Suchergebnisse

This paper addresses the extension of cross-border transport within the EU. Despite the longstanding efforts of transport and cohesion policies to improve cross-border transport, many border regions still face challenges related to transport infrastructure and local public transport; these are discussed in the first part of this paper. Transport policy goals and instruments on the EU level are then discussed and their impact is assessed using case studies in the border area. As EU policy and funding instruments are not particularly concrete or binding, there are still significant variations between the national policies of member states. Implementation requires strong political will and secure funding. As transport is an important foundation for other aspects of cross-border cooperation, sustained investment in this key area is required.

Nachdem sich durch die FCNM und die Rechtsprechung des EGMR ein beständiges System des regionalen Minderheitenschutzes etabliert hat, stellt sich die Frage nach dessen Effektivität, inwieweit der Standard des EGMR dem Niveau des in den 90er Jahren geplanten minderheitenspezifischen Zusatzprotokolls zur EMRK entspricht und ob es heute noch eines solchen Zusatzprotokolls bedarf. Dazu wird ein artikelzentrierter Ansatz gewählt, der sich auf die Entwicklungen konzentriert und kritisch mit einzelnen Urteilen auseinandersetzt. Eine Gegenüberstellung des Entwurfs des Zusatzprotokolls sowie der EMRK bzw. der FCNM dient der Herausarbeitung von Schutzlücken. Die Arbeit schließt mit einer Stellungnahme zur Realisierbarkeit eines Zusatzprotokolls.

En repartant de la notion de « société du risque », la présente étude entend montrer pourquoi la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme est amenée à évaluer des risques et comment elle y procède. À cette fin, deux approches différentes de la jurisprudence sont déployées. D'une part, à travers une lecture juridico-linguistique, on cherche à recenser et à examiner les principales expressions que la Cour utilise couramment pour traiter les cas pertinents. D'autre part, par le biais d'une approche juridico-économique, on essaie d'appliquer les grands principes de la théorie de la gestion du risque (gravité, probabilité et acceptabilité) à cette même jurisprudence, avec l'intention de contribuer à une lecture originale des arrêts de la Cour. ; Peer reviewed

Entwicklung der Konfliktgemeinschaften in den böhmischen und südslawischen Länder Österreich-Ungarns bis 1918, Tschechoslowakei und Jugoslawien in der Zwischenkriegszeit, NS-Besatzungspolitik im 2. Weltkrieg, Erinnerung und Historisierung nach 1945. ; Communities of conflict within Austrian-Hungary (especially in Bohemian and south Slav lands); the domestic and foreign policies of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in the interwar-period; the Nazi policies of conquest and occupation in Bohemia, Moravia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Slovenia, finalliy the issue of history and memory east and west of the Iron Curtan.

Entwicklung der Konfliktgemeinschaften in den böhmischen und südslawischen Länder Österreich-Ungarns bis 1918, Tschechoslowakei und Jugoslawien in der Zwischenkriegszeit, NS-Besatzungspolitik im 2. Weltkrieg, Erinnerung und Historisierung nach 1945. ; Communities of conflict within Austrian-Hungary (especially in Bohemian and south Slav lands); the domestic and foreign policies of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in the interwar-period; the Nazi policies of conquest and occupation in Bohemia, Moravia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Slovenia, finalliy the issue of history and memory east and west of the Iron Curtan.

Entwicklung der Konfliktgemeinschaften in den böhmischen und südslawischen Länder Österreich-Ungarns bis 1918, Tschechoslowakei und Jugoslawien in der Zwischenkriegszeit, NS-Besatzungspolitik im 2. Weltkrieg, Erinnerung und Historisierung nach 1945. ; Communities of conflict within Austrian-Hungary (especially in Bohemian and south Slav lands); the domestic and foreign policies of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in the interwar-period; the Nazi policies of conquest and occupation in Bohemia, Moravia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Slovenia, finalliy the issue of history and memory east and west of the Iron Curtan.

