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A significant research potential in South Africa is recognized by the researcher for the intersection of map services, geospatial data, libraries and education. This paper acknowledges that together, cartographic technology and map collections have the potential to unlock cartographic related research. Based on research conducted in 2010 for the Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Science at the University of Cape Town, this paper presents an overview of current literature and investigates what cartographic services are provided by a selection of national and international academic libraries.The methodology employed was to use the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy (2010) system to identify and choose top ranked universities. The libraries of eight universities were informally compared by reviewing their respective websites. Three cartographic related aspects were the focus of this review: (1) technology, (2) map related services, and (3) legislation.The findings identify cartographic services and also highlight differences, especially between the libraries in South Africa and those in international countries. The results indicate that while South African libraries are known to have map collections, online services, in the form of digital maps and geospatial data, are not readily accessible. Furthermore, the researcher suggests that there is a need for research that focuses on Geographic Information Librarianship and the GIS Librarian in SA.

This article examines the process of international mediation from the perspective of the disputants. It posits that contrary to standard analyses, which tend to examine mediation from the perspective of the conflict or the third party, an examination from the point of view of the disputants provides significant insights into mediation as a form of conflict management. From an inside-out perspective, it becomes apparent that the underlying assumption that a compromise solution is the objective of the disputants involved in the mediation process is suspect. Thus, disputants may become involved in a mediation process in order to improve upon their prospects, but not necessarily in terms of a compromise with their adversary. This article argues that a mediation process carries with it a series of assets that the disputants may value in terms of their pre-negotiation objectives, rather than in terms of the compromise that the previous debates about international mediation have indicated. The disputants may therefore harbour `devious objectives', unrelated to the attainment of a compromise solution, which might include time to regroup and reorganize; internationalization; the search for an ally; empowerment; legitimization of their negotiation positions and current status; face saving; and avoiding costly concessions by prolonging the process itself.

One of the basic paradoxes of research on space and international politics is the rapid and undisputed success of the Soviet state in space, and the continuous and seemingly infinite lag in American efforts in the development of space technology and military applications in space. While democratic government is generally credited with being the most important source of the limited achievements of Americans in space, Walter A. McDougall argues in his work, ...the Heavens and the Earth, that democracy also played a crucial role in limiting the militarization of space. In contrast to the American case, the form of the Soviet state has allowed for progress of an unprecedented nature given the relative backward na ture of Soviet technology, at the conclusion of World War II. This the critical problem in McDougall's ...the Heavens and the Earth, and flies in the face of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Democracy seems to be of little relevance in this case. This review provides a summary description of McDougall's work, the delineation of his central argument, and a critical examination of the broader implications for understanding discussions of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the study of space and international politics more generally.

Also available as an e-book In spite of the undoubtedly great and rising importance of the international legislative co-operation regarding private international law, it must be remembered that no successful unification or harmonization of conflict rules has ever taken place on the universal level, and that the conflict rules stemming from international legislative co-operation between a limited number of countries give rise to the same problems as non-harmonized rules, whenever they have to be used in relation to countries not participating in the legislative co-operation in question. This book will therefore focus on the last-mentioned problems and refrain from dealing with the particular issues arising from international legislative co-operation in the field of private international law. One of the principal aims of Michael Bogdan is to demonstrate the relationship between the national rules of private international law and the rest of the legal system of the forum country, in the first place its substantive private law and its law of civil procedure, as well as to illustrate the impact of the forum country's general ethical and other values on its private international law

In recent years, a number of governments and consumer groups in rich countries have tried to discourage the use of child labor in poor countries through measures such as product boycotts and the imposition of international labor standards. The purported objective of such measures is to reduce the incidence of child labor in developing countries and thereby improve children's welfare. In this paper, we examine the effects of such policies from a political-economy perspective. We show that these types of international action on child labor tend to lower domestic political support within developing countries for banning child labor. Hence, international labor standards and product boycotts may delay the ultimate eradication of child labor.

ABSTRACT
International commercial courts are currently proliferating from the last generation special economic zones of the Gulf region to the whole of Asia and Europe. International commercial courts are institutions of a new era of international economic law and adjudication. Zone courts, alongside the new uses of arbitration within special economic zones, may be viewed as the adjudicatory counterpart of the move towards unilateralism in international economic law. The idea is to move cases from the international to the domestic realm and overall domesticate international economic law and adjudication. The unilateral strategy to achieve this is the introduction of new courts that sit in a space between the national and the international and are based on English (common) law. However, the new system does not oblige the transferal of cases. The special economic zones-driven judicial unilateralism adds an investment attraction to the repertoire of states, as well as choices to parties. Adjudicatory unilateralism is thus consubstantially plural. The creation and proliferation of English (common) law-based special economic zones and international commercial courts is a major shift that will have deep implications for the system of international economic law and adjudication.