De Jure Research Articles

Na drodze ku przełomowi. Cerkiew greckokatolicka w Polsce lat 80. XX w.

TOWARDS A BREAKTHROUGH: GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLAND IN THE 1980s The 1980s brought certain policy changes towards the Greek Catholic Church in the communist-run People’s Republic of Poland. While the communist government never recognized this community (this occurred only after the free elections in June 1989) de jure, during the 1980s, the activities of the Greek Catholic clergy began to be tolerated to some degree. This lenient treatment also included some tolerance for the activities of the laity and official contacts with representatives of the hierarchy in exile. Furthermore, the last decade of Polish communist rule in Poland brought substantial changes among the Greek Catholics,or, more broadly, within the Ukrainian minority in Poland. During this time, a new generation of lay activists and young clergymen became active. In addition, Ukrainians in Poland expanded their relations with the Polish majority, including contacts with the democratic anti-communist opposition, among others. As a result, Ukrainian themes appeared in the so called second circuit (samizdat) publications distributed in Poland. These changes coincided with other phenomena and events of the decade, such as the creation of an active Greek Catholic laity or the celebration of the Millennium of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus’ in 1988. All of these changes resulted in strengthening the Greek Catholic Church in Poland, which was swiftly reborn as an independent community after the fall of communism.

Failure to Protect

Implementation mechanisms within International Law and their failure to act upon situations they were created for are much debated topics in the academic community. There are multiple examples of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law failing, across the world, in its objective of (a) creating an international obligation to prevent its violations and (b) implementing its principles via compliance mechanisms that do not exist. What is extremely worrying about this is that, although certain western nations support creating these norms, they do not have the political will to uphold them. Even though International Law has multiple implementation mechanisms, they have failed to enforce the de jure principles they have established. Nations across the world are well-aware of the lack of realistic implementation mechanisms within the International Law system but have kept this as a subject of only debates in the United Nations Human Rights Council and international conferences held under the ambit of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The failure of International Law in protecting Human Rights is due to the latent nuances of its colonial nature, which are stitched into the fabric of Public International Law. Countries that have created these norms, have created them with the aim that these norms should fail to apply to them. The paper argues that Public International Law has an intrinsic colonial nature, created for the twin purpose of loot and then acting as a justification for the same. The paper further argues that International Human and Humanitarian Rights regimes form a smokescreen for International Economic Law and allows it to operate in its shadows without much notice. To reinforce this argument, the paper uses Marxist theory of ideology critique, which states that law works as a disguise for the real processes at work, within the International legal system. The real forces at work remain unknown, while contemporary debate focuses on Public International Law and its failings (Danilenko 1999). It is essential to understand the fundamental issue this structure boils down to, i.e., the Great Powers can direct any action they desire with no fear of consequences, while other countries have no recourse due to the difference in economic and military might. This intrinsic colonial nature of International Law exists in an apparatus that tries to maintain the status quo with the Great Powers at the top.

The effect of globalisation on Sub-Saharan Africa’s development thrives

In this study, the effect of globalisation (both its de jure and de facto components) on economic development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is examined. The work utilises an ex-post facto research strategy and analyses panel data of 35 SSA nations from 1995 to 2018 using the Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCCE) estimation methodologies and the System Generalised Method of Moments (SGMM) techniques. These techniques are chosen based on their ability to account for cross-sectional dependence, cross correlation, and endogeneity. The KOF globalisation index, which takes into account the economic, social, and political aspects of globalisation as a predictor, as well as the human development index as indicators of economic development, are used in the study. The results show a strong and positive correlation between globalisation and economic development in SSA, particularly with the integration of global flows and activities (de jure and de facto globalisation index). The findings are robust to different specifications and estimation techniques. The study, therefore, concludes that globalisation could be an engine of SSA’s economic development if governments reviewed their liberalization policies to take into account globalization issues and challenges.

Judicial independence: Why does de facto diverge from de jure?

