Keres
Revision of the Flag State Requirements Directive
On 1 June 2023, the European Commission presented a maritime safety package, including a proposal on a revised directive for compliance with flag state requirements. Revision of the rules is needed to take account of digitalisation, improve inspections and cooperation between flag states, and align with international rules on safety, pollution prevention, and working conditions, through inspections and surveys. This is to ensure EU flag states discharge their international law obligations. The proposal ...
Revision of the Directive on Ship-source Pollution
On 1 June 2023, the European Commission presented a legislative package to modernise and reinforce maritime rules on safety and pollution prevention. It contained proposals for the revision of five legislative acts, including the Directive on Ship-source Pollution. The aim is to combat pollution from maritime ships, thereby preventing all ship-owners and operators, regardless of the ship's flag, from releasing any type of illegal discharge into European seas, in line with International Maritime Organization ...
Armed conflict: A glossary of terms
Drawing on authoritative sources, this glossary offers an overview of common terms used in discussing situations of armed conflict.
World AIDS Day 2023: 1 December
World AIDS Day, proclaimed by the United Nations in 1988, takes place each year on 1 December. The aim is to raise awareness, fight prejudice, encourage progress in prevention, and improve treatment around the world. Although infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is preventable, significant HIV transmission remains a challenge to EU Member States' health systems. This year's theme 'Let communities lead!' underlines the importance of communities living with, at risk of, or affected ...
The social impact of public procurement - Can the EU do more?
The aim of this study is to present the possibilities offered by Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement for the achievement of social goals and to analyse how these possibilities have been transposed into national law and implemented by contracting authorities across the EU. Another aim is to identify obstacles to the use of existing provisions and make recommendations with regards to possible future EU action.
World Mental Health Day 2023: 10 October
The purpose of World Mental Health Day is to improve knowledge, raise awareness and mobilise efforts in support of mental health around the world. This year's theme, 'Mental health is a universal human right', underlines that a mental health condition should never be a reason to deprive a person of their human rights.
The concept of 'climate refugee': Towards a possible definition
According to recent statistics published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, over 376 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced by floods, windstorms, earthquakes or droughts since 2008, with a record 32.6 million in 2022 alone. Since 2020, there has been an annual increase in the total number of displaced people due to disaster compared with the previous decade of 41 % on average. The upward trend is alarmingly clear. With climate change as the driving catalyst, the ...
78th session of the UN General Assembly, New York, 18-22 September 2023
World leaders gathered for the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, at a time of rising geopolitical tensions, including an ongoing war of aggression, military conflicts, coup d'états in western Africa, accelerating climate change crisis, food insecurity, widening inequality and sustainable development concerns. Against the backdrop in the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the theme chosen for this year's general debate, marking ...
Reporting on SDG implementation: UN mechanisms and the EU approach
Adopted in 2015 by the United Nations (UN), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – 'the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all' – clearly links 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to a series of targets to be reached by 2030. The 2030 Agenda includes a detailed mechanism for monitoring progress towards these targets. At its core are a number of quantified indicators for each target, which are regularly revised by the UN and other international agencies. These ...
Sovereign states, as the primary subjects of public international law, voluntarily enter into treaties (international agreements) creating international organisations, as the secondary subjects of public international law. According to a long-standing and well-established principle of public international law, known by the Latin maxim of pacta sunt servanda, states are obliged to abide by the agreements to which they commit. This principle is enshrined in Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the ...