China is providing different governments, with little protection of human rights, with telecommunications technology, facial-recognition hardware and analytical tools to process data. These technologies are then combined, in order to create advanced surveillance systems that can be used for policing, such as identifying political and social threats. But it also serves repressive purposes and can therefore strengthen authoritarianism. China’s export of these systems started to increase in 2012, and since 2016 it has increased even more rapidly. Many of these technological systems are on the border between public security, control…
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WAR CRIMES INTERNATIONAL ARMED CONFLICT AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE
After the end of the Second World War, the allies entered into two agreements. These were the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis (London Agreement) and Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Charter). When the Nuremberg Trials started, the accused, all Nazi Party members who actively participated in the Nazi Regime’s activities in various capacities, were charged on four counts. These were:- a. Conspiracy to commit aggression. b. Commission of aggression. c. Crimes in the conduct of warfare. d. Crimes…
Read MorePROTECTED AREAS AND COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Human actions to conserve the Earth’s biodiversity have a deep history, in which the main actors are Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have stewarded lands and resources across generations as part of their cultures and ways of life. This local conservation, which is inseparable from customary lands and resources, is distinct from the formal national and international conservation enterprise that took shape in the context of nineteenth-century colonialism, but has been greatly affected by it. Expropriation and exclusion Conservation protected areas began to be established in an era of…
Read MoreTHE APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN RECRUITMENT
The application of Artificial Intelligence(AI) in Human Resources Management (HRM) was one of the most remarkable trends among recruitment professionals from 2018 onwards. The researcher defines information extraction as a process where information and knowledge can be gathered by scanning a text. Especially in recruitment of new employees, AI can be used by information extraction techniques that can make the process of resume scanning and extraction of relevant information automated. Since the number of job applications have increased and can even overwhelm Human Resources (HR) departments, automated systems that ranks…
Read MoreMAJOR COMPONENTS OF SOIL HEALTH AND SOIL HEALTH DYNAMICS
While different authors have suggested many different ways to systematize soil health measures, they all share a common framework. Soil health can be parsed into three primary components : physical characteristics, chemical characteristics, and biological characteristics. Within each of these three components – physical, chemical, and biological – exist many possible soil health characteristics and indicators. The three major components of soil health: physical, chemical, and biological. For each, we identify what we argue are the most economically meaningful characteristics in the component. By economically meaningful, we mean the characteristics…
Read MoreTHE POWAR OF PROXIES : WHY NON STATE SPONSORS USE LOCAL MILITARY SURROGATES
The use of proxies in warfare is typically understood as a state sponsor’s reliance on military surrogates that are outside the purview of the state’s conventional armed or security forces, and that offer services to their benefactors in exchange for tangible material support. A long-standing feature in the history of armed conflict , the reliance on surrogates has become particularly endemic in the post–World War II era, with important implications for international security. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing “global war on terror,” the use of…
Read MoreTHE KEY ROLE OF STAKEHOLDERS AND EXPERTS IN SPACE AND GOVERNANCE
Institutional design includes constitutional-level rules that specify the participants, how authority is distributed, and how rules can be made, or what Hart would call “secondary rules.” Central to polycentric governance is users’ self-organization or self-governance, i.e., that users organize themselves to address shared problems and interests. In self-governance, the users of the Common pool Resources (CPRs) (e.g., fishermen fishing from the same lake, farmers using the same water basin) themselves establish, modify, and possibly enforce the rules regulating the use and protection of a common resource. As Elinor Ostrom noted,…
Read MoreDIGITAL CYBER REVOLUTION: AUTHORITARIANISM, CYBER SOVEREIGNTY AND REASSERTION OF STATE CONTROL
International law has generally recognized that, “ sovereignty is perhaps the most fundamental [principle]. From [which] emerges, inter alia, notions of non-intervention; prescriptive, enforcement, and adjudicative jurisdiction; sovereign immunity; due diligence; and territorial integrity.” A sovereign state thus maintains the right “to conduct its affairs without outside interference. Between independent states , respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations.” Extending this principal of independent sovereign control to the ephemeral territory of cyber space, Russia and China have actively advocated for cyber sovereignty—“the idea that states should…