An independent judiciary is often hailed as one of the most important aspects of the rule of law. Securing judicial independence (JI) via explicit constitutional rules seems straightforward and there is evidence that de jure and de facto JI are linked, at least in the long term. However, the realized degree of judicial independence often diverges significantly from the constitutionally guaranteed one. Based on a worldwide panel dataset from 1950 to 2018, we find that a negative gap, that is, when de jure JI > de facto JI, is very common. Factors associated with a decreasing gap are the number of veto players and the extent of press freedom and democracy, whereas corruption is associated with an increasing gap between de jure JI and de facto JI.

Judicial resistance during electoral disputes: Evidence from Kenya

Over the last decade, African courts have played an important role in the conduct of free and fair elections. In Kenya, the Supreme Court nullified the presidential election of the incumbent. These rulings challenge the conventional wisdom that courts in hybrid regimes always support power holders despite blatant evidence of electoral fraud. Furthermore, these sparks of judicial resistance deserve our scholarly attention as they have the power to start the democratization process or limit further autocratization. Hence, this paper seeks to understand the conditions under which courts are able to resist incumbents’ pressure to legitimize electoral malpractice and side with the opposition. I argue that institutional reforms incentivize courts to resist the incumbent’s pressure and to rule in favor of the opposition during electoral disputes under two conditions. First, institutional reforms must reinforce de jure independence by enacting effective legal and constitutional mechanisms that prevent the executive branch from undermining the separation of power. Second, institutional reforms must mobilize judicial support networks by granting them the tools to engage in strategic and repeated litigation. I test this novel theory by leveraging original qualitative and quantitative data from Kenya. Using process tracing, I show how the 2010 constitution created an environment where the courts had no other choice than to annul the election of the incumbent – President Kenyatta – in 2017.

The limits of generality for constitutional design

AbstractJames Buchanan was a fervent advocate of a non-discriminatory politics. However, he translated his views on constitutional political economy into (de jure) constitutional design in an insufficiently thoughtful way. Simply writing non-discriminatory politics into a Constitution is unlikely to have the desired effect. All Constitutional language is open to interpretation and political entrepreneurs will be ready to push interpretation in their favoured directions. The history of US Constitutional law bears this out. This does not necessarily discount Buchanan's quest for constitutionalized non-discriminatory politics. However, it does mean that it must be tempered by realistic concerns regarding constitutional design. With this in mind, I suggest that focusing on procedural, rather than substantive, Constitutional provisions may be more fruitful.

Belligerent occupation or creeping annexation? Identifying the red flags

The prohibition of territorial acquisitions by force is undisputed. Scholars agree that an occupying power cannot annex any of the territory it occupies, or its status would become illegal. But at what point does an occupation regime cross a legal tipping point into annexation? This article seeks to conceptualize the threshold between occupation and creeping annexation. It posits that, to answer that question, it is necessary to make an overall assessment of the quality and quantity of the display of the occupant state’s powers over the occupied territory. The study analyses nine examples of de jure or de facto annexation. Through a systematic comparative analysis of those nine examples with three other case studies of belligerent occupation in which the occupier(s) did not have the animus to annex the occupied territory, the article identifies several ‘red flags’ of an occupying state’s intention to integrate a territory. While these indicators are not legal conditions of creeping annexation, they are a tool that legal scholars and policy makers could use to trigger preventative action or inform the international community’s response to situations of creeping annexation.

The Unlevel Playing Field: Gender, Discrimination, and Global Attitudes toward Trade

Abstract The gender gap in support for trade is one of the most robust empirical findings to emerge from research on public opinion in international political economy. Even controlling for differences in education, skill level, industry affiliation, and other factors, women express consistently more protectionist views than men. Less frequently noted, and thus far unexplained, is that this gender gap varies cross-nationally. We advance an explanation that draws attention to national differences in gender discrimination, predicting that the gender gap will be larger in countries with greater gender discrimination. Using two decades of public opinion data across twenty-two OECD countries and measures of de facto and de jure gender equity, we conduct three separate empirical analyses of the relationship between levels of equity, women’s trade attitudes, and the gender gap. The results support the contention that unequal gender treatment is an important driver of the gender gap in trade attitudes.

