Author Archive: Simon Welling
Blow that whistle!
In April 2014, the Albanian Ministry of Justice and the Minister of State on Local Issues granted the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law & Criminology the task of designing a Whistleblower Protection Law for Albania. This project was supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Albania and funded by the Dutch Rule of Law Programme. The team responsible for drafting the Law and the explanatory memorandum consisted of researchers from the Research Programmes UCALL and RENFORCE: François Kristen (UCALL), Eelke Sikkema (UCALL), John Vervaele (RENFORCE), Dina Siegel-Rozenblit (RENFORCE) and myself (RENFORCE). The draft Law and the explanatory memorandum were sent to Tirana in March 2015, and in the beginning of June this year, the Netherlands Embassy announced that the Albanian Parliament had approved the Whistleblower Law. The Law will enter into force once it is promulgated by the President of the Republic and published in the Official Gazette. However, it is important to note that until its publication in the Official Gazette we do not know to what extent the approved Law differs from the draft Law we submitted.
Balancing security and freedom in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
The 2016 Annual European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) Conference was entitled “The Needed Balances of EU Criminal Law: Past, Present and Future”. One of the discussed topics was how to establish the right balance between measures that provide security and those that protect freedom. The point was strongly made that EU law to date has focused too much on establishing an Area of Security by adopting mutual recognition instruments and minimum harmonization measures which contribute to the protection of individuals against cross-border criminality. An example is the widening definition of offences linked to terrorist activities. After the 9/11 attacks, Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA was adopted whose provisions include the definition of terrorist offences and offences linked to terrorist activities. In 2008, Framework Decision 2008/919/JHA broadened the scope of offences linked to terrorist activities by criminalizing recruitment and training for terrorism. In 2015, as a response to the continuing and growing threat of terrorism, the Commission introduced a far-reaching proposal for a Directive on combating terrorism. Title III of this Directive on offences related to terrorist activities includes ‘travelling abroad for terrorism’, which is a new offence.
Locked out: Exclusion, discrimination and repression in the State of ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’
French disadvantaged neighborhoods as symbolic prisons. Photo: Léa Massé
In the wake of the Paris attacks that struck France in November 2015, the French government adopted a temporary state of emergency, announcing that the country was ‘at war’ with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The emergency Law – extended until May 2016 – has included a series of measures strengthening law-enforcement scope of actions, including preventive stop-and-frisk, housing arrest without prior judicial approval, warrantless searches, police raids, and citizenship withdrawal for individuals suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. Over a period of six months, more than 3200 raids have been conducted by law-enforcement officials and 400 people have been placed under house arrests. While the state of emergency seems to bear fruits, a recent report published by Human Rights Watch in February 2016 denounces abusive police practices and serious human right violations targeting mostly disadvantaged urban neighborhood residents.
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Innovatief energie aanbesteden
De Rijksoverheid wil de Nederlandse energievoorziening verduurzamen om schadelijke gevolgen als klimaatverandering en milieuverontreiniging te beperken. In 2020 moet daarom minimaal 14% van het Nederlands energieverbruik opgewekt worden uit hernieuwbare bronnen. Een ambitieuze doelstelling die met het huidige tempo niet gehaald lijkt te worden. Zowel private organisaties als overheden zullen daarom extra maatregelen moeten nemen. De eigen energie-inkopen zijn hiervoor een logisch startpunt. Overheden kunnen daarbij gebruik maken van drie inkoopmodellen die door de universiteiten van Utrecht en Twente zijn ontwikkeld. De modellen zijn gericht op duurzame energieopwekking en -besparing en zijn allen toepasbaar onder de Nederlandse Aanbestedingswet.
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Export Control of Dogs to Israel: Dual-Use Items under EU Law
Liberté, Liberté chérie… where things can go wrong. The French reaction to the terrorists attack in Paris
Foto door: Fugitron (CC BY-SA)
Following the Paris attacks of November 2015, president Hollande declared a state of emergency in France for twelve days. It was extended for three months until the 26th of February 2016 by the law no 2015-1501 of 20 November 2015 which, with no surprise, was adopted almost unanimously (only 12 negative votes and one abstention). According to the law no 55-385 of 3 April 1955 the state of emergency can be declared where there is an imminent danger to the public order, or in relation to events which amount, by their nature and severity, to a public disaster. It is clear that this exceptional regime was declared in order to specifically address the terrorist attacks by religious fundamentalists. As in many other Union member states, France witnesses a growing concern for internal security. However, this concern may stifle the equally important concern for justice and freedom that characterizes any state based on the rule of law. It further poses the question of the actual efficiency of legislation on security in the fight against terrorists.
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Minister vergeet toezeggingen aan Tweede Kamer en de evaluatie van de Aanbestedingswet 2012
Voor de hoorzitting van de Tweede Kamer over de wetswijziging Aanbestedingswet en het MKB van 25 november jl. schreef ik een position paper met 10 aanbevelingen ter verbetering van de wet. Enkele van die aanbevelingen worden in deze blog toegelicht.
Op 29 oktober 2015 is het wetsvoorstel tot wijziging van de Aanbestedingswet 2012 aan de Tweede Kamer aangeboden, dat o.a. de implementatie van de nieuwe EU richtlijnen overheidsopdrachten en concessies uit 2014 beoogt.
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Why is “four” better than “three” when it comes to the lines of defence in financial institutions?
photo by SteelCityHobbies
Certainly one of the greatest banking scandals of any age, the LIBOR fraud rocked the global financial industry. Manipulating interbank interest rates for almost two decades, the scale of the LIBOR deceit was staggering: 3 continents, 10 countries, 20 banks.
How could that happen on such a massive scale?
What LIBOR and other crises have shown is that banks need to enhance corporate governance measures. Most importantly, such incidents have led to a further prioritisation of governmental and supervisory agendas relating to the potential systemic implications of weak internal control systems, shifting the focus from the soundness of individual financial entities to the integrity and stability of the whole financial system. As Schwarcz maintains, the sheer perils financial supervisors have currently to cope with are attached to the risk “that a trigger event, such as an economic shock or institutional failure, causes a chain of bad economic consequences—sometimes referred to as a domino effect”. Systemic risk, indeed.
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Loting soms ondeugdelijk en niet doeltreffend
Bij aanbestedingen wordt een aanbieder gecontracteerd die de goederen mag aanleveren of de dienst of het werk mag uitvoeren. De beste aanbieding wint. Soms wordt er bij aanbestedingen geloot: wat vinden we daarvan?
Loten bij aanbestedingen komt ten minste bij twee onderdelen voor: om aanbieders te kiezen die een offerte mogen opstellen of om de winnaar(s) te kiezen.
What role can or should the European or national legislator play in ensuring gender balanced company boards?
Equality between women and men is a fundamental principle of the European Union. However, there is still an unequal representation of women in decision-making positions in companies throughout the EU. Even though the situation has started to improve, women remain a minority at the top of the decision-making hierarchy. On Wednesday 9 December 2015, this issue will be discussed at the seminar on Gender Balanced Company Boards in the EU at Utrecht University.