Journal articles on the topic 'Abortion – Law and legislation – European Economic Community countries'

Despite continuous instability in the European Community (EC) its mayor countries Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy exhibit continuously economic growth and stability. According to the International Monetary Fund these European countries have - in this order - the highest gross domestic product in the European Community in 2012. In this article anti-avoidance legislation of - according to the gross domestic product - the four most important EC countries will be reviewed with reference to the tax differential to the thirty-four OECD Member Countries. The pivotal question is, therefore, to what extend can internal tax planning with mayor European countries be optimized by inclusion of anti-avoidance legislation. This article outlines the objectives and concepts of international tax planning with regard to anti-avoidance legislation and provides an overview of the concepts, laws and rules of anti-avoidance legislation in mayor EC Member Countries. After that the advantages and strategies of international tax planning with regard to anti-avoidance legislation in mayor EC Member Countries are deducted where an overview on anti-avoidance legislation of mayor EC Member Countries is provided - also with regard to new tax legislation - and locations for subsidiaries and for parent companies are reviewed. Finally, the concluding remarks are presented. Transfer pricing will not be reviewed here.

AbstractThe organisation of waste management raises an important question: Who has access to waste - the public waste management services or private waste management companies ? The answer has important economic consequences, since waste management is a significant market. At the same time, environmental concerns have to be observed. The framework legislation of the European Community leaves the organisational structure of waste management to the national legislation of the Member States. However, under Community legislation waste is subject to the principle of the free movement of goods, which may be restricted on environmental grounds. Furthermore EU law draws a distinction between waste for disposal, for which shipment can be restricted more easily, and waste for recovery, which is subject to less stringent control procedures. Given the broad European framework, this article explores the national legislation in most EU countries. It aims to analyse the approach taken by the national legislators to find a way between public service and private autonomy. In conclusion, it seems clear that in the countries examined an important distinction is made between household and industrial waste. Only Germany has adopted the European distinction between waste for recovery and waste for disposal as a major criterion for the allocation of the waste streams between public and private entities, whereas in the other Member States this criterion only plays an insignificant, if any, role at all.

Legislation on abortion in Poland is among the strictest of all European countries. As with Malta and Ireland, the regulations in Poland do not allow for the termination of a pregnancy on the grounds of the difficult social or economic situation of a woman. Post-1989 developments with regard to abortion law in Poland show the influence of the Catholic Church as a very powerful societal actor on the drafting and implementation of one of the most important policies affecting women’s rights and gender relations. Catholic ‘pro-life’ circles exercised pressure in the process of drafting and adopting the new law, as well as at the stage of the law’s implementation. The symbolic victory of the Church over abortion law is evident in the shift in general discourse and in the official language of legal acts, where, for example, ‘foetus’ has been replaced by ‘conceived child’ (in the law) or by ‘unborn child’ (in discourse). As a consequence, for public opinion abortion is seen as tantamount to ‘the act of killing the unborn child’.

The mayor German language countries, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria exhibit continuously economic growth and stability. Germany is the engine of the European Community and it might be interested to organize a group of affiliated companies in a way where all speak German. In this article anti-avoidance legislation will be reviewed with reference to the tax differential to the thirty-four Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Member Countries. The pivotal question is, therefore, to what extent can internal tax planning with German language countries be optimized by inclusion of anti-avoidance legislation. This article outlines the primary corporate objective and key concepts of international tax planning with regard to anti-avoidance legislation and discusses the corporate income tax burden in the thirty-four OECD Member Countries analysing the tax differential as incentive in relation to transfer pricing, the reduction in ETR as the primary corporate objective and key concepts and the he importance of current and reliable information. After that anti-avoidance legislation in these mayor German language countries is presented and strategies of international tax planning with relation to these countries are developed. Afterwards this is evaluated from the OECD's perspective of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). Finally the concluding remarks are presented.

The European Union has recently enacted the Conflict Minerals Regulation, introducing new transparency requirements for importers of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold from conflict-affected regions. Similar legislation has previously been enacted in the United States. The purpose of the new transparency requirements in both jurisdictions is to cut off funding for armed groups in conflict areas and thus reduce the suffering of the civil population, with particular reference to the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The criticism of the legislation centers on the costs to companies in the minerals supply chain. In this article it is argued that the costs to companies subject to the transparency requirements can be minimized with carefully crafted legislation. It is also concluded that progress in achieving the humanitarian objectives of the legislation is slower than expected, mainly due to the lack of participation in the transparency efforts by all actors in the supply chain. Successful transparency regulation has to be supported by a multitude of actors in the international community. Also, mineral supply chain transparency regulation in itself is unlikely to solve armed conflicts in resource-rich but poor countries. Such legislation only provides for one component in a multi-level approach including legislative, economic and political efforts by the international community.

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the evolution of European anti-money laundering discipline passing from the First Money Laundering Directive 91/308/EEC, that was only referred to banks and financial intermediaries, that has been furthermore extended to some activities and professions outside the financial sector. The research examines the different steps done buy Italian Legislation in the field of economic crime: at first Law n. 14/2003 of 3 February 2003 (Community Law 2002), they transposed the 2001 Directive 2001/97/EC and then the Law n. 56/2004 of 20 February 2004, that has implemented Directive 2001/97/EC. Now it is urgent to implement Directive 2005/60/EC that has extended the scope of the legislation, including the fight against the financing of terrorism and modified anti-money laundering obligations. Design/methodology/approach This paper deals with the Legislations of some European States (in particular UK and Italy) interpreting them by a comparative method. Findings This paper has put in clear some differences and some analogies between national legislations of different countries. Research limitations/implications In Italy, at first Law n. 14/2003 of 3 February 2003 (Community Law 2002), has transposed the 2001 Directive 2001/97/EC and then the Law n. 56/2004 of 20 February 2004, has implemented Directive 2001/97/EC. In 2005, Directive 2005/60/EC has extended the scope of the legislation, including the fight against the financing of terrorism and modified anti-money laundering obligations. Practical implications In the context of economic crime, capital investigations represent one of the most effective tools to fight the activities of organized crime in the phase of managing wealth illicitly produced and its immission in the circuit of the legal economy. Social implications The need of fighting economic crime must always be harmonized with the protection of right to privacy that has been acknowledged by Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 as a fundamental right. Originality/value This paper develops the need to balance the right to privacy of every European citizen (Article 8 CEDU) with investigative power exercised by Public or Private Authorities, considering the possibility to comprise the first – if necessary – to allow the regular exercise of the second.

This article discusses the competition regime as it applies to shipping or liner conferences and consortia under European Community law. The Commission is currently considering changing this regime. There are five sections to this article. Section I is a factual introduction to shipping conferences and consortia, what they are, and how they operate. Section II deals with the competition law regime as it applies to certain shipping cartels, briefly highlighting the background, as well as the substance, of the relevant legislation and jurisprudence. Section III discusses the economic effects of these rules, as well as considering their effect on developing countries; it also examines whether or not these rules achieve their underlying objectives. Section IV takes the conclusions of Section III and asks whether, and where appropriate how, these should impact upon the substantive content of the rules, as discussed in Section II. Section V concludes.

In 2002 the international community adopted a new system of hazard classification and labeling of chemical products, which is recommended to be implemented by all the Member- countries of the United Nations through national legislation and international acts. Within the frame of the implementation of this decision, in 2015 the amendments were made to the Directive of the European Community of June 24, 1982, № 82/501/EEC on the prevention of major industrial accidents, and to the United Nations Convention onthe prevention of major industrial accidents, and a little later to the national legislation of the European countries establishing measures on preventing major accidents. In 2017, the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union adopted the technical regulation on the safety of chemical products, which establishes classification criteria that are completely identical to the criteria for the system of hazard classification and labeling of chemical products. Entry into force of the technical regulation of the Eurasian Economic Union will lead to the need for amending all theregulatory legal acts and regulations that contain regulations based on the classification of chemical products, including in the Federal Law № 116-FZ of July 21, 1997, On industrial safety of hazardous production facilities. The task of harmonizing the legislation on industrial safety with the international documents in terms of the classification of chemicals was planned to be solved when developing a new law on industrial safety. During the discussion, the developers encountered different approaches to the definition of classes of hazardous substances, the analysis of which became the subject of this article. The authors formulated proposals that can be used at the next round of harmonization of the Russian legislation on industrial safety with the international documents. When preparing proposals with classes and lists of hazardous chemicals for use in the industrial safety legislation, a comparison was made not only of the definitions of classes of chemicals in different documents, but also of their quantities, which are the criteria for qualifying objects as hazardous production facilities. It is noted that the term «flammable liquids», used in 116-FZ, practically does not occur in the international classifications, therefore, when developing new documents, it was proposed not to use it.

Introduction. The Ukraine’s integration into the European community is impossible without learning the experience of European countries in many spheres. Social responsibility of business becomes a significant element in strengthening the competitiveness of our enterprises and the state in general on the world level. The development of socially responsible practices can influence not only the society, but also business representatives themselves, namely: improving the image of the company, increasing the number of consumers, attracting and retaining more skilled personnel, etc. In Ukraine, the process of development of social responsibility of business circles has already begun, but it is still not enough. The state can play a significant role in the development of social practices. This scientific research is dedicated to the study of the experience of European governments in the sphere of social responsibility. The purpose. The article aims is to determine the directions of the state policy of Ukraine for the development of social and economic responsibility of entrepreneurship on the basis of European countries experience. Results. The basic world models of social responsibility of business have been investigated. The experience of European countries on state regulation in this area has been systematized. On the basis of the conducted research, we have proposed directions of the state policy in the field of regulation of social and economic responsibility of entrepreneurship in Ukraine, namely: drafting a law on social responsibility, introducing changes in tax legislation in the field of preferential taxation, increasing attention to non-financial reporting as a source of information on social company initiatives and the construction of national ratings.

In the February 2014 issue of the EC Tax Review, the author compared the anti-avoidance legislation in the mayor EC Member Countries Germany, France, United Kingdom and Italy and suggested some international tax planning strategies - without regard to transfer pricing (part 1). The author now considers transfer pricing involving these mayors EC Member Countries Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Italy and suggests further transfer pricing strategies also with regard to the up-to-date CIT rates in OECD countries (part 2). As stated, despite continuous instability in the European Community (EC) its mayor countries Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy exhibit continuously economic growth and stability. According to the International Monetary Fund these European countries have - in this order - the highest gross domestic product in the European Community in 2012. In this article transfer pricing rules of - according to the gross domestic product - the four most important EC Member Countries will be reviewed with reference to the OECD's perspective of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) and to the up-to-date tax differential to the thirty-four OECD Member Countries. The pivotal question is, to what extent can internal tax planning with mayor EC Member Countries be optimized by inclusion of transfer pricing. This article outlines the primary corporate objective and key concepts of international tax planning with regard to transfer pricing and discusses the corporate income tax burden in the thirty-four OECD Member Countries analysing the tax differential as incentive in relation to transfer pricing, the reduction in ETR as the primary corporate objective and key concepts and the he importance of current and reliable information. After that transfer pricing in the mayor EC Member Countries Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Italy is presented and transfer pricing strategies with relation to mayor EC Member Countries are developed. Afterwards this is evaluated from the OECD's perspective of BEPS. Finally the concluding remarks are presented.

The article is devoted to the study of foreign experience in legal regulation of fixed-term employment contracts. Fixed-termemployment contracts should be considered as one of the earliest and, accordingly, the oldest forms of non-standard employment. Tur -ning to the concept of the application of fixed-term employment contracts in Ukraine in the near future, it seems appropriate to consider the possibility of their further development through the prism of studying European experience. Indeed, in many European countriesthe fixed-term contracts are quite common and therefore analysis of both positive and negative examples of their legal regulation willbe useful for the future development of labour legislation in Ukraine.The article features an analysis of the relevant legislation of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Italy, Poland and France. It is concludedthat the membership of these states in the European Union has had a significant impact on the evolution of national labour le -gislation. This also applies to the United Kingdom, which had been part of this economic and political union for a long time.The transposition of EU legislation into national law by these countries predetermines the existence of common features betweenthem in the legal regulation of fixed-term employment contracts. This common features include: clear time limits of the employmentcontract, maximum allowable number of renewals enshrined in law, compliance with the principle of non-discrimination, etc.In turn, the implementation of fixed-term employment relationships in each country differs in its uniqueness, which is due to thedomestic tradition of their implementation. For example, in the United Kingdom, the dismissal of an employee due to the expiration ofthe employment contract is considered through the lens of fairness of the employer’s actions, while in Italy the number of fixed-termemployment contracts with a particular employer cannot exceed 30 %.The above circumstances should be taken into account by Ukraine when reforming labour legislation. Indeed, the need to implementCouncil Directive 1999/70/EC is clearly provided for in clauses 1139 and 1140 of the Action Plan for the implementation of theAssociation Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and theirmember states, on the other hand, approved by Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 1106, of 25.10.2017.

The article is devoted to the issue of harmonization of the legislation of Ukraine and the European Union on geographical indications. The study of the influence of the European experience in the field of protection of geographical indications is explained by the systemic reform of this institution in Ukraine. The protection of geographical indications is becoming increasingly important in the context of a gradual increase in trade between Ukraine and the European Union. Based on the analysis of the correlation of the EU law with the legislation of its member-states in the field of protection of geographical indications, a forecast of the development of this legal field in Ukraine is provided and the current tasks related to its revision and development are determined. The system of protection of geographical indications of the European Union is constantly adapted to the needs of the market. Current trends in its development include the gradual merging of the sovereignty of member states in the field of intellectual property protection, which in the long run may lead to the disappearance of relevant areas of national legislation of individual countries. Therefore, Ukraine must adapt to this trend as soon as possible at the legislative level. The ratio of sources of national legislation of Ukraine and acts of the European Union indicates that the latter significantly affect the development and functioning of the relevant legal field of Ukraine. Firstly, the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, on the other hand, is an element of the national legal system and can be directly applied to the relevant legal relationship. Secondly, the acts of the European Union on the protection of geographical values determine the directions and parameters of the development of national legislation of Ukraine in the relevant field. In particular, the harmonization of the legislation of Ukraine to the European Union standards on geographical indications has led to amendments to the Civil Code, Economic Code and the adoption of a new version of the law “On legal protection of geographical indications”.

In this article the author analyses the evolution of complex corpus of legislation concerning the freedom of movement for persons in European Union Law. The article deals with the subject in two aspects: the first part of the analysis considers the conceptual development of free movement of persons by way of deliberation of building-up the authority of Union in that area, and the second part analyses the contents of the right of the Union citizens to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member State. The freedom of movement for people includes the right of Union citizens to enter, move and reside in another Member State and, in that context prohibition of any discrimination based on nationality. Conceived originally as primarily an economic phenomenon, the free movement of persons was closely linked to the pursuit of an occupation. It was the mobility of human resources as a factor of production, which inspired the chapters of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957) relating to the free movement of workers, freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services. In that sense, freedom of movement is a part of a wider concept, that of the common/internal market. Since then, through the combined effect of secondary legislation and the case law of the Court of Justice, the concept has been broadened and it tends, from the Maastricht Treaty (1992), to form one of the fundamental and individual rights of Union citizens generally. Also, the amendments of EEC Treaty, which were made by the Single European Act (1985) and specially by the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001), have formalised the external aspect of freedom of movement. Namely, it was recognised that freedom of movement for persons could not take place at the expense of security, protection against crime and illegal immigration. The abolition of internal controls has generated the need of the transferring checks to the external frontiers of the Union and, in this connection, the gradual establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice. In the first part of the article the author presents and analyses the development of the Union power in the policies of freedom of movement: in facilitating of free movement of people as a principle of the common/internal/single market, in achievement of the right to free movement for Union citizens, and also in the fields related to the external aspect of freedom of movement, or, actually, the issues pertaining to visas, asylum and immigration. The second part presents the specific contents of freedom of movement for persons that consists of the corpus of individual rights enjoyed by Union citizens on the territories of EU Member States that are not countries of their origin. These are the right to entry and residence and the right to engagement in gainful activity as well as the related social rights. This part of the article also explores the freedom of movement restriction regime as well as the corresponding Union legislation in preparation.

Background: The advocacy of competition is a modern civilisational mechanism of cooperation, which balances private and public interests in economic activity and realises the functions of state management and control of economic activity, ensuring reasonable distribution of public goods. Competition is a fundamental driving force that determines the course of economic processes and contributes to the growth of economic prosperity and innovation in society. Its provision, protection, and development are among the main priorities of state economic policy in general and competition policy in particular. The purpose of this article is a comparative legal analysis of the advocacy of competition in different countries. This study will also identify the peculiarities of the use of advocacy tools in these places. Methods: In studying the proposed problem, the following methods were used: general philosophical and general scientific (dialectical, systemic, formal-logical, etc.); universal (induction, deduction); special-scientific (formal-legal, comparative law); interpretation of the rules, etc. One of the main methods used is the comparative method for researching the common and distinctive features of the advocacy of competition in the EU, USA, Mexico, the Republic of South Africa, and Ukraine. Results and Conclusions: The results show that countries with advanced economies have approached advocacy of competition gradually after more than a century of anti-monopoly competition legislation. In post-transformational economies, we see the formation of competitive policy principles activated after independence and the transition to market-based business practices. The globalisation of international trade relations leads to the need to implement complex competition advocacy programs and unify norms at the level of individual states and unions. Advocacy of competition remains important as a tool of self-regulation of economic activity. The European vector of Ukraine’s development caused the emergence of new mechanisms of interaction between the state, the individual, and society. Having chosen to strive for European integration, Ukraine began to build a new model of cooperation between all market participants, the introduction of which was based on the provisions of the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the EU, the European Atomic Energy Community and their member states, on the other hand, using implementation mechanisms of both individual norms and entire institutions of public-private partnership. The implementation of competition advocacy mechanisms in Ukraine is applied using the mechanisms of the analogy of individual norms and tools of competition policy. The formation of new good competitive practices is connected with russia’s war.

ABSTRACTPublic enterprises in the Federal Republic of Germany are about average for all nonsocialist countries and markets are more heavily regulated than in the United States. Compared to American deregulation and British privatization, there have been few developments in the Federal Republic. Why? In the last ten years new schools of thought have provided a stronger normative foundation for and a stronger positive explanation against deregulation and privatization in Germany in the near future. The German political debate on deregulation and privatization is characterized by three institutional peculiarities. Major steps to deregulate or privatize economic sectors require legislation, which is influenced by political parties. Trade unions exert a strong influence on the major parties and are opposed to privatization and deregulation. The European Community forces some deregulation upon the Federal Republic in order to liberalize service sectors.

