Saturday, November 27, 2021
The US State Department welcomes Radev's clarifying position on Crimea
The US State Department welcomes Radev's clarifying position on Crimea
This is a mockery, we are like herring in a barrel: chaos has begun at the airport of a popular resort
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Four days tied by his feet, hands, and torso to a stretcher, in Spain
EU-Africa partnership: Returning (to) cultural heritage
Faiths Working Together Set an Example for Multi-Cultural Harmony
No Time To Get Bored: An American Adventurer-Educator, Explorer, Business Executive, Diver, World Class Traveler
Spain will grant more Access to Official documents as it signed the CoE Tromsø Convention
Saturday, October 30, 2021
An overview of the European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is widely recognized as an important and effective international treaty for human rights protection. It has had an important role in the development and awareness raising of human rights in Europe. And it has had a significant influence on law making in most of the European countries. It is difficult to overstate its importance. Europe has in many aspects become a better place to live in the last half of a century, and the ECHR has played an important part in bringing this about.
Human rights were seen as a fundamental tool by the leading powers after the Second World War to prevent the most serious human rights violations which had occurred during the war from happening again.
The drafting of the first human rights instruments, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and subsequently the international human rights Covenant, had been initiated within the sphere of the United Nations shortly after the end of the Second World War. It however was progressing slowly, in part due to differing viewpoints on what human rights were or could be agreed upon. This may have been a strongly contributing factor that it was decided to push forward on the human rights agenda for Europe with and at the Congress of Europe held in May 1948.
A declaration and pledge to create a European Convention was issued at the Congress. The second and third Articles of the Pledge stated: “We desire a Charter of Human Rights guaranteeing liberty of thought, assembly and expression as well as right to form a political opposition. We desire a Court of Justice with adequate sanctions for the implementation of this Charter.”
In the summer of 1949, more than 100 parliamentarians from the then twelve member states of the Council of Europe met in Strasbourg for the first ever meeting of the Council’s Consultative Assembly (the assembly of parliamentarians, which today is known as the Parliamentary Assembly). They met to draft a “charter of human rights”, and secondly to establish a court to enforce it.
After extensive debates, the Assembly sent its final proposal to the Council’s decision-making body, the Committee of Ministers. The Ministers convened a group of experts to review and finalize the Convention itself.
The European Convention was discussed and its final text formulated by this expert group, which in part consisted of diplomats from the Ministries of the member states. They sought to incorporate a traditional civil liberties approach to securing “effective political democracy”, from the traditions in the United Kingdom, France and other member states of the newly formed Council of Europe.
The European Convention on Human Rights was opened for signature on 4 November 1950 in Rome, and entered into force on 3rd September 1953.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
The seriousness of squatting in Spain
Squatting is a serious problem that is gaining more and more strength and involving more and more political and social actors, becoming a daily space in the media, causing tension and indignation in all citizens. For those who admit them and, in some cases, promote them, I say to them that “Serious is only one squatting”.
Faced with an unspoken crime, there are no effective measures to tackle the problem, on the contrary, squatters seem to go unpunished and are increasingly defiant before the Law and Society, because they frequently find that this antisocial and unlawful conduct goes unpunished. The law today leaves property owners unprotected and the State Security Forces without legal cover to protect private property. The measures adopted in recent years to alleviate this situation have been manifestly ineffective, so alternatives must be sought so that property owners are not dispossessed of their property with impunity.
“The right to property is a constitutionally recognised right” and enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights. We all have the right to enjoy our property and no one can prevent us from doing so, except by means of the law. Squatting should be typified criminally as “permanent robbery” and would give the Public Forces the power to automatically expel the squatters without the need for a court order, but putting them at the disposal of a judge once expelled from the squatted property, with a prison sentence and automatic suspension of all social benefits received and if there are minor children that they pass their protection to the social services.
On the other hand, the squatter is a criminal and cannot use the principle of the inviolability of the home as his right to stay in the squatted property. From the moment he is outside the law, the squatter cannot use it as he pleases by claiming that housing is a fundamental right; this argument cannot be used in illegality, as the Constitutional Court has declared. In a state governed by the rule of law, the right of the one who violates and abuses it cannot prevail.
