International Mandates Research Articles

Green Shipping: Technological Innovations for Sustainable Development in the Global Maritime Industry

The article aims to investigate the developmental trends of green shipping. In light of the escalating global awareness of environmental protection, green shipping has emerged as a pivotal orientation for the international maritime industry. This paper will delve into the international mandates for green shipping, the stipulations of international regulations, the concrete manifestations of green shipping on vessels, as well as the application of technologies such as wind-assisted propulsion, dual-fuel diesel engines, and hydrogen energy in the realm of environmental sustainability.

Improving crop growing conditions with water treatment residual and compost co-amendments: Soil-water dynamics.

Land application of water treatment residual (WTR) in combination with phosphate-rich organic wastes, like compost or sewage sludge, in nutrient-poor soils was previously shown to promote crop growth. This WTR diversion from landfill to agriculture supports local and international mandates for waste circularity. Although soil-water dynamics-like saturated hydraulic conductivity, water retention, and hydrophobicity-are well-defined for compost and somewhat defined for WTR (except for hydrophobicity), the impacts of co-amending sandy soils with both are not well-defined. In laboratory analyses, co-amendment had an intermediate effect between individual amendments on the hydrophobic sandy soils, increasing water retention by 27% (WTR and compost both increased water retention), decreasing hydrophobicity by increasing hydraulic conductivity twofold (WTR and compost both decreased hydrophobicity), and having no effect on saturated hydraulic conductivity (decreased by WTR and increased by compost). With two positive effects and one "no effect" on soil-water dynamics in laboratory trials, the co-amendment was expected to buffer both crop water use efficiency (WUE) and nutrient availability under drought stress, for Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris L. var. cicla), co-investigated in a multifactorial pot trial. Soil nutrients, particularly phosphate, were shown more critical than soil-water dynamics to improve crop WUE. Thus, co-amended soils have significantly higher crop biomass and WUE than sandy soils. Phosphate-rich organic co-amendment is necessary for crop nutrient sufficiency and thus drought resilience in sandy soils amended with WTR. Thus, pairing wastes to soils for optimum fertility is a critical consideration in waste land application for both biomass and drought resilience.

The Upholding of Human Rights in Wartime: An Exploration of International Mandates and Challenges

The Upholding of Human Rights in Wartime: An Exploration of International Mandates and Challenges

Territory in the Work of the Institut de Droit International

This essay reviews the work of the Institut de Droit International, for the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its founding in 1873, that addresses the acquisition or status of territory during the epochs of imperialism, sacred trust of civilization, and territorial administration by or under the United Nations. Section A of this essay introduces the work in a summary fashion. Section B briefly describes the context for each epoch. Section C highlights the challenges and controversies in each epoch surrounding the related topics studied by the Institute. Section D analyzes the three resultant resolutions. Section E briefly comments on the impact of the work, and Section F concludes by taking a look into the future. By and large, the work of the Institute relating to acquisition or status of territory stays very close to the leitmotifs or practices of the different epochs, although one can glean glimpses of inching forward on the part of the Institute, or more so of certain members. Notable examples are its assessment that notice of occupation is required to make it effective and may be done in the normal way of giving publicity to official acts or through the diplomatic channel, and its view on the international mandates system that, “The communities under mandate are subjects of international law. They have a patrimony distinct from that of the mandatory State; they possess a national status, and they may acquire rights or be held to their obligations.” The Institute’s work can be considered solid “codification” efforts. As such, the work, just like any other private codification efforts, may conceivably contribute to the strengthening of the relevant practice, for good or ill, or for good and ill, as we can see that such practice in the past, together with the codification that aspired to reflect it, can never catch up with the future.

Gender sensitive parliaments and the legislative cycle: conceptualising new cultures and practices

ABSTRACT As an emergent international norm, gender sensitive parliaments offer parliamentarians and parliamentary staff a new lens through which to consider all aspects of their institutional culture and work practices. In this article, I consider the origins, application and remaining gaps in one particular aspect of gender sensitive parliaments: gender mainstreaming legislation across its entire ‘life cycle’. I begin with a reminder of the international mandates for gender sensitive legislation (GSL), acknowledging a historical emphasis on the responsibility of political institutions to ensure legislation, policy and programmes address – rather than exacerbate – gender inequality. I then assess the tools that have been developed over the past 20 years to support GSL and discuss enduring limitations in its implementation, relating to political will, the collection and analysis of quality data, and inadequate parliamentary opportunities and mechanisms for gender sensitive scrutiny.

