Suchergebnisse

A world government based on democratic principles would be ideal, but this is unlikely to come about any time soon. However, the mere impossibility of immediately implementing an idea does not make that idea wrong. Meanwhile one can work through existing institutions such as the UN and European Union to improve accountability in the arena of world politics. Adapted from the source document.

This thesis aims to explain how small states, in this case Sweden, security politics adapts to new circumstances after great conflicts in the 20th century. The analytical model is built by a combination of the opposite theories of international politics, realism and idealism, combined with actor based and structure based perspectives and thus creating a four field analytical matrix. The empirical foundation constitutes of three post conflict periods; post-first world war, post-second world war and post-cold war periods. For every period three cases are analyzed; one foreign politics initiative, one association to an international organization and one defence politics decision. In the post-first world war period the focus is on the Swedish intervention of the Åland archipelago, the association to the League of Nations and disarmament decision in 1925. In the post-second world war period the focus is on the association of Sweden to the United Nations, the Swedish initiative to a Scandinavian defence alliance and the defence decision of 1948. In the post-cold war period the focus is on the Swedish association to the European Union, the Swedish participation in the NATO led IFOR operation in Bosnia and the defence decision in 1996. The main conclusions of these investigations are that small states, like Sweden, both are restricted in their foreign and security politics by international structures and able to use the same structure to promote their interests. Time is a key element for analyzing both structural and actor based aspects of a small states capacity. Also, in the case of Sweden, there tends to be a tension between an idealistic dominated politics and a realistic dominated politics when it comes to foreign and security politics, and that idealism seems to have increased in the latter period.

Preliminary Material /Jonas Grimheden and Rolf Ring -- Group Accommodation and the Challenges of Education: Multicultural or Intercultural or a Combination of the Two? /Asbjørn Eide -- The Importance of an Education in Human Rights /M. Arthur Diakité -- The Education of Police in Human Rights a Framework for Human Rights Programmes Forpolice /Ralph Crawshaw -- Human Rights Education in China /LI Baodong -- Human Rights Education and Research in China: the Contribution of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute /Sun Shiyan -- Human Rights Education in the Netherlands /Cees Flinterman and Stacey Nitchov -- The Protection of Civilian Educational Institutions During the Active Hostilities of International Armed Conflict in International Humanitarian Law /David a. G. Lewis -- The Self-reflective Human Rights Promoter /Jonas Grimheden -- Hugo Grotius and the Roots of Human Rights Law /Ove Bring -- Human Rights before International Criminal Courts /Vojin Dimitrijevic and Marko Milanovic -- Never Again? Rwanda and the World /Lennart Aspegren -- The Contested Notion of Freedom of Opinion /Herdís Thorgeirsdóttir -- From Protective Passports to Protected Entry Procedures? the Legacy of Raoul Wallenberg in the Contemporary Asylum Debate /Gregor Noll -- Implementing International Human Rights Law on Behalf of Asylum Seekers and Refugees: the Record of the Nordic Countries /Robin Lööf and Brian Gorlick -- The Legal Position of Asylum-seekers in Austria /Lauri Hannikainen -- Refugees in Swedish Private International Law /Michael Bogdan -- Civil Freedoms and Rights in the Swedish Constitution of 1974: the Process and the Rationale /Carl-Gustaf Andrén -- Various Interpretations of Human Rights for Women Challenges at United Nations Conferences /Elisabeth Gerle -- Implementation of International Conventions as a Socio­Legal Enterprise: Examples from the Convention on the Rights of the Child /Håkan Hydén -- List of Contributors /Jonas Grimheden and Rolf Ring.

