The shifting relationship between humanitarian law principles and sovereignty provides opportunities that state and non-state actors exploit in numerous ways, with some of the most creative methods being employed by weaker powers who view international law as a tool to extract otherwise unobtainable advantages from major powers. There are three different examples in which weaker powers have used international law in their relations with stronger powers. One example is Central Asia, where the post-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have used the West’s own humanitarian and democratic principles…
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DEMOCRATIC RESPONSES FOR DIGITAL REVOLUTION : DEFICIENCIES OF SPEED SCALE AND SUSTAINABILITY
Despite private corporations and citizens advocating for states to take the reins on fleshing out standards for online content regulation, thus far many Western governments have been hesitant to tread into such territory, but where they have, their responses have been relatively weak. In the European Union, some rules for online content regulation have emerged, while in the United States, no such government policy has been enacted. Regulatory efforts in the United States with regard to algorithmic transparency and accountability have also been limited and largely restricted to public use…
Read MorePOLLUTANTS THAT DEGRADE INDOOR AIR QUALITY AND THEIR EFFECT ON HEALTH
The sources of air pollution in buildings are numerous. Typically, indoor pollutants are categorized by type: chemical (semi-volatile and volatile organic compounds or VOCs, inorganic gases), biological (viruses, bacteria, molds, pet allergens, mite allergens) or physical (particulates, asbestos fibers, artificial mineral fibers, electromagnetic fields). Indoor pollution may also be described according to the three types of sources typically recognized: i) external pollution (air or ground in the case of radon, or soil contaminated by past or present industrial activity), ii) building constituents (construction materials and floor, wall and ceiling coverings)…
Read MoreEMERGING FIELD OF GLOBAL HEALTH LAW
Global health law is a field that encompasses the legal norms, processes, and institutions needed to create the conditions for people worldwide to attain the highest possible level of physical and mental health. The field seeks to facilitate health-promoting behaviour among key actors who significantly influence public health, including international organisations, governments, businesses, foundations, the media, and civil society. The mechanisms of global health law should stimulate investment in research and development, mobilize resources, set priorities, coordinate activities, monitor progress, create incentives, and enforce standards. Study and practice of the…
Read MoreTARGETED KILLING AS A METHOD OF COUNTER TERRORISM AND DRONES AS MEANS OF COMBAT AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
When one aims to describe the human rights legality of targeted killings, one has to examine the right to life. The right to life is a natural and unalienable right of men. From the point of view of its subjects, the right to life requires that no man shall be killed arbitrarily, thus it ensures the life of the individual. From the relevant international conventions a two-folded obligation seems to flow: On the one hand, states have to respect the right to life of individuals, and in certain situations– based…
Read MoreWHAT IMPACT COULD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAVE ON ELECTIONS?
The Experts/Researchers adopt a broad understanding of elections that encompasses more than the practical conduct of elections and includes the election campaign and the post-election period, when the election results are published and discussed. In its work, the Experts/Researchers have focused on three main areas where we believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) may have an impact on elections and democracy. In these areas, we believe there is particular cause to be vigilant and prepared to avoid negative consequences for elections and democracy: – The information and media landscape – Covert election…
Read MoreCLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEMS
With reference to the UN Human Rights Commission’s adoption of Resolution 7/23.2 and the flurry of preparations for the December 2009 round of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen (“UNFCCC COP-15”), several institutions had joined the call to develop the nexus between human rights and climate change. The nexus was meaningful because it demonstrated that climate change’s numerous negative impacts on human rights, particularly for already vulnerable populations, can be used as a way to measure the harm. It is also meaningful because it connects this…
Read MoreTHE SUBSTANTIVE COMPONENT OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE IN LIGHT OF TARGETED KILLINGS AND EXTRATERRITORIAL APPLICABILITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES AND TARGETED KILLINGS