Development of a Novel Care Rehabilitation Pathway for Post-COVID Conditions (Long COVID) in a Provincial Health System in Alberta, Canada.

Objective. The purpose of this study was to describe the development and composition of a codesigned, multidisciplinary, integrated, systematic rehabilitation framework for post-COVID conditions (PCC) that spans the care continuum to streamline and standardize rehabilitation services to support persons with PCC in Alberta, Canada.Methods. A collaborative, consensus-based approach was used, involving 2 iterative provincial taskforces in a Canadian provincial health system. The first taskforce (59 multidisciplinary stakeholders) sought to clarify the requisite facets of a sustainable, provincially coordinated rehabilitation approach for post-COVID rehabilitation needs, based on available research evidence. The second taskforce (129 multidisciplinary stakeholders) translated that strategy and criteria into an operational framework for provincial implementation. Both taskforces sought to align with operational realities of the provincial health system.Results. The summation of this collaborative, consensus approach resulted in the Provincial Post COVID-19 Rehabilitation Response Framework (PCRF). The PCRF includes 3 care pathways across the care continuum, specifically targeting in-hospital care, continuing care, and community-based care, with 3 key elements: (1) the use of specific symptom screening and assessment tools to systematically identify PCC symptoms and functional impairments; (2) pathways to determine patients’ rehabilitation trajectory and to guide their transition between care settings; and, (3) self-management and education resources for patients and providers.Conclusion. The PCRF aligns with international mandates for novel codesigned, multidisciplinary approaches to systematically address PCC and its myriad manifestations across the care continuum. The PCRF allows for local adaptation and highlights equity considerations allowing for further spread and scale provincially, nationally, and internationally.

Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Kosovo and Lessons to be Learned from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Abstract This article examines challenges in seeking justice for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (crsv) survivors in Kosovo. It analyses the roles and responsibilities of international missions and how deficiencies impact the prosecution and adjudication of crsv by Kosovo’s justice system. A key question is why two decades after the 1998–1999 war in Kosovo survivors of crsv cannot find justice? The end of the international mandates, the large number of war crime cases transferred, unfinished files, and the necessity for specific expertise in handling the gender-based violence are some of the existing challenges which undermine the prosecution and adjudication of crsv in Kosovo. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (icty) established accountability for sexual violence in armed conflicts. This article seeks to scaffold the icty experience by developing an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the nature of crsv and by examining its impact on survivors and victims’ alike. This paper then explores how a contexualist interpretation of international and domestic criminal law provisions can prioritise the prosecution of crsv amid other pressing needs in Kosovo.

Resetting education priorities during COVID-19: Towards equitable learning opportunities through inclusion and equity

Worldwide, COVID-19 has affected the most deprived communities the hardest and exposed many systemic inequalities, leaving nations vulnerable and destitute. The need for quality education, while heeding to international mandates, including enacting the sustainable development goals (SDG), has become more apparent in promoting equitable and inclusive education for all, which remains a challenge in South Africa with its inherited inequalities. The purpose of this study was to understand how the COVID-19 challenge refocused the commitment of five principals from rural schools in two education districts of the Northern Cape province of South Africa to address resurfaced historic inequalities, including digital access and fluency to attain an equitable learning environment. Semi-structured emailed interviews were conducted with the participants. A thematic analysis of their experiences of the pandemic through the lens of flexible learning theory, revealed that teachers and learners often experienced discrimination-related stress, especially with virtual learning approaches, as schools often cannot offer remote services to advance learning. Furthermore, the participants voiced their uncompromising commitment to inclusion while engaging teachers and learners in identifying possible problems and proposing solutions post-COVID-19. Though the current crisis seems to have perpetuated and deepened existing inequalities in disadvantaged rural South African schools, some school principals are hopeful that as the reality has now been laid bare, it may prompt more urgent action. The paper recommends that school principals and teachers will have to refocus teaching practices towards flexible, inclusively delivered teaching through working collaboratively across disciplines so that they build their personal resilience and advance their technological skills to meet the demands of remote and online learning during a pandemic and beyond.

