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Louisiana's new congressional districts are on the books. What happens next is a period of instability that may not clear up until the next census.
January's special session jettisoned prior district boundaries that contained only one majority-minority district in favor of two, as a response to an adverse court decision based upon the outcome of the Allen v. Milligan U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The ensuing plan radically altered principally parts of the Fourth and Sixth Congressional Districts, with the latter giving up its reach from Baton Rouge to the coast by running up the Red River to take bites out of Lafayette, Alexandira and Shreveport, pushing a dagger into the Fourth and becoming M/M.
This almost assuredly will put Republican Rep. Garret Graves out of office later this year, with Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields already having announced his candidacy for the slot; Graves is white while Fields is black. A congressman only has to live in the state in which he runs, not in a particular district, but Graves has little chance winning in any other district currently held by a Republican since his base still is in the Baton Rouge area.
Which won't last long. While several maps were considered, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP majority in the Legislature placed emphasis on protecting Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise – the top two jobs among congressional Republicans and therefore in Congress as the GOP is the majority party. Had the Legislature not reapportioned in the special session, the district court dealing with the case could have imposed any of these that would have been less protective of the pair. One option in particular might have made Johnson's Fourth District less secure.
Timing is everything in these matters, and had the state stuck to its guns with the recent single M/M district the shifting legal processes might have locked it in for 2024, because of the judicial (Purcell) principle that courts won't order changes to maps too close to an election. But had unpredictable legal processes worked out on a different timeline, possibly a court-drawn map instead would have been set in stone for this fall. Thus, Landry and GOP legislative leaders decided to pass the map most protective of the important Republican leaders (who represent the first time in American history one state has had the top two leadership positions in the House), even if it meant losing the possibility that perfectly defensible maps would remain in pace, to avoid having a court willing to rush a preferred map into place as quickly as possible.
The problem that resulted is the map constitutionally is questionable. Three decades ago, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out as racially gerrymandered a similar map, with the only real difference being it was drawn for seven districts. Chances are pretty good this will happen again; even now, the state is being scoured for citizens in the Sixth District willing to challenge the new map.
Even if that case were filed tomorrow, the principle would prevent 2024 from using anything but the new boundaries. But by 2026, it's at least even money that some case somewhere will have been heard by the Supreme Court and have considered as part of it the Assoc. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurrence in Allen v. Milligan that would end the preferred place race has in reapportionment decisions, and produce a decision ending that preference. It might even be part of a challenge to the new map, or perhaps part of the Nairne v. Ardoin case brought against Louisiana's legislative plans.
That means, if Fields were to win, he could spend a second short stint in Washington, three decades after his first (the district declared unconstitutional like the present one actually was a second try after the district in which Fields was elected was declared unconstitutional – eventually, a far more race-neutral court-drawn plan after the two rejections ensured Fields would not return). But then the state could revert back to something similar as to what it just chucked in time for 2026, or 2028 if things move slowly.
However, although much less likely, the Court could go ahead and declare the new map invalid but disregard the Kavanaugh concurrence, which would mean another go at reapportionment in 2026 or later. This is realistic only if a significant shift in Court membership occurred among the five conservative associate justices.
Of course, eventually all of this could be disrupted if population trends don't work in the state's favor. By 2032, Louisiana may lose another House seat, and then it all become a moot point; absent some unanticipated resurrection of the notion of retrogression – paring of M/M seats – that largely has fallen into disfavor since the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Court decision, the state's population distribution simply couldn't support two of five M/M districts.
To make a long story short, nothing is settled. Almost certainly the state will operate a two M/M map for this fall's election, but there's a good chance that things will reset in 2026 to something like they were in 2022. Whoever wins the Sixth this year should be prepared to expect a short stay in D.C.
In: The Australian journal of politics and history: AJPH, Band 23, Heft 2, S. 284-314
ISSN: 1467-8497
Book reviewed in this article:THE HOVERING GIANT: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America. By Cole BlasierRATIONALITY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: Contributions to the Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences. Edited by S.I. Benn and G.W. MortimorePOLITICAL OBLIGATION. By Richard E. FlathmanELECTORAL BEHAVIOR A Comparative Handbook. Edited by Richard RoseABORIGINES IN COLONIAL SOCIETY, 1788–1850: From 'Noble Savage' to 'Rural Pest'. Edited by Jean WoolmingtonBLACK VIEWPOINTS: The Aboriginal Experience. Edited by Colin Tatz assisted by Keith McConnochieKANT AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY. By William A. GalstonTHE MAKING OF INDIAN POLICY 1853–1865 Relations of the Court af Directors, the India Board, the India Office and the Government of India. By Prashanto K. ChatterjiTOLERATION. By Preston KingTHE GERMAN PUBLIC MIND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: A Social History of German Political Sentiments, Aspirations and Ideas. By Frederick HertzINSIDE THE MONSTER: Writings on the United States and American Imperialism. By José Martí. Edited and with an introduction and notes by Philip S. FonerPUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION IN AUSTRALIA A Reader. Edited by R.N. Spann and G.R. CurnowPROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY Religion in Early Australia: The Problem of Church and State. Edited with an introduction by Jean WoolmingtonW. DILTHEY: SELECTED WRITINGS. Edited, translated and introduced by H.P. RickmanTHE LAW IN CRISIS Bridges of Understanding. By C.G. WeeramantryBROADCASTING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA. By Ian K. MackayNEW DIMENSIONS OF WORLD POLITICS. Edited by Geoffrey L. Goodwin and Andrew LinklaterTHE CABINET OFFICE TO 1945. By S.S. WilsonFREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE A Study of the Political Ideas of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind. By Judith N. ShklarTHE SOCIAL PROBLEM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ROUSSEAU. By John CharvetJEAN BODlN AND THE RISE OF ABSOLUTIST THEORY. By Julian H. FranklinBLACK ARMADA. By Rupert LockwoodSIR MATTHEW NATHAN British Colonial Governor and Civil Servant. By Anthony P. HaydonTHE ART OF ANTICIPATION: Values and Methods in Forecasting. Edited by Solomon Encel, Pauline K. Marstrand and William PagePROGRESS AND PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL FORECASTING. Edited by Christopher Freeman, Marie Jahoda and Ian MilesTHE TRANSFER OF POWER, 1942–7, vol. VI, THE POST‐WAR PHASE New Moves by the Labour Government, 1 August 1945–22 March 1946. Edited by Nicholas Mansergh and Penderel MoonU.S. POLICY AND STRATEGIC INTERESTS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. By Yuan‐Li WuFOIJNDATIONS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. By Peter B. HarrisINTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE. Third edition. By Carlton Clymer Rodee, Totton James Anderson, Carl Quimby Christol and Thomas H. GreeneTHE STRANGE NEUTRALITY, SOVIET‐JAPANESE RELATIONS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1941–1945. By G.A. LensenLAND TENURE IN PRE‐REVOLUTIONARY CHINA Kiangsu Province in the 1920s and 1930s. By Robert AshA CRITICAL GUIDE TO THE KWANGTUNG PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES DEPOSITED AT THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE OF LONDON. By David PongSOCIETY AND POLITICS IN GERMANY 1500–1750. By G BeneckeIN THE ANGLO‐ARAB LABYRINTH: The McMahon‐Husayn Correspondence and its Interpretations 1914–1939. By Elie KedourieTHE ARABS IN ISRAEL. By Sabri JiryisTHE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT, FROM COMINTERN TO COMINFORM. By F. ClaudinWOMEN AS CITIZENS A Comparative Review. By Josephine F. MilburnWHITE ON THE MEDIA. By Brian WhiteMATHEMATICAL APPROACHES TO POLITICS. Edited by H.R. Alker, Jr., K.W. Deutsch and A.H. StoetzelSOCIALIST OWNERSHIP AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS. By Wlodzimierz Brus, translated by R.A. ClarkePUBLIC, TRADE UNION AND COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE IN GERMANY: The Commonweal Idea. By Walter Hesselbach, translated from the German by Karl KuhneSOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1962–1973 The Paradox of Super Power. By Robin EdmondsA HANDBOOK TO ELECTIONS IN UTTAR PRADESH 1920–1951. By P.D. Reeves, B.D. Graham and J.M. GoodmanUNTO GOD AND CAESAR Religious issues in the Emerging Commonwealth 1891–1906. By Richard ElyLEADERSHIP IN FIJI. By Rusiate NayacakalouLOCAL POLITICS AND THE RISE OF PARTY: The London Municipal Society and the Conservative Intervention in Local Elections 1894–1963. By Ken YoungSOLDIERS AND POLITICS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: Civil‐Military Relations in Comparative Perspective. By J. Stephen HoadleyA BLANKET A YEAR. Bv Leonard Broom and F. Lancaster JonesABORKINAL HEALTH. By Peter M. MoodieKASHMIR IN TRANSITION 1885–1893. By Dilip Kumar GhoseA RESEARCH GUIDE TO AUSTRALIAN POLITICS AND COGNATE SUBJECTS (ARGAP). By Henry Mayer with Margaret Bettison and Judy KeeneMINDFUL MILITANTS The Amalgamated Engineering Union in Australia, 1920–1972. By T. SheridanTHE FUTURE OF AUSTRALIAN FEDERALISM. By Gordon Greenwood. Second editionMELBOURNE STUDIES IN EDUCATION 1976. Edited by Stephen Murray‐SmithROYAL COMMISSIONS AND DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEES IN BRITAIN A Case‐study in Institutional Adaptiveness and Public Participation in Government. By T.J. CartwrightLEGISLATIVE STAFFING: A Comparative Perspective. Edited by James J. Heaphey and Alan P. BalutisTHE SILENT DICTATORSHIP The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916–1918. By Martin KitchenTRIAL OF FAITH Religion and Politics in Tocqueville's Thought. By Doris S. GoldsteinVOTING FOR THE QUEENSLAND LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1890–1964. By Colin A. Hughes and B.D. GrahamVOTING FOR THE VICTORIAN LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1890–1964 (1975).VOTING FOR THE NEW SOUTH WALES LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1890–1964 (1975).VOTING FOR THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN, WESTERN AUSTRALIAN AND TASMANIAN LOWER HOUSES 1890–1964 (1976).OUR PARTNERSHIP. By Beatrice Webb. Edited by Barbara Drake and Margaret I. Cole with an introduction by George FeaverA CONSTITUTION FOR THE SOCIALIST COMMONWEALTH OF GREAT BRITAIN. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. With an introduction by Samuel H. BeerMETHODS OF SOCIAL STUDY. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. With an introduction by T.H. MarshallTHE CORRESPONDENCE OF G.E. MORRISON, vol. I, 1895–1912. Edited by Lo Hui‐min
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On March 8, a Manhattan federal court found Juan Orlando Hernández, president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, guilty of conspiracy to import large amounts of cocaine into the United States over nearly two decades. Mainstream U.S. media generally framed the ex-president's trial and conviction as a triumph of justice, a service rendered by the impartial U.S. justice system to the people of Honduras.The great majority of such accounts, however, ignored and obscured context crucial for understanding Hernández's rise and rule; in particular, how Washington contributed to both. Though the mainstream narrative around the ex-president rightly connects his tenure in office with massive emigration from Honduras, it has elided the degree to which U.S. influence enabled Hernández's career and thus partially drove the migration that arose in response. For roughly two centuries, Honduras, the original "banana republic," has suffered a deeply unequal relationship with the far more powerful United States. One of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, Honduras and its people have endured frequent American military interventions, U.S.-backed coups, and a corrupt, rapacious local oligarchy closely tied to U.S. corporate interests.Despite Hernández's ultimate conviction on U.S. soil, he served Washington for many years as a loyal client. The single most important event in the ex-president's political career was a 2009 coup, which overthrew center-left president Manuel Zelaya (whose wife, Xiomara Castro, won election in 2021 and currently occupies the presidency). Zelaya raised the minimum wage, subsidized small farmers, and authorized the morning-after pill, infuriating the country's business elite and, in the last case, ultra-conservative religious leaders. Moreover, to Washington's consternation, he made overtures toward Hugo Chavez's socialist Venezuela and sought to convert a crucial U.S. airbase entirely to civilian use.Joint action by Honduras' military and judiciary — in a manner the U.S. ambassador called "clearly illegal" and "totally illegitimate" at the time — forced Zelaya to pay for these sins in late June 2009. While the White House's reaction to the coup initially appeared confused, Washington soon recovered its footing. Even as huge protests raged, the Obama administration played a key role in ultimately compelling Honduras' people and the region's governments to acquiesce to the regime change as a fait accompli. Despite widespread repression by the post-coup de facto government, accounts of fraud, and the condemnation of many countries and international organizations (including the normally deferential Organization of American States), U.S.-endorsed elections in November 2009 received Washington's imprimatur. In her memoirs (the passage excised from the book's paperback edition with no explanation), then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained that the U.S. sought to "render the question of Zelaya moot and give the Honduran people a chance to choose their own future."It was in this context that Hernández catapulted into power. After Porfirio Lobo won the 2009 presidential race, Hernández became President of the National Congress as a member of Lobo's National Party — an institution historically closely linked to U.S. agribusiness. Lobo was Hernández's mentor and groomed his protege to succeed him. But while Hernández enjoyed success, the coup's consequences constituted disaster for ordinary Hondurans.Political violence and repression became routine. The murder rate, much of it due to cartel-related gang violence, soared — it was the world's highest for three years running. As the economic situation also deteriorated, and Lobo and his son allied with major narcotics syndicates, a huge surge of emigration swelled out of Honduras, with desperate citizens flooding northward. The total number of Hondurans apprehended at the U.S. border exploded — from less than 25,000 in 2009 to nearly 100,000 in 2014 — reaching 250,000 by 2020. In Washington's eyes, however, such concerns took a back seat to longstanding strategic needs: above all, Honduras' openness to foreign investment and its role as a base for American military power. And, as head of the National Congress, Hernandez was seen as particularly amenable to U.S. desires. "The State Department loved Hernandez," according to Dana Frank, an expert on Honduras at UC Santa Cruz. As Lobo's heir apparent, "he was young and could stay in power for a long time." Frank cites a 2010 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa asserting that "He has consistently supported U.S. interests."The depth of American support for Hernández became clear after his 2013 election to the presidency. Despite credible reports of fraud, his National Party's control over the counting process, and a wave of threats and sometimes lethal violence against opposition candidates and activists during the campaign, the State Department commended the election as "transparent, free, and fair." In 2015, a major corruption scandal centered on the misappropriation of funds from Honduras' Social Security Institute exploded, prompting unprecedented popular demonstrations against Hernandez and calling for his resignation, "There was a real sense that Hernández could fall," according to Alexander Main, a Latin America expert at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. Fortunately for Hernández, however, the U.S. swooped in, helping to defuse the unrest by prodding the OAS to organize a local anti-corruption body known as MACCIH. In that same year, according to Frank, Washington gave an "official green light" to a "completely criminal" power grab by Hernández whereby his hand-picked Supreme Court ruled that he was eligible to run for a second term in clear violation of Honduras' constitution. Washington's complacent reaction — "It is up to the Honduran people to determine their political future" — stood in remarkable contrast to 2009, when Zelaya's mere suggestion that the constitution might be amended to permit a second term served as the pretext for the coup that the U.S. subsequently legitimized. In Hernández's 2017 reelection bid, the fraud was so blatant and widespread that even the generally conservative OAS declared the incumbent's victory an example of "extreme statistical improbability" and called for new elections. The State Department, however, stood by Hernández, prodding Mexico and other OAS members to recognize the results, even as security forces suppressed massive and prolonged protests with live ammunition.Indeed, U.S. training and funding also proved crucial in the creation of the brutal special operations units Hernández's government used to terrorize opposition and environmental activists. Particularly significant in the military sphere was the role of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the American combatant command responsible for Latin America. Hernández was a particular favorite of John Kelly, SOUTHCOM's head during Obama's second term (and then White House chief of staff for Donald Trump), who, as Dana Frank noted, once referred to the convicted drug trafficker as a "great guy" and "good friend."Considering the U.S. relationship with Hernández, it is perhaps unsurprising that U.S. officials seemingly turned a blind eye to his deep involvement in narcotics trafficking. As both Hernández's recent trial — during which a witness claimed Hernandez had privately vowed to "stuff drugs up the noses of the gringos" — and that of his brother in 2019 showed, the drug trade's reach into the Honduran government was unmistakable, with numerous high-ranking security officials repeatedly implicated. CEPR's Main argues that it was "highly unlikely American officials were unaware" of Hernández's criminality. Indeed, as a document from his brother's trial revealed, the DEA began investigating the ex-president as early as 2013. As noted in Hernández's trial, just weeks after his inauguration in 2014, the agency reportedly obtained video evidence indicating his involvement with major drug traffickers. Even after his brother's 2019 conviction, when it became apparent that millions of dollars in drug money helped underwrite Hernández's political career, President Donald Trump publicly praised him for "working with the United States very closely" and for his help in "stopping drugs at a level that has never happened."Given all this, the U.S. media's failure to probe the influence of American policy on Hernández's career begins to look less like an anomalous oversight and more like a manifestation of structural dynamics that tend to reinforce the notion of American innocence. We can see the same logic apply to the frenzied media accounts detailing "caravans" of Central American migrants headed to the U.S. While mainstream news outlets rightly note the relationship between Hernández's presidency and increased migration from Honduras, they nevertheless fail to connect the two to the impact of U.S. policymaking. Without Washington's complicity and assistance, Hernandez might have spent 2014 to 2022 in prison, rather than the presidency. Unfortunately, it was the Honduran people who paid the price.