Read MoreLEVERS TO IMPROVE INDOOR AIR QUALITY: BEST PUBLIC POLICIES/ PRACTICES AND INNOVATIVE INITIATIVES
A crucial lever is improving access to clean energy for Three billion people. Getting renewable energy on small local distribution grids will help people phase out fossil and polluting fuels. The Climate and Clean Air Coalition(CCAC) has worked with development banks and micro-finance institutions to develop programs to support impoverished communities and enable them to get access to renewable energy. One example is XacBank, in Mongolia. In this country, the smoke from coal and wood burning is a major contributor to black carbon and Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 air pollution,…
Read MoreTHE AGE OF NEW WARS: THE USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS IN ARMED CONFLICTS
In history & current warring parties, political scientists counted a large number of wars and armed conflicts worldwide, almost all of them in developed countries &developing countries. Observers of these current ‘New wars’ or ‘complex political emergencies’ have noted that the main target of the war parties is the civilian population, and systematic atrocities, massacres and bombings are often applied as rational strategies within current warfare. Some believe in witnessing a qualitative change in the way wars are waged and organized violence is exerted; in other words, a transformation in…
Read MorePRICE OF HUMAN LIFE: MEDICAL, LEGAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS
The price of a human life has never been properly assessed, and a man as a value has neither been sufficiently learned nor protected. Though seeming illogical but, if the human life is under-evaluated, more extensively and lethally endangered, then it gives way to different approaches and methods to be developed in order to determine the man like a value (price) of material and social substance. Extensive research is being carried out in different countries on the value of a statistical life (VSL). Determination of material values of a human’s…
Read MoreARE HUMAN RESPONSIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING?: THE SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The case for attributing the recent global warming to human activities rests on the following undisputed scientific facts: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere. Since pre-industrial times, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to over 380 ppm. Current concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are unprecedented in at least the last 650,000 years, based on records from gas bubbles trapped in polar ice. Independent measurements demonstrate that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels…
Read MoreADULT VACCINATION: AN OVERVIEW OF THE EUROPE, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND SOUTH EAST ASIA : PART II
The increase of life expectancy in Europe renders older people an important proportion of the general population and healthy aging is being increasingly incorporated into modern healthcare systems. In 2019 persons ≥65 years old accounted for approximately 20% of the European population, and this is expected to increase to approximately 30% by 2050. The region has had a comprehensive adult immunization schedule, which is likely related to lesser vaccine hesitancy as well as larger acceptance for adult immunization. A 2019 analysis of vaccination policies for adults in 42 European countries…
Read MoreINTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: HISTORY ADVANTAGE DISADVANTAGE AND LEARNED LESSONS: PART II
The motives behind international collaboration on the International Space Station (ISS) highlight the advantages of cooperation. This was a political decision and a positive sign of USA interest in further human space exploration becoming a global undertaking. Each country deemed this field of science as worthy of pursuing as well as saw the potential for important technological development in industry. Cooperation on the ISS can be seen as a means of closing gaps between nations. This project serves USA foreign policy and enhances relations by working together on an enormous…
Read MoreINTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: HISTORY ADVANTAGE DISADVANTAGE AND LERNED LESSONS: PART I
The idea of international cooperation regarding space exploration was not a new concept that came out of the 1970s détente era. NASA was created with this in mind. The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which formed NASA had a clause that mandated this new space agency to engage in ―cooperation…with other nations and groups of nations. Early attempts at cooperation include U.S.-European collaboration with Spacelab, while Canada was commissioned to construct the Remote Manipulator System, or Canadarm, on the shuttle. Known as the ―handshake in space, the Apollo-Soyuz…
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