This article is devoted to the analysis of international and legal cooperation in the area of labor migration in the Eurasian Economic Community and the Eurasian Economic Union. The authors study background for the creation and history of the Common Economic Space and the Customs Union, one of the main purposes of which is the creation and operation of a common labour market. The authors perform the analysis taking into account similarities and differences of legal regulation of the issue under consideration in the European Union, and make comparison. The authors point out to the continuity problems of labour migration legal regulation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union, including harmonization of legislation on labour migration of the Union’s member countries. The authors study the institutional system of the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasian Economic Union) and powers of institutions in the field of labour migration, indicate the presence of special migration authorities in the EurAsEC and in the Eurasian Economic Union. Provisions of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union devoted to labour migration are analyzed. The authors note the probability that the law harmonization function will be implemented in the Eurasian Economic Union not through model laws but through international treaties and decisions of the Union’s institutions. The authors assume that the Eurasian Economic Union will work out the desired integration model, based not only on political and economic interests, but which will take into account civilizational peculiarities of the Eurasian region.

The article considers the goals and process of formation of the European Union as a regional intergovernmental organization. The general concept of the values of the European Union in the light of the Lisbon Treaty is given. The role and place of the EU normative documents - the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, in the formation of the fundamental values of the union are analyzed. The author notes that the basis of the values of the European Union is a set of fundamental human rights.The significance of the Copenhagen criteria for promoting the implementation of EU values by the state is analyzed. The Copenhagen Declaration identifies three sectors of requirements for a country aspiring to join the Community: the political sector, which requires the establishment and observance of the principles of democracy and the rule of human rights, and the economic sector, which requires fair competition. The third set of requirements is purely procedural and concerns the state’s obligation to adhere to the EU accession procedure.The author examines the state of implementation of the fundamental principles of the Union in the founding states on the example of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic, as well as the implementation of Union values in countries that have recently become full members of the European Community. Thus, in Germa-ny and France today there is a fairly high level of implementation and compliance with the basic principles of the European Union, while in Poland recently there are some problems with this. Thus, for the last 7 years, this state has violated the values of the EU in two categories at once - in the category of personal and political rights. In 2020, the number of legal grounds for abortion in the Republic of Poland was limited, violating the right to the integrity of the person and his or her inviolability, which is one of the core values of the European Union.Іn 2017, the European Commission filed a lawsuit against Poland in the European Court of Justice for violating the requirements of the EU Treaty regarding the principle of judicial independence.

The presented work is devoted to highlighting the processes of evolution of the EU sports law and policy, identifying facts and events that have contributed to the development of communitarian regulation in this area and establishing trends and directions significant for Ukraine in the European integration aspect. Integration processes, first purely economic and then increasingly multidirectional, could not but affect this vital sphere of social life on the European continent and internationally. Sport is an essential element of the self-realization of a human personality and a sphere of economic activity. It is also a form of international communication, cross-cultural communication, the assertion of authority, and a positive image of countries. Also, sports can be an instrument of political and diplomatic influence or even a means of responding to violations of international law and order. The evolution of EU sports policy and law has been a difficult and long way in the general context of European integration processes. Initially, the sport was not covered by Community law and the spheres of competence of the Communities. However, since the 60s of the last century, the foundations of the European sports model began to form. Implementing the Council of Europe’s standards in the Member States’ practice was essential in forming this model. The European sports model implies, on the one hand, the unity of values and sports traditions of Europe. On the other hand, it is based on considering the national characteristics of European countries, pluralism, and diversity of the organization of sports relations and activities of non-governmental sports organizations. To the main features of the European sports model, which have developed historically and are preserved to this day, the author refers voluntary participation in sports competitions, non-discrimination, democracy, solidarity, compliance with the rules of “fair play,” good governance, and prevention of corruption and abuse. The article characterizes the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the creation of the EU acquis in the field of sport. CJEU developed the legal criteria system for extending communitarian rules and principles to the economic aspects of sports activities, including regulating relations with non-state actors such as national Olympic committees, sports federations, etc. Relevant CJEU decisions are analyzed in the study, approaches to the application of EU competition rules in sports, as well as to labor relations, freedom of movement of workers, and the provision of services, are revealed. Further integration and reform of the EU under the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty led to the emergence of a sector of the EU policy in the field of sports and several regulations and organizational measures aimed at realization of this policy. Implementation of the relevant standards in the national legislation, introduction of the best practices of governance in the field of sports in the state policy and activities of non-governmental sports organizations are important components of the implementation of Ukraine’s European integration aspirations, fulfillment of obligations under the Association Agreement and prospectively – the criteria for the EU membership.

The peculiarities of legal support of excise taxation of energy products in the EU and Ukraine are investigated, in particular, the basic Directives of the Council of the EU in the field of specific excise taxation: Council Directive 2008/118/EC on the general excise duty regime Council Directive 2011/64/EU on the structure and rates of excise duty on tobacco products Council Directive 92/83/EEC on the harmonisation of excise duty structures on alcohol and alcoholic beverages; Council Directive 2003/96/EC on the restructuring of the Community system on the taxation of energy and electricity products and the Tax Code of Ukraine and the Law of Ukraine “On the Electricity Market”. A comparative analysis of the excise tax rates on some energy products for the period before the termination or cancellation of martial law in the territory of Ukraine and those that were in effect before the introduction of martial law has been carried out. Attention is focused on the legislative peculiarities of the introduction of excise taxation of electricity in Ukraine and the fulfillment of Ukraine's obligations under the Treaty establishing the Energy Community and the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU on the implementation of acts of energy community legislation in the field of energy. The practice of collecting excise tax on electricity has been characterized, according to which during 2018-2020 the state budget received about UAH 13 billion of excise tax on electricity. The results of the activities of controlling bodies to ensure the completeness and timeliness of excise tax revenues on electricity have been analyzed, it was clarified that the work on providing explanations to taxpayers on the correctness of tax reporting (excise tax declarations) was not ensured. The factors influencing the implementation of Council Directive No. 2003/96/EC in Ukraine under martial law and post-war recovery are identified, in particular, the priority of protecting the Ukrainian energy market and minimizing the provision of energy products from the aggressor countries – the Russian Federation and Belarus; the need to expand energy and resource efficient technologies in the context of joining the European energy system ENTSO-E; postwar restoration of power grids etc. The problematic aspects and directions of ensuring harmonization of tax legislation of the EU and Ukraine in the field of excise taxation of energy products and electricity, which included mental, political, socio-economic, institutional and taxation, are outlined.

The article considers gender discrimination in the field of labor relations in the United Kingdom (UK) in the pre-covid period. In the past decades, the Western European countries have made the most significant progress in achieving gender equality in various fields, including labor relations, and became the world leader in this area. However, despite all the efforts of the international community, no country has achieved a full gender equality, and Great Britain is no exception. The authors argue that the British anti-discrimination legislation (before leaving the European Union) was based on international acts and conventions. For a long time, there were acts and laws prohibiting discrimination in the labor market, which seriously hindered the implementation of an effective anti-discrimination policy in the sphere of labor relations. It was not until 2010 that the law on equality was passed to replace all previous laws and regulations and to provide an exhaustive list of criteria for prohibiting discrimination. As a result, Great Britain began to develop a rather strict national anti-discrimination legislation in the field of labor relations. Thus, in the past decades, the UK has been achieving gender equality in the economic sphere at a faster pace than the average European Union country. The study shows a steady decline in the gender wage gap in the UK over the past two decades, which may be considered one of the countrys most significant achievements in fighting gender discrimination in the labor market. However, there is still a number of serious challenges: a relatively low female labor force participation and employment rate, a gender wage gap and income gap, horizontal and vertical segregation, a gender gap in postgraduate education, and a significant gender gap in time spent on family responsibilities. Age discrimination presents a special problem in the sphere of labor relations in Great Britain. In the European Union, the first laws prohibiting age discrimination were adopted only in the 2000s, and in the UK - in 2006. This problem still remains extremely acute for the labor market, since age discrimination in the UK ranks third among the most common grounds for discrimination - after gender and disability.

The present article deals with the decentralization reform in Ukraine, definition of basic concepts, in particular, «decentralization», «local self-government», «territorial community» has been installed, on the European Charter of Local Self-Government, as a fundamental international normative document, proclaiming the foundations of decentralization has been focused attention, the main conceptual document in the field of decentralization reform at the national level has been defined, problematic issues of decentralization reform implementation in Ukraine has been isolated, in the absence of a proper mechanism of legal regulation has been focused attention, after all, the new administrative-territorial system is not prescribed in the Constitution of Ukraine, on the inconsistency of the publicly announced goals of decentralization reform with the real actions of the authorities within the reform, contradictions regarding the legal status of the prefect in the system of renewed local self-government mechanism, irrationality of association of some territorial communities, legal unregulation of land decentralization procedure has been focused attention, negative impact of the consolidation of settlements, optimization of the network of medical institutions on life in territorial communities has been installed, issues of land decentralization and its consequences for citizens has been analyzed, bring in line the mechanism of legal regulation of issues related to decentralization reform, including, make appropriate changes to the Basic Law, adopt the Law «On the Principles of Administrative and Territorial Organization of Ukraine» and other legal acts necessary for the implementation of the reform has been suggested, on the need to bring national legislation into line with the European system of legal regulation has been emphasized, on the need to learn the experience of foreign countries in the field of decentralization reform has been focused attention, the expediency of revising the mechanism of community formation, which should be objective and consistent with the principle of economic efficiency has been installed, prospects for further research on the topic of decentralization reform in Ukraine has been defined.

The article is devoted to the study of the range of responsibilities of man and citizen in Ukraine and the European Union, the formation of an approach to their classification. The following range of human responsibilities in the EU have been identified: equality between women and men in terms of pay; non-discrimination; respect for human dignity; receiving compulsory education; completion of compulsory school education. The following range of responsibilities of an EU citizen has been identified: to perform military service in relation to one of the EU member states; to be registered as conscripts in one of the EU member states. Such a range of human responsibilities has been established in Ukraine (strict observance of the Constitution of Ukraine and laws of Ukraine; non-encroachment on the rights and freedoms, honor and dignity of others; responsibilities in marriage and family; parents are obliged to maintain children until they reach adulthood adult children are obliged to take care of their disabled parents; to obtain a complete general secondary education; not to harm nature, cultural heritage; to compensate for damages; to pay taxes and fees in the manner and amount prescribed by law) and the duties of a citizen of Ukraine (protection of the Fatherland, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine; respect for the state symbols of Ukraine). According to these criteria, the responsibilities of man and citizen are classified into the following groups: criterion "subject": 1) human responsibilities; 2) responsibilities of a citizen; by the criterion of "form of implementation": 1) individual; 2) collective; by the criterion of "content": 1) economic; 2) social; 3) cultural; 4) political; 5) others; according to the criterion of "source" of consolidation: 1) enshrined in the founding treaties of the EU; 2) enshrined in international (additional) EU agreements with international organizations and other countries; 3) enshrined in regulations, directives, recommendations; conclusions; 4) contained in the decision of the Court of Justice, the conclusions of the Court of Justice; 5) contained in the national legislation of the EU member states, third countries; 6) according to the criterion of the circle of subjects in relation to which they are assigned: 1) in relation to other people; 2) in relation to the world community; 3) in relation to future generations.

The gradual evolution of the standards of the founding instruments of the European Communities and then the European Unionin the field of their judicial systems, which is subject to the integration processes in Europe, is comprehensively analyzed. Thoroughscientific works of both foreign and domestic scientists cover the problems of various spheres of development of the European Union,its institutions, in particular, its Court of Justice. However, the study of this topic was not given enough attention. Therefore, the purposeof the article is a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the standards of the constituent instruments of these associations inrelation to the establishment and expansion of the jurisdiction of their Court of Justice in the pre-Lisbon period. It is established thatthe origins of the standards of the Court of Justice were enshrined in the founding treaties of the European Communities, and were furtherdeveloped in the founding instruments of the European Union, which were constantly being transformed. The jurisdiction of theCourt of Justice of the Coal and Steel Community was limited to a narrow sphere of economy, and with the entry into force of theTreaties establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community (1958), the Court became ajoint institution for the three communities, with the powers of ensuring respect for the law in the interpretation and application of eachof the treaties.The peculiarities of the amendments made to the provisions of the following constituent instruments are discovered. The SingleEuropean Act (1986) provided for a certain unification of the legislation of Western European countries, supplementing the foundingtreaties of the Communities with new provisions on the establishment of the Court of First Instance to hear certain claims of individualsand legal entities to relieve the Court of Justice. The Maastricht Treaty (1992) formally proclaimed the establishment of the EuropeanUnion and defined the new structure of the Court of Justice (Court, Tribunal and Specialized Tribunals), its composition and powers,and powers of the Member States in the judicial field. The Amsterdam Treaty (1997) expanded the jurisdiction of the Court of Justiceof the European Union, namely certain areas of activity of courts, their cooperation with other competent authorities of the MemberStates, joint actions of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, etc. The Treaty of Nice significantly deepened the standards of thefounding instruments of the Court of Justice, expanded the powers of its judicial bodies and modernized its structure (including theCourt of Justice and the Court of First Instance), defined high requirements for judges and advocates general, the periods of theirreplacement, extended the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance, etc. Further transformation of the standards of the Court of Justicehas been carried out under the Lisbon Treaty, which requires a separate study.

The article is devoted to the study of cryptocurrency as a new means of payment, which is relevant both in Ukraine and abroad. The urgency of the problem described in the article is due to the accelerated scientific and technological progress and global computerization of society, where modern technologies contribute to the emergence and development of new mechanisms of the economy, in particular, relations using non-cash payments. The main features of cryptocurrency are considered and argued in the form of its advantages: availability, speed, decentralization, security, and disadvantages: unreliability, distrust of users, inability to cancel transactions, use to commit illegal acts. The features that are controversial in modern conditions are anonymity and transnationality. The main problems of cryptocurrency and its legal regulation are generalized. Emphasis is placed on the practice of regulating the cryptocurrency market in the European Union, as well as on the legislation of the Republic of Estonia in the field of virtual assets. The legal status of cryptocurrency in Ukraine is considered, which is an urgent problem on the way to its legalization both in the legislative and technical plan. Attempts to legally regulate a new type of currency are analyzed. Bills and acts of the National Bank of Ukraine in the field of cryptocurrency circulation are described. Gaps in the current legislation, in particular in the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption", were identified, and ways to solve such problems were suggested. It is concluded that it is necessary to develop and create effective legislation in the field of regulation and control of cryptocurrency circulation not only at the national but also at the international level, because otherwise there is a threat to economic and financial life of the state and society and other problems for the international community. in the form of criminal acts with cryptocurrency, because today in Ukraine there is no effective legislation on the circulation of cryptocurrency, and the number of problems with the use of digital currency is growing every day, so it is worth paying attention to such components as the Internet and virtual assets, as in the leading countries of the world this direction is important in domestic and foreign policy.

The article states that when reforming the public administration of Ukraine in the direction of its democratization and adaptation to European standards, one of the main issues is staffing the public administration with highly professional and competent professionals capable of working in government at the transformational stage of society. One of the priority areas of socio-economic development of Ukraine is the qualitative improvement of the system of training, retraining and advanced training of civil servants.Having set a course for the development of a qualitatively new civil service institution, the state has identified the need to reform the institute of professional training of civil servants. The adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Civil Service” in 2016, which defined the guiding ideas and fundamental principles of the functioning of the institute of civil service in Ukraine, is considered to be a kind of start in reforming the institute of professional training of civil servants.An important problematic aspect of the issue of education of professionalism in the process of training civil servants are educational institutions that conduct educational activities in the field of training future civil servants. The implementation of educational activities in the field of professional training of civil servants is aimed at training highly qualified specialists in the field of civil service and public administration belongs to the competence of exclusively state institutions of higher education.The main issue of quality professional training of civil servants is the development of standards of higher education on the basis of their clear compliance with the needs of the civil service of Ukraine, namely professional training.It is necessary to bring the educational standard of knowledge «Public Administration and Management» in accordance with the requirements of current legislation and the practice of European countries regarding the calculation of the educational process in the process of educational activities and training of civil servants.Advanced training of civil servants is carried out on the basis of educational programs developed by relevant scientific and pedagogical workers-specialists in the field of public administration and governance. Currently, educational programs for the training of civil servants are being modernized. For example, training of civil servants in the European transfer and accumulation system is a borrowing of European Community practice in this area and allows for accurate accounting of learned material and also creates additional opportunities for government regulation in the field of civil servants.

At the current stage of the development of society the problem of social protection and state support for people with disabilities is particularly relevant and requires reform and improvement. Ukraine, as a country aspiring to join the European Union, should take into account the best foreign experience of the leading countries of the world in the field of state policy to support people with disabilities and its implementation. The process of reforming the national healthcare system demonstrated the ineffective policy in this area, the high level of corruption and the inability to transform this system to the level of world standards of medical care, especially for people with disabilities. The problem of disability in Ukraine is becoming particularly acute. The goal of this article is to investigate the system of economic means of state administration of the rights of people with disabilities to healthcare, to identify the areas of budgetary management and the formation of a new mechanism of economic administration. Scientific analysis was carried out by using the method of systematic approach and analysis, which enabled us to study theoretical aspects of economic methods of state administration of the right of people with disabilities to healthcare, formation of the budget management in Ukraine for the economic security of the rights to healthcare, and features of the new mechanism of the economic administration of the right of people with disabilities to health care. It has been researched that along with administrative methods of state management of the right to health protection of people with disabilities the economic group of methods is important. These include programs of economic development of health care, rehabilitation programs for people with disabilities, implementation of pilot projects to change the mechanism of financial support for operative treatment, etc. Methods of regulating influence (indirect management) are becoming increasingly important, and economical methods of management belong to them. Implementation ensures that the financial and material interests of the management objects are satisfied through the activities of its subjects, which create favorable conditions for achieving the goals and objectives of management. For example, local self-government bodies, within the limits of their competence, can finance local programs for the development and support of community healthcare institutions. In 2019, a new mechanism of rehabilitation support for children with disabilities was introduced based on the principle of "money follows the people", which should ensure targeting, transparency and improve the quality of rehabilitation services. Resources are divided vertically among regional bodies, which divide budgetary funds among local bodies in proportion to the number of children who require rehabilitation measures, according to the place of their residence (location). The national legislation also reflects the norms that created the conditions for the implementation of the right to work of people with disabilities, as well as ratified Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the ILO Convention on professional rehabilitation. From the point of view of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine, the funds allocated by the state are extremely insufficient for the uninterrupted functioning of the medical system. In its budget memorandum for 2021 the ministry has allocated twice as much – 296 billion UAH, 225 billion UAH of which for the implementation of the medical guarantee program (which is 5% of GDP, as required by the Law of Ukraine "On State Financial Guarantees of Medical Services to Population"). But the proposals of the Ministry of Health both at the time of formation of the state budget and at the time of its approval were not taken into account. The requirement of the Law of Ukraine "On State Financial Guarantees of Medical Services to the Population" for the establishment of financing of the program of medical guarantees at the level of 5% of GDP was lengthened for one more year.