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Yesterday may have marked the NHS's 75th birthday, but there was no reason to celebrate. Whilst children's choirs sing happy birthday and the country raises a 'cuppa', I kept my party hat away. For, the system is no longer "fit for heroes". The NHS does not work.Waiting lists sit at a record high of 7.4 million, whilst median A&E wait time is a dangerous 3 hours 2 minutes. Ambulance services repeatedly miss their targets, causing half of those who need rapid treatment to die. Occupied beds sit at a worrying level of 92%, reducing overall capacity. And in December 2022, only 54.4% of cancer patients waited under 62 days for treatment, in contrast to the target of 85%. In short, the NHS is not just in crisis, it has essentially collapsed. The NHS is no longer the envy of the world, rather it is fast becoming a laughing stock. It is no wonder no other countries have followed suit in our system. Indeed, the only comparable systems were in the Soviet Union and Cuba, where hospitals were in a similarly dire state.Why is there a crisis?The left would have you believe that it is wholly situational. They blame the pandemic, Conservative "underfunding" (despite record spending) and Brexit. The system is not the problem they claim, rather poor governance and recent events have made it impossible for the NHS to act the way it should. This is plain wrong. The NHS is systematically flawed, and the only real solution is a complete overhaul of our healthcare system. Of its systemic flaws, none is more prevalent than its sheer size. The NHS is the fifth largest employer in the world and the largest state-owned employer in the free world. Its goliath size comes with challenges, one of which is management. Currently the NHS is managed top-down and with Trusts; policies, however, remain Westminster centred. The current system can be characterised by excessive bureaucracy and micro-management, held back by short-term political priorities. Indeed, there are more bureaucrats in the NHS then there are beds.Socialists like to lecture us on the dangers of private monopolies. Yet, the NHS is the largest monopoly of them all. Monopolies are terrible for productivity and give the consumers no choice. Patients have little choice within the system. Many cannot choose their doctor's surgeries. And patients are unable to see a specialist without a GP referral, which all too often involves further immense bureaucracy and long waiting times, such as waits up to seven years for an ADHD pre-assessment.Meanwhile our infrastructure is constantly on red alert for the threat of strikes loom. The NHS can keep certain costs down, but it does this by suppressing wages and creating less than ideal working conditions. If we want our NHS to remain competitive and for the best doctors not to quadruple their income on fixed salaries at London's new Cleveland Clinic, the NHS must radically change.The alternative –Simply more tax and spend won't fix it. Sweeping structural change is needed.Common rhetoric suggests there is but one alternative to the NHS: America's bankrupting system. This is not the case. No rational individual would argue in favour of this, for it is mind-numbingly ineffective as a healthcare system. Other options exist which may be far more effective.The government should pursue a competing social insurance scheme, similar to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, as we have proposed previously . This system will separate government from providers and patients. The government would have no direct management role, ending the health service's known problem of limitless bureaucracy and unstable policy direction. In this system it would be compulsory for universal enrolment for social insurance, and insurers would be banned from refusing service. Premiums would be calculated by income, with the poorest paying nothing. This system would be fair, for it would be a one-tiered system where all receive the same (exceptionally high) level of care. And, crucially, all services would be free at the point of access, unless the consumers choose to pay in order to have lower premiums.Short-term bandages –Clearly in the current political climate the above is a stretch. Thus, it may be helpful to explore things we can do in the short term to make the crisis slightly less bad. This could be through outsourcing. Despite what Julia Grace Patterson or WeOwnIt would like you to believe, outsourcing does not mean privatisation. As Kristian Niemietz of the Institute of Economic Affairs puts it, it is a "failed conspiracy theory that never dies." Outsourcing means hiring private firms to do certain jobs within the NHS, typically non-medical such as IT. And for all the fear-mongers out there, rest assured that it will continue to be free at the point of receipt. Let's face it, private companies are likely to be better than NHS bureaucrats at delivering certain services. Remember that terrible NHS app? If this was outsourced to a tech firm rather than developed in house, maybe it would have been a success. Conclusions –Our medical professionals are heroes. They do a stellar job, especially given the terrible environments they are made to work in. The system is letting them and their patients down. In the interim, more outsourcing should occur. In the long term, the government should completely overhaul our health system and replace it with a social insurance scheme. That way we will finally have a system "fit for heroes" as Attlee and Bevan envisaged. Oliver Ind is a Summer Intern at the Adam Smith Institute
This report was commissioned by Jisc in early 2021, as part of their multi-year programme exploring how persistent identifiers (PIDs) can be used to reduce friction in the ongoing transition to open research. The vital contribution that PIDs can make to systemic efficiencies was highlighted in the UK Government's recent policy paper on reducing bureaucratic burdens on research, innovation and higher education. In this paper, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) committed to "stopping multiple asks for data or information that already exists elsewhere e.g. in ORCID, CrossRef, DataCite and Companies House." The 2019 PID Roadmap for open access to UK research report summarised several years of work exploring 'pain points' in open access workflows. It identified five priority PIDs likely to contribute the greatest efficiency gains across the UK and global research information network: ● DOIs for outputs (Crossref and DataCite) ● Grants (Crossref) ● ORCID IDs for people ● RAiD (Research Activity iDs) for projects ● ROR (Research Organization Registry) IDs for organisations A graphical representation of the benefits of the five priority PIDs at each stage of a typical research lifecycle including grant application, output publication, and research reporting and evaluation is shown in Appendix A. One of the PID roadmap report's recommendations was that the UK should establish a 'multi-PID consortium' to optimise access to and adoption of five priority PIDs for open research. This original consortium proposal assumed that membership fees and coverage were the major barriers to the realisation of the system-wide benefits of PIDs. Other challenges identified included the lack of integrations between research information management, reporting systems, and institutional repositories. Subsequent research undertaken as part of the PIDs for OA project, which followed the original report, extended the analysis, and found that: technical and financial barriers to adoption are too high; existing PID adoption is seen as under-delivering on expected benefits; and integrations are often partial and slow to arrive. Conversely, membership and service fees were not seen as an insurmountable hurdle by most. In light of these findings, the project stakeholder group (made up of more than 30 representatives from the research community, including individual experts, funders, research managers, publishers, repository providers, librarians, and researchers) concluded that the major issues preventing benefits realisation for existing PID systems are, in fact, inconsistent coverage, poor adoption, and relatively low levels of integration in information systems. The group therefore proposed that a PID consortium should be focussed on providing practical support for lowering the barriers to PID adoption, monitoring progress in increasing the coverage of PID registries, and driving adoption and increasing integrations with third-party systems by creating consensus among stakeholders. A subset of the stakeholder group was tasked with evaluating the consortium concept and making recommendations for next steps. In its final report, this task group concluded that the potential value of PIDs to drive efficiency gains and generate new insight into research activities was significant, but would only be realised with a significant, UK-wide improvement in levels of adoption and coverage. Reaching these levels will incur integration costs, and is likely to require significant investment in coordination and support. The group recommended that the project team should do more work to explore questions around the likely costs of wide-scale PID integration and the potential benefits which might accrue as a result. "The answer to this should be provided by a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. The analysis should gather data on the current UK-wide research information flows indicated by the value propositions, and compare them with examples of highly automated PID-optimised workflows from around the world (such as the work that has already been undertaken in Portugal and Australia2). In costing the real-world time savings from these examples and scaling them to match the volume of UK research information, it will be possible to model the benefits of varying levels of PID integration. Cost modelling would cover memberships and the levels of support needed to achieve those levels of integration, thus building the business case for investments in adoption support." This report presents the findings of our research into the current levels of PID adoption and usage, the likely benefits that they have already brought, and the scale of potential benefits that remain to be realised, based on the level of UK research activity. For the bulk of the concrete cost-saving calculations, we have focused on those PIDs that are already widely in use, especially ORCID IDs for people and DOIs for outputs (primarily research data and journal articles). For the other 'priority' entities, such as projects and grants, we can assess likely gains based on previous efforts to quantify the costs of manually inputting and cleaning data, together with the number of such entities covered in existing information systems. We have balanced these findings against previous estimates of the costs of PID integration, and the likely costs of scaled-up support, which we have based on information provided by current UK national PID consortia for DataCite (led by the British Library) and ORCID (led by Jisc). Throughout, we have based our findings on the lowest plausible estimate. While this means that benefits will certainly be significantly underestimated, we believe a conservative approach offers the best basis for an assessment of any likely return on investment in extended PID adoption and integrations at the national level.
In: Lütken , S , Soezer , A , Forner , C , Bonduki , Y , Vener , J , Hinostroza , M L , Röser , F & van Tilburg , X 2016 , Guidance for NAMA Design in the Context of Nationally Determined Contributions .