Towards responsible standardisation: investigating the importance of responsible innovation for standards development

ABSTRACT Responsible Innovation has recently been taken up in public policies and discourses. However, it remains challenging to institutionalise its core dimensions – inclusion, anticipation, responsiveness, reflexivity, and transparency – in practice. De jure standardisation is increasingly seen as an instrument to embed the core principles of Responsible Innovation in innovation processes, because of its anticipatory and inclusive nature. Yet, Responsible Innovation within the standardisation literature is an under-researched field of study. This paper explores and evaluates the relative importance of Responsible Innovation’s core dimensions in the standards development process. We identify eighteen criteria that are deemed essential to the quality of standardisation processes. The Best-Worst Method was used to rank these criteria on their perceived importance. Diversity of participation was found to be the most important contributing factor to the quality of standardisation.

Water Tenure Security for Palm Oil, Hydropower, and Geothermal

Oil palm plantation, hydropower and geothermal depend on water to sustain their operations. This paper will analyze two factors affecting its water tenure security: how water is allocated in the legal framework and the relative strength of a particular tenure against other tenures. The case study areas are the Kahayan Catchment (Central Kalimantan) and the Citarum Catchment (West Java). This paper applies FAO’s analytical framework: elaborate tenure typology, map water uses and weigh the security of the particular tenure with some modification. We find that the water tenure security for oil palm is weak since it sits at the bottom rung of the allocation framework. We posited that environmental water use, especially for the prevention of forest fires – as well as water, uses for daily basic needs would be prioritized over commercial water use for smallholder oil palm farmers or corporate oil palm. Furthermore, customary water tenure, although weak in the legal sense (de jure), can be strong in terms of practice (de facto); this could diminish oil palm water tenure security should there be an overlap or intersections among them. Water tenure security for hydropower is “weak to medium” – but this depends on whether they are related to investment schemes that could strengthen their tenure legally. In the legal framework, the allocation for hydropower is prioritized below daily basic needs, drinking water utilities, and smallholder crops. Following a legal analysis, we find that the strength of water tenure for geothermal in conservation area is weak.

New Regulatory Force of Cyberspace: The Case of Meta’s Oversight Board

It’s been a few years since Facebook (Meta) instituted its Oversight Board as a new quasi-judicial and regulatory body of one of the most important contemporary cyberspaces. It’s long established that social media platforms, such as Facebook, pose certain challenges to democracies as they, among other issues, allow for spread of fake news and hate speech, shift our perception of reality, or create echo chambers. In reaction to talks of regulating similar platforms, Meta’s self-regulatory attempt of instituting the Oversight Board appears to tackle the issue of content moderation by the platform itself. As the content moderation is one of the main sources of Meta’s problematic reputation (taking down posts, pages of various more or less known persons), the board is potentially significant. The paper analyses the board’s mandate, governance structure and procedures. We look at standard elements of independence of decision-making bodies (such as courts) to establish whether the Oversight Board is structured in a way conducive to independent decision making. We conclude that that structure of the Oversight Board fulfils some of the elements of the de jure judicial independence, however there is a room for improvement. Independence of the Oversight Board from Meta is a vital element of the institution, however we detect connections and dependencies on Meta (Meta needs to agree on changes of the Charter as well as the Bylaws, Meta was profoundly involved in the initial selection of the members, etc.). The whole structure of Oversight Board is heavily impacted by the private law institutes – trust, company, contracts – which might not be able to fully facilitate all the needs of an independent quasi-judicial body. The private structure, lacking necessary participatory mechanisms, does not permit the Oversight Board to gain necessary legitimacy. We also review the Oversight Board’s setup in light of the EU’s 2022 Digital Services Act (DSA), which represents one of the most comprehensive regulations of the social media platforms, including content moderation issues. We conclude that the Oversight Board would also not be compliant with requirements set forth in the DSA. After the adoption of the DSA, a question of compatibility of the Oversight Board with the out-of-court dispute settlement bodies opened.

