Suchergebnisse

Harmonisation of the foreign policies of the Western Balkan states with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) within the Charter 31 of the pre-accession negotiations will be a significant obligation and challenge for most of them. Within this context, the author takes as a starting point the regular annual reports on the progress achieved by the states in the region. They show the degree of harmonisation of their foreign policies with this Union's mechanism (within four years in the 2011-2014 period). The author of the article particularly points to the real and substantial discrepancy between the normative framework of the EU CFSP and the specific activities taken by the Western Balkan states in the part concerning their position to the current crisis in Ukraine which, in a way, 'reflects' the geo-strategic interests of the 'West', on one hand, and those of the Russian Federation, on the other. At the same time, he points to the membership in the North Atlantic Alliance as a favourable framework for the acceleration of harmonisation of a country's foreign policy with the EU CFSP.

The author explores how the internet and the new media are changing the way that we communicate, act and think, individually and collectively, through the example of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The author claims that The Occupy Movement, as a post-narrative project conceived in a digital environment, is less of a political activity, and more a new way of behavior for its members and for the society at large. Its focus on consensus building and its modus operandi are reflecting the principles of the Internet, web-organization and cooperation. Therefore, its success is not about achieving any particular political aim, or winning an election, but about the general acceptance of these values and their becoming part of a wider political agenda. ; Autor istražuje kako internet i novi mediji menjaju način na koji komuniciramo, delujemo i mislimo, pojedinačno ali i kolektivno, na primeru pokreta "Okupirajmo Volstrit". Autor tvrdi da "Okupacija Volstrita", kao postnarativni pokret nastao u digitalnom okruženju, manje predstavlja političku aktivnost a više novi normativni način ponašanja za svoje članove, ali i čitavo društvo. Njegova usmerenost ka izgradnji konsenzusa, kao i sam modus funkcionisanja, odražavaju principe interneta, mrežne organizacije i kolaboracije. Zato je njegov uspeh manje povezan sa ostvarivanjem nekog pojedinačnog cilja ili osvajanja vlasti na izborima, a više sa razmerom u kojoj će ove rednosti biti opšteusvojene i postati deo ukupne političke agende.

The Mediation Act has been applied in the Republic of Serbia since 2005. In the past period, the application of this Act has pointed out to a number of drawbacks and deficiencies in the system of resolving disputes through mediation. The dominant features of the current mediation system are some inadequate legal solutions, poor organization and insufficient preparation of the courts to internalize mediation, failure to provide relevant information about mediation to litigants and other participants in the judicial process, insufficient judicial training and education of lawyers and parties on mediation and other ADR methods, etc. Considering that the primary purpose of mediation is to diminish the litigation caseload and reduce the costs of court proceedings, the basic goal of introducing mediation into the Serbian legal system has not been accomplished. In order to improve the mediation system, the Serbian authorities launched a public debate in 2010 on designing a new legislative act which would eliminate the shortcomings of previous act and improve the efficiency of mediation. After nearly four years, the extensive debate and confrontation of different mediation concepts led to adopting a new Draft Mediation Act in 2013. As compared to the applicable 2005 Mediation Act, the Draft Mediation Act contains some innovations, such as the enforceability of a mediation agreement under specific conditions and the opportunity of introducing mandatory mediation in some cases. In this paper, the author analyzes the above issues on the basis of findings of economic theory and the results of the empirical study on the efficiency of mediation in Serbia in civil matters. In this context, the author argues that the achievement of the above objectives (to reduce the caseload and legal costs] calls for establishing a sustainable mediation system. In addition to instituting good legal solutions (such as mandatory mediation], the system should be supported by joint efforts and financial resources of responsible institutions and individuals. In a nutshell, mediation may come to life only if the legislative efforts are accompanied by a large-scale social action aimed at promoting this form of dispute resolution.

This paper show why the standardization of administrative procedure is important for the state legal system that, in the last two decades, the administrative procedure codes were adopted in almost all of the European states. Afterwards author analyzed main driving forces for development of administrative procedural law at the level of the European Union and the Council of Europe. The most important legal sources of European administrative procedural law (basic standards, principles, recommendations and guidelines in this area) are concisely presented but it is clearly indicated that there are certain ambiguities, that these sources don't apply equally to all institutions of the Union, and that they still don't make finished, complete and forever given system that can be automatically transferred to jurisprudence of the member states and candidate countries. Moreover, often administrative process laws of the member states contain rules that are not existing in this kind of regulation at European Union level and that is why the process of adopting the first European Union general law on administrative procedure was initiated, which would further improve the standards of European administrative process in general. When it comes to the general administrative procedure of the Republic of Serbia it has been shown that in spite of the strategic orientation towards the reform of the Law on Administrative Procedure expressed in numerous strategies, our executive authorities in this area have not yet moved beyond the development of the third version of the Draft Law on General administrative Procedure which was afterward adopted by the Government as the Bill. In his final remarks the author concludes stating that the largest number of European standards of administrative process are included in the final version of the Draft, but without eliminating the shortcomings of the existing Law, and without normative adjusting to the circumstances in which the Serbian administration operates, and with unnecessary abandonment of some solutions that have proved to be right in the decades-long practice of administrative authorities.

The issue of territorial disputes is a problem of a large number of states. These problems exists in the EU and in countries candidate for accession to this organization. As to the former Yugoslav republics following the collapse of the common state, the problems are created in terms of determining the territory. The issue of borders after the dissolution of a federal state such as Yugoslavia, creating major problems that can be solved only by applying two basic principles - the principle of demarcation and the principle of self-determination of nation. In international law there is no general rule, according to which the retreating boundary between the states. The author deals with issues of particular territorial disputes in the EU and between the EU countries and countries of the Western Balkan. Practically, these disputes between EU countries have existed before, and have not been resolved to their joining the organization. Whether the EU can guarantee resolution of these disputes is one of the issues raised in the paper, given that many disputes are not settled in countries that are longer or shorter time-EU countries. The conclusion is that it can not, because there are no adequate tools for this so that all the leaves to the states in disputes.