Under the Paris Agreement, the Parties agreed, among other things, to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit this increase to 1.5ºC. Article 3 further specifies that, as Nationally Determined Contributions to the global response to climate change, the Parties will undertake and communicate ambitious efforts under different areas. Under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement, the temperature goal is translated into an aim whereby global greenhouse gas emissions will peak and be followed by rapid reductions so as to achieve a balance between emissions and removals. The global trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions is to be achieved through the combined efforts of the Parties: under Article 4, paragraph 2, 'each Party shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions that it intends to achieve. Further, Parties shall also pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions.' NAMAs, originally conceptualized as voluntary actions taken by developing countries to reduce GHG emissions to levels below those of 'business as usual' (BAU) scenarios, are well placed to help countries achieve these objectives. NAMAs, as well as NDCs, generally support and are aligned with sustainable development as interpreted by the host country, including any existing Low Emissions Development Strategy (LEDS). Since this is the case, and since NAMAs benefit from alignment not only with NDCs, but also, and particularly, with existing policies and priorities, they will often be driven by priorities other than emissions reductions, thus providing additional sustainable development benefits. NAMA's point of departure from existing development objectives and priorities might consist of re-evaluating these and placing additional emphasis on options for emissions reduction. A number of prioritization tools have been designed to strike a balance between a NAMA's alignment with current policies: its sustainable development benefits, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), its overall benefits to the economy, its financing and of course its emissions reduction. Some of this process of prioritization, particularly prioritizing among focus sectors, has shifted to the NDC level, while the sub-sectorial level, and particularly implementation modalities, tools and instruments, have become more focused at the NAMA level. A common requirement among donor agencies, through their support programs, is for NAMAs to constitute a transformational change in an economic sector or provide support for such change. In order for NAMAs to instill sufficient interest among such support programs, they are therefore also evaluated for their transformational qualities (hence, NAMAs can also be non-transformational, yet still achieve significant emissions reduction). Although transformational change does not have a definition, it is generally thought to reflect a permanent (irreversible) change from one situation to another and probably more rapidly than would otherwise have been the case. In such changes, finance and financial flows are central. Finance, and thus implicitly NAMA financing, is a central issue in the present context as well. Financing remains solidly at the implementation level (mitigation actions). To the extent that countries choose to pursue the NAMA route, this also applies to the NAMA sphere, as it is the measures that underpin a country's NDC that are financed in the end, not the NDC per se. A necessary starting point for any dialogue concerning NAMA financing is the provision of a transparent estimate of the total cost and possible incremental costs for the mitigation action incorporating already existing national budgetary allocations for the sector, the first step being to consider if and how such national budgetary allocations can be redirected in support of lower emissions alternatives. Hence, regardless whether the NAMA is likely to need international financial support, NAMA financing should begin by identifying the relevant domestic funds, public and/or private. Public funding may be used to build a foundation for investment from the private sector. In such cases, the creation of an enabling environment for corporate or other private financing must be a consideration from the outset, that is, in the initial conceptualization phase of the NAMA. While the NDC articulates the emissions reduction ambition of the country concerned and hence is a part of the framework for NAMA development, the specific NAMA development processes are non-linear and iterative. The production of information and documentation, however, is incremental. The implementation phase should be based on firm planning and dependable, appropriate organizational structures. This is also true for the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system. Quantifying the benefits of a NAMA, commonly compared to its baseline both in terms of GHG emissions and sustainable development benefits, is the gauge that all those involved – governmental bodies, international donors and financiers, non-government organizations (NGOs), civil society, scientists, and the private sector and supervisory bodies such as those within the UNFCCC itself – use to determine whether or not a NAMA is successful. The NDC may provide general baseline information, while the NAMA development process would (probably) go into further detail. MRV systems are then used to measure its concrete benefits. MRV is an essential tool for managing mitigation actions. It involves parameters for measuring the progress of the implementation of a NAMA, as well as for measuring or estimating its impacts in terms of emissions reduction and related sustainable development benefits, the latter of which are often the underlying motivation for the activity. The measurement methodology must be accurate, complete, transparent and conservative. It will also be very dependent on methods for retrieving, compiling and storing data and on principles used for estimating impacts. Even with an NDC as the framework, transforming a NAMA from idea into practice can take a significant amount of time and involves the establishment of an institutional dialogue to make it happen. Of vital importance throughout the phases of NAMA development is the engagement of all stakeholders within these institutions, capitalizing on the national priority of emissions reduction as signaled through the NDCs.
"The family" has long been a focus of cross-party attention. While family is perceived as foundational to society's success, how parents rear their children is perhaps the most conservative or persistent part of concern. While Chinese immigrant families and Chinese families in Asia – in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, mainland China, and elsewhere – are struggling with a socialization process that has emphasized support for traditional values, they are also simultaneously being confronted by modern ideologies and technologies. Professionals have a growing interest in addressing the culturally diverse needs and the gender issues of Chinese families. The theme of this issue of The Open Family Studies Journal, then, is "Gender, family and parenting in the Chinese context". The heart of this special issue lies in a concern for families, in particular for the challenges posed to families and parenting practices in a changing world. The family, like any social group, is a product of history, culture and context. Because of economic and technological changes, and the increasingly pluralistic nature of our society, both gender relations and family structures have undergone tremendous change, and many challenges await elucidation. The seven papers in this special issue thus feature new perspectives on family, gender and parenting issues. The issue opens with a paper on scale validation. Since intimacy is a construct that has received limited attention in the Chinese context, the first paper, "Intimacy as a distinct construct: validating the intimacy scale among older adults of residential care homes in Hong Kong", aims to develop a valid measurement for the quality of the relationship between older adults and family caregivers in the Hong Kong Chinese context. The study results demonstrate the reliability and validity of the instrument across samples of older adults. Paper 2 and 3 that follow are qualitative studies adopting cultural perspectives to understand Chinese American immigrant adults and older female survivors of intimate partner violence in Taiwan. In paper 2, "Understanding family connections and help-seeking behavior in Chinese parental lives. These findings illustrate how existentialism provides a new frame of reference and new practice directions for conducting parent-education programs. The final paper titled "Internet supervision and parenting in the digital age: The case of Shanghai" echoes the technological advancement and its impact on parenting. In a changing world, and in a society permeated by the Internet and by nearly instantaneous communication, families constantly need to adapt to different and changing ways of parenting. The paper explores the issue of parenting confidence in supervision of children's Internet use in Shanghai, China. Multiple-regression models are used to identify factors affecting parents' confidence about their own parenting. The findings suggest that efforts to assist parents should help them review their attitudes towards the Internet. American immigrant adults who attempt suicide", the authors investigate beliefs, values and norms in the Chinese family culture and examine Chinese cultural influences on attitudes and beliefs about mental health and mental health services in the immigrant context. Paper 3, "Older female survivors of intimate partner violence in the Taiwanese cultural context" examines the needs of older female IPV survivors in another Chinese cultural context. The findings of both studies reflect the importance of family and the influence of Chinese family culture; they make it clear that traditional family beliefs are still highly valued and hold a prominent position in Chinese culture. The authors of these two papers question the efficacy of service-delivery models based on Western cultures, and they call for ethnically sensitive intervention approaches that incorporate cultural premises into developing viable options for service recipients. Paper 4 is titled "The Macau family-in-transition: the perceived impact of casino employment on family relationships among dealer families". This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study to explore the impacts of casino employment on family life and family relationships. The family, like other social group, is a product of culture and context, and the specific socio-economic context of Macau poses challenges to dealer families and casino workers in performing their parental role. The paper sheds much-needed light on our understanding of Macau dealer families. The final three papers in this special issue all address the issue of parenting. Paper 5, "Reflective inquiry on professionals' view on parents and about parenting", examines professionals' views of parents, their attitudes and beliefs about parenting, and the values underpinning their practice. The study's findings on the theme of parent blaming provide an impetus for professionals to reflect on the attitudes and assumptions they hold, and their impact on parents. The paper calls for reflection on parenting work to recognize the difficulties and challenges faced by contemporary families. Paper 6, "Reviving parents' life momentum: A qualitative evaluation of a parent education program adopting an existential approach", reports the results of a qualitative analysis of the participants' perceptions of a parent-education program. The findings of this study demonstrate that a program of this nature can make parents aware of the existential dimensions of being a parent and help them understand the significance of creating meaning in their In fact, family, parenting and gender are vastly contested terms which encompass a range of topics. The seven varied papers recommended for publication in this special issue reflect the considerable attention that we have placed on family, parenting and gender, and also the vision of this special issue. These papers add to the growing body of research and literature, and they provide both food for thought and a platform for discussion. In the last, I offer both my sincere thanks to the authors who have contributed to this special issue, and my gratitude to those who have participated as blind peer reviewers. Their thoughtful comments and criticisms have certainly improved the quality of each and every paper in this special issue.
Striking, overtime bans and refusing to carry out certain tasks[1] are collective forms of actions that can arise from workplace disputes. These industrial actions are of fundamental importance: the temporary halt in work production leverages a demand to enforce workers' rights. Despite this, the UK does not recognise the legal right to withdraw labour. Instead, the UK's "right to strike" is said to depend on a complex statutory scheme[2]. This article will analyse a variety of sources, "statutes such as TULRCA 1992, the common law, Convention rights, and relevant case law[3]", to determine whether the UK's "right to strike" "is a classic instance of a 'legislated' right[4]" or if it is merely a "slogan/legal metaphor[5]". [1] Hugh Collins, Aileen McColgan and Keith D Ewing,Labour Law(2nd edn, Cambridge University press 2019) pg.706. [2] Alan Bogg and Ruth Dukes, 'Statutory Interpretation and The Limits of a Human Rights Approach: Royal Mail Group Ltd V Communication Workers Union' (2020) 49(3) Industrial Law Journal pg.478. [3] Ibid, pg.478. [4] Ibid, pg.478. [5] Metrobus v UNITE [2009] EWCA Civ 829 (Maurice Kay LJ). - 'In truth, the "right to strike" in the UK depends for its realisation on a complex statutory scheme. Even in jurisdictions where the right to strike is specified textually in a constitutional document, such a complex right must be operationalised through labour statutes. It is a classic instance of a "legislated" right. Since the enactment of the Human Rights Act, and the evolving jurisprudence of the ECtHR, UK law may now be described as protecting a right to strike albeit one that is pieced together from a variety of sources: statutes such as TULRCA, the common law, Convention rights, and relevant case law.'[1] Does this statement accurately encapsulate the UK law on the 'right to strike'? How do the different sources of law interact and what factors determine the correct balance to be reached between competing interests in regulating industrial action? Use case law, statute, legal commentary and social science material in your answer and provide illustrations to support your analysis. In line with socialism and Professor Beverly Silver's assertions, capitalism is established upon 'two contradictory tendencies': 'crises of profitability and crises of social legitimacy'.[2] This 'inherent labour-capital'[3] struggle is reflected within the UK's hostile regulation of industrial action. The courts' and legislature's ideological approaches towards the collective right to withdraw labour unanimously and substantially favours economic growth above social welfare.[4] Striking, overtime bans, and refusing to carry out certain tasks are collective forms of actions that can arise from workplace disputes.[5] These disputes typically occur because employers are unwilling to negotiate with employees and workers about their working terms or conditions. Undeniably, the duration – and the aftermath – of the collective action results in financial losses to the business and affect innocent third parties (i.e. the general public).[6] Therefore, in order to appease and 'bring the labour under control', the capital would 'have to make concessions [i.e. comply with the strikers' new terms], which provoke crises of profitability'.[7] However, the loss suffered by a business[8] during and after industrial action is justified on two persuasive grounds. The first ground identified by Gwyneth Pitt is the human right aspect.[9] To restrict the right to strike would be akin to the horrific period of slavery,[10] where man had no power to withdraw his labour. This justification is recognising the inequalities in bargaining power between employer and employee.[11] This inequality has been further escalated by the growth of the modern-day unstable gig economy; one in nine UK workers are in precarious work.[12] This form of work has limited protection and much lower salaries.[13] Hence, a subsequent ground for the justification of withdrawal of labour is the equilibrium argument. The power of the employer and their actions can only be matched and questioned by a 'concerted stoppage of work'.[14] Essentially, the right to strike is more than the withdrawal of labour: it is also the encompassing 'right to free expression, association, assembly and power'.[15] Yet there is 'no positive legal right to strike in the UK'.