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41. Riyadh Picks Up the Pieces – The Yemen Review, October 2019

Author:
Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The Yemen Review Launched in June 2016, The Yemen Review – formerly known as Yemen at the UN – is a monthly publication produced by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies. It aims to identify and assess current diplomatic, economic, political, military, security, humanitarian and human rights developments related to Yemen. In producing The Yemen Review, Sana’a Center staff throughout Yemen and around the world gather information, conduct research, hold private meetings with local, regional, and international stakeholders, and analyze the domestic and international context surrounding developments in and regarding Yemen. This monthly series is designed to provide readers with a contextualized insight into the country’s most important ongoing issues.
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, Sovereignty, United Nations, Economy, Conflict, and Military
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Europe, Middle East, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia

42. The Legal Dimensions of Rule of Law Promotion in EU Foreign Policy: EU Treaty Imperatives and Rule of Law Conditionality in the Foreign Trade and Development Nexus

Author:
Till Patrik Holterhus
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:
This article demonstrates that Arts. 21 and 3 (5) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) as well as Arts. 205, 207 (1), 208 (1), 209 (2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), legally oblige the European Union (EU) to promote the rule of law in its foreign trade and development policy. Furthermore, it is shown that, in the context of such promotion, the EU applies not a rudimentary but a sophisticated concept of the rule of law – quite similar to the concept of the rule of law that has developed within the Union. To fulfill the legal obligation to promote the rule of law abroad, the EU employs, as a key instrument, the legal mechanism of conditionality, not only through autonomous instruments but also in its contractual international relationships (carrot-and-stick policy). The EU’s foreign policy in the trade and development nexus, in particular when it comes to the promotion of the rule of law, can, therefore, be considered a process, to a large extent, determined and organized the of law.
Topic:
International Law, International Trade and Finance, Sovereignty, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe

43. Stalled Europeanization in Post-Sovereignty EU? Greek Politics in Hard Times

Author:
Kostas A Lavdas
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This paper focuses on stalled Europeanization as a field of practices, institutions and discourse connected with a process of ambivalent reform. The absence of a consensual national strategy of adaptation to a particularly challenging environment, i.e., participation in the eurozone, produced dramatic consequences when confronted with the financial crisis after 2009. It is argued that the country’s sluggish Europeanization reached a critical turning point in 2009 when the urgency of the crisis brought to the fore a number of issues and vulnerabilities. Asymmetric policy adjustment – limited in some areas, extensive in others – has been the combined result of perceived necessity, insufficiently designed and implemented reform packages, party-political repositioning, and plain politicking. Europeanization in Greece became a stalled process in 2015; restarting the stalled process since 2016 leads to ongoing but sluggish Europeanizing interactions, involving shifts in the roles of domestic politics, institutional traditions and interest groups while reshaping the patterns of political contestation.
Topic:
Politics, Sovereignty, Reform, and Europeanization
Political Geography:
Europe and Greece

44. Uncertain Ground: Engaging With Europe’s De Facto States and Breakaway Territories

Author:
Thomas de Waal
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Abkhazia, Transdniestria, and northern Cyprus, three unrecognized statelets in Europe that arose during conflicts in the twentieth century, have endured for decades. Despite many problems, they are self-governing and stable, and they show no signs of collapsing. They exercise internal sovereignty, even as they have no prospect of getting international recognition. This qualifies them as de facto states. While these territories still have problems of poor regulation and impunity from international justice, in many other regards, they seek respectability and try to cleave to European norms. This distinguishes them from the breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine. Concerns in the recognized states that greater engagement will lead to “creeping recognition” of the territories is not borne out by legal opinion, which concludes that recognition is a conscious act and cannot be conferred by accident.Better engagement with breakaway territories such as these is an overlooked resource in conflict resolution. If carried out in a clear-sighted and intelligent manner, it should benefit all sides. It should give citizens of the de facto states greater opportunities to be integrated into the world. It should benefit the recognized states who generally have a de jure claim over the territories (the “parent states”) by building bridges across the conflict divide. It should have a wider benefit by ensuring that these places are more compliant with international norms.
Topic:
International Law, Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes, and Norms
Political Geography:
Europe, Abkhazia, Cyprus, and Transdniestria

