In this manuscript, we present data from a demonstration in situ capping site (100 m × 100 m) in Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario, Canada. A layer of clean medium to coarse sand with the average thickness of 35 cm was placed at the site in the summer of 1995. Concentration of Zn, Cr, and Cd in the original sediments reached values over 6000, 300 and 15 μg/g, respectively. The predicted consolidation of the uppermost one meter of sediment was about 14 cm, which was in good agreement with values obtained from comparisons of moisture content values of pre-capping and post-capping cores. A thin layer of fresh moderately contaminated sediments has started to develop on the top of the cap. In general, the concentrations of elements were greater in porewater than in the overlying water, e.g., the concentration of Fe and soluble reactive phosphorus were 1000 times, and those of Mn 100 times greater. There was a significant reduction in the vertical fluxes of all the trace elements after the capping of the contaminated sediments.

This article examines UNCITRAL's draft Rules for Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) and argues that in low-value e-commerce cross-border transactions, the most effective consumer protection policy cannot be based on national laws and domestic courts, but on effective and monitored ODR processes with swift out-of-court enforceable decisions. The draft Rules propose a tiered procedure that culminates in arbitration. Yet, this procedure neither ensures out-of-court enforcement, nor does it guarantee compliance with EU consumer mandatory law. Accordingly, this article argues that the draft Rules may be inconsistent with the European approach to consumer protection.

Due to the analytical power and purchase of its inclusivist ideal, cosmopolitanism has been the subject of renewed interest in academic debates and discussions of the past three decades. As a 'way of being in the world' (Waldron, 2000: 227), cosmopolitanism is broadly defined as a willingness to engage with the Other. It entails 'an intellectual and aesthetic openness towards divergent cultural experiences, a search for contrasts rather than uniformity' (Hannerz, 1990: 239). The view of cosmopolitanism as a political ideal, however, derives from the Kantian philosophical tradition, itself a much debated and highly complex configuration of ideas, and is aimed at the creation of 'a higher order space, not marked by a world government, but by a world federation of republican states in which citizens from particular countries would all come together in a "condition of lawful association with one another"' (Benhabib, 2004: 39). As a political project that aims at 'a higher order space' and also as a cultural principle that is built on an awareness of otherness, cosmopolitanism has emerged from its genesis in the time of the ancient Greeks through nineteenth-century thought to the present as a way of understanding social phenomena that transcend the boundedness of statist and nationalist formations.Since the 1990s, cosmopolitanism's universalist theoretical foundations have in particular been the subject of extended critique. In this regard, Kant's Enlightenment conception of cosmopolitanism, still a major reference point in modern philosophical thinking on the subject, has been questioned and reframed in the light of the evolving nature of political and economic structures as well as that of social and cultural contexts around the globe. The new and particular circumstances for (re) articulating cosmopolitanism is reflected in the number of revisionary formulations that exist in disciplines as varied as philosophy,

The article scrutinizes the European Framework for consumer ADR and ODR with the purpose of uncovering how Europe aims to develop ADR and ODR in EU MS in order to deliver justice and ensure a better enforcement of EU consumer protection rules and a better functioning of the markets. It deepens on the transformations in the ADR systems required to better fulfil the new functions assumed by the certified ADR entities and the role that the technology may play inside efficient certified consumer ADR entities. The domestic implementation of EU law in Spain and Portugal rather seems to perpetuate the pre-existing systems although wrapped up in European packaging with a ribbon on top. The exam reveals the existence of a further path for improvement and for obtaining additional advantages that could lead to a better functioning of the markets and a more suitable encompass with the philosophy that underlies the EU Regulatory Framework. The article explores different ways to move forward and achieve a higher degree of compliance with the ADR/ODR Regulatory Framework. ADR, ODR, Consumer Redress, European Regulatory Framework, Consumer Arbitration System, Spanish Law, Portuguese Law.

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