Almost fifty percent of all marriages in the western world end in divorce. That is one of the most important reasons why relationship therapist Susan Pease Gadoua and reporter Vicki Larson, the authors of the recently published book ‘The New “I Do”’ , argue that a marriage for life is an unrealistic and hopelessly outdated concept... This blog is only available in Dutch.
The European Union is a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is the first and, thus far, the only human rights treaty to which the EU is a party. In accordance with Article 35 of the Convention, the EU submitted its State report on the steps which has taken to implement the Convention last year. In April of this year, the Committee linked to the Convention responded by issuing the EU with a List of Issues – in essence a long list of questions relating to implementation of the Convention.
In his written answers to the European Parliament as well as orally during the hearing to establish his suitability to become first Vice-President of the European Commission, Commissioner Designate Frans Timmermans promises to ensure a common-sense test for all future legislation. I offer some legal reflections on this idea.
I am sure you have heard that the Bulgarian government built a fence on the Bulgarian – Turkish border and that the ‘refugee crisis’ put the national asylum system to the test. What about the Bulgarian integration policies? Did you know that currently refugees in Bulgaria face ‘zero’ integration support for a second year in a row due to an institutional ‘Ping-Pong’?
For those who have already looked into the programme, one first impression is that it is crazy short and jam-packed with contents (1 course per 4 weeks). And in being short, choosing your specialization for the second semester (February - June) means the pressure is on for some to make up their minds. On October 12th, just 6 weeks into the programme, we had our first information session for the various trajectories.
For a successful change-adventure you need the right people. You’ll have to build a real movement with them! To that end, a group or team of employees will have to take the lead in the change. We like to refer to this as the necessary coalition of change: a group of people with a shared belief that change is essential and with a willingness and ability to commit to it. It is of crucial importance that the management of the organization carefully shapes such a vanguard and provides it with authority and respect.
In 2011 the European Commission announced it would propose a “European Accessibility Act” in 2012. The “Act” was to be an EU instrument which would seek to ensure a free market in products and services which were accessible to people with disabilities.
On Saturday 16 of April an earthquake struck Ecuador. At 7.8 on the Richter scale, it levelled various towns of the province of Manabí, in particular Pedernales, Manta and Portoviejo. At current estimates, it has killed more than 500 persons. Many of them died a slow death, after days of being trapped in the rubble. Thousands are injured, and many are homeless and dispossessed. The whole extent of the damage can still not be reliably calculated.
The public-private divide is one of the 21st century’s flat earth theories. Its conceptions of private rights and obligations and limitations on state power are commonly used in corporate law, contract law and numerous other fields of legal, political, economic and other social scientific research. While scientific use of the public-private divide once had a useful function, its adoption is now unrealistic and harmful. In an era marked by the genesis, continuation and intensification of a wide variety of environmental, political and economic crises we can no longer afford to use this flawed assumption as a fixed frame of reference for positivist social scientific research. The public-private divide needs to be recognised as part of problem which must be studied.
Much has been written about the Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016 and the 52-48 result in favour of termination of the UK's membership of the EU... This blog is only available in Dutch.