Human Rights without Support of the Concerned State: A Comparative Analysis of Successive Human Rights Council Mechanisms Established for Burundi and Myanmar

The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) is the central United Nations institution charged with protecting and promoting human rights globally. In response to human rights violations in specific countries, the HRC may exercise its authority to establish fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry to help bring wrongdoers to justice. As an inter-governmental body, the HRC favors cooperative arrangements with states in which human rights violations have occurred. Nevertheless, the HRC has acted over the objections of governments to establish human rights mechanisms. This report examines four occasions on which the HRC has done so: when it established successive fact-finding and investigative bodies for Burundi and for Myanmar, respectively. To gain insight into the conditions under which the HRC will proceed to establish fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry without the cooperation of the country in question, the report identifies the public explanations HRC member states offered of their votes on the resolutions creating or extended these international mandates. To gain insight into the consequences of creating human rights interventions under these circumstances, the report also reviews the substantive findings and operational challenges of each mechanism.

Emergency flood bulletins for Cyclones Idai and Kenneth: A critical evaluation of the use of global flood forecasts for international humanitarian preparedness and response

Humanitarian disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan (SE Asia, 2013) and the Horn of Africa drought (2011–2012) are examples of natural hazards that were predicted, but where forecasts were not sufficiently acted upon, leading to considerable loss of life. These events, alongside international adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, have motivated efforts to enable early action from early warnings. Through initiatives such as Forecast-based Financing (FbF) and the Science for Humanitarian Emergencies and Resilience (SHEAR) programme, progress is being made towards the use of science and forecasts to support international humanitarian organisations and governments in taking early action and improving disaster resilience. However, many challenges remain in using forecasts systematically for preparedness and response. The research community in place through SHEAR enabled the UK government's Department for International Development to task a collaborative group of scientists to produce probabilistic real-time flood forecast and risk bulletins, aimed at humanitarian decision-makers, for Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which impacted Mozambique in 2019.The process of bulletin creation during Idai and Kenneth is reviewed and critically evaluated, including evaluation of the forecast information alongside evidence for how useful the bulletins were. In this context, this work seeks to navigate the “murky landscape” of national and international mandates, capacities, and collaborations for forecasting, early warning and anticipatory action, with the ultimate aim of finding out what can be done better in the future. Lessons learnt and future recommendations are discussed to enable better collaboration between producers and users of forecast information.

Multisector exposure and vulnerability to climate change in India: Case of National Capital Territory of Delhi, India

PurposeThe idea is to propagate the concept of climate resilience in India beyond international mandates and bold statements, enabled through utilization of open data. The research underscores need for climate responsive planning for megacities in India with an example of National Capital Territory of Delhi, the capital of India whose trends and policies often form a blueprint for others to follow.Design/methodology/approachThe research was conducted in six distinct, yet inter-related stages: literature review, data collection, data analysis at four levels – city, zonal, planning division and flood plains inhabited by climate vulnerable population with least adaptive capacity, formulating alternative scenarios of future development, evaluation of scenarios, conclusions and recommendations.FindingsIndia has approximately 8,000 urban centres. Less than 2% of these centres have a planning document. Less than 1% of these documents acknowledge climate change as a phenomenon let alone a challenge to urban future. It is therefore a priority to address the challenge from a planning perspective for India.Research limitations/implicationsMethodologies for evaluating the multiplier effect are still in their pre-final stage and there exist uncertainties and margin of error.Practical implicationsAligned with pre-tested methodologies, the research through extensive empirical and spatial-temporal analysis indicates severity and irreversibility of socio-economic and environmental losses.Originality/valueRisks and vulnerabilities to climate change and climate induced disasters exhibit multiplier effect that varies spatially across a region's demography. Quantitative analysis of multiplier effect on the secondary environment is rarely explored in climate studies. The paper addresses this lacuna by examining climate risks to Indian megacities with a case example of Delhi. The findings suggest that urbanization, climate risks and natural environment are interlinked, where an impact of one generates ripples across other two and their secondary environment plus sectors.

