Search results

The recent trial in Pretoria of thirty-seven South West Africans on charges of "participation in terroristic activities" focused international attention yet again on the mandated territory of South West Africa. The trial, conviction and sentencing of the accused evoked protest and condemnation from the United Nations on the ground that, as a result of General Assembly Resolution 2145 (XXI), South Africa had lost jurisdiction over the territory and hence the competence to try the accused at all. On December 16, 1967, while the trial was in progress, the General Assembly, by 110 votes to two (Portugal and South Africa), condemned the "illegal arrest, deportation, and trial" of the accused, and on the eve of the judgment in the case on January 25, 1968, the Security Council in a unanimous resolution called upon the Government of South Africa "to discontinue forthwith this illegal trial and to release and repatriate the South West Africans concerned," a call which was converted into a "demand" by a further unanimous resolution on March 14, 1968, after many of the accused had been sentenced to long periods of imprisonment. The South African Government, however, arguing that Resolution 2145 (XXI) was invalid and that it was fully competent in law to prosecute the accused for offenses committed in South West Africa, declined to accept these "calls" and "demands."

Defence date: 16 December 2014 ; Examining Board: Professor Bruno De Witte, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Loïc Azoulai, European University Institute; Professor Damian Chalmers, London School of Economics; Professor Thomas Christiansen, Maastricht University. ; This PhD thesis studies the role of national parliaments in the policing of the EU subsidiarity principle. The Treaty of Lisbon enshrines the Early Warning System (EWS) in Protocol No. 2, according to which national parliaments may review Commission proposals for compatibility with the subsidiarity principle expressed in Article 5(3) TEU. On the basis of the number of reasoned opinions submitted, which count as votes, national parliaments may trigger either a 'yellow' or an 'orange' card, each of which entails different consequences for the Commission draft act in question. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the functioning of the EWS and to explore why national parliaments participate in this mechanism. To achieve this task, this thesis analyses the reasoned opinions issued under the EWS. Hence, this thesis firstly conducts a case study of the Commission proposal on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office which triggered a 'yellow card'. This example shows that national parliaments tend to conduct a broad scrutiny of Commission proposals, which includes aspects other than the subsidiarity of the proposal: its legal basis, the competence of the EU to act, its proportionality and its substance. This practice of national parliaments is evaluated according to a textual, structural and functional interpretation of the EU Treaties, and as a result, a narrow subsidiarity test is suggested for the purpose of the EWS. Thereafter, the thesis explores the national procedures of ex ante (EWS) and ex post (action before the ECJ) scrutiny. In addition, national debates are studied in order to analyse the relationship between national legislatives and executives, between parliamentary majorities and opposition, as well as the reflection of regional interests. This detailed study of debates also points to the first reasons for the participation of national parliaments in the EWS: the protection of idiosyncratic national interests and the restriction of EU redistributive policies. Further reasons for national parliaments' participation in the EWS are indicated on the basis of two case studies, dealing with the Monti II regulation (competence), and the Tobacco Products Directive ('delegated legislation'). These suggest that the EWS is used by national parliaments to increase their impact in the EU legislative process. The last case study of this thesis – the 'Women on Boards' proposal – ponders the application of the EWS to 'genuine' fundamental rights proposals, showing that the subsidiarity tests at stake here are focused to a much greater extent on a political willingness to protect universal values, rather than on efficiency. The thesis concludes by discussing whether the EWS enhances the EU's democratic legitimacy and decreases the EU's competence creep, which were the leading ideas behind the introduction of the Protocol No. 2 mechanism. It is pointed out that, although the impact of national parliaments on EU policy-making is uneasy to measure, some of the criticism of national parliaments is taken on board by the EU legislator. Because the 'competence creep' of the EU is rather limited, it also does not demand a great deal of involvement on the part of national parliaments.

