Number of results to display per page
Search Results
1052. Filling the Void: How Rouhani’s Government Exploits US Sanctions to Enhance its Position
- Author:
- FARAS
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
- Abstract:
- With the second batch of US sanctions on Iran, coming into effect today, the government of President Hassan Rouhani is taking preemptive measures to strengthen its ability to confront sanctions. It seeks to exploit the sanctions to endorse its candidates for the four ministerial portfolios whose ministers were dismissed in the past months, following a no-confidence vote in the Consultative Assembly.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Government, Sanctions, Donald Trump, and Hassan Rouhani
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America
1053. Helsinki’s Interests: Why Does Finland Show Interest in the Middle East?
- Author:
- FARAS
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
- Abstract:
- The recent years have witnessed a growing interest from Helsinki in the transformations and interactions of the Middle East, as evident in the inauguration of academic institutes in the region, visits by diplomatic and parliamentary delegations, activities with research centers, proposals for the resolution of conflicts between political parties, meetings between joint business councils and representatives of chambers of commerce and enhancing the cooperation with Arab intelligence agencies. The Finnish government has several objectives within this calculus.
- Topic:
- Geopolitics, Investment, and Currency
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Middle East, Finland, Libya, North Africa, and Syria
1054. Renewed Differences: Repercussions of the Mounting Tension Between Iran and Europe
- Author:
- FARAS
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
- Abstract:
- Iran is keen to maintain good relations with the European countries at the current stage because they can help it cope with US pressures. These relations gained added importance after the withdrawal of the US from the nuclear deal and the re-imposition of sanctions on Tehran. However, Iran has not changed some elements of its foreign policy, which continually widens the differences between it and European states and may eventually undercut its ability to contain the repercussions of the US sanctions, with the approaching date of the toughest batch of sanctions, set to start on November 5.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Treaties and Agreements, Sanctions, European Union, and Donald Trump
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Iran, Middle East, France, and Syria
1055. European Social Policy: Progressive Regression
- Author:
- Wolfgang Streeck
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
- Abstract:
- European social policy changed with the evolution of European and global capitalism, the scope and shape of European-level international institutions, the size and heterogeneity of “Europe” as a polity, and the politics of the European national welfare state. The paper outlines the long-term trajectory of European social policy, from the intended absorption of national welfare states into one united, federal welfare state to a selective updating of national social policies by European social policies; to multi-level coordination of national systems by special European institutions; to European soft law helping national “modern- ization” on the “Third Way”; to exposure of national systems to international economic competition as an incentive for “structural reform”; and to subordination of social policy, national and European, to the defense of a common hard currency through fiscal consoli- dation – from, in other words, federal social democracy to competitive “adjustment” of national social protection and social life to global markets.
- Topic:
- Reform, Capitalism, Political structure, Social Policy, Welfare, and Integration
- Political Geography:
- Europe
1056. Authoritarianism in the heart of Europe
- Author:
- Dalibor Rohac
- Publication Date:
- 08-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
- Abstract:
- What distinguishes the governments of Hungary and Poland are not their views on immigration nor their defense of national sovereignty or Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Rather, it is their distinctly authoritarian and anti-market features. With a new Fundamental Law, electoral reform, and other far-reaching changes adopted in Hungary on strictly partisan lines, as well as a politicization of the judiciary and attacks on free media and civil society in both countries, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) and Fidesz governments have sought to entrench themselves and prevent meaningful democratic contestation of their power. In both countries, key achievements of the post-1989 transition to the free enterprise system are being reversed. In Poland, for example, 40 percent of all banking-sector assets are now held by the government. Hungarian and Polish authoritarianism, as well as the rise of political kleptocracy in Hungary, pose a direct threat to the values on which the transatlantic alliance was built and America’s interest in the region. The United States cannot afford to become a cheerleader for either Fidesz or PiS, no matter how convincing their conservative bona fides might seem.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Government, Politics, and Authoritarianism
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eurasia, Poland, and Hungary
