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One cynic has speculated that years hence people will look back and be forced to conclude that ‘money laundering was one of the greatest problems facing mankind towards the end of the second millennium’. This would be true of lawyers, politicians, economists, sociologists and many others who have sought to examine the problem, each from their own viewpoint. Yet, the persis‐tently non‐definable trend of globalisation has seemingly demonstrated that uni‐causal or uni‐disciplinary explanations of change in the international arena tend to yield unilateral perspectives on problems, solutions to which are subsequently limited in scope.

This paper attempts to clarify and describe the general characteristics of civil forfeiture as a new national and international tool in the fight against organized crime.

The paper analyzes and compares the civil forfeiture legislations of five counties – the USA, Great Britain, Ireland, Bulgaria and Serbia and draws conclusions on the general characteristics of this legal phenomenon.

There are substantial differences between criminal and civil forfeiture which set the latter apart as an independent legal phenomenon. Unfortunately, few countries have effective legislations which regulate this tool for fighting organized crime. The importance of civil forfeiture lies in the fact that it shakes the economic foundations of organized crime using the methods and procedures of civil and administrative law even, in some countries, after the court has issued a verdict of “not guilty”.

The paper stresses the importance of international laws and regulations for the unification and development of national civil forfeiture legislations. The paper proposes that one way to develop civil forfeiture is to strengthen the imperative nature of EU legislation; to present annual reports at national and EU level before the EU Parliament and national parliaments proposing measures for the development and acceleration of the process; to turn CARIN into an EU institution. The paper also emphasizes the importance of the decisions of the Strasbourg court as standards for the application of civil forfeiture legislation.

Purpose –This paper seeks to assess the extent to which China has both encouraged and achieved growth through foreign investment. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an examination of the incentives developed and deployed and seeks to assess evidence of their performance. Findings – “Market Economic” development of legislation of foreign investment in China has significant meanings toward promotion of Chinese economy. Since the basic policies of reform and opening coming into force in China in 1970s, China has adopted the opening, welcoming and incentive attitudes for foreign investment, making the positive activities acclimating to economic development rules to achieve the win‐win results all around the world. Investment in China by foreign investors has been initially carried out by “enterprises with foreign investment”, which always turned out to be the cooperative or independent direct investment basing on the funds. During the recent years, China has become the second country (only behind of USA) which absorbs the most direct foreign investment in the world. FDI has played an important role in the Chinese economic development. Correspondingly, the legislation for foreign investment in China has gradually been improved and perfected and has protected and enhanced the foreign investment and economic development. Viewing the alternation of legislation of foreign investment in China, it has fully embodied the corresponding to the global and regional international investment legislation cooperation. Originality/value – This study will be of interest to those seeking an “insider's” view on the success or otherwise of foreign direct investment strategies in China.

The prevalence of domestic violence in Nigeria may be described as epidemic. To address this scourge, several pieces of legislation have been enacted in the past decade at state and federal levels in Nigeria. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the emerging legislation on domestic violence. This paper thus examines the contents of these laws in a bid to determine the potential of these laws to prevent domestic violence, deter perpetrators from further incidents, punish perpetrators, compensate survivors and provide them with the necessary interventions for their rehabilitation.

The approach adopted is a content analysis of the provisions of the legislation, using salient parameters that have been drawn from documented best practices, specifically the key components for framing of domestic violence legislation around the world.

The author finds that while there is significant attempt in extant legislation to ensure that women are protected within domestic relationships, there are still gaps. Further, the protections are uneven across the states. In addition, there are systemic and contextual challenges that hamper the effectiveness of existing legislation in Nigeria in providing the necessary protections to women.

This study analyses the provisions of some of the legislation currently in place to protect persons from domestic violence. The impact, potential effect and overall utility of these pieces of legislation continue to require examination.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the merits and disadvantages of the law of the People's Republic of China on anti‐money laundering.

The paper describes the main contents contained in the newly adopted law of the People's Republic of China on anti‐money laundering, celebrates the enactment of the law and points out the gap still remaining between Chinese legislation and international standards.

The enactment of the law of the People's Republic of China on anti‐money laundering is of vital significance. Based on the international experience in the fight against money laundering, Chinese anti‐money‐laundering legislation has made considerable progress. Its shortcomings, however, are also evident.

This paper presents a comprehensive description of, and comments on, the law of the People's Republic of China, which would be beneficial to the legislature.