             Previously posted on May 10/22 and Jan 30/23            Kissinger in Washington, May 7, 2022Henry Kissinger will be one hundred years old in a few weeks and has published five books since he turned ninety. Along with President Nixon, he futilely prolonged and escalated the Vietnam War for four years when defeat was already inevitable. But he also received the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for negotiating the ceasefire for that same war.     His doctrine also has these two faces. On the one hand, he conceives international politics as the interaction between states seeking power. On the other hand, he favors the balance of powers so that no one is able to fully impose its dominance on the others.   In the academic literature, Kissinger's approach is called "realism" and is widely accepted. The main alternative is the so-called "liberal" approach, which trusts in the ability of institutions to prevent wars and keep peace. From there arose the League of Nations, which failed, and the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which have had significant success on many issues, but are also currently showing their insufficiency.    The most accurate postulate of the realists is that the world is more peaceful when there are multiple powers than when there are only two, as in the Cold War, or a single super-dominant one, as seemed to be the case with the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.   The success of the formula requires that the multilateral equilibrium could only be overthrown by an effort of a magnitude too difficult to mount. As a historical example, Kissinger has analyzed and praised the so-called Concert of Europe that was formed, after the defeat of Napoleon's France, by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and also recovered France. According to his interpretation, the Concert "came close to constituting the government of Europe" and achieved a long period without European-wide wars. The balance was upset by the unification of Germany at the end of the 19th century and its consequent aggressive expansionism, which led to the absurd and catastrophic First World War. Taking a similar approach, Kissinger continues to praise the construction of the European Union, which has prevented new general wars on the continent.    During his time in government, the biggest concern was that communism would end up dominating the world according to the domino theory, whereby the fall of a piece like Indochina would be followed by Burma and Thailand, as well as Indonesia (which, in fact, was very close), and from there, India, Japan, the Middle East... That's why the Vietnam war extended to Laos and Cambodia. But this is also the reason for the diplomatic opening to China, to break the Sino-Soviet bloc and achieve a certain multilateral balance.    The current interest of the discussion is that the role of the United States as the only superpower may be less exclusive and exclusionary than it seemed. A version of political realism in academia tends to analyze international relations "after hegemony" as a ground for "anarchy", that is, destructive conflicts and wars. However, the changes around the Ukrainian war can be read as a new opportunity for multilateral cooperation.    The United States has the initiative and many economic and military resources, but, paradoxically, it may have a good opportunity to expand pluralism. In the new situation of divided government between the Presidency and Congress, the most ambitious projects in domestic policy are paralyzed, so Joe Biden can focus on foreign policy, where he has more power, and expand multilateral cooperation.    The European Union is beginning to develop, for the first time, a spirited common international policy, in contrast to the dissent during the Iraq war, when the governments of Britain and Spain were on one side and those of France and Germany on the other. The rulers of China and India, which are rivals to each other, have told Russia that the world is not ready for war.    This configuration with more than three major powers points to a balance of powers capable of avoiding polarization, since, otherwise, a coalition of two-to-one preludes conflict.     Specifically, the Group of Seven, which is the nucleus of a latent world government, needs to work more closely with some members of the Group of Twenty, which includes India and China, so that its decisions are widely accepted and effective.    Negotiations between the US and the EU for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in which substantive agreements had been reached, were paralyzed by Trump, and could now be revived.    The Trans-Pacific Agreement for Economic Cooperation was also abandoned by Trump, but the other eleven initial countries went ahead on their own and ended up signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which China has presented its candidacy. Many in the United States are clamoring for re-entry in what had been its own initiative.    And after the war in Ukraine, a new international structure will have to be defined, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, in which, as Kissinger said in a recent interview, "Russia should find a place."    Realism shows that the seeking for power explains many things, and the balance of power can prevent a general war. But when there is neither a single dominant power nor a confrontation between two, "liberal" rules and institutions may be the best mechanism for peace and multilateral cooperation.Also in Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia-click       While President Biden is not clear, and sometimes he is confusing about how the war in Ukraine could end, some other voices in Washington can speak and suggest more clearly. Several of them did it a few days ago at the Financial Times Weekend Festival, which was held, for the first time outside England, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.The first surprisingly constructive intervention was from William J. Burns, the current CIA Director. Just a year ago, he came from retirement after a long career as a diplomat, and as such, in his presentation, the conversation with an FT journalist, and the dialogue with the audience, he showed a broader vision than the usual spies. When he was Ambassador in Boris Yeltsin's Moscow in the mid-1990s, Burns already felt that the NATO expansion until the borders of Russia was "premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst." More specifically, to push for NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia was "a serious strategic mistake that did indelible damage" –an opinion that at the time was shared by the governments of France and Germany. In an official encounter, Putin had told him that Ukraine in NATO "would be a hostile act toward Russia."Burns emphasized, of course, that there is "absolutely no justification for the invasion of Ukraine." Yet, he resumed that kind of strategic explanation while dismissing the ideological elaborations that pretend either justify or condemn the attack. In short: Russia has "pushed back" after Ukraine moved westward away from Russian influence.In his view, nevertheless, Putin miscalculated regarding the power of the Russian Army (which was sent to a "special operation" not planned by its generals), about Ukrainian resistance, and with the supposition that the West would be distracted by elections in Germany and France. He tried to explain the recent candidacies of Sweden and Finland to NATO as a deterrent against Putin's other potential attacks in the future. But the Director of the CIA did not utter a word that could be interpreted as supporting Ukraine's NATO membership.Even more thrilling was the participation of Henry Kissinger on "the new world disorder." The former Secretary of State is 99 years old this month, announced a new book of immediate publication, and for nearly one hour was focused, clear, and insightful, also in a dialogue with the audience. Kissinger started by using his academic background and remarking that the foreign policy's main priority of Russia, which is the largest country in the world, has always been to protect its huge territory from invasions. From this perspective, after the Cold War, the country's leadership was "offended" by NATO's absorption of Eastern Europe.Now –he noted— public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation, but by reflecting on the previous failures of the several governments he advised, he lamented that, again, nobody knows where we are going. Kissinger had already opposed Ukraine's candidacy to NATO when President Bush and Vice-president Cheney launched it in 2008. Six years later, at the Russian occupation of Crimea, he warned that Ukraine should not join either the East or the West, but it should function as "a bridge" between the two. He had predicted that otherwise, "the drift toward confrontation would accelerate."Most striking was his warning about the use of nuclear weapons. "I would not make Ukraine's membership to NATO a key issue," he remarked at the Kennedy Center. It would be "unwise to take an adversarial position," mainly because of the horrible danger of a nuclear war. His approach was certainly in contrast with that in the 1970s, of which he was reminded, when the gibberish theory of the "domino" was used to attack one country after another. Bush and Cheney still used that approach in the early 2000s to justify "preventive wars." I got the impression that with aging, intelligent people like Kissinger may feel that it is not worth trying to deceive himself again, and despite his physical frailness (or perhaps because of that), his more mature brain moves in the direction of more honest and clear thinking. His main argument was that in the past, although confrontation was addressed to "preserve the balance of power" between the US and the Soviet Union, at the same time, he also promoted agreements for nuclear arms reduction and control. Nowadays, modern technology would produce much worse destruction, so he claimed for a "new era" in which the governments should take more care about the consequences of nuclear arms and favor diplomacy above all. Kissinger reminded the audience that, in the past, nuclear countries such as the Soviet Union and the United States accepted military defeats from non-nuclear countries, such as in Vietnam and (both) in Afghanistan. Even more now, "we have to deescalate to conventional arms and learn to live with adversarial relations." Kissinger has met Putin more than twenty times and asserted that "there is still room for negotiation" with him. In Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia

This paper aims to shed light on the right to information and the freedom of the media in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. Infection disease outbreaks are invariably characterized by myths and rumors, boosted by social media accounts, that media often pick up and circulate. Under the justification to avoid panic and confusion, and to combat "fake news" during the COVID-9 pandemic, some governments took emergency measures that curtail the freedom of information. The lack of a legal definition of the term "fake news" leaves room for arbitrary and broad interpretations. Decrees issued during the state of emergency – including the practice of detaining journalists for their work and the abuse of pre-trial detention and Internet censorship – sound like measures adopted to restrict the freedom of expression and the freedom of the media, and to shout down dissenting voices. Any kind of pressure against journalists has an immediate consequence, not only on them but also on the public's right to be informed. Media play a key role in providing important information to the public, and a pluralistic and vibrant media landscape is indispensable to any democratic society. Access to information and a free working environment are therefore essential and need to be ensured at all times, even under state of emergency. Authorities cannot invoke the state of emergency or national security as a motivation to suspend or limit fundamental human rights. The fight against COVID-19 can be a pretext for restricting civil liberties. ; Paper presented in joint session JS RN16- RN32: Subnational level perspectives on the governance of the pandemic at the 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association 2021 (ESA Conference 2021), Wednesday, 1 Sept. 2021: 12:30pm - 2:00pm CEST. Session Chair: Louisa Parks, University of Trento. This study was supported by the European Social Fund (FSE) and by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under research grant No. SFRH/BD/136170/2018. The participation in this conference was ...

