Search results

Adjusting the legal status, and support policies for migrant workers is an issue on the agenda of international institutions for nearly a hundred years. The first efforts to protect foreign workers have been taken during the first session of the International Labour Conference in 1919. In the following decades ILO activities has led to the preparation of three international documents concerning this issue (non-binding ILO Convention No. 66 in 1939, and Convention No. 97 of 1949, and No. 143 of 1975). For many decades, the problem of the protection and assistance of migrant workers' rights was considered as a narrow issue of international labor law. Codification efforts, undertaken during seventies, has led to the adaptation of the UN document (International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families) in 1990, and inclusion this issue into more general area of international human rights law. Despite this fact, and the existence of several categories of documents concerning migrant workers within Council of Europe, the European Union, and even ASEAN, the protection of migrant workers has never been effectively functioning system. The aim of this article is the analysis of the codification of that issue, and the main obstacles to consensus on the protection of migrant workers' rights. The state parties of the UN Convention contains primarily countries of origin of migrants (such as Mexico, Morocco and the Philippines). It seems, therefore, that despite 46 ratifications the, UN convention does not have a global character, and activities of its monitoring body (Committee on Migrant Workers-CMW) reflects primarily demands of sending countries. The article closely examines particularly controversial provisions of the ILO and UN documents from the point of view of current labour migrations and policies of sending and host countries.

The subject of this paper touches upon the prohibition to use force, and military force in particular, by States in self-defence. This is a classical example of an important and still very topical issue in international law practice. The right of each State to self-defence is perceived as one of the fundamental rights provided for in customary as well as positive international law. And yet, the exercise of this right has always raised many controversies and questions resulting, on the one hand, from the fact that the concept of self-defence has evolved over years, and, on the other hand, because of the recent tendencies to legalise different military actions carried out outside the framework of the United Nations Charter. These tendencies, presented in the paper in the context of military actions taken by states in situations of a potential terrorist attack, are described as either a pre-emptive, or a preventive use of military force. The author then concludes that although in the event of a pre-emptive military action taken by a State in reliance of its right to self-defence it may be justified to rely on the legal construction of self-defence, in the context of a preventive military operation, such reliance would be much more risky, if not inadmissible. A preventive use of military force fails to meet the criteria of legality of self-defence set forth in the UN Charter, as well as those resulting from international customary law. ; Problematyka artykułu nawiązuje do klasycznej, ale niezwykle ważnej i aktualnej w praktyce międzynarodowej problematyki zakazu użycia siły, zwłaszcza siły zbrojnej. Dotyczy bowiem możliwości podejmowania i realizowania przez państwa działań zbrojnych pod postacią samoobrony. Prawo każdego państwa do użycia siły w ramach samoobrony było i jest postrzegane jako jedno z praw fundamentalnych, gwarantowanych zarówno przez zwyczajowe, jak i pozytywne prawo międzynarodowe. Jego realizacja w praktyce budzi jednak wiele kontrowersji i pytań. Są one związane zarówno z ewolucją samej instytucji samoobrony, jak również z nowymi tendencjami w zakresie legalizowania różnych akcji zbrojnych dokonywanych poza ramami Karty Narodów Zjednoczonych. Autor prezentuje te tendencje, zwłaszcza w kontekście działań zbrojnych podejmowanych przez państwa w sytuacji potencjalnego zagrożenia atakami terrorystycznymi, a określanych jako uprzedzające i prewencyjne użycie siły. W konkluzji autor stwierdza, że o ile w wypadku zbrojnej operacji uprzedzającej uzasadnione jest odwoływanie się do konstrukcji prawnej samoobrony, o tyle w wypadku zbrojnej operacji prewencyjnej jest to znacznie bardziej ryzykowne, a wręcz nieuprawnione. Prewencyjne użycie siły zbrojnej nie spełnia bowiem kryteriów legalności samoobrony – zarówno tych określonych w Karcie Narodów Zjednoczonych, jak i tych wynikających z prawa zwyczajowego.

