Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword -- Notes on Co-authors -- Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction: The Goal and Structure of the Book -- 1.1 Early Occurrence of Demilitarisation -- 1.2 The Concept of Demilitarisation -- 1.3 The Birth and Impact of 'Comprehensive Security' -- 1.4 From the Cold War to a Multipolar World? -- 1.5 Militarisation Trends and Discourses Today -- 1.6 Geopolitics and Securitisation as Potential Justifications for Militarisation -- 2 The Legal Regulation of the Demilitarisation and Neutralisation of the Åland Islands -- 2.1 An Overview of the International Agreements Establishing the Demilitarisation and Neutralisation of the Åland Islands -- 2.2 The 1921 Convention on the Non-Fortification and the Neutralisation of the Åland Islands -- 2.3 The Åland Islands and Finland After the Second World War -- 2.4 Times of Challenge -- 2.5 Remarks on the Legal Validity of the Norms -- 3 The Law of the Sea and the Demilitarisation of Åland -- 3.1 Maritime Jurisdictional Zones -- 3.2 Navigational Rights -- 3.3 Navigational Rights in the Territorial Waters of the Åland Islands -- 4 Regional Security Co-operation and the Åland Islands -- 4.1 Finland, Åland and the European Union (EU) -- 4.2 Integration in the Baltic Sea Region and the Åland Islands -- 4.3 Bilateral and Nordic Co-operation: The Example of SUCBAS -- 4.4 Finland, Åland and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) -- 4.5 The Åland Islands in Regional Security Co-operation as Understood in Finland -- 4.6 Demilitarisation Between Regionalism and Multilateralism -- 5 Outlook and Conclusions -- 5.1 Peace Through Law? -- 5.2 The Concept of Sovereignty Reshaped -- 5.3 The Åland Islands Regime as Part of Contemporary Collective Security -- 5.4 Afterword: Does the Demilitarisation Add Anything to the Quest for Peace in the Baltic Sea? -- Appendix -- Bibliography

Introduction : the goal and structure of the book -- The legal regulation of the demilitarisation and neutralisation of the Åland islands -- The law of the sea and the demilitarisation of Åland -- Regional security co-operation and the Åland islands -- Outlook and conclusions

The Åland Islands received their co-sovereign standing from the League of Nations in 1921, the settlement of a Finnish–Swedish dispute. The clash was over ownership, and the league advocated that Åland should remain part of Finland, albeit elevated to the status of a self-governing polity. The verdict implied that Finland's sovereignty was significantly compromised, whereas the islands landed in an in-between situation, being neither local nor fully sovereign. The duality of Åland – remaining an integral part of Finland yet still distinct with a standing of its own, including various cultural and linguistic safeguards – meant more generally that the islands fall through the interstices of the dominant discourses pertaining to political space. However, the lack of any clear conceptual standing has not amounted to anything profoundly disadvantageous. Their liminal nature of being neither this nor that has instead furnished the islands with a rather favourable posture. Their standing, although initially perceived as a loss and still seen in some interventions as unwarranted and viewed as a source of ontological uncertainty, arguably accounts for their ability to transform what usually appears as weakness into a considerable degree of influence. The article thus aims to explore what explains such an outcome and the manner in which the ambiguity of the islands has stood the test of time, taking into account that their standing has, among other things, been impacted by Finland and the islands both joining the EU in 1995 and the sovereignty games involved.

A 19th century treaty on the demilitarisation of a small group of islands in the Baltic Sea may not appear, at face value, as a very promising incipit for an exciting academic text. Demilitarisation and international law in context: The Åland Islands, is a salutary reminder that prima facie judgments are often inaccurate. This brief study offers an examination of how demilitarisation has contributed to a peaceful resolution to a case of disputed sovereignty and reflects on the current legal and political challenges to this settlement. The overall objective of the book is: "to look at the demilitarisation and neutralisation of Åland as a long-standing regime intended to limit war" (p. 1). It is therefore relevant to numerous academic disciplines, including the international legal framework (of demilitarisation and neutrality); the international relations and political science framework of conflict resolution (intended to limit war); and the historical perspective which is adopted as a general progressive process through which the case-study is analysed. ; N/A

For an electorate numbering under 21,000 persons, voters in the autonomous Åland islands are remarkably well represented. They vote in Finnish general elections, presidential elections and European Parliament elections; they vote for a 30-seat regional assembly, the Lagting; and they vote for one of the 16 municipal councils on the islands. For Lagting elections there is one MP for barely seven-hundred voters. This low MP-voter ratio, when taken together with open-list PR electoral rules enabling citizens to cast a personal vote, and a broad consensus over Åland's self-governing status, would appear to militate against the need for party representation. Yet Ålanders are today served by an institutionalised party system which, while reflecting Scandinavian influences, is distinctive in its own right. Accordingly, this report poses three basic questions: (i) When and why did an Åland party system emerge? (ii) To what extent does it resemble the classical 'Scandinavian party system model'? (iii) What does the most recent 2019 Lagting election indicate about the balance between personal representation and party representation?. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed

The current struggle to define the basic contours of Iraq's political system pits those who support a loose federal arrangement against advocates of a return to centralized rule. Increasingly, this struggle is being defined in ethnic terms, with (mainly) Kurds defending the constitutional status quo against concerted efforts on the part of (Arab) Iraqi nationalists to reconfigure the balance of power between the center and the regions. The March 2010 election seems certain to strengthen the latter at the expense of the former. This paper outlines an alternative approach to Iraq's federalism dilemma. Using the exemplar case of the Åland it is argued that a strongly centralized Arab Iraq is not inherently incompatible with an autonomous Kurdistan Region, and that by anchoring the Kurds' autonomous status in international law, a destructive descent towards violent ethnic conflict can be avoided. (Ethnopolitics)

Abstract Lying in the Baltic sea, at the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia, 70km from the Finnish coast and 36 km from that of Sweden, the archipelago of Åland is an autonomous Finnish province. What distinguishes the archipelago is its Swedish monolingualism, autonomous government recognized by international treaties, and demilitarization. This article proposes some reflections on the concept of sovereignty in Åland in the 20th century particularly on two key elements the island's strategic position and its autonomy. After a historical overview of Åland in the 1800s, emphasizing their strategic relevance in the Baltic, I will focus on the irredentist period, in which emerged secessionist movement that called for the island's anexation to Sweden.