\u2018Mankind owes to the child the best that it has to give\u2019: prison conditions and the health situation and rights of children incarcerated with their mothers in sub-Saharan African prisons

BackgroundIn recent times, sub-Saharan African (SSA) prisons have seen a substantial increase in women prisoners, including those incarcerated with children.MethodsA scoping review mapped what is currently known about the health situation and unique rights violations of children incarcerated with their mothers in SSA prisons. A systematic search collected and reviewed all available and relevant published and grey literature (2000–2018). Following application of exclusion measures, 64 records remained, which represented 27 of the 49 SSA countries. These records were charted and thematically analysed.ResultsFour main themes were generated as follows: 1) the prison physical environment; 2) food availability, adequacy and quality; 3) provision of basic necessities and 4) availability and accessibility of health services for incarcerated children.ConclusionsThe review highlights the grave situation of children incarcerated with their mothers in SSA prisons, underpinned by the lack of basic necessities, inadequate hygiene, sanitation and safe drinking water, exposure to diseases in overcrowded cells, inadequate nutrition, lack of provision of clothing and bedding, and difficulties accessing paediatric care. Reported paediatric morbidity and mortality associated with such prison conditions is deeply concerning and contrary to international mandates for the rights of the child, right to health and standards of care.

Is the right to early intervention being honoured? A study of family experiences with early childhood services

This article presents an empirical study of family interactions with childhood disability and early years services in Ontario, Canada, with a focus on whether the right to early intervention is being honoured. International mandates, national legislation, and local policies have increased global awareness of the rights of children to be provided with environments for optimal healthy development and education, including the right to early intervention. The right to early intervention is articulated by the United Nations in several international declarations and conventions. Article 20 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989) was the first convention to use the term disability. It specifically addresses the particular rights of disabled children, with articulation of the right to “enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance, and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community” (A.20, s.1, 1990). Further, the CRC clearly states that children have the right to special care and assistance for both the child and the service providers working with the child. Services are to be delivered free of charge in order to ensure that the child has access to education, training, health care, rehabilitation, preparation for employment, and recreation services. In all cases these services must consider the fullest social integration and individual development that is consistent with cultural and spiritual beliefs (A.20, s.2-4).

Revisiting tourism studies curriculum to highlight accessible and inclusive tourism

ABSTRACTA notable development in the past few years is that the concept of accessible and inclusive tourism (AIT) has gained momentum. This paper has two aims: first, to identify the extent to which tourism studies curricula can cultivate ethical behaviour in light of international legal mandates and conventions promoting the rights of people with disabilities (PwDs); and second, to point up AIT as a broader concept that matters to other population groups, namely seniors, pregnant women and families with baby carriages, people who follow special diets or have different morphologies to be integrated into the much larger category of people with special needs (PwSNs). This study was conducted with 254 self-administered questionnaires to tourism and hospitality students and recent alumni. The results of the study suggest that disability in tourism studies is a rather neglected topic of discussion.

The Politics of Global Public Health in Fragile States and Ungoverned Territories.

The reasons for global health crises and how the world responds to them have dramatically changed over the last half century. Increasingly, natural disasters result in failure of public health and security systems leading to preventable conflict, unconventional war and unprecedented population migration. While scientific expertise exists to mitigate these failures in fragile states and ungoverned territories, inactions are mired by the lack of political will, international legal mandates, and capacity to strategically monitor multidisciplinary public health indicator failures.

The what, why, and how of culturally responsive teaching: international mandates, challenges, and opportunities

This discussion acknowledges that culturally responsive teaching is relevant for international contexts. However, it needs to be nuanced to fit the specific characteristics and needs of these different settings, relative to societal dynamics, and student ethnic, cultural, racial, immigration/migration, economic, and linguistic demographics. Consequently, it offers both challenges and invitations for specific instructional practices. The character and causes of these challenges and invitations are discussed, along with some suggestion for how they can and should be addressed. They are analyzed through four areas of thought and action essential to culturally responsive teaching. These are its definitional attributes; the importance of teacher beliefs about and professional preparation in/for cultural diversity; the societal and school-based demographics and how these affect culturally responsive teaching in action; and the profound influences that culture has on teaching and learning. The argument is made that these complexities demand serious consideration in planning and implementing instructional programs and practices for and about cultural diversity. It is imperative in so doing that educators’ decisions and actions are guided by principles of local contextuality; plurality of instructional methods and means informed by different configurations of students and societies in different nations; and that cultural understanding is the baseline from which effective educational decisions are made for diverse students, schools, and communities.