Colonial encounters between indigenous peoples and European state powers are overarching themes in the historical archaeology of the modern era, and postcolonial historical archaeology has repeatedly emphasized the complex two-way nature of colonial encounters. This volume examines common trajectories in indigenous colonial histories, and explores new ways to understand cultural contact, hybridization and power relations between indigenous peoples and colonial powers from the indigenous point of view. By bringing together a wide geographical range and combining multiple sources such as oral histories, historical records, and contemporary discourses with archaeological data, the volume finds new multivocal interpretations of colonial histories

On 22 September 2020, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice dismissed Austria's appeal against the General Court's Judgment endorsing Commission Decision (EU) 2015/658 ('the Judgment'). The Judgment was the first opportunity for the Court to rule whether the nuclear energy sector is subject to State aid rules and indicate when aid for the construction of a nuclear power plant can be declared compatible by the European Commission pursuant to Art. 107(3)(c) TFEU. As such, the Judgment provides guidance on the applicability of EU law in the nuclear energy sector as well as the interpretation of Art. 107(3)(c) TFEU.

With a view to recent European standards affecting social inclusion of particularly vulnerable groups, the author analyses the specific role of ethnic minorities in defining a comprehensive economic development policy. Social models that enable the active participation of minorities in economic life at a national, regional or international level require dedicated national action plans for the eradication of poverty and social exclusion, facilitated by regional networking between kin-states and host-states. This article describes the relationship between social progression and public recognition of ethnic minorities in relation to the level of economic development of a particular region. ; Peer reviewed

The cracks in the international order that politics and scientific policy advice have been confronted with for several years have widened further as a result of the corona pandemic and its consequences. The outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum and US President Donald Trump's erratic administration between 2017 and 2021 have already called into question long-held foreign policy assumptions concerning ever-advancing globalisation and rule-based multilateralism. Unsettled by these developments, which go hand in hand with growing populism and the spread of "fake truths", foreign policy think tanks have begun to discuss what effects these will have on scientific policy advice. Relevant contributions to the debate in recent years are presented below, re­volving around key questions such as these: Given the increasingly polarised political environment, what are the challenges scientific policy advice is now facing and how should think tanks position themselves vis-à-vis the public and politics? And how can they maintain their independence and scientific integrity in these uncertain times? (author's abstract)

When political opponents Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness were confirmed as First Minister and Deputy First Minister of a new Northern Ireland executive in May 2007, a chapter was closed on Northern Ireland's troubled past. A dramatic realignment of politics had brought these irreconcilable enemies together-and the media played a significant role in persuading the public to accept this startling change. The Propaganda of Peace places their role in a wider cultural context and examines a broad range of factual and fictional representations, from journalism and public museum exhibitions to film, television drama and situation comedy. The authors propose a radically different theoretical and methodological approach to the media's role in reporting and representing. They ask whether the 'propaganda of peace' actually promotes the abandonment of a politically engaged public sphere at the very moment when public debate about neo-liberalism, financial meltdown and social and economic inequality make it most necessary