This book explores the issue of environmentally-induced migrations from the point of view of international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international refugee law and international law of statelessness. Last few years have become a period of unprecedented growth in the number of studies devoted to the forced migration caused by climate change. The book by professor Jane McAdam, published by Oxford University Press, differs significantly from previous studies in this area. The focus of the author became a state responsibility for the situation of climate-change induced displaced people with a particular focus on legal aspects of this problem. The basis of the author`s considerations are four particular areas of public international law: international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international refugee law and international law of statelessness. The issue of climate change-induced displacement is now becoming a growing challenge for public international law. The growing number of climate change migrants becomes a challenge for the international istitutions dealing with humanitarian assistance. Sea level rise become a factor of specific legal problems, such as climatic deterritorialization of the state, state succession on the new territory, the status of people forced to leave their country submerged under the waters of ocean (forced migrants?, refugees?, stateless people?, citizens of the former country continuing its status within a new territory?).

The European Union does not have an autonomous and self-standing public policy concerning the protection of landscape. Instead, it adopts fragmentary and incidental measures meant to protect landscape. These measures are adopted within the frameworks of other EU policies, most importantly the EU environmental policy as well as other policies which are integrated with it (such as agricultural policy or policy concerned with special planning). In all these realms, the EU shares its powers with its member states. In some important areas, such as e.g. the property regime, the member states retained their exclusive competences. This particular distribution of powers makes the implementation of the extra-EU international law instruments rather difficult and not sufficiently effective to produce a worthwhile impact. These obligations have a limited influence because most of them are obligations of "a diligent pursue" rather than "firm result". As such, they are unlikely to give rise to direct application of respective conventional provisions. Notwithstanding, their importance is much more pronounced in the area of legal reasoning, where even the EU or domestic measures have to be interpreted in the light of the EU and/or its member states' obligations arising from international conventions on landscape protection.

