Suchergebnisse

Broke out since December of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a global challenge that seriously affected the development of various economies in the world, including Vietnam. According to the Ministry of labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Vietnam (MOLISA), more than 5,000 migrant workers have to return home and risk losing their jobs and income. In addition, the migrant workers who still stay abroad are also subject to myriad difficulties in their lives and health situation, underemployment and reduced income, discrimination, prejudice and xenophobia etc. To clarify the legal and practices issues regarding protecting the rights of Vietnamese migrant workers in the context of COVID-19, the article focuses on analyzing (i) the status of Vietnamese migrant workers and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on this group; (ii) the regulations of Vietnam related to the rights of migrant workers; (iii) the policies have been adopted by the Vietnamese Government to protect the rights of Vietnamese migrant workers during the pandemic, and (iv) recommendations for implementation of policies and laws to ensure the rights of Vietnamese migrant workers in similar circumstances. Keywords: Human Rights, Migrant's Rights, Covid-19 Pandemic, Vietnamese Migrant Worker, Labourer's Rights.

Abstract
There is undoubtedly a consensus within the international community that 'vaccine nationalism' is an undesirable state of affairs. However, states are self-interested actors and in the absence of constraints imposed by international economic law this pursuit of rational self-interest is likely to result in an outcome that is unjust on a global scale. The recent proposal by India and South Africa to suspend TRIPS obligations for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic has been rejected within the WTO. This proposal constitutes a recognition of the inadequacies surrounding the TRIPS compulsory licensing scheme. Yet, the immersion of intellectual property law within international investment law together with the proliferation of free trade agreements containing TRIPS-plus obligations would likely have made such a proposal unworkable. We argue that the fundamental problem is that the TRIPS Agreement lacks a defined concept of conscience that governs both its operation and interpretation. Such a principle exists in the common law within the field of private law. The principle, in its various doctrinal iterations, navigates the tensions between different parties while serving an underlying purpose of justice within the common law. It has much to offer international intellectual property law.

What are the primary drivers of the relationship between Xi's China and Lukashenko's Belarus? The present research paper uses the historical process-tracing method to provide an answer to this question. Furthermore, it uses quantitative data analysis regarding the economic intercourse between Belarus and China. It examines whether China's opposition regarding the unipolar American-led world order and Belarus's security concerns are the primary drivers of the relationship between Minsk and Beijing. The present article concludes that the congruence of beliefs and Minsk's desire to ensure survival are drawing the two countries closer together. China's new strategy encompasses Beijing's increasing participation in world affairs. China opposes the world order led by a single hegemon, the United States of America. In the interim, Belarus, a relatively weak state insignificant in the global balance of power, shares Beijing's beliefs about the desired nature of the contemporary world order. However, the Belarusian economy's condition, which relies heavily on external funding, does not allow the economic cooperation between Minsk and Beijing to thrive. China gradually increases its engagement with Belarus, yet it obscures its ambitions, for Minsk lies in Moscow's sphere of influence.

In Spain's foreign policy, the relationships with the Spanish-speaking Latin American countries have a special privileged place which dates back to the country's imperial past. Based on a narrative of common language and a shared cultural history and identity with the Latin American people, Spain still aims to maintain its leading role in diplomatic relations, cultural investment, and foreign aid more than any country. Moreover, the ongoing relationships with this region has been one of the key areas of Madrid's foreign policy for its global role expanding from the Iberian Peninsula to the entire world. Since Spain emphasises on the concept of Ibero-American identity in its relations with the Latin America, this study attempts to use a social-constructivist approach in analysing the place of the Latin America in the contemporary Spanish foreign policy. Specifically, it searches for the influences of Spain's European Union membership on these relationships. Consequently, it argues that European identity of the nation has gained a greater weight than its Ibero-American identity since the democratisation process of 1980s. Thus, the relationships with Europe have pushed the Latin America to a secondary position in the foreign affairs.

The small states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) play an outsized role in global politics. Owing to their resources, locations and partnerships, they are often at the centre of international affairs. This has been especially true in the decade since the Arab Spring, an event that posed acute threats for some Gulf governments, whilst promising fortuitous prospects for others. Why did the leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) react to the Arab Spring differently; and can their statecraft inform small state studies? The small Gulf states offers insight into these questions by assessing how these states have pursued foreign and security policies amid regional power shifts and oil-price volatility. The volume provides three main contributions. First, its editors merge decades of small state and area studies scholarship to assess what makes the Arab Gulf states unique relative to those in Europe. Second, its contributors identify how Oman, Qatar, and the UAE, in particular, have proactively gained regional influence through diverse diplomatic, ideational and economic means. Third, it inspires future scholarship by suggesting how these states may navigate the international system's mounting multipolarity with divergent aid and alignment strategies. ; N/A

