Social security in the european community: co-ordination,harmonization or thirteenth state?

As the magical date December 31, 1992 is drawing closer full economic integration in the European Community is becoming a reality. At the same time it is getting clear that the future economic union has no social counterpart. International, as well as European social security law has been developed along the lines of two different techniques: co-ordination and harrnonization. While the former technique leaves the national legislation intact, only regulating cases with international aspects, the latter does have consequences for national law. The co-ordination of national social security law within the European Community is ruled by co-ordination Regulations 140817 1 and 574172. The mere amendment of the existing Regulations seems insufficient to create a social dimension within the European Community.Moreover, the co-ordination technique seems handicapped by its intrinsical complexity. A genuine harmonization, on the other hand, seems both for political and technical reasons impossible

in the short run. The Thirteenth State scenario aims both at offering an alternative for the complexity of co-ordination and providing a first impetus towards harmonization. This scenario was elaborated by a team of specialists at the University of Leuven, Belgium. The result of this research is an extensive blue-print for a European Community social insurance scheme.The authors offer an overview of the main goals of the scenario and a number of basic choices that have been made in develop-ing it. Finally they give some comments on the legal grounds for a European social insurance scheme and on the problems concerned with the elaboration of the administrative structure for such a scheme.     

Pluralism,Deference and the Margin of Appreciation Doctrine

In this article it will be argued that good use of the instrument of deference might help the EU courts to deal with the situation of pluralism that is currently visible in the European legal order. By means of deferential judicial review, the EU courts can pay due respect to national constitutional traditions and to national legislative and policy choices, thus preventing situations of real conflict. In addition, deference enables the EU courts to take into account the intricacies related to judicial review of norms drafted by co‐equal institutions or by national elected bodies. Although the EU courts already make use of some form of deferential review, they may use the instrument in a clearer and more structured manner. As a basis for the development of a European ‘doctrine of deference’, a comparison will be made with the margin of appreciation doctrine devised by the European Court of Human Rights. Although this doctrine is certainly not fault‐free, it offers a number of advantages in terms of clarity and controllability. If improved and adapted on the basis of theoretical notions of procedural democracy, the doctrine might be put to good use by the EU courts.     

Plots,murders, and money: oversight bodies evaluating the effectiveness of surveillance technology

Intelligence agencies routinely use surveillance technology to perform surveillance on digital data. This practice raises many questions that feed a societal debate, including whether the surveillance technology is effective in achieving the given security goal, whether it is cost-efficient, and whether it is proportionate. Oversight bodies are important actors in this debate, overseeing budgets, legal and privacy matters, and the performance of intelligence agencies. This paper examines how oversight bodies evaluate the questions above, using documents produced by American and British oversight mechanisms.     

Preventive servicing is good for business and affordable homeownership policy

Abstract

This article documents the growing importance of preventive servicing—business practices that emphasize early intervention in delinquency and default management practices that also help financially troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure. We suggest that the loan servicing side of the affordable housing delivery system may be underappreciated and undercapitalized.

We use a database of more than 28,000 affordable housing loans to test several preventive servicing‐related propositions and find that after we control for loan and borrower characteristics, the likelihood that a delinquent mortgagor within this universe will ultimately default varies significantly across servicers. This suggests that loan servicing is an important factor in determining whether low‐ and moderate‐income borrowers who fall behind in their mortgage payments will end up losing their homes through foreclosure. It also suggests a need for policy makers to incorporate preventive servicing into affordable homeownership programs.     

Education and Household Inequality Change: A Decomposition Analysis for India

Rising returns to education have increased wage inequality in many developing countries, but their impact on inequality between households is less clear. This study asks how education contributed to household inequality in India during the period 1993–2004, using a regression based decomposition method. We find that rising returns to education of employees did not increase household inequality, because many household heads are self-employed. Instead, rising inequality in education contributed to higher inequality, partly because fertility declined more slowly among illiterates. These new insights into the education-inequality relationship in India underline the importance of household-level analysis to complement earnings inequality research.     

Intensity of Judicial Review in Equal Treatment Cases

Netherlands International Law Review -