The discussion of the role of self-government in Poland's political structure has been closely linked to the Polish people's aspirations and desire for freedom, democracy and a state in which sovereignty is indeed in the hands of its people. These aspirations, so strongly expressed during the general election of June 1989, have since the very beginning included demands for self-government. What it meant for the state and its political system, was the implementation of the idea embodied in the name Solidarity which, as a trade union, was also to be independent and self-governing. It was also the realisation of the demand for a 'Samorządna Rzeczpospolita' (a Self-governing Republic), one of the fundamental principles of the Solidarity movement put forward at its First National Congress, which I had the honour of chairing in 1981.In March 1990, only a few months after its election on 4 June 1989, the Polish parliament adopted a law that restored the institution of local self-government at the level of communes and municipalities (gmina). Thus, 25 years ago, the road to political transformation in Poland was opened, allowing the building of a Polish state understood as the political community of all its citizens – a real Res Publica.The predominating belief which accompanied us in this process was that the indispensable prerequisite to shaping democracy was to give back the state to its citizens, thus releasing dormant social energy and the entrepreneurial spirit of the people. After all democracy means not only the possibility of the democratically electing the political representatives (the authorities) but equally the chance for citizens to feel involved and take the responsibility for public affairs.Therefore the first democratic government, headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, began the process of restoring the state to its citizens from the most important starting point. It started with the rebuilding of communal and municipal self-governing structures and the recreating of the intellectual foundations for the formation of the new constitution of a citizens-centred state.This was possible mainly because a vision of reform had already been conceived and had been long developing in the minds of a number of distinguished persons. This project of self-government reform constituted an original example of engagement of Polish intellectuals in state affairs and their taking responsibility for the common good.The reform also turned out to be one of the most effective methods of de-communisation of Polish public life. This could be best seen in the results of the first election to self-governing structures in 1990, and the role which the Solidarity citizens' committees played in it. It was indeed the same people, the co-founders and members of the Solidarity movement, who have successfully carried out the restoration of self-government in Poland.'We marched for power to return it to the people' was the motto of the Polish government in 1997, a government which I had the honour of heading for the subsequent four years, and which articulated the goals and the sense of political and social transformation of those times. We called it a Four Reform Programme, and its objective was a fundamental transformation of public life in Poland. On the one hand we intended to create favourable conditions for the development of the public civic space, while on the other we strove to activate and make more dynamic the processes of economic, political and cultural development in the country.We believed that acceleration of this development and modernisation was contingent upon active participation of self-government structures. Hence the creation of strong self-government had gradually become our conscious choice and an urgent 'civilising task.' This task was grounded equally in the need to manage properly our recently regained independence, and in the need to make efficient use of the pre-accession period preceding Poland's membership of the European Union, which was then imminent.Thus the administrative reform undertaken by my government in 1999 introduced districts (powiat) as self-governing level of administration, allowing it, in conjunction with communes and municipalities (gmina), to take effective control of matters directly affecting local communities and their citizens. The self-governing structures formed at the level of strong voivodships, or regions, allowed at the same time to decentralise responsibility for regional economic development, competitiveness and modernisation strategies.Today, after over 10 years of EU membership, it is worth reflecting on the impact the political reforms which we carried through then have had on Poland's functioning in the system of European integration. We were proven right in our conviction that decentralisation and differentiation of various state functions would allow for a better and more effective use and management of EU funds.The three-tier self-government structure created solid foundations helping to satisfy better the aspirations of citizens, local communities and regions with regard to their modernisation and development. Today it is those local self-governing units, those closest to citizens, those most familiar with and with the best understanding of their needs, which are responsible for the drafting of regional development projects and the management of funds available for those projects. Self-government structures have become the real centres for formulating and implementing development strategies.This is the context in which the key challenge facing self-government is set, namely the fostering of entrepreneurship, ensuring proper conditions for innovation and mobilising citizens to engage in economic and social initiatives. The role of self-government in shaping of the state's development policy is not limited to dividing available means and resources. Much more important is its ability to effectively multiply the available means, to support partnership ventures, including public-private projects, to form strong business to business relationships as well as partner relations between research centres and local administrative bodies, or promote and support innovations and civic initiatives serving the common good. After all, all these are key factors for the long-term stability and development of our communities and our country, which is today the key measure of the responsibility for public matters, so deeply rooted in the idea of self-government.The self-government reform originated from the ideas developed in the 1980s of the twentieth century as part of the Solidarity movement, but was implemented in an already independent Poland, when laying the foundations for a transformation of the state and the democratisation of the citizen-state relationship. It also had, however, and maybe predominantly, a deep idealistic dimension, so easy to forget when we focus on the current and most urgent challenges of the present.In my opinion, it is in self-governance, as well as in the political and administrative culture, that opportunities for building our freedom lie: freedom, the sense of which we feel best if given a chance to share in the responsibility for it. In times of independence this means the possibility of personal engagement public issues based on the pro publico bono principle: issues pertaining to our family life, our local community, or the whole country.Today, in the context of our shared responsibility for the European Union, such an understanding of self-governance should also inspire us to seek new directions of development, and to participate in the shaping of Europe-wide standards of public life. In the same way as 25 years ago in Poland we founded a political community on the basis of self-governance, we should today look at self-governance as a chance to create a true political community of all European citizens.

The institution of self-defence comprises both provisions of the General Part (art. 36 and 37:self defence and imaginary self defence) and the Special Part (art. 118 and 124: intentional killing,causing grievous bodily harm as a result of exceeding the borders of self defence or using excessivemeasures necessary to catch the perpetrator) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.There are diverse opinions in Ukrainian jurisprudence concerning the problem of how selfdefenceand other circumstances eliminate the illegality of a forbidden act. The aim of this paper isto present the main attitudes to these problems. The approach considering self-defence in the lightof legality is the most popular view. There is also an approach according to which one distinguishesthe prerequisites for self-defence and the elements of such self-defence taking into account elementssuch as: the subject – the aim – the objective side – the subjective control. The socially harmfulattack which justifies the use of self-defence should be analysed using both of these approaches.The features of a legitimate self-defence are: the subject – a private person; the aim – to causeinjuries to the attacker (the direct aim) in order to repel or stop the attack (the indirect aim) in orderto defend legally protected rights and interests of a person, interests of the society or the state (thefinal aim); the object – the attacker, his rights and interests; the objective side – actions casually connectedwith the causing of harm to the attacker, commensurable with the harmfulness of the attackand the state of the defence; subjective control – proper realisation by the subject of the prerequisitesand features of the defence and the will to cause commensurable harm to the attacker.Two types of exceeding the borders of self-defence are distinguished in the paper: exceedingthe borders of acceptable harm and exceeding the borders of adequate harm. Criminal responsibilityfor exceeding the borders of self-defence arises only in cases clearly provided for in art. 118 and 124of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The sanctions in these articles are much more lenient than in thecase of corresponding offences not committed while exceeding of the borders of self-defence (art.115, 119 and 121 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). ; Artykuł nie zawiera abstraktu w języku polskim

