International Legal Rulings on Lustration Policies in Central and Eastern Europe: Rule of Law in Historical Context

The transitional justice literature highlights various trade-offs involved in the choice and implementation of lustration as a transitional justice measure in Central and Eastern Europe. This article examines how international legal body rulings on lustration laws have interpreted rule-of-law versus justice concerns. The European Court of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization have explored possible information problems, due process violations, employment discrimination issues, and bureaucratic loyalty concerns within the context of lustration. Three findings emerge from their legal rulings. First, contrary to popular notions, international legal bodies are not antilustration. The institutions are engaging with questions regarding the fair implementation, not the legality, of lustration laws. Second, the prioritizing of justice concerns during the transition efforts is highlighted as a way to lay a strong democratic foundation. Third, the organizations have emphasized the importance of placing rule of law in historical context, thereby situating post-Communist societies within other posttotalitarian regime-building narratives.     

Administrative and Court Reform in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract:   The pre-accession programmes of the European Union and the candidate countries have focused heavily on law reform. Only relatively recently, it was recognised that successful administrative and court reform would be just as necessary in order to achieve the desired goals, namely that the candidates would eventually be able to take on their obligations as new members of the Union. Unfortunately, it has now become evident that it is easier to write new laws than to get them properly applied in every day practice. This article describes a number of cases to illustrate the problem. It shows that administrators and judges in Central and Eastern Europe have significant difficulties with Western working methods, specifically the application of international norms in the national legal order, due process and procedural safeguards, treatment of precedents, resolution of ambiguities and lacunae in the law, etc., which may in turn result in unjust and sometimes absurd application of laws. These difficulties cannot be resolved merely by organising ever more training courses and other theoretical programmes. The author claims that the majority of efforts promoting administrative and court reform applied so far have rendered only meager results. Therefore, additional and more creative measures have to be designed and implemented and have to be continued for years beyond accession of most of these countries to the EU in 2004. Otherwise, rule of law deserving its name will not materialise in the new Member States. The author concludes by offering some ideas based on many years of experience in the region.     

Environmental liability reform and privatization in Central and Eastern Europe

The legacy of severe environmental degradation inherited by the new Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies requires liability reform to aid the cleanup of existing pollution sources and create incentives for future environmental risk reduction. The paper analyzes a host of liability approaches to meet these goals, given economic and institutional characteristics specific to the CEE nations, and explores the impact of environmental liability rules on privatization and foreign investment. A principal conclusion of the analysis is that, for a host of efficiency-based reasons, liability should not be retroactively applied to the new owners of privatized firms. Also, the paper advocates the use of national liability funds to finance the cost of existing liabilities, while highlighting dangers associated with their use. In addition to the desirability of alternative privatization mechanisms, the paper also analyzes altemative liability rules to govern prospective environmental hazards.     

中东欧国家政治-行政体制的制度背景

自从苏联解体之后,中东欧国家面临着政治行政体制转型的多样选择。基于新制度主义的理论基础,论文旨在探析中东欧国家政治行政体制的改革背景。论文指出,在新制度主义理论视角下,出于文化和历史对政府结构的影响,中东欧各国家的改革进程、转型路径和制度体系存在着巨大的差异性。在分析了中东欧各国政治行政体制差异的文化根源和因此产生的特殊转型路径,以及各国政治行政体系改革模式之后,论文指出,中东欧国家政治行政体系转型并不存在唯一的最优解决方案,成功的改革模式可以借鉴但不能复制。     

Eastern Europe and Central Asia: report identifies human rights gaps

Criminalization and stigmatization of the high-risk behaviours that promote the spread of HIV are fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and placing millions of people at risk. This is one of the findings of a report from the United Nations Development Programme released in February 2004. The report, which is the first comprehensive profile of the epidemic in the 28 countries of the region, includes a significant focus on human rights issues.     

Correction to: Institutions and corporate financial distress in Central and Eastern Europe

European Journal of Law and Economics -     

Minority Rights and the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe

Since 1990, minority rights have enjoyed an extraordinary renaissancein Europe. Ironically, this has occurred at precisely the timewhen Europe's largest ethnic minority, the Roma, has faced anunprecedented crisis, particularly in post-Communist states.This article explores the various problems facing the Roma inCentral and Eastern Europe and considers why minority rightsregimes have had a marginal impact on the situation confrontingthis minority. In addition, the article reflects on whethercurrent conceptions of minority rights are well suited to suchan extraordinarily heterogeneous ‘people’ as theRoma, many of whom have lost the cultural and linguistic featuresthat formerly distinguished them as a minority.     

Collaborative innovation in emerging innovation systems: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Firms often lack competences and capabilities for creation and commercialization of innovations. The solution to this problem lies in sharing or acquisition of...     

