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A confederation is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issues, such as defence, foreign relations, internal trade or currency, with the central government being required to provide support for all its members. Confederalism represents a main form of intergovernmentalism, defined as any form of interaction around states that takes place on the basis of sovereign independence or government.
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making. Policies used in subjective decision-making usually assist senior management with decisions that must be based on the relative merits of a number of factors, and as a result, are often hard to test objectively, e.g. work–life balance policy. Moreover, Governments and other institutions have policies in the form of laws, regulations, procedures, administrative actions, incentives and voluntary practices. Frequently, resource allocations mirror policy decisions.
Free economic zones (FEZ), free economic territories (FETs) or free zones (FZ) are a class of special economic zone (SEZ) designated by the trade and commerce administrations of various countries. The term is used to designate areas in which companies are taxed very lightly or not at all to encourage economic activity. The taxation rules and duties are determined by each country. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) has content on the conditions and benefits of free zones.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the European Union:
The political structure of the European Union (EU) is similar to a confederation, where many policy areas are federalised into common institutions capable of making law; the competences to control foreign policy, defence policy, or the majority of direct taxation policies are mostly reserved for the twenty-seven state governments. These areas are primarily under the control of the EU's member states although a certain amount of structured co-operation and coordination takes place in these areas. For the EU to take substantial actions in these areas, all Member States must give their consent. Union laws that override State laws are more numerous than in historical confederations; however, the EU is legally restricted from making law outside its remit or where it is no more appropriate to do so at a state or local level (subsidiarity) when acting outside its exclusive competences. The principle of subsidiarity does not apply to areas of exclusive competence.
Stavros Lambrinidis is a Greek lawyer and politician, currently serving as Ambassador of the European Union to the United Nations. He was previously Ambassador of the European Union to the United States from March 2019 until December 2023, European Union special representative for human rights from 2012 to 2019 and Minister for Foreign Affairs in Greece from June 2011 to November 2011.
The European Union adopts legislation through a variety of legislative procedures. The procedure used for a given legislative proposal depends on the policy area in question. Most legislation needs to be proposed by the European Commission and approved by the Council of the European Union and European Parliament to become law.
Tax harmonization is generally understood as a process of adjusting tax systems of different jurisdictions in the pursuit of a common policy objective. Tax harmonization involves the removal of tax distortions affecting commodity and factor movements in order to bring about a more efficient allocation of resources within an integrated market. Tax harmonization may serve alternative goals, such as equity or stabilization. It also can be subsumed, along with public expenditure harmonization, under the broader concept of fiscal harmonization. Narrowly defined, tax harmonization guided by this policy goal implies — under simplifying assumptions about other policy instruments and economic structure — convergence toward a more uniform effective tax burden on commodities or on factors of production. Convergence may be attained through the alignment of one or several elements that enter the determination of effective tax rates: the statutory tax rate and tax base, and enforcement practices. Perhaps the most widely accepted argument for harmonization involves convergence in the definition of product value or income for tax purposes. Such tax base harmonization would contribute to transparency for economic decision-making and, thus, to improved efficiency in resource allocation. In particular, a common income tax base for multinational companies operating in different jurisdictions would be instrumental not only in enhancing efficiency, but also in preventing overlaps or gaps in tax claims by different countries. Tax harmonization is an important part of the fiscal integration process. Fiscal integration is the process by which a group of countries agree on taking measures that lead to a higher level of fiscal convergence, the ultimate goal being the formation of a fiscal union. Tax harmonization doesn't automatically lead to the formation of a fiscal union, the second part involving much larger scale project that includes fiscal transfers, a fully harmonized legislation and maybe some supervising institutions, beside a long-run agreement. Starting from the definition given to the fiscal integration process, we can easily say that tax harmonization is the process by which a heterogeneous group of countries, federal states or even local governments agree on setting a minimum and maximum level of their tax rates, including also a higher degree of harmonization of tax legislation, in order to attract foreign investors and to encourage local development and investments.
