Promotion of Mediation in the New Century through Legislation

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) developed very quickly in the last century. With litigation being viewed as expensive and lengthy, ADR is known for its low cost, efficiency, flexibility and user-friendliness. Various forms of ADR have been developed to accommodate different types of disputes. The Chinese culture attaches great importance to the application of mediation to resolve disputes; however, mediation has also been widely used by other countries. Entering the new century, we have witnessed another round of wave for the promotion of mediation for various types of disputes. People are starting to seriously consider the means to promote mediation in the society.

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Should Law Look East?

Time and space have long constrained legal debate. Careful legal scholarship takes time to craft; publication in book and journals are at the mercy of selection and review processes and production schedules; and delivery of scholarship requires a further wait for the publication to reach library book shelves in hard copy form or become digitally available in online databases. 

Despite the globalisation of law, libraries prioritise research relevant to the regions in which they are located, and online databases even comprehensive repositories such as West law, Lexis Nexis and Hein Online privilege research published in certain geographical jurisdictions, notably the United States, over others. Time fetters; space shackles; and legal debate, in the process, suffer.

The Refugee Crisis - A Challenge for Europe and the World

Since 2010, the European Union (EU) had to deal mainly with the debt crisis in some of its member states, especially in Greece. The European leaders concentrated their energy on keeping Greece in the euro as the German chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out: “If the euro fails, Europe fails”. In order to avoid this scenario, many aid programs were adopted to give Greece a chance to recover. 

In 2015 and probably in 2016, Europe is again under pressure and it looks like that the new challenge is a larger risk for the future of the EU than the debt crisis ever was. I am talking about the recent refugee crisis and the difficulty to find common and durable solutions. This crisis is a result mainly of the Syrian civil war and the outbreak of armed conflicts or deterioration of on-going ones, among others, in Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Ukraine.

Should Law Look East?

Time and space have long constrained legal debate. Careful legal scholarship takes time to craft; publication in book and journals are at the mercy of selection and review processes and production schedules; and delivery of scholarship requires a further wait for the publication to reach library book shelves in hard copy form or become digitally available in online databases. 

Despite the globalisation of law, libraries prioritise research relevant to the regions in which they are located, and online databases even comprehensive repositories such as West law, Lexis Nexis and He in Online privilege research published in certain geographical jurisdictions, notably the United States, over others. Time fetters; space shackles; and legal debate, in the process, suffer.

Regulatory Exclusivities or Non-patent exclusivities

Pharmaceutical development is an expensive, time consuming and uncertain process that takes years to complete. Often, patent protection expires before a new drug is approved for marketing. As a result, most pharmaceutical companies in the United States and European Union (EU) depend on the exclusivity rights granted under the U.S. Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), and the corresponding EU authorities to recoup their considerable investment in the drug development and approval process. Therefore, pharmaceutical companies must understand and employ the different forms of nonpatent exclusivity in both the U.S. and EU in order to succeed in the global marketplace.

The Process of development of a pharmaceutical is time taking, costly and uncertain. The long-time duration of the process may result in expiry of the patent term before the marketing of the product. To overcome this difficulty the United States and European Union (EU) have advised the concept of exclusivities which help in recovering the investment that was made in the process? The product can be marketed during the period of exclusivity without any competition from its generic form.