[16] Instead, 'the "right to strike" in the UK depends for its realisation on a complex statutory scheme'.[17] In contrast to its neighbouring European countries' (Spain and Italy) jurisdictions 'where the right to strike is specified textually in a constitutional document', the UK law 'protects a right to strike … from a variety of sources: statutes such as TULRCA, the common law, Convention rights, and relevant case law'.[18] The accuracy of Bogg and Dukes' encapsulation of the UK law on the 'right to strike' and how the different sources of law interact will be subsequently discussed. Common Law Judiciary While Spain[19] and Italy[20] protect the right to strike by suspending the contract of employment during industrial action, this contract is broken under English law.[21] This is because the English common law does not confer a right to strike,[22] hence 'the rigour of the common law applies in the form of a breach of contract on part of the strikers and economic torts … [for] the organisers and their union'.[23] It is tortious and indefensible[24] to induce an individual to breach their contract of employment.[25] This principle was established in Lumley v Gye,[26] and this liability extends to trade unions in the context of industrial action.[27] Additionally, there are two further economic torts trade unions can be held liable for: liability for conspiracy to injure (Quinn v Leathem)[28] and causing loss by unlawful means. UntilOBG Ltd v Allan, Douglas, and others v Hello! Ltd,[29] the 'tort of procuring a breach of contract had been ["blurred"[30] and] extended [to be a wider] tort of unlawful interference with contractual relations'.[31] These torts were later distinguished and separated in the House of Lord's (HoL) judgment of OBG v Allan. While it is not often, the courts are encouraged to distinguish and introduce new torts. The HoL in OBG v Allan subsequently outlined the distinguishing elements between unlawful means and the tort of procuring a breach of contract. The tort of procuring a breach of contract is an accessory liability. Whilst the tort of unlawful means is a 'primary liability that is not dependent on the third party having committed a wrong against the claimant'.[32] Yet, despite the tort differences, the HoL confirmed that the same act could give rise to liability under both unlawful interference and procuring a breach of contract.[33] This clarification and the development of unlawful interferences as a separate liability has notably accommodated employers in holding trade unions liable for more than one tort. The OBG v Allan judgment is significant for discussing industrial action for two notable reasons. The first is that it confirms the judiciary's 'uncontrolled power'[34] in developing and 'defining torts boundaries on a case-to-case basis.[35] This power is 'ensur[ing] that trade unions cannot provide a lawful excuse or justification for their actions'[36]; trade unions are ultimately 'stood naked and unprotected at the altar of the common law'.[37] The insufficiency of protection for trade unions under the common law exhibits the judiciary's biased and hostile ideology towards industrial action.[38] This subsequently aligns with the following observation: the courts favour economic profits. This is discerned by the extent to which the contemporary judiciary extends protection for commercial bodies.[39] The primary function of English tort law was to protect physical integrity and property rights; tort law was never concerned with the protection of economic interests.[40] Nor had the common law ever been historically exercised to 'legitimately control aspects of the economy'[41] and yet OBG v Allan demonstrates the extent to which this has now changed. The judiciary has extensively and needlessly stretched the common law and its torts[42] to protect 'already powerful organisations'.[43] Hence, from the perspective of trade unions and their members, the common law's (inadequate) protection for the 'right to strike' has been, undeniably, very disappointing. Statutes Legislature One of the major problems facing trade unions was the 'exposure of their funds to legal action by employers'[44]; in 1901, Taff Vale Railway Co successfully sued the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants union for £42,000.[45] This sum is equivalent to £5,196,328.39 today. This verdict, in effect, eliminated 'the strike as a weapon of organized labour'.[46] Naturally, workers turned to political parties for redress. The concern and advocacy for trade union reform accounted for 59% of the winning Liberal party's election manifesto.[47] The Liberal government, led by Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman, provided unions with wide immunity against any tortious liability arising from trade disputes under The Trade Disputes Act (TDA) 1906. Although this Act did not introduce a 'legislated right' for industrial action,[48] this statute effectively recognised the vulnerability of unions under the common law by 'secur[ing] a [statutory] freedom' instead. [49] The TDA is one of the 'mostimportantpieces oflabour legislationever passed by a British Parliament'[50]; it effectively 'kept the courts at a minimum'[51] and neutralised the most obvious adverse effects of the Taff Vale judgment. The 'sympathetic politicians' were 'periodically reconstructing' the role of the 'class-conscious', profit-favouring judiciary.[52] The outcome of the 1906 general election 'served the unions' interests well'[53] and it continued to for 65 years. The 'long enjoyed'[54] immunity of trade unions for liability in tort was reduced to partial immunity under the Thatcher government (1979-90). There is a 'scale of government ideology' which ranges from 'fully participative' to 'fully authoritative',[55] and the Thatcher government was the undoubtable latter. The Conservative ideology and economists, such as FA Hayek, viewed trade unions as an obstacle to economic growth.[56] This perception was heightened by the Winter of Discontent (1978-79): a period characterised by widespread of strikes in response to the Labour government's wage cap (to maintain falling inflation).[57] Subsequently, Thatcher's government further justified the re-introduction of liability for trade unions upon the succeeding Green Papers: the 1981 Trade Union Immunities[58] and the 1989 Trade Unions and their Members.[59] Both papers outlined concerns regarding democracy, rights, and freedom of trade union members; 'too often in recent years it has seemed that employees have been called out on strike by their unions without proper consultation and sometimes against their express wishes'.[60] Accordingly, the Thatcher government introduced legislation that prior Conservative governments were afeard of passing: the Employment Act 1980, Trade Union Act 1984, and Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993. These re-introduced vulnerability and high costs for unions. Under the Employment Rights Act 1980, 'trade-dispute' was re-defined, statutory liabilities were introduced and unions were exposed to injunctions and claims for damages. However, upon complying with the stringent balloting requirements (from secret ballot to the requirement for all ballots to be postal) in the 1984 and 1993 Acts, the dispute would be deemed lawful.[61] It is expensive for unions to comply and evidence the fulfilled balloting requirements, but if lawful union members are statutorily protected from unfair dismissals and injunctions.[62] While this is a brief summary of the Acts, these restrictive measures offer an insight into the Thatcher government's success in exercising its agenda of restricting the lawfulness of industrial action by limiting its previously protected scope and purposes. Subsequently, the process of placing further controls on trade unions continued into the 21st century.[63] The 2015 Conservative government introduced the 'draconian'[64] Trade Union Act 2016 (TUA) – the most significant union legislation since the Employment Act 1980. The TUA introduced a minimum threshold of eligible members to vote in the ballot (at least 50% turnout and 50% voting in favour).[65] Moreover, in the instance the members are engaged in 'important public services',[66] 40% of all members entitled to vote must have voted in support of the industrial action. These stringent procedural requirements have to be strictly followed for a strike to be lawful.[67] Oddly, there was no pressing need to introduce these restrictive measures.[68] There were no significant problems in industrial relations at the time (ie, Winter of Discontent) nor any significant 'pressure from business for further laws on strikes',[69] but the Conservative government justified these 2016 measures through the findings of Bruce Carr QC and Ed Holmes.[70] The Government submitted the Carr Review to indicate a consistent pattern of union bullying workers, and yet Carr himself 'did not contend his findings to be a sufficient basis' for influencing the TUA.[71] Instead, the true motivations behind the government's 2016 legislative programme are observed by the 'striking resemblance'[72] to Ed Holmes Modernising Industrial Relations (MIR) paper.[73] The policy paper daringly questioned the necessity of protecting industrial action by reflecting on the development of employment tribunals and discussing the economic consequences of strikes. The same 'free-market economic theory' that underpinned the MIR's recommendations 'drove' the pragmatically restrictive and economically influenced 2016 statute developments.[74] The substance of today's statute in protecting trade unions 'is far removed and much weaker than the position established in 1906'.[75] Since the Henry Campbell-Bannerman leadership, trade union membership has declined by more than half due to the 'three successive Conservative governments [who] have enacted labour legislation opposed by unions'.[76] It appears the deep-rooted ideology of the political party in power influences the legislative steps for protecting trade unions.[77] Therefore, the extent of the Conservative government's 'authoritarian, class-biased and oppressive'[78] industrial action policies will be exemplified and 'more evident than they are today when a Labour government is elected again'.[79] Judiciary While the likes of Maurice Kay LJ and Lord Neuberger MR 'characterised the statutory immunities as limited exceptions to the common law' to justify interpreting the statute provisions 'strictly against the trade union', the court's overall response to industrial action 'has been more mixed'.[80] The court in Merkur Island Shipping v Laughton[81] developed a three-part test to examine the legality of industrial action. This test encapsulates the substantive and procedural requirements for a lawful strike whilst observing the intertwined and 'uneasy' relationship between the common law and statute.[82] If the industrial action is unlawful at common law, the judiciary asks whether there is a 'prime facie statutory immunity' for the commission of torts.[83] This substantive question considers whether the action was 'in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute'[84] before questioning whether the immunity had been procedurally lost by one of the three specified statutory reasons in TULRCA 1992.[85] The union's partial immunity could be lost for minor 'inconsequential breaches of the statutory rules'[86]; there is a series of High Court instances of injunctions being granted to 'ever more powerful and well-resourced employers'[87] owing to invalid strike ballots.[88] The readily available labour injunctions continued to be the "key piece[89]" of suppressing collective action until the minor development in 2011. In RMTv Serco Ltd;ASLEFv London and Birmingham Railway Limited (RMT and ASLEF),[90] the Court of Appeal approved and applied Millett LJ's 1996 observation in London Underground Limited v National Union of Railwaymen, Maritime and Transport Staff:[91] 'the democratic requirement of a secret ballot is not to make life more difficult for trade unions … but for the protection of the Union's own members'.[92] Owing to this proposed democratic aim, the court in RMT and ASLEF confirmed it was 'to interpret the statutory provisions somewhat less stringently'.[93] This interpretation is a stark contrast to Maurice Kay LJ's understanding of parliament's intentions. The court furthered Millett LJ's aim by recommending a neutral, 'without presumptions one way or the other',[94] interpretation of TULRCA. Upon the fact TULRCA is premised on the existing common law framework, the court's 'judicial creativity' could have easily 'outflank[ed] the intentions of Parliament'.[95] Instead of a 'neutral' approach, the courts have the power to mitigate unions disproportionate vulnerability against injunctions, damages, and unfair dismissals by encouraging and favouring social legitimacy. Although, the RMT and ASLEF court 'only indicated a change in emphasis rather than substance'[96] (since unions are still burdened with the challenges of exercising a 'lawful' strike),[97] this judgment enhanced union's ability to resist injunction applications (as observed by Balfour BeattyEngineering Services Limitedv Unitethe Union).[98] The unbiased interpretation encouraged in RMT and ASLEF continues to be the leading approach to interpreting domestic statutes regarding industrial action. ECHR Judiciary Admittedly, the scope of Maurice Kay LJ's strict interpretation was narrowly limited by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).[99] The ECtHR confirmed, in Enerji Yapi-Yol Sen v Turkey,[100] that Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights included protection of the right to strike. This Article, and Article 6 of the European Social Charter[101] bestow the right to strike for their member states members and due to the UK Human Rights Act 1998, 'British workers are understood to enjoy a right to strike'.[102] This, unlike the mere domestic statutory immunities, is the only instance of a 'legislated' right to strike in the UK.[103] Under section 3(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998, 'statutory provisions must be read and given effect in a way which is compatible with the Conventionrights'[104] – 'the opportunity to test this line of argument'[105] in the English courts arose in Metrobus Ltd v Unite the Union (Metrobus).[106] The Court of Appeal rejected the Enerji arguments; the Court denied the authority's relevance for the interpretation of UK statutory provisions. This judgment continues to be the leading precedent on the UK's provisions of Article 11,[107] despite the RMT and ASLEF judgment. In RMT and ASLEF, the UK courts acknowledged the 'clearly protected'[108] right to strike under ECHR Article 11. However, the court emphasised the importance of a 'fair balance to be struck between the competing interests of the individual and the community as a whole'.[109] The emphasised interests of the 'community' motivated the court's justification for the ban on secondary action owing to its 'potential to … cause broad disruption within the economy and to affect the delivery of services to the public'.[110] Subsequently, the court confirmed that this ban aligns with Article 11(2) 'on the basis of a wide margin of appreciation accorded to the State'.[111] While the court is correct to recognise their bestowed margin of appreciation, the court rationalised the granting of the injunction, 'which itself cost the union a substantial sum',[112] upon economic factors. This factor is not only 'wholly irrelevant to the specific facts of the application' but it disregarded and postponed 'the exercise of what was acknowledged to be a convention protected right'.[113] The court effectively and 'successfully prevented industrial action on the basis of legal' human rights provisions 'which are intended to benefit workers'.[114] In short, there 'is no point creating rights' or passing human rights legislation if the 'court is not prepared to defend them'.[115] There will continue to be an erosion of human rights protection until there is greater coordination between the domestic courts and the ECtHR. It is credible to conclude that the UK judiciary is more concerned with profitability, self-preservation of UK powers, and 'in appeasing political forces'[116] above the interests of the individuals it and the Convention Rights was established to serve. Legislature The RMT and ASLEF court's 'blessing of a wide margin of appreciation' in the 'encompassment' of Article 11 offered a 'green light for further restrictive legislation on industrial action' by the 'only too happy Government'.[117] Here, Boggs and Ewing detect 'the crude politics of power'.[118] Upon observing the Court of Appeal's reluctance to exercise EU conventions, and the UK courts' developments that continue to be 'very much in line with the political approach of the Conservative government',[119] it materialises that the court and government are not 'looking to open a third (ECtHR) front'.[120] The Government has recently launched an 'independent review' of the Human Rights Act.