s decision about the Liability of Commenting on the Internet
142-150Views:192Restrictions on the freedom of expression have been subject to mixed and constant debates. The debates are increasing in the case of free speech on the internet. In the recent past the Hungarian Constitutional Court had to examine this problem and contribute to the discourse. This article presents decision 19/2014 of the Hungarian Constitutional Court concerning the freedom of expression on the internet. The subject-matter of the case was the liability for the comments. The study intends to show the arguable points of the Court’s reasoning.
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Environmental Liability Law: Environmental Civil Experts’ view
86-112Views:155Environmental liability legislation, both the ELD in Europe and CERCLA in US, is burdened with significant compromises, but even if so, they are too leniently implemented. Moreover, rather scarce data are available on the liability cases and on the status of polluted sites, therefore the system is unable to amend itself. There is no reason to be surprised: expenses of protection or remedy of the polluted sites are enormous, the concerned industries would get into a poor competition position in the market if faced with too stringent liability. In the exceptional cases when their deeds are revealed and enforcement actions start, they still might retreat behind the bastions of limited responsibility of their companies. In such situations public participation is a vital element of any progressive outcomes. In the present study we examine the efforts of J&E, a network of public interest environmental lawyers to contribute to moving out the European environmental liability systems from their stalemate position and enhance their effectiveness.
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Judicial Review in Emergency Situations: the Relevant Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights
200-218Views:153Emergencies are mostly sudden, and in most cases states need special measures to deal with them. For this reason liberal democracies have standing constitutional or special legal powers to derogate human rights for the sake of order. Those democracies that do not have such powers, use impromptu ones. It is possible for authoritarian governments to abuse emergency powers in order to stay in power, to derogate human rights and to silence the opposition. Therefore it is essential for a liberal democracy to have strict limits for the duration, circumstance and scope of emergency powers. There are human rights regimes (for example: the European Convention on Human Rights) which have to respect the member states’ duty and responsibility in such cases. This article tries to examine this special case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The question is whether a European Human Rights regime is capable of becoming the guardian of human rights in cases of national emergencies, or the sovereignty of states also means that there is very narrow margin to prove legality above security?
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Dark Waters? The Place of Environmental Liability in the Environmental Policy Toolkit (Issues of Regulatory Methodology and Environmental Principles)
42-66Views:334The starting point of the study is that environmental liability is not only a tool of ex-post sanctioning and remediation, but also helps to enforce the principles of prevention and precaution. It examines the rules on liability for environmental damage in a broader context and links the various instruments of environmental policy by presenting their relationship to the environmental policy principles and typifying the policy instruments of environmental protection.
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The Constitutional Obstacles before the Promulgation of the Rome Statute
45-59Views:368July 17, 1998, can be considered as one of the most important milestones of the international judicial structure: it is the day when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by 120 states out of 148. Article 86 of Statute explicitly states that „States Parties shall […] cooperate fully with the Court in its investigation and prosecution of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.” As in the case of every international treaty, the principle of pacta sunt servanda enshrined in Article 26 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties states applies, which explicitly states that “every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.” As has been pointed out by the Permanent Court of International Justice, contracting states must make all the necessary internal measures which are required to fulfil its international obligations rising from a binding treaty. One could ask, why is this quite obvious argument important in the case of Hungary? Well, Hungary has ratified the Statute but still has not implemented it in its internal legislation. This can be considered as a serious constitutional omission, since if the Court would require the cooperation of Hungary – e.g. in the case of an arrest warrant – and it would not be able to fulfil it because of the lack of the internal legal norms, it would be considered as international legal responsibility of Hungary. In this article, I try to explore the reasons behind this omission and outline the possible solutions.
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The Continuation of the Employment Contract or the Development of a New Contract?
12-28Views:253Labor law has not been able to dispose of the shackles of the locatio conductio for a long time; the system of traditional labor law was built on this contract. However, new forms of employment are beginning to break down this structure. Outsourcing and employment by digital platforms have broken the dominance of the employment contract and the contractual structure is shifting towards private law. The study seeks to answer the question of what all this means in terms of protecting the worker and the responsibility of the employer. Finally, does the theory of the personal employment contract offer a solution?
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Determining the Period of Criminal Legal Limitation
99-113Views:306In my essay I examine the statutes of limitation in criminal law. Firstly, I give a general description of limitation, of its position in the Criminal Code and of its legal theory. Secondly, I review the legal history of limitation demonstrating the system of limitation in our first criminal code. After that, I outline the regulations concerning the period of limitation and then describe the way limitation is enforced in the statute of criminal procedure. Finally, I draw the conclusions of my essay in the form of a proposition de lege ferenda.
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A divatszakmában dolgozó munkások védelmének helyzete
105-129Views:385The global fashion industry is characterized by a dynamic and complex supply chain. Clothing products and footwear reach consumers through various brands, from developing countries to Western countries. The exploitation of workers at the bottom of the supply chain goes hand in hand with huge benefits for those at the top of the supply chain. Due to the lack of direct contact with workers, brand owners and resellers often ignore the abuse of workers ’rights in the production of their products. Labor law rules alone are not enough to improve working conditions and ensure the rights of workers in the fashion industry. Brand owners and resellers have a vital role to play in changing their working conditions. By incorporating “soft law” solutions such as the UN Business and Human Rights Guidelines and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Screening Guide, responsible business conduct can be achieved. Incorporating voluntary initiatives into the business behaviors of brand owners and resellers has a significant impact on improving employee rights. In this study, I assess how the 2016 Transparency Draft has affected the protection of workers in the global fashion industry, how much the inclusion of Transparency and Sustainable Development Goals has improved the situation of exploitation of workers. The ILO regularly examines the issue through its analysis of human rights reports.