Hoe kan de producent van een verbruikend apparaat zoals een printer de controle over de lucratievere markt van de consumables (printercartridges) houden? De verschillende IE-rechten en technologische middelen die daarbij worden ingezet, komen aan de orde in deze bijdrage, die concludeert dat technologie de controle van concurrent naar consument lijkt te verplaatsen.

The matter for this research is the request from the municipality of Eindhoven to map youth nuisance in the city of Eindhoven and to find explanations for differences between neighborhoods in order to provide policy makers with guidance. Quantitative and qualitative methods tested the social disorganization theory. Factors that may explain youth nuisance are a high degree of ethnic heterogeneity, low neighborhood participation and a high level of physical deterioration. In addition, youngsters who have unstructured leisure time prefer a place to hang out where there is no social control. Policy makers can use these insights to design their neighborhoods.

Met de Urgenda-zaak is niet alleen de dialoog geopend over de betekenis van het internationale klimaatrecht, de mogelijkheden voor algemeen-belangacties op andere gebieden en de verhouding tussen de Nederlandse staatsmachten, maar komt ook de rol van de nationale rechter in het internationale recht aan bod. Via de route van het EVRM wijst de Nederlandse rechter de Staat op zijn internationale verplichtingen – waaronder die van de positieve bescherming van mensenrechten – en brengt hij de rechtsopvattingen van internationaal en nationaal recht op één lijn. Dit getuigt van een actieve rol van de rechter. Geplaatst in het licht van internationale ontwikkelingen en het Rookverbod-arrest biedt deze rol ook mogelijkheden voor algemeen-belangacties wanneer de normen uit internationale verdragen in het concrete geval rechtstreeks toegepast kunnen worden door de rechter.

The Polish Supreme Court has held that a criterion of discrimination may also be a relationship of a social or familial nature that exists in the workplace and whose existence or absence on the part of the employee results in different treatment by the employer.

A number of collective labour agreements unjustifiably have excluded allowances from holiday pay. Recently, social partners have had difficulties in repairing these flaws. Two recent cases demonstrate this, both similar claims but with different outcomes. This leaves social partners with the problem of how to proceed.

Both the French Supreme Court and the Versailles Court of Appeal held that an employer, who must ensure that liberties and fundamental rights of each employee are respected in the working community, may lawfully prohibit the wearing of any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious beliefs in the workplace, provided that the rule contained in the company rules and regulations applies without distinction to employees in direct contact with the customers of the company only. But in the absence of such rules, sanctioning an employee who refuses to remove her Islamic veil based on the wish of a customer, which does not qualify as a genuine and determining occupational requirement, amounts to an unlawful direct discrimination and should consequently be held null and void.

Most scholars have argued that the Achbita judgment is not in line with the jurisprudence of the ECtHR, in particular with the Eweida judgment, and gives less protection to the employee than granted by the ECtHR. In this article, I provide a different perspective on the relation between both judgments and nuance the criticisms that followed the Achbita judgment.

In zijn Nobody’s Law presenteert Hertogh een nieuwe rechtssociologische benadering en plaatst die tegenover de kritische benadering. Kern van deze nieuwe (‘seculiere’) benadering is het concept rechtsvervreemding. Of deze nieuwe benadering voor de wetgeving bruikbare kennis gaat opleveren, zoals andere rechtssociologische benaderingen doen, is twijfelachtig. Het is immers moeilijk om wetgeving af te stemmen op mensen die van het recht vervreemd zouden zijn. Daarnaast vergt het concept rechtsvervreemding verheldering, zonder – zoals nu is gedaan – de werkelijkheid (cases) op maat te snijden.

The Singapore International Commercial Court (‘SICC’) was launched on 5 January 2015, at the Opening of Legal Year held at the Singapore Supreme Court. What prompted the creation of SICC? How is the SICC model of litigation different from litigation in the Singapore High Court? What is the SICC’s track record and what does it tell us about its future? This article seeks to answer these questions at greater depth than existing literature. Importantly, it examines these questions from the angle of reimagining access of justice for litigants embroiled in international commercial disputes. It argues that the SICC’s enduring contribution to improving access to justice is that it helps to change our frame of reference for international commercial litigation. Hybridisation, internationalisation, and party autonomy, the underpinning values of the SICC, are likely to be the values of the future of dispute resolution. International commercial dispute resolution frameworks – typically litigation frameworks – that unduly emphasise national boundaries and formalities need not and should not be the norm. Crucially, the SICC co-opts a refreshing public-private perspective to the resolution of international commercial disputes. It illuminates on the public interest element of the resolution of such disputes which have for some time fallen into the domain of international commercial arbitration; at the same time, it introduces greater scope for self-determination in international commercial litigation.