Ukraine, choosing its strategic course of integration into the European Union, took the time to accelerate the reform of various spheres of socio-political and economic life of the country, in particular, the sphere of tourism services, transforming it into the standards of the European Union. The world-wide experience of progressive management gives tourism the first place among other sectors of the economy in terms of exports of goods and services. In conditions of development of the Ukrainian state, tourism becomes an effective means of forming a market mechanism of management, the receipt of significant funds to the state budget, one of the forms of rational use of free time, conducting meaningful leisure, studying the history of the native land, attracting the general population to the knowledge of the historical and cultural heritage. Current experience and scientific research show that accelerated development of rural green tourism can play the role of a catalyst for structural adjustment of the economy, provide demographic stability and solve urgent socio-economic problems in rural areas. It is important for Ukraine to overcome the gap in this area and realize the existing rich tourism potential through an elaborate policy of state regulation, including at the regional level. One of the reasons for the rapid development of rural green tourism in Europe is the crisis in the agricultural sector. Today, the process of productivity and automation of agriculture leads to jobs reduction. In fact, in many rural regions of Europe, agriculture has ceased to be the most important form of land use and the most important activity of the rural community. The rural green tourism is closely linked with other types of tourism, primarily with recreational, cultural, specialized tourism types – relief, gastronomy, ethno-tourism, etc. All this allows rural tourism to be included in combined tours, increasing the demand for a traditional tourist product. The rural green tourism in Ukraine is a holiday of the inhabitants of the city in the countryside in guest rooms created by a village family on the basis of its own residential house and private plot. As entrepreneurial activity, rural green tourism develops rather heterogeneously in different regions of Ukraine. Systematization of motivational interests of the rural green tourism activation in the regions of Ukraine showed that the dominant motives for diversification of activities in agricultural sector in the current conditions of rural areas development are: increase of incomes of rural population and increase of employment level, the possibility of diversification of income sources of peasants, significant investments and additional training, opportunities for self-realization of rural inhabitants. Priority directions of development of green tourism in these regions in the near future should be: reception and accommodation of tourists; rental of tourist equipment; production and sale of tourist goods of folk crafts; provision of tourist services (bicycle, gastronomy, agrotourism, cultural and historical tourism, organization of recreational recreation, mountain and ecological tourism); organization of tasting and culinary excursions; active development of the hotel business, camping (construction of agricultural cottages, fishing houses, farmhouses, horse farms); organization of historical and ethnographic events; distribution of religious tours; providing a complex of widely distributed services (fishing, hunting, picking berries and mushrooms, medicinal plants, etc.); development and popularization of water sports (kiting, windsurfing). The research of the current conditions for the development of green tourism in the regions of Ukraine allowed to outline the area of the key problems that hinder the active expansion of this type of activity: - disorderly legislation on key aspects of tourism business regulation in rural areas; lack of a law regulating this type of activity; - low level of development of the infrastructure of the market of green tourism services and social infrastructure of the village; - outdated stereotypes of rural residents, which hinder the active development of the newest types of tourism industry, the pronounced unsystematic and irregular nature of services; - absence of state programs supporting development of green tourism and limited amount of their financial, consulting and information-marketing support; - low level of informatization and popularization of green tourism in the regions of Ukraine among the population of European countries; - lack of political stability and social tension in society, deterioration of the world image of Ukraine. Thus, Ukraine has a rather powerful potential for the development of green tourism as an alternative type of agribusiness in the regions of Ukraine. In the context of modern economic conditions, solving key problems of development of green tourism forms the fundamental framework for addressing the most important socio-economic issues of rural areas: overcoming unemployment, promoting employment, raising incomes and quality of life for rural inhabitants.

The article is dedicated to the elections to the State Assembly of Hungary on April 3, 2022, which ended with the victory and acquisition of a constitutional majority by the now ruling coalition of Fidesz-Hungarian Civil Union and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) - (Fidesz–KDNP). It analyzes its electoral platform “War or Peace”, the center of which was the attitude to the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is indicated that this war divided the political forces of Hungary into two camps – supporters of neutrality (peace) or supporters of Ukraine (war). The ruling coalition advocated neutrality, non-intervention in the war, which guaranteed the preservation of peace and tranquility for the citizens of Hungary. All the opposition forces showed support for Ukraine against Russia. The authorities accused the latter of the fact that their pro-Ukrainian and anti-Putin activities posed a danger and threatened the spread of the war to the territory of Hungary. It is emphasized that thanks to this position, Fidesz–KDNP won a convincing victory in Hungary as a whole and especially among the Hungarian communities abroad, while the six-party opposition bloc, although it won convincingly in 17 of Budapest’s 18 districts, suffered a significant defeat in the country as a whole. The main reasons for the unexpected victory of the ruling coalition Fidesz - HDNP in these elections are highlighted. Among them: the coalition flexibly combined centrist and center-right values, synthesized them and rose above narrow party interests, turning into a broad popular front of the Hungarian nation. It is also noted that during the 12-year remaining stay in power in the country, transformations were completed, namely, a new Basic Law (constitution) was adopted, relevant legislation was formed, and a national democratic model of political and economic power was introduced according both to the state and EU standards that complies with state and EU standards. The internal policy was aimed at the development of traditional branches of the economy and the formation of modern forms of management. Relatively high economic development of the country was ensured thanks to by the effective use of foreign investments, international markets, which are far from being limited to EU countries. Hungary develops close cooperation with countries of all regions, if its national interests are ensured. Great attention is paid to the support and protection of Hungarian communities living in countries neighboring Hungary (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine). At the legislative level, the status of Hungarians abroad is almost equal to that of Hungarians in the country itself. The policy of national unity, the recognition of Hungarians, regardless of their residency country of residence, as members of a united single Hungarian nation, gained general approval. The concentration of domestic and foreign policy on the priority of Hungarian interests helped Fidesz to turn into an authoritative and reliable political force of the country, which, using civilized methods, fights for the future of Hungary, the comprehensive development of its people, the preservation of the identity of Hungarian communities abroad, the prevention of assimilation, mass emigration and the restriction of their rights along national lines. In addition, the ruling coalition managed to form a reliable financial, personnel, and media potential, to significantly expand the electoral field of its activities, which no opposition political force is able to compete with, especially during the elections to the State Assembly. The qualitative composition of the new parliament was analyzed. The progress of the election of the new President of Hungary on March 9, the speaker of the newly elected parliament, his deputies and heads of parliamentary factions on May 2, and finally the Prime Minister of Hungary on May 16 and the approval of the country’s new government headed by Viktor Orbán on May 24, is highlighted. Great attention is paid to the formation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations. The analysis of political processes during the election campaign and in the first months after the end of the elections, in particular the attitude of Budapest to the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, to the formation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, allowed us to draw conclusions that the priorities of the international activities of the ruling coalition of Hungary will remain unchanged: serving the interests of the Hungarian nation on in all territories of its residence, in particular support, protection and assistance to Hungarian national communities in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. The results of the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 3, 2022 confirmed that these principles are unchanged and continue to be binding in the activities of the Hungarian government institutions. It is emphasized that the level of development of Hungary's bilateral relations with neighboring states will depend on ensuring the Hungarian foreign communities interests how the interests of the Hungarian foreign communities will be ensured (granting dual citizenship, autonomy status for the community, creating conditions for cultural and educational development based on in the national language and traditions). Hungarian-Ukrainian relations will be in the same condition state. Hungary supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, its European choice, condemns Russian aggression, supports the EU’s sanctions policy against the Russian Federation, and provided shelter for 800,000 refugees from Ukraine. More than 100,000 people from Ukraine stay are in Hungary illegally. Since July 19, Hungary has allowed the transit of weapons from other countries through its territory to Ukraine. Yet But it continues to maintain neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian war, supports EU energy sanctions against the Russian Federation in such a way that it does not harm its economic interests. At the same time, it does not agree to the application of certain legal provisions on education the procedure for using the Ukrainian language as the official language on the territory of Ukraine, that came into force in 2017 and 2019 to the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia of a number of provisions of the laws on education and the procedure for using the Ukrainian language as the official language on the territory of Ukraine, which came into force in 2017 and 2019. It is emphasized that the settlement of cultural and educational issues of the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia should become a priority task for both countries.

The article is dedicated to the elections to the State Assembly of Hungary on April 3, 2022, which ended with the victory and acquisition of a constitutional majority by the now ruling coalition of Fidesz-Hungarian Civil Union and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) - (Fidesz–KDNP). It analyzes its electoral platform “War or Peace”, the center of which was the attitude to the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is indicated that this war divided the political forces of Hungary into two camps – supporters of neutrality (peace) or supporters of Ukraine (war). The ruling coalition advocated neutrality, non-intervention in the war, which guaranteed the preservation of peace and tranquility for the citizens of Hungary. All the opposition forces showed support for Ukraine against Russia. The authorities accused the latter of the fact that their pro-Ukrainian and anti-Putin activities posed a danger and threatened the spread of the war to the territory of Hungary. It is emphasized that thanks to this position, Fidesz–KDNP won a convincing victory in Hungary as a whole and especially among the Hungarian communities abroad, while the six-party opposition bloc, although it won convincingly in 17 of Budapest’s 18 districts, suffered a significant defeat in the country as a whole. The main reasons for the unexpected victory of the ruling coalition Fidesz - HDNP in these elections are highlighted. Among them: the coalition flexibly combined centrist and center-right values, synthesized them and rose above narrow party interests, turning into a broad popular front of the Hungarian nation. It is also noted that during the 12-year remaining stay in power in the country, transformations were completed, namely, a new Basic Law (constitution) was adopted, relevant legislation was formed, and a national democratic model of political and economic power was introduced according both to the state and EU standards that complies with state and EU standards. The internal policy was aimed at the development of traditional branches of the economy and the formation of modern forms of management. Relatively high economic development of the country was ensured thanks to by the effective use of foreign investments, international markets, which are far from being limited to EU countries. Hungary develops close cooperation with countries of all regions, if its national interests are ensured. Great attention is paid to the support and protection of Hungarian communities living in countries neighboring Hungary (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine). At the legislative level, the status of Hungarians abroad is almost equal to that of Hungarians in the country itself. The policy of national unity, the recognition of Hungarians, regardless of their residency country of residence, as members of a united single Hungarian nation, gained general approval. The concentration of domestic and foreign policy on the priority of Hungarian interests helped Fidesz to turn into an authoritative and reliable political force of the country, which, using civilized methods, fights for the future of Hungary, the comprehensive development of its people, the preservation of the identity of Hungarian communities abroad, the prevention of assimilation, mass emigration and the restriction of their rights along national lines. In addition, the ruling coalition managed to form a reliable financial, personnel, and media potential, to significantly expand the electoral field of its activities, which no opposition political force is able to compete with, especially during the elections to the State Assembly. The qualitative composition of the new parliament was analyzed. The progress of the election of the new President of Hungary on March 9, the speaker of the newly elected parliament, his deputies and heads of parliamentary factions on May 2, and finally the Prime Minister of Hungary on May 16 and the approval of the country’s new government headed by Viktor Orbán on May 24, is highlighted. Great attention is paid to the formation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations. The analysis of political processes during the election campaign and in the first months after the end of the elections, in particular the attitude of Budapest to the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, to the formation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, allowed us to draw conclusions that the priorities of the international activities of the ruling coalition of Hungary will remain unchanged: serving the interests of the Hungarian nation on in all territories of its residence, in particular support, protection and assistance to Hungarian national communities in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. The results of the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 3, 2022 confirmed that these principles are unchanged and continue to be binding in the activities of the Hungarian government institutions. It is emphasized that the level of development of Hungary's bilateral relations with neighboring states will depend on ensuring the Hungarian foreign communities interests how the interests of the Hungarian foreign communities will be ensured (granting dual citizenship, autonomy status for the community, creating conditions for cultural and educational development based on in the national language and traditions). Hungarian-Ukrainian relations will be in the same condition state. Hungary supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, its European choice, condemns Russian aggression, supports the EU’s sanctions policy against the Russian Federation, and provided shelter for 800,000 refugees from Ukraine. More than 100,000 people from Ukraine stay are in Hungary illegally. Since July 19, Hungary has allowed the transit of weapons from other countries through its territory to Ukraine. Yet But it continues to maintain neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian war, supports EU energy sanctions against the Russian Federation in such a way that it does not harm its economic interests. At the same time, it does not agree to the application of certain legal provisions on education the procedure for using the Ukrainian language as the official language on the territory of Ukraine, that came into force in 2017 and 2019 to the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia of a number of provisions of the laws on education and the procedure for using the Ukrainian language as the official language on the territory of Ukraine, which came into force in 2017 and 2019. It is emphasized that the settlement of cultural and educational issues of the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia should become a priority task for both countries.

