Lex ET Scientia International Journal

We continue to disseminate important scientific events that are organised in the legal world, and we present to you today the 2024 JAEL Environmental Protection Conference organised by the Central European Academy in Budapest.

For this special event, organised in the context of the Hungarian Presidency of the European Environment Council in 2024, several speakers from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia came to Budapest and presented the challenges for 2024 environmental protection, with focus on issues of illegal waste disposal and the regulatory issues of circular economy. The partners of the event were the Faculty of Law of the University of Mislolc (long-term partner of the “Nicolae Titulescu” University), the Central European Association for Comparative Law, the Hungarian Association for Agricultural Law.

Our colleague, Assistant Editor of LESIJ, Mrs. Laura Spataru-Negura, was present there in Budapest and discussed about the challenges of the Romanian deposit return system. For further information on this conference and for the official photos, please see the website of the Central European Academy – 2024 JAEL környezetvédelmi konferencia | CEA, and for the papers presented and published, please see the  Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Law.

The University of “Nicolae Titulescu” is very happy to disseminate the event organized on 20-21 September 2024, in the framework of the 10^th anniversary of RACSE/ANESC, where Milan and Bergamo were the hosts of the Conference entitled The European Social Charter Through the Lens of the National Legal Systems, co-organised by Universita Degli Studi di Milano and Universita Degli Studi di Bergamo, and RACSE/ANESC (member of OCEAN).

For this special event, 14 speakers from France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain, presented the specificities of the European Social Charter, how the national legal systems reflect the provisions of this regional instrument and how it is applied in practice by the national courts of law and by the constitutional courts.

The Council of Europe was represented to this Conference by Professor Kristine Dupate, General Rapporteur of the European Committee of Social Rights, who gave a lecture on the topic The ECSR’s View of the Effectiveness and Binding Force of the European Social Charter and the Committee’s Pronouncement’s in National Legal Systems, and by Ph.D. Gioia Scappucci, from the Secretariat of the Council of Europe, who gave a lecture on the topic The Monitoring Mechanism and Follow-Up to Conclusions and Decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights.

The RACSE/ANESC was represented by its General Coordinator, Professor Cristina Samboan (University of Artifex, Bucharest), and its Honnorary General Coordinators, Professor Jean-François Akandji-Kombé (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Professor Giovanni Guiglia (Università di Verona).

Additionally, other active members of the RACSE/ANESC were present to this Conference –in an alphabetical order – Professors Stefano Angeleri (University of Limerick), Silvia Borelli (Università di Ferrara), Catarina Santos Botelho (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Porto), Anna-Maria Konsta (Aristotle University, Thessaloniki), Benedetta Liberali (Università di Milano), Lorenza Mola (Università di Torino), Carole Nivard (Université de Rouen, Normandie), Fabrizio Proietti (Università di Roma La Sapienza), Laura-Cristiana Spataru-Negura (University of “Nicolae Titulescu” Bucharest, in her capacity of Deputy Secretary of RACSE/ANESC).

To the conference works have also participated, physically or online, Professor Chiara Amalfitano (Head of the Department of Italian and Supranational Public Law at the University of Milano), Prof. Francisco Balaguer Callejón (Universidad de Granada), Professor Corrado Del Bò (Head of the Department of Law at the University of Bergamo), Ph.D. Filippo Croci (Università di Milano), Attorney-at-law Antonino La Lumia (President of the Milano Bar Association), Attorney-at-law Marco Zambelli (Vice-president of the Bergamo Bar Association), and other participants.

For further information, please see the websites of RACSE/ANESC (https://www.racse-anesc.org/en/the-european-social-charter-through-the-lens-of-the-national-legal-systems/), and of Council of Europe (https://www.coe.int/en/web/open-academic-networks/-/post-conference-impressions-the-european-social-charter-through-the-lens-of-the-national-legal-systems).

The “Nicolae Titulescu” University from Bucharest, alongside the “Nicolae Titulescu” Law and International Relations Foundation, is responsable for organizing the international conference “CKS – Challenges of the Knowledge Society”, an event dedicated to scientific research in the field of social sciences that dates back to 2007. During previous editions, this conference has given the opportunity of meeting numerous researchers from both Romania and abroad (Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, Macedonia, Croatia, USA, Japan, Finland, Georgia, China, India, Pakistan , Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Serbia, Kosovo, Indonesia, Hong Kong, etc.). The areas of interest of CKS are: legal sciences, economic sciences, public administration, political sciences, European studies, and international relations. These represent fields of study in which the “Nicolae Titulescu” University provides bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs through its three accredited faculties.

The scientific contributions entered in each edition of CKS, once the evaluation procedure by the annually constituted scientific committee has been completed, are published in the volume of the conference, CKS Journal – an online academic magazine. Starting with the 5th edition of CKS, the proceedings of the Conference have the status of a magazine, published annually, currently being indexed in five international databases: EBSCO-CEEAS Database, DOAJ and Index Copernicus, ProQuest and Ulrich’s.
For more details, please feel free to visit the following link: http://cks.univnt.ro/cks_2024.html.

Violence takes many forms, from the verbal to the physical and mental, invariably creating an injury to the victim’s physical or mental integrity, possibly even affecting their freedom.

For reasons of criminal policy and alignment with the needs of society, a new law on the protection of victims will produce its effects starting from 31.08.2024, once it enters into force. This new law, 26/2024 on the protection order, will replace the current regulation still in force, Law no. 217/2003 for preventing and combating domestic violence. From the beginning we notice that the new regulation is much more applied and related to the danger of any person being in concrete danger, given the wide appreciation of the legislator on the variety of social relations that a citizen develops in the community of which he is a part.