[121] The review aims to evaluate 'the duty to take into account' ECtHR case law and assess 'whether dialogue between our domestic courts and the ECtHR works effectively and if there is room for improvement'.[122] It is worth highlighting that this 'independent' review will be led by former Court of Appeal Judge, Sir Peter Gross – the same judge who remarked that 'the more that controversial areas are "outsourced" … the greater the challenge for … judicial leadership'.[123] The former judge is a notable advocate for greater domestic judicial leadership.[124] This advocacy hints the likelihood of the review condemning the relevance and precedence of the ECtHR (and Human Rights Act 1998) in 'controversial' matters such as industrial action. This review has the powerful ability to eliminate the only instance of a legislated right to strike in the UK.[125] Ultimately 'The notion of lawful industrial action is restrictive', the procedural requirements are 'onerous' and the consequences of unions liability for unlawful strikes are 'serious'.[126] Nearly two decades after the European Social Charter's review,[127] the UK still does not guarantee the right to strike. The precedent in Metrobus still stands. There continues to be a 'poorly reasoned and barely consistent' series of judgments 'by what looks like a weak, timid'[128] and politically influenced[129] judiciary. The enactment of the 'Human Rights Act and the evolving jurisprudence of the ECtHR'[130] will not prescribe a right to strike in the UK until the Supreme Court or ECtHR rule UK's current provisions as incompatible with Article 11. In truth, 'the right to strike [in the UK] has never been much more than a slogan or a legal metaphor'.[131] This 'slogan' is a regime of immunities that are purposely designed upon an overly complex and expensive statutory system.[132] These immunities are not adequately or proportionately protecting workers, unions, and one in nine vulnerable, precarious workers against the 'pitfalls'[133] of damages, injunctions, and unfair dismissals.[134] This system was successfully underlined with the political agenda of deterring trade disputes; the UK's worker strike total has fallen to its 'lowest level since 1893'.[135] The 'unanimous and hostile'[136] approach of the legislature and the judiciary towards industrial action exhibits the UK's covert 'culture of routinely disregarding'[137] social legitimacy in favour of profits. [1] Alan Bogg and Ruth Dukes, 'Statutory Interpretation and The Limits of a Human Rights Approach: Royal Mail Group Ltd v Communication Workers Union' (2020) 49 ILJ 477, 478. [2] Nicholas Pohl,'Political and Economic Factors Influencing Strike Activity During the Recent Economic Crisis: A Study of The Spanish Case Between 2002 And 2013' (2018) 9 Global Labour Journal 19, 21. [3] ibid, 21. [4] Harry Smith, 'How Far Does UK Labour Law Provide for The Effective Exercise of a Right to Strike?' (2014) 6 The Student Journal of Law accessed 15 December 2020. [5] Hugh Collins, Aileen McColgan and Keith D Ewing,Labour Law(2nd edn, CUP 2019) 706. [6] Gwyneth Pitt,Cases and Materials on Employment Law(1st edn, Pearson Education Limited 2008) 570. [7] Pohl (n 2), 21. [8] Beverly J Silver,Forces of Labor Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870(CUP 2003) 17. [9] Pitt (n 6), 570. [10] Manfred Davidmann, 'The Right to Strike' (Solhaam, 1996) accessed 15 December 2020. [11] Adam Smith,An Inquiry into The Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations(Cofide 1776). [12] Bethan Staton, 'The Upstart Unions Taking on The Gig Economy and Outsourcing' (Financial Times, 20 January 2020) accessed 16 December 2020 [13] Employment Rights Act 1996,s212. [14] Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (TULRCA)1992, s246. [15] Brian Smart, 'The Right to Strike and The Right to Work' (1985) 2 Journal of Applied Philosophy 31. [16] 'Industrial Action' (UNISON National) accessed 7 December 2020 [17] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [18] ibid, 478. [19] Article 18 of the Spanish Constitution and regulated by Royal Decree-Law 17/1977 of 4 March on Labour Relations ('RDLLR') and Article 4.1.e) of the Spanish Workers' Statute. [20] Article 40 of theItalianRepublic Constitution of 1948. [21] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 714. [22] RMT v Serco; ASLEF v London and Birmingham Railway [2011] EWCA Civ 226, [2011] ICR 848 [2]. [23] Metrobus Ltd v Unite the Union [2009] EWCA Civ 829, [2010] ICR 173 [118]. [24] South Wales Miners' Federation v Glamorgan Coal Co [1905] AC 239. [25] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 714. [26] (1853) 118 ER 749. [27] Taff Vale Railway Co vAmalgamated Society ofRailwayServants [1901] AC 426. [28] [1901] AC 495. [29] [2007] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 AC 1. [30] 'House of Lords Overhaul Economic Torts' (Herbert Smith Freehills, 17 May 2007) accessed 9 December 2020 [31] ibid. [32] OBG v Allan (n 29). [33] ibid, [37]. [34] Hazel Carty, 'The Economic Torts and English Law: An Uncertain Future' (2007) 95 Kentucky LJ 849. [35] Lonrho v Fayed [1990] 2 QB 479, 492-93. [36] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 714. [37] ibid, 714. [38] ibid, 849. [39] ibid, 848. [40] ibid, 847. [41] ibid, 847. [42] Cartey (n 34), 847. [43] ibid, 849. [44] Richard Kidner, 'Lessons in Trade Union Law Reform: The Origins and Passage of The Trade Disputes Act 1906' (2018) 2 Legal Studies 37. [45] Taff Vale (n 27). [46] Merriam-Webster,Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia(Merriam-Webster 2000) 1157. [47] Kidner (n 44), 47. [48] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [49] RMT and ASLEF (n 22) [2]. [50] Keith Ewing, 'The Right to Strike: From the Trade Disputes Act 1906 To A Trade Union Freedom Bill 2006' (Institute of Employment Rights, March 2013) accessed 11 December 2020. [51] The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 'Trade Disputes Act' (Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 July 1998) accessed 11 December 2020. [52] Ewing (n 50). [53] Encyclopedia Britannica (n 51). [54] FA Hayek, 'Trade Union Immunity Under the Law' The Times (London, 21 July 1977) 15 accessed 11 December 2020 [55] Davidmann (n 10). [56] Hayek (n 54). [57] Alex Kitson, '1978-1979: Winter of Discontent' (Libcom.org, 24 January 2007) accessed 11 December 2020. [58] Cmd, 8128, 1981. [59] Cmd 821, 1989. [60] Trade Union Immunities (n 58), para 247. [61] Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993, s238A. [62] TULRCA 1992, ss237-38. [63] Michael Ford and Tonia Novitz, 'Legislating for Control: The Trade Union Act 2016' (2020) 45 ILJ 227. [64] Bart Cammaerts, 'The Efforts to Restrict the Freedom to Strike and To Deny A Right to Strike Should Be Resisted Fiercely' (LSE Blogs, 14 September 2015) accessed 11 December 2020. [65] TUA 2016, s226(2)(a) (ii). [66] ibid, s226(2)(e). [67] ibid, s238A. [68] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 291. [69] ibid, 291. [70] ibid, 291. [71] ibid, 291. [72] ibid, 279. [73] Modernising Industrial Relations n.7. [74] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 279. [75] Ewing (n 50). [76] Brian Towers, 'Running the Gauntlet: British Trade Unions Under Thatcher, 1979-1988' (1989) 42 ILR Rev 163. [77] Gareth Thomas and Ian K Smith,Smith & Thomas' Employment Law(9th edn, OUP 2007), 737. [78] Davidmann (n 10). [79] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 492. [80] Ruth Dukes, 'The Right to Strike Under UK Law: Not Much More Than A Slogan? NURMT v SERCO, ASLEF v London & Birmingham Railway Ltd' (2011) 40 ILJ 302, 309. [81] [1983] ICR 490. [82] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 847. [83] TULRCA 1992, s219. [84] ibid. [85] ibid, ss222, 224, and 226. [86] Dukes (n 80), 309. [87] Kalina Arabadjieva, 'Royal Mail Group Ltd v Communication Workers Union (CWU): Injunctions Preventing Industrial Action and The Right to Strike' (UK Labour Law, 6 March 2020) accessed 12 December 2020. [88] TULRCA 1992, s226. [89] Arabadjieva (n 87). [90] n 22. [91] [1996] ICR 170. [92] ibid, [180]-[182]. [93] Dukes (n 82), 309. [94] RMT and ASLEF (n 22), [2]. [95] Smith (n 4). [96] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 281. [97] Arabadjieva (n 87). [98] [2012] EWHC 267 (QB). [99] Keith Ewing and Alan Bogg, 'The Implications of The RMT Case' (2014) 40 ILJ 221, 222. [100] [2009] ECHR 2251. [101] 'The right to bargain collectively.' [102] Keith Ewing and John Hendy, 'The Dramatic Implications of Demir and Baykara' (2010) 39 ILJ 2. [103] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [104] ibid. [105] Dukes (n 82), 303. [106] n 23. [107] Dukes (n 82), 310. [108] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 221. [109] RMT and ASLEF (n 22), [77]. [110] ibid, [82]. [111] ECHR Art 11 (2). [112] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 251. [113] ibid, 221. [114] Arabadjieva (n 87). [115] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 223. [116] ibid, 251. [117] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 282. [118] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 223. [119] Thomas and Smith (n 77), 737. [120] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 223. [121] Ministry of Justice, 'Government Launches Independent Review of the Human Rights Act' (Gov.uk, 7 December 2020) accessed 15 December 2020. [122] ibid. [123] Jamie Susskind, 'Jamie Susskind Comments on Sir Peter Gross' Lecture on Judicial Leadership' (Littleton Chambers) accessed 15 December 2020. [124] ibid. [125] ECHR Art 11. [126] Ruth Dukes, The Right to Strike Under UK Law: Something More Than A Slogan? Metrobus v Unite The Union [2009] EWCA Civ 829' (2010) 39 ILJ 1, 7. [127] ESC, Report of the Committee of Experts 2002. [128] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 251. [129] Thomas and Smith (n 77), 737. [130] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [131] Metrobus (n 23) (Maurice Kay LJ). [132] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [133] Dukes (n 125), 9. [134] ibid, 7. [135] Richard Partington, 'UK Worker Strike Total Falls to Lowest Level Since 1893' (The Guardian, 30 May 2018) accessed 15 December 2020 [136] Smith (n 4). [137] ibid.
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Several key architects of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq 21 years ago are presenting a plan for rebuilding and "de-radicalizing" the surviving population of Gaza, while ensuring that Israel retains "freedom of action" to continue operations against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.The plan, which was published as a report Thursday by the hard-line neo-conservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, or JINSA, and the Vandenberg Coalition, is calling for the creation of a private entity, the "International Trust for Gaza Relief and Reconstruction" to be led by "a group of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates" and "supported by the United States and other nations."With regard to Palestinian participation, the report by the "Gaza Futures Task Force," envisages an advisory board "composed primarily of non-Hamas Gazans from Gaza, the West Bank, and diaspora." In addition, the Palestinian Authority, which is based on the West Bank, "should be consulted in, and publicly bless," the creation of the Trust while itself undergoing a process of "revamping."In addition to granting Israel license to intervene against Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Gaza, the plan calls for security to be provided by the Trust's leaders and "capable forces from non-regional states with close ties to Israel," as well as "vetted Gazans." The Trust should also be empowered to "hire private security contractors with good reputations among Western militaries" in "close coordination with Israeli security forces," according to the report.The task force that produced the report consists of nine members, four of whom played key roles as Middle East policymakers under former President George W. Bush and in the run-up to and aftermath of the disastrous Iraq invasion in 2003. The group is chaired by John Hannah, who served as deputy national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2001 to 2005 and then as Cheney's national security advisor (2005-2009), replacing Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned his position after being indicted for perjury. Libby, who was later given a full pardon by former President Donald Trump, is also a member of the Gaza task force. Another prominent member of the task force is the founder and chairman of the hawkish Vandenberg Coalition, Elliott Abrams, who served as the senior director for Near East and North African Affairs in the National Security Council under Bush from 2002 to 2009 and more recently as the Special Envoy for Venezuela and Iran under Trump. Ironically, Abrams, who also served as the NSC's Senior Director for Democracy under Bush, played a key role in supporting an attempted armed coup by Hamas's chief rival, Fatah, in 2007 after Hamas swept the 2006 Palestinian elections. The coup attempt sparked a brief but bloody civil war in Gaza, which eventually resulted in Hamas' consolidation of power in the Strip.Amb. Eric Edelman (ret.), a fourth member of the task force, served as Cheney's principal deputy national security adviser from 2001 to 2003 and then as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the number three position at the Pentagon, under Rumsfeld and his successor, Robert Gates, from 2005 to 2009, as U.S. troops struggled to contain the mainly Sunni resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq.In addition to their collaboration during the Bush administration, the four men have long been associated with strongly pro-Israel neoconservative groups, having served on the boards or in advisory positions for such organizations and think tanks as the Hudson Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the ultra-hawkish Center for Security Policy, as well as the Vandenberg Coalition and JINSA. Indeed, such groups have promoted policies that have been generally aligned with those of the Likud Party led by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.Thus, the report's "key findings" prioritize as considerations: [these are quotes]restoring the deterrence and security needs of Israel, both for its own people and its standing as a powerful regional ally and essential component of resisting Iran's ambitions; and dismantling Hamas as a military and governing force and protecting against its reconstitution through Israel's continued freedom of action against it and against Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and by de-militarizing, de-radicalizing, and improving conditions in Gaza such that major terrorist attacks like October 7 can't and won't happen again…Its proposed Trust, according to the report, should involve the United States and concerned states that accept Israel's role in the region" and "should provide the humanitarian assistance and help to restore essential services and rebuild civil society in Gaza as intense combat and over subsequent months. Its activities should be governed by an international board composed of 3 to 7 representatives from the key states supporting the Trust, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others. At least one notable omission from the list is Qatar, which has provided tens billions of dollars in assistance to Gaza over the last decade.In an echo of Washington's disastrous de-Baathification campaign in occupied Iraq, the report puts special stress on "deradicalization" efforts. "The Trust, recognizing that years of radicalization by Hamas has complicated the task of reforming and restoring Gaza, should focus on a long-term program for deradicalizing the media, schools and mosques," according to the report which adds that "Gazans and the Gazan diaspora should play an active role in developing and implementing these plans, alongside the Trust's Arab members who have hands-on experience in successful deradicalization efforts in their own societies." Such efforts in Gaza, it goes on, could "serve as a model to encourage a similar program there that will be essential if a credible two-state solution is to be revived."The task force urges the Trust to coordinate with other states' efforts and with those of NGOs and international organizations, including the United Nations. But, in an echo of a key Likud talking point, "it should recognize that the activities of UNRWA serve to perpetuate and deepen the Palestinian crisis." The report said UNRWA's immediate assistance in providing relief may be necessary, but "plans to replace it with local Palestinian institutions or other international organizations committed to peace should be developed and implemented."All of these efforts should be pursued within the more general context of countering "Iran's aggressive campaign to derail regional peace efforts, including by constraining the threat posed by Hezbollah and resuming progress toward normalizing Israel and Saudi Arabia," according to the report.