In my postgraduate formation during the last years of the 80’s, we had close to thirty hospital beds in a pavilion called “sépticas” (1). In Colombia, where abortion was completely penalized, the pavilion was mostly filled with women with insecure, complicated abortions. The focus we received was technical: management of intensive care; performance of hysterectomies, colostomies, bowel resection, etc. In those times, some nurses were nuns and limited themselves to interrogating the patients to get them to “confess” what they had done to themselves in order to abort. It always disturbed me that the women who left alive, left without any advice or contraceptive method. Having asked a professor of mine, he responded with disdain: “This is a third level hospital, those things are done by nurses of the first level”. Seeing so much pain and death, I decided to talk to patients, and I began to understand their decision. I still remember so many deaths with sadness, but one case in particular pains me: it was a woman close to being fifty who arrived with a uterine perforation in a state of advanced sepsis. Despite the surgery and the intensive care, she passed away. I had talked to her, and she told me she was a widow, had two adult kids and had aborted because of “embarrassment towards them” because they were going to find out that she had an active sexual life. A few days after her passing, the pathology professor called me, surprised, to tell me that the uterus we had sent for pathological examination showed no pregnancy. She was a woman in a perimenopausal state with a pregnancy exam that gave a false positive due to the high levels of FSH/LH typical of her age. SHE WAS NOT PREGNANT!!! She didn’t have menstruation because she was premenopausal and a false positive led her to an unsafe abortion. Of course, the injuries caused in the attempted abortion caused the fatal conclusion, but the real underlying cause was the social taboo in respect to sexuality. I had to watch many adolescents and young women leave the hospital alive, but without a uterus, sometime without ovaries and with colostomies, to be looked down on by a society that blamed them for deciding to not be mothers. I had to see situation of women that arrived with their intestines protruding from their vaginas because of unsafe abortions. I saw women, who in their despair, self-inflicted injuries attempting to abort with elements such as stick, branches, onion wedges, alum bars and clothing hooks among others. Among so many deaths, it was hard not having at least one woman per day in the morgue due to an unsafe abortion. During those time, healthcare was not handled from the biopsychosocial, but only from the technical (2); nonetheless, in the academic evaluations that were performed, when asked about the definition of health, we had to recite the text from the International Organization of Health that included these three aspects. How contradictory! To give response to the health need of women and guarantee their right when I was already a professor, I began an obstetric contraceptive service in that third level hospital. There was resistance from the directors, but fortunately I was able to acquire international donations for the institution, which facilitated its acceptance. I decided to undertake a teaching career with the hope of being able to sensitize health professionals towards an integral focus of health and illness. When the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994, I had already spent various years in teaching, and when I read their Action Program, I found a name for what I was working on: Sexual and Reproductive Rights. I began to incorporate the tools given by this document into my professional and teaching life. I was able to sensitize people at my countries Health Ministry, and we worked together moving it to an approach of human rights in areas of sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This new viewpoint, in addition to being integral, sought to give answers to old problems like maternal mortality, adolescent pregnancy, low contraceptive prevalence, unplanned or unwanted pregnancy or violence against women. With other sensitized people, we began with these SRH issues to permeate the Colombian Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, some universities, and university hospitals. We are still fighting in a country that despite many difficulties has improved its indicators of SRH. With the experience of having labored in all sphere of these topics, we manage to create, with a handful of colleagues and friend at the Universidad El Bosque, a Master’s Program in Sexual and Reproductive Health, open to all professions, in which we broke several paradigms. A program was initiated in which the qualitative and quantitative investigation had the same weight, and some alumni of the program are now in positions of leadership in governmental and international institutions, replicating integral models. In the Latin American Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FLASOG, English acronym) and in the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO), I was able to apply my experience for many years in the SRH committees of these association to benefit women and girls in the regional and global environments. When I think of who has inspired me in these fights, I should highlight the great feminist who have taught me and been with me in so many fights. I cannot mention them all, but I have admired the story of the life of Margaret Sanger with her persistence and visionary outlook. She fought throughout her whole life to help the women of the 20th century to be able to obtain the right to decide when and whether or not they wanted to have children (3). Of current feminist, I have had the privilege of sharing experiences with Carmen Barroso, Giselle Carino, Debora Diniz and Alejandra Meglioli, leaders of the International Planned Parenthood Federation – Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF-RHO). From my country, I want to mention my countrywoman Florence Thomas, psychologist, columnist, writer and Colombo-French feminist. She is one of the most influential and important voices in the movement for women rights in Colombia and the region. She arrived from France in the 1960’s, in the years of counterculture, the Beatles, hippies, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre, a time in which capitalism and consumer culture began to be criticized (4). It was then when they began to talk about the female body, female sexuality and when the contraceptive pill arrived like a total revolution for women. Upon its arrival in 1967, she experimented a shock because she had just assisted in a revolution and only found a country of mothers, not women (5). That was the only destiny for a woman, to be quiet and submissive. Then she realized that this could not continue, speaking of “revolutionary vanguards” in such a patriarchal environment. In 1986 with the North American and European feminism waves and with her academic team, they created the group “Mujer y Sociedad de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia”, incubator of great initiatives and achievements for the country (6). She has led great changes with her courage, the strength of her arguments, and a simultaneously passionate and agreeable discourse. Among her multiple books, I highlight “Conversaciones con Violeta” (7), motivated by the disdain towards feminism of some young women. She writes it as a dialogue with an imaginary daughter in which, in an intimate manner, she reconstructs the history of women throughout the centuries and gives new light of the fundamental role of feminism in the life of modern women. Another book that shows her bravery is “Había que decirlo” (8), in which she narrates the experience of her own abortion at age twenty-two in sixty’s France. My work experience in the IPPF-RHO has allowed me to meet leaders of all ages in diverse countries of the region, who with great mysticism and dedication, voluntarily, work to achieve a more equal and just society. I have been particularly impressed by the appropriation of the concept of sexual and reproductive rights by young people, and this has given me great hope for the future of the planet. We continue to have an incomplete agenda of the action plan of the ICPD of Cairo but seeing how the youth bravely confront the challenges motivates me to continue ahead and give my years of experience in an intergenerational work. In their policies and programs, the IPPF-RHO evidences great commitment for the rights and the SRH of adolescent, that are consistent with what the organization promotes, for example, 20% of the places for decision making are in hands of the young. Member organizations, that base their labor on volunteers, are true incubators of youth that will make that unassailable and necessary change of generations. In contrast to what many of us experienced, working in this complicated agenda of sexual and reproductive health without theoretical bases, today we see committed people with a solid formation to replace us. In the college of medicine at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the College of Nursing at the Universidad El Bosque, the new generations are more motivated and empowered, with great desire to change the strict underlying structures. Our great worry is the onslaught of the ultra-right, a lot of times better organized than us who do support rights, that supports anti-rights group and are truly pro-life (9). Faced with this scenario, we should organize ourselves better, giving battle to guarantee the rights of women in the local, regional, and global level, aggregating the efforts of all pro-right organizations. We are now committed to the Objectives of Sustainable Development (10), understood as those that satisfy the necessities of the current generation without jeopardizing the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own necessities. This new agenda is based on: - The unfinished work of the Millennium Development Goals - Pending commitments (international environmental conventions) - The emergent topics of the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental. We now have 17 objectives of sustainable development and 169 goals (11). These goals mention “universal access to reproductive health” many times. In objective 3 of this list is included guaranteeing, before the year 2030, “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, including those of family planning, information, and education.” Likewise, objective 5, “obtain gender equality and empower all women and girls”, establishes the goal of “assuring the universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in conformity with the action program of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Action Platform of Beijing”. It cannot be forgotten that the term universal access to sexual and reproductive health includes universal access to abortion and contraception. Currently, 830 women die every day through preventable maternal causes; of these deaths, 99% occur in developing countries, more than half in fragile environments and in humanitarian contexts (12). 216 million women cannot access modern contraception methods and the majority live in the nine poorest countries in the world and in a cultural environment proper to the decades of the seventies (13). This number only includes women from 15 to 49 years in any marital state, that is to say, the number that takes all women into account is much greater. Achieving the proposed objectives would entail preventing 67 million unwanted pregnancies and reducing maternal deaths by two thirds. We currently have a high, unsatisfied demand for modern contraceptives, with extremely low use of reversible, long term methods (intrauterine devices and subdermal implants) which are the most effect ones with best adherence (14). There is not a single objective among the 17 Objectives of Sustainable Development where contraception does not have a prominent role: from the first one that refers to ending poverty, going through the fifth one about gender equality, the tenth of inequality reduction among countries and within the same country, until the sixteenth related with peace and justice. If we want to change the world, we should procure universal access to contraception without myths or barriers. We have the moral obligation of achieving the irradiation of extreme poverty and advancing the construction of more equal, just, and happy societies. In emergency contraception (EC), we are very far from reaching expectations. If in reversible, long-term methods we have low prevalence, in EC the situation gets worse. Not all faculties in the region look at this topic, and where it is looked at, there is no homogeneity in content, not even within the same country. There are still myths about their real action mechanisms. There are countries, like Honduras, where it is prohibited and there is no specific medicine, the same case as in Haiti. Where it is available, access is dismal, particularly among girls, adolescents, youth, migrants, afro-descendent, and indigenous. The multiple barriers for the effective use of emergency contraceptives must be knocked down, and to work toward that we have to destroy myths and erroneous perceptions, taboos and cultural norms; achieve changes in laws and restrictive rules within countries, achieve access without barriers to the EC; work in union with other sectors; train health personnel and the community. It is necessary to transform the attitude of health personal to a service above personal opinion. Reflecting on what has occurred after the ICPD in Cairo, their Action Program changed how we look at the dynamics of population from an emphasis on demographics to a focus on the people and human rights. The governments agreed that, in this new focus, success was the empowerment of women and the possibility of choice through expanded access to education, health, services, and employment among others. Nonetheless, there have been unequal advances and inequality persists in our region, all the goals were not met, the sexual and reproductive goals continue beyond the reach of many women (15). There is a long road ahead until women and girls of the world can claim their rights and liberty of deciding. Globally, maternal deaths have been reduced, there is more qualified assistance of births, more contraception prevalence, integral sexuality education, and access to SRH services for adolescents are now recognized rights with great advances, and additionally there have been concrete gains in terms of more favorable legal frameworks, particularly in our region; nonetheless, although it’s true that the access condition have improved, the restrictive laws of the region expose the most vulnerable women to insecure abortions. There are great challenges for governments to recognize SRH and the DSR as integral parts of health systems, there is an ample agenda against women. In that sense, access to SRH is threatened and oppressed, it requires multi-sector mobilization and litigation strategies, investigation and support for the support of women’s rights as a multi-sector agenda. Looking forward, we must make an effort to work more with youth to advance not only the Action Program of the ICPD, but also all social movements. They are one of the most vulnerable groups, and the biggest catalyzers for change. The young population still faces many challenges, especially women and girls; young girls are in particularly high risk due to lack of friendly and confidential services related with sexual and reproductive health, gender violence, and lack of access to services. In addition, access to abortion must be improved; it is the responsibility of states to guarantee the quality and security of this access. In our region there still exist countries with completely restrictive frameworks. New technologies facilitate self-care (16), which will allow expansion of universal access, but governments cannot detach themselves from their responsibility. Self-care is expanding in the world and can be strategic for reaching the most vulnerable populations. There are new challenges for the same problems, that require a re-interpretation of the measures necessary to guaranty the DSR of all people, in particular women, girls, and in general, marginalized and vulnerable populations. It is necessary to take into account migrations, climate change, the impact of digital media, the resurgence of hate discourse, oppression, violence, xenophobia, homo/transphobia, and other emergent problems, as SRH should be seen within a framework of justice, not isolated. We should demand accountability of the 179 governments that participate in the ICPD 25 years ago and the 193 countries that signed the Sustainable Development Objectives. They should reaffirm their commitments and expand their agenda to topics not considered at that time. Our region has given the world an example with the Agreement of Montevideo, that becomes a blueprint for achieving the action plan of the CIPD and we should not allow retreat. This agreement puts people at the center, especially women, and includes the topic of abortion, inviting the state to consider the possibility of legalizing it, which opens the doors for all governments of the world to recognize that women have the right to choose on maternity. This agreement is much more inclusive: Considering that the gaps in health continue to abound in the region and the average statistics hide the high levels of maternal mortality, of sexually transmitted diseases, of infection by HIV/AIDS, and the unsatisfied demand for contraception in the population that lives in poverty and rural areas, among indigenous communities, and afro-descendants and groups in conditions of vulnerability like women, adolescents and incapacitated people, it is agreed: 33- To promote, protect, and guarantee the health and the sexual and reproductive rights that contribute to the complete fulfillment of people and social justice in a society free of any form of discrimination and violence. 37- Guarantee universal access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, taking into consideration the specific needs of men and women, adolescents and young, LGBT people, older people and people with incapacity, paying particular attention to people in a condition of vulnerability and people who live in rural and remote zone, promoting citizen participation in the completing of these commitments. 42- To guarantee, in cases in which abortion is legal or decriminalized in the national legislation, the existence of safe and quality abortion for non-desired or non-accepted pregnancies and instigate the other States to consider the possibility of modifying public laws, norms, strategies, and public policy on the voluntary interruption of pregnancy to save the life and health of pregnant adolescent women, improving their quality of life and decreasing the number of abortions (17).

The article examines the development of consumer protection policy from the most ancient historical acts to modern legal acts of the European Union. The key laws of the Roman Empire in the field of consumer protection have been studied, among which the main ones are: «Lex Iulia de Annona», «Edictum de pretiis rerum venalium — Edict of maximum prices», «Civil Code» of Emperor Justinian. It is determined that the studied legislative acts were the first attempts to consolidate the protection of the rights of buyers (consumers). Roman law, which became the basis of modern legal systems in Europe and many non-European countries, has not lost its relevance. Ancient Roman laws are compared with the modern practice of the European Union. The history of the emergence of consumer law in the European Community is considered, which is divided into three key stages from the establishment of the European Community to modern EU policy. It is determined that at the beginning of its creation the EU policy of consumer protection was considered as an element of ensuring the sustainable operation of the internal market. The key constituent acts of the Union are considered, among which the Treaty of Rome of 1957, the Single European Act of 1987, the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of 2000 are highlighted. The analysis of Art. 2 of the Treaty of Rome stipulates that one of the key goals — protection and improvement of living standards was interpreted also as consumer protection. This strategy was later strengthened by the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, which identified the promotion of a high level of consumer protection as one of the Community’s tasks. The current EU policy in the field of consumer protection, which is aimed at updating legislation in accordance with modern realities, is studied. Among the key acts of secondary law is the EU Directive № 2019/2161, which focuses on better application and modernization of legislation on consumer protection and amends existing EU directives. It is determined that the current consumer protection policy in the EU ensures the proper and effective functioning of the single market through constant updating of legislation taking into account social, technological, economic and environmental changes.

During humanitarian crises, women are particularly vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy. Unsafe abortion is among the five leading causes of maternal mortality and it is the only one which is entirely preventable. This study aimed to identify the barriers and facilitators to the provision of safe abortion care by humanitarian organisations. We performed a scoping review of the literature in July 2020, covering the years 2010–2020, on the following databases: Medline, Global Health, CINAHL Plus and ReliefWeb. We critically appraised all included articles and we conducted a narrative synthesis of the findings. We retrieved 881 articles. After removing duplicates and excluding articles that did not meet the inclusion criteria, twenty-four articles published between 2015 and 2020 were included in the review. Nine of the included papers were non-research practise items. The findings revealed five main themes: legal environment; context; stigma; economic factors; and service delivery. Restrictive laws, stigma, and lack of funding were reported as the main barriers to safe abortion, while the main facilitators were the fact that abortion is permitted under some circumstances in most countries, humanitarian actors' ability to inform healthcare policies at the onset of a humanitarian crisis, and community engagement. This scoping review revealed a dearth of published research. Increased dissemination of studies on Termination of Pregnancy (ToP) could increase the visibility of unsafe abortion and the need to provide ToP in humanitarian settings. Moreover, humanitarian organisations need to have a clear protocol on safe abortion and an in-depth understanding of relevant legislation, including the International Humanitarian Law, in order to provide this service to the full extent of the law.

The European Community (EC), in particular, took upon itself the role of the key external player in the political and economic restructuring programs in Eastern Europe. It successfully used a combination of aid packages and advice-giving, to frame its political and economic relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. For their part, the Eastern states, hoping for a quick path to a convertible currency and EU membership, fully embraced the free market philosophy by swallowing the bitter pill of shock therapy, mass privatization and deregulation. The Eastern Europeans have gradually come to a significant twofold realization. First, that membership is not likely to be offered any time soon. And second, that there are significant barriers to the strengthening of ties with the EU. <p> The EU eventually responded to the growing pleas for membership by announcing that the special relationship between Western and Eastern Europe would be assured through association agreements pursuant to Article 235 of the Treaty of Rome. Initially, the EU did not intend to make any reference in the Europe Agreements to future membership of the Association countries. <p> A major indicator in the Europe Agreements, which highlights the EU's fundamental concern over its own interests rather than assisting Eastern Europe in the transition process, are the trade provisions. In essence, these maintain significant, potentially long-term barriers to trade between the EC and the East, particularly in sensitive sectors such as steel, textiles and agriculture. A second obstacle to the Associate countries' accession are the relatively weak institutional links created by the Europe Agreements. Convergence of laws is another important condition which needs to be satisfied before membership is granted to the Eastern European applicants. The present approach excludes the Eastern Europeans from exemption from the EU's anti-dumping law; it shuts them out of most of the EU's decision making; and it limits the effectiveness of their attempts to harmonise their legislation with the EU. Taken collectively, it seems certain that these exclusions will seriously restrict the Associates' prospects of rapid integration into the EU. <p> The compromise may involve complicated negotiations between member states and also with potential applicants.

Photo by Ferenc Horvath on Unsplash ABSTRACT Malta is a small, predominantly Catholic island-nation in the Mediterranean ocean where there is a complete ban on abortion – there are no exemptions for rape, incest, fetal anomalies, or to save a pregnant woman’s life. Both medical and surgical abortions are illegal. Those who choose to end pregnancies have often sought abortion care outside of Malta, traveling abroad at great personal cost. Medical care in Malta is otherwise free at the point of care. Options for pregnancy termination within Malta are essentially non-existent as there is great public support for the Maltese abortion ban. As the government of Malta imposed travel restrictions in the interest of containing the spread of SARS-CoV2, women faced further limitations in their ability to access safe, effective abortion care in other countries. Many women have ordered medications online and have self-managed their abortion care. Women who have had abortions or people who facilitate abortions in Malta face criminal charges. Women who seek medical management of complications of self-managed abortions do so with the possibility of facing legal charges. Denying women access to safe and private abortion care can cause significant physical, psychological, and social effects and unfairly harms those experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. Given the global COVID pandemic and in the event of future pandemics wherein lockdowns may be indicated to maintain public health and safety, the Maltese government has a responsibility to ensure access to safe abortion care whether abroad or self-managed and such care should be decriminalized. INTRODUCTION The official and predominant religion of Malta is Roman Catholicism. This is recognized in Article 2 of the Constitution of Malta; the Constitution gives the church the duty and right to “teach which principles are right and which are wrong,” and religious education is compulsory.[1] The Constitution does afford Maltese citizens freedom of religious choice though most citizens in Malta are Catholic. The Maltese Criminal Code is clear regarding abortion: 241. (1) Whosoever, by any food, drink, medicine, or by violence, or by any other means whatsoever, shall cause the miscarriage of any woman with child, whether the woman be consenting or not, shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for a term from eighteen months to three years. (2) The same punishment shall be awarded against any woman who shall procure her own miscarriage, or who shall have consented to the use of the means by which the miscarriage is procured. 242. If the means used shall cause the death of the woman, or shall cause a serious injury to her person, whether the miscarriage has taken place or not, the offender shall, on conviction, be liable to the punishment applicable to willful homicide or willful bodily harm, diminished by one to three degrees. 243. Any physician, surgeon, obstetrician, or apothecary, who shall have knowingly prescribed or administered the means whereby the miscarriage is procured, shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for a term from eighteen months to four years, and to perpetual interdiction from the exercise of his profession.[2] The language used in the Constitution reflects the persistence of Catholic values through time and excludes all methods of and exemptions for pregnancy terminations. The prohibitions above apply to cases of rape, incest, and where the pregnant woman's life is in jeopardy – the only other country in the European Union with equally restrictive laws is the Vatican. However, a key difference between Malta and the Vatican is that someone living in the Vatican wanting an abortion would have easy access to medical services in Rome. Malta is isolated in comparison. The coronavirus placed additional stress on those seeking abortion care when infection control measures were implemented.[3] As Malta is an island, travel outside of the country requires travel by boat or plane, both prohibited as part of government-imposed infection control measures. Those who did return to Malta following international travel were required to quarantine for two weeks and risked fines of up to €10,000.[4] While someone in the first trimester of an unwanted pregnancy may have previously been able to plan a quick trip abroad without raising suspicion that they were traveling for abortion care, with travel restrictions in place, such trips were not easily executed. When pregnant women cannot access abortions, whether medical or surgical, they must self-manage their abortion care. l. The Harms of a Lack of Access to Care As the pandemic is a time of significant mental, spiritual, and existential distress, the added stress of an unwanted pregnancy can cause great harm to an individual. Some may argue that the societal benefits of restricting travel, thus limiting disease spread to individuals and their communities, can outweigh the rights of the individual. But even during a public health emergency, such as a pandemic, it is important that medical care continue where possible to ensure robust baseline health of the community. Abortion care is essential medical care,[5] and in the case of a global infectious pandemic, it would ideally be available locally so as not to harm the community through needless travel abroad. Given the significant implications and downstream effects caused by the continuation of an unwanted pregnancy, those seeking abortion care are likely to pursue the options available to them even if there is the potential risk to the individual or their community. Underlying the increased challenges regarding access to abortion care is the existing legislation that does not have provisions for emergency care. The potential harms to pregnant women in criminalizing access to abortion care, especially given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, are significant. The current legislation does not provide exemptions for abortions that would save the woman’s life. Rather, the woman and her health care team are at risk of criminal consequences if they implement this lifesaving care. If a woman remains in Malta and is unable to self-manage abortion care, or if self-managed care is not medically appropriate or safe, she faces the possibility of dying because of pregnancy continuation. Alternately, the woman can leave the country to pursue the appropriate care, though there is the potential for social and financial repercussions, and pandemic travel restrictions severely limit this option.[6] ll. Injustice Malta’s criminalization of all abortions is a significant violation of the bioethical principle of justice. The Maltese Criminal Code legislates no other medical procedures.[7] The burden that results from these restrictions weighs most heavily on Maltese women. Pregnant women seeking an abortion must either determine a strategy to get such care (potentially violating the criminal code) or continue a dangerous or unwanted pregnancy. Although those who seek to support and help women may also face criminal consequences, the criminal code essentially targets women with unwanted or unsafe pregnancies. Furthermore, as their request for abortion puts doctors or other facilitators at risk, the potential criminal liability of healthcare professionals is a deterrent to their seeking abortion care. Thus, the criminal code undervalues women and creates a crime that categorically applies to women only. Restrictive reproductive care policies in Malta also create significant socio-economic injustice, which was amplified by stay-at-home orders and travel bans. Those who can afford to leave the island to seek medical care abroad are also those who are most likely to have the financial flexibility for a post-travel two-week quarantine. The financial stress associated with seeking medical care abroad or self-managed abortion care disproportionately affects women of low socioeconomic standing. There are non-profit organizations outside of Malta that may be able to facilitate access to medically supervised abortion care outside of the country. However, COVID-19 travel restrictions likely limited their ability to help women. lll. Autonomy and Healthcare Decisions Ultimately, allowing pregnant women access to the reproductive care they require is important for the preservation of individual autonomy. Ideally, women would have the assistance of healthcare providers to inform reproductive decisions with accurate, evidence-based information that is free from bias. Certainly, where a provider is at risk of criminal charges, a patient is denied the information necessary to make an autonomous choice regarding the appropriateness of such care. The provision of comprehensive and exhaustive information is also essential to the preservation of trust between the medical care team and the patient. Abortion care is acceptable in many jurisdictions, and information around this care should be included as part of comprehensive family planning discussions whether the provider is willing to facilitate the care or not. lV. Denying the Consequences of a Local Ban on Abortion There is a perception among those supporting the complete abortion ban that those wanting abortion care, even in pregnancies resulting from rape, can easily travel to other countries to do so. As discussed above, this perception does not consider financial inequities and the burdens on those with limited financial resources.[8] People holding this “not in my backyard” stance on abortion may be using the perceived easy international access to abortions as an excuse to avoid considering the consequences of a total ban (for example, the death of pregnant women from pregnancy complications, a woman forced to continue a pregnancy despite severe fetal abnormality that is not compatible with survival upon delivery). Because international travel for abortion can no longer be presumed, ban supporters can no longer use it as a shield to avoid grappling with difficult problems. Issues like the ethics of permitting a woman to die or forcing a birth resulting from rape or incest would be addressed head-on if the legislators did not dismiss the issues using the assumption women can travel for care. Exploration of an ethical justification for a complete ban is sidelined by the perception of the ability to access care elsewhere. CONCLUSION It is an oversimplification to consider the legality of abortion the sole barrier to accessing this care, especially in a country driven by culture and religion. Yet abortion and reproductive care are essential to the wellbeing of pregnant individuals and should be part of every health system. The COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant public health concern and has highlighted some of the consequences of not having any abortion care available within Malta. Illegal self-managed abortions remain one of the few options for many pregnant women in the country. It can be challenging to navigate abortion care, particularly in a country where the prohibition of such care is widely accepted, and it is important to allow for provisions that support safe reproductive care. Research and examination of the pandemic’s effect on access to abortion care would provide much-needed data. Protections and immunity in place for those who sought or delivered such care during the pandemic would be a just response to the restrictive policies. The pandemic has successfully highlighted significant inequities in care, and access to safe and effective abortions for those who wish to have them should be facilitated – whether it be in Malta or abroad. - [1] “Constitution of Malta,” 1964., 7. [2] Malta Criminal Code, CAP. 9, Book First, Part II, Title VIII, Sub-title VII, Articles 241-243, available at Refworld, accessed April 24, 2021, https://www.refworld.org/docid/5d36fc847.html. [3] Different countries in Europe responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways. Hungary, for example, stopped all non-life-threatening surgeries in state hospitals, while in the Netherlands, those who had or lived with someone with COVID-19 symptoms were restricted from accessing abortion care. Caroline Moreau et al., “Abortion Regulation in Europe in the Era of COVID-19: A Spectrum of Policy Responses,” BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, October 22, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2020-200724. [4] “COVID-19: Confirmed Patients Who Ignore Isolation Orders to Be Fined €10,000,” Times of Malta, accessed April 24, 2021, https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/covid-19-fines-may-be-increased-up-to-10000.780452. [5] Elizabeth Janiak and Alisa B. Goldberg, ‘Eliminating the Phrase “Elective Abortion”: Why Language Matters’, Contraception, 93.2 (2016), 89–92, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2015.10.008. [6] Of course, It is also important to consider the well-being of women who have unwanted pregnancies and are choosing abortion care. The abortion argument is often framed solely in the context of pregnancies where a woman’s health and/or life are in jeopardy or in cases of incest and rape – this neglects the needs of the women who have unwanted pregnancies outside of those circumstances. The continuation of such pregnancies can have significant social and financial consequences for an individual – ensuring that appropriate and safe care can be pursued is essential to the minimization of harm to that individual. Legislation that denies any individual the opportunity to seek such care, and that goes so far as to criminalize it, can cause significant emotional and physical harms to pregnant individuals. This can happen regardless of the motivation for pursuing abortion care and the argument is most appropriately framed in general terms to preserve the right to seek abortion care for all pregnant women. [7] Malta Criminal Code, CAP. 9, amendments up until 2018, available at Refworld, accessed April 24, 2021, https://www.refworld.org/docid/5d36fc847.html. [8] “Abortion Debate: Between Progress, Catholic Morality and Patriarchy,” MaltaToday.com.mt, accessed April 8, 2021, http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/100419/abortion_debate_between_progress_catholic_morality_and_patriarchy.