The debates that preceded the Lisbon Treaty (2009), still marked by the failure of the Constitutional Treaty (2004), were strongly influenced by the intention to take a further step forward in building a political Europe. And this intention is evident both in a number of provisions in the current Treaty - such as Article 8-A TEU, which states that the functioning of the Union is based on representative democracy - and in the multiplicity of practices and methods developed to increase the political legitimacy of the institutions - such as the Barroso Procedure. The Lisbon Treaty went further, attributing a series of powers to the European Parliament (and extending some of them it already possessed), most of which fall within the classic parliamentary powers of information, scrutiny and legislative construction - in the latter case, consisting of participation as co-legislator with the Council in the Ordinary Legislative Procedure. But, in addition to this, in 2014, an attempt was made to establish the practice of the Spitzenkandidaten, i.e. to appoint to the presidency of the European Commission the main candidate of the European political party that had obtained the highest number of seats in Parliament. Unfortunately, this practice, which would have brought the political system in Europe and the parliamentary political systems of the individual member states closer together, ended up not being repeated after the 2019 elections. The Treaty, always having as its premise the attempt to resolve the problem of input legitimacy, also took into consideration the issue of strengthening national parliaments, granting them some relevant competences, so as to bring them closer to European decision-making. The logic was very simple: since national parliaments were endowed with a considerable degree of legitimacy, making them participants in the decision-making process in Europe guaranteed the latter a greater degree of legitimacy. This would be a kind of bottom-up transmission of democratic legitimacy. In this sequence of events, the Early Warning System, which is nothing more than an elaborate system for monitoring compliance with the principle of subsidiarity in Europe (Art. 5(3) TEU), was created. Through this system, each Parliament of each Member State would have two votes (in the case of the bicameral systems, one vote for each Chamber), and the reasoned opinions expressed by them, drawing a certain threshold, would activate the yellow card (1/3 of the votes) or the orange card (majority of the votes), obliging the European Commission to re-examine the matter of law and to justify itself - in the latter case, before the European Parliament and the Council. It is not, therefore, a veto mechanism, but a sort of instrument of preventive alert, which in a certain way ends up integrating itself fully into the dialogic and polycentric spirit of the European multi-level system and the "Euro-national parliamentary system". Summing up, in the present Work, the evolution and expectations of the post-Lisbon Treaty have been analysed, more specifically in the context of the coveted strengthening of European and national Parliaments, democratic legitimacy and politics in the European Union, as opposed to the historical intergovernmental, bureaucratic and technical dominance that occurs there.

Relationship of international law and municipal law — Treaties — European Convention on Human Rights, 1950 — Protocol No 1 to Convention — Article 3 — Russian Constitution — Article 15 of Russian Constitution — Russian Constitution having supreme legal force — Execution of judgment of European Court of Human Rights — Whether possible to execute judgment of European Court of Human Rights in accordance with Russian ConstitutionJurisdiction — Execution of judgments — Judgments of European Court of Human Rights — Hierarchy of legal acts — Article 15 of Constitution of Russian Federation — Supreme legal force of Russian Constitution — International law as part of national legal order — Whether international judgments to be executed only if conforming with Russian Constitution — Power of Russian Constitutional Court to review compatibility of judgments with Russian ConstitutionTreaties — Interpretation — European Convention on Human Rights, 1950 — "Evolutive" interpretation — Whether "evolutive" interpretation should be based on consensus between all Contracting States — Whether absence of consensus giving Contracting State right to object to interpretationHuman rights — Execution of judgments — Judgments of European Court of Human Rights — Execution by measure of general character — Execution by amendment of national law — Execution by political process — Achieving conformity through means of application of apparently non-conforming ruleHuman rights — Right to vote and stand for election — Article 3 of Protocol No 1 to European Convention on Human Rights, 1950 — Restrictions of right to vote for convicted prisoners — Article 32(3) of Constitution of Russian Federation — Application of provisionHuman rights — Execution of judgments — Judgments of European Court of Human Rights — Execution by measure of individual character — Whether execution by measure of individual character possible when applicant may not be considered a victim of established violation — European Court of Human Rights — Competence — Whether review of provisions of national legislation in abstracto permissible — Whether European Court of Human Rights can review a particular application of provision in concreto — Whether finding on violation when applicant not qualifying as victim amounting to review in abstracto — The law of the Russian Federation

This qualitative study was primarily concerned with Saudi women's reactions to social change in the political sphere. It focused on their responses to decrees allowing women to vote in municipal elections for the first time, become candidates in such elections, and be nominated in the Shura Council by the King. Structured interviews of urban dwellers illustrated that changes, seen as opportunities, had been noted, but their impact had yet to be processed thoroughly. Attitudes towards political participation were positive and largely optimistic, but rarely seen as applying to the self. Competence, rather than gender, was seen as relevant to voters' views of political candidates as well as of elected or appointed officials. Compared with older interviewees, young ones viewed the impact of women's political participation, along with other social changes, as gradual, manageable, and merely one of the many articulations of the 2030 Vision, a strategic framework developed by KSA intended to reduce the country's dependence on oil and diversify its economy. Both young and older interviewees, though, were reluctant to forecast its specific future impact. Actual political participation, in the form of either voting or running for office, was dismal. These results indicate that not only time is needed for top-down interventions to enter the social fabric of a nation and the minds of its people, but also the necessary conditions must exist that enable the genuine flourishing of human agency.