The R2P Is Dead, Long Live the R2P: The Successful Separation of Military Intervention from the Responsibility to Protect

Roland Paris is one of those authors whose work is always enjoyable, as he exploits so well the gap between the policy world and academia. His best work reveals a high level of policy insight often before many of his colleagues in academia have caught up. His secret is an ability to analyse the shifting understandings at policy level and to then articulate them in academic terms as if critiquing current policies. This enables his work to be both popular with policy-makers and with their erstwhile critics in academia. His 2004 monograph, At War’s End, captured the shift from peacekeeping intervention and ‘early exit’ to the extended remits of international statebuilding (‘Institutionalization before Liberalization’). It provided a wonderful rationalisation of policy shifts that had already occurred in the late 1990s, starting with the extension of international mandates in Bosnia, from 1996 onwards, and further developed with the Kosovo protectorate in 1999. However, this shift was skilfully reposed as a critique of existing policy-understandings.

Transcending Aboriginality and Minority: Indigeneity in Asia As a Construct of Structural Oppression Under the Economic Globalization Regime

While providing for some general indications as to who qualifies for indigenous rights protection, existing identification criteria in determining indigeneity grapple with theoretical challenges and have not surfaced a characteristic of indigenous peoples not shared by other minoritized or vulnerable groups. Approaches developed by legal and anthropological scholarship to determining indigenousness require pre-colonial territorial precedence. This harkens back to the phenomena of European colonization and invasion, restricts the recognition of indigenous rights to peoples in the Americas and Australasia, and excludes similar groups in Africa and Asia whose oppression was by natives of neighboring territories who assumed a position of political dominance in the aftermath of nation-building. It also makes everyone in Asia indigenous because all of them can claim precolonial territorial precedence. If everyone is indigenous, then no one is discriminated and vulnerable; ergo, there are no indigenous issues.Because of the lack of conceptual cleanliness, many Asian states deny the existence of indigenous peoples among them, claiming that all their peoples inhabited their territories at the same time. Such negates the protection international law mandates for indigenous peoples.This paper argues that to determine indigeneity at present, it is imperative to look at the normative undercurrents of indigenous claims and of the international recognition of indigenous rights. Groups in Asia, in which 75% of the world’s indigenous peoples are concentrated, assert indigenousness to resist development aggression into their domains which are the richest reservoirs of Earth’s vestigial biodiversity and resources. On the other hand, international legal protection for indigenous peoples is intended to shield them from the adverse consequences of economic globalization projects. Beyond aboriginality, therefore, indigeneity is a combination of distinctive characteristics of a people claiming it and the consequences of oppressive policies imposed on it by dominant forces in society.

Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy

In the years of postwar reconstruction the experience of refugees in Italy was rapidly eclipsed, both in public discourse and in the growing number of studies on war and liberation. The need for resurrection and the desire to dissociate itself, both from Fascism and from the role it played in the Second World War, led Italian society to drive uncomfortable memories into the shadows. This forgetting of the recent past in turn engendered the misleading interpretation that the end of the war represented a watershed, and this misleading interpretation has extensively affected Italian historiography for several decades. At the end of the 1980s, some of the most relevant and controversial issues surrounding the war and postwar years started to be investigated (such as the Resistance as civil war, the deportations of Jews and the Allied bombings during the Second World War), while the history of refugees has been addressed only very recently and almost exclusively in relation to the revision of the eastern Italian–Yugoslav border. Research about Displaced Persons (DPs) still lags behind.

‘The Beautiful Faces of my Black People’: race, ethnicity and the politics of Colombia's 2005 census

The recent multicultural turn in Latin America has made the census a key site of struggle for both recognition and resources. Drawing on document analysis and ethnographic methods, this paper examines the politics around Colombia's 2005 census. I argue that Afro-Colombian organizations were successful in pressuring the state to move beyond the purely cultural notions of blackness institutionalized in the 1991 constitution and toward a broader ethno-racial Afro-Colombian category in the 2005 census. However, their success required them not only to situate their claims in international mandates and domestic law, but also to grapple with competing definitions of blackness within the movement itself. In this way, the Afro-Colombian movement has been an important actor in shaping how ‘official’ ethno-racial categories are made and remade in Colombia. This case not only sheds light on the politics of multiculturalism in Latin America more generally, but raises questions about how we understand ‘race’ versus ‘ethnicity’.