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In the last few months, strongly negative views of Israel have been more prominent than they have been in the past. Does this reflect a change in general public opinion? In 1956, 1966, and then frequently from the 1970s to the 1990s, there were questions asking people to rate Israel on a scale of -5 to +5. Since the 1980s, there have been frequent questions asking if you have very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable views of Israel. The figure shows the percent holding strongly negative views--"very unfavorable" or -4 and -5 on the -5 to +5 scale. (I started from the present and worked backwards, so "Form 1" is the newer question and "Form 2" is the older one).Over the long term, there is no trend. Although there's a lot of short-term variation among surveys, it seems like there was an increase in the 1980s and then a decline in the 1990s, but since then it's been pretty steady (at least until the last survey in February 2023). I don't recall the history well enough to offer an explanation for the change in the 1980s-90s. So the change in political discourse apparently doesn't reflect a change in the overall distribution of views. But what about the social location of anti-Israel views? The General Social Survey regularly asked the -5 to +5 question from the 1970s to the 1990s, so I got breakdowns by some demographic groups and compared them to the average from the last four Gallup surveys (2020-23) Strongly Unfavorable Views of Israel 1970s-90s 2020sWhite 10% 5% Non-white 13% 13%18-34 11% 10%35-54 9% 8%55-64 12% 6%Republican 9% 5%Independent 10% 9%Democrat 11% 10%Conservative 9% 5%Moderate 11% 9%Liberal 10% 11%College grad 6% 6%Not college grad 12% 9%The differences by race, age, party, and ideology were small in the GSS sample--strongly negative views of Israel were scattered about equally among all of those groups. In recent years, however, there is a pattern--strongly negative views are more common among younger people, non-whites, liberals, and Democrats. So they now have more of a definite social location. But education is different--the gap has become smaller. Despite the attention given to anti-Israel views in universities, particularly elite universities, strongly negative views of Israel remain more common among less educated people. How do you reconcile this with the apparent strength of anti-Israel views at universities, especially elite universities? It's possible that there's an interaction involving education and age--that anti-Israel views are common among college students or young college graduates. I can't check this, since I don't have access to the individual-level data for recent surveys, but I don't think that it's likely to be more than a secondary factor. I think this is a case where advocates of a minority view are unwilling to or don't feel the need to moderate their demands in order to appeal to the majority. This is somewhat unusual, but not remarkably so--for example, you also see it with abortion (on both sides), and the Freedom Caucus approach to government spending. I don't know of any attempts to explain when and why it happens, although it seems like an important issue. [Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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Back in 2019, when the current European Commission assumed its term, its president, German conservative Ursula von der Leyen, proclaimed the ambition to build a "geopolitical Commission," or to bolster the EU's ability to act collectively in shaping the international order on a par with such players as the United States and China.The crisis in Gaza, sparked by the horrific atrocities perpetrated by the terrorist organization Hamas, and concerns about the extent to which the Israeli response would conform to international law, has shattered that ambition, giving way to cacophony and an image of deep divisions within the EU.That, perhaps, was inevitable given how divisive the Israel-Palestine issue is in the EU — unlike the Russian war in Ukraine that elicited a remarkably unified response from the bloc. The divisions run through the EU's 27 member states reflecting their different historical experiences and public opinion sensitivities, with Ireland and Spain seen as traditionally most sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause, while Germany, Austria and eastern European states, like Hungary and the Czech Republic, leaning towards Israel.There are also divisions between the EU institutions themselves, such as Von der Leyen's Commission, the European Council chaired by the former Belgian prime minister Charles Michel and the European External Action Service, the EU's fledgling diplomatic service led by the veteran Spanish politician Josep Borrell. To make matters even more complicated, the Gaza crisis revealed divisions within the Commission itself. And the political color of EU member state governments matters too. For example, Sweden, ruled for a better part of the last century by social-democrats, was traditionally seen as supportive of the Palestinian cause, but flipped to a more "pro-Israeli" side under the current right-wing government (which enjoys parliamentary support from a party with neo-Nazi roots).These structural weaknesses were compounded by some ill-judged moves from influential EU quarters. Fresh from the shock of Hamas's attack, Hungarian Oliver Varhelyi the EU commissioner responsible for close regional relations — which includes Israel and Palestinian autonomy — announced a freeze in EU development funding for Palestine worth 300 million euros annually. Varhelyi, an ally of the country's prime minister Victor Orban, who in turn, enjoys close relations with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, apparently acted without a consent of other EU bodies, or even the Commission itself. However, he may have been forgiven for acting on an assumption that his boss, Commission President Von der Leyen, would back such a move. In her immediate reaction to the terrorist attack on Israel, she declared her unqualified support for Israel's right to self-defense "today and in the days to come." Many in the EU interpreted the absence of any reference to international law as going beyond the indispensable expression of sympathy to Israel, essentially amounting to giving a blank check for any sort of retaliation.Von der Leyen promptly visited Israel in a show of support. A number of EU member states — Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Denmark — resented what they saw as Von der Leyen's usurpation of the EU foreign policy prerogatives which are reserved for the Council. In a highly unusual move, the EU foreign policy chief Borrell rebuked her as not speaking on behalf of the EU. Varhelyi's attempt to freeze aid to Palestinians was shut down, with the EU instead committing to a review to ensure that the aid does not inadvertently fund terrorism.In a move resembling the activation of the "dissent channel" in the U.S. State Department, 842 EU civil servants issued an open letter in which they strongly criticized Von der Leyen's perceived pro-Israeli tilt. The officials, having condemned in the strongest terms the Hamas terrorism, stated that they "hardly recognize the values of the EU in the seeming indifference demonstrated over the past few days by our Institution (Commission) toward the ongoing massacre of civilians in the Gaza strip."They also deplored what they called "the patent show of double standards which considers the blockade of water and fuel operated by Russia on the Ukrainian people as an act of terror whilst the identical act by Israel against the Gazan people is completely ignored."Nathalie Tocci, director of the Italian Institute for Foreign Affairs and one of Europe's foremost foreign policy thinkers, took Von der Leyen to task for failing to see how the failure to mention the imperative that Israel respects international humanitarian law "seriously undermines European credibility, starting with our support for Ukraine."With this backdrop, Borrell moved towards proposing a humanitarian pause to facilitate aid to Palestinians trapped in Gaza. However, even that proposal does not enjoy the unanimous support among EU member states — while some heavyweights like France favor it, others, like Germany, reportedly do not.It certainly doesn't help that even those EU leaders who try to perform a balancing act between support for Israel's right to defend itself and Palestinian aspirations to statehood, like the French president Emmanuel Macron, carelessly throw out ideas that could only lead to a broader regional conflagration they profess to want to avoid. During the visit to Israel on October 24, Macron suggested that the international coalition against ISIS could rally against Hamas too.The inconvenient truth is that Iran and its partners — the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria — were also a de-facto part of that coalition. It is a well-known fact that in Iraq, the U.S. and pro-Iranian forces coordinated their actions against ISIS. If, however, the anti-ISIS template is applied in the war against Hamas, it would have Iran and its formidable network of regional allies and proxies on the other side of the equation. That would make Western assets in the region vulnerable to their attacks.Indeed, since the start of the Gaza war there has already been an uptick in attacks against U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. The Russian factor should also be taken into account given the current enmity between the U.S. and EU on the one hand, and Russia on the other, and Russia's increasing reliance on Iran in Ukraine, a broader war in the Middle East could also draw in Russia against the U.S. and EU.The lack of a unified, coherent, and realistic response by the EU to the war in Gaza has clearly exposed a glaring gap between its leaders' geopolitical rhetoric and their capabilities to shape outcomes on the ground.
The objective of this thesis is to explore the relationship between the performance of Indonesia's civilian regimes in security sector reform and the military's response to these reforms. The period of investigation spanned the entire process of democratic transition from the resignation of President Soeharto and the collapse of his authoritarian New Order regime in May 1998 to the end of the presidency of Megawati Soekarnoputri in October 2004. With the subsequent presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia entered a period of political consolidation. By that time, a lengthy process of constitutional change had come to an end and ushered in a new presidential political system which has been rated by Freedom House and other democracy indices as the most democratic in Southeast Asia. Yet, this study shows that democratic consolidation is still incomplete. By the end of the transition process the military as the former authoritarian regime's major pillar had regrouped and rescued many of its erstwhile privileges and reserved domains into the Era Reformasi. This thesis examines the reasons why military reform in Indonesia was only partial and why military influence resurged in the post-Soeharto years. The thesis departs from the theoretical transition literature by combining actor-oriented, structural and cultural perspectives. Empirically, the study rests on extensive interviews, newspaper analysis, internet research and analysis of websites, publicly accessible documents, statistics and scientific literature. The study explores for each of the three transitional civilian presidencies between 1998 and 2004 (Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri) military responses to civilian reform in areas such as prosecution of human rights violations by the military and the investigation of corruption cases (KKN --Kolusi, Korupsi, Nepotisme) involving the former President Soeharto and his cronies, as well as separatism and Islamic radicalism. The study demonstrates that even though the armed forces were in retreat after the end of the New Order regime and discredited in large parts of the public due to flagrant human rights violations and severe military repression in the Soeharto era, the TNI managed to remain a major power factor in the Indonesian political system. The Megawati presidency confirmed the second hypothesis formulated at the outset of the study: The less reform policies of the democratic civilian regimes threatened the vested interests of the Indonesian military, the more likely it was that the military behaved cooperatively towards the respective regimes. However, while this brought back political stability to the country, it also shut doors to further military reform. By the end of her presidency, the military had regrouped and regained a position which, although less powerful than in the Soeharto era, was far more influential than the armed forces in a full-fledged (Western) democracy. Finally, the study also confirms the hypothesis that the combination of historical and cultural factors and the civilian regimes' poor performance was conducive to the Indonesian military's resistance to reform. It was amply demonstrated that the ideological underpinnings of the TNI still resonated strongly with the integralistic and organicist conception of statehood which became the main characteristic of the 1945 State Constitution. Indonesian organicism was closely linked to seemingly traditional Javanese notions of power and kingship, which also attributed an elevated role to the ksatria, the warriors. These notions of statehood, which combined conservative Western influences with Javanese tradition, were inculcated into the collective memory of the armed forces through the soldier's oath, military doctrines such as the Sapta Marga and at all levels of officers training. They fell on fertile ground as until today a majority of the TNI officer corps is of Javanese descent. More importantly, however, many of the organicist and integralistic notions of statehood are shared not only by the military, but also by wide sections of the public. Especially Megawati Soekarnoputri shared these ideas which she adopted from her father, Indonesia's first president, Soekarno, but they are also highly popular in her party, the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P) and many other nationalist forces in the country. With these cognitive predispositions in wide sections of the Indonesian political class, the military and the public, it may be explained why the military influence on Indonesian politics is so resilient. It also does not bode well for military reform, which after the stalemate reached under the Megawati presidency will proceed only very slowly in the future. ; Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich im Rahmen der politikwissenschaftlichen Transitionsforschung mit der Problematik der zivilmilitärischen Beziehungen und deren Einfluss auf den Demokratisierungsprozess in Indonesien. Der Untersuchungszeitraum umfasst die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Prozesse seit dem Zusammenbruch des autoritären Regimes im Jahre 1998 bis hin zum Ende der Präsidentschaft von Megawati Sukarnoputri im Oktober 2004. Ausgangspunkt der politischen Transition in Indonesien waren der Rücktritt Suhartos und der damit verbundene Zusammenbruch der autoritären "Neuen Ordnung" im Jahre 1998. Im Zuge des sich daran anschließenden Demokratisierungsprozesses wurden von den Zivilregierungen der Folgejahre mehrfach Versuche einer Reformierung des indonesischen Sicherheitssektors vorgenommen. Das Widererstarken des Militärs in den letzten Jahren lässt jedoch erkennen, dass speziell im Bereich des Sicherheitssektors bislang nur partiell Reformen durchgesetzt werden konnten. Am Ende des Transitionsprozesses hat es das Militär, welches die wichtigste Stütze des autoritären Vorgänger-Regimes war, geschafft, sich zu reorganisieren und eine Vielzahl seiner alten Privilegien in die Reformasi-Ära zu überführen. Obwohl Indonesien mit der Präsidentschaft von Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono im Jahre 2004 in die Phase der demokratischen Konsolidierung eingetreten ist und das neue demokratische System von verschiedenen Demokratie-Indizes durchaus positiv bewertet wurde, muss in Anbetracht der gegenwärtigen Einflussmöglichkeiten des Militärs auf zivil-politische Prozesse davon ausgegangen werden, dass der Konsolidierungsprozess in Indonesien noch nicht abgeschlossen ist. Ausgehend von der Frage, warum der Einfluss der Streitkräfte in der post-Suharto-Ära wieder zugenommen hat, wird untersucht, was die Gründe für die lediglich partielle Reformierung des Militärs in Indonesien waren. Diesbezüglich werden die Reformvorhaben im Bereich des indonesischen Sicherheitssektors und die Reaktionen des Militärs auf diese in den drei Präsidentschaftsperioden der indonesischen Transitionszeit zwischen 1998 und 2004 in welcher Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid und Megawati Soekarnoputri regierten, analysiert. In allen drei untersuchten Regierungsphasen wurden Reformvorhaben im Bereich des Sicherheitssektors angestoßen. Diese bezogen sich unter anderem auf die Strafverfolgung von Menschenrechtsverletzungen, die Untersuchung von Korruptionsfällen im Umfeld des ehemaligen Präsidenten Suharto und den Umgang mit separatistischen und militanten islamischen Gruppierungen. Die theoretische Fundierung der Dissertation bilden politikwissenschaftliche Transitionstheorien, anhand welcher durch die Kombination von akteurszentrierten, strukturalistischen und kulturalistischen Ansätzen eine multiperspektivische Herangehensweise intendiert wird. Empirisch beruht die Studie auf umfangreichen Interviews, Internetrecherchen und der Analyse von Zeitungsartikeln, Internetseiten, öffentlich zugänglichen Dokumenten, Statistiken und fachwissenschaftlicher Literatur. Die Ausgangsthese der vorliegenden Arbeit lautet, dass das Militär in Indonesien nach wie vor einen bedeutenden Machtfaktor innerhalb des politischen Systems darstellt. Trotz des Rückzuges der Streitkräfte infolge des Endes der "Neuen Ordnung" und ihrer Diskreditierung in weiten Teilen der Öffentlichkeit aufgrund von Menschenrechtsverletzungen und militärischen Repressionen während der Suharto-Ära, hat es das Militär geschafft, einige zentrale Einflusssphären in die Phase der demokratischen Konsolidierung zu überführen und sich als fester Bestandteil des neuen politischen Systems zu etablieren. Die unzureichende Entmachtung der Streitkräfte kann sowohl auf interne als auch auf externe Einflussfaktoren zurückgeführt werden. So wurde das Wiedererstarken des Militärs durch die Schwäche der zivilen Regierungen und die Machtkämpfe innerhalb der politischen Elite, welche diese zur Kooperation mit militärischen Kräften veranlasste, begünstigt. Darüber hinaus hat aber auch der nachlassende externe Druck, der auf einen Bedeutungszuwachs des Militärs im Rahmen der internationalen und nationalen Terrorismusbekämpfung zurückzuführen ist, zu einem Wiedererstarken der Streitkräfte beigetragen. Die Terroranschläge in den USA und Europa und insbesondere jene in Indonesien selbst, lenkten die Aufmerksamkeit zunehmend auf Strategien der Terrorismusbekämpfung. Demzufolge wurde das Militär, welches als wesentlicher Akteur des "Krieges gegen den Terrorismus" innerhalb Indonesiens betrachtet wurde, auch von internationalen Mächten wie den USA rehabilitiert, was zu einem Nachlassen des Reformdrucks im Bereich des Sicherheitssektors führte. Zudem können für jede der drei untersuchten Regierungsphasen spezifische Problemkonstellationen herausgestellt werden, die das Verhalten von Zivilregierung und Militär hinsichtlich der Reformierung des Sicherheitssektors beeinflusst haben. Zusammenfassend lässt sich mit diesen empirischen Befunden nachweisen, dass die Reformverweigerung des indonesischen Militärs letztendlich durch eine Kombination aus historischen und kulturellen Faktoren und unzureichender Regierungsperformanz begünstigt wurde.