1057. The Private Life of Family Matters: Curtailing Human Rights Protection for Migrants under Article 8 of the ECHR?
- Author:
- Alan Desmond
- Publication Date:
- 01-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article critically examines the evolving practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) towards the definition and use of the concepts of family life and private life in cases involving migrants who seek to resist deportation by invoking Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The examination reveals an approach on the part of the Court that has the effect of shrinking the protection potential of Article 8 for migrant applicants, allowing state interest in expulsion to carry the day. This is symptomatic of Strasbourg’s deference to state sovereignty in the realm of migration. While the ECtHR has issued a number of landmark rulings roundly vindicating migrants’ rights, these are the exception to the rule of Strasbourg’s deference to state powers of immigration control. This approach has far-reaching implications for migrants in the member states of the Council of Europe. The article concludes by highlighting the tools at the Court’s disposal that could be employed to construct a more human rights-consistent approach in this strand of jurisprudence, which is an issue all the more relevant in light of the growing number of migrants seeking to establish a life in Europe.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Law, Migration, Sovereignty, and Courts
- Political Geography:
- Europe and France
1058. Maritime Legal Black Holes: Migration and Rightlessness in International Law
- Author:
- Itamar Mann
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article explores the trope of the ‘legal black hole’ to reveal questions of legal theory arising from contemporary migrant drownings. The theme was popularized during what was then called the ‘war on terror’, but its trajectory is longer and more complex. Its material history, as well as its intellectual history within legal scholarship, suggest three distinct ‘legacies’ of legal black holes: the counterterrorism legacy; the migrant-detention legacy; and the legacy of the maritime legal black hole. The tripartite division provides a conceptual typology of instances where persons are rendered rightless. While the two former types are characterized by de facto rightlessness due to a violation of international law, the latter exposes a seldom acknowledged, yet crucial, characteristic of international law; the age-old doctrine on the division of responsibilities between states and individuals at land and at sea is now creating the conditions in which some people are rendered de jure rightless. Moreover, the typology sheds light on the specifically legal reasons for the seeming failure to end mass drowning of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. Tracing the ways in which people become de jure rightless is ultimately suggested as a broader research agenda for scholars of international law.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Law, Migration, and Maritime
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Mediterranean
1059. The Return of Cultural Genocide?
- Author:
- Leora Bilsky and Rachel Klagsbrun
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Cultural genocide, despite contemporary thinking, is not a new problem in need of normative solution, rather it is as old as the concept of genocide itself. The lens of law and history allows us to see that the original conceptualization of the crime of genocide – as presented by Raphael Lemkin – gave cultural genocide centre stage. As Nazi crime was a methodical attempt to destroy a group and as what makes up a group’s identity is its culture, for Lemkin, the essence of genocide was cultural. Yet the final text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) does not prohibit cultural genocide as such, and it is limited to its physical and biological aspects. What led to this exclusion? In this article, we examine the various junctures of law, politics and history in which the concept was shaped: the original conceptualization by Lemkin; litigation in national and international criminal courts and the drafting process of the Genocide Convention. In the last part, we return to the mostly forgotten struggle for cultural restitution (books, archives and works of art) fought by Jewish organizations after the Holocaust as a countermeasure to cultural genocide. Read together, these various struggles uncover a robust understanding of cultural genocide, which was once repressed by international law and now returns to haunt us by the demands of groups for recognition and protection.
- Topic:
- Genocide, International Law, History, Culture, Courts, and Holocaust
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Germany
1060. The Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and Their Contribution to the Crime of Rape
- Author:
- Alexandra Adams
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The article analyses the over 20 years’ jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda with respect to the crime of rape. It discusses how the attitude towards the prosecution of sexual crimes has changed since the Tribunals work began and what impact its jurisprudence has had on other attempts to define rape (elements of crime [EOC]). The article explores in depth the various definitions of rape given by the different chambers of both Tribunals. Consequently, it examines if the ultimate definition of the Kunarac chamber will prevail in international law. Not only are the weaknesses of the Kunarac definition that followed a pure consent approach revealed but the EOC of rape that opted for a combination of the coercion approach with one aspect of the lack-of-consent doctrine (incapacity) also face criticism. This leaves only one response – namely, that the elements of rape in international criminal law today can only be based upon a newly conducted comparison of national laws, thereby reflecting the general principles of the major legal systems of the world. The strongest accomplishment of both Tribunals concerning the crime of rape therefore lies not in the clarification of the elements of rape but, rather, in the revelation of a law-finding method, which is indispensable to the rudimentary field of international criminal law.
- Topic:
- International Law, War Crimes, Gender Based Violence, Courts, and Rape
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda