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Books > Law > International law > Public international law > General
This is a major, and deeply thoughtful, contribution to understanding uncertainty and risk. Our world and its unprecedented challenges need such ways of thinking! Much more than a set of contributions from different disciplines, this book leads you to explore your own way of perceiving your own area of work. An outstanding contribution that will stay on my shelves for many years. Dr Neil T. M. Hamilton, Director, WWF International Arctic Programme This collection of essays provides a unique and fascinating overview of perspectives on uncertainty and risk across a wide variety of disciplines. It is a valuable and accessible sourcebook for specialists and laypeople alike. Professor Renate Schubert, Head of the Institute for Environmental Decisions and Chair of Economics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology This comprehensive collection of disciplinary perspectives on uncertainty is a definitive guide to contemporary insights into this Achilles heel of modernity and the endemic hubris of institutional science in its role as public authority. It gives firm foundations to the fundamental historic shift now underway in the world, towards normalizing acceptance of the immanent condition of ignorance and of its practical corollaries: contingency, uncontrol, and respect for difference. Brian Wynne, Professor of Science Studies, Lancaster University Bammer and Smithson have assembled a fascinating, important collection of papers on uncertainty and its management. The integrative nature of Uncertainty and Risk makes it a landmark in the intellectual history of this vital cross-disciplinary concept. George Cvetkovich, Director, Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University Uncertainty governs our lives. From the unknowns of living with the risks of terrorism to developing policies on genetically modified foods, or disaster planning for catastrophic climate change, how we conceptualize, evaluate and cope with uncertainty drives our actions and deployment of resources, decisions and priorities. In this thorough and wide-ranging volume, theoretical perspectives are drawn from art history, complexity science, economics, futures, history, law, philosophy, physics, psychology, statistics and theology. On a practical level, uncertainty is examined in emergency management, intelligence, law enforcement, music, policy and politics. Key problems that are a subject of focus are environmental management, communicable diseases and illicit drugs. Opening and closing sections of the book provide major conceptual strands in uncertainty thinking and develop an integrated view of the nature of uncertainty, uncertainty as a motivating or de-motivating force, and strategies for coping and managing under uncertainty.
Over the past decades, considerable debate has emerged surrounding the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to analyze and make recommendations for environmental and safety regulations. Critics argue that CBA forces values on unquantifiable factors, that it does not adequately measure benefits across generations, and that it is not adaptable in situations of uncertainty. Proponents, on the other hand, believe that a well-done CBA provides useful, albeit imperfect, information to policymakers precisely because of the standard metrics that are applied across the analysis. Largely absent from the debate have been practical questions about how the use of CBA could be improved. Relying on the assumption that CBA will remain an important component in the regulatory process, this new work from Resources for the Future brings together experts representing both sides of the debate to analyze the use of CBA in three key case studies: the Clean Air Interstate Rule, the Clean Air Mercury Rule, and the Cooling Water Intake Structure Rule (Phase II). Each of the case studies is accompanied by critiques from both an opponent and a proponent of CBA and includes consideration of complementary analyses that could have been employed. The work's editors - two CBA supporters and one critic - conclude the report by offering concrete recommendations for improving the use of CBA, focusing on five areas: technical quality of the analyses, relevance to the agency decision-making process, transparency of the analyses, treatment of new scientific findings, and balance in both the analyses and associated processes, including the treatment of distributional consequences.
This book analyzes the legality of the use of force by the US, the UK and their NATO allies against Afghanistan in 2001. The work challenges the main ground for resorting to force, namely, self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations' Charter, by examining each element of Article 51 that ought to have been satisfied in order to legitimise the use of force. It also examines the wider context, including comparable Security Council resolutions in historic situations as well as modern instances where force has been used, such as against Iraq in 2003 and against Lebanon in 2006. As well as making the case against the legality of the use of force, the book addresses wider questions such as the meaning of 'terrorism' in international law, the changing nature of conflict in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries including the impact of non-state actors and an overview of terrorism trends as well as the evolution of limitations on the resort to force from the League of Nations through to 2001. The book concludes with some insight into the possible future implications for the use of force by states, particularly when force is purportedly justified on the grounds of self-defence.
