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Background The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH), and the European Union (EU) have encouraged countries to organize occupational health services (OHS) for all working people irrespective of the sector of economy, size of enterprise or mode of employment of the worker. The objective of this study was to survey the status of OHS in a sample of countries from all continents. Methods A questionnaire focusing on the main aspects of OHS was developed on the basis of ILO Convention No. 161 and several other questionnaire surveys used in various target groups of OHS. The questionnaire was sent to 58 key informants: ICOH National Secretaries. Results A total of 49 National Secretaries responded (response rate 84.5%), from countries that employ 70% of the total world labour force. The majority of the respondent countries, 67%, had drawn up an OHS policy and implement it with the help of national occupational safety and health (OSH) authorities, institutes of occupational health or respective bodies, universities, and professional associations. Multidisciplinary expert OHS resources were available in the majority (82%) of countries, but varied widely in quantitative terms. The average OHS coverage of workers was 24.8%, with wide variation between countries. In over two thirds (69%) of the countries, the content of services was mixed, consisting of preventive and curative services, and in 29% preventive only. OHS financing was organized according to a mixed model among 63% and by employers only among 33% of the respondents. Conclusions The majority of countries have drawn up policies, strategies and programmes for OHS. The infrastructures and institutional and human resources for the implementation of strategies, however, remain insufficient in the majority of countries (implementation gap). Qualitatively, the content and multidisciplinary nature of OHS corresponds to international guidance, but the coverage, comprehensiveness and content of services remain largely incomplete due to a lack of infrastructure and shortage of multiprofessional human resources (capacity gap). The estimated coverage of services in the study group was low; only a quarter of the total employed population (coverage gap).

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union, which became applicable in 2018, contains a new accountability principle. Under this principle, controllers (ie parties determining the purposes and the means of the processing of personal data) are responsible for ensuring and demonstrating the overall compliance with the GDPR. However, interpretive uncertainties of the GDPR mean that controllers must exercise considerable judgement in designing and implementing an appropriate compliance strategy, making GDPR compliance both complex and resource-intensive. In this article, we provide conceptual clarity around GDPR compliance with respect to one core aspect of the law: the determination and relevance of the purpose of personal data processing. We derive from the GDPR’s text concrete requirements for purpose specification, which we subsequently apply to the area of secondary use of personal data for scientific research. We offer guidance for correctly specifying purposes of data processing under different research scenarios. To illustrate the practical necessity of purpose specification for GDPR compliance, we then show how our proposed approach can enable controllers to meet their compliance obligations, using the example of the overarching GDPR principle of lawfulness to highlight the relevance of purpose specification for the identification of a suitable legal basis.

This article analyses the choice of legal basis for measures under the EU’s digital finance strategy. In this area, a new regulation has recently been introduced concerning markets in crypto-assets (MiCA). The package for a digital finance strategy also includes a Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) as well as a regulation on distributed ledger technology (DLT). All these measures are adopted on Article 114 TFEU as a single legal base, despite having a clear finance-related angle. Potential alternatives to Article 114 TFEU could be found in either the economic or the monetary policy area. Even more so, a digital competence is entirely missing from the treaties, and thus from EU competences. This article analyses the procedural and structural advantages of some provisions over others, which render them more suitable as legal basis in the Digital Single Market. In particular, the quasi-monopolistic role of Article 114 TFEU due to institutional preferences and the resulting pre-emption of other competenceshas to be criticised. The article suggests a revival of Article 352 TFEU as legal base in order to fill the digital gap in EU competences.

Watershed eco-compensation (WEC) is considered a significant environmental policy instrument for watershed ecological protection and management. However, in the legislation and practice of eco-compensation in China, the development of the WEC mechanism is still in the initial stages. In this paper, the institutional opportunities and challenges of WEC are analyzed from the existing policies, laws, and economical instruments. Theoretically, WEC in China has seen a combination of punitive-based “Watershed Ecological Damage Compensation (WEDC)” and incentive-based “Watershed Ecological Protective Compensation (WEPC)”. Through a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign watershed compensation practices, the results demonstrate that most of China’s WEC projects have an insufficient legal basis, a single compensatory subject, insufficient compensation funds, and an imperfect market-oriented compensation mechanism. To improve watershed eco-compensation in China, it is recommended to strengthen legislation, select diversified eco-compensation approaches, and establish a market-based and systematic eco-compensation mechanism for watersheds.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(2), 959-984 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. Background: setting CFSP/CSDP missions on migration. – III. CFSP/CSDP missions versus AFSJ instruments. – III.1. Competence question. – III.2. Institutional implications for decision–making procedures. – III.3. ECJ competences and judicial protection. – IV. The ECJ doctrine on the choice of the appropriate legal basis and the delimitation between CFSP and migration policy. – IV.1. Revisiting the ECJ doctrine on the choice of the appropriate legal basis. – IV.2. Applying the ECJ doctrine to CFSP/CSDP missions on migration. – IV.3. Alternatives to the “centre of gravity test”. – V. Conclusion. | (Abstract) The response of the EU’s external action to migration challenges is not limited to the use of its migration competences under Title V TFEU, but also extends to CFSP/CSDP instruments, governed by the TEU. As a further illustration of the securitisation approach evidenced in the EU’s management of migration, the Union deploys CSDP missions with components and objectives related to strengthening border controls, fighting human trafficking and migrant smuggling, and promoting third countries’ capacity-building in these purposes areas. Using CSDP instruments, mainly foreseen to preserve international security, for migration purposes touches upon the horizontal demarcation of EU competences and raises an essential question related to the choice of the correct legal basis in cross-Treaty cases, at a time in which the CFSP still presents some intergovernmental features. This Article firstly reviews the legal implications of the recourse to the CFSP instead of AFSJ instruments for migration purposes, addressing and comparing the competence question, decision-making and judicial protection in both policies. This shows how the increasing “normalisation” of the CFSP does not match yet the degree of integration of the AFSJ and its corresponding safeguards. Secondly, the ECJ doctrine on the choice of the appropriate legal basis and its “centre of gravity test” is revisited to clarify how its criteria apply to the linkages between CFSP and migration policy. Although a simultaneity of inextricably linked objectives complicates this cross-Treaty delimitation, a strict application of the “centre of gravity test”, by which a CFSP tool is instrumentalised to pursue an AFSJ objective, may provide the answer to this controversy

