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38871. Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation?

Author:
Gurdial Singh Nijar
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Traditional knowledge systems of indigenous and local communities have been of immense value over millennia. They have filled the breadbasket that has fed the world, provided medicines that have healed the world, and provided for the sustainable management of resources, including biodiversity. In short, these knowledge systems have fed, clothed, and healed the world. They may yet hold the key to dealing with the risks posed by climate change. Yet today they are in danger of being marginalized. This article identifies the threats, the inadequacy of the international legal architecture, and the faltering national attempts to reassert their role. It identifies the varying interests and elements and assesses their influence in the marginalization and resuscitation of traditional knowledge systems; and finally argues for the emancipation of these systems and their restoration to the plurality of knowledge systems to provide sustainable solutions to natural resource management.

38872. Commentaries on the Law of Treaties: A Review Essay Reflecting on the Genre of Commentaries

Author:
Christian Djeffal
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Commentaries on international law abound and proliferate. To reflect upon this trend in international legal scholarship, three commentaries on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are reviewed. They are compared with regard to the ways in which they deal with three pertinent issues in the law of treaties: the ascertainment of jus cogens norms, the notion of object and purpose and grounds of invalidity, termination, and suspension. As a scholarly genre, commentaries form part of the legal culture of legal systems. So the review discusses their function in the past, in the present, and in their possible future. Their roots lie in the schools working on Roman law in the Middle Ages. They gained importance for international legal scholarship when international law entered the process of codification. Today, commentaries fulfil several functions in international legal discourse, the most important of which is that they structure this discourse. Digitization will seriously impact on all fields of scholarly publishing. The review concludes by discussing the possible changes in this scholarly genre. Those are accessibility, layout, referencing, inclusion of other media, and the possibility of enhanced discourse within the commentary.
Political Geography:
Vienna

38873. Duncan B. Hollis (ed.). The Oxford Guide To Treaties

Author:
Tim Staal
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In the words of editor Duncan Hollis, The Oxford Guide to Treaties 'is a big book' (at vii). Yet, it is relatively small and accessible considering its ambition to 'explore treaty questions from theoretical, doctrinal, and practical perspectives'.
Political Geography:
Vienna

38874. Globalization and Sovereignty. Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy and Constitutionalism

Author:
Gráinne de Búrca
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The intersection of constitutional ideas and international law has been the subject of a significant wave of scholarship in recent years. This monograph, written not by a lawyer but by a political theorist at Columbia University, addresses these themes in an engaging and rigorous way. And although it is a deeply scholarly work, it is also very much a politically engaged book, grappling with many fundamental questions of international law and governance today while trying to argue for 'realistic-utopian' reform.
Topic:
International Law

38875. Sari Kuovo and Zoe Pearson (eds). Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law: Between Resistance and Compliance? Gina Heathcote. The Law on the Use of Force: A Feminist Analysis

Author:
Loveday Hodson
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Her normative prescriptions, in other words, by insisting on a framework of constitutional pluralism and rejecting other forms of legal pluralism, leave aside the many other powerful global institutions and bodies that generate rules and norms, other than the UN Security Council or other UN bodies on which the book concentrates. While it is clear that the UN is the predominant global security organization, and the one with military power at its service, there are also many other organizations and bodies which have morphed or are morphing, as Cohen puts it in the book, into global governance institutions. Yet the book's focus on the need for political communities which participate in an overarching 'political community of communities' seems to leave many of these other important sites of legal and political authority out of the picture, and to reject as inadequate some of the more modest but perhaps also more currently feasible legal reform proposals which have been made.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law

38876. John Harrington and Maria Stuttaford (eds). Global Health and Human Rights: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives John Tobin. The Right to Health in International Law

Author:
Erika George
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Two recent publications present a defence of the right to health as it is articulated in international law and also provide insights into the array of impediments to realizing the health right. Despite a perceived conceptual lack of coherence and a limited appreciation of its relevance among health care professionals identified in these two books, the right to health has nevertheless succeeded in capturing greater attention in global policy circles. Local health care system reform initiatives around the globe increasingly make reference to the right to health. Both books are particularly helpful additions to the literature in light of recent advances in the development of the health right. Yet, each offers a very different assessment of its present status and prognosis for its future development.
Topic:
Human Rights and Health Care Policy