AbstractDaughter of a Victorian clergyman, Caroline Mary Ridding (1862–1941) was one of the few experts who could catalogue the materials that came to the UK in the wake of the Younghusband Mission. In 1911, after completing her work on the part of the collection received by the Cambridge University Library, she was put forward as the curator of the Oriental department of the library. This proposal was rejected with five favourable and six contrary votes but was nonetheless remarkable and shows how the acquisition of competence in rare and emerging subjects such as Oriental studies could open spaces for women at a time in which they were still largely excluded from academia. It also shows how books could make people and shape lives. Having graduated in classics from Girton College, Cambridge, Ridding became a Sanskritist and eventually taught herself Tibetan. After spending a significant amount of unpaid time poring over esoteric Buddhist documents that few people at the time could read, she eventually became a respected member of the Royal Asiatic Society and the first woman to be employed by the Cambridge University Library. This article explores the relationship between the life of this eccentric woman and oriental books and manuscripts, against the background of the rapidly transforming society of the late British Empire and the new aspirations that women had started to develop towards the turn of the century.

Sabiedrības informēšana par ES jautājumiem sākās tikai gadu pirms referenduma par Latvijas pievienošanos ES. Tika izstrādāta un īstenota informatīvā kampaņa, kurā vienam no nozīmīgākajiem aspektiem vajadzēja būt jautājumam par lata aizstāšanu ar eiro. Pētījuma mērķis bija noskaidrot, vai laikā, kad iedzīvotāji referendumā balsoja par Latvijas iestāšanos ES, viņiem bija pietiekamā apjomā izskaidrota eiro ieviešanas kārtība, kas neparedzēja atsevišķu tautas nobalsošanu par lata nomaiņu ar eiro. "Tautas kampaņa" tika izveidota atbilstoši starptautiski pieņemtajai praksei, taču tās īstenošanā netika sasniegts galvenais mērķis – sabiedrības informētības par ES palielināšana. Pirmsreferenduma laikā laikraksti Latvijas iedzīvotājus praktiski neinformēja, ka līdz ar balsojumu par iestāšanos ES tiek nobalsots arī par vienotās valūtas eiro ieviešanu. ; The information of society about EU issues started just a year before the referendum about Latvia's participation in EU. An informational campaign was created and implemented and the issue about substituting lats with euro was supposed to be one of the most important aspects of this campaign. The goal of this research was to find out whether people participating in the referendum had enough information clarifying the implementation of euro which was considered to be done without separate referendum. The "National campaign" was developed accordingly to the international practise but the main goal of the campaign – to enlarge the level of competence of people in EU issues – was not reached. During the pre-referendum campaign newspapers almost did not inform society regarding the fact that with the vote for participation in EU they are voting also for implementation of euro.

To ascertain whether use of an information-choice questionnaire, which includes information about a problem as well as the advantages & disadvantages of each option, raises the competence of citizens voting in a political referendum, fieldwork was conducted in the course of a 1992 referendum addressing car traffic in inner-city Amsterdam, Netherlands. Two random telephone surveys, panel data collected weekly during the campaign, & data from a computerized information-choice questionnaire revealed the efficacy of the questionnaire; 88% of respondents (Rs) felt it was a worthwhile aid. Further, questionnaire Rs were better equipped to make informed decisions than telephone Rs, who were only exposed to normal prereferendum information. 3 Figures, 13 References. J. Lindroth

The Advisory Opinion handed down by the World Court on July 20, 1962, concerning Certain Expenses of the United Nations has become a political cause célèbre in so far as the majority judicial position in it was backed up by the Western-sponsored action, in terms of Article 19 of the United Nations Charter, to deprive the Soviet Union and France of their vote in the General Assembly. The Advisory Opinion of the World Court has, however, its own intrinsic interest in terms of juristic method and of basic Soviet and Western differences in scientific approach to law. In his dissenting, judicial opinion in that case, the then President of the Court, the Polish jurist, Judge Winiarski, formulated principles of interpretation which reveal, very dramatically, the basic doctrinal differences between Soviet bloc and Western jurists as to the nature and character of the Charter. As President Winiarski commented:The Charter has set forth the purposes of the United Nations in very wide, and for that reason too indefinite, terms. But… it does not follow, far from it, that the Organisation is entitled to seek to achieve those purposes by no matter what means. The fact that an organ of the United Nations is seeking to achieve one of those purposes does not suffice to render its action lawful. The Charter, a multilateral treaty which was the result of prolonged and laborious negotiations, carefully created organs and determined their competence and means of action.

The Scottish Nationalist Party's majority in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections opened up a wide and interesting debate on the variety of options for Scotland's constitutional future (ranging from the status quo through a variety of intermediate options to full independence), and with it, also the innovate possibility of a multi-option referendum, reflecting the preferences of the people of Scotland. However, while the UK Government agreed that the future of Scotland's place within the Union was for the people of Scotland to vote on, it strongly contested the Scottish Parliament's competence to legislate for the referendum, thus ensuring a role for itself and the UK Parliament in its design. After a period of negotiations, the UK and Scottish Governments signed the Edinburgh Agreement on the 15th October 2012, enabling the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a single question referendum, and expressing their commitment to work together in the interests of all involved. This article begins looking at the background, legal framework and negotiations leading up to the Edinburgh Agreement. It then argues that, while the Agreement is notably significant and has allowed for the smooth and fast development of the process so far, by excluding the possibility of including a third option of 'more devolution' on the ballot paper, it is having a series of negative consequences for the current debate, namely that it is more limited, confusing and uncertain, and largely unbalanced in favour of the 'no' side. Adapted from the source document.

Foreword -- Contents -- Thomas Giegerich | European Integration v. the Inalienable Core of German Statehood -- 1. The Traditional Political Finality of European Integration -- 2. The Current Crisis of the European Integration Project -- 3. Recent Proposals for Deepening the European Integration as a Way Out of the Crisis -- 4. The Irreconcilability of Rationality and Political Psychology in EU Affairs -- a) How to Improve the Democratic Accountability of the EU -- b) How to Reduce the Size of the Commission -- c) How to Determine the Seat of the European Parliament -- 5. The German Federal Constitutional Court's List of Non-Transferrable State Competences -- 6. The Gate-keeping Function of the German Federal Constitutional Court with Regard to the European Integration Process -- a) The Federal Constitutional Court Permits Every Voter to Lodgea Complaint against Treaty Revisions -- b) How Would the European Court of Human Rights Decide onAnalogous Applications by Individual Voters? -- 7. National Fundamental Rights Protection as an Inalienable National Policy Domain -- a) The Åkerberg Fransson Opinion of the Court of Justice of the EU and the Reaction of the Federal Constitutional Court -- b) Should the EU Have More Power to Monitor the Member States' Human Rights Record? -- 8. Is there a Uniform Approach in the Member States withregard to Inalienable National Policy Domains? -- 9. The Equilibrium Concept for a More PerfectEuropean Union -- Eirik Holmøyvik | Europe and Norwegian constitutionalism 1814 -2014: From the relationship between Parliament and King to the EEA -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Norwegian constitution of 1814 and its Europeancontext -- 2.1. The European context -- 2.2. The Norwegian 1814 constitution -- 3. 1814 -1884: Constitutional struggles -- 3.1. Constitutional developments in post 1814 Europe

Reviewing political opinion patterns in the 1950s, The American Voter concluded that self‐interest played a key role in the public's views on social welfare policy. Since then, however, many researchers have argued that self‐interest has very little effect on issue opinions. We argue that the principal reason for this shift lies not in self‐interest coming to matter less, but, instead, because some scholars—by narrowing the definition of self‐interest, declaring ordinary demographic effects uninterpretable, and assuming that group interest is distinct from self‐interest—essentially defined out the possibility of self‐interest being a major determinant of political views. Yet even with these limiting moves, the general denial of self‐interest has come to include a long and growing list of exceptions. In addition, we find that many of the specific claims grounding the general denial are problematic. Thus, we argue that self‐interest remains a potent factor in the context of a number of issue opinions. Further, taking a broader view of human interests, we see self‐interest effects not only in economic opinions, but also in various cultural/social domains. For example, when it comes to individuals' opinions on issues relating to meritocracy and discrimination, we find that levels of meritocratic competence are typically a key factor, along with racial, religious, and other relevant categories. Also, there are solid links among individuals' sexual lifestyles, religiosity, and views on issues such as abortion and marijuana legalization. Not only are such domain‐specific relationships "major," but self‐interest variables typically have more secure claims than individuals' ideology, party, and values to being unambiguous "determinants" of issue opinions.

Research Highlights and Abstract Contrary to conventional analyses, the British Labour Party most closely pursued a 'median voter' strategy before 1994, to little success. 'Globalisation-as-inevitability' was a key organising trope of 'New Labour' discourse across the subsequent Blair and Brown eras. Globalisation was represented in public texts in a way that buttressed New Labour's new strategic agenda of emphasising economic competence and pragmatism over ideology. The globalisation discourse also changed over time, containing greater emphases on the constraining effect of globalisation after Labour came to power in 1997. New Labour's risky rhetorical support for the EU was linked to globalisation claims and further served to distinguish Labour modernisation from Tory dogmatism. At the Labour Party conference in 2005, Tony Blair declared that debating globalisation would be like debating 'whether autumn should follow summer'. This articulation of the imperatives of a newly-globalised world was central to the creation of 'New' Labour. How should we understand this turn from the autonomous socialism promised a generation earlier? In this article, I propose that Labour's discourse was produced in response to strategic demands of political competition. Synthesising Riker's concept of heresthetics with insights from discourse analysis, the article proposes parties as discursive-herestheticians who constructively use rhetorical tropes to achieve concrete ends. This approach is applied to Labour through qualitative textual analysis of speeches and documents, read in the context of electoral strategy. The analysis produces an alternative interpretation of New Labour strategy that serves as a corrective to the 'cartel party' account of Labour having abandoned real political competition in favour of the centre ground.

Equity ownership in the United States no longer reflects the dispersed share ownership of the canonical Berle-Means firm. Instead, we observe the reconcentration of ownership in the hands of institutional investment intermediaries, which gives rise to "the agency costs of agency capitalism." This ownership change has occurred because of (i) political decisions to privatize the provision of retirement savings and to require funding of such provision and (ii) capital market developments that favor investment intermediaries offering low-cost diversified investment vehicles. A new set of agency costs arises because in addition to divergence between the interests of record owners and the firm's managers, divergence exists between the interests of record owners – the institutional investors – and the beneficial owners of those institutional stakes. The business model of key investment intermediaries like mutual funds, which focus on increasing assets under management through superior relative performance, undermines their incentive and competence to engage in active monitoring of portfolio company performance. Such investors will be "rationally reticent " – willing to respond to governance proposals but not to propose them. We posit that shareholder activists should be seen as playing a specialized capital market role of setting up intervention proposals for resolution by institutional investors. The effect is to potentiate institutional investor voice, to increase the value of the vote, and thereby to reduce the agency costs we have identified. We therefore argue against recent proposed regulatory changes that would undercut shareholder activists' economic incentives by making it harder to assemble a meaningful toehold position in a potential target.

Equity ownership in the United States no longer reflects the dispersed share ownership of the canonical Berle-Means firm. Instead, we observe the reconcentration of ownership in the hands of institutional investment intermediaries, which gives rise to what we call "the agency costs of agency capitalism." This ownership change has occurred because of (i) political decisions to privatize the provision of retirement savings and to require funding of such provision and (ii) capital market developments that favor investment intermediaries offering low cost diversified investment vehicles. A new set of agency costs arise because in addition to divergence between the interests of record owners and the firm's managers, there is divergence between the interests of record owners – the institutional investors – and the beneficial owners of those institutional stakes. The business model of key investment intermediaries like mutual funds, which focus on increasing assets under management through superior relative performance, undermines their incentive and competence to engage in active monitoring of portfolio company performance. Such investors will be "rationally reticent" – willing to respond to governance proposals but not to propose them. We posit that shareholder activists should be seen as playing a specialized capital market role of setting up intervention proposals for resolution by institutional investors. The effect is to potentiate institutional investor voice, to increase the value of the vote, and thereby to reduce the agency costs we have identified. We therefore argue against recent proposed regulatory changes that would undercut shareholder activists' economic incentives by making it harder to assemble a meaningful toe-hold position in a potential target.