NRDO

Adina Răducanu, The World Trade Organization and Public Morals: an unhappy marriage?

Abstract: The World Trade Organization was created as a clear-cut, coherent, free trade system but in later years it has gradually expanded to incorporate a complex set of rules and principles on labor, health, environmental aspects, human rights, etc. The WTO may, among other things, have a role in the area of human rights through the public morals exception, which some academics view as a mechanism to extraterritorially advance human rights.

This paper attempts to link trade and the concept of public morals, starting with a historical overview of the public morals exception and the means of successfully invoking it. It then tackles some of the more problematic issues unanswered by textual or judicial interpretations of the exception, and critically assesses various theories formulated with regard to the exception. Finally, it advances an original proposal and formulates some conclusions.

Keywords: WTO, GATT, GATS, public morals, human rights, extraterritorial application

Elena Lazăr, Respect of the Right to private and family life of detainees – a study of cases from Romanian prisons

Abstract: The European Convention on Human Rights and other European or national laws establish certain rights for detainees, including the right to private and family life. As the ECHR jurisprudence amply proves, there are plenty of cases where these rights are not respected.  This paper presents and analyzes the results of opinion surveys conducted in several prisons in Romania, with the support of the National Administration of Penitentiaries in Romania. The opinion survey includes two sets of questions addressed to prisoners and prison staff, questions focused mainly on important aspects of the right to private and family life of the people imprisoned.  The study shows that although in most cases the right to private and family life and other rights of detainees are respected, there are also violations of some of these rights, determined by both objective and subjective causes.

Keywords: human rights, detainees’ rights, the right to private and family life, opinion surveys, administration of penitentiaries

Istvan Haller, Qualitative requirements of laws in European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence 

Abstract: Since the European Convention of Human Rights does not provide a definition, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has developed a jurisprudence regarding what constitutes an acceptable law. At first the analysis was technical, focusing on the accessibility and precision of the legal norm, and later also predictability as a complement to the notion of precision. In time though the analysis has expanded to include an ideological element: the compatibility of the national law with the principle of the rule of law. The article presents the guiding principles established by the ECHR regarding the quality of laws, from 1979 to the present day. 

Keywords: definition of law, accessibility of law, precision of law, predictability of law, rule of law, ECHR jurisprudence

Cristian Nuică, The legal irresponsibility of the de jure employer. The usefulness of "warnings" in the area of non-discrimination

Abstract: The article is a review of two relevant topics of legal liability in the matter of non-discrimination. First of all it is an analysis of legal sanctions of de jure employers in the case when the act of discrimination – a press statement – was committed by a third party, perceived by the public as a de facto employer. In stage two, the analysis will focus on the efficacy and proportionality of warnings in the matter of discrimination. The study is based on the national jurisprudence, on CJEU Judgment in Case C-81/12, ACCEPT Association.

The conclusion of this article is that an act of discrimination by a third party without any juridical contact with the employer does not automatically lead to sanctioning of the employer, when the employer is dissociated from the act of the third party. The second conclusion is that in discrimination matters warnings, as the main penalty in the national law system, meet the requirements of efficacy and proportionality.  

Keywords: discrimination, penalty warning, Court of Justice of the European Union, NCCD Case no. 276/ 13.10.201, CJEU Case no. C-81/12, ACCEPT Association