This book provides an overview of the way the European Union and eighteen selected countries from different continents around the world have handled their contributions to foreign development aid. Countries selected include members as well as nonmembers of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) including countries with established and emerging economies. The collection is composed of individual country and European Union studies prepared by the research staff of the Global Legal Research Center of the Law Library of Congress during 2011 and early 2012. Each book...

This report surveys the apostasy laws of twenty-three countries in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The survey primarily focuses on jurisdictions that make apostasy a capital offense. However, several countries that have adopted broadly-defined laws on blasphemy and insult to religion, which could potentially be used to prosecute persons for apostasy, have also been included, as well as one country that expressly prohibits extrajudicial punishment for allegations of apostasy. The countries surveyed that expressly make apostasy a capital offense are Afghanistan, Brunei,...

In Brazil, the violation of trade secrets is considered crime of unfair competition and is regulated by Law No. 9,279 of May 14, 1996. A constitutional principle protects the confidentiality of the source when necessary for the performance of a professional activity. For civil remedies, the Civil Code determines that a person who practices an illicit act and causes damage to another person is obligated to repair the damage caused. The Code of Civil Procedure allows for the search and seizure of a person or thing provided that the requester justifies the reasons for the measure, and Brazilian...

Freedom of peaceful assembly is a recognized right under international human rights law. This report provides a comparative review of one aspect of this right: whether advance notification or authorization is required for an assembly to take place under the law of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report also reviews the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms protects the right to peacefully assemble, but that right is not absolute; state...

This report covers laws on parental child abduction and the legal aid that may be available to parents of abducted children in thirty-eight countries that have not signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The responses are organized by region of the world: East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. While in many countries no specific legislation or programs dealing with international abduction of children could be located, existing laws and...