The catchment area of the Mekong River and its tributaries extends from China, through Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and to Vietnam. The water resources of the Mekong region - from the Irrawaddy and Nu-Salween in the west, across the Chao Phraya to the Lancang-Mekong and Red River in the east- are increasingly contested. Governments, companies, and banks are driving new investments in roads, dams, diversions, irrigation schemes, navigation facilities, power plants and other emblems of conventional 'development'. Their plans and interventions should provide some benefits, but also pose multiple burdens and risks to millions of people dependent on wetlands, floodplains and aquatic resources, in particular, the wild capture fisheries of rivers and lakes. This book examines how large-scale projects are being proposed, justified, and built. How are such projects contested and how do specific governance regimes influence decision making? The book also highlights the emergence of new actors, rights and trade-off debates, and the social and environmental consequences of 'water resources development'. This book shows how diverse, and often antagonistic, ideologies and interests are contesting for legitimacy. It argues that the distribution of decision-making, political, and discursive power influences how the waterscapes of the region will ultimately look and how benefits, costs and risks will be distributed. These issues are crucial for the transformation of waterscapes and the prospects for democratizing water governance in the Mekong region. The book is part of the action-research of the M-POWER (Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience) knowledge network. Published with IFAD, CG|AR Challenge Program on Water & Food, M-POWER, Project ECHEL-EAU and HEINRICH BOLL STIFTUNG
Policy evaluation is an important and well-established part of the policy process, facilitating and feeding back to promote the ongoing effectiveness of policies that have been implemented or anticipating policies in the making. While all policy areas have their own peculiarities, which must be considered, these are often taken into account by standard evaluation methods, which have been honed over many years of testing. Environmental policy, however, is a special case which presents new complexities uncommon to other areas, and which standard evaluation tools are ill equipped to grapple with. It is also an area that is experiencing rapid growth throughout the world and knowledge is now needed at all levels of government and in NGOs, businesses and other organizations, all of whom are required to assess the effectiveness of their policies.This handbook is the first guide to environmental policy evaluation in practice. Beginning with an introduction to the general principles of evaluation, it then explains the particular complexities native to the environmental sphere. The third section provides a comprehensive toolkit of evaluation methods and techniques, which the practitioner can employ and refer to repeatedly. The fourth section considers design issues which may face the policy evaluator, including involvement of stakeholders, the sensitivities between them, the "a priori" assessment of the evaluability of a field, the maximization of the utilization of the evaluations' outcomes, and much more. Throughout, the theory is illustrated with practical examples from around the world-all together making this the essential companion guide for anyone tasked with ensuring that environmentalpolicy fulfils its aims and achieves its potential.
Across the globe, controversies around vaccines exemplify anxieties thrown up by new technologies. Whether it is growing parental concerns over the MMR vaccine in the UK or Nigerian communities refusing polio vaccines-associating them with genocidal policies-these controversies feed the cornerstone debates of our time concerning trust in government, media responsibility, scientific impartiality, citizen science, parental choice and government enforcement. This book is a groundbreaking examination of how parents are reflecting on and engaging with vaccination, a rapidly advancing and universally applied technology. It examines the anxieties emerging as today's highly globalized vaccine technologies and technocracies encounter the deeply intimate personal and social worlds of parenting and childcare, showing these to be part of transforming science-society relations. The authors interweave rich ethnographic data from participant-observation, interviews, group discussions and parental narratives from the UK and West Africa with the findings of large-scale surveys, which reveal more general patterns. The book takes a comparative approach and draws perspectives from medical anthropology, science and technology studies and development studies into engagement with public health and vaccine policy. The authors show how vaccine controversies involve relations of knowledge, responsibility and interdependence across multiple scales that challenge easy dichotomies: tradition versus modernity, reason versus emotion, personal versus public, rich versus poor, and Northern risk society versus Southern developing society. They reflect critically on the stereotypes that at times pass for explanations ofparents' engagement with both routine vaccination and vaccine research, suggesting some routes to improved dialogue between health policy-makers, professionals and medical researchers, and the people they serve. More broadly, the book suggests new terms of debate for thinking about science-society relations in a globalized world.
