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3751. EU Obligation to the TRIPS Agreement: EU Microsoft Decision

Author:
Sujitha Subramanian
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In Microsoft v. Commission, Microsoft was ordered by the European Court of First Instance (CFI) to license interface information to its competitors on reasonable terms and to supply a fully functioning version of Windows Personal Computer Operating System without Windows Media Player. Microsoft claimed that the remedies infringed the minimum standards of IP protection provided by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). However, the CFI refused to examine the TRIPS provisions, on the basis that international agreements do not prevail over primary Community law, and in any case, the TRIPS agreement permits members to restrain anti-competitive abuse of IP rights. This article examines the issues that arise from this position: first, is the Microsoft decision TRIPS compliant? Secondly, to what extent is the EU bound to its obligations under the TRIPS Agreement? The article highlights the lack of a clear-cut hierarchy of norms and illustrates how EU law is placed within a multi-layered governance structure involving national law and international law. The article finds that the EU does not engage in consistent interpretation or application of the TRIPS provisions.
Political Geography:
Europe

3752. Debating the Future of the European Court of Human Rights after the Interlaken Conference: Two Innovative Proposals

Author:
Helen Keller, Andreas Fischer, and Daniela Kuhne
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The purpose of this article is to give new impetus to the topical debate on reforming the ECHR in the wake of the Interlaken Conference, at which the ECHR states parties agreed on a roadmap for the future evolution of the Convention system. We highlight two issues which have so far been underexposed in the literature. First, reform measures relating to the new admissibility criterion, just satisfaction, and the pilot judgment procedure are only partially promising, because they are premised on the condition of their being applicable telle quelle in all the states parties. If Convention reforms are to be effective, they must take due account of differing realities relating to a country's human rights situation and the quality of its judiciary. Secondly, given the very high proportion of so-called manifestly ill-founded applications, the Court's practice of rejecting them without giving reasons leads it into a legitimacy problem. We suggest a new provision in the Rules of Court which makes the Court's practice concerning the handling of manifestly ill-founded applications more transparent.
Political Geography:
Europe

3753. Miguel Maduro and Loic Azoulai (eds). The Past and Future of EU Law: The Classics of EU Law Revisited on the 50th Anniversary of the Rome Treaty.

Author:
Marc Jacob
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The title could hardly be more portentous. The Past and Future of EU Law. All of it. In one volume. Luckily, neither the more down-to-earth subtitle – The Classics of EU Law Revisited on the 50th Anniversary of the Rome Treaty – nor the various contributions in this intriguing collection, edited by Miguel Poiares Maduro and Loїc Azoulai, insist on the title's totalizing flight of fancy.
Political Geography:
Europe

3754. Robert Schütze. From Dual to Cooperative Federalism: The Changing Structure of European Law

Author:
Dimitry Kochenov
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The study of European law is finally saved from the dark age of narcissistic ideology of sui generis thinking. That 'the EU is unique' is probably true, but certainly not from the point of view of legal studies. Notwithstanding the first stages of the study of EU law inspired by federative thinking (especially with the help of American scholars versed in federalism theory), the philosophy of EU law soon entered a state of flux where it long remained. This was because of two important factors: short-sighted dogmatism and unrestricted self-love. Important contributions from brilliant jurists, among them Koen Lenaerts and Jean-Claude Piris, were unable to reverse the trend. As the mantra goes, the 'European Union is not a state and not an international organisation sensu stricto' – hence it is absolutely unique, sui generis. Moreover, since 'Europe is not a state, it is not a federation'.
Political Geography:
Europe

3755. Polyphonic Country: A Peace Zone in Georgia and South Caucasus

Author:
Irakli Zurab Kakabadze
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Abstract:
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union the South Caucasus region has been plagued with ethnic conflicts—some of them remnants from Soviet times. Armenia and Azerbaijan are in- volved in a lengthy confrontation over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and Georgia struggles with Russia over the two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These conflicts have caused multiple military confrontations between different parties and are still unresolved even today. In June 1997 Johan Galtung, founder of Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), vis- ited three South Caucasian countries in his tour to promote the “Transcend Method” of conflict transformation and to conduct collaborative workshops with the students of Tbilisi State Univer- sity, Georgia; Yerevan State University, Armenia; and Khazar University, Azerbaijan. He held a large meeting with civil society representatives at the Caucasian Institute for Peace and Demo- cratic Development (CIPDD) in Tbilisi. It was at that roundtable discussion, chaired by CIPDD director Dr. Ghia Nodia, that Galtung proposed creating a Peace Zone and a new international airport at the border area between Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia—namely at the Red Bridge area, one of the centers for regional trade for the last fifty years of the 20th century. Dr. Galtung has suggested that creating a Peace Zone in the South Caucasus was the only viable alternative to the continuous state of war and ethnic conflict. Three years later, Ambassador John W. McDonald, Chairman and CEO of the Institute for Multi Track Diplomacy, attended a conference in Tbilisi, Georgia organized by the Georgia- America Business Development Council. At the conference, Ambassador McDonald also sug- gested creating a Peace Zone in Georgia, around the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, as a way of protecting Western energy interests through peace-building and economic development. Throughout the following nine years Ambassador McDonald continued to work with different Georgian governments on the formation of Peace Zones in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2003 the Vice-Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Vakhtang Rcheulishvili, came to Washington, DC to support the idea of Peace Zones in conflict regions. He met various U.S. officials like Senator Tom Harkin, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and Matthew Bryza of the National Security Coun- cil at the White House. In 2004 the new Prime Minister of Georgia, Zurab Zhvania, endorsed Ambassador McDonald’s plan for Peace Zones in conflict regions. State Minister Bendukidze and former Minister of Conflict Resolution Khaindrava were also very much supportive of this plan. After the Rose Revolution, when nonviolent protests brought down the corrupt government of Eduard Shevardnadze in November 2003, the idea of Peace Zones became a grassroots con- cept popular with certain segments of civil society and university students in Georgia. Proposals for establishing Peace Zones faced a setback when the militaristic policies of Georgian, Russian, and separatist governments led to renewed violence, and in August 2008, a full war between different parties in South Ossetia. They still remain however, one of the most promising means of breaking the cycle of violence in the South Caucasus. The purpose of this paper is to present the case for a Peace Zone in Georgia.
Topic:
Civil Society, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia

3756. Seward: Jerusalem's Traitor: Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea

Author:
Keith W. Whitelam
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Desmond Seward, who normally specializes in popular historical works on medieval and early modern European history, has set out to provide an account of the life and work of Josephus, the first century C.E. Jewish historian, for general rather than academic readers. This departure was inspired by his father's experiences as a British Royal Air Force pilot in Palestine during World War I, which instilled in him a love of William Whiston's translation of Josephus's The Jewish War (London, 1736) and "a respect for the fighting qualities of the Jews in both ancient and modern times".
Political Geography:
Europe and Palestine

3757. Piracy - threat or nuisance?

Author:
Alessandro Schieffler
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Aspate of high-profile hijackings over the New Year and the publication of the 2009 Annual Piracy Report issued by the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre in mid-January have brought the piracy problem back on stage. Despite the employment of naval forces from the European Union, NATO and various nations in counter-piracy and counter-terrorism missions, the figures for 2009 are alarming: according to reports, from 2008 to 2009 piracy grew by almost 40%. It is not only since pirates captured the Sirius Star, a tanker carrying about 25% of Saudi Arabia's daily oil production, that we have also started to worry about the possible economic damage caused by these piratical activities: about 95% of all world trade is handled by maritime transport, with the shipping business itself accounting for 5% of global GDP. About 50,000 vessels are employed, most of them passing through bottlenecks such as the Gulf of Aden or the Malacca Straits, and therefore are exposed to attacks from ashore. Fears about the high economic cost of piracy seem therefore all too justified.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Oil, Terrorism, Maritime Commerce, and Piracy
Political Geography:
Europe

3758. Difficult Folk?: A Political History of Social Anthropology

Author:
David Mills
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
How should we tell the histories of academic disciplines? All too often, the political and institutional dimensions of knowledge production are lost beneath the intellectual debates. This book redresses the balance. Written in a narrative style and drawing on archival sources and oral histories, it depicts the complex pattern of personal and administrative relationships that shape scholarly worlds. Focusing on the field of social anthropology in twentieth-century Britain, this book describes individual, departmental and institutional rivalries over funding and influence. It examines the efforts of scholars such as Bronislaw Malinowski, Edward Evans-Pritchard and Max Gluckman to further their own visions for social anthropology. Did the future lie with the humanities or the social sciences, with addressing social problems or developing scholarly autonomy? This new history situates the discipline's rise within the post-war expansion of British universities and the challenges created by the end of Empire.
Topic:
Anthropology, Empire, and Knowledge Production
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, and Europe

3759. Diamonds and War: State, Capital, and Labor in British Ruled Palestine

Author:
David De Vries
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
The mining of diamonds, their trading mechanisms, their financial institutions, and, not least, their cultural expressions as luxury items have engaged the work of historians, economists, social scientists, and international relations experts. Based on previously unexamined historical documents found in archives in Belgium, England, Israel, the Netherlands, and the United States, this book is the first in English to tell the story of the formation of one of the world’s main strongholds of diamond production and trade in Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s. The history of the diamond-cutting industry, characterized by a long-standing Jewish presence, is discussed as a social history embedded in the international political economy of its times; the genesis of the industry in Palestine is placed on a broad continuum within the geographic and economic dislocations of Dutch, Belgian, and German diamond-cutting centers. In providing a micro-historical and interdisciplinary perspective, the story of the diamond industry in Mandate Palestine proposes a more nuanced picture of the uncritical approach to the strict boundaries of ethnic-based occupational communities. This book unravels the Middle-eastern pattern of state intervention in the empowerment of private capital and recasts this craft culture’s inseparability from international politics during a period of war and transformation of empire.
Topic:
War, Military Strategy, Natural Resources, Labor Issues, State Violence, and Mining
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, and Palestine

3760. The End of the Frozen Cold War?

Author:
Vladimer Papava
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Caucasian Review of International Affairs
Institution:
The Caucasian Review of International Affairs
Abstract:
After the Russian incursion into Georgia many analysts ask questions of whether or not the world is standing on the verge of a new Cold War. Almost no one is asking a question of what if the 20th century Cold War was never finished but, rather, was just "frozen" and what we are witnessing now is the process of melting. To the extent that on both sides of the Cold War are the same countries as in the last century, and the reasons and driving forces of the conflict - as well as the Kremlin's action style - have never changed, one may conclude that what we see now is not a new Cold War but, rather, the resumption of the old Cold War. It is quite probable that the old story may happen again and the West's softness towards Russia may lead to the "refreezing" of the Cold War and the sacrifice of Georgia for an imaginary peace in Europe and the whole world.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Georgia