NRDO

Corneliu-Liviu Popescu, The conventional exigences of the European Union adhering to the European Convention of Human Rights

Abstract: Although impossible for a long time, the process by which the EU will become a signatory to the ECHR is now ongoing. It will end in the signing of a Treaty of adherence according to the usual norms of international treaty law. The treaty will include not only amendments to the ECHR, but also related provisions.

Key words: European Union, Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights, accession, accession treaty

Rodoljub Etinski, Human Rights Protection in view of Climate Change Impacts

Abstract: Climate change as well as state’s activities and failures related to climate change may harm human rights.  The protection of human rights violated by national activities or failures related to climate change may be provided by standard domestic and international mechanisms of human rights protection. These standard mechanisms have to be supplemented by various forms of international cooperation that would enable developing countries to fulfill their obligation of protection of human rights in view of climate change impacts. In the most drastic cases of violation of human rights, caused by the sinking of low-lying countries into the sea, standard domestic and international mechanisms of protection do not suffice.  The protection of human rights in such drastic cases requires the establishment of a new legal relationship between the international community and environmental refugees via a new convention on environmental refugees and its implementing body.

Key words: climate change, international cooperation, human rights protection, environmental refugees, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Gabriel Andreescu, The draft law regarding the life-long trauma of women requesting abortion services 

Abstract: The paper looks at a draft law regarding the establishment, operation, and organization of crisis counseling services for pregnant women. We analyze the draft law and the ensuing public debate. We regard the role of NGOs fighting against abortion as being minor in comparison to that of the political trends within the Democratic Liberal Party, which has as its source of doctrine the Institute for Popular Studies and the Christian-Democratic Foundation. The draft law regarding counseling services is a great threat to the reproductive rights of women. The draft is built around a central contradiction, between the framing of the right to life of the unborn child as a fundamental human right, and the simultaneous permission to end a pregnancy, hence a violation of the stated right. Pregnant women are left defenseless in the face of abuses perpetrated by religiously- and/or financially-motivated entrepreneurs, abuses both allowed and spurred by the provisions of the draft. In particular, compelling women seeking abortion to view traumatizing images and to denote themselves as murderers is degrading, and an assault on the right to privacy and their freedom of conscience.

Key words: pregnant women, reproductive rights, abortion, counseling services, Institute for Popular Studies, Christian-Democratic Foundation