45. 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

46. Fragile States Index 2018 – Annual Report

Author:
J. J. Messner, Nate Haken, Patricia Taft, Ignatius Onyekwere, Hannah Blyth, Charles Fiertz, Christina Murphy, Amanda Quinn, and McKenzie Horwitz
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Fund for Peace
Abstract:
The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, The Fragile States Index—and the social science framework and software application upon which it is built—makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.
Topic:
Oil, Sovereignty, Natural Resources, Authoritarianism, Counter-terrorism, Democracy, Fragile States, Economy, Domestic Politics, Conflict, Resilience, Regional Politics, and Illiberalism
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Middle East, Poland, South America, Hungary, Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, Catalonia, Qatar, Central Europe, Sahel, Global Focus, United States of America, and Gambia

47. How Catalan's Independence Leader Failed by Design

Author:
Liam Hunt
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for the Study of Security and Development, Dalhousie University
Abstract:
Catalonia unilaterally declared independence from Spain on October 27, 2017, and with that, the fate of the European Union was briefly, once again, put in jeopardy. Since then, the international community, including Canada, the US, UK, Germany, and France, have all come forward to call for Spanish unity and quash the separatist tide. The Spanish Constitutional Court has ruled the results of the October 1 secession referendum illegal. In response, the Spanish Senate triggered Article 155 of the Constitution, which effectively gave Madrid direct rule over the region of Catalonia. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy then dissolved the Catalan Parliament and installed a caretaker government under the leadership of vice-premier Soraya de Santamaria before calling snap regional elections for December 21.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Elections, European Union, Separatism, and Secession
Political Geography:
Europe, Spain, and Catalonia

48. The Security Sector Legislation of Ukraine

Author:
Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Philipp Fluri, and Valentyn Badrack
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
This comprehensive collection of Ukrainian legislation on the Security Sector serves two purposes: it gives Ukrainian and Western experts an overview of what legal documents already exist in Ukraine; and serves as a tool for identifying possibilities for adaptations to the law.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes, Governance, Law, Military Affairs, Conflict, and Legislation
Political Geography:
Geneva, Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe

49. The Responsibility to Protect beyond Borders in the Law of Nature and Nations

Author:
Luke Glanville
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
While histories of human rights have proliferated in recent decades, little attention has been given to the history of thinking about duties to protect these rights beyond sovereign borders. We have a good understanding of the history of duties of sovereign states to ensure the safety and well-being of their own citizens and of the right of other states to forcefully intervene when these duties are violated. But the story of the development of thinking about duties to assist and protect the vulnerable beyond borders remains to be told. This article defends the importance of excavating and examining past thinking about these duties. It then sketches key aspects of Western natural law thinking about such duties, from Francisco de Vitoria through to Immanuel Kant, claiming that such study holds the promise of exposing from where ideas that prevail in international law and politics have come and retrieving alternative ideas that have been long forgotten but that may reward renewed consideration. It concludes by briefly outlining how three such retrieved ideas might be of particular use for those seeking to push international law and politics in a more just direction today.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, Sovereignty, History, Humanitarian Intervention, and Philosophy
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

50. Lauri Mälksoo. Russian Approaches to International Law

Author:
Angelika Nussberger
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Modern international law of the 21st century seems to be characterized by a farewell to the Westphalian understanding of state sovereignty, by the empowerment of the individual and by transnational solutions to common problems in a globalized world. This overview, however, is not true for Russian international law. The ‘powerful idea of Russia’s civilizational distinctness from the West’ is underlying the post-Soviet practice in international law (at 190). This is the main thesis of Lauri Mälksoo’s study on ‘Russian approaches to international law’. Russia was different, Russia is different and Russia is proud of being different.
Topic:
International Law, Sovereignty, United Nations, History, and Intellectual History
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Crimea