Recentering the World recovers a richly contextual, detailed history of Western-imposed legal structures in China, as well as engagements with international law by Chinese officials, jurists, and citizens. Beginning in the Late Qing era, it shows how international law functioned as a channel for power relations, techniques of economic domination, as well as novel forms of resistance. The book also radically diversifies traditionally Eurocentric accounts of modern international law's origins, demonstrating how, by the mid-twentieth century, Chinese jurists had made major contributions to international organizations and the UN system, the international judiciary, the laws of armed conflict, and more. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book is a valuable guide to China's often conflicted role in international law, its reception and contention of concepts of sovereignty, property, obligation, and autonomy, and its gradual move from the 'periphery' to a shared spot at the 'center' of global legal order.
The extent of available pre-judgment asset preservation relief is widely regarded as a unique characteristic of English law and one of the key factors attracting international commercial litigation to the English courts. By taking a novel view of the theoretical foundations of a freezing injunction, this book challenges the long-established view that such an injunction is an in personam form of relief whose sole purpose is to prevent unscrupulous defendants from making themselves judgment-proof. Dr Saranovic combines historical and comparative perspectives to identify several theoretical flaws in the court's jurisdiction to grant this popular form of interim relief. The book demonstrates that the current application of private international law rules in this field leads to inequality among litigants and illegitimate encroachment upon the sovereignty of foreign states. It proposes a range of possible solutions to alleviate concerns about the scope of freezing injunctions both in the domestic and international arena.
Environmental values and concerns are meant to be reflected through environmental policy, which is then integrated into mainstream economic and social policy and serves to govern society and the economy. Yet effective environmental policy integration (EPI) has proven to be very difficult in actual practice and it remains largely an elusive aspiration. This is particularly the case in core economic sectors such as energy and agriculture, which have enormous environmental impacts but are also sectors in which other priorities typically override environmental concerns in policy creation. This groundbreaking volume presents the first ever detailed examination of EPI at the national policy level, focusing on the key sectors of energy and agriculture within Sweden, a country that is widely recognized as a leader in Europe and worldwide. In doing so, the authors unpack EPI, look at what it means in policy formation and examine how environmental priorities are treated in relation to other political priorities.The final section of the book lays out the major findings and presents key lessons for international application including institutional recommendations on how to enhance the potential for EPI. Most fundamentally, the book answers the questions of what works and why for EPI, and how it can be achieved in practice across sectors. The result is a rich and indispensable guide for all those involved in policy formation in governments, NGOs and business and industry as well as environmental management professionals, and researchers and higher level students studying environmental policy.
The world's energy structure underpins the global environmental crisis and changing it will require regulatory change at a massive level. Energy is highly regulated in international law, but the field has never been comprehensively mapped. The legal sources on which the governance of energy is based are plentiful but they are scattered across a vast legal expanse. This book is the first single-authored study of the international law of energy as a whole. Written by a world-leading expert, it provides a comprehensive account of the international law of energy and analyses the implications of the ongoing energy transformation for international law. The study combines conceptual and doctrinal analysis of all the main rules, processes and institutions to consider the past, present and likely future of global energy governance. Providing a solid foundation for teaching, research and practice, this book addresses both the theory and real-world policy dimension of the international law of energy.