Local natural resources (LNRs) are essential for the socioeconomy of rural societies. The United Nations (UN) Agenda 21 and "Our Common Future" state that local spatial planning is central for the prospect of balancing ecological, social and economic sustainable development (SuD). Stakeholder participation in spatial planning enhances acceptance and improves preconditions for successful planning outcomes. Consequently, it is important to increase knowledge about LNRs and the use of them and to integrate such knowledge in local spatial participatory planning with a landscape perspective. These opening statements apply to Swedish boreal municipalities and describe the intentions of Swedish municipal comprehensive planning (MCP). The purpose of this work was to examine and analyze the preconditions for integrating MCP with a landscape perspective in rural municipalities. The thesis is based on case studies in Swedish, rural, municipal contexts reported in five papers. In Papers I & II, local businesses in Vilhelmina Municipality were surveyed to describe the societal importance of LNRs. The results showed that LNRs are vital to 78 % of the businesses, of which half are based on forest farming, and there are strong bonds between entrepreneurs, their businesses, the municipality and LNRs. Papers III & IV present and discuss the characteristics of MCP in theory and practice. An e-mail survey was sent to municipal officials in all Swedish mountain municipalities. MCP-stakeholders in municipalities in Bergslagen, in central Sweden, were interviewed. Respondents in both case studies stated a belief that MCP can offer prospects in planning for SuD. However, resources and stakeholder participation in planning are generally scarce, especially in rural municipalities. Paper V illustrates how new knowledge on forest land use (to support MCP) can be gained by combining spatial and temporal data on forest condition, owners and land use values in a geographic information system (GIS). This thesis provides scientific and practical contributions to aid in efforts aiming for SuD. It is done by framing MCP theoretically and contextually and by suggesting that MCP should be extended to include forest land use and by stressing the rural context in local spatial participatory planning. Opportunities in MCP have to be embraced, but local governments need enhanced knowledge about local land use, specifically forest land use. Moreover, stakeholder participation needs to be developed, requiring more resources. In the case of a Swedish rural municipality, it is crucial that efforts are made to develop MCP as a tool, not just in theory but also in practice.

The European Commission expects the use of biomass for energy in the EU to increase significantly between 2010 and 2020 to meet a legally binding target to cover at least 20% of EU's total energy use from renewable sources in 2020. According to estimates made by the member states of the EU, the direct supply of biomass from forests is expected to increase by 45% on a volume basis between 2006 and 2020 in response to increasing demand (Beurskens LWM, Hekkenberg M, Vethman P. Renewable energy projections as published in the national renewable energy action plans of the European Member states. ECN and EEA; 2011. http://https://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2010/e10069.pdf [accessed 25.04.2014]; Dees M, Yousef A, Ermert J. Analysis of the quantitative tables of the national renewable energy action plans prepared by the 27 European Union Member States in 2010. BEE working paper D7.2. Biomass Energy Europe project. FELIS Department of Remote Sensing and landscape information Systems, University of Freiburg, Germany; 2011). Our aims were to test the hypotheses that European private forest owners' attitudes towards supplying woody biomass for energy (1) can be explained by their responses to changes in prices and markets and (2) are positive so that the forest biomass share of the EU 2020 renewable energy target can be met. Based on survey data collected in 2010 from 800 private forest owners in Sweden, Germany and Portugal our results show that the respondents' attitudes towards supplying woody biomass for energy cannot be explained as direct responses to changes in prices and markets. Our results, furthermore, imply that European private forest owners cannot be expected to supply the requested amounts of woody biomass for energy to meet the forest biomass share of the EU 2020 renewable energy target, at least if stemwood is to play the important role as studies by Verkerk PJ, Anttila P, Eggers J, Lindner M, Asikainen A. The realisable potential supply of woody biomass from forests in the European Union. For Ecol Manag 2011;261: 2007-2015, UNECE and FAO. The European forest sector outlook study,II 2010-2030. United Nations, New York and Geneva; 2011 [abbreviated to EFSOS II] and Elbersen B, Staritsky I, Hengeveld G, Schelhaas MJ, Naeff H, Bottcher H. Atlas of EU biomass potentials; 2012. Available from: http://www.biomassfutures.eu [accessed 14.10.2013] suggest. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.