As Saudi Arabia embarks upon a transformative economic journey under the umbrella of its Vision 2030 and National Transformation Plan, the Saudi government plans to implement various initiatives to engage the private sector in meeting new national development goals, including the provision of 1600 schools through the public-private partnership (PPP) route. This article provides an international outlook and review of the use of PPPs to deliver school infrastructure and analyzes Saudi Arabia’s potential to implement this promising program. Effective use of the PPP model can guarantee the timely provision of schools and other infrastructure projects that could fulfill the vision of Saudi Arabia’s political leadership, potentially serving as a catalyst and blueprint for other Gulf states. The case study argues that, while Saudi Arabia’s schools’ program enjoys significant political support, its government needs simultaneously to pursue the parallel objective of developing the necessary institutional, legal, regulatory, and supervisory frameworks essential for successful PPP projects globally. The article concludes with recommendations to mitigate existing challenges and foster the involvement of the private sector in education sector development.
The Intellectual Property (IP) chapter of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is recognized for its extensive coverage, encompassing a broad range of innovation areas such as patents, trademarks, geographical indications, and copyright. This chapter sets a new global benchmark for IP protection, posing significant challenges to the existing legal frameworks of member countries and necessitating rapid adaptation, particularly for developing members like Vietnam, Malaysia, and Mexico. These nations have undertaken comprehensive revisions to their IP laws to align with the international standards established by the CPTPP. Despite their unique national contexts, the legal amendments reflect distinct strategies and methodologies in meeting international standards. This paper conducts a qualitative analysis of Vietnam, Malaysia, and Mexico, comparing their law amendment strategies, contents, and techniques across three dimensions. It highlights the distinctive characteristics and impacts of their legal revisions, offering valuable insights for other prospective developing members within the CPTPP framework on the practice of IP law reform.
In the current era of globalization, the need arises to train individuals who are spiritually enriched, creatively developed, and culturally grounded through the advancement of education and science, as well as through art and culture. These individuals must be capable of integrating artistic creativity into their professional activities. In this context, the issue of fostering values of historical and cultural significance through virtual reality technologies emerges as a novel area of research. The study aims to reveal the essence of the concept "virtual museum" and test the level of perspective art teachers' readiness for utilizing the virtual museum in their professional activity to foster their cultural values of artic creativity. Employing quantitative and qualitative methods, the study encompassed questionnaires, tests, and assignments administered to 135 university students divided into control and experimental groups. To diagnose students' readiness to utilize virtual museum technology in their professional activities, three components (motivational, cognitive, and operational), criteria, indicators and levels of readiness were identified. Findings indicate that there is a noticeable difference between the experimental group's results before and after completing the authors' elective course titled "Methodology of using the virtual museum". This demonstrates the effectiveness of this course conducted with the experimental group. The study highlights the importance of perspective art teachers' acquisition of knowledge, skills and competences necessary to implement the virtual museum method in their teaching activity through the proposed elective course incorporated into the university educational process in order to foster students' cultural values of artic creativity.
The COVID-19 outbreak on international cruise ships during the early stages of the pandemic has exposed deficiencies in the governance of public health emergencies within the framework of existing international law. These deficiencies encompass various aspects, including the shortcomings of the system of flag state jurisdiction, the vague definition and reasonableness of governments’ “additional health measures” as stipulated in the International Health Regulations (IHR) of 2005, the role of World Health Organization (WHO) in the protection of the fundamental rights of passengers and crew members during epidemic outbreaks on cruise ships, the application of the free pratique rule under the international health law, and other challenges that have not been adequately addressed in current international law. In the post-COVID era, it is essential to revisit these core issues of international law and reassess the allocation of responsibilities among all evolving actors to foster effective multilateral cooperation in epidemic control. This paper adopts the “Diamond Princess” incident as a case study, examining how such public health emergencies pose challenges to international laws, particularly when they occur within the context of a cruise ship. The paper argues that cooperation on global health emergencies will continue to be a challenge until responsibility is more clearly allocated among stakeholders. Additionally, the paper formulates three principles for enhancing governmental cooperation, namely the fairness principle, the nationality principle, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. It is advisable to carefully consider these key principles when reevaluating the international laws on public health emergencies in the post-COVID era.
The new oil derivatives transportation scheme proposed by the 2013 Mexican Energy Reform allowed new participants to enter the sector. The new legal framework requires fulfilling many requirements and corresponding duties for the transportation of oil products. The Mexican government already has an institution dedicated to measuring the regulatory cost of each federal procedure. This work aims to quantify the regulatory costs associated with the procedures and their compliance to obtain permits for transporting oil products by truck. We use the standard cost method to measure these costs, considering all associated costs. The results showed that two government offices did not adequately measure these costs. They did not consider relevant information on frequency and opportunity costs, resulting in undervaluation and leading to wrong expectations. As a result of this research, we provide a more accurate way of estimating these costs, which brings greater certainty in the budgeting of these projects and, therefore, increases the probability of survival and success.
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