Trade in counterfeit products has been expanding continuously. The emergence of the internet, the process of globalisation as well as the increase of digitalisation have enabled counterfeit products to infiltrate legitimate supply chains, causing harm not only to national economies but also to holders of intellectual property rights (IPR). In this chapter, we analyse the possible solutions that holders of IP rights and their legal representatives have in their fight against the online sale of counterfeit products. To elaborate on this issue, first, we explain the legislation on an international level for IPR protection and its specific characteristics. We explain the conventions on the protection of IPR that are governed by the World Intellectual Protection Organisation (WIPO) and the provisions of the TRIPS (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement governed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). We also analyse the national legislative procedure of protecting and enforcing IPR in North Macedonia to explain a possible solution to fight online counterfeit trade. As a case study of this chapter, we explain the work of the Online Enforcement Programme of REACT as a not-for-profit organisation with over 30 years of experience in the fight against counterfeit trade and the challenges that they have in fighting against the online sale of counterfeit products. Since IP law is territorial in its nature as a conclusion, we suggest that a more centralised approach is needed in the fight against the online sale of counterfeit products.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the theory, policy and practice of child labour in Latin America. Interventions to reduce child labour are more likely to be successful if they are locally‐driven, supported by legislation and based on theoretical understandings of childhood that reflect the realities and needs of the children, families and communities whose lives they aim to improve.

Sociological and anthropological discourses on children's life worlds are reviewed to situate changes in our understanding of child labour. These theoretical developments are then discussed in the light of changing international legislation, such as ILO's convention 182. Recent statistics suggest a trend for declining child labour and we study the link between statistics, theoretical and legislative positions.

The ILO's 2006 child labour statistics and examples of policies in Latin America support the hypothesis that theoretical developments in the concept of childhood have influenced successful interventions aimed at its reduction. This theory‐policy‐practice partnership appears to have been a catalyst for the development of successful “government–private‐enterprise – civil society” programmes to reduce child labour.

Although these multi‐sectorial strategies have been successful in Latin America, further research is needed to see whether similar policies and interventions can be repeated in other regions.

The paper is original in its linking of theory, policy and practice in the context of recent statistics and programmes at reducing child labour in Latin America.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse an example of non-decision making in the Nordic tripartite policy process, namely, the reform of the Finnish gender equality legislation and the law for equal pay comparisons.

The paper uses non-decision making as a conceptual framework for qualitative analysis of the documentation of the working group that drafted the law for equal pay comparisons. The analysis focuses on the strategic responses used by the participants in order to defend the status quo and resist change in legislation.

The key findings are that the suggested law for conducting equal pay comparisons as part of gender equality planning in Finnish organisations changed dramatically in the tripartite policy process. Employer organisations successfully prevented the most relevant features from being implemented in the reformed law.

The findings of this research indicate that there is a need for more research on the tripartite policy process and its implication on developing policy.

This paper shows what kind of power employer and employee organisations use in Finnish policy making. As a result, the reformed gender equality legislation is a compromise reflecting the vested interests of different stakeholders. The findings highlight the challenges of developing policy in tripartite policy process.

The tripartite policy process and its implications have rarely been studied. The value of this paper lies in both originality of the topic and approach, and the societal importance of the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the main contract principles which govern the international arbitration contract with special emphasis to examine contract principle found of the Middle East, how international principles of contract are perceived in the region, and whether there are any dominant contract principles.

A general exploratory research procedure used to give a better grasp of various aspects of socio‐legal approaches. The paper seeks to create knowledge that can be used to retrieve some pressing social and organisational understanding in the said region. The first part of the paper examines the role of ethics and tradition in understanding Middle Eastern contract principles. The second part examines the impact of Islamic Law on commercial contract principles. The third section analyses the regional perception of international contract principles. Finally, the paper addresses some contemporary issues of international contracts in the Middle East.

The paper showed that the legal perceptions of international contract principles reflect regional legal thinking which has been influenced by a mixed understanding of regional traditions, Islamic contract law principles as well as Western contract principles when these principles match regional legal culture. Overall, it showed that still under such mixed understanding, there are strong regional legal traditions and these are found in Islamic contract principles and affects commercial contract experiences. In general, a significant difference still exists between modern international contract principles and those in the Middle East.

The paper generates a knowledge that mixed understanding in regard to international contract arbitration principles due historical and cultural reasoning. Arab States does not share common understanding of international contract principles. Thus, it is very superfluous to propose the argument that there is sole Middle Eastern regional perception which dominates every Arab State. Therefore, special understandings and considerations should be given to every international arbitration contract from certain Arab State entity to another.

The paper provides a clear understanding of the guidelines for international commercial arbitration contract in the Middle East. Legal culture should be taken into consideration if a successful contract implementation has to be achieved.