38877. Panos Koutrakos. The EU Common Security and Defence Policy

Author:
Julia Schmidt
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The European Union has gone through a profound development as an international crisis management actor. It was only in 2003 that the common security and defence policy became operational. Since then, the EU has conducted more than 25 civilian and military crisis management missions in many parts of the world. These missions are carried out in the name of the EU whose international legal personality has been formally recognized by the Treaty of Lisbon (Article 47 TEU). At the same time, the EU depends on capable and willing Member States to launch and to carry out an operation under the auspices of its common security and defence policy. The development of the EU as a military actor is remarkable in the light of the EU's historical evolution. In the 1950s, it started as a peace project that was based on economic integration. To prevent the emergence of a new war on the European continent, Robert Schuman proposed linking the coal and steel industries of France and Germany together 'within the framework of an organization open to the participation of the other countries of Europe'. Attempts to create a European army within the European Defence Community failed in 1954. Today, Europe has moved away from being merely a civilian power. When confronted with its inability adequately to respond to the Balkan crisis in its neighbourhood in the 1990s, the Cologne European Council of 1999 marked the birth of the EU's common security and defence policy. A process was put in motion that equipped the EU with the legal capacity and the civilian and military means to engage in 'missions outside the Union for peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international security' (Article 42(1) TEU). Civilian and military means may be used by the EU to fulfil the socalled Petersberg tasks, that include 'joint disarmament operations, humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks, conflict prevention and peace-keeping tasks, tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilisation' (Article 43(1) TEU). In political statements such as the European Security Strategy the EU has expressed great ambitions as a global security actor and has spoken of its responsibility to contribute to international security.
Political Geography:
Europe

38878. Cashmere from Rachungkaru

Author:
Gregory Shaffer
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Where there was only shadow and brownish red and reddish brown crumbling stone against the sky now a sheen descends the folding slopes.

38879. UNLOCKING THE ALAWITE CONUNDRUM IN SYRIA

Author:
Jomana Qaddour
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Images and videos emerging out of Syria since 2012, becoming increasingly violent and sectarian along the way, showcased extremist groups and even children chanting things like, "Assad we will bring you down, and then we will come next for the [Alawites]!" Since 1971, the Alawite community (roughly 12 percent of Syria's 22 million people) has sheltered Hafez al-Assad, and subsequently his son, Bashar al-Assad, by providing the family with both loyal foot soldiers who have aided the Assad regime throughout the many domestic, political uprisings it has faced (in 1964, 1980, 1982, and now 2011) and with a bureaucracy that has legitimized their theft of public funds. The number of Alawite casualties increased over the course of the crisis, either fighting to protect Assad or because they are accused of aiding his regime, while a growing number have faced the grim realization that the Assad family is motivated by self-interest alone. While researchers cannot pinpoint exactly how many Alewites have died, many have documented the number of Syrian soldiers instead to obtain an approximation, and have indicated that between 11,000 Alawites and 41,000 Syrian soldiers have been killed.
Political Geography:
Iraq and Syria

38880. WHY TEHRAN WON'T ABANDON ASSAD(ISM)

Author:
Mohsen Milani
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
When the Arab Spring reached the Mediterranean shores of Syria in early 2011, there was an ephemeral exuberance that Bashar Assad's dictatorship would be replaced with a democratic order. Today, Syria has descended into an existential civil war among religious sects and ethnic communities. The country has transformed into a battleground for a proxy war among regional and global powers that pursue irreconcilable objectives. Balkanization of Syria appears underway as the government, the Kurds, and the opposition to President Bashar Assad's regime control different swaths of the country, while the civil war has ominously metastasized to Syria's neighbors. Alarmingly, a large number of foreign born jihadists and terrorists with possible links to al Qaeda have also flooded the country to foment mischief. Amidst all the destruction, the complex civil war has reached a stubborn stalemate with no breakthrough in sight.
Topic:
Civil War
Political Geography:
Arabia and Syria