Economic growth effects of de facto and de jure trade globalization in ECOWAS

Economic growth effects of de facto and de jure trade globalization in ECOWAS

Examining the Impact of Financial Openness on Domestic Interest Rate in Nigeria

The sensitive role played by domestic interest rate in the economy has made studies on its determinants paramount. This study therefore used the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds framework to investigate the impact of financial openness on domestic interest rate in Nigeria over the period from 1980–2020. The study included three de facto financial openness measures, namely: foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, FDI outflows and portfolio investment as well as one de jure financial openness measure, namely: capital account openness. The short-run results revealed that while FDI inflows had a negative but non-significant impact on domestic interest rate, the impact of FDI outflows was positive and significant. The short-run results also indicated that while foreign portfolio investment had a positive but non-significant impact on domestic interest rate, the impact of capital account openness was positive and significant. In the long-run, the study revealed that FDI inflows had a negative but non-significant impact on domestic interest rate. In another vein, while FDI outflows was found to impact on domestic interest rate positively, the impact of capital account openness was also found to be positive. The study therefore concludes that domestic interest rate in Nigeria was influenced positively by both FDI outflows and capital account openness in the two time horizons and this has implications for monetary policy setting. Based on these findings, the study recommends that apart from the traditional policies used in the control of domestic interest rate, monetary authorities in Nigeria should also regulate capital outflows in their quest to direct interest rate to a desired direction.

Accusations of racist language in Norwegian football: stakeholder management of whistleblowing

This qualitative study analyses whistleblowing in relation to incidents of racism in one Norwegian Premier Division FC. Focused on stakeholder management, the paper examines: (1) the management of the whistleblowing case and its impact on stakeholders; and (2) how the stakeholders’ roles changed over time. Main findings: a) the failure by the board to act effectively on the original complaint allowed the dispute to escalate; b) the actions of the whistleblower’s colleagues were crucial in forcing a reopening of the case; c) some stakeholders were conflicted by being both stakeowners and stakewatchers; d) the inaction by regulartory organisations (stakekeepers); e) the extent to which power, urgency, legitimacy and homogeneity of interests were crucial in determining the management of the incident; and f) the requirement for stakeowneers to reinforce their de jure ownership with effective, de facto, leadership.

Hidden hazards and screening policy: Predicting undetected lead exposure in Illinois

Lead exposure still threatens children’s health despite policies aiming to identify lead exposure sources. Some US states require de jure universal screening while others target screening, but little research examines the relative benefits of these approaches. We link lead tests for children born in Illinois between 2010 and 2014 to geocoded birth records and potential exposure sources. We train a random forest regression model that predicts children’s blood lead levels (BLLs) to estimate the geographic distribution of undetected lead poisoning. We use these estimates to compare de jure universal screening against targeted screening. Because no policy achieves perfect compliance, we analyze different incremental screening expansions. We estimate that 5,819 untested children had a BLL ≥5μg/dL, in addition to the 18,101 detected cases. 80% of these undetected cases should have been screened under the current policy. Model-based targeted screening can improve upon both the status quo and expanded universal screening.

