Volume 8 (2015): Edition 2 (December 2015)

Aggravation of risk and failure to take precautionary measures are focal issues in non-life insurance in terms of potential partial or full release of the insurer from the duty to perform. Not infrequently, it is difficult to draw a line between the aggravation of risk on the one hand, and non-compliance with precautionary measures on the other, since a particular action by a policyholder may present both situations. At the same time, the legal remedies available to the insurer regarding these two situations are different in scope. The aggravation of risk and non-compliance with precautionary measures are precisely the bases on which insurers actually reduce indemnity or refuse to compensate for damages. This article explores the differences between insurance laws in the Baltic states—specifically, the Estonian Law of Obligations Act, the Latvian Insurance Contract Law and Lithuanian rules contained in the Civil Code and Insurance Law. The article explores the differences between the Baltic states’ insurance laws and the Principles of European Insurance Contract Law (PEICL) with regard to a policyholder’s duty in relation to aggravation of risk and precautionary measures, as the rights and obligations of policyholders do change where the optional instrument is applied. The article also includes comparisons to German, Finnish and Russian insurance law.

Growing attention to sustainable development in academic discourse fosters discussions on how energy security affects society. In most cases the discussions consider the political and economic consequences, which affect or may affect the society. The aim of the article is to assess the impact of energy security economics on social cohesion in Lithuania. To achieve this aim the interrelations between energy security, energy economics and social cohesion are discussed. The theoretical framework of social cohesion (introduced by J. Jenson and P. Bernard) is presented and applied in empirical analysis. The operationalization of empirical variables is based on economic, political and socio-cultural - activity areas, which are analyzed to verify the dichotomies between public attitudes and the actual behavior of society. These dichotomies help to distinguish six analytical dimensions, on the basis of which we created 17 empirical indicators, which analysis allows for describing the impact of Lithuanian energy security economics on social cohesion in quantitative data. The statistical analyses showed that the impact of attitudinal dimensions of energy security economics on social cohesion in Lithuania has an almost neutral effect: 3.05 (1-very negative; 3-neutral, 5-very positive). Whereas, the impact of behavioural dimensions of energy security economics on social cohesion has a negative effect: 2.47. The aggregated average of the overall impact of energy security economics on social cohesion in Lithuania has a negative effect: 2.76.

The article consists of four parts. The first part presents the interrelations between energy security, economy and social cohesion as well as discusses the theoretical framework that is used in empirical analysis. The second briefly provides the operationalization of theoretical model, concrete indicators that are used in the analysis and presents main statistic characteristics of indicators. The third part explains the results and stresses main discoveries taking into account the distribution of energy expenses for energy security among society. The fourth elaborates the noticeable differences among different social groups (in regard to age, education, income and living area).

Estonia has created of itself the image of an e-state that is being supported with novel ICT-solutions, the perhaps most renowned of which is e-residency. However, created as a governmental start-up in the national best interest, e-residency could be of marginal relevance in light of global digital identity management. Purely national digital identity or an e-residency grants its holder several rights unknown to, or at least unapplied in a majority of the EU Member States and in the world more generally. But currently it lies on a vacillating legal pedestal which has resulted in copious administrative issues and proposed legal amendments already during its first year of implementation. Concerns, such as the administrative capacity of Estonia to handle potentially 10 million customers of national e-services, arise due to contingent legal footing. On this basis, efficiency of e-residency is critically analysed from the perspective of an autoschediastic regulatory framework presuming high-level administrative competence yet leaving the scope and limits of the functions of the public authorities legally unfurnished and isolated from the EU legal space.

The last election in the Slovak and Czech Republic was special. It not only took place before the official electoral period (pre-elections), but new political parties were “again” successful. The article focuses not only on both elections in the last two years in a comparative perspective, but it analyses the opportunity structure of success as well, including types of new political parties (according to Lucardie). The article seeks to answer the question: why are new political parties electorally successful, able to break into parliament and even become part of a coalition government? We assume that the emergence and success of new political parties in both countries relied on the ability to promote “old” ideas in a new fashion, colloquially referred to as “new suits” or “old” ideological flows in new breeze.

Universal human rights and particular cultural identities, which are relativistic by nature, seem to stand in conflict with each other. It is commonly suggested that the relativistic natures of cultural identities undermine universal human rights and that human rights might compromise particular cultural identities in a globalised world. This article examines this supposed clash and suggests that it is possible to frame a human rights approach in such a way that it becomes the starting point and constraining framework for all non-deficient cultural identities. In other words, it is possible to depict human rights in a culturally sensitive way so that universal human rights can meet the demands of a moderate version of meta-ethical relativism which acknowledges a small universal core of objectively true or false moral statements and avers that, beyond that small core, all other moral statements are neither objectively true nor false.

While analysing constitutions of various countries in the legal literature, typically not only the form and the content but also the structure of the constitution is discussed. The structure of the constitution is an internal organisational order of the norms of the constitution. Although every state’s constitution has a unique structure, certain regularities can be discerned. The analysis of the structure of various constitutions leads to the conclusion that normally each constitution consists of the following standard structural parts: the preamble, the main part, the final, transitional or additional provisions, and in some constitutions there can also be annexes.

The article confirms that most constitutions begin with an introductory part, the preamble. Only the constitutions of several countries (e.g. Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Greece) contain no preamble. The preamble reflects the historical context and the circumstances of the adoption of a constitution, names the goals of the constitutional regulation, fortifies the values to be attained, declares the key political principles or even the fundamental human rights and freedoms, etc. Often the preamble reveals the methods of adoption of a constitution. The preamble is an important structural part of the constitution that helps to understand the established constitutional regulation. The principles enshrined in it can be considered a significant argument for the constitutional justice institutions while solving the case of whether the law or any other legal act in question contradicts the constitution. The preamble is not only a political, ideological, and/or philosophical category; it undoubtedly also carries a legal burden, therefore it is considered to have legal validity. Preambles are characterized as having a so-called higher style; they are usually formulated not in compliance with the requirements of legal technique.

The Brussels regime is a legislative framework that regulates questions of transnational litigation in the European Union. Having been initially shaped upon negotiation of the 1968 Brussels Convention, it has been subsequently superseded and expanded in scope by the Brussels I Regulation on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, alongside other instruments addressing specific areas of law. Recently, the Brussels regime has been amended by the Recast Brussels I Regulation, which entered into force on January 15, 2015, bringing about significant and long-awaited change. Addressing the experience of application of its predecessors, the changes in the Recast Regulation have been introduced to the treatment of choice-of-court agreements and their relationship with the lis pendens doctrine, abolition of exequatur, reaffirmation and clarification of the arbitration exclusion, as well as further minor amendments.

The relationship between copyright and freedom of expression has long been debated. Unlike the legal discourse in other jurisdictions, most notably the United States, where it is assumed that free speech and copyright do not collide, in Europe both rights have separate legal effect and are considered to be of equal importance. As a result, when an individual refers to the human right of free speech to hold and impart copyright protected material, it triggers the collision between the two rights. This paper highlights and explores these relationships between copyright and freedom of expression in Europe, offering an in-depth analysis of the human rights scope of copyright and free speech, as well as examining the circumstances under which each conflicting right should prevail.