District Court of The Hague, 24 June 2015, The Urgenda Foundation v. The Netherlands, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2015:7145

The Dutch State has to ensure that the Dutch emissions in the year 2020 will be at least 25% lower than those in 1990.

The parties agree that the severity and scope of the climate problem make it necessary to take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the State's current policy, the Netherlands will achieve a reduction of 17% at most in 2020, which is below the norm of 25% to 40% for developed countries deemed necessary in climate science and international climate policy.

With this order, the court has not entered the domain of politics. The court must provide legal protection, also in cases against the government, while respecting the government's scope for policymaking. For these reasons, the court should exercise restraint and has limited therefore the reduction order to 25%, the lower limit of the 25%-40% norm.

This study focuses on the dispute over Korea’s import bans and the additional testing and certification requirements for Japanese foods and analyses the relevant findings of the reports of the Panel and the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organisation’s dispute settlement mechanism (DSM). Although the Panel had found that Korea’s measures were inconsistent with the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), the Appellate Body reversed most of these findings. Korea notified that it had completed the implementation of the reports of the Panel and the Appellate Body. However, the DSM has failed to contribute in settling this dispute positively and meaningfully, since it remains uncertain whether Korea’s import bans are based on scientific principles. Furthermore, the Appellate Body failed to complete its legal analysis of the inconsistency of Korea’s measures based on fact-findings and the facts uncontested between both disputing parties.

Most European countries’ constitutional obligations guarantee and protect public security and fundamental rights. One aspect and often a prerequisite for the protection of public security and individual rights is the protection of critical infrastructure (CIP). CIP is of great importance in Switzerland, which is inevitable in an economically and technologically sophisticated and densely populated country.

The global obesity epidemic was in focus at the 7th Summer Academy on Global Food Law and Policy in Gexco/Bilbao in July 2015. It approached this accelerating public health concern from the angle of risk regulations as linked to processing, trade, marketing and choice/consumption of foodstuffs, addressing also risks of negative impacts on public health at the consumer end. A wealth of expertise enlightened participants about current developments regarding EU and US legislation on risk assessments and risk management.

“The Court considers that the Commission should give due consideration to the principles of clarity of objectives, simplification, realism, transparency and accountability when designing new and revising existing interventions.”

No matter how good a smart device may be, it remains useless outside the context of a digital ecosystem. Internet of Things (IoT) environments are possible as long as services and products can interconnect smoothly and exchange data in real time. Therefore, interoperability ranks high in global policy agendas, with the promise of bringing an end to network effects slanted in favour of ecosystem orchestrators. However, recent regulatory initiatives introducing interoperability obligations risk falling short of their intent or even risk generating unintended consequences in the absence of a coherent approach to standardisation. Against this backdrop, focusing on the UK Open Banking experience, this article makes a proposal for workable interoperability in IoT ecosystems aimed at ensuring market contestability without undermining incentives to innovate.