Exploring Cybersecurity Awareness and Resilience of SMEs amid the Sudden Shift to Remote Work during the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Pilot Study

Exploring Cybersecurity Awareness and Resilience of SMEs amid the Sudden Shift to Remote Work during the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Pilot Study

The nonlinear relationship between poverty and financial globalisation: A panel quantile regression approach

AbstractUsing data from 109 countries from 1980 to 2018, we examine the nonlinear relationship between financial globalisation and poverty. Financial globalisation is further segregated into de facto and de jure dimensions to study their differential impact on poverty. We have two main findings with important implications. First, our results point to significant nonlinearities, indicating that the relationship between financial globalisation and poverty is non‐monotonic. There exists a threshold above which the marginal effect of financial globalisation on poverty is negative. Moreover, the effect of financial globalisation on poverty is stronger for countries with high institutional characteristics. Second, we also show that the effect of financial globalisation is non‐monotonic and heterogeneous across different quantiles of poverty distribution. The effect of financial globalisation is relatively stronger at the higher quantile of poverty distribution for the overall sample. However, we find the existence of a U‐shaped and an inverted U‐shaped relationship between financial globalisation and poverty across quantiles, conditional on a country's economic development and institutional quality. The results are robust to alternative measures of poverty and financial globalisation. We account for unobserved heterogeneity and use multiple econometric approaches to validate our results.

A New Look at Abigail’s Wisdom

Abstract This paper offers a new look at the design of Abigail’s character as a wise woman in 1 Sam 25, based on an analysis of the argumentative component of Abigail’s speech and the connections between her speech and the book of Proverbs. According to this analysis, Abigail is not only portrayed as a rescuer, but is also designed in the image of the wise educator in the book of Proverbs, who teaches David a fundamental theological principle about relying on God instead of on his own strength—despite the essential legitimacy to harm Nabal. This message is relevant to David’s status as an anointed king de jure, but as a refugee de facto. David’s adherence to Abigail’s message designs his character as a wise person who is willing to learn, indicating that the narrative justifies David’s monarchy through his encounter with Abigail.

The «Mongolian Question» in Soviet-Chinese Relations (1921-1925)

The article deals with the problematic and key issues of Soviet-Chinese relations related to the formalization of the legal status of Mongolia, which was called the “Mongolian questionˮ. The “Mongolian questionˮ was a stumbling block in Soviet-Chinese relations, since de jure Mongolia was part of the Republic of China, and de facto it had all the features of an independent state. The solution of the “Mongolian questionˮ lay in the plane of a revolutionary ideological and diplomatic nature, where Mongolia was given an important place as a transit corridor in promoting the ideas of the world revolution to the East, providing military assistance to the people's revolutionary forces of both China and Mongolia. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the evolution of Soviet-Chinese relations, accompanied by complex diplomatic negotiations between China and Soviet Russia, the struggle between the Comintern and foreign policy structures. Analysis of scientific literature and sources showed that in transnational history the “Mongolian questionˮ was a complex and multifactorial phenomenon, which included a complex of both internal and external factors, including the relationship between Soviet Russia and China. at the revolutionary class and diplomatic levels, as well as Mongolia's own ideas in the struggle for state independence.

Carbon neutrality along the way to participate in global value chains: the threshold effect of information globalization of BRICS countries.

Using panel data from BRICS countries over the period 2000 to 2018, a multi-variate threshold model was built to investigate how global value chain (GVC) participation and information globalization affects CO2 emission. We further decompose the information globalization into two indicators, i.e., de facto measure and de jure measure. The main findings show that the estimated value of threshold is 4.02 and 1.81 for both de facto and de jur measures of information globalization. The findings suggest that information globalization rate above the threshold level negatively affects the carbon emissions. De facto and de jure measures show a strong single threshold effect when GVC participation is chosen as the major explanatory variable. Similarly, participation in GVCs has a large single threshold impact when information globalization is taken as the primary independent variable. Overall, the results show that the larger the information globalization for the countries under analysis, the modified impact of GVC participation on CO2 emission reduction is larger. The robustness test validates the stability and coherence of the study's findings. The opportunities that the information globalization along the approach to participate in GVCs presents for the accomplishment of carbon neutrality should be properly utilized by policymakers. There should be expansion the participation in GVCs with digital infrastructure and to enhance the assessment system for the use of technology spillover effects to increase environmental-friendly GVC ladder.