The relatively extensive analysis of political values, attitudes and political participation of youth enables us to better explain the existing trends in the relationship of youth towards politics. Especially helpful in this regard is the comparison with adults, as well as the longitudinal tracking of changes within the young population. Here, we will reflect on the important tendencies and try to understand their wider and far-reaching implications. When we look at all the obtained results, it is evident that there are differences between youth and adults, but only a smaller part of them is significantly pronounced. Thus, the results indicate that the young express a higher level of trust in the media. Furthermore, they are more tolerant towards a number of social phenomena and groups causing debates in the Croatian and the European public, they are more sensitive to ethnic inequalities, they also perceive the war as the main cause of existing difficulties more, they have considerably more faith in their own generation as the social strength which can initiate positive trends, they express a greater readiness for joining different civil activities, and trust that television and youth associations might mobilize them to actively participate in social affairs. At the same time, the young less than the adults accept the values of a democratic order, but are less inclined towards the harmonious conception of politics, they are less socially sensitive, express less trust in the institutions of power, they more rarely express socio-economic goals and preservation of tradition among the political priorities, they choose immorality and crime in privatization as the causes of today's problems less, they perceive less corruption in all areas of social life (aside from the school system), they have less faith in the positive contribution of experts and entrepreneurs in overcoming the crisis trends, they are less interested in politics and participate in political parties less, and their trust in the mobilizing role of democratic education, volunteer work, political parties and nongovernmental organizations, as well as in the contribution of the family and educational system in the stimulation of the social engagement of youth, is much lower. The enumerated differences between the youth and adults can primarily be interpreted from the discourse of the life cycle theory. This means that the witnessed differences are mostly the product of a different total social status of youth and adults, which presumes that most of the young have yet to take over their permanent social roles, and that their immediate experience is limited to some social areas. It follows that with their maturing and their full social integration, most differences from the adults will be erased. The common experience of a time in history, that is, life in a specific socio-historic period with a tendency to equalize differences, contributes to the convergence of youth and adults. The potential generational differences – which, as a rule, occur with the different reception of the same events and processes – are not very visible, and will be unambiguously detected only when today's generation of youth is in its mature age and when their attitudes are then compared with the attitudes of new young generations. Then, it will be more clear how much the existing differences between the young and the adults are a consequence of the fact that most adults gained their experience in a different social order, which, to a degree, forms their existing system of political values, which in some elements, especially related to the social dimensions, are different from the system of political values of youth. The absence of deep inter-generational divides indicates that, in spite of the radical changes taking place in the dissolution of the old and the establishment of a new social and political order, the mechanism of transferring political values from the adult generations to the young functions considerably, along with the faults that exist in the constructed political awareness of adults. Here, we must notice that the adults are more resistant to the potentially unfavorable influences from the environment, which is especially evident in their better understanding of the democratic rules. This statement also suggests that Croatia is now in a more stable period of social development, which is expected when the early phase of transition is replaced by the democratic consolidation phase. Therefore, it was demonstrated that the young in Croatia accept traditional values somewhat less than the adults, but also that in some areas they are just as more conservative compared to their European peers. Pointing to this is the greater orientation of Croatia youth towards family and the lower level of tolerance for some phenomena and groups in the modern society. Also, the social participation of Croatian youth is at a lower level, which testifies less to their lack of interest, and more to the inability of the Croatian society to meet the needs of youth for realizing its social necessities. The third comparative level includes the tracking of changes occurring within the Croatian youth between 1999 and 2004. The recapitulation of the obtained results indicates that in the observed period of time there has been an increase in the already relatively high level of acceptance of all the constitutional principles, as well as in the harmonious perception of politics and institutional trust, while the lack of work, discipline and irresponsibility are now more perceived as a social problem than before. The recent data also indicate that the young today perceive the existence of educational, gender and age related differences more, as well as the worsening political representation of all marginal groups. On the other hand, the understanding of conflicts and democratic rules (especially the role of the opposition) is weaker, the emphasis of crime in transformation of ownership and privatization as problems is smaller, the young now perceive the existence of social and religious differences less, their social activism and political participation is reduced, and the perception of joining political party youths and establishing autonomous youth parties as forms of activities that might contribute to a more active participation of youth in society decreased. The mentioned changes tend to lead to a further social, especially political, (self)passivity and marginalization of youth, and it is especially intriguing that it does not sufficiently understand political competition and its importance. If this was understandable in the first phase of transition, considering the war, stimulating homogenization, and the absence of a democratic tradition and the monopolization of power by one political party – the obtained results are no longer as understandable after spending more than 15 years in a multiparty democratic system. Therefore, we can presume that some elements of a functional political system and behavior of political protagonists is such that they convince the young that democracy, immanently inclined toward a conflict between political interests, is simply a less important form without obligating rules and procedures. This certainly points to faults in the process of political socialization of youth, which especially raises the issue of the need for an institutionalized education for democracy. In other words, if the adult generations, socialized in a different social order, still cannot optimally transfer their values in new generations, and if the functioning of political institutions is still marked by numerous " child illnesses" , than education, which can develop civil competence, is necessary. Anyway, in the countries that do not lack a democratic tradition, education for civil rights and democracy is a permanent process which takes place through appropriate school programs. The data also show that there has been a certain decrease in the social sensitivity of youth, which must be a consequence of socialization in a society aiming at market competitiveness and maximizing profit. The accompanying consequences are – especially with the lack of developed instruments of a social state, and after the poorly implemented restructuring of economy – the deepening of social inequalities and the decrease of the living standards of a large portion of the population. Thus, maturing in a society that suppresses social sensitivity, the young also become insufficiently sensitive to the issue of social justice in the (re)distribution of significantly limited resources. The young are raised in an environment in which their immediate and indirect experience tells that personal success is important, and the responsibility for achieving or not achieving it, is also personal. The emphasized orientation on competition and individualization of achievements weakens the social sensitivity and solidarity with the losers of social transformation. However, during the past several years the acceptance of the Constitutionally outlined basic political values has increased. This is a very important finding because such a high, and increased validation of liberal-democratic principles, leads us to assume that the Croatian society is overcoming the anomy it was in since the transitional period began. Leaving aside many events from the social and political practice that are witnesses to the recurrent violation, disregard or reduction of the interpretation of constitutional principles, we are left with an extremely high convergence of the political value systems of youth (as well as adults) and the officially proclaimed political values. This, of course, is no guarantee of a harmonized and appropriate behavior of those in power and of citizens, but it certainly represents the necessary level of consensus about the principles a pluralistic society and a democratic political order should be built on. The continuity of the tendencies established in the previous research is confirmed by the findings that youth is not a monolithic group, regarding the acceptance of political values, expression of political attitudes and level of political participation. The systemized data indicate, however, that the young tend to be homogenous in their acceptance of constitutional values and democratic attitudes, the common perception of social and socio-cultural inequalities, the extreme perception of their political status as marginal, and their average readiness to join different civil actions. At the same time, the greatest level of differentiation occurs regarding the not especially present tolerance toward most of the observed social phenomena and groups, the perception of unemployment as the most important social problem and the cause of existing difficulties, the average perception of the existence of political inequalities, and the expression of a weak interest in politics as well as the perception of the role of the " Diaspora" in Croatian political life. Looking at these results generally, it turns out that the young are mostly different regarding the level of achieved education and socio-professional status. The education level usually has the position of the attribute that affects the participants' attitudes the most in every social research, and it is interesting here because this is true even in the young population, many of which are still in the process of obtaining an education. Certainly, the basic division occurs between those with the lowest and highest qualifications, where a part of youth with high school education tends to get the same results as the academically educated youth. These are primarily students, and the fact is that education is very linked to the socio-professional position of youth, which has the same scope of influence on their differentiation. The results have manifested that students are usually on the one side, and pupils and the unemployed youth on the other in most situations. While with pupils we can assume that there will be a change with their maturing, the issue of the unemployed participants remains, because they seem to be a subgroup of youth that is placed more permanently on the social and political margins. A significant influence on the differentiation of youth is played by party affiliation, gender, age, regional status and the father's level of education. This group of attributes points to the influence of different types of socialization, along with a degree of (im)maturity of youth. In other words, being raised in families with different social statuses and in regions with different levels of development and cultural traditions, results in the formation of different attitudes of youth. It is also obvious that in the area of relationships towards politics, the differentiated models of socialization of women and men are still at work, contributing to the survival of the commonly known gender differences. As is logical when the political sphere is involved, party affiliation is an important element of polarization because it consists both of different ideological orientations, and of differences in the social profile of party supporters. The least influential attributes are the residential status, provenience and religiousness. These trends indicate a certain weakening of the influence of rural-urban differences, which is to be expected in a modern society, where the media override the transportation, infrastructural, cultural and other differences. The poor influence of religiousness indirectly testifies to the weakening of the correlation between the adoption of religious beliefs and the manifestation of religious affiliation, resulting in the loss of certain differences between the religious and the non-religious youth. However, the share of religious believers is such that their attitudes predominantly determine the main direction of youth orientations, which then points to a strengthening of the influence of religious on a general level. It is therefore questionable if the weakest influence of religion on political attitudes of youth may be seen as an indicator of a weakening correlation between politics and religion, traditionally present in this area. All the mentioned differentiation of youth can be summarized by sketching out two large, relatively polarized groups. One group consists of youth with higher education and social origin (an above averagely educated father, urban environment, and developed regions), students, averagely older, mostly non-religious and supporters of HNS and SDP – that is, the socially more competent youth, inclined to the left center ideological-political options. The other group consists of averagely younger participants, especially pupils and the unemployed with a lower education and social background (a father with lower qualifications, rural milieu, less developed regions), declared believers and sympathizers of HDZ, as well as HSP and HSS. In this case, we are profiling a socially more inferior youth inclined toward parties positioned at the right-wing pole of the ideological-political spectrum. The socially more competent youth is more liberal, critical toward social reality and political protagonists, and it manifests a greater consideration for democratic procedures and institutions, which is an indicator of the importance of more favorable circumstances in the process of political socialization. Since some of these circumstances are impossible to change by focused actions and campaigns, education is again the most appropriate channel of adopting knowledge and information that can contribute to the making of aware citizens, who are more difficult to manipulate and objectify for certain dubious particular political goals. The changes in the polarization of youth indicate that the territorial-cultural and ideological-cultural cleavages deepened in the past several years, and there are indications that the socio-economic cleavage will grow stronger as well. The unequal access to existing social resources of today's youth will generate an unequal status in their mature age, that is, the advantages achieved at the start (youth), are a guarantee of achieving better social positions in the future. Therefore, we can expect a widening and deepening of the process of social differentiation, which, if it is not corrected through mechanisms aimed at ensuring equal access, at least in the process of enabling youth to take over the permanent social roles, in the approach to social resources (primarily education), can be disastrous for the optimal development of a relatively undeveloped nation with a small population. What we mean is that human capital is what such countries, including Croatia, need to treat with a lot of thought and responsibility and invest in maximally. Among other things, by stimulating as many citizens as possible, especially the young, to actively participate in the social processes and institutions. Finally, the results obtained in this research may be summarized into tendencies and statements of a wider nature. Firstly, the political culture of youth testifies in a number of aspects that we are approaching democratic standards – especially regarding the acceptance of basic liberal-democratic values and the principle readiness for social engagement – but also that its social power and social capital are low. Secondly, the young are aware of their social and political marginalization, and recognize an entire spectrum of measures which might contribute to them achieving a certain amount of power and become active citizens, which is desirable in a democratic society, but they insufficiently use the channels of social and political promotion at their disposal. And thirdly, the young are not that different from the adults to enable us to mention a generational gap, let alone a conflict. However, the young did turn out to be somewhat more liberal, flexible and tolerant, which is certainly an argument in favor of them gaining and/or winning adequate social space for expressing their attitudes and desires. Their similarity to the adults might appease those social structures which fear that youth activation might end up in the radicalization of political life, which is difficult to control. This same inter-generational resemblance could be disappointing to those social structures that have high hopes regarding the innovative potential of youth and its ability to carry out the necessary changes. Independent of the potential fears and desires of the adults, one should assume that there is enough latent potential in the young population, which, in a more favorable social environment, might be more pronounced. The establishment of such an environment might be helped by the knowledge that the Croatian society, on its way to the European Union, needs the activity of all social resources, as well as the potential of youth, as the most vital segment of the society, which is most open to changes.