When a squatting is detected and reported, the police must immediately proceed to evict them, for which the law must make it clear that a squatter does not acquire the right to be in the squatted dwelling at any time, which is why it must be urgently typified as a crime of “permanent theft” if at some point they have managed to register, sometimes favoured by the administration itself, either by registering them with the utilities, etc. Once the squatting is known and denounced, these benefits are automatically eliminated for having acquired them by fraud of the Law, where the police are legitimised to evict the friends of others without the need for a judicial order.
A legislative reform is urgently needed to define the squatting of a house, whoever it belongs to, as a permanent theft and to speed up the eviction by the Security Forces as soon as they become aware of the squatted property. Defining squatting as robbery, given the magnitude of the stolen property, should be punished with prison, it is necessary to ensure the enforcement of sentences, on the other hand, the offender will lose official aid and subsidies and will not be able to aspire to the benefit of official housing. If we reward the crime of squatting with subsidised housing, we do a tremendous injustice to the people who use the legal path to aspire to official aid and benefits. The squatter must be clear that this is not a solution or a shortcut to get housing, the path of crime will only lead him to prison.
A social problem is added to a squat: deterioration of neighbourhood coexistence, tension and insecurity, we have to face it, because every day we see more violent reactions in the neighbourhoods and neighbours who try to take justice into their own hands, which leads to a notable insecurity and degradation of the quality of life of a community, on the other hand, the guarantee laws on the theft of property go against coexistence and social justice.
“A crime without punishment and penalty would be to allow and tolerate it” and would represent a great offence to coexistence. A government that allows injustice is a harmful and dangerous government for society.
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Liberia's Commerce Minister Diggs Outlines country's Post WTO Accession Progress.
Commerce Minister Diggs Addresses 62nd Series of Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Outlines Liberia’s Post WTO Accession Progress.
Geneva, October 5, 2021: The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Hon Mawine G. Diggs has addressed the World Trade Organization high-level panel chaired by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Director-General) and the 62nd assemblies of Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva respectively. The Minister gave the State of Play and reflection on the five years of Liberia’s WTO membership including recent economic Developments and performance since our accession as a member of the World Trade Organization and recommitted Liberia’s to the global effort for the protection and promotion of Intellectual Property.
Addressing the Launch Study of Liberia’s Five years of WTO membership, Minister Diggs disclosed that Liberia’s path to the WTO membership was not an easy road before becoming a model for others. She, however, pointed out that bearing in mind the potential benefits of WTO membership, including increased investment inflows, the Government saw a huge potential to integrate the multilateral trade system, and to return Liberia to the position it once had as a country.
The Hon. Minister of commerce further gave some practical actions being taken by the Republic of Liberia under the leadership of H.E George Manneh Weah. According to the Honorable Minister, the practical actions include the single window endeavor at the Freeport of Monrovia undertaking large-scale accession commitments and implementing the WTO Post-Accession Implementation Plan aimed at continuing with the reforms and transformation in critical areas such as tariff regulation, trade facilitation, taxation, Technical Barriers to Trade and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, economic diversification and many others. Madam Minister reaffirmed Liberia’s commitment to the World Trade Organization and the multilateral trade system.
For her Part, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala congratulated Liberia for the milestone achievement and extended greetings to H.E President George M. Weah and the government of Liberia for the ratification of the trade facilitation agreement (TFA). Madam Okonjo-Iweale asserted that the Liberian model is which was the first of its kind, is history and sets a ‘’new standard for LDC accession. She, however, re-affirmed WTO’s support to Liberia through all necessary assistance as much as possible.
Speaking at the WIPO Assembly, Madam Diggs said Liberia has made significant strides through the development of a balanced and effective structure that enables innovation and creativity for patents, copyrights, and trademarks where people earn recognition for what they invent or create. She told the body that Liberia is a member and signatory of several international IP conventions which speaks to the country’s commitment to the protection of Intellectual property worldwide through a collective global effort.
On the margin of the multilateral engagements, The Minister held bilateral talks with Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Sziijarto where the discussion centered around enhancing corporation through trade between the two countries in the areas of Information Technology, energy, and water.
As head of the delegation, Minister Diggs is accompanied by Charge’ d’ Affaires (en pied), Liberia Permanent Mission to the United Nation Office and Multiple International Organizations, Mr. Paul W. Tate, Aderline Cooper, Director- General Liberia Intellectual Property, Minister Counselor/Public Affairs to the European Union, Senve D. Tehmeh, Abraham Kamara, Second Secretary, Liberia Permanent Mission to Geneva and Madam Esther Tolbert Chief of Staff (Office of the Minister of the Commerce).
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