What does the Belt and Road Initiative mean for the existing multilateral organisations? What can it represent for the future of the European Union in the long run? What is the role of hard and soft law in the functioning of the Initiative? What does it represent from a legal theory perspective? This book aspires to contribute to the international debate by gathering scholars with different backgrounds (legal theorists, public international lawyers, comparative lawyers) in a way that they can offer their inputs and observations concerning the Belt and Road Initiative.
International agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, EU regulation and country-specific national climate policies offer some hope of addressing climate change. But all too often implementation of these high level objectives is derailed at the sub-national, local and - perhaps most important - individual level, by a variety of structural, policy and perceived barriers that result in a failure of effective action. Drawing on original research from Sweden, a world leader in effective environmental solutions, this volume examines the difficulties of aligning climate policy from international to national and sub-national levels. The authors address the full range of barriers and complexities, including governance structures, the relationship between 'experts' and the public, political feasibility, tax measures, perceptions of 'fairness' and self-interest, and the importance of environmental values. Also covered are the roles and perceptions of organizations and professions, the place of carbon-free technologies (such as wind power), the relationship between national and EU regulations, and the monumental challenge of governing the climate in a bordered and divided world. This volume is a vital source of information for all those seeking to create effective, coordinated responses to the challenge of climate change.
* The complexities of animal behavior revealed in the last few decades are astonishing, but what are the implications? * Do animals experience the world in a similar way to humans, and do they have a similar capacity for suffering and enjoyment? If they do, does it matter? * Should we mind that farmed animals can be confined all their lives and are sacrificed for human consumption? * Humans have long used animals for social and economic purposes, but should we, and can we afford to, think about it and make changes? * The use of animals for meat, for hide, for their labor and in laboratories has been justified with the assumption that unlike humans, animals aren't fully sentient beings. * This book challenges that assumption with groundbreaking new research that brings into question everything we've ever thought about the ways animals experience the world. * Over twenty contributions from internationally-renowned experts on animal behavior and agriculture, including big names such as Jane Goodall, Tim Lang, and Vandana ShivaIn this book, internationally respected contributors are brought together for the first time to debate and attempt to answer these questions. The first sections discuss scientific and ethical perspectives on the consciousness, emotions, and mental abilities of animals. Later sections address how human activities such as science, law, farming, food production, trade, development, and education respect or ignore animals' sentience and welfare, and review the options for changes in our thinking, policies, and practices.Published with Compassion in World Farming Trust.
There are various situations in which multiple states or international organizations are bound to an international obligation in the context of cooperative activities and the pursuit of common goals. This practical phenomenon of sharing international obligations raises questions regarding the performance of obligations (who is bound to do what) and international responsibility in case of a breach (who can be held responsible for what). This book puts forward a concept of shared obligations that captures this practical phenomenon and enables scholars and practitioners to tackle these questions. In doing so, it engages in positive law-based categorization and systematization, building on existing categorizations of obligations and putting forward new typologies of shared obligations. Ultimately, it is contended that the sharing of obligations has relevant legal implications: it can influence the content and performance of obligations as well as the responsibility relations that arise in case of a breach.
Jus cogens is a formidable yet elusive concept of international law. Since its incorporation in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties some 35 years ago, it has made tentative inroads into international legal practice. But its role in international law is arguably less prominent than might have been expected on the basis of its powerful potential and in view of wider developments in international law that call for constitutionalisation and hierarchy, including the processes of fragmentation and humanization. This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law sets out to clarify the concepts and doctrines relevant to jus cogens and to sharpen the debate on its theoretical foundations, functions and legal effects. To that purpose, the volume brings together contributions on the genesis and function of jus cogens, on the application of jus cogens in specialised areas of international law and on its enforcement and legal consequences. Together, they reinforce the understanding of jus cogens as a hierarchical concept of international law and shed light on its potential for further development.