The Court of the Astana International Financial Center is a new dispute resolution initiative meant to attract investors in much the same way as it has been done in the case of the courts and arbitration mechanisms of similar financial centers in the Persian Gulf. This paper examines such initiatives from a comparative perspective, focusing on their Private International Law aspects such as jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition and enforcement of judgments and arbitration awards. The paper concludes that their success, especially in the case of the younger courts, will depend on the ability to build harmonious relationships with the domestic courts of each host country.

This article looks at how normative questions, i.e. ‘what should the law be?‘, are approached in modern labour law scholarship. A distinction is made between internal and external normative frameworks for analysis, whereby internal frameworks are made up of principles, values or standards that are part of the law and the external frameworks are made up of theories outside of law. As a functional legal field, labour law can also benefit to a great deal from empirical research. However, the article argues that empirical facts by themselves have a limited normative value and that we need a normative framework in order to answer normative and evaluative questions. Therefore, the aim of the article is to review, clarify and evaluate the internal normative framework of labour law.

In the past twenty-five years, a lot of attention is paid to a more victim-aware and restorative justice focused policy in prisons in Belgium and The Netherlands, striving for a restorative culture and climate in the institutions (among prisoners and staff) and for more restorative practices like victim-awareness programs and mediation. The focus is primarily on the prison structure and culture, striving to create a more restorative prison culture and climate in the institutions. In this article we argue for a shift from this system-focused pursuit of ‘estorative detention’ to the restorative reintegration of prisoners at the individual level, and by this supporting their desistance from crime. We present a conceptual framework for restorative reintegration in and outside prison as a strengths-based approach, with attention to the structural and individual elements that supports their desistance from crime.

In this article the development of a restorative justice probation practice is discussed from the perspective of the restorative justice principle of the inclusive community and the contribution of probation volunteers to the reintegration of (ex-)offenders through specific restorative justice intervention strategies. It is shown that in penal policy of the past decades the penal welfare-model and the aim of reintegration of ex-offenders has been overshadowed by a more utilitarian, punitive and management logic of criminal justice. As a result, the reintegration and social inclusion of ex-offenders has become a rather neglected area and, in the current liberal-democratic state, offenders face social conditions in which it is very hard to turn their life around. In addition it is suggested that both in mainstream and in restorative justice interventions, achievement of the goal of reintegration is often problematic or absent. Moreover, this lack of opportunities for connection may undermine and reduce the effects of interventions, including those with a restorative justice approach. Probation services that use specific restorative justice intervention strategies guided by both professionals and probation volunteers might contribute to a more active, inclusive role of the community and society in the reintegration of ex-offenders.

On April 2019 the Directive on Unfair Trading Practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain has entered into force. In particular the remedies that the Member States are supposed to offer seem to be designed after the blueprint of competition law enforcement, and the practices deemed “unfair” in this Directive are closely related to abusive practices under Article 102 TFEU. While such practices are typically based on an economic dependence, no dominant position as required by Article 102 TFEU will be found. So, the question is whether an expansion of the scope of control of unilateral conduct under competition law might be the way to implement the Directive.
Germany has a long-standing tradition with respect to the expansion of the scope of control of abusive conduct to undertakings with less than a dominant position. Following a brief introduction that outlines the contents of the Directive (I.) this contribution is going to give a picture of the provisions on control of so-called “relative market power”, i.e. a position of independence not versus all competitors and the opposite market side as defined by the ECJ, but only in the relation to individual trading partners under German competition law (II.), and finish with an outline of the structural problems that might stand in the way of implementing the new rules with a simple application or amendment of the competition law provisions on relative market power (III.)

In this transnational road transport case, the Dutch Supreme Court had to elaborate on the ECJ Koelzsch and Schlecker cases and asks for guidance from the ECJ on the applicability and interpretation of the Posting of Workers Directive.

Austrian courts have to deal with an increasing number of cases concerning dismissal on grounds of (alleged) discrimination. The particular challenge is to a draw a conclusive distinction between the concepts of disability and sickness.