Narrow Results

This paper analyses forced labour and human trafficking laws from the UK and the Saudi Arabian perspective. It begins with a discussion of the characteristics of human trafficking and the legal frameworks adopted by transnational and trans-regional bodies to restrict human trafficking. Next, the paper analyses the legal instruments in the UK and Saudi Arabia for the protection of victims of trafficking, and finally it provides a critical commentary on forced labour and the international and national legal instruments for preventing this. This examination of both states' efforts to identify the weaknesses and strengths of each, and in particular to address the weaknesses in the Saudi system as compared to the UK system, is the main purpose of this paper. Saudi Arabia can improve its ranking from Tier 3 to Tier 2 (United States Department of State, 2002) if reforms are introduced in the legislation and enforcement domains. (Tier 1 means ‘countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA's [Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000] minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking’; Tier 2 means ‘countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards’; and Tier 3 means ‘countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so’.) The anti-trafficking laws are also improving in Saudi Arabia, with an emphasis on the role of the law enforcement agencies in preventing the occurrence of trafficking across Saudi borders.

Plant pathogens are microorganisms, such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi, native to specific geographical regions. Since development, globalisation, import/export, and travel across continents increased exponentially, these pathogens taken advantage of these additional opportunities to reach new habitats and affect the ecosystem, with severe consequences. These species are invasive pathogens and cause serious environmental, economic, and social threats to existing ecosystems. These invasive species have the potential to affect both wild and managed landscapes and deteriorate healthy ecosystems that are is vital to native plants, animals, and human life as well. These exotic and invasive species modulate the endemic structure and processes of introduced communities. In some other cases, invasive species may interrupt or alter the existing beneficial interaction mechanisms among native species, creating a severe ecological imbalance that can push native species toward the endangered species category or even in some cases to extinction. Considering the potential threat, the European Union (EU) drew up a list of 20 top-priority invasive species as quarantine pests based on the potential harm they can create. The current chapter discusses invasive plant pathogens, their modes of infestation, and their potential impacts on fruit crops in EU member states.

One of the most widely noted and counter-intuitive features of the contemporary ‘global’ era is that it has a distinctly regional flavour. While the recognition of the importance of regional processes is important and welcome, analyses have tended to focus on intra-regional economic and political integration. Less attention has been paid the larger historical and geopolitical contexts within which regional processes occur. There are even fewer considerations of comparative regionalism, especially with an explicit historical dimension. At a time when regional processes remain an important component of the international order this is a significant lacunae. It is the central contention of this essay that such an historically-informed comparative analysis not only throws a revealing comparative light on the dynamics that underpin regional processes, but it also highlights another crucial, but oddly neglected variable in regional phenomena: the role of the dominant or hegemonic power of the era…

This chapter reviews the role of technology in regional integration and of regional integration in the development of technologies. Trends are noted in the use of technology to overcome trade barriers, while technologies of exclusion also persist. The chapter also reviews the determinants and the limits of regional cooperation on AI development such as has been seen with the countries of the European Union and extract theoretical insights from these early patterns (particularly neofunctionalism), while also taking stock of the potential limits of the extent to which this model can be applied on a more global scale. We also consider the potential role of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in global integration while noting controversies surrounding it.

The European Union (EU) has tasked itself to make Europe the first climate neutral continent in the world. In December 2019, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal committing to climate neutrality by 2050, with the objective of transforming itself from a high to a low-carbon economy, without reducing prosperity while simultaneously improving people’s quality of life, through better health and cleaner air and water. The EU however also believes that climate change must be addressed by a global response and thus, actively engages and supports its international partners in climate action, in particular through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. This chapter examines various relevant elements and legislations encompassed within the European Green Deal aimed at guiding and ensuring this transformational change. It contends that as a global climate leader, the EU must also make every effort to reassure countries in the Global South that its efforts at this ambitious green transition will be inclusive. A strong framework for doing this is through the Global Gateway, which was already announced in late 2021. If the Global Gateway project succeeds, this will be a major climate changer for the world.

In this chapter, we employ data from a panel consisting of 28 European Union (EU) member countries over the period 1990–2020 to examine the validity of the famous Feldstein– Horioka (F–H) puzzle. Despite many criticisms, the F–H saving–investment correlation hypothesis is still used in the literature to infer the degree of capital mobility among countries. To this end, we apply a battery of panel unit root and cointegration tests. The finding of the presence of cointegration of the savings and investment ratios and the observed magnitude of the estimated average saving-retention coefficient for the panel reveal that for this panel of EU member countries, the F–H puzzle is not valid and the long-run international solvency condition is maintained in most of these countries. The observed low saving-retention coefficients for these countries imply a moderate degree of capital mobility and the absence of the F–H puzzle. This finding of the prevalence of a moderate degree of capital mobility is consistent with the macroeconomic experience of these countries during the period under investigation.

Credit rating agencies are being widely criticized because the lack of transparency in their rating procedures and the huge impact of the ratings they disclose, mainly their sovereign credit ratings. However the rationale seems to be that although credit ratings have performed worse than their aim, they are still the best available solution to provide financial markets with the information that their participants base their decisions on. This research work proposes a neural network system that simulates the sovereign credit ratings provided by two of the most important international agencies. Results indicate that the proposed system, based on a three layers structure of feed-forward neural networks, can model the agencies’ sovereign credit ratings with a high accuracy rate, using a reduced set of publicly available economic data. The proposed model can be further developed in order to extent the use of neural networks to model other ratings, create new ratings with specific purposes, or forecast future ratings of credit rating agencies.

With a CGE model, we quantify the impact of the Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union (EU). Since the average tariff on non-agricultural imports will be less than 2 percent, the trade diversion costs of the Customs Union are quite small. Improved access to third country markets (through reciprocal preferential access agreements of the EU) results in the largest gains from the Customs Union, estimated overall to be about 1–1.5 percent of Turkish GOP. Applying the VAT uniformly (rather than raising it to compensate for the tariff revenue loss) will increase the welfare gain from joining the EU.

The chapter offers an insight into possible relations between open innovation and territory. While open innovation aims at benefiting of opening the innovation funnel and participating in business ecosystems, territorial (regional) studies and policies stress the role of tangible and intangible resources and ties available in geographical proximity. Both streams, anyway, use a similar toolkit related to knowledge and innovation management. Besides the theoretical framework, some practical examples of open innovation related territorially-bound initiatives are presented in the chapter. Afterwards an outlook on open innovation in territorial policies in Europe is provided.

Spain and Portugal have established cooperation mechanisms to manage their shared water resources in order to avoid any potential conflict. Cooperation is clearly reflected in the 1998 Albufeira Convention, which provides a legal framework to regulate all transboundary basins between both countries to protect surface water and groundwater, as well as the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems that depend on them for the sustainable use of water resources. The 1998 Albufeira Convention establishes as one of the uses of the Tagus Basin Gthe transfer of water interbasin such as the Aqueduct Tagus-Segura (ATS). According to this Convention, the management of water uses and the right to use water shall be addressed to guarantee the sustainable use of water that is already established. The ATS is a use guaranteed and protected under international water law. The analysis of the ATS in the context of the international legislation to mitigate water scarcity, and droughts provides the strategies to promote resilience to climate change and the impacts of drought conditions in the society in a sustainable manner while ensuring the fundamental rights.