National Varieties of Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs): A Comparative Analysis of PPP-Supporting Units in 19 European Countries

Most countries that have adopted the public–private partnership (PPP) model as a means of implementing infrastructure projects have launched dedicated supporting units to guide policy development and stimulate project implementation. This paper draws on the theoretical notion of PPP-enabling fields to carry out a comparative analysis of the roles and functions of PPP-supporting units across 19 European countries with varying PPP experiences. We distinguish four categories of national support of PPPs, from skeptical systems of zero support to full-fledged PPP systems. Furthermore, we take initial steps to analyze the possible link between national differences in institutionalized PPP support and the amount of implemented PPP projects. Finally, pathways for further research on PPP-supporting units are discussed.     

Dancing on coke: smuggling cocaine dispersed in polyvinyl alcohol

Recent trends suggest that cocaine smugglers have become more and more inventive to avoid seizures of large amounts of cocaine transported between countries. We report a case of a mail parcel containing a dance pad which was seized at the Customs Department of Brussels Airport, Belgium. After investigation, the inside of the dance pad was found to contain a thick polymer, which tested positive for cocaine. Analysis was performed using a routine colorimetric swipe test, gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The polymer was identified as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and contained 18% cocaine, corresponding to a street value of € 20,000. Laboratory experiments showed that cocaine could be easily extracted from the PVA matrix. This case report reveals a new smuggling technique for the transportation of large amounts of cocaine from one country to another.     

A Toolbox for European Judges

The forthcoming instrument on European contract law, be it in the shape of an optional code for cross‐border contracts or as an official toolbox for the European legislator, is likely to have a spill‐over effect on private law adjudication in Europe. Judges will have no great difficulty in finding model rules and definitions that might come in handy when dealing with gaps and ambiguities in European private law. However, the question is whether such a role as a toolbox for judges would be legitimate. I discuss three types of possible legitimation strategies: traditional methods of legal interpretation, the new European methods and merely political legitimation. It will often depend on the circumstances of the case at hand and the characteristics of the particular model rule or definition that is being borrowed what mode of legitimation will prove to be more convincing. However, generally speaking legitimation in terms of the ‘general principles of civil law’ that the CJEU has recently been developing seems a particularly promising strategy. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that European courts could come under a duty, following from the principle of sincere cooperation, to use the instrument as a toolbox.     

The Ideal of Codification and the Dynamics of Europeanisation: The Dutch Experience

Abstract:  In response to the growing incoherence of European contract law, the Commission is planning to adopt a 'common frame of reference' (CFR) in 2009. That CFR will effectively constitute a codification in a substantive sense. As a result, in codified systems such as The Netherlands, there will be a shift from the familiar tension between impressionistic harmonisation and systematic codification to a new tension between the system of the national civil code and the system of the substantive European code. Therefore, once the CFR is adopted by the Commission as a tool for revising the acquis and for drafting new directives, national legislators inspired by the codification ideal will have to reconsider their strategies towards the implementation of directives in the area of private law. Three such strategies are considered here: resistance, segregation and surrender. Each of them has advantages, but also disadvantages. None of them solve the tension between national codification and Europeanisation. It seems unlikely that private law will ever (again) be contained exclusively in one comprehensive code, either on the national or on the European level. The CFR will make a comprehensive national codification increasingly difficult to achieve, whereas a comprehensive European Civil Code that replaces national private law both lacks a legal basis and political support. Therefore, we will have to live with a two- (or multi-) level system of private law. As a result, the Dutch and other national legislators will have to revise their codification ideals.     

FIGHTING WITHOUT WEAPONS: PALESTINIAN DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Film production has for a long time been a prominent medium for Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation and create a cultural memory. Though there are some academic studies on the subject, a critical framework of analysis for such films remains underdeveloped. This article argues that Palestinian film production has surged particularly in recent years as part of an increasingly globalised dimension to Palestinian resistance, alongside such initiatives as the Electronic Intifada and the BDS movement. Early Zionist rhetoric asserted the non-existence (or invisibility) of Palestinians. Several decades later, when the Arab revolt was shut down, the Israeli official propaganda largely shifted to a discourse of “emergency”, which decontextualizes the anti-colonial nature of Palestinian resistance. The films 5 Broken Cameras (2011) and Private (2004) both engage with Israeli colonialism and the state of emergency by acting as tools of witnessing, laying bare the occupational strategies the Israelis use under emergency law and revealing the arbitrary nature of such practices as the Separation Wall. The films challenge Israeli authority through their depictions of predominantly non-violent forms of resistance, which counters their historically constructed invisibility as a people, as well as the colonialist narrative of “terrorism”. Non-violent resistance makes the recognition of Israeli authority problematic, as the settlers cannot use brute force to drive out the Palestinians if there is no documented incident in context to justify violence. Furthermore, the article argues that the form of the films – pseudo-documentary and especially “talking witness” documentary – enables their emotive content to reach out to an international audience, which could potentially respond. Thus, the films not only contain acts of resistance, but they significantly are tools of resistance in the conflict.     

A European Legal Method? On European Private Law and Scientific Method

This article examines the relationship between European private law and scientific method. It argues that a European legal method is a good idea. Not primarily because it will make European private law scholarship look more scientific, but because a debate on the method of a normative science necessarily has to be a debate on its normative assumptions. In other words, a debate on a European legal method will have much in common with the much desired debate on social justice in European law. Moreover, it submits that, at least after the adoption of the Common Frame of Reference by the European institutions, European contract law can be regarded as a developing multi-level system that can be studied from the inside. Finally, it concludes that the Europeanisation of private law is gradually blurring the dividing line between the internal and external perspectives, with their respective appropriate methods, in two mutually reinforcing ways. First, in the developing multi-level system it is unclear where the external borders of the system lie, in particular the borders between Community law and national law. Second, because of the less formal legal culture the (formerly) external perspectives, such as the economic perspective, have easier access and play an increasing role as policy considerations.