Act Of Sovereignty Research Articles

Reforesting Native America with Drones: Rooting Carbon with Arborescent Governmentality and Decolonial Geoengineering

The Confederated Colville Tribes collaborated with DroneSeed, a forestry drone start-up, to use drones to replant their tribal forest after a devastating fire. Using concepts from Bernard Stiegler to interrogate ethnographic data, this article argues that forestry drones are pharmaka: their biopolitics can be therapeutic, that is, negentropic, capable of reversing ecological simplification. Drone forestry is a type of arborescent governmentality, a tree-based computer-coded attempt to control the growth of a forest. For the Colville, this negentropy is also an act of sovereignty that protects culture and honors multispecies relationships. For DroneSeed, it is an experiment in negentropic geoengineering, an attempt to profitably leverage technologies and biological regeneration to sequester carbon and reduce global existential risk. Ultimately the project was not the success desired; the failure of technoliberal projects that blend ecological and economic liberalism shows that a more radical approach might be necessary to root carbon and slow capitalism.

The Utility of Tax Residence Tests beyond Taxing Rights and the Concept of “Tests of Belonging” Given the Growing Number of Multilateral Provisions in the Context of Territorial Tax Regimes with Special Reference to Gibraltar and Hong Kong

This article discusses tax residence and its utility beyond a demarcation of taxing rights. Taking Gibraltar and Hong Kong as examples, it argues that the act of claiming tax residence is an act of sovereignty, and predicates participation in the international tax community for territories.

Opening and Changes of the Firms TIC: Case of Cuts Internet in Political Matter in Democratic Republic of Congo

The cuts of Internet in political matter started with "Arab spring" and since then know a fast progression in Africa at the point to become an international public problem today putting in scene the modes in place, in certain African States, and their opponents. Indeed, in what appears as a battle for the control of information and the control of the public opinion, there are on a side the African governments which, to justify the interruption of Internet, propose the need for safeguarding of the law and order like act of sovereignty, in fact the right to prevent the misinformation and any illegal publication of the electoral data. On the other side, there are the oppositions which view this step as the violation of the principles of freedoms, in particular the freedom of expression, at ends of fiddle of the electoral data.
 The scientific stake of this analysis, starting from African case studies, and of the RDC in particular, is to reflect on the ambivalence of the decision to cut Internet, in order to as well show the consequences of these restrictions on the economy, the credibility of the elections, the social one and, by the same occasion, to carry a glance on the reaction of the international community.

The Conjecture of Sovereignty: New Anxieties for the Subject

Sovereignty continues to be an issue for political theorisation of its adherence to and resistance against specific ideological forms and interventions. Many of these political deliberations have assumed the constitution and contours of sovereignty to be a sovereign moment wherein in retrospect, there appears to be an act of sovereignty by the subject as part of a wider collective movement. Although Agamben and Santner seek ways to escape sovereignty framed as necessarily oppressive, nevertheless there are moments in which sovereignty still appears a desirable exception. This conundrum is considered in two scenarios: Pfaller’s exposition of the smoker as mundane, independent sovereign pleasure, and the recent #metoo movement as collective sovereign suffering. It is argued that in order to situate a discussion of sovereignty which departs from complete resistance to or escape from it, a recourse to Lacan’s concept of extimacy informed by Schmitt’s public interest as rule of law, is vital. Here we find that sovereignty is a concept and practice very much caught up with jouissance of the foreignness of extimacy which itself relies on the invisible other for cogency. It is both upon recognition of this sovereignty and in anticipation of it that jouissance and anxiety are harnessed in a process which, crucially, demands acting against the law. It appears that sovereignty is necessarily grounded in extimacy, a principle which although separating the subject from its context also apprehends it as obedient to the law. In staging the sovereign moment as one of anxiety and joussiance this paper claims that although the concept of sovereignty may today be little more than an illusion, we nevertheless continue to pursue it.

“Noblemen became enthroned”

This paper is an attempt to clarify the typological essence of the Georgian state at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. Ivane Javakhishvili believed that it was appropriate to describe the Georgian state of those times as a limited monarchy. Others (Professors S. Meskhia, I. Antelava, ...) did not share this opinion. They argued that autocracy was better matched to the kingdom of Queen Tamar's times. Primary sources and the analysis of scholars’ opinions have convinced us that Javakhishvili was right, although the system of power of any country cannot be fully placed within the frames of a specific stereotype of classification. The Georgian state of Queen Tamar's times can be classified as a limited monarchy, oligarchy, or timocracy, the choice depending on the emphasis placed. Despite the conflicts that took place in Georgian society at that time, Queen Tamar managed to direct all political forces into one millrace and achieve accord (unanimity) between elite groups. Her domestic policy can be assessed as an “act of sovereignty” of noblemen, members of landed gentry, clergymen, merchants, and craftsmen. “What, then, strictly speaking, is an act of Sovereignty? It is not a convention between a superior and an inferior, but a convention between the body and each of its members. It is legitimate, because [it is] based on the social contract, and equitable, because [it is] common to all; useful, because it can have no other object than the general good” (Rousseau 2017, 24).