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In previous years, debates about online speech at a state level had largely focused on issues such as concerns about anti‐conservative bias or online radicalization. More recently, however, many states have instead focused on the impact of social media platforms and the internet on kids and teens. While many of the proponents of these bills may have good intentions, these proposals have significant consequences for parents, children, and all internet users when it comes to privacy and speech. States that have enacted such legislation have faced legal challenges on First Amendment grounds and cases are currently pending in the courts. In general, there have been four categories of legislation at a state level: age‐appropriate design codes, age‐verification and internet access restrictions, content‐specific age‐verification laws, and digital literacy proposals. With many state legislatures recessing this summer, there is an opportunity to analyze what the emerging patchwork of such laws looks like, the potential consequences of these actions, and what — if any — positive policies have happened. Age‐Appropriate Design Codes and Age Verification for Online Activity in the US Signed into law in 2023, the California Age‐Appropriate Design Code Act is the first of its kind in the United States. The law obliges businesses to conduct risk assessments of their data management practices and to estimate the age of child users with a higher degree of certainty than existing laws, controlling their access to certain content. While such a law is well intended, it has raised serious concerns about privacy and free speech and is currently being challenged in court. Other states are considering bills that require age verification for using social media. Such proposals originate in European countries, such as the UK, which is considering its own Online Safety Bill to prevent young people from harmful content but also raises serious concerns around the censorship of lawful speech, privacy, and encryption. On speech, such initiatives threaten the right to anonymous speech. On privacy, kids and adults are likely to be harmed by invasive, yet currently unsafe methods of age‐verification technologies in an online ecosystem where at least 80% of businesses claim to have been hacked at least once. On encryption, some have advocated introducing backdoors in end‐to‐end encryption to catch malicious actors that harm kids while overlooking the importance of encrypted channels for kids to safely call out abusers. This legislative session, several U.S. states have contemplated bills that would require additional steps to verify who may have a user account on social media or other websites, each with their unique approaches. But many share common concerns. For example, a cluster of states have sought to mandate explicit parental consent for minors creating or operating a social media account, like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut, and Louisiana. Pennsylvania, for example, has proposed legislation stating that a minor cannot have a social media account unless explicit written consent is granted by a parent or guardian. Ohio and Connecticut have followed a similar path requiring parental consent for children under 16 using social media. Wisconsin considered a bill recently to require social media companies to verify the age of users and require parental consent for children to create accounts. More than 60 bills were introduced in 2023 and at least nine states considered age verification, age‐appropriate design codes, or other restrictions on young people's internet usage. Most of these proposals failed; however, there are a few significant age verification bills that were still pending or enacted as of July. The Governor of Louisiana signed the Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act (SB162) into law on June 28. This law not only enforces parental consent for minors, but expressly requires companies to verify the age of all Louisiana account holders. As will be discussed below, this is often the case with age‐verification laws more generally. Similarly, Arkansas passed the Social Media Safety Act, requiring children under 18 to obtain parental consent for creating a social media account. Utah went a step further by banning access to social media after 10:30 pm for all children under 18 unless parents modify the settings. Consequences of Age‐Appropriate Design Codes The implementation of overly broad policies raises significant privacy concerns, not only for young users but for everyone. The process of accurately determining the age of an underage social media user inherently necessitates determining the age of all users. In a context where social media companies may be held accountable for errors in age determination, the request for sensitive information such as proof of ID becomes a requirement for all users. This poses immediate questions regarding the type of identification data to be collected and how companies might utilize this information before the age verification process is complete. On a practical level, social media platforms cannot solely depend on their internal capabilities for age verification, thus necessitating reliance on third‐party vendors. This reliance presents a further question: who possesses the necessary infrastructure to manage such data collection? Currently, MindGeek, the parent company of PornHub, stands as one of the dominant international market players in age verification. Many conservatives may question such a company or the social media platforms they are concerned about having the IDs or biometrics of young users. For example, the Arkansas Social Media Safety Act relies on third‐party companies to verify users' personal information. Options that do not require the collection of sensitive documents — like government IDs or birth certificates — are likely to rely on biometrics. In such cases, not only are there concerns about the potential risk of this information falling into the hands of malevolent actors, but also questions of the accuracy of such technology in cases, such as distinguishing the difference in a 17 ½‑year‐old and an 18‐year‐old. These are critical considerations for legislators as they advance bills aiming to replace parental oversight with governmental control, a shift that may also generate unforeseen consequences and risks. We must also consider the potential repercussions on youth when their freedom of speech, expression, and peer association are curtailed due to the absence of social media. How can we balance the disparities between parents who restrict their children's access to social media and those who permit it? In today's digital age, children often forgo playing in neighborhood streets and optinstead for virtual interaction. Social media platforms have empowered young people to voice their opinions on political matters and vital issues such as climate change. Without the communication channels provided by social media, the reach and organization of initiatives like Greta Thunberg's "Fridays for Future" would have been significantly reduced. It's crucial to consider the potential loss of such influential platforms which serve not only as a stage for youthful expression, but also a catalyst for activism. Introducing bills that impose broad restrictions on access to social media is likely to also obstruct these beneficial aspects stemming from social media usage. Additionally, these restrictions would make it difficult — if not impossible — for users of all ages to engage in anonymous speech as well as access communication and lawful speech. The only way to verify users under a certain age — such as 16 or 18 — is to also verify users over that age. This means all users would be forced to provide sensitive information like passports, driver's licenses, or biometrics in order to participate in online discussions. This information would have to be tied to a user's account, meaning it would be impossible for users to retain true anonymity. This sets up a honeypot of sensitive personal information for malicious hackers. Topic‐Based Age‐Appropriate Design Codes or Age‐Verification Some states have introduced age‐verification legislation that targets specific content. Currently, these proposals have been limited to pornographic material and websites. For websites exclusively dealing with pornography, the task of flagging them is relatively straightforward. However, challenges arise when attempting to regulate more malleable platforms that do not primarily host adult content. Louisiana was the first state to take such an approach with a law that requires age verification for access to platforms if pornographic content comprises more than one‐third of the overall content. However, such thresholds can often be arbitrary and could impact more general‐use websites that may be attempting to remove such content. For example, platforms like Twitter and BlueSky allow adult nudity, and other "sensitive media content" are permissible with certain restrictions. The platforms likely engage in significant content moderation and flagging of such content; however, the exact percentage of such content on a website may vary. Lawmakers must also take into account how such laws could impact smaller platforms. A new platform with fewer users could have only a small amount of adult content but cross an arbitrarily set threshold based on the percentage of content. Small websites that see a sudden increase in users might also struggle to keep up with moderation for a time and end up over thresholds — even if such content violates their official terms. Pragmatically, these laws may not be as effective at achieving their goal as policymakers may hope. As of July 1st, Virginia is the most recent state to enact a law that requires age verification for websites showcasing adult content. However, given that consumers have privacy concerns over sharing their sensitive personal data, they tend to bypass these protective measures, raising concerns over their effectiveness. For instance, since the enactment of the law, Google Trends data indicates that Virginia leads the US in searches for virtual private networks (VPNs), a tool that allows individuals to access such sites without disclosing sensitive information to these adult‐content websites. Utah also saw an uptick in VPN searches when it introduced its age verification law (SB287). It's worth noting that bypass methods aren't exclusive to adults.. A study on the enforcement of similar laws in the United Kingdom revealed that 23% of minors say that they can bypass blocking measures. In addition to relying on VPNs to bypass age verification, users may also visit more obscure adult content sites that are less likely to follow safety protocols. The ease with which these measures can be circumvented suggests that these government laws may put people's sensitive data at risk and infringe upon young people's rights to access various speech forums, all without providing effective ways to reap their intended benefits. Rather than enacting laws that may not achieve their intended effects, focus should be shifted toward actionable measures like public awareness and education. The state‐level patchwork approach to handling people's sensitive data underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive federal privacy bill. A Better Alternative: State Bills Promoting Digital Literacy The concerns about young people online are quite varied and an important reason why the best solutions are likely left to parents and trusted adults in a child's life, rather than a government one‐size‐fits‐all approach. One positive set of legislative proposals that has emerged over this last session are those that focus on the education of young people through improved digital literacy curriculum. This approach will empower young people to use technology in beneficial ways while also advising them what to do should they encounter harmful or concerning content. As discussed in more detail in a recent policy brief, many states already have an element of digital literacy in their K‑12 curriculum; however, such standards typically pre‐date the rise of the internet and social media. This year, Florida passed a law that would include social media digital literacy in the curriculum. States including Alabama, Virginia, and Missouri also considered such laws. An education‐focused approach will empower young people to make good decisions around their own technology use. Ideally, such a curriculum should be balanced or neutral in its approach to explaining the risks and benefits of social media or other online activities. States should not be too prescriptive in their approach or allow individual schools to make decisions that reflect specific values or issues encountered by their students. They should give way to parental notification and responsiveness when it comes to discussions around such issues. Civil society and industry have provided a great number of responses to support parental choice and controls. If policymakers are to be involved, the focus should be on education and empowerment rather than restriction and regulation. Conclusion 2023 has seen an increase in policy proposals seeking to regulate the internet access of young people, but this carries consequences for all internet users. Such actions will likely face challenges in court on First Amendment grounds as seen with the Arkansas and California laws. As with users of any age, children and teens' use of and experience with technology can be both positive and negative. A wide array of tools exists to empower parents and young people to deal with concerns, including exposure to certain content or time spent on social media. If policymakers seek to do anything in this area, the focus should be on empowering and educating children and parents on how to use the internet in positive ways and what to do if they have concerns, not through heavy‐handed regulation that both fails to improve online safety and takes away its beneficial uses.
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As of this writing, the United States and UK have carried out nine rounds of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, and Washington is mulling a response to the drone attack that killed three American soldiers in Jordan on Sunday. All of this has increased fears of further escalation in the Middle East and sparked a debate in Congress over the legality and strategic rationale of the U.S. response. Last week, four Senators — Mike Lee (R-Utah), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) — sent a letter to the president, telling him that under the Constitution, the Congress must deliberate and vote on whether to take the nation to war. Biden did not go to Congress for approval before launching the airstrikes in Yemen."We strongly condemn the repeated Houthi attacks against international cargo ships and U.S. military assets protecting those ships in the Red Sea," the letter reads. However, "while the Houthis and their backers, namely Iran, bear the responsibility for escalation, unless there is a need to repel a sudden attack the Constitution requires that the United States not engage in military action absent a favorable vote of Congress."The missive also lays out a series of questions for Biden to ensure that the American response to the situation in the Red Sea is "strategic and authorized," including whether the strikes fall into the administration's understanding of "self-defense," under which legal authorization the administration carried out the strikes, and on what date U.S. forces were "introduced into hostilities" in Yemen. Why is any of this important? RS asked Senator Lee about the letter, his response to the Jordan attacks, his concerns over a wider war with Iran, and whether other colleagues in Congress feel the same urgency to hold the administration to account.RS: Do you expect President Biden to come before Congress for authorization if the administration plans to respond to the drone attacks in Jordan?Sen. Lee: I do not know if President Biden will voluntarily ask Congress for authorization to retaliate following the drone attacks in Jordan, but he should. He is within his rights to conduct defensive strikes in cases of immediate threats to the United States and its military, but as we have already seen, the Biden administration already interprets this prerogative far too broadly in other areas of the Middle East. It is possible that retaliation is indeed the right move, but we cannot allow President Biden to sleepwalk America into an undeclared war with Iran in the process. RS: You recently sent a letter to President Biden urging him to go to Congress before pursuing further offensive U.S. military action against the Houthis. Why does the president have to go to Congress to authorize these strikes? Are there any plans to pursue a legislative vehicle that would authorize the use of force? Sen. Lee: Every military decision made by the executive branch must be within the bounds of what the Constitution allows and consistent with the War Powers Resolution. The Constitution deliberately vested the power to make war with Congress, in Article I — keeping this power with the branch closest to the people who will bear the costs. Absent specific authority from Congress, the President reserves the power to defend the U.S. and its forces from imminent attacks. The Biden administration's pattern of engaging in offensive airstrikes without authorization and calling such actions defensive is a warped understanding of the interactions between the legislative and executive branch powers in war making. RS: The letter had four signatories, two from each party. Do you see potential for more bipartisan buy-in on this issue? If not, why not? Sen. Lee: I have found great success in working with a serious group of members from both sides of the aisle in this space. The 2019 passage of the Yemen War Powers Resolution, which passed both chambers, was made possible by a bipartisan coalition. When the focus is kept on reasserting and restoring the role of Congress in the decision to declare war, a coalition of this kind can make history.RS: There are recent conflicting reports that the Biden administration is considering a withdrawal of troops from Syria. In the past, you have supported efforts to withdraw. Would you support a withdrawal of troops from Syria today?Sen. Lee: The first-order issue I had when U.S. troops were introduced into Syria remains the same today. Congress has never provided authorization for use of military force in Syria, nor has any administration provided a specific mission for U.S. presence that includes clear objectives and timelines on engagement. Strategic errors of this magnitude are how the United States ends up in endless wars, and it is exactly why the decision to make war was intentionally vested in the legislative branch and not in the hands of one, all-powerful but fallible executive.RS: You recently told The American Conservative that "We've been down this road before and we know it costs the U.S. blood and treasure for little gain." How concerned are you about the risk of escalation in the Middle East that could draw the U.S. in even further? What steps do you think could or should be taken to reduce these risks? Sen. Lee: I am deeply concerned about escalation in the Middle East. For President Biden to admit that airstrikes have not changed the strategic environment in favor of U.S. interests while announcing his intention to continue them is wildly reckless policy. Beyond that, it doesn't seem the administration is concerned about how any of this affects the strategic landscape broadly for the United States. Both the 2018 and 2022 National Defense Strategies acknowledge that we cannot effectively engage in active military campaigns in two theaters at once, even by proxy, and yet the Biden administration seems perfectly content to ignore its own acknowledged limits. RS: Do you support the repeal of the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force in Iraq? Do you expect that efforts to repeal these AUMFs will succeed this year? Sen. Lee: Keeping outdated AUMFs on the books creates an unnecessary risk of misuse. The 1991 and 2002 AUMFs should have been repealed years ago and I joined a number of my colleagues in cosponsoring bipartisan legislation to do this. The repeals passed the Senate last year and I continue to encourage my colleagues in the House to take action to complete the repeal. I also believe that Congress needs to begin a serious debate on the merits of maintaining the 2001 AUMF, which has become the fallback "authorization" cited for most military action in the Middle East.
