The Legal Research Society

On Tuesday the 29th of January at 2pm Gerd Koehler will present "The regionalist Challenge to Supranationalism" in Taylor Building Room D48. The following is a description of Gerd's essay by Jo Shaw: The theme of the relations between the EU, the Member States and the regions is taken up again by Gerd Koehler. He identifies the risk that supranationalism, far from fostering regionalism, might also hinder its development. Taking a more EU-centric approach, Koehler submits the existing arrangements to a close legal analysis, identifying the difficulties for regions and substate nations when they raise claims to better representation and voice within the European Union political system. And below is Gerd's summary of the issues. Comments are welcome. The essay presents the inherent conflict between regionalism and the nature of the European Union as expressed in its structure. Both of the latter, nature and structure, have changed over time from an internatio

Gerd Koehler (left), a co-founder and executive member of the Legal Research Society, is one of the winners of the Treaty of Rome Conference Essay Competition that was run by the Europa Institute of the University of Edinburgh and funded by the European Parliament. Congratulations to Gerd on winning this prestigious award! The competition was part of a project to highlight the role of the European Parliament in the process of European integration in the context of the 50th Anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. The essay competition was followed by a major conference on 19 January 2008 at the Surgeons’ Hall complex in Edinburgh.

Conflictoflaws.net has introduced guest editorials from scholars and practitioners to be posted monthly in 2008. This is a welcome development and yet another great contribution of that website to private international law scholarship. Students the world over who attend universities that have limited library resources must be particularly thankful for the availability of quality scholarly work on the internet - I know I would have been in my undergrad years. The first guest editorial was posted last week: “Trust and Confidence in the European Community Supreme Court?” by Andrew Dickinson. Mr Dickinson makes a compelling case that the ECJ should be reformed in order to compensate for what he considers to be a gap in the court's expertise in the fields of private law and private international law.

The UK Government today officially invited private contractors to bid for the construction and operation of new nuclear power stations in the UK. Before the House of Commons, Business Secretary John Hutton today informed MPs that the government hopes for the first new nuclear power plant to be up and running before 2020. The Government’s plans are that private contractors will build and run the nuclear power stations without any public assistance in form of subsidies or other financial assistance. Instead, the Government plan to attract interest by smoothing the planning system, in order to make it easier to build the plants. The reasons behind the Government’s strong interest in nuclear power are to be found in the Government’s commitments to lowering emission of greenhouse gasses in order to curb global warming (nuclear power emits very little CO2) and rising electricity prices in the UK. However, the plans, which are supported by the Tories and opposed by the Liberal democrats, have

This week’s Economist has a very interesting article on what happens in Nigeria if your job description includes fighting corruption and you become a tad too good at it. The newspaper reports how Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in Nigeria, set up inter alia to fight corruption, was allegedly removed from his job because he started to show too much interest in close acquaintances of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Apparently Ribadu was investigating allegations of corruption against a former governor on whose political support President Yar’Adua depends in his own upcoming fight before an election tribunal where he faces accusation of vote rigging. The Economist reports how the EFCC is one of the most respected institutions in Nigeria and has helped installing international confidence in Nigeria. In a time when African countries in general lack international confidence and support, sacking the leader of one of the country’s most respected institution

The BBC yesterday reported that the UN is to forge ties with the comic book publisher Marvel in an attempt to improve the understanding and image of the organisation among, first of all, American school children. The idea is that Marvel will, free of charge, create a special issue of Spiderman, in which the bookish and timid Peter Parker will fight against the evils of the world alongside UN workers. Although the news will undoubtedly invite witty comparisons between Spiderman’s preferred weapons of webs and the UN’s bureaucracy, it has long been obvious that the perception of the UN in the US is one of scepticism. Thus, the need for image-improvement is perhaps stronger in the US than elsewhere – even if it mainly targets children (and other comic book readers). Such improvements can, hopefully, only add to the picture of an organisation, which’s image is arguably on the rising following the one year anniversary of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has helped stabilising the organisa