In the last forty years, agriculture in the industrialised countries has undergone a revolution. That has dramatically increased yields, but it has also led to extensive rural depopulation; widespread degradation of the environment; contamination of food with agrochemicals and bacteria; more routine maltreatment of farm animals; and the undermining of Third World economies and livelihoods through unfair trading systems. Confronted by mounting evidence of environmental harm and social impacts, mainstream agronomistis and policy-makers have debatedly recognized the need for change. 'Sustainable agricultutre' has become the buzz phrase. But that can mean different things to different people. We have to ask: sustainable agriculture for whom? Whose interests are benefiting? And whose are suffering? At issue is the question of power - of who controls the land and what it produces. Most of the changes currently under discussion will actually strengthen the status quo and the underlying causes of the damage. The result will be greater intensification of farming, environmental destruction and inequality. There are no simple off-the-shelf alternatives to industrial agriculture. There are, however, groups throughout the world, who have contributed to this report and who are working together on a new approach. An agriculture that, in Wendell Berry's words, 'depletes neither soil nor people'. Originally published in 1992
Two major factors brought about the establishment of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law in 1970: demand for the publication of national practice in international law, and the desirability for legal practitioners, state representatives and international lawyers to have access to the growing amount of available data, in the form of articles, notes etc. The Documentation section contains an extensive review of Dutch state practice from the parliamentary year prior to publication, an account of developments relating to treaties and other international agreements to which the Netherlands is a party, summaries of Netherlands judicial decisions involving questions of public international law (many not published elsewhere), lists of Dutch publications in the field and extracts from relevant municipal legislation. Although the NYIL has a distinctive national character it is published in English, and the editors do not adhere to any geographical limitations when deciding upon the inclusion of articles.
The UN Security Council and International Law explores the legal powers, limits and potential of the United Nations Security Council, offering a broadly positive (and positivist) account of the Council's work in practice. This book aims to answer questions such as 'when are Council decisions binding and on whom?', 'what legal constraints exist on Council decision making?' and 'how far is the Council bound by international law?'. Defining the controlling legal rules and differentiating between what the Council can do, as opposed to what it should do as a matter of policy, this book offers both a tool for assessment of the Council as well as realistic solutions to address its deficiencies, and, most importantly, evaluates its potential for maintaining international peace and security, to the benefit of us all.
Underground warfare, a tactic of yesteryear, has re-emerged as a global and rapidly diffusing threat. This book is the first of its kind to examine tunnel warfare in a systematic and comprehensive way, addressing the legal issues while keeping in mind operational and strategic challenges. Like many other aspects of contemporary warfare, the renewed use of the subterranean in armed conflict presents a challenge for democracies wishing to abide by the law. To Dr. Richemond-Barak, this challenge has not only been under-explored, it is also largely underestimated by the community of states, security experts, and public opinion. She analyzes traditional concepts of the laws of war as they relate to tunnels and underground operations, contemplating questions such as whether tunnels constitute legitimate targets, the assessment of proportionality in anti-tunnel operations, and the availability of advanced warning in this complex terrain. She also identifies issues that are unique to underground warfare, including those that arise when cross-border tunnels burrow under a state's own civilian infrastructure.
A number of recent events in the last decade have renewed interest in Russian discourses on international law. This book evaluates and presents a contemporary analysis of Russian discourses on international law from various perspectives, including sociological, theoretical, political, and philosophical. The aim is to identify how Russia interacts with international law, the reasons behind such interactions, and how such interactions compare with the general practice of international law. It also examines whether legal culture and other phenomena can justify Russia's interaction in international law. Russian Discourses on International Law explains Russia's interpretation of international law through the lens of both leading western scholars and contemporary western-based Russian scholars. It will be of value to international law scholars looking for a better understanding of Russia's behavior in international legal relations, law and society, foreign policy, and domestic application of international law. Further, those in fields such as sociology, politics, philosophy, or general graduate students, lawyers, think tanks, government departments, and specialized Russian studies programs will find the book helpful.