Connecting I’ve moved house on the weekend, closer to the centre of an Australian capital city. I had recently signed up for broadband, with a major Australian Internet company (my first contact, cf. Turner). Now I am the proud owner of a larger modem than I have ever owned: a white cable modem. I gaze out into our new street: two thick black cables cosseted in silver wire. I am relieved. My new home is located in one of those streets, double-cabled by Telstra and Optus in the data-rush of the mid-1990s. Otherwise, I’d be moth-balling the cable modem, and the thrill of my data percolating down coaxial cable. And it would be off to the computer supermarket to buy an ASDL modem, then to pick a provider, to squeeze some twenty-first century connectivity out of old copper (the phone network our grandparents and great-grandparents built). If I still lived in the country, or the outskirts of the city, or anywhere else more than four kilometres from the phone exchange, and somewhere that cable pay TV will never reach, it would be a dish for me — satellite. Our digital lives are premised upon infrastructure, the networks through which we shape what we do, fashion the meanings of our customs and practices, and exchange signs with others. Infrastructure is not simply the material or the technical (Lamberton), but it is the dense, fibrous knotting together of social visions, cultural resources, individual desires, and connections. No more can one easily discern between ‘society’ and ‘technology’, ‘carriage’ and ‘content’, ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’, or ‘infrastructure’ and ‘applications’ (or ‘services’ or ‘content’). To understand telecommunications in action, or the vectors of fibre, we need to consider the long and heterogeneous list of links among different human and non-human actors — the long networks, to take Bruno Latour’s evocative concept, that confect our broadband networks (Latour). The co-ordinates of our infrastructure still build on a century-long history of telecommunications networks, on the nineteenth-century centrality of telegraphy preceding this, and on the histories of the public and private so inscribed. Yet we are in the midst of a long, slow dismantling of the posts-telegraph-telephone (PTT) model of the monopoly carrier for each nation that dominated the twentieth century, with its deep colonial foundations. Instead our New World Information and Communication Order is not the decolonising UNESCO vision of the late 1970s and early 1980s (MacBride, Maitland). Rather it is the neoliberal, free trade, market access model, its symbol the 1984 US judicial decision to require the break-up of AT&T and the UK legislation in the same year that underpinned the Thatcherite twin move to privatize British Telecom and introduce telecommunications competition. Between 1984 and 1999, 110 telecommunications companies were privatized, and the ‘acquisition of privatized PTOs [public telecommunications operators] by European and American operators does follow colonial lines’ (Winseck 396; see also Mody, Bauer & Straubhaar). The competitive market has now been uneasily installed as the paradigm for convergent communications networks, not least with the World Trade Organisation’s 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services and Annex on Telecommunications. As the citizen is recast as consumer and customer (Goggin, ‘Citizens and Beyond’), we rethink our cultural and political axioms as well as the axes that orient our understandings in this area. Information might travel close to the speed of light, and we might fantasise about optical fibre to the home (or pillow), but our terrain, our band where the struggle lies today, is narrower than we wish. Begging for broadband, it seems, is a long way from warchalking for WiFi. Policy Circuits The dreary everyday business of getting connected plugs the individual netizen into a tangled mess of policy circuits, as much as tricky network negotiations. Broadband in mid-2003 in Australia is a curious chimera, welded together from a patchwork of technologies, old and newer communications industries, emerging economies and patterns of use. Broadband conjures up grander visions, however, of communication and cultural cornucopia. Broadband is high-speed, high-bandwidth, ‘always-on’, networked communications. People can send and receive video, engage in multimedia exchanges of all sorts, make the most of online education, realise the vision of home-based work and trading, have access to telemedicine, and entertainment. Broadband really entered the lexicon with the mass takeup of the Internet in the early to mid-1990s, and with the debates about something called the ‘information superhighway’. The rise of the Internet, the deregulation of telecommunications, and the involuted convergence of communications and media technologies saw broadband positioned at the centre of policy debates nearly a decade ago. In 1993-1994, Australia had its Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG), established by the then Labor government. The BSEG was charged with inquiring into ‘issues relating to the delivery of broadband services to homes, schools and businesses’. Stung by criticisms of elite composition (a narrow membership, with only one woman among its twelve members, and no consumer or citizen group representation), the BSEG was prompted into wider public discussion and consultation (Goggin & Newell). The then Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE), since transmogrified into the Communications Research Unit of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), conducted its large-scale Communications Futures Project (BTCE and Luck). The BSEG Final report posed the question starkly: As a society we have choices to make. If we ignore the opportunities we run the risk of being left behind as other countries introduce new services and make themselves more competitive: we will become consumers of other countries’ content, culture and technologies rather than our own. Or we could adopt new technologies at any cost…This report puts forward a different approach, one based on developing a new, user-oriented strategy for communications. The emphasis will be on communication among people... (BSEG v) The BSEG proposed a ‘National Strategy for New Communications Networks’ based on three aspects: education and community access, industry development, and the role of government (BSEG x). Ironically, while the nation, or at least its policy elites, pondered the weighty question of broadband, Australia’s two largest telcos were doing it. The commercial decision of Telstra/Foxtel and Optus Vision, and their various television partners, was to nail their colours (black) to the mast, or rather telegraph pole, and to lay cable in the major capital cities. In fact, they duplicated the infrastructure in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, then deciding it would not be profitable to cable up even regional centres, let alone small country towns or settlements. As Terry Flew and Christina Spurgeon observe: This wasteful duplication contrasted with many other parts of the country that would never have access to this infrastructure, or to the social and economic benefits that it was perceived to deliver. (Flew & Spurgeon 72) The implications of this decision for Australia’s telecommunications and television were profound, but there was little, if any, public input into this. Then Minister Michael Lee was very proud of his anti-siphoning list of programs, such as national sporting events, that would remain on free-to-air television rather than screen on pay, but was unwilling, or unable, to develop policy on broadband and pay TV cable infrastructure (on the ironies of Australia’s television history, see Given’s masterly account). During this period also, it may be remembered, Australia’s Internet was being passed into private hands, with the tendering out of AARNET (see Spurgeon for discussion). No such national strategy on broadband really emerged in the intervening years, nor has the market provided integrated, accessible broadband services. In 1997, landmark telecommunications legislation was enacted that provided a comprehensive framework for competition in telecommunications, as well as consolidating and extending consumer protection, universal service, customer service standards, and other reforms (CLC). Carrier and reseller competition had commenced in 1991, and the 1997 legislation gave it further impetus. Effective competition is now well established in long distance telephone markets, and in mobiles. Rivalrous competition exists in the market for local-call services, though viable alternatives to Telstra’s dominance are still few (Fels). Broadband too is an area where there is symbolic rivalry rather than effective competition. This is most visible in advertised ADSL offerings in large cities, yet most of the infrastructure for these services is comprised by Telstra’s copper, fixed-line network. Facilities-based duopoly competition exists principally where Telstra/Foxtel and Optus cable networks have been laid, though there are quite a number of ventures underway by regional telcos, power companies, and, most substantial perhaps, the ACT government’s TransACT broadband network. Policymakers and industry have been greatly concerned about what they see as slow takeup of broadband, compared to other countries, and by barriers to broadband competition and access to ‘bottleneck’ facilities (such as Telstra or Optus’s networks) by potential competitors. The government has alternated between trying to talk up broadband benefits and rates of take up and recognising the real difficulties Australia faces as a large country with a relative small and dispersed population. In March 2003, Minister Alston directed the ACCC to implement new monitoring and reporting arrangements on competition in the broadband industry. A key site for discussion of these matters has been the competition policy institution, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and its various inquiries, reports, and considerations (consult ACCC’s telecommunications homepage at http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm). Another key site has been the Productivity Commission (http://www.pc.gov.au), while a third is the National Office on the Information Economy (NOIE - http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm). Others have questioned whether even the most perfectly competitive market in broadband will actually provide access to citizens and consumers. A great deal of work on this issue has been undertaken by DCITA, NOIE, the regulators, and industry bodies, not to mention consumer and public interest groups. Since 1997, there have been a number of governmental inquiries undertaken or in progress concerning the takeup of broadband and networked new media (for example, a House of Representatives Wireless Broadband Inquiry), as well as important inquiries into the still most strategically important of Australia’s companies in this area, Telstra. Much of this effort on an ersatz broadband policy has been piecemeal and fragmented. There are fundamental difficulties with the large size of the Australian continent and its harsh terrain, the small size of the Australian market, the number of providers, and the dominant position effectively still held by Telstra, as well as Singtel Optus (Optus’s previous overseas investors included Cable & Wireless and Bell South), and the larger telecommunications and Internet companies (such as Ozemail). Many consumers living in metropolitan Australia still face real difficulties in realising the slogan ‘bandwidth for all’, but the situation in parts of rural Australia is far worse. Satellite ‘broadband’ solutions are available, through Telstra Countrywide or other providers, but these offer limited two-way interactivity. Data can be received at reasonable speeds (though at far lower data rates than how ‘broadband’ used to be defined), but can only be sent at far slower rates (Goggin, Rural Communities Online). The cultural implications of these digital constraints may well be considerable. Computer gamers, for instance, are frustrated by slow return paths. In this light, the final report of the January 2003 Broadband Advisory Group (BAG) is very timely. The BAG report opens with a broadband rhapsody: Broadband communications technologies can deliver substantial economic and social benefits to Australia…As well as producing productivity gains in traditional and new industries, advanced connectivity can enrich community life, particularly in rural and regional areas. It provides the basis for integration of remote communities into national economic, cultural and social life. (BAG 1, 7) Its prescriptions include: Australia will be a world leader in the availability and effective use of broadband...and to capture the economic and social benefits of broadband connectivity...Broadband should be available to all Australians at fair and reasonable prices…Market arrangements should be pro-competitive and encourage investment...The Government should adopt a National Broadband Strategy (BAG 1) And, like its predecessor nine years earlier, the BAG report does make reference to a national broadband strategy aiming to maximise “choice in work and recreation activities available to all Australians independent of location, background, age or interests” (17). However, the idea of a national broadband strategy is not something the BAG really comes to grips with. The final report is keen on encouraging broadband adoption, but not explicit on how barriers to broadband can be addressed. Perhaps this is not surprising given that the membership of the BAG, dominated by representatives of large corporations and senior bureaucrats was even less representative than its BSEG predecessor. Some months after the BAG report, the Federal government did declare a broadband strategy. It did so, intriguingly enough, under the rubric of its response to the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry report (Estens), the second inquiry responsible for reassuring citizens nervous about the full-privatisation of Telstra (the first inquiry being Besley). The government’s grand $142.8 million National Broadband Strategy focusses on the ‘broadband needs of regional Australians, in partnership with all levels of government’ (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’). Among other things, the government claims that the Strategy will result in “improved outcomes in terms of services and prices for regional broadband access; [and] the development of national broadband infrastructure assets.” (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’) At the same time, the government announced an overall response to the Estens Inquiry, with specific safeguards for Telstra’s role in regional communications — a preliminary to the full Telstra sale (Alston, ‘Future Proofing’). Less publicised was the government’s further initiative in indigenous telecommunications, complementing its Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities (DCITA). Indigenous people, it can be argued, were never really contemplated as citizens with the ken of the universal service policy taken to underpin the twentieth-century government monopoly PTT project. In Australia during the deregulatory and re-regulatory 1990s, there was a great reluctance on the part of Labor and Coalition Federal governments, Telstra and other industry participants, even to research issues of access to and use of telecommunications by indigenous communicators. Telstra, and to a lesser extent Optus (who had purchased AUSSAT as part of their licence arrangements), shrouded the issue of indigenous communications in mystery that policymakers were very reluctant to uncover, let alone systematically address. Then regulator, the Australian Telecommunications Authority (AUSTEL), had raised grave concerns about indigenous telecommunications access in its 1991 Rural Communications inquiry. However, there was no government consideration of, nor research upon, these issues until Alston commissioned a study in 2001 — the basis for the TAPRIC strategy (DCITA). The elision of indigenous telecommunications from mainstream industry and government policy is all the more puzzling, if one considers the extraordinarily varied and significant experiments by indigenous Australians in telecommunications and Internet (not least in the early work of the Tanami community, made famous in media and cultural studies by the writings of anthropologist Eric Michaels). While the government’s mid-2003 moves on a ‘National Broadband Strategy’ attend to some details of the broadband predicament, they fall well short of an integrated framework that grasps the shortcomings of the neoliberal communications model. The funding offered is a token amount. The view from the seat of government is a glance from the rear-view mirror: taking a snapshot of rural communications in the years 2000-2002 and projecting this tableau into a safety-net ‘future proofing’ for the inevitable turning away of a fully-privately-owned Telstra from its previously universal, ‘carrier of last resort’ responsibilities. In this aetiolated, residualist policy gaze, citizens remain constructed as consumers in a very narrow sense in this incremental, quietist version of state securing of market arrangements. What is missing is any more expansive notion of citizens, their varied needs, expectations, uses, and cultural imaginings of ‘always on’ broadband networks. Hybrid Networks “Most people on earth will eventually have access to networks that are all switched, interactive, and broadband”, wrote Frances Cairncross in 1998. ‘Eventually’ is a very appropriate word to describe the parlous state of broadband technology implementation. Broadband is in a slow state of evolution and invention. The story of broadband so far underscores the predicament for Australian access to bandwidth, when we lack any comprehensive, integrated, effective, and fair policy in communications and information technology. We have only begun to experiment with broadband technologies and understand their evolving uses, cultural forms, and the sense in which they rework us as subjects. Our communications networks are not superhighways, to invoke an enduring artefact from an older technology. Nor any longer are they a single ‘public’ switched telecommunications network, like those presided over by the post-telegraph-telephone monopolies of old. Like roads themselves, or the nascent postal system of the sixteenth century, broadband is a patchwork quilt. The ‘fibre’ of our communications networks is hybrid. To be sure, powerful corporations dominate, like the Tassis or Taxis who served as postmasters to the Habsburg emperors (Briggs & Burke 25). Activating broadband today provides a perspective on the path dependency of technology history, and how we can open up new threads of a communications fabric. Our options for transforming our multitudinous networked lives emerge as much from everyday tactics and strategies as they do from grander schemes and unifying policies. We may care to reflect on the waning potential for nation-building technology, in the wake of globalisation. We no longer gather our imagined community around a Community Telephone Plan as it was called in 1960 (Barr, Moyal, and PMG). Yet we do require national and international strategies to get and stay connected (Barr), ideas and funding that concretely address the wider dimensions of access and use. We do need to debate the respective roles of Telstra, the state, community initiatives, and industry competition in fair telecommunications futures. Networks have global reach and require global and national integration. Here vision, co-ordination, and resources are urgently required for our commonweal and moral fibre. To feel the width of the band we desire, we need to plug into and activate the policy circuits. Thanks to Grayson Cooke, Patrick Lichty, Ned Rossiter, John Pace, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. Works Cited Alston, Richard. ‘ “Future Proofing” Regional Communications.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.php> —. ‘A National Broadband Strategy.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.php>. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Broadband Services Report March 2003. Canberra: ACCC, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm>. —. Emerging Market Structures in the Communications Sector. Canberra: ACCC, 2003. 15 July 2003 <http://www.accc.gov.au/pubs/publications/utilities/telecommu... ...nications/Emerg_mar_struc.doc>. Barr, Trevor. new media.com: The Changing Face of Australia’s Media and Telecommunications. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000. Besley, Tim (Telecommunications Service Inquiry). Connecting Australia: Telecommunications Service Inquiry. Canberra: Department of Information, Communications and the Arts, 2000. 17 July 2003 <http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/final_report.php>. Briggs, Asa, and Burke, Peter. A Social History of the Internet: From Gutenberg to the Internet. Cambridge: Polity, 2002. Broadband Advisory Group. Australia’s Broadband Connectivity: The Broadband Advisory Group’s Report to Government. Melbourne: National Office on the Information Economy, 2003. 15 July 2003 <http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/BAG/report/index.htm>. Broadband Services Expert Group. Networking Australia’s Future: Final Report. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), 1994. Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE). Communications Futures Final Project. Canberra: AGPS, 1994. Cairncross, Frances. The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives. London: Orion Business Books, 1997. Communications Law Centre (CLC). Australian Telecommunications Regulation: The Communications Law Centre Guide. 2nd edition. Sydney: Communications Law Centre, University of NSW, 2001. Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA). Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities: Report on the Strategic Study for Improving Telecommunications in Remote Indigenous Communities. Canberra: DCITA, 2002. Estens, D. Connecting Regional Australia: The Report of the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry. Canberra: DCITA, 2002. <http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/rti-report.php>, accessed 17 July 2003. Fels, Alan. ‘Competition in Telecommunications’, speech to Australian Telecommunications Users Group 19th Annual Conference. 6 March, 2003, Sydney. <http://www.accc.gov.au/speeches/2003/Fels_ATUG_6March03.doc>, accessed 15 July 2003. Flew, Terry, and Spurgeon, Christina. ‘Television After Broadcasting’. In The Australian TV Book. Ed. Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham. Allen & Unwin, Sydney. 69-85. 2000. Given, Jock. Turning Off the Television. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003. Goggin, Gerard. ‘Citizens and Beyond: Universal service in the Twilight of the Nation-State.’ In All Connected?: Universal Service in Telecommunications, ed. Bruce Langtry. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1998. 49-77 —. Rural Communities Online: Networking to link Consumers to Providers. Melbourne: Telstra Consumer Consultative Council, 2003. Goggin, Gerard, and Newell, Christopher. Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Disability in New Media. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (HoR). Connecting Australia!: Wireless Broadband. Report of Inquiry into Wireless Broadband Technologies. Canberra: Parliament House, 2002. <http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/cita/Wbt/report.htm>, accessed 17 July 2003. Lamberton, Don. ‘A Telecommunications Infrastructure is Not an Information Infrastructure’. Prometheus: Journal of Issues in Technological Change, Innovation, Information Economics, Communication and Science Policy 14 (1996): 31-38. Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Luck, David. ‘Revisiting the Future: Assessing the 1994 BTCE communications futures project.’ Media International Australia 96 (2000): 109-119. MacBride, Sean (Chair of International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems). Many Voices, One World: Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. Paris: Kegan Page, London. UNESCO, 1980. Maitland Commission (Independent Commission on Worldwide Telecommunications Development). The Missing Link. Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 1985. Michaels, Eric. Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media, and Technological Horizons. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Mody, Bella, Bauer, Johannes M., and Straubhaar, Joseph D., eds. Telecommunications Politics: Ownership and Control of the Information Highway in Developing Countries. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. Moyal, Ann. Clear Across Australia: A History of Telecommunications. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1984. Post-Master General’s Department (PMG). Community Telephone Plan for Australia. Melbourne: PMG, 1960. Productivity Commission (PC). Telecommunications Competition Regulation: Inquiry Report. Report No. 16. Melbourne: Productivity Commission, 2001. <http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/telecommunications/finalreport/>, accessed 17 July 2003. Spurgeon, Christina. ‘National Culture, Communications and the Information Economy.’ Media International Australia 87 (1998): 23-34. Turner, Graeme. ‘First Contact: coming to terms with the cable guy.’ UTS Review 3 (1997): 109-21. Winseck, Dwayne. ‘Wired Cities and Transnational Communications: New Forms of Governance for Telecommunications and the New Media’. In The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs, ed. Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone. London: Sage, 2002. 393-409. World Trade Organisation. General Agreement on Trade in Services: Annex on Telecommunications. Geneva: World Trade Organisation, 1994. 17 July 2003 <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/12-tel_e.htm>. —. Fourth protocol to the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Geneva: World Trade Organisation. 17 July 2003 <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/4prote_e.htm>. Links http://www.accc.gov.au/pubs/publications/utilities/telecommunications/Emerg_mar_struc.doc http://www.accc.gov.au/speeches/2003/Fels_ATUG_6March03.doc http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/cita/Wbt/report.htm http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.html http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.html http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/BAG/report/index.htm http://www.pc.gov.au http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/telecommunications/finalreport/ http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/final_report.html http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/rti-report.html http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/12-tel_e.htm http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/4prote_e.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "Broadband" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (2003, Aug 26). Broadband. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>

Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash ABSTRACT Assisted Reproductive Technology can be a beneficial tool for couples unable to reproduce independently; however, it has historically discriminated against the LGBTQ+ community members. Given the evolution and acceptance of LGBTQ rights in recent years, discrimination and barriers to access reproductive technology and health care should be readdressed as they still exist within this community. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the LGBTQ+ community has made great strides toward attaining equal rights. This fight dates back to 1970 when Michael Baker and McConnell applied for a marriage license in Minnesota.[1] After the county courthouse denied the couple's request, they appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Baker and McConnell’s dispute reached the US Supreme Court. Baker v. Nelson[2] was the first time a same-sex couple attempted to pursue marriage through higher courts in the US.[3] Because the couple lost the case, Baker changed his name to a gender-neutral one, and McConnell adopted Baker, allowing Baker and McConnell to have legal protections like the ability to receive certain inheritances. Baker and McConnell received a marriage license from an unsuspecting clerk from Blue Earth County, where they wed on September 3, 1971.[4] BACKGROUND The Supreme Court’s decision left individual state legislatures the option to accommodate same-sex couples’ rights constitutionally. As a result, some states banned same-sex marriage, while others offered alternative options such as domestic partnerships. With many obstacles, such as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and President Bush’s efforts to limit marriage to heterosexual people, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2003.[5] Other states slowly followed. Finally, in 2015 the US Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states in Obergefell v. Hodges,[6] marking an important milestone for the LGBTQ+ community’s fight toward marriage equality. The Obergefell v. Hodges decision emphasized that members of the homosexual community are “not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions,” thus granting them the right to “equal dignity in the eyes of the law.”[7] This paper argues that in the aftermath of the wide acceptance of LGBTQ rights, discrimination and barriers to access reproductive technology and health care persist nationally. Procreation also faces discrimination. Research supports that children’s overall psychological and physical welfare with same-sex parents does not differ compared to children with heterosexual parents.[8] Some others worry about the children’s developmental health and argue that same-sex male couples’ inability to breastfeed their children may be harmful; however, such parents can obtain breast milk via surrogate donation.[9] Further concerns regarding confusion in gender identity in children raised by same-sex parents are not supported by research in the field indicating that there are “no negative developmental or psychological outcomes for a child, nor does it result in differing gender identity, gender role behavior or sexual partner preference compared to opposite-sex parents.”[10] ANALYSIS l. Desire to Procreate The American perception toward same-sex unions has evolved “from pathology to deviant lifestyle to identity.”[11] In 2001, only 35 percent of Americans favored same‐sex marriage, while 62 percent favored it in 2017.[12] The “Gay marriage generation”[13] has a positive attitude toward same-sex unions, arising from the “interaction among activists, celebrities, political and religious leaders, and ordinary people, who together reconfigured Americans’ social imagination of homosexuality in a way that made gay marriage seem normal, logical, and good.”[14] Same-sex couples’ right to build a biological family and ability to do so using modern reproductive technology is unclear. The data generated by the LGBTQ Family Building Survey revealed “dramatic differences in expectations around family building between LGBTQ millennials (aged 18-35) and older generations of LGBTQ people,”[15] which may be in part attributable to recent federal rulings in favor of same-sex couples. Three important results from this survey are that 63 percent of LGBTQ millennials are considering expanding their families throughout parenthood, 48 percent of LGBTQ millennials are actively planning to grow their families, compared to 55 percent of non-LGBTQ millennials; and 63 percent of those LGBTQ people interested in building a family expect to use assisted reproductive technology (ART), foster care, or adoption to become parents.[16] There are 15.9 million Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ (6.1 million of whom are 18 to 35 years old); thus, an estimated “3.8 million LGBTQ+ millennials are considering expanding their families in the coming years, and 2.9 million are actively planning to do so.”[17] Yet access and affordability to ART, especially in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy for same-sex couples, has not been consistent at a national level. The two primary problems accessing ART for the LGBTQ community are the lack of federal law and cost. A federal law that guaranteed coverage would address both problems. ll. ART for Same-Sex Couples All same-sex male (SSM) couples and same-sex female (SSF) couples must involve third parties, including surrogates or egg or sperm donors.[18] ART involves the legal status of “up to two women (surrogate and egg donor),” the intended parents, and the child for SSM couples.[19] While sometimes necessary for heterosexual couples using ART, an egg or sperm from someone other than the intended parents or a surrogate will always be necessary for the LGBTQ people seeking ART. ART, in particular IVF, is essential for infertile couples unable to conceive on their own. Unlike other industrialized countries (such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, and Australia), the US does not heavily oversee this multibillion-dollar industry.[20] The American Society for Reproductive Medicine does provide lengthy guidelines to fertility clinics and sperm banks; however, state lawmakers have been less active as they seem to avoid the controversy surrounding controversial topics like embryo creation and abortion.[21] As a result, states “do not regulate how many children may be conceived from one donor, what types of medical information or updates must be supplied by donors, what genetic tests may be performed on embryos, how many fertilized eggs may be placed in a woman or how old a donor can be.”[22] lll. A Flawed Definition of Infertility The WHO defines the medical definition of infertility as “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after twelve months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.”[23] This antiquated definition must be updated to include social infertility to integrate same-sex couples’ rights.[24] In the US, single individuals and LGBTQ couples interested in building a family by biological means are considered “socially infertile.”[25] If insurance coverage is allotted only to those with physical infertility, then it is exclusive to the heterosexual community. Although some states, such as New York, discussed below, have directly addressed this inequality by extending the definition of infertility and coverage of infertility treatments to include all residents regardless of sexual orientation, this is not yet the norm everywhere else. The outdated definition of infertility is one of the main issues affecting same-sex couples’ access to ART, as medical insurance companies hold on to the formal definition of infertility to deny coverage. lV. Insurance Coverage for IVF Insurance coverage varies per state and relies on the flawed definition of infertility. As of August 2020, 19 states have passed laws requiring insurance coverage for infertility, 13 of which include IVF coverage, as seen in Figure 1. Also, most states do not offer IVF coverage to low-income people through Medicaid.[26] In states that mandate IVF insurance coverage, the utilization rate was “277% of the rate when there was no coverage,”[27] which supports the likelihood that in other states, the cost is a primary barrier to access. When insurance does not cover ART, ART is reserved for wealthy individuals. One cycle of ART could cost, on average, “between $10,000 and $15,000.”[28] In addition, multiple cycles are often required as one IVF cycle only has “about a 25% to 30%” live birth success rate.[29] Altogether, the total cost of successful childbirth was estimated from $44,000 to $211,940 in 1992.[30] On February 11, 2021, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo “directed the Department of Financial Services to ensure that insurers begin covering fertility services immediately for same-sex couples who wish to start a family.”[31] New York had recently passed an IVF insurance law that required “large group insurance policies and contracts that provide medical, major medical, or similar comprehensive-type coverage and are delivered or issued for delivery in New York to cover three cycles of IVF used in the treatment of infertility.”[32] But the law fell short for same-sex couples, which were still required to “pay 6 or 12 months of out-of-pocket expenses for fertility treatments such as testing and therapeutic donor insemination procedures before qualifying for coverage.”[33] Cuomo’s subsequent order made up for gaps in the law, which defined infertility as “the inability to conceive after a certain period of unprotected intercourse or donor insemination.”[34] Cuomo’s order and the law combine to make New York an example other states can follow to broaden access to ART. V. Surrogacy Access to surrogacy also presents its own set of problems, although not exclusive to the LGBTQ community. Among states, there are differences in how and when parental rights are established. States in dark green in Figure 2 allow pre-birth orders, while the states in light green allow post-birth parentage orders. Pre-birth orders “are obtained prior to the child’s birth, and they order that the intended parent(s) will be recognized as the child’s only legal parent(s) and will be placed on the child’s birth certificate,” while post-birth parentage orders have the same intent but are obtained after the child’s birth. [35] For instance, states can require genetic testing post-birth, possibly causing a delay in establishing parentage.[36] Although preventable through the execution of a health care power of attorney, a surrogate mother could be the legal, medical decision-maker for the baby before the intended parents are legally recognized. On February 15, 2021, gestational surrogacy – the most popular type of surrogacy in which the surrogate has no biological link to the baby – was legalized in New York,[37] but it remains illegal in some states such as Nebraska, Louisiana, and Michigan.[38] In addition, the costs of surrogacy are rising, and it can cost $100,000 in the US.[39] Medicaid does not cover surrogacy costs,[40] and some health insurance policies provide supplemental surrogacy insurance with premiums of approximately $10,000 and deductibles starting at $15,000.[41] Thus, “surrogacy is really only available to those gay and lesbian couples who are upper class,”[42] leaving non-affluent couples out of options to start a family through biological means. Vl. A Right to Equality and Procreation Some argue that same-sex couples should have the right to procreate (or reproductive rights). Based on arguments stemming from equal rights and non-discrimination, same-sex couples who need to use ART to procreate should have access to it. The need to merge social infertility into the currently incomplete definition of fertility could help same-sex couples achieve access through insurance coverage. The human right of equality and non-discrimination guarantees “equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground.”[43] The United Nations later clarified that “sexual orientation is a concept which is undoubtedly covered” [44] by this protection. The right to procreate is not overtly mentioned in the US Constitution; however, the Equal Protection Clause states that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States… without due process of law.”[45] In fact, some states have abridged the reproductive privileges of some US citizens by upholding prohibitive and intricate mechanisms that deter same-sex couples from enjoying the privileges other citizens have. The Supreme Court acknowledged procreation as a “fundamental”[46] personal right, in Skinner v. Oklahoma, mandating that the reproductive rights of individuals be upheld as the right to procreate is “one of the basic civil rights of man”[47] because “procreation [is] fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.”[48] In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the courts also supported that “the decision whether to bear or beget a child” fundamentally affects a person.[49] I argue that this protection extends to same-sex couples seeking to procreate. Finally, Obergefell v. Hodges held that the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses ensure same-sex couples the right to marriage, as marriage “safeguards children and families, draw[ing] meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.”[50] By implicit or explicit means, these cases align with the freedom to procreate that should not be unequally applied to different social or economic groups. Yet, the cases do not apply to accessing expensive tools to procreate. As heterosexuals and the LGBTQ community face trouble accessing expensive ART for vastly different reasons, especially IVF and surrogacy, the equal rights or discrimination argument is not as helpful. For now, it is relevant to adoption cases where religious groups can discriminate.[51] The insurance coverage level may be the best approach. While the social norms adapt and become more inclusive, the elimination of the infertility requirement or changing the definition of infertility could work. Several arguments could address the insurance coverage deficit. Under one argument, a biological or physical inability to conceive exists in the homosexual couple trying to achieve a pregnancy. Depending on the wording or a social definition, a caselaw could be developed arguing the medical definition of infertility applies to the LGBTQ community as those trying to procreate are physically unable to conceive as a couple planning to become parents. One counterargument to that approach is that it can be offensive to label people infertile (or disabled) only because of their status as part of a homosexual couple.[52] CONCLUSION In the last 50 years, there has been a notable shift in the social acceptance of homosexuality.[53] Marriage equality has opened the door for further social and legal equality, as evidenced by the increased number of same-sex couples seeking parenthood “via co-parenting, fostering, adoption or surrogacy” – colloquially referred to as the ‘Gayby Boom’.[54] However, some prejudice and disdain toward LGBTQ+ parenting remain. Equitable access to ART for all people may be attainable as new technology drives costs down, legislators face societal pressure to require broader insurance coverage, and social norms become more inclusive. [1] Eckholm, E. (2015, May 17). The same-sex couple who got a marriage license in 1971. Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/us/the-same-sex-couple-who-got-a-marriage-license-in-1971.html [2] Eckholm, E. [3] A brief history of civil rights in the United States: A timeline of the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. (2021, January 27). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4182201 [4] Eckholm, E. [5] A brief history of civil rights in the United States: A timeline of the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. (2021, January 27). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4182201 [6] A brief history of civil rights in the United States [7] A brief history of civil rights in the United States [8] Lee, J., & Bolzendahl, C. (2019). Acceptance and Rejection: Patterns of opinion on homosexuality in the United States and the world. Sociological Forum, 34(4), 1026-1031. doi:10.1111/socf.12562 [9] Lee, J., et al. [10] Lee, J., et al. [11] Lee, J., et al. [12] Lee, et al. [13] Lee, et al. [14] Lee, et al. [15] LGBTQ family building survey. (2020, July 02). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.familyequality.org/resources/lgbtq-family-building-survey/ [16] LGBTQ family building survey. (2020, July 02). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.familyequality.org/resources/lgbtq-family-building-survey/ [17] LGBTQ family building survey. (2020, July 02). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.familyequality.org/resources/lgbtq-family-building-survey/ [18] Mackenzie, S. C., Wickins-Drazilova, D., & Wickins, J. (2020). The ethics of fertility treatment for same-sex male couples: Considerations for a modern fertility clinic. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, 244, 71-75. doi:10.1016/j.ejogrb.2019.11.011 [19] Mackenzie, et al. [20] Ollove, M. (2015, March 18). States not eager to regulate fertility industry. Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/3/18/states-not-eager-to-regulate-fertility-industry [21] Ollove, M. [22] Ollove, M. [23] World Health Organization. (2020, September 14). Infertility. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/infertility [24] Leondires, M. P. (2020, March 19). Fertility insurance Mandates & same-sex couples. Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.gayparentstobe.com/gay-parenting-blog/fertility-insurance-mandates-same-sex-couples/ [25] Lo, W., & Campo-Engelstein, L. (2018). Expanding the Clinical Definition of Infertility to Include Socially Infertile Individuals and Couples. Reproductive Ethics II, 71–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89429-4_6 [26] Mohapatra, S. (2015). Assisted Reproduction Inequality and Marriage Equality. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 92(1). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4146&context=cklawreview [27] Mohapatra, S. [28] Mohapatra, S. [29] Mohapatra, S. [30] Mohapatra, S. [31] Governor Cuomo announces new actions to expand access to FERTILITY coverage for same sex couples as part of 2021 Women's Agenda. (n.d.). [32] Health Insurers FAQs: IVF and Fertility Preservation Law Q&A Guidance. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.dfs.ny.gov/apps_and_licensing/health_insurers/ivf_fertility_preservation_law_qa_guidance [33] Governor Cuomo announces new actions to expand access to FERTILITY coverage for same sex couples as part of 2021 Women's Agenda. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-new-actions-expand-access-fertility-coverage-same-sex-couples-part#:~:text=February%2011%2C%202021-,Governor%20Cuomo%20Announces%20New%20Actions%20to%20Expand%20Access%20to%20Fertility,Part%20of%202021%20Women's%20Agenda&text=Cuomo%20today%20directed%20the%20Department,wish%20to%20start%20a%20family. [34] Leondires, M. P. [35] Assisted reproduction parentage proceedings information: Academy of Adoption and Assistive Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA). (2019, March 14). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://adoptionart.org/assisted-reproduction/parentage-proceedings/ [36] Assisted reproduction parentage proceedings information. [37] Governor Cuomo reminds surrogates and parents of their new Insurance rights and protections During Gestational Surrogacy. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-reminds-surrogates-and-parents-their-new-insurance-rights-and-protections-during [38] U.S. Surrogacy Map: Surrogacy laws by state. (2020, December 23). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.creativefamilyconnections.com/us-surrogacy-law-map/ [39] Mohapatra, S. [40] Beitsch, R. (2017, June 29). As surrogacy surges, new parents seek legal protections. Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/06/29/as-surrogacy-surges-new-parents-seek-legal-protections#:~:text=Medicaid%20does%20not%20cover%20surrogacy,and%20intended%20parents%20at%20risk. [41] Where to find surrogacy insurance? (2017, November 02). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://surrogate.com/intended-parents/surrogacy-laws-and-legal-information/where-can-i-find-surrogacy-insurance/ [42] Mohapatra, S. [43] International covenant on civil and political rights. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08, 2021, from https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx [44] United Nations. (2003). Human rights in the administration of justice: a manual on human rights for judges, prosecutors and lawyers. [45] U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. [46] Skinner v. Oklahoma, Https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/316/535.html (June 1, 1942). [47] Skinner v. Oklahoma [48] Skinner v. Oklahoma [49] Eisenstadt v. Baird, Https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-eisenstadt-v-baird (March 22, 1972). [50] Obergefell v. Hodges [51] Higgins, T. (2021, June 17). Supreme Court sides with Catholic adoption agency that refuses to work with LGBT couples. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/supreme-court-sides-with-catholic-adoption-agency-that-refuses-to-work-with-lgbt-couples.html. [52] Bowerman, M., May, A., & Rossman, S. (2017, April 24). Should the definition of infertility be more inclusive? USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/04/22/same-sex-couples-covered-infertility-insurance/100644092/. [53] Mackenzie, et al. [54] Mackenzie, et al.

