Suchergebnisse

The article considers the role that history and botanical politics played during the nomenclatural debates surrounding the decision taken at the XVII International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Vienna in 2005 to conserve the genus Acacia with the type A. penninervis, an acacia from the Australian group, and the confirmation of this decision at the XVIII IBC in Melbourne in 2011. What was unusual about this issue was that it was contested in the public media as well as in professional botanical circles. It also resulted in fierce critiques about how the processes of international botany should operate. Many natural scientists strongly believe that their disciplines are objective and untainted by influences outside 'science', yet this recent example from international botany shows how politics in science, and scientific politics, may cast a long shadow over scientific decisions. In terms of external influences on science, we provide an overview of the competitive claims to Acacia as a national symbol in Australia and Africa that fuelled some of the discussion. We present some of the 'compromise proposals' that were circulated in advance of the Melbourne meeting and describe that meeting, focusing on the implications of the Acacia decision for the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. We reflect on the complex role played by national identity and emotional passion for plants that has been revealed, while also highlighting how this experience has encouraged many botanists around the world to scrutinize more carefully how their international bodies function and to suggest changes and improvements.

This article examines the impact of EU law in international commercial arbitration. EU law has become increasingly relevant in the world of commercial arbitration and while this may not at first seem to be a problem, this article argues that EU law has a distinctive nature which makes it fundamentally incompatible with the arbitral legal order. In effect, the EU legal order has developed on the basis of a direct trilateral relationship between disputes involving EU law, national courts and the European Court. When we are concerned with ordinary judicial proceedings, this relationship is classically supported by the 'principle of effectiveness' identified in the case-law of the European Court, which requires national procedures to enable individuals to bring claims based on EU law. Crucially, however, the procedural demands that could be made by the EU legal order are limited by the twin 'principle of national procedural autonomy', meaning the Court refrains from directly prescribing modalities for access to national courts and leaves discretion for States to set procedures. Contrasting with this analytical framework, it is here argued that once claims based on EU law fall within the sphere of arbitration, the principle of national procedural autonomy is inoperative and the EU legal order can dictate the terms of review. It is submitted that the effectiveness of EU law is assured not by the standard principle of effectiveness but by the principle of effective judicial protection, thus securing the procedural primacy of EU law in the arbitral legal order.

The article deals with the basic international standards in the field of domestic workers. The author defines the concept of domestic workers and distinguishes it from such concepts as "freelancing", "domestic work", "remote employment". The characteristics of domestic workers are given. The article also identifies the main problems faced by domestic workers in carrying out their work and analyzes the basic guarantees for the protection of domestic workers' labor rights: prohibition of child labor, prohibition of forced labor, proper living conditions, in the case of residence in the employer's household, guaranteeing the right to rest, providing rest time, providing proper working conditions. The author stipulates the necessity to form a written employment contract and the relevant conditions. The role of private employment agencies in the employment of domestic workers and the need for legislative regulation of their activities are identified. The author also indicates the necessity to inspect working and living conditions of domestic workers. The purpose of the article is to examine key labor standards for domestic workers' activity and to make suggestions for the improvement of national legislation. The article stipulates the need for full ratification of the Convention on Decent Work of Domestic Workers No.189 in order to strengthen the guarantees for the observance of such workers' labor rights. The author proposes to implement certain norms into the labor legislation for the proper regulation of domestic workers' labor activity to ensure a proper level of respect for the rights of domestic workers.

AbstractJapan's remarkable economic success especially from the 1960s to the 1980s has attracted extensive worldwide attention. However, the world's admiration has plummeted since the 1990s, when the Bubble Economy burst, bringing on chronic stagnation. Since then, the world has regarded the Japanese economy less as a desirable model and more as an evident failure with many lessons for other economies. These external judgments, positive and negative, have also affected how the Japanese perceive their own economy. This article reviews how these domestic and international perceptions of Japan's economy have varied. It situates the companion articles by Hwang (2012) and Harada (2012) in the historical context of studies of the Japanese economy. This article especially discusses one recurring fixation that muddles comprehension of factors underpinning Japan's economic success and failure: the tendency to overestimate characteristics that supposedly are specific to Japan and different from other market-oriented economies. From the 1960s through the 1980s, scholars, commentators, policy-makers, and the public insisted these characteristics were singular and significant contributors to Japan's remarkable economic development. Since the 1990s, they have considered them the root causes of Japan's remarkable stagnation. Both are exaggerations. Although some singularly Japanese attributes perhaps contributed to Japan's economic ascent and decline, it is equally plausible they did not. It is more likely that poorly conceived and executed macroeconomic policies, especially monetary policy, had greater influence on Japan's post-1990s stagnation.

A headline of the Venezuelean daily El Nacionalista, published June 16, 2008, read: 'Venezuela se negó a seguir de rodillas ante las pretensiones del gobierno norteamericano'. A few weeks before, on May 8, president Hugo Chávez himself had said that Venezuela 'would not watch crossed-armed' ('Venezuela no se quedará de brazos cruzados') while Bolivia was driven into territorial desintegration by imperialist forces. The image of Venezuela with her arms crossed is one of slovenliness and negligence, whilst the image of it on its knees is humiliating. They both generate outrage and the need to set things 'right'. This is only an example of the often unnoticed practical and theoretical consequences of the anthropomorphic language we all use when referring to states in terms of (for example) 'weak' and 'strong' actors who 'suffer', are 'honored', are 'humiliated', have 'pride' and aspire to 'glory'. This language obscures the fact that, oftentimes, when a weak state challenges a strong one at a great cost to itself, we are not witnessing an epic of courage (as might be the case when a weak individual challenges a strong one), but rather the sacrifice of the interests, welfare and sometimes even the lives of multitudes of poor people, to the vanity of their elite. The very fact that this is being obscured biases the value structure of international relations theory, which is not only not value-free, but often has totalitarian values unintendedly built into it.

