Application of the Aarhus Convention in Southeast Europe
Our survey showed that there have not been many examples of the direct application of the Aarhus Convention by the courts in SEE countries. In situations where the Aarhus Convention could be applied, the courts would rather apply the rules of domestic legislation that are relevant to the merits of the case, or the provisions of the EU directives that regulate access to information, public participation in decisionmaking and access to justice in environmental matters. In addition, in many environmental cases the Aarhus Convention will not be applicable, since it does not contain any substantive rules regarding the right to a healthy environment.
BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL CAPACITIES IN KOSOVO AND ITS CHALLENGE TO COMPLY WITH EU ENVIRONMENTAL ACQUIS
This paper analyses the development of environmental governance in Kosovo, environmental laws, regulations, processes, and their conformity with the EU environmental acquis. Kosovo, like other countries in the Balkans trying to join the EU, will, in the process of accession, have to ensure that its legislation conforms to the Copenhagen accession criteria. While Kosovo authorities have progressed in the process of legal harmonization, there has been little progress in executing the legal framework in terms of institutional design, necessary processes and policy developments. The key question posed in this paper is whether the environmental governance approach in Kosovo, in line with EU accession process, represents an appropriate framework for dealing with the country‟s environmental problems. The current Kosovo legal framework, institutional set-up, and current practice will be evaluated against conformity with the EU acquis. The implementation of EU environmental acquis in Kosovo is to be seen as an important opportunity to create environmental governance and stable processes of assessing environmental impact and increasing environmental policy integration.
Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930
This book presents the legal and business history of corporate ownership of employee knowledge. Skilled workers of the early nineteenth century enjoyed a degree of professional independence because workplace knowledge and technical skill were their 'property,' or at least their attribute. In most sectors of today's economy, however, it is a foundational and widely accepted truth that businesses retain legal ownership of employee-generated intellectual property. In "Working Knowledge", Catherine Fisk chronicles the legal and social transformations that led to the transfer of ownership of employee innovation from labor to management. This deeply contested development was won at the expense of workers' entrepreneurial independence and ultimately, Fisk argues, economic democracy. By reviewing judicial decisions and legal scholarship on all aspects of employee-generated intellectual property and combing the archives of major nineteenth-century intellectual property - producing companies - including DuPont, Rand McNally, and the American Tobacco Company - Fisk makes a highly technical area of law accessible to general readers while also addressing scholarly deficiencies in the histories of labor, intellectual property, and the business of technology.