Starting from the right to life regulated not only by the Romanian Constitution, but also by all other international instruments for its recognition, it was necessary to introduce a new regulation, adapted to the needs of each individual, the state being the one that gives him viable protection. In this sense, the new Law 26/2024 is structured in 4 chapters, the first defining the notion of acts of violence and family member, the second and third concretely describing the procedure for issuing the provisional protection order, respectively protection order, the fourth chapter containing final and transitional provisions. In the appendices section, we note the requests regarding the issuance of the provisional protection order, as well as the protection order with the protection measures that can be requested by the victim, they contain extensive information that will be provided by the applicant.

For a complete study, this new Law no. 26/2024, can be identified in the Official Gazette no. 172 of March 4, 2024.

On 8 March 2024, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, D.C., an international jurisdiction created by the World Bank, notified the arbitral award in the above-mentioned arbitration case, according to which Romania won the case. According to the award, the claimants Gabriel Resources Ltd. and Gabriel Resources (Jersey) were ordered to reimburse Romania for the costs of the arbitration proceedings.

The judgment is final, but within 120 days from the date of communication of the judgment, an action for annulment may be brought, in which case another arbitral tribunal will be constituted.

According to Art. 52 para. (1) of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States, any party to the arbitration may request in writing, to the Secretary-General, the annulment of the award on one of the following grounds:

a) the tribunal was not properly constituted;

b) the Tribunal has manifestly exceeded its powers;

c) there was corruption on the part of a member of the tribunal;

d) there has been a serious departure from a fundamental rule of procedure; or

e) the award has failed to state the reasons on which it is based.

The arbitral tribunal was composed of Prof. Pierre Tercier (President of the Tribunal), Dr. Horacio A. Grigera Naón and Prof. Zachary Douglas.

The arbitral proceedings were initiated by Gabriel Resources in July 2015, with the statement of claim alleging that Romania had breached the Canada-Romania bilateral investment treaty and the UK-Romania bilateral investment treaty, including the obligation not to expropriate investments without compensation.

For these reasons, Gabriel Resources requested that Romania pay a total of approximately USD 6.7 billion, including interest.

In its defense, Romania argued that Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (a consortium between Gabriel Resources and the Romanian state-owned company Minvest) failed to meet the permitting requirements, largely as a result of its failure to obtain a social licence for the mining project.

In reaching this ruling, the Arbitral Tribunal took into account the environmental, social, cultural and economic challenges faced by the mining project, finding that the Romanian authorities had “fulfilled their regulatory mandate to the best of their ability in these difficult circumstances”.

We note that the arbitral award will be available on the website of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes at the World Bank (ICSID) as soon as the confidential information is anonymised in the award.

Romania was represented in this arbitration case by the consortium of law firms LALIVE Geneva and Leaua Damcali Deaconu Păunescu (LDDP).

For more information, see: https://icsid.worldbank.org/cases/case-database/case-detail?CaseNo=ARB/15/31.

On the occasion of the approaching Easter Holidays, LESIJ team wants to convey to the members of the Scientific Editorial Board, of the Editorial Review Board, and also, last but not least, to the Authors, who regularly contribute to the publication of the magazine, wishes of well-being, health and harmony on all levels, without which no project could be realized!

Happy Holidays!

Dear Contributors,
Dear Members of the Editorial Board,

 Another year comes to a close, and we would like to thank all of our contributors and reviewers for their hard work and dedication.

 As we look back upon the past year, we would like to acknowledge those who have helped us shape LESIJ – Lex ET Scientia International Journal in 2022. It’s been quite a year for all of us, especially after the restrictions of COVID-19 pandemic.

 In 2022 have received so many studies for publication, and we were happy to publish certain of them in both numbers of LESIJ – Lex ET Scientia International Journal.

 We have started 2022 by presenting on one side, innovative digital tools for judicial cooperation across the EU which may change the classical models of court administration. Sensitive issues about human rights have also been analysed into the pages of the 2022 journal – for example medically assisted suicide, discrimination, freedom of conscience, opinion and freedom of religion beliefs.

 Foreign authors have contributed with themes analysing the contract law in comparison of Hungarian and Canadian law, and the labour migration in Germany.

 The year 2023 brings with it new resolutions and goals. May you push your boundaries, realize your dreams, and rediscover your inner strength. Best wishes and blessings for 2023! May the holiday spirit be with you and your family throughout the New Year.

 Yours truly,
 The Editorial Team

Dear Authors,

Dear Members of the Editorial Board,

As we look back upon the past year, we would like to acknowledge those who have helped us shape LESIJ – Lex ET Scientia International Journal in 2020. It’s been quite a year for us all, especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic!

Thanks for a great year, and we wish you all the best as you embark on the new year ahead. We look forward to working with you in the years to come.

Although fear and anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic is overwhelming and is causing strong emotions in all of us, we wish you a Happy Holiday and a joyful New Year. May the holiday spirit be with you and your family throughout the New Year.

Yours truly,

Mr. Mircea DAMASCHIN
Editor of LESIJ
Calea Vacaresti no. 185, District 4, Bucharest, Romania
E-mail: mirceadamaschin@univnt.ro
Phone: 0040.21.330.90.32

Mrs. Laura SPATARU-NEGURA
Assistant Editor of LESIJ
Calea Vacaresti no. 185, District 4, Bucharest, Romania
E-mail: negura_laura@yahoo.com
Phone: 0040.722.57.02.01