Crime in Central and Eastern European Countries in the Enlarged Europe

An enlarged European Union not only means more territory and a greater population, but also more crimes and perpetrators of crimes. The European integration brings a new challenge to criminology. Comparison of crime statistics across countries is still one of the most difficult methodological problems in criminological analyses. Countries differ in respect of their penal systems and penal policies. Reporting and statistical systems are also different. How, then, can one compare crime between European countries? Can one say where it is safer or where the police work better? Can one determine what the manner of data collection should be so that it reflects reality accurately? This article concentrates on a representation of some trends of crime in Central and Eastern European countries. A main source of information about crime are official crime statistics collected according to the methodological rules worked out by the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics. In the case of homicide, police data are confronted with vital statistics gathered by the World Heath Organization (WHO). The statistics on assault and robbery were compared, as much as possible, with the victimization data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS). The socio-economic context of the crime, the main circumstances of the crime statistics, which affected the interpretation of the crime trends for Central and Eastern European Countries, is presented.     

Regional Innovation Systems in Central and Eastern Europe: Determinants, Organizers and Alignments

While proximity was an asset in socialism, during the post-socialist period the development of the region as a locus of innovation is essential for restructuring and sustainable growth of economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The paper analyzes the factors that determine the emergence of regional innovation systems in CEE. Based on a conceptual model of regional innovation system we explore four determinants: national, sectoral, micro and regional. These determinants operate as conditional advantages or disadvantages that require network organizers and network alignment in order to be turned into real advantages. The paper points to the important role of network organizers for enhancing regional innovation in the post-socialist economies. Policy implications of the model suggest that the emphasis should be on functions and programs rather than on new organizations.     

The Promised Land: A Study of Trafficking in Women from Central and Eastern Europe to the Netherlands

This study on trafficking in women from Central and Eastern Europe explores the contextual factors, the characteristics, and the motivation of victims as well as the methods of traffickers. A combination of rational choice theory, strain theory and social control theory forms the theoretical framework of our research. Based on information from experts in the field, interviews with victims, questionnaires, a study of dossiers and a search of the literature, we developed a typology of victims, which may be helpful for prevention and law enforcement.     

On the finance-growth nexus: additional evidence from Central and Eastern Europe countries

We investigate the finance-growth nexus for a sample of thirteen transition economies over the period 1995–2007 using panel cointegration tests and a panel error-correction model. By combining results for models with alternative dependent variables and several measures of financial development, we find that the relationship between financial deepening and real growth is largely positive in the long-run, and it develops its full potential when funds are directed towards private enterprises. In the short-run, however, the growth effects of an expansion of financial markets are weaker and negative, supporting the idea that financial development has also a dark side, as it exacerbates fragility and destabilizes the economy through recurrent crises.     

Founding Principles of EU Law: A Theoretical and Doctrinal Sketch

The article discusses the roles of founding principles of the EU with the method of doctrinal constructivism, thereby explaining this specific approach to legal scholarship. At the same time it proves the usefulness of the constitutional approach to EU law. Core characteristics of the EU legal order should become more tangible.     

The potential for the growth of organized crime in Central and Eastern Europe

Conclusions There is a clear potential for growth in organized crime in Central and Eastern Europe. The criminal justice system in most countries in the region is undergoing a crisis in morale, resources and direction, sapping its possibility to respond effectively. One of the fears in Western Europe is that organized crime will begin to cross the borders from the East. So far, this appears to have occurred only on a small scale, primarily in connection with organized theft, drug-trafficking and the illegal sale of firearms. The slow pace of this development may be due to the lack of suitable international contacts, and to the fact that sufficient profits appear to be available in the domestic market. Furthermore, operating in the West has drawbacks and dangers: it is more expensive, there may be competition from local organized crime, and the police may be more efficient.The danger posed by organized crime in Central and Eastern Europe nonetheless remains, both to the countries themselves and to the West. This has already been recognized, as shown by the growing network of bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as by the strengthening of informal contacts among the police. Many Western European countries are providing technical assistance to Central and Eastern Europe in the form of training, consultation and the exchange of information. Sadly, organized crime control even in the West has lagged behind organized crime; both East and West have a long way to go.Director of the Helsinki Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations (Heuni), Turunlinnantie 8, Helsinki, Finland. Parts of this article have previously appeared inCriminal Justice International (vol. 9, no. 2, 1993, pp. 11–18).     

论历史、理性与教育学——基于历史哲学的视角

教育学和教育史分别以历史的和逻辑的方法对教育进行研究,尽管二者在研究对象、内容、方法上各有侧重,但学科之别不应成为学术研究的壁垒。教育史研究以历史为研究对象,是教育研究的一个基本领域;它通过考察历史来理解教育,因而又是一种研究方法。一部教育史潜藏着一部教育思想史。逻辑的与历史的是一致的,教育史研究不仅仅是史实的记录和复述,文献的查找与整理,而是在尊重史实的基础上,厘清教育发展的来龙去脉,通过归纳、分析、演绎、推理等方法,发现教育的逻辑。