Negotiations on trade facilitation were concluded at the WTO 9th Ministerial Conference in 2013, and the Agreements on Trade Facilitation (TFA), therefore, became the first fully multilateral agreement in WTO history. Since then, trade facilitation has been in the limelight on the stage of the world trading system. During recent years, the TFA has been consistently on the agenda of the summits of G20, G7, and APEC. The Agreement has come into force and shall be implemented on a global scale. As a result, the WTO members shall be prepared to translate the Agreement into their domestic legislation, which will involve a series of reforms in trade laws and policies. There are extensive voices demanding a comprehensive expatiation on trade facilitation and the TFA. It is essential to systematically delve into the genesis of trade facilitation, revisit the course where the TFA came into being, and analyse the well-turned legalese of the TFA. This book meets this demand. This book is path-breaking in these aspects: it expounds on the rationales for trade facilitation and the significance of constituting an international accord on trade facilitation; it restores the one-century track of the international community's talks on trade facilitation, from the times of the League of Nations to the WTO era; it reveals how the WTO negotiating mechanisms enabled the TFA to be nailed down, which would be enlightening for trade diplomats engaged in other WTO negotiations; and it provides an in-depth commentary on the TFA articles, which will help stakeholders more accurately understand and implement the Agreement. This book will be especially valuable for government officials and policy-makers, trade practitioners, lawyers, advisers, and scholars interested in international economic law, WTO law, international trade, international relations, and international development studies.
The cutting-edge contributions to this book analyse different facets of the European Union (EU): closer integration among the member states, policymaking within a 'normal' political system, and the implications of European integration for its member states. This book also considers whether the challenges currently confronting the EU - the lingering Eurozone debt crises, the migrant/refugee crisis, the British decision to leave the EU, and terrorist attacks in Belgium, France and Germany - mark an inflection point for the Union and for the study of the EU. For the first time, 'less Europe', rather than closer integration, has emerged as a serious option in response to crisis. This possibility reignites questions of (dis)integration and calls into question the assumption of the EU as a 'normal' political system. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.
This volume deals with the very novel issue of cyber laundering. The book investigates the problem of cyber laundering legally and sets out why it is of a grave legal concern locally and internationally. The book looks at the current state of laws and how they do not fully come to grips with the problem. As a growing practice in these modern times, and manifesting through technological innovations, cyber laundering is the birth child of money laundering and cybercrime. It concerns how the internet is used for 'washing' illicit proceeds of crime. In addition to exploring the meaning and ambits of the problem with concrete real-life examples, more importantly, a substantial part of the work innovates ways in which the dilemma can be curbed legally. This volume delves into a very grey area of law, daring a yet unthreaded territory and scouring undiscovered paths where money laundering, cybercrime, information technology and international law converge. In addition to unearthing such complexity, the hallmark of this book is in the innovative solutions and dynamic remedies it postulates.
Significant use has been made of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice because it is the principle judicial organ of the world's most universal international organization, the United Nations. Moreover, article 103 of the Charter of the United Nations makes the obligations in this treaty superior any other treaty obligations into which States may enter. The Dictionary of Public International Law contains a chronology, an introduction, glossary of Foreign Terms, tables of Treaties and Cases, an extensive bibliography, and an index. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on significant persons, important treaties and conventions, organizations and tribunals, and important cases and issues they have dealt with. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about international law.
The Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the Withdrawal Agreement concluded between the European Union and the United Kingdom, is intended to address the difficult and complex impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland, North and South, and between Ireland and Great Britain. It has become an exceptionally important, if controversial, part of the new architecture that governs the relationship between the UK and the EU more generally, covering issues that range from trade flows to free movement, from North-South Co-operation to the protection of human rights, from customs arrangements to democratic oversight by the Northern Ireland Assembly. This edited collection offers insights from a wide array of academic experts and practitioners in each of the various areas of legal practice that the Protocol affects, providing a comprehensive examination of the Protocol in all its legal dimensions, drawing on international law, European Union Law, and domestic constitutional and public law. This title is also available as Open Access. |
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