Political arrangements and established regimes depend on cooperation mechanisms to maintain stability in between countries. Thus, like other countries, Brazil maintained its foreign relations based on a cooperative perspective, collective gains, and peaceful and institutional value. However, since the current government, Brazil did not promote our cooperative and multilateral frameworks, especially in its relations with neighboring countries based on the South-South cooperation instrument. In this sense, it is urgent to think about new directions regarding cooperation relations with countries in the southern axis or the Global South. Therefore, as a priority, we will consider for this analysis the defense cooperation relations, the strategic frameworks for establishing trust, the exchanges based on technical cooperation, and bottom-up relations through institutions and agencies that continue to move this forward. This policy brief analyzes the defense cooperation policies in the Brazilian strategic environment, fostered by its technical cooperation within South America, Africa, and the Portuguese Language Community. This relationship of deepening defense technical cooperation had the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and other stakeholders involved in the expansion of the Brazilian defense sector, in the benefit of international reputation, and conditions that may reduce Brazil's vulnerabilities in the 21st Century.

Abstract In this introduction to the special issue, we use the expression "China in the world" paradigm to define scholarship that purposefully migrates across the traditional borders of comparative politics and international relations in the study of China. We argue that such a paradigm represents a view that many issues of Chinese domestic politics are now issues of international politics; as a result, domestic politics in a globalized contemporary China often cannot be sufficiently understood without considering international consequences. More than this, the paradigm is about scholarly attentiveness to the fact that the politics in China that we study also shapes how the rest of the world views China. We describe the paradigm and its antecedents in the scholarly literature. We then illustrate, with reference to three momentous events that captured public attention around the world in 2020, the paradigm's usefulness as a perspective to scholars reaching out to engage intellectually on contemporary affairs in an environment in which global responses to China require nuanced knowledge as all parties seek to avoid dangerous pitfalls. We conclude by summarizing the five articles included in the special issue and the broader implications of the "China in the world" paradigm.

Official development assistance (ODA) constitutes one of Japan's most important foreign policy instruments as it builds Japan's global network and supports allies in the Southeast Asian region and beyond. In the context of a rising China and an increasingly severe fiscal and demographic situation at home, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) promulgated a domestic-oriented legitimation campaign featuring a popular anime character rebranded as 'ODA-man' to increase public understanding of and support for Japan's ODA. Drawing on interpretivist analysis of performances at a development cooperation promotion festival, anime videos on the MOFA YouTube channel and interviews and examining the use of rhetorical strategies, this article provides an in-depth study of the promotion of one of the central instruments in Japan's foreign policy repertoire. Though he comes off as goofy and benign, ODA-man's messages are serious ones that reproduce dominant economic and security narratives about Japan and the world. Analysis points to both innovation and path dependency in Japan's foreign policy repertoire; while ODA-man may be new the story he is telling, and the way that he is performing it, is very much familiar. The article further illuminates important trends in the public legitimation of foreign policy in Japan. (Pac Rev / GIGA)

Declarations of independence continue to be commonplace in international affairs, yet their efficacy as means towards statehood remains disputed in traditional international legal and political thinking and conduct. Consequently, recent scholarship on state recognition and emerging statehood suggests that the international persistence of such declarations should be understood in the context of broader international processes, narratives, and assemblages of state creation. Such suggestions, however, risk reifying declarations' effectiveness more in relation to international structure(s) than to independence movement's own agency. This article, therefore, calls for a reframing of declarations of independence as a ritual in international relations. It argues that participating in the international ritual of independence declaration forms an attempt to 'fuse' the movement's political practice with international recognition, serves to express an internal belief in 'redemption' through the 'ascension' into the 'celestial' existence of recognised statehood, and offers an opportunity to internally bolster political community through political performance. Ritual theory, thus, uncovers how the global persistence of independence declarations cannot be explained merely through discrete oppositions of non-recognition versus recognition, belief versus reality, and/or non-state versus state community, and instead opens up new space for understanding the contradictions characterising the international political (in)significance and persistence of statehood declarations.

AbstractDeclarations of independence continue to be commonplace in international affairs, yet their efficacy as means towards statehood remains disputed in traditional international legal and political thinking and conduct. Consequently, recent scholarship on state recognition and emerging statehood suggests that the international persistence of such declarations should be understood in the context of broader international processes, narratives, and assemblages of state creation. Such suggestions, however, risk reifying declarations' effectiveness more in relation to international structure(s) than to independence movement's own agency. This article, therefore, calls for a reframing of declarations of independence as a ritual in international relations. It argues that participating in the international ritual of independence declaration forms an attempt to 'fuse' the movement's political practice with international recognition, serves to express an internal belief in 'redemption' through the 'ascension' into the 'celestial' existence of recognised statehood, and offers an opportunity to internally bolster political community through political performance. Ritual theory, thus, uncovers how the global persistence of independence declarations cannot be explained merely through discrete oppositions of non-recognition versus recognition, belief versus reality, and/or non-state versus state community, and instead opens up new space for understanding the contradictions characterising the international political (in)significance and persistence of statehood declarations.