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The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a multilateral treaty for the purpose of establishing international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement that did not enter into force. The agreement aims to establish an international legal framework for targeting counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet, and would create a new governing body outside existing forums, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the United Nations.
International economic law is a dynamic and evolving field of international law that governs the regulation and conduct of states, international organizations, and private entities in the global economic landscape. This field encompasses a diverse range of disciplines, including aspects of public international law, private international law, and domestic law applicable to international business transactions, and domestic laws relevant to international business transactions.
The area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) of the European Union (EU) is a policy domain concerning home affairs and migration, justice as well as fundamental rights, developed to address the challenges posed to internal security by collateral effects of the free movement of people and goods in the absence of border controls or customs inspection throughout the Schengen Area, as well as to safeguard adherence to the common European values through ensuring that the fundamental rights of people are respected across the EU.
Dimitrios P. Droutsas is a Greek lawyer and politician, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece in 2010–11. He became MP of the European Parliament by replacing Stavros Lambrinidis, who went on to become Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece.
Clyde Wilson Summers was an American lawyer and educator who advocated for more democratic procedures in labor unions. He helped write the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 and was highly influential in the field of labor law, authoring more than 150 publications on the issue of union democracy alone. He was considered the nation's leading expert on union democracy. "What Louis Brandeis was to the field of privacy law, Clyde Summers is to the field of union democracy," wrote Widener University School of Law professor Michael J. Goldberg in the summer of 2010. "Summers, like Brandeis, provided the theoretical foundation for an important new field of law."
The European Union (EU) Environmental Policy was initiated in 1973 with the "Environmental Action Programme" at which point the Environmental Unit was formed. The policy has thereafter evolved "to cover a vast landscape of different topics enacted over many decades" (Reuters) and in 2015 the Institute for European Environmental Policy estimated that "the body of EU environmental law" amounted to 500+ directives, regulations and decisions.
"Over the past decades the European Union has put in place a broad range of environmental legislation. As a result, air, water and soil pollution has significantly been reduced. Chemicals legislation has been modernised and the use of many toxic or hazardous substances has been restricted. Today, EU citizens enjoy some of the best water quality in the world"
Josef Weidenholzer is an Austrian politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2011 until 2019. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party, part of the Party of European Socialists.
International legal theory, or theories of international law, comprise a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches used to explain and analyse the content, formation and effectiveness of international law and institutions and to suggest improvements. Some approaches center on the question of compliance: why states follow international norms in the absence of a coercive power that ensures compliance. Other approaches focus on the problem of the formation of international rules: why states voluntarily adopt international legal norms, that limit their freedom of action, in the absence of a world legislature. Other perspectives are policy oriented; they elaborate theoretical frameworks and instruments to criticize the existing rules and make suggestions on how to improve them. Some of these approaches are based on domestic legal theory, others are interdisciplinary, while others have been developed expressly to analyse international law.
References
- ↑ Hosein, Ian (2004). "The Sources of Laws: Policy Dynamics in a Digital and Terrorized World". The Information Society. 20 (3): 187–199. doi:10.1080/01972240490456854. S2CID 43612133.
- ↑ Herman, Bill D. & Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. (2006). "Catch 1201: A Legislative History and Content Analysis of the DMCA Exemption Proceedings". Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. SSRN 844544.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ↑ Yu, Peter K., The Political Economy of Data Protection, Chicago-Kent Law Review, Vol. 83, 2008
- ↑ Geist, Michael (9 June 2008). "Government Should Lift Veil on ACTA Secrecy".
- ↑ Hosein, Ian, 2004, "International Relations Theories and the Regulation of International Dataflows: Policy Laundering and other International Policy Dynamics"
- ↑ Stavros Lambrinidis, Vice President of European Parliament (2009), S and D, Greece, "Stop Acta"
- ↑ The Policy Laundering Project [ dead link ]
- ↑ ACLU's Stop Policy Laundering Project
- ↑ Barry Steinhardt (ACLU) "The Problem of Policy Laundering" [ dead link ]