Regulating Genetically Modified Organisms in Ireland – Laissez faire approach?

This chapter examines the legal framework applicable to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Ireland, bearing in mind the limited presence of GMOs. As a member of the European Union (EU), a specific, process-based regime applies regarding the authorisation and regulation of GMOs. This is intended to ensure a high level of environmental and human health protection and also enable producer and consumer choice. This regime is highly harmonized, but allows some flexibility regarding its implementation and, soon, the potential to opt-out from cultivation in part or entirely. Although, Ireland has only legislated on the area to the extent and in the manner required by the EU, it may avail of the opt-out in future – understandable in light of the lack of any cultivation currently and the green image of Ireland.
Complementary horizontal legislation and common law principles, relevant to labelling and varying forms of liability, deal with most issues that might arise quite comprehensively. However, they are quite complicated, overlapping and untailored and it is worth considering whether specific legislation should be developed to deal with liability related to GMOs.
Overall, Ireland holds varying stances to different forms of GMOs, with the greatest acceptance and use of GM-feed for pragmatic reasons. It has not developed a specific Irish approach, copy-pasting EU legislation and relying upon existing law to deal with any issues. This is understandable in light of the high level of harmonization and limited presence of GMOs in Ireland, but nonetheless will need to be developed as the availability of GMOs increases.

The 'Ordinariness of the EU's Foreign Policy Power: The Use of WTO Litigation as a Means to Export EU Norms, Values and Interests

The EU has historically been portrayed as a distinctive international actor both in terms of the norms and values it exports in context of its international relations and the manner in which it seeks to influence others. However, such claims to the EU’s distinctiveness are increasingly being questioned. This article joins this chorus of voices arguing the non-distinctiveness of the EU’s foreign policy power by focusing on a specific feature of the EU’s external trade policy, the role of World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement in the EU’s attempts to promote its interests, values and norms.

The Intersection of Religious Autonomy and Religious Symbols: Setting the Stage

Two sets of issues in the area of law and religion have generated a large share of attention and controversy across a wide number of countries and jurisdictions in recent years. The first set of issues relates to the autonomy of churches and other religiously affiliated entities such as schools and social service organisations in their hiring and personnel decisions, involving the question of how far, if at all, such entities should be free from the influence and oversight of the state. The second set of issues involves the presence of religious symbols in the public sphere, such as in state schools or on public lands, involving the question of how far the state should be free from the influence of religion. Although these issues – freedom of religion from the state, and freedom of the state from religion – could be viewed as opposite sides of the same coin, they are almost always treated as separate lines of inquiry, and the implications of each for the other have not been the subject of much scrutiny. In this Introduction, we consider whether insights might be drawn from thinking about these issues both from a comparative law perspective and also from considering these two lines of cases together.

Victims, Violence and Voice: Transitional Justice, Oral History and Dealing with the Past

Transitional justice is concerned with the legal and social processes established to deal with the legacy of violence in post-conflict and post-authoritarian contexts. These processes are essentially “creatures of law” – they are established by statute, their work is molded and shaped by lawyers, and their outcomes are benchmarked against what is or is not acceptable in domestic and international law. Concerns have mounted in recent years about the dominance of legalism within the field and the instrumentalization of those most directly affected by past violence. A commonly prescribed – but as yet largely empirically untested – corrective is that transitional justice theory and practice must become more open to interdisciplinary insights and perspectives. The interview – in different guises, contexts and settings – is at the heart of most transitional justice processes. As a historian now working in a School of Law I reflect in this article on the theoretical and practical intersections between law, history, and the interview. Drawing on more than 200 interviews concerning the Northern Ireland conflict and six other international case studies I concentrate in particular on interview-based initiatives that purport to be “victim-centered”. Having identified three interrelated risks - the manipulation of victim voice by vested interests, the affording of authority to particular voices, and the reification or “freezing” of identity - and having related these to the constraints of legal mechanisms and a wider failure to manage victims’ expectations, I argue that a greater familiarity with oral history theory and praxis can usefully illuminate the tensions between legal and historical approaches to engaging voice, and ultimately offer guidance to the shared challenge of victim-centered transitional justice.

How could Human Rights Law be used by the Courts to assist Victims of Domestic Violence? A Comparative Study

It has been increasingly recognised in recent years that domestic violence constitutes a human rights issue. This article seeks to shed light on the question of how human rights law may be used in the area of domestic violence through the medium of a litigation strategy. The method used is a comparative assessment of the approaches taken towards gender issues by the Constitutional Courts in three states that have famously dynamic judiciaries- India, South Africa and Canada. A number of the obstacles to the effectiveness of human rights law are also examined.

Incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Law: A Comparative Review

Incorporation in law is recognised as key to the implementation of the UNCRC. This article considers the ways in which a variety of countries have chosen to incorporate the CRC, drawing on a study conducted by the authors for UNICEF-UK. It categorises the different approaches adopted into examples of direct incorporation (where the CRC forms part of domestic law) and indirect incorporation (where there are legal obligations which encourage its incorporation); and full incorporation (where the CRC has been wholly incorporated in law) and partial incorporation (where elements of the CRC have been incorporated). Drawing on evidence and interviews conducted during field visits in six of the countries studied, it concludes that children’s rights are better protected – at least in law if not also in practice – in countries that have given legal status to the CRC in a systematic way and have followed this up by establishing the necessary systems to support, monitor and enforce the implementation of CRC rights.

European Union Non-Discrimination Law: Comparative Perspectives on Multidimensional Equality Law

EU equality law is multidimensional in being based on different rationales and concepts. Consequently, the concept of discrimination has become fragmented, with different instruments envisaging different scopes of protection. This raises questions as to the ability of EU law to address the situation of persons excluded on a number of grounds. This edited collection addresses the increasing complexity of European Equality Law from jurisprudential, sociological and political science perspectives. Internationally renowned researchers from Scandinavian, Continental and Central European countries and Britain analyse consequences of multiplying discrimination grounds within EU equality law, considering its multidimensionality and intersectionality. The contributors to the volume theorise the move from formal to substantive equality law and its interrelation to new forms of governance, demonstrating the specific combination of non-discrimination law with welfare state models which reveal the global implications of the European Union. The book will be of interest to academics and policy makers all over the world, in particular to those researching and studying law, political sciences and sociology with an interest in human rights, non discrimination law, contract and employment law or European studies.

Operationalizing the Comparative International Human Rights Law Method: A Case Study of CEDAW in National Courts

In this chapter, I focus on how the example of CEDAW illustrates the methodological and conceptual difficulties that future work in comparative international human is likely to encounter. Despite the challenges, I suggest that the worked example of CEDAW has raised interesting lines for empirical analysis, and additional perspectives which may enrich normative inquiry, sufficient to justify comparative international human rights law being regarded as likely to give rise to insights that might not otherwise have emerged, and therefore to be as an approach worth pursuing in the future.

Comparative International Human Rights Law

This chapter locates of international human rights in current discussion of comparative international law, and distinguishes comparative international human rights law from both the 'fragmentation' literature, and from comparative constitutional rights discourse.