Postproverbiality, the novel perspective to studying proverbs, has focused mainly on the radical revision of African proverbs. However, this phenomenon is not only found in African proverbs, but also in many other languages as already suggested in literature. Therefore, this study investigates postproverbiality in English proverbs as used on social media, particularly Twitter. Twitter is especially known for people's display of radical ideologies, opinions, and idiosyncrasies; therefore, it serves as a useful source for such radical revision of English proverbs. The analysis was done using Jacob Mey's (2001) Pragmatic Acts as theoretical framework. The data was purposively gathered using five standard English proverbs to search for postproverbial versions; a total of thirty postproverbials were discovered on Twitter. The analysis revealed ten practs and allopracts which include affirming, insisting, informing, counselling, warning, instructing, and encouraging. These were projected through contextual features of shared situational knowledge, voicing, inference, metaphor, and socio-cultural knowledge. The interaction among the textual and contextual features and the allopracts shows that cultures and occurrences in public affairs affect such cultural indices as proverbs and language use and this interaction increases through the internet and social networks which link the world into a global community.

India is in the midst of changing its definition of what it means to be Indian. For the first time since becoming an independent nation in 1947, the government of India has chosen to use religion as a criteria for citizenship. This paper examines the critical importance of this development as it pertains to Muslims currently living in India, as well as for anyone living in South Asia who may wish to seek asylum in India in the future. The paper also examines the significance of the world's most populous democracy shifting from secular to sectarian governance, a development with local, regional, and global impacts.The immediate effect of using religion as a criteria for citizenship has immediate and far-reaching consequences for India's minority Muslim population. The criteria also impacts other religious groups in India and the south Asia region. This significant change has already resulted in deleterious effects including mob violence, internal displacement of Indian-born Muslims into newly constructed detention camps, and the expectation of massive deportation of Muslims from India.The findings presented in this paper are based on information obtained from historical sources provided by human rights organizations, government foreign affairs reports, and current references including media, non-government organizations, and political think tanks.

Regional governments across the world actively participate in international relations. They open trade and cultural missions abroad, join international networks of cooperation, and sign treaties and agreements with their partners from other countries. Relationships at regional and local levels have moderated rising tensions between states that might otherwise paralyze global governance. Fast growing networks of sub-state contacts in Sino-European affairs create new opportunities for the European Union to advance European interests, norms and values. Unfortunately, acknowledgement, by Brussels, of such potential political instruments is limited. The main goal of this paper is to show how the EU could benefit from growing sub-state connections with China. This paper begins with an explanation, based upon a survey conducted among regional authorities from the 5 EU member states, of the phenomenon of fast-growing cooperation on the sub-state level between Europe and China (Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain). Next, this study identifies, through interviews with the EEAS, the European Commission officials and the regional authorities, EU activities that promote collaborations on 'the third level' of its relations with China. The research concludes with suggestions of possible ways Europe could benefit from further development of sub-state contacts with China.

Official development assistance (ODA) constitutes one of Japan's most important foreign policy instruments as it builds Japan's global network and supports allies in the Southeast Asian region and beyond. In the context of a rising China and an increasingly severe fiscal and demographic situation at home, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) promulgated a domestic-oriented legitimation campaign featuring a popular anime character rebranded as 'ODA-man' to increase public understanding of and support for Japan's ODA. Drawing on interpretivist analysis of performances at a development cooperation promotion festival, anime videos on the MOFA YouTube channel and interviews and examining the use of rhetorical strategies, this article provides an in-depth study of the promotion of one of the central instruments in Japan's foreign policy repertoire. Though he comes off as goofy and benign, ODA-man's messages are serious ones that reproduce dominant economic and security narratives about Japan and the world. Analysis points to both innovation and path dependency in Japan's foreign policy repertoire; while ODA-man may be new the story he is telling, and the way that he is performing it, is very much familiar. The article further illuminates important trends in the public legitimation of foreign policy in Japan. ; publishedVersion

Military assets, which include personnel, make an important contribution to disaster relief. However, military deployments can be politically sensitive, and the relevant international law is contested and not binding. This article compares two sets of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) Guidelines on this issue. The 2007 Oslo Guidelines1 state that military assets should be used in disaster relief only as a last resort, while the 2014 Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines2 acknowledge that military assets are often the first to respond to disasters in the region. Drawing on examples primarily from Asia, this article explores the apparent conflict between these two UN Guidelines and asks two questions about the deployment of foreign military assets in disaster relief. First, to what extent does international law authorize or limit the deployment of foreign military assets in disaster relief? Second, what are the politics of deploying military assets in disaster relief? This article argues that, rather than representing a global standard, the Oslo Guidelines better reflect European practice within Europe, while the Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines are more representative of practice worldwide. It concludes that the type of military aid provided is key to its compliance with international law and its political acceptance.