44.Сводное Упражнение VII.

1. Brazil’s Congress at last had the courage to approve two overdue reforms, one being an increase in the pension contributions paid by higher – earners among public sector workers; the other – deduction of contributions from retirement pension. If Brazil is ever to stop being one of the world’s most uneauql and unjust societies, it needs redirecting public spending.

Nobody likes a wage cut, which is what the increase in pension

contributions amounted to. But the Congress was right to approve

these measures. Reform in Brazil is falling victim to its president’s

diminished authority. It is this rather than judicial independence or

constitutional zeal, that explains the Supreme Court’s pension

judgement.

2. A long battle for free trade must be waged against many enemies, whether protectionists, trade – unionists or environmentalists shouting loudly that free trade in general and the WTO in particular, are ruining the global environment.

As a general statement, this claim is wrong. Far from damaging

the environment, trade is often the best way to improve it.

All this makes it doubly important to explain why trade

generally benefits the environment. The reason is that it boosts

economic growth. As people get richer, they want a cleaner

environment – and they aqcuire the means to pay for it. The main

solution is not to shut all exports, it is to impose tougher

environmental laws that makes polluters pay.

3. Millions of dollars are still being diverted from the state’s revenue by increasingly cunning tax evaders. The goverments’s current legislation regarding this matter has left immense legal loopholes frequently exploited by individual tax dodgers.

While policies such as the threat of bankruptcy may have begun to encourage large businesses to pay their debts to the government, it is the freedom with which individuals are able to escape legal proceedings that has led to allegations of inefficiency on the part of the tax police. The main problem is that the existing laws do not require that each individual should declare his expenditures.

4. America has no principal objection to the idea of supernational bodies dealing with war crimes. However its initial enthusiasm for a permanent international criminal court evaporated when other countries rightly refused to tie the courts’s powers to the veto of the UN Security Council, which would have made it a mere political tool to be used by the great powers. Since then, America has pleaded that, as the sole remaining superpower, its soldiers and officials would be the target of politically motivated prosecution, peacekeeping efforts around the world being seriously hampered.

5. The Russian labor code is based on the assumption that the employee is the weaker party in the labor relationship – and hence must be to some degree protected by the Government.

The labour code requires that when firing an employee the

company must first give him two months’ notice and then one

month of severance pay. The labor code also makes it difficult to

fire an employee if the company discovers that he or she does not

have the necessary qualifications for the job unless the above skills

were set out in the employment contract.

One of the ways to protect employees is by placing the burden

of proof, or to be more precise, paperwork, on the employer. In

other words, the employer must in most cases issue several written

warnings, as well as document all disciplinary measures, before

terminating a worker. But while the law is indeed clear in many of

its provisions, some gray areas still remain.

6. Under American constitution witnesses who fail to appear and testify after being subpoened may be subject to charges of contempt of court. In addition, a witness who appears but refuses to answer questions, when under examination, can be held liable for contempt of court.

It’s true that no witness can be forced to testify if the testimony

is self-incriminating, which only means that the witness

can refuse to answer questions that might lead to criminal charges.

Questions that might expose the witness to civil liability are

permissible.

7. WTO trade rules include an obligation for members to bring their

disputes to the WTO and not to act unilaterally. Around 300

disputes have been brought to the WTO since it was set up in

1995. Small countries could win dispute cases against rich

countries they would not have been able to win otherwise. The

increasing number of disputes brought to the WTO reflects the

closer economic ties throughout the world rather than increasing

international tension.

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