The aim of the article is to analyse the state control function over the activity of local self-governments in the field of their finances. The analysis is based on empirical data of the Regional Accounting Chambers (RACs), which is a special body created for control and supervision in the field of local government finances. Attention is paid to the question of financial independence of the local powers and how it is influenced by the state's external supervision. In this context both too strong and too weak control has negative consequences for prudent funds usage by local government. The research indicates a decrease in law infringement by local authorities in the financial sphere. However, there are still cases of inefficient and irrational budget usage by local powers, which does not contradict the law, yet exerts a negative impact on their financial independence and performance of public tasks. Possible solutions of the indicated problems are outlined at the end of the article.

Operations under the auspices of the Security Council mandate span over 70 years. Repeatedly involved in resolving armed conflicts, they have made a significant contribution to ensuring security and stability around the world. In practice, they have taken the form of operations by individual states, coalitions, other international organizations or simply as United Nations missions composed of contingents provided by Troop Contribution Countries (TCC). While operations under the auspices of the United Nations have been involved on several occasions in offensive activities under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, and the question of responsibility for these actions has been the subject of many legal analyses and judgments, missions organized by the United Nations are always recognized as neutral, and their activities as conciliatory and focused on monitoring the cessation of hostilities, or supervising the disengagement between the parties of the conflict, with the use of force limited to self-defence. Thus, such operations benefited from legal protection, and any action against them was considered a violation of international law. The current engagement of United Nations goes far beyond the traditional understanding of peacekeeping operations. UN missions are frequently authorized to employ all necessary means, up to and including the use of lethal force or even neutralization of the armed group. This creates a situation where in the light of International Humanitarian Law, such actions can be recognized as involvement in armed conflict. This article is intended to show the problems that the international community will soon face to in using United Nations' missions as an instrument for resolving armed conflicts and as a tool for restoring peace and providing stability and securityin the area of operations. It presents the processes of decision-making and subordination, which in some circumstances might result in the United Nations missions being deprived of legal protection and, in addition, made liable for non-compliance with the provisions of International Humanitarian Law. ; Operations under the auspices of the Security Council mandate span over 70 years. Repeatedly involved in resolving armed conflicts, they have made a significant contribution to ensuring security and stability around the world. In practice, they have taken the form of operations by individual states, coalitions, other international organizations or simply as United Nations missions composed of contingents provided by Troop Contribution Countries (TCC). While operations under the auspices of the United Nations have been involved on several occasions in offensive activities under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, and the question of responsibility for these actions has been the subject of many legal analyses and judgments, missions organized by the United Nations are always recognized as neutral, and their activities as conciliatory and focused on monitoring the cessation of hostilities, or supervising the disengagement between the parties of the conflict, with the use of force limited to self-defence. Thus, such operations benefited from legal protection, and any action against them was considered a violation of international law. The current engagement of United Nations goes far beyond the traditional understanding of peacekeeping operations. UN missions are frequently authorized to employ all necessary means, up to and including the use of lethal force or even neutralization of the armed group. This creates a situation where in the light of International Humanitarian Law, such actions can be recognized as involvement in armed conflict. This article is intended to show the problems that the international community will soon face to in using United Nations' missions as an instrument for resolving armed conflicts and as a tool for restoring peace and providing stability and securityin the area of operations. It presents the processes of decision-making and subordination, which in some circumstances might result in the United Nations missions being deprived of legal protection and, in addition, made liable for non-compliance with the provisions of International Humanitarian Law.