Exhaustion of Intellectual Property Rights and International Trade

The exhaustion doctrine in intellectual property law generally limits the rights of a patent, copyright or trademark owner (“IP Owner”) to control the disposition of an article after the article has been sold by or under the authority of the IP Owner. In theory the doctrine enables the IP Owner to receive fair reward for surrendering its right to withhold a product from the market but thereafter permits free disposition and movement of chattels, preventing IP rights from unduly disrupting distribution systems.Under a strict territorial application of the doctrine, a sale in country A under a country A patent (or copyright or trademark) would exhaust the IP Owner’s rights only in Country A, and the IP Owner could rely on its separate patents in other countries to enjoin sales, seek damages or possibly even require customs officials to halt infringing imports at the border. This principle would hold even though the IP rights in all the countries are essentially the same. A strict territorial exhaustion doctrine is arguably consistent with the nature of IP rights, which are granted by each individual nation as an act of sovereignty and are strictly territorial in effect; while its impact will vary with other trade conditions (relative exchange rates, for example) and across different categories of goods, a strict territorial approach can serve as a barrier to free movement of goods and cause IP rights to act as private trade barriers.Opposed to the territorial principle is the historically more widely applied principle of international exhaustion. Under this version of the doctrine a sale by or under the authority of an IP Owner anywhere exhausts its right under all counterpart IP anywhere in the world. This doctrine has always seemed difficult to reconcile with the underlying systems of national IP rights but avoids the practical problems and trade barriers of a territorial principle.Court decisions in the last few years in three major trading areas -- the EU, Japan and the US – have rejected a strict international application of the exhaustion doctrine for some forms of IP, with the result that sales of some products by an IP Owner outside Country or trading region A do not necessarily prevent the owner from using Country A IP rights to prevent imports or sales there. This is an issue which the major international trade treaties leave to individual signatories’ local law. Subject to possible limits imposed by competition laws in what will probably be relatively rare cases, IP Owners in these three major trading areas may, with greater or lesser effort, now restrict parallel trade and discriminate in sale of some goods between markets with different levels of pricing.These recent decisions, while suggesting some degree of convergence among the three trading areas, do not necessarily correlate closely with the notion suggested by Guzman* (in connection with competition laws) that such legal regimes should be supported by net exporting nations, not net importers. It is possible that as the implications of these decisions become clearer and their possible effects more evident, they will eventually lead to further consideration and possibly further international trade negotiations on the subject of parallel imports.

Grenzen vor Ort

The changing perception and reality of the boundaries of rule in Western Europe are outlined on the basis of current scholarly research and discourse. State control over the drawing of boundaries implied changes that had a substantial impact on the powers of local entities. Instead of an interactive local demarcation of boundaries, they came to be determined as an act of sovereignty by neighbouring states. Yet the populations living near the borders made their mark, appropriating them creatively according to their own perception and reality of state and nation. The tendency to regard the drawing of boundaries as an exclusive attribute of state sovereignty had an enormous effect on relations with non-European societies. Yet even in colonial contexts non-Europeans were not helpless in their dealings with European officials and authorities. The Moslem subjects of France in eastern Algeria, for instance, instrumentalised colonial surveys as a tool to be used against their Tunisian neighbours. In many places along the colonial borders of West Africa, closely linked markets were formed. The boundaries drew the population into cross-border trading networks that exploited the discrepancies in fiscal burdens. Border regions formed their own “third spaces” to whose specific requirements European officials and authorities had to adapt.

SA Biocare v. Gécamines (Zaire) and Republic of Zaire

415State immunity — Jurisdictional immunity — Expropriation — Foreign company — Claim against foreign State for damages — Policy of “Zairianization” operated by State of Zaire — Claim in Belgian courts to recover compensation payable under the law of Zaire — Whether State of Zaire entitled to invoke immunity from jurisdiction — Whether “Zairianization” of foreign-owned companies constituting an act of sovereignty — Whether recourse to procedure established by Zairian Government for recovery of compensation constituting an ordinary commercial act — The law of Belgium

"the Word for the Deed": Hobbes's Two Versions of Leviathan

This is an essay about Leviathan and its double. It attempts to display and assess implications of a differentiation within Leviathan first betrays itself in ambiguities of signification of very word?Leviathan. Thus, on one hand, Leviathan is title of a book, alternative literary expression for Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth, somehow even contents of book, its Conclusions, or Th?or?mes (111). Leviathan is treatise on Constitution, Nature, and Right of Soveraigns; and concerning Duty of Subjects, derived from Principles of Naturall Reason (254). On other hand, it is perhaps name of thing itself, state, that great Leviathan called a Common Wealth, or State (9), what he also calls an Artificiall Man (9), or the Multitude so united in one Person . . . generation of great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speak more reverendy) of Mortall God (120). Or, it could be just the Governour, whom I compared to Leviathan . . . King of Proud (221). This duality within term Leviathan serves metaphorically to represent fundamental duplica tion which exists between published text of Leviathan and replication-with-a-difference which Hobbes envisions as book's actu alization in an act of sovereignty. Hobbes dreamt of Leviathans being infused with efficacy by an act of government, thus creating two versions of book?the one textual, other an official teaching. This division between purely theoretical and immediately practical haunts Leviathan from outset. It is most generally revealed in recurring distinctions arise between things mental (ideational, logical, imaginary, and verbal) and things merely physical (experience, practice, prudence). The physical side at first takes a back seat, and we hear a lot about how only

Religious Aspects of Symbolic Acts of Sovereignty

MOST colonial territories were claimed or acquired by the symbolical ritual of taking possession. Nevertheless, this ritual ceremony is a subject that has been largely neglected in the historical literature of our nation. Few people, aside from historians, realize or know what an act of possession or sovereignty is. Even among these, there are those who simply overlook or ignore the historical importance and significance of the ceremony by which explorers and colonizers laid claim to territory in the New World. Yet there were extremely few boundary disputes and even colonial wars which did not retrace their antecedents to the performance of an act of sovereignty by some explorer of the rival colonial powers of Spain, England, and France.