Le présent article vise à comprendre la nature des interactions entre frontières et migrations internationales dans le contexte de l'élargissement de l'Union européenne. À travers l'analyse de nouveaux flux migratoires dirigés vers la Roumanie, il est démontré que si la frontière peut, dans certaines conditions, s'estomper sous sa forme classique, elle se recompose et réapparaît en d'autres lieux, dotée de nouvelles propriétés. Les recompositions contemporaines de la frontière se manifestent à travers la multiplicité de ses usages. Une première partie est donc consacrée, à partir des migrations moldaves en Roumanie, aux différents modes de passage frontalier. Ces migrations de proximité deviennent de plus en plus durables avec la fermeture progressive de la frontière tandis que leur rôle socio-économique pour les régions frontalières a poussé les instances européennes à instaurer de nouvelles coopérations régionales. Dans une seconde partie, les formes émergentes de la frontière sont analysées. À l'heure actuelle, la frontière n'est plus seulement la ligne qui délimite le territoire de l'État ; elle est aussi un lieu ponctuel puisque les centres d'attente et de rétention des demandeurs d'asile et migrants irréguliers sont destinés à contrôler leur accès au territoire national. La frontière, enfin, est un réseau : la politique migratoire de la Roumanie s'inscrit dans la politique européenne de contrôle des flux et les pays extra-européens traversés par les migrants sont eux-mêmes de plus en plus dépendants des dynamiques en cours dans l'UE. Ainsi, loin de disparaître, la frontière reste une limite signifiante pour les territoires et les groupes sociaux.

Der Mitgliederschwund sollte die deutschen Gewerkschaften alarmieren: nur noch jeder fünfte Arbeitnehmer der noch nicht im (Vor-)Ruhestand ist, zahlt heute einen Mitgliedschaftsbeitrag, während die anderen als Trittbrettfahrer von der Arbeit der Tarifverbände profitieren, ohne hierzu beizutragen. Die Probleme der Mitgliederwerbung und -bindung deutscher Gewerkschaften werden anhand der Analyse langfristiger sozioökonomischer Entwicklungen, aber auch der rapiden Veränderungen seit der Vereinigung analysiert und im internationalen Vergleich betrachtet. Die langfristige Mitgliederentwicklung kann zum Teil auf veränderte wirtschaftliche und politische Bedingungen zurückgeführt werden. Auch der Wandel zur Dienstleistungsgesellschaft schuf besondere Herausforderungen. Die deutschen Gewerkschaften haben im Vergleich zu nordischen Gewerkschaftsbewegungen jedoch versäumt, die neuen Arbeitnehmergruppen hinreichend zu werben. Der Verlust der neu gewonnenen 4 Millionen Mitglieder im Osten unmittelbar nach der Vereinigung wurde als Sonderfall und nicht als Untergrabung des Modells Deutschland gesehen. Nicht nur der Stellenabbau, auch die Aushöhlung der Mitbestimmungs- und Tarifinstitutionen haben die betriebliche Werbungsarbeit für die Gewerkschaften erschwert. ; The German unions face disturbing membership decline. Only every fifth employee who is not yet retired is willing to pay union dues, while the others free ride as they enjoy the advantages of collective bargaining practices but do not contribute to it. The problems of membership recruitment of German unions are placed in the context of social-economic changes and the rapid decline after unification. In addition, the paper provides a cross-national comparison. The long-term membership development is partly due to the changing economic and political conditions. The shift towards a service economy poses additional challenges. But in comparison to Nordic countries, the German trade unions have failed to recruit the new social groups. Many saw the loss of the four million members in the East short after German unification to be an exceptional case, but few as undermining the German model. Not only the downsizing of firms, but also the erosion of German labour relations - codetermination and collective bargaining - made plant level access and membership recruitment more difficult.

The essay analyzes progress in the field of international negotiations. In the author's assessment, Russian research on negotiations, once a prominent discipline, is currently in decline. Despite the persistent need to study international negotiations, most scholars who had formerly been active in the field have moved to other areas. The rise of new issues demanding urgent attention, the principally changed form of international negotiations' problematique, as well as serious financial difficulties have all contributed to the discipline's decline. The author ends on a positive note and expresses the conviction that international negotiations will be revived as an academic field in Russia. She bases that conviction on the country's practical needs, as well as its growing integration into Western IR studies.

The international refugee regime is fundamentally broken. Designed in the wake of World War II to provide protection and assistance, the system is unable to address the record numbers of persons displaced by conflict and violence today. States have put up fences and adopted policies to deny, deter, and detain asylum seekers. People recognized as refugees are routinely denied rights guaranteed by international law. The results are dismal for the millions of refugees around the world who are left with slender prospects to rebuild their lives or contribute to host communities. T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Leah Zamore lay bare the underlying global crisis of responsibility.The Arc of Protection adopts a revisionist and critical perspective that examines the original premises of the international refugee regime. Aleinikoff and Zamore identify compromises at the founding of the system that attempted to balance humanitarian ideals and sovereign control of their borders by states. This book offers a way out of the current international morass through refocusing on responsibility-sharing, seeing the humanitarian-development divide in a new light, and putting refugee rights front and center.