The contribution of women to peace has been very relevant throughout history. The full and complete development of a country, the welfare of the world and the cause of peace require the maximum participation of women on equal terms with men in all fields. Gender equality has always been seen as an endless project, which should be realized by everyone around the world. The long-term effects of conflict and militarization create a culture of violence that renders women especially vulnerable in a post-war scenario. The interest in involving women and girls in the peace processes often stems from their experiences of armed conflicts, whether primarily as victims or as armed participants. They are aware of the potentials for transformation and reform in periods of peacemaking. Since 2008, the Human Rights Council has been working on the ‘Promotion of the right of peoples to peace.’ Pursuant to resolutions 20/15 and 23/16, the Council decided firstly to establish, and secondly to extend the mandate of the open-ended working group (OEWG) aimed atprogressively negotiating a draft United Nations declaration on the right to peace. The OEGW welcomed, in its second session (July 2014), the approach of the Chairperson-Rapporteur, which is essentially based on the promotion of equality between men and women, and the relationship between the right to life and human rights, peace and development.

This paper examines the current regulation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and concessions of public services inBrazil. Under the Brazilian Constitution, certain public utility services and infrastructure works must be provided or built either directly by the government or through a government franchise. Such franchise takes the form of either concessions or PPPs. The difference between the two is based on the form of government contribution. PPPs are concessions in which part or all of the concessionaire’s compensation is paid by the government and does not come directly from the revenue gained through the service or work at issue. These contractual arrangements are available and actually employed throughout all government levels inBrazil. Most of the government activity in these areas in the past 20 years has adopted a concession or PPP format. By analyzing the main features of the Brazilian concession and PPP system, this paper aims to offer the international reader an introductory view of the legal framework behind most large-scale investments in Brazilian infrastructure. 

This article deals with the background, applicability and requirements of collective actions in the defense of transindividual rights and interests, both diffuse and collective, homogenous individual rights, as well as citizen’s actions in the context of the Brazilian legal system. It also broaches the impact of the regime of res judicata on such actions, and offers a brief comparative analysis of the protection of transindividual interests in Ibero-America.

This paper deals with a relevant topic: the reasoning of a judicial decision as a requirement for its validity. In fact, this need is typical of democracies. In democracies, authorities have to justify their decisions which interfere in private lives. Decisions have to be reasoned also because they are, as a rule, appealable. What is challenged in an appeal is precisely the reasoning / motivation of judicial decisions.

The main novelty in this context is a provision which exists in a Brazilian Bill for a new Civil Procedure Code, which determines how the decision must be reasoned. It openly recognizes that a judge bases his or her decision not only on statutes literally considered, but also on legal writing and on case law. The legislator was very bold, because we are a civil law jurisdiction, where students are currently led to believe the decisions emerge automatically from statutory law.

Furthermore, this new provision teaches judges how to deal with all these elements, under penalty of having the decision being declared void or null.

In MainlandChina, summary procedure is procedure applied at the first instance by basic-level courts and their detached tribunals. As simplified formal procedure, summary procedure can be classified into three types: 1) general / mandatory summary procedure, which is applied to cases with clear facts, unambiguous rights and obligations and minor disputes; 2) consensus procedure, which is applied to cases other than those to which mandatory summary procedure is applied, with the parties’ agreement on the application; 3) special summary procedure, which is ‘small claim procedure’ applied to cases involving amounts lower than 30 percent of the previous year’s average annual wages of workers in a given province and the judgment of the basic-level court or detached tribunal shall be final.

The paper critically discusses the opinion of certain scholars that the use of multilateral treaties (conventions) in the field of harmonisation of international commercial law has been in a state of steady decline. They believe that traditional treaty law has been gradually replaced in recent years by softer methods of making international law, such as the use of restatements and model laws. Some scholars even claim that treaty law is dead or dying. The work assesses whether this view has reasonable grounds, providing an overview of the most prominent hard law and soft law harmonising instruments and outlining issues relating to the success of conventions, their advantages, drawbacks and tensions arising in this area. The paper suggests that conventions remain necessary where the third party or public interest are at stake, however, further improvements are needed to make conventions more successful instruments in international commercial law.

This article traces the history, and discusses some of the recent changes in the Russian Federation Civil Code, which result in a more favorable business climate inRussia. In particular, it discusses the development of changes related to the documentation of contracts, expansion in the durations and uses of powers of attorney, and the modernization of the statute of limitations period for bringing an action.

Reviewed book: 1–3 Yearbook on International Arbitration (Marianne Roth & Michael Geistlinger, eds.) (Intersentia 2010, 2012, 2013).

On November 6–7, 2014, the University of Parma (Italy) hosted a profound two-day discussion on the BRICS, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, a relatively new actor in the international arena, gathering the most innovative research and the leading experts and scholars.