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(2), 507-525 | European Forum Insight of 25 July 2022 | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. The background. - III. The Court of Justice's judgments. - III.1. Legal basis. - III.2. The circumvention of Article 7 TEU. - III.3. Legal certainty. - IV. Bold but careful: On the Court's approach in the judgments. - IV.1. \"The European Union must be able to defend those values...\". - IV.2. \"...within the limits of its powers as laid down by the Treaties\". - V. Conclusion and the next steps. | (Abstract) In two parallel decisions delivered in February 2022, the Court of Justice has rejected the actions for annulment brought by Hungary and Poland against the new \"Budgetary Conditionality Regulation\". The Court has confirmed that the institutions used the correct legal basis (art. 322(1)(a) TFEU), that the Regulation does not circumvent the procedures of art. 7 TEU, and that it adequately guarantees legal certainty. The judgments of the Court use bold and explicit constitutional language, stating for example that the rule of law and art. 2 TEU values form the very identity of the Union. At the same time, the Court is much more careful when it analyses the more concrete questions on the legality of the Regulation. This shows the continuous mismatch between the constitutional relevance of the values of art. 2 TEU in the EU legal and political structure, and the concrete powers the EU and its institutions have to protect those values. Still very often, the institutions are forced to rely on indirect mechanisms to defend the values, as is the case with the Regulation under discussion, which is to be considered a budgetary tool rather than an explicit rule of law mechanism.

Trade and sustainable development (TSD) chapters so far included in EU free trade agreements (FTAs) have been considered to have a mere promotional aim. However, in 2022 the European Commission announced a new approach towards TSD chapters in FTAs. This new attitude raises doubts not only about the breadth of the scope of the common commercial policy (CCP), and so on the need for the new generation of TSD chapters to be grounded on an ad hoc legal basis, but also on the nature of the environmental component of TSD chapters’ provisions. The article concludes that the new approach towards TSD chapters seems to inaugurate an environmental conditionality policy, even if somehow ‘softened’.

This paper aims to answer the following research problem: what are the models of reasonable (proper) implementation of public expenditure arising from specific constitutional rules, and what are the standards for such spending? The authors present a thesis that the constitutional principle of legality, as well as the principle of public finance as a good which is protected constitutionally, sets general models, which consequently determine the standards of reasonable (proper) spending of public funds in the broad sense, i.e. in the context of legality and economy (purpose, economy, effectiveness and efficiency). Notably, these models and standards meet the postulate of complete financial control, i.e. at every stage of the budget procedure (budget design, planning and execution). The article uses so- called non-reactive research methods, based on the analysis of the content and availability of source information, i.e. theoretical and legal publications as well as legal regulations (especially constitutional ones) crucial from the point of view of the selected subject.

In the period of Austro-Hungarian occupation between 1878 and 1918, the City of Mostar had a process of intensive urbanization. In that period, newly arrived engineers (surveyors) transformed the pre-existing Eastern – Ottoman qasaba (provincial town) into a Central European city. This paper revealed four models of urbanization they used in planning. The first model was developed within the existing physical structure of the city through the first regulatory plan. The second model forms the new urban centre using the empty space within the old town. The third and the fourth models expand the city over the river. While the third model forms orthogonal urban blocks, the fourth is a construction of free-standing villas within the Neo-Baroque Square in which six radial streets inflow. The engineers who worked on the regulatory plans were also discovered and presented, as well as the legislative and legal framework within which all these processes took place.

The article considers the principal concerns posed by the increasing influence of social media and analyses the potential and actual legal bases relied upon by selected platforms for the processing of personal data. Special reference is made to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). The article concludes that the application of those legal bases may be questionable in certain situations and that platforms may struggle to achieve the transparency and proportionality required by applicable rules. Social Media, Data Protection, Legal Basis, GDPR