When one aims to describe the human rights legality of targeted killings, one has to examine the right to life. The right to life is a natural and unalienable right of men. From the point of view of its subjects, the right to life requires that no man shall be killed arbitrarily, thus it ensures the life of the individual. From the relevant international conventions a two-folded obligation seems to flow: On the one hand, states have to respect the right to life of individuals, and in certain situations– based…
Read MoreTHE CONSEQUENCES OF POST WAR CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION: REVIEW
War Conflicts affect the lives of people not only due to the large scale loss of lives, but also due to the destruction that it causes on infrastructure and livelihoods. Thus, War conflicts create a long term impact on social, economic and political systems making it difficult for societies to revive back to normal on their own. The period after war conflict poses several challenges for the communities and governments to recover the economic and social systems, while maintaining stability and achieving sustainable peace. The recovery process necessitates post conflict…
Read MoreNEEDFUL VOTER FRAUD DEFINITION : VOTER FRAUD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIDENCE : PART II
Conceptual clarity is important in evaluating evidence of fraud. We begin with a discussion of what voter fraud is and what it is not. The first problem in defining voter fraud is that as a crime, it defies precise legal meaning. In fact, there is no single accepted legal definition of voter fraud. In fact, some states do not actually criminalize ‘voter fraud,’ although they all criminalize acts that are commonly lumped together under the term, such as illegal voting, providing false information to register to vote, and multiple voting.…
Read MoreMAJOR FOOD SOURCES AND ASSOCIATED ANIMAL AND PLANT DISEASES
With increasing globalization, the persistence of trans-boundary animal diseases (TADs) and plant diseases in the world poses a serious risk to world animal and plant agriculture and food security and jeopardizes international trade. In recent decades, the world has experienced devastating economic losses to farmers from major outbreaks of TADs, such as 1. Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) epidemic in Great Britain (2001), 2. Classical Swine Fever in the Caribbean and Europe (1996–2002), 3. Rinderpest (RP) in Africa in the 1980s, 4. Peste des Petits Ruminants in northern Kenya, India…
Read MoreFOCUS ON INDOOR AIR QUALITY IN OFFICE BUILDINGS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH PERFORMANCE AT WORK AND POSITIVE STEPS AND WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOOD INDOOR AIR QUALITY
A large part of the active population spends significant time in office spaces. In office spaces, specific sources and activities, such as the presence of printers & photocopiers & regular use of cleaning products that may produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs), raise the question of a specific kind of indoor pollution in these buildings. This indoor pollution is calculated into the Indoor Air Quality Observatory (OQAI) as a measurement. Poor indoor air quality in office spaces is associated with reduced worker performance. Numerous studies have been conducted under controlled conditions.…
Read MoreMILITARY STRATEGY IN A MORE HUMANITARIAN AGE : AN OVERVIEW WITH THE INTERNATIONAL LAW
International law has come to play an expanded role in the use of force. This expanded role has elevated evolving humanitarian law concepts over the long-standing preference for sovereignty, and has contributed to the state losing its uncontested control over the direction of war. The “state therefore has an interest in reappropriating the control and direction of war.” As Hew Strachan notes, “that is the purpose of strategy.” Arguments about international law are part of diplomacy, and “diplomatic arguments are a means to an end. They are part of a…
Read MoreNEEDFULNESS OF VOTER FRAUD DEFINITION: VOTER FRAUD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIDENCE : PART I
Conceptual clarity is important in evaluating evidence of fraud. We begin with a discussion of what voter fraud is and what it is not. The first problem in defining voter fraud is that as a crime, it defies precise legal meaning. In fact, some states do not criminalize ‘voter fraud.’ However, they all criminalize acts that are commonly lumped together under the term, such as illegal voting, providing false information to register to vote, and multiple voting. The legal incoherence contributes to popular misunderstandings. We need a basic definition of…
Read MoreGLOBAL “ONE HEALTH” LAW AND GLOBAL HEALTH LAW AS INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY LAW
If enterprises and foundations represent new actors and sources of global health law, and international adjudicatory bodies represent the future of how global health law is applied, then animals, both domesticated and wild, represent the expansion of global health law’s subjects. Human health, narrowly defined, prevailed throughout most of the twentieth century. In some ways, the comprehensive approaches to animal, human, and plant life should have been obvious and inevitable from the earliest days of World Health Organization (WHO). Its most ambitious, early eradication effort focused on malaria. This effort…
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