For the past twenty years, academics and other social commentators have, by and large, shared the view that the phase of modernity through which we are currently passing is defined by two interrelated catalysts of change: the physical movement of people and the virtual movement of information around the globe. As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, it is certainly a timely moment to reflect upon the ways in which the prognoses of the scholars and scientists writing in the late twentieth century have come to pass, especially since—during the time this special issue has been in press—the revolutions that are gathering pace in the Arab world appear to be realising the theoretical prediction that the ever-increasing “flows” of people and information would ultimately bring about the end of the nation-state and herald an era of transnationalism (Appadurai, Urry). For writers like Arjun Appadurai, moreover, the concept of diaspora was key to grasping how this new world order would take shape, and how it would operate: Diasporic public spheres, diverse amongst themselves, are the crucibles of a postnational political order. The engines of their discourse are mass media (both interactive and expressive) and the movement of refugees, activists, students, laborers. It may be that the emergent postnational order proves not to be a system of homogeneous units (as with the current system of nation-states) but a system based on relations between heterogeneous units (some social movements, some interest groups, some professional bodies, some non-governmental organizations, some armed constabularies, some judicial bodies) ... In the short run, as we can see already, it is likely to be a world of increased incivility and violence. In the longer run, free from the constraints of the nation form, we may find that cultural freedom and sustainable justice in the world do not presuppose the uniform and general existence of the nation-state. This unsettling possibility could be the most exciting dividend of living in modernity at large. (23) In this editorial, we would like to return to the “here and now” of the late 1990s in which theorists like Arjun Appaduri, Ulrich Beck, John Urry, Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Robertson and others were “imagining” the consequences of both globalisation and glocalisation for the twenty-first century in order that we may better assess what is, indeed, coming to pass. While most of their prognoses for this “second modernity” have proven remarkably accurate, it is their—self-confessed—inability to forecast either the nature or the extent of the digital revolution that most vividly captures the distance between the mid-1990s and now; and it is precisely the consequences of this extraordinary technological revolution on the twin concepts of “glocality” and “diaspora” that the research featured in this special issue seeks to capture. Glocal Imaginaries Appadurai’s endeavours to show how globalisation was rapidly making itself felt as a “structure of feeling” (Williams in Appadurai 189) as well as a material “fact” was also implicit in our conceptualisation of the conference, “Glocal Imaginaries: Writing/Migration/Place,” which gave rise to this special issue. This conference, which was the culmination of the AHRC-funded project “Moving Manchester: Literature/Migration/Place (2006-10)”, constituted a unique opportunity to gain an international, cross-disciplinary perspective on urgent and topical debates concerning mobility and migration in the early twenty-first century and the strand “Networked Diasporas” was one of the best represented on the program. Attracting papers on broadcast media as well as the new digital technologies, the strand was strikingly international in terms of the speakers’ countries of origin, as is this special issue which brings together research from six European countries, Australia and the Indian subcontinent. The “case-studies” represented in these articles may therefore be seen to constitute something of a “state-of-the-art” snapshot of how Appadurai’s “glocal imaginary” is being lived out across the globe in the early years of the twenty-first century. In this respect, the collection proves that his hunch with regards to the signal importance of the “mass-media” in redefining our spatial and temporal coordinates of being and belonging was correct: The third and final factor to be addressed here is the role of the mass-media, especially in its electronic forms, in creating new sorts of disjuncture between spatial and virtual neighborhoods. This disjuncture has both utopian and dystopian potentials, and there is no easy way to tell how these may play themselves out in the future of the production of locality. (194) The articles collected here certainly do serve as testament to the “bewildering plethora of changes in ... media environments” (195) that Appadurai envisaged, and yet it can clearly also be argued that this agent of glocalisation has not yet brought about the demise of the nation-state in the way (or at the speed) that many commentators predicted. Digital Diasporas in a Transnational World Reviewing the work of the leading social science theorists working in the field during the late 1990s, it quickly becomes evident that: (a) the belief that globalisation presented a threat to the nation-state was widely held; and (b) that the “jury” was undecided as to whether this would prove a good or bad thing in the years to come. While the commentators concerned did their best to complexify both their analysis of the present and their view of the future, it is interesting to observe, in retrospect, how the rhetoric of both utopia and dystopia invaded their discourse in almost equal measure. We have already seen how Appadurai, in his 1996 publication, Modernity at Large, looks beyond the “increased incivility and violence” of the “short term” to a world “free from the constraints of the nation form,” while Roger Bromley, following Agamben and Deleuze as well as Appadurai, typifies a generation of literary and cultural critics who have paid tribute to the way in which the arts (and, in particular, storytelling) have enabled subjects to break free from their national (af)filiations (Pearce, Devolving 17) and discover new “de-territorialised” (Deleuze and Guattari) modes of being and belonging. Alongside this “hope,” however, the forces and agents of globalisation were also regarded with a good deal of suspicion and fear, as is evidenced in Ulrich Beck’s What is Globalization? In his overview of the theorists who were then perceived to be leading the debate, Beck draws distinctions between what was perceived to be the “engine” of globalisation (31), but is clearly most exercised by the manner in which the transformation has taken shape: Without a revolution, without even any change in laws or constitutions, an attack has been launched “in the normal course of business”, as it were, upon the material lifelines of modern national societies. First, the transnational corporations are to export jobs to parts of the world where labour costs and workplace obligations are lowest. Second, the computer-generation of worldwide proximity enables them to break down and disperse goods and services, and produce them through a division of labour in different parts of the world, so that national and corporate labels inevitably become illusory. (3; italics in the original) Beck’s concern is clearly that all these changes have taken place without the nation-states of the world being directly involved in any way: transnational corporations began to take advantage of the new “mobility” available to them without having to secure the agreement of any government (“Companies can produce in one country, pay taxes in another and demand state infrastructural spending in yet another”; 4-5); the export of the labour market through the use of digital communications (stereotypically, call centres in India) was similarly unregulated; and the world economy, as a consequence, was in the process of becoming detached from the processes of either production or consumption (“capitalism without labour”; 5-7). Vis-à-vis the dystopian endgame of this effective “bypassing” of the nation-state, Beck is especially troubled about the fate of the human rights legislation that nation-states around the world have developed, with immense effort and over time (e.g. employment law, trade unions, universal welfare provision) and cites Zygmunt Bauman’s caution that globalisation will, at worst, result in widespread “global wealth” and “local poverty” (31). Further, he ends his book with a fully apocalyptic vision, “the Brazilianization of Europe” (161-3), which unapologetically calls upon the conventions of science fiction to imagine a worst-case scenario for a Europe without nations. While fourteen or fifteen years is evidently not enough time to put Beck’s prognosis to the test, most readers would probably agree that we are still some way away from such a Europe. Although the material wealth and presence of the transnational corporations strikes a chord, especially if we include the world banks and finance organisations in their number, the financial crisis that has rocked the world for the past three years, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ascendancy of Al-Qaida (all things yet to happen when Beck was writing in 1997), has arguably resulted in the nations of Europe reinforcing their (respective and collective) legal, fiscal, and political might through rigorous new policing of their physical borders and regulation of their citizens through “austerity measures” of an order not seen since World War Two. In other words, while the processes of globalisation have clearly been instrumental in creating the financial crisis that Europe is presently grappling with and does, indeed, expose the extent to which the world economy now operates outside the control of the nation-state, the nation-state still exists very palpably for all its citizens (whether permanent or migrant) as an agent of control, welfare, and social justice. This may, indeed, cause us to conclude that Bauman’s vision of a world in which globalisation would make itself felt very differently for some groups than others came closest to what is taking shape: true, the transnationals have seized significant political and economic power from the nation-state, but this has not meant the end of the nation-state; rather, the change is being experienced as a re-trenching of whatever power the nation-state still has (and this, of course, is considerable) over its citizens in their “local”, everyday lives (Bauman 55). If we now turn to the portrait of Europe painted by the articles that constitute this special issue, we see further evidence of transglobal processes and practices operating in a realm oblivious to local (including national) concerns. While our authors are generally more concerned with the flows of information and “identity” than business or finance (Appaduri’s “ethnoscapes,” “technoscapes,” and “ideoscapes”: 33-7), there is the same impression that this “circulation” (Latour) is effectively bypassing the state at one level (the virtual), whilst remaining very materially bound by it at another. In other words, and following Bauman, we would suggest that it is quite possible for contemporary subjects to be both the agents and subjects of globalisation: a paradox that, as we shall go on to demonstrate, is given particularly vivid expression in the case of diasporic and/or migrant peoples who may be able to bypass the state in the manufacture of their “virtual” identities/communities) but who (Cohen) remain very much its subjects (or, indeed, “non-subjects”) when attempting movement in the material realm. Two of the articles in the collection (Leurs & Ponzanesi and Marcheva) deal directly with the exponential growth of “digital diasporas” (sometimes referred to as “e-diasporas”) since the inception of Facebook in 2004, and both provide specific illustrations of the way in which the nation-state both has, and has not, been transcended. First, it quickly becomes clear that for the (largely) “youthful” (Leurs & Ponzanesi) participants of nationally inscribed networking sites (e.g. “discovernikkei” (Japan), “Hyves” (Netherlands), “Bulgarians in the UK” (Bulgaria)), shared national identity is a means and not an end. In other words, although the participants of these sites might share in and actively produce a fond and nostalgic image of their “homeland” (Marcheva), they are rarely concerned with it as a material or political entity and an expression of their national identities is rapidly supplemented by the sharing of other (global) identity markers. Leurs & Ponzanesi invoke Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the “rhizome” to describe the way in which social networkers “weave” a “rhizomatic path” to identity, gradually accumulating a hybrid set of affiliations. Indeed, the extent to which the “nation” disappears on such sites can be remarkable as was also observed in our investigation of the digital storytelling site, “Capture Wales” (BBC) (Pearce, "Writing"). Although this BBC site was set up to capture the voices of the Welsh nation in the early twenty-first century through a collection of (largely) autobiographical stories, very few of the participants mention either Wales or their “Welshness” in the stories that they tell. Further, where the “home” nation is (re)imagined, it is generally in an idealised, or highly personalised, form (e.g. stories about one’s own family) or through a sharing of (perceived and actual) cultural idiosyncrasies (Marcheva on “You know you’re a Bulgarian when …”) rather than an engagement with the nation-state per se. As Leurs & Ponzanesi observe: “We can see how the importance of the nation-state gets obscured as diasporic youth, through cultural hybridisation of youth culture and ethnic ties initiate subcultures and offer resistance to mainstream cultural forms.” Both the articles just discussed also note the shading of the “national” into the “transnational” on the social networking sites they discuss, and “transnationalism”—in the sense of many different nations and their diasporas being united through a common interest or cause—is also a focus of Pikner’s article on “collective actions” in Europe (notably, “EuroMayDay” and “My Estonia”) and Harb’s highly topical account of the role of both broadcast media (principally, Al-Jazeera) and social media in the revolutions and uprisings currently sweeping through the Arab world (spring 2011). On this point, it should be noted that Harb identifies this as the moment when Facebook’s erstwhile predominantly social function was displaced by a manifestly political one. From this we must conclude that both transnationalism and social media sites can be put to very different ends: while young people in relatively privileged democratic countries might embrace transnationalism as an expression of their desire to “rise above” national politics, the youth of the Arab world have engaged it as a means of generating solidarity for nationalist insurgency and liberation. Another instance of “g/local” digital solidarity exceeding national borders is to be found in Johanna Sumiala’s article on the circulatory power of the Internet in the Kauhajoki school shooting which took place Finland in 2008. As well as using the Internet to “stage manage” his rampage, the Kauhajoki shooter (whose name the author chose to withhold for ethical reasons) was subsequently found to have been a member of numerous Web-based “hate groups”, many of them originating in the United States and, as a consequence, may be understood to have committed his crime on behalf of a transnational community: what Sumiala has defined as a “networked community of destruction.” It must also be noted, however, that the school shootings were experienced as a very local tragedy in Finland itself and, although the shooter may have been psychically located in a transnational hyper-reality when he undertook the killings, it is his nation-state that has had to deal with the trauma and shame in the long term. Woodward and Brown & Rutherford, meanwhile, show that it remains the tendency of public broadcast media to uphold the raison d’être of the nation-state at the same time as embracing change. Woodward’s feature article (which reports on the AHRC-sponsored “Tuning In” project which has researched the BBC World Service) shows how the representation of national and diasporic “voices” from around the world, either in opposition to or in dialogue with the BBC’s own reporting, is key to the way in which the Commission has changed and modernised in recent times; however, she is also clear that many of the objectives that defined the service in its early days—such as its commitment to a distinctly “English” brand of education—still remain. Similarly, Brown & Rutherford’s article on the innovative Australian ABC children’s television series, My Place (which has combined traditional broadcasting with online, interactive websites) may be seen to be positively promoting the Australian nation by making visible its commitment to multiculturalism. Both articles nevertheless reveal the extent to which these public service broadcasters have recognised the need to respond to their nations’ changing demographics and, in particular, the fact that “diaspora” is a concept that refers not only to their English and Australian audiences abroad but also to their now manifestly multicultural audiences at home. When it comes to commercial satellite television, however, the relationship between broadcasting and national and global politics is rather harder to pin down. Subramanian exposes a complex interplay of national and global interests through her analysis of the Malayalee “reality television” series, Idea Star Singer. Exported globally to the Indian diaspora, the show is shamelessly exploitative in the way in which it combines residual and emergent ideologies (i.e. nostalgia for a traditional Keralayan way of life vs aspirational “western lifestyles”) in pursuit of its (massive) audience ratings. Further, while the ISS series is ostensibly a g/local phenomenon (the export of Kerala to the rest of the world rather than “India” per se), Subramanian passionately laments all the progressive national initiatives (most notably, the campaign for “women’s rights”) that the show is happy to ignore: an illustration of one of the negative consequences of globalisation predicted by Beck (31) noted at the start of this editorial. Harb, meanwhile, reflects upon a rather different set of political concerns with regards to commercial satellite broadcasting in her account of the role of Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya in the recent (2011) Arab revolutions. Despite Al-Jazeera’s reputation for “two-sided” news coverage, recent events have exposed its complicity with the Qatari government; further, the uprisings have revealed the speed with which social media—in particular Facebook and Twitter—are replacing broadcast media. It is now possible for “the people” to bypass both governments and news corporations (public and private) in relaying the news. Taken together, then, what our articles would seem to indicate is that, while the power of the nation-state has notionally been transcended via a range of new networking practices, this has yet to undermine its material power in any guaranteed way (witness recent counter-insurgencies in Libya, Bahrain, and Syria).True, the Internet may be used to facilitate transnational “actions” against the nation-state (individual or collective) through a variety of non-violent or violent actions, but nation-states around the world, and especially in Western Europe, are currently wielding immense power over their subjects through aggressive “austerity measures” which have the capacity to severely compromise the freedom and agency of the citizens concerned through widespread unemployment and cuts in social welfare provision. This said, several of our articles provide evidence that Appadurai’s more utopian prognoses are also taking shape. Alongside the troubling possibility that globalisation, and the technologies that support it, is effectively eroding “difference” (be this national or individual), there are the ever-increasing (and widely reported) instances of how digital technology is actively supporting local communities and actions around the world in ways that bypass the state. These range from the relatively modest collective action, “My Estonia”, featured in Pikner’s article, to the ways in which the Libyan diaspora in Manchester have made use of social media to publicise and support public protests in Tripoli (Harb). In other words, there is compelling material evidence that the heterogeneity that Appadurai predicted and hoped for has come to pass through the people’s active participation in (and partial ownership of) media practices. Citizens are now able to “interfere” in the representation of their lives as never before and, through the digital revolution, communicate with one another in ways that circumvent state-controlled broadcasting. We are therefore pleased to present the articles that follow as a lively, interdisciplinary and international “state-of-the-art” commentary on how the ongoing revolution in media and communication is responding to, and bringing into being, the processes and practices of globalisation predicted by Appadurai, Beck, Bauman, and others in the 1990s. The articles also speak to the changing nature of the world’s “diasporas” during this fifteen year time frame (1996-2011) and, we trust, will activate further debate (following Cohen) on the conceptual tensions that now manifestly exist between “virtual” and “material” diasporas and also between the “transnational” diasporas whose objective is to transcend the nation-state altogether and those that deploy social media for specifically local or national/ist ends. Acknowledgements With thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) for their generous funding of the “Moving Manchester” project (2006-10). Special thanks to Dr Kate Horsley (Lancaster University) for her invaluable assistance as ‘Web Editor’ in the production of this special issue (we could not have managed without you!) and also to Gail Ferguson (our copy-editor) for her expertise in the preparation of the final typescript. References Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization. Cambridge: Polity, 1998. Beck, Ulrich. What is Globalization? Trans. Patrick Camiller. Cambridge: Polity, 2000 (1997). Bromley, Roger. Narratives for a New Belonging: Diasporic Cultural Fictions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. Pearce, Lynne, ed. Devolving Identities: Feminist Readings in Home and Belonging. London: Ashgate, 2000. Pearce, Lynne. “‘Writing’ and ‘Region’ in the Twenty-First Century: Epistemological Reflections on Regionally Located Art and Literature in the Wake of the Digital Revolution.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 13.1 (2010): 27-41. Robertson, Robert. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992. Urry, John. Sociology beyond Societies. London: Routledge, 1999. Williams, Raymond. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

Introduction This article argues in favour of same-sex marriage, but only under certain conditions. Same-sex marriage ought to be introduced in the Australian context in order to remedy the formal inequalities between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens and their heterosexual/cisgendered counterparts. One common method of justifying the introduction of formal same-sex relationship recognition has been via the promotion of LGBT “normalcy.” This article explores such a trend by analysing popular media and advertising, since media representations and coverage have been shown to affect the way the general public “learns, understands, and thinks about an issue” (Li and Lui 73). This article finds that the promotion of normalcy can, in fact, perpetuate hetero-norms, and only offer LGBT people an imaginary social equality. Such normalisation, it is suggested, is detrimental to a wider goal of gaining respect for LGBT people regardless, not in spite of, their identity and relationships. Yet, this article maintains that such imaginary equality can be avoided, so long as a plurality of possibilities for one’s intimate and familial life are actively legitimated and promoted. Australian Same-Sex Relationship Recognition The Relationships Act 2003 (Tas) was the first piece of Australian legislation to formally recognise same-sex relationships. This act allowed Tasmanian residents to register a partnership, although these unions were not recognised in any other Australian State. However, despite this State-based movement, as well as other examples of same-sex unions gaining increasing recognition in the West, not all legal changes have been positive for LGBT people. One example of this was the Howard Government’s 2004 reformation of the Marriage Act 1961 (Cwlth), which made explicit that marriage could only take place between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and also refused to acknowledge same-sex marriages performed legally overseas. Furthermore, 2012 saw the failure of several Bills which sought the introduction of same-sex marriage at both the State and Federal level. Thus, same-sex marriage is still illegal in Australia to-date. But, despite these major setbacks, other progress towards same-sex relationship recognition has continued. At the Federal level, different-sex and same-sex de facto relationship recognition became formally equal over the period of 2008-9. Furthermore, it is both official Greens and Australian Labor Party policy to support equal marriage rights. At the State level, the example of recognising same-sex civil unions/registered partnerships has been followed by Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Queensland. There are several reasons why same-sex couples may desire the right to marry. Some reasons are practical; in any given Nation-State where same-sex couples are without the right to marry, then same-sex partners are unable to claim the same benefits and undertake the same obligations as heterosexual married couples. They are formally unequal. On the basis of their empirical research Jowett and Peel argue that formal equality is a motivating factor for the same-sex marriage movement, noting that a likely incentive to engage in these unions would be security, since LGBT people have heretofore lived and continue to live with a very real threat of discrimination. This is largely why the option of civil unions was created in the West. The measure was first introduced by Denmark in 1989, and its purpose was to be a marriage-like institution, existing solely for the recognition of same-sex couples (Broberg 149). Although civil unions should theoretically offer same-sex couples the same legal benefits and obligations that heterosexual married couples receive, this is widely believed to be false in practice. The Netherlands has almost achieved full equality, at 96%; however, countries such as Belgium rate poorly, at 48% (Waaldijk 9). As such, it has been argued that civil unions are not sufficient alternatives to marriage. Amitai Etzioni claims, “many gay people feel strongly that unless they are entitled to exactly the same marriages as heterosexuals, their basic individual rights are violated, which they (and many liberals) hold as semisacred” (qtd. in Shanley 65). This opinion demonstrates that formal equality is a key concern of the same-sex marriage debate. However, it is not the only concern. The organisation Australian Marriage Equality (AME), which has been at the forefront of the fight for same-sex marriage since its establishment in 2004, claims that “Civil unions are not as widely understood or respected as marriage and creating a separate name for same-sex relationships entrenches a different, discriminatory, second-class status for these relationships” (Greenwich, The Case for Same-Sex Marriage 3). They claim further that, if recognition continues to be refused, it maintains the message that same-sex partners are not capable of the level of love and commitment associated with marriage (Greenwich, The Case for Same-Sex Marriage). Thus, AME claim that not only do the legal entitlements of civil unions frequently fail to be formally equivalent, but even the difference in name contributes to the ongoing discrimination of LGBT people. Although neither marriage nor civil unions are federally available to same-sex couples in Australia, AME argue that marriage must be primarily endorsed, then (Greenwich, A Failed Experiment 1). The argument is, if Australia were to introduce civil unions, but not marriage, civil unions would reify the second-class status of homosexuals, and would present same-sex relationships and homosexuality as inferior to different-sex relationships and heterosexuality. Thus, the title “marriage” is significant, and one strategy for demonstrating that LGBT people are fit for this title has been by promoting representations of sameness to the heterosexual mainstream. To achieve the status that goes along with the ability to marry, same-sex couples have typically tried to get their relationships publicly recognised and legally regulated in two ways. They have sought to (a) demonstrate that LGBT people do structure their relationships and familial lives according to the heteropatriarchal normative stereotypes of traditional family values, and/or (b) they emphasise the “born this way” aspect of LGBT sexuality/gender identity, refusing to situate it as a choice. This latter aspect is significant, since arguments based on natural “facts” often claim that what is true by nature cannot be changed, and/or what is true by nature is good (Antony 12). These two strategies thus seek to contribute to a shift in the public perception of homosexuals, homosexuality, and same-sex relationships. The idea, in other words, is to promote the LGBT subject as being a “normal” and “good” citizen (Jowett and Peel 206). Media Representations of Normal Gays In Australia, the normalcy of same-sex relationships has been advocated perhaps most obviously in television adverting. One such advertisement is run by Get Up! Action for Australia, an independent, grass-roots advocacy organisation. This ad is shot from a first-person perspective, where the camera is the eyes of the subject. It follows the blossoming of a relationship: from meeting a man on a boat, to exchanging phone numbers, dating, attending social events with friends, sharing special occasions, meeting each other’s families, sharing a home, caring for sick family members, and so forth, finally culminating in a proposal for marriage. Upon the proposal it is revealed that the couple consists of two young-adult, white, middle-class men. The purpose of this advertisement is to surprise the audience member, as the gay couple’s relationship follows the same trajectory of what is typically expected in a heterosexual relationship. The effect, in turn, is to shock the audience member into recognising that same-sex couples are just like different-sex couples. Hopefully, this will also serve to justify to the audience member that LGBT people deserve the same legal treatment as heterosexuals. The couple in this advertisement appear to be monogamous, their relationship seems to have blossomed over a length of time, they support each other’s families, and the couple comes to share a home. Projecting images like these suggests that such aspects are the relevant features of marriage, which LGBT people mimic. The second Australian advertisement from AME, features a young-adult, interracial, gay couple, who also appear to be middle-class. In this advertisement the families of the two partners, Ivan and Chris, comment on the illegal status of same-sex marriage in Australia. The ad opens with Ivan’s parents, and notes the length of their marriage—45 years. Ivan later claims that he wants to get married because he wants to be with Chris for life. These signals remind the viewer that marriage is supposed to be a life-long commitment, despite the prevalence of divorce. The advertisement also focuses on Chris’s parents, who claim that thanks to their son’s relationship their family has now expanded. The ad cuts between segments of spoken opinion and shots of family time spent at dinner, or in a park, and so on. At one point Ivan states, “We’re not activists; we’re just people who want to get married, like everyone else.” This reiterates the “normalcy” of the desire to marry in general, which is confirmed by Chris’s statement when he says, “It means that everyone would accept it. It’s sort of like a normal... A sense of normalcy.” This implies that to be seen as normal is both desirable and good; but more to the point, the ad positions LGBT people as if they are all already normal, and simply await recognition. It does not challenge the perception of what “normalcy” is. Finally, the advertisement closes with the written statement: “Marriage: It’s about family. Everyone’s family.” This advertisement thus draws connections between the legal institution of marriage and socially shared normative conceptions of married family life. While these two advertisements are not the only Australian television ads which support this particular vision of same-sex marriage, they are typical. What is interesting is that this particular image of homosexuality and same-sex relationships is becoming increasingly common in popular media also. For example, American sitcom Modern Family features a gay couple who share a house, have an adopted daughter, and maintain a fairly traditional lifestyle where one works full time as a lawyer, while the other remains at home and is the primary care-giver for their daughter. Their relationship is also monogamous and long-term. The couple is white, and they appear to have a middle-class status. Another American sitcom, The New Normal, features a white gay couple (one is Jewish) who also share a home, are in a long-term monogamous relationship, and who both have careers. This sitcom centres on this couple’s decision to have a child and the life of the woman who decides to act as their surrogate. This couple are also financially well off. Both of these sitcoms have prime Australian television slots. Although the status of the couples’ relationships in the aforementioned sitcoms is not primarily focussed on, they each participate in a relationship which is traditionally marriage-like in structure. This includes long-term commitment, monogamy, sharing a home and economic arrangements, starting and raising a family, and so on. And it is the very marriage-like aspects of same-sex relationships which Australian equal marriage advocates have used to justify why same-sex marriage should be legal. The depiction of on-screen homosexual couples (who are gay, rather than lesbian, bisexual, or trans) and the public debate in favour of same-sex marriage both largely promote and depend upon the perception of these relationships as effectively "the same" as heterosexual relationships in terms of structure, goals, commitment, life plans, lifestyle, and so on. A comment should be made on the particular representations in the examples above. The repetition of images of the LGBT community as primarily male, white, young-adult, middle-class, straight-looking, monogamous, and so on, comes at the expense of distancing even further those who do not conform to this model (Borgerson et. al. 959; Fejes 221). These images represent what Darren Rosenblum calls “but-for queers,” meaning that but-for their sexual orientation, these people would be just the same as “normal” heterosexuals. Rosenblum has commented on the increased juridical visibility of but-for queers and the legal gains they have won; however, he criticises that these people have been unable to adequately challenge heterosexism since their acceptance is predicated on being as much like normative heterosexuals as possible (84-5). Heterosexism and heteronormativity refer to the ways in which localised practices and centralised institutions legitimise and privilege heterosexuality, seeing it as fundamental, natural, and normal (Cole and Avery 47). If the only queers who gain visibility thanks to these sitcoms and advertisements are but-for queers, the likelihood that heterosexism will be challenged with the legal recognition of same-sex marriage drastically decreases. Appeals to sameness and normalcy typically refuse to critically examine heteronormative standards of acceptability. This results in the continued promotion of the “sexually involved couple,” realised according to particular normative standards, as the appropriate, best, or even natural trajectory for one’s intimate life. Thus, a key reason that some LGBT people have rejected marriage as an appropriate goal is because assimilative inclusion does not offer a legitimately respected social identity to LGBT people as a whole. When legal changes promoting the equality of LGBT people are predicated on their assimilation to heteronormative relationship criteria, this can only achieve “imaginary” equality and the illusion of progress, while real instances of homophobia, discrimination, marginalisation and hostility towards LGBT people continue (Richardson 394). Thus, given the highly specified representations of “normal” LGBT people, it is fair to conclude that there is a biased representation of same-sex relationships on-screen in terms of sex, race, ability, wealth, monogamy, and so on. The assimilationist strategy of publicising particularly gay identity and relationships as just like heterosexuality appears to depoliticise queerness and render lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people more or less invisible. This can be problematic insofar as the subversive role that queer identity could play in bringing about social change regarding acceptability of other sexual and intimate relationships is lessened (Richardson 395-6). The question that emerges at this point, then, is whether same-sex marriage is doomed to perpetuate hetero-norms and designate all other non-conformists as socially, morally, and/or legally inferior. Pluralisation Ironically, while some activists reject civil unions, their introduction may be crucial to support a “pluralisation strategy.” AME is, in fact, not opposed to civil unions, so long as they do not pretend to be marriage (Greenwich, A Failed Experiment 1). However, AME’s main focus is still on achieving marriage equality, rather than promoting a diverse array of relationship recognition. A pluralisation strategy, though, would seek to question the very normative and hierarchical status of marriage, given the strategy’s key aim of greater options for legally regulated relationship recognition. Regarding polyamorous relationships specifically, Elizabeth Emens has argued that,The existence of some number of people choosing to live polyamorous lives should prompt us all to [...] think about our own choices and about the ways that our norms and laws urge upon us one model rather than pressing us to make informed, affirmative choices about what might best suit our needs and desires.” (in Shanley 79) While non-monogamous relationships have frequently been rejected, even by same-sex marriage activists, since they too threaten traditional forms of marriage, the above statement clearly articulates the purpose of the pluralisation strategy: to challenge people to think about the way norms and laws press one model upon people, and to challenge that model by engaging in and demanding recognition for other models of intimate and familial relationships. When a variety of formal options for legalising various types of relationships is legislated for, this allows people greater choice in how they can conceive and structure their relationships. It also creates a political space where norms can be publicly assessed, criticised, and re-evaluated. Thus, the goal to be achieved is the representation of multiple relationship/family structures as being of equal worth, rather than fixing them in a relationship hierarchy where traditional marriage is the ideal. There exist many examples of people who “do relationships differently”—whether they are homosexual, polyamorous, asexual, step-families, and so on—and the existence of these must come to be reflected as equally valuable and viable options in the dominant social imaginary. Representations in popular media are one avenue, for example, which advocates of this pluralisation strategy might employ in order to achieve such a shift. Another avenue is advocacy. If advocacy on the importance of formally recognising multiple types of relationships increased, this may balance the legitimacy of these relationships with marriage. Furthermore, it may prevent the perpetuation of hetero-norms and increase respect for LGBT identity, since they would be less likely to be pressured into assimilation. Thus, same-sex marriage activists could, in fact, gain from taking up the cause of refusing one single model for relationship-recognition (Calhoun 1037). In this sense, then, the emergence of civil union schemes as an alternative to marriage in the West has potentially yielded something very valuable in the way of increasing options regarding one’s intimate life, especially in the Australian context where diverse recognition has already begun. Interestingly, Australia has come some way towards pluralisation at the State level; however, it is hardly actively promoted. The civil union schemes of both Tasmania and Victoria have a provision entitling “caring couples” to register their relationships. A “caring couple” involves two people who are not involved in a sexual relationship, who may or may not be related, and who provide mutual or one-sided care to the other. The caring couple are entitled to the same legal benefits as those romantic couples who register their relationships. One can infer then, that not only sexual relationships, but those of the caring couple as in Tasmania and Victoria, or possibly even those of a relationship like one “between three single mothers who are not lovers but who have thrown in their lot together as a family,” could be realised and respected if other alternatives were available and promoted alongside marriage (Cornell, in Shanley 84). While Australia would have quite some way to go to achieve these goals, the examples of Tasmania and Victoria are a promising start in the right direction. Conclusion This paper has argued that marriage is a goal that LGBT people should be wary of. Promoting limited representations of same-sex oriented individuals and couples can perpetuate the primacy of hetero-norms, and fail to deliver respect for all LGBT people. However, despite the growing trend of justifying marriage and homosexuality thanks to “normalcy”, promotion of another strategy—a pluralisation strategy—might result in more beneficial outcomes. It may result in a more balanced weight of normative worth between institutions and types of recognition, which may then result in citizens feeling less compelled to enter marriage. Creating formal equality while pursuing the promotion of other alternatives as legitimate will result in a greater acceptance of queer identity than will the endorsement of same-sex marriage justified by LGBT normalcy. While the latter may result in speedier access to legal benefits for some, the cost of such a strategy should be underscored. 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