International Policy Issues Research Articles

Gaskeuniversiteete (Mid Sweden University) to Host 2024 Polar Law Symposium

In September 2024, Gaskeuniversiteete (Mid Sweden University) will host the Polar Law Symposium. It will be the first time a Swedish university hosts the symposium. This symposium, which began in 2008 during the fourth International Polar Year, serves as a venue for scholars and practitioners to address emerging issues in international law and policy pertaining to the polar regions. This year’s event is scheduled for September 23–25 in Staare (Östersund), Sweden, located in the southern part of Saepmie. The symposium will focus on two primary themes: Implementation of International Minority and Indigenous Law at National Levels, and Governance, Resources, Security, and Jurisdictional Issues in the Circumpolar Area. Mid Sweden University’s role as the host underscores its high-quality multidisciplinary research profile, and growing commitment to Saami studies and research, furthering its mission to enhance collaboration with the Saami community.

Social-Educational Factors of Children’s Citizenship Education in Basic School: the Context of Lithuania

Citizenship education is a relevant issue of education and international policy in many countries, including Lithuania, especially due to the current tense geopolitical situation. In 2022-2023, after updating general education curricula, citizenship education competence is included in all subjects of general education. According to the updated Fundamentals of Citizenship programme for grades 9–10, students can develop citizenship competences by participating in nonformal education and engaging in other activities related to citizenship education. To achieve the aim of the research presented in the article – to analyze the social-educational factors of children’s citizenship education in basic school – an empirical study was carried out, for which the Diagnostic Questionnaire for the Situation of Citizenship Education by Valuckienė et al. (2017) was used. The study made it possible to distinguish the social-educational factors important for citizenship education: the child’s trust in the school staff, the child’s relationship with community events, adults’ respect for the child’s opinion, the child’s interest in news and the child’s participation in school self-government. The results of the empirical study confirmed the hypotheses: 1) respect for the child’s opinion is moderately positively related to the child’s involvement in the life of the school community, participation in school self-government and 2) adults’ respect for the child’s opinion is weakly positively related to the child’s trust in the school staff.

Dynamical simulation of the Syrian refugee crisis: quantifying the driving factors of forced migration

With over 21 million refugees at the end of 2021, forced migration across national borders has become a global reality and a major international policy issue. This paper proposes a dynamical model based on the Syrian Refugee Crisis to quantify the factors that influence a refugee’s decision to migrate and the destination choice. The model simulates refugee migrations in space and time, from the moment they flee their country of origin until they are granted asylum in a host country or lose refugee status by attrition or repatriation. Migration is driven by comparative attractiveness scores based on differences in quality of life, political stability, societal violence, cultural familiarity, and distance between countries, while accounting for risk aversion and psychological inertia. By comparing simulation results to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data, we determine weight parameters that quantify the relative importance of each attribute in inducing a migration flow. The model is a computationally efficient forecasting and ex-post analysis tool, providing insight into the dynamics of refugee flow and effect of immigration policies.

Study of teachers’ readiness for tutoring support of pre-professional programs for students of psychological and pedagogical classes

Introduction. Pre-professional pedagogical training of schoolchildren is a relevant issue of international educational policy, since it ensures students’ early professional self-determination based on the principle of individualization and stepwise inclusion in the profession. Obviously, it is necessary to develop a mechanism of support for high school students’ professional self-determination and to organize their psychological and pedagogical training with the use of tutoring and mentoring technologies when implementing individual preprofessional programs. The paper aims to present the results of the study of teachers’ readiness for tutoring support of pre-professional programs for students of psychological and pedagogical classes, as well as to reveal promising ideas and directions for professional training. Materials and methods. The study, aimed at assessing the level of teachers’ readiness for tutoring support of pre-professional programs for students of psychological and pedagogical classes, involved 74 teachers from educational organizations of higher and general education in Chelyabinsk (Russian Federation). The generalization and reflection of their own pedagogical experience made it possible to identify diagnostic tools for revealing the components of teachers’ readiness. Results. Using the developed diagnostic toolkit for determining the level of teachers' readiness for tutoring support of pre-professional programs, it was revealed that only 16.6% of teachers were ready for this activity. A low level of the cognitive-practical component of readiness was revealed in 56.7% of teachers, which is related to insufficient theoretical knowledge and practical skills of tutoring support. The motivation-value component was formed only in 18.9% of teachers who consistently showed interest in tutoring support and understood the importance of tutoring activity in the pre-professional training of schoolchildren. The analysis of the results of the reflexive component showed the basic level of teachers’ readiness (47.3%) and, as a consequence, sufficient skills of organizing reflexive activity in different situations of communication with students of profile classes in the process of mastering the future profession. Conclusion. The results of the empirical study show the relevance of the need to optimize the content and forms of retraining and advanced training of teachers implementing tutoring support for pre-professional programs and individual routes for students of psychological and pedagogical classes. It is required to shift the focus from formal organizational functions to targeted tutoring functions, assuming individualization and personalization of high school students’ professional self-determination.

Putting the Artificial Intelligence in Alternative Dispute Resolution

This article argues that the evolving regulatory and governance environment for artificial intelligence (AI) will significantly impact alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Very recently, AI regulation has emerged as a pressing international policy issue, with jurisdictions engaging in a sort of regulatory arms race. In the same way that existing ADR regulations impact the use of AI in ADR, so too will new AI regulations impact ADR, among other reasons, because ADR is already utilizing AI and will increasingly utilize AI in the future. Appropriate AI regulations should thus benefit ADR, as the regulatory approaches in both fields share many of the same goals and values, such as promoting trustworthiness.
 Keywords: artificial intelligence; online dispute resolution; alternative dispute resolution; regulation; governance; trustworthiness; transparency; fairness; diversity; explainability.

Modern approaches to ensure the welfare of productive animals

Animal welfare is a multifaceted issue of international and state policy, which requires a socio-economic, religious, and cultural approach, must consider international trade features, and must correspond to the vector of development of modern society. The new global plans and challenges of the animal protection community are to help feed the world healthily and sustainably that takes face the needs of people and is safe for animals. The protection and provision of animal welfare depend on the species differences of agricultural and productive animals, which are determined by physiological, biochemical, and behavioral factors, as well as on the differences between climatic zones, which are analyzed in the article. Modern animal husbandry systems must meet the latest knowledge about stress and be based on the science of ethology, comply with the concept of the “Five freedoms” of the welfare of productive animals, based on which a system of clear standards of animal welfare has been developed and implemented as a component of national and international public policy, commerce, and trade. However, animal welfare science continues to develop and deepen our understanding of the interaction between humankind and agricultural species by integrating ethological, physiological, and biochemical methods, methods of assessing the genotype, and its interaction with the environment into the systems for assessing the quality of animal welfare. The assessment includes measuring the artificial impact of farm conditions, microclimate, etc., on the general animal’s welfare and the interaction between individuals in the middle of a limited population. An important factor that has affected animal welfare recently is the restrictions introduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected feed supply chains, animal transportation, and limited access to high-quality veterinary services. In recent years, Ukraine has been actively implementing the international experience of animal welfare regulation into domestic legal acts. It continues harmonizing with the European Union's legal system, which covers animals' welfare during their keeping, transportation, and slaughter. A key element on the way to the practical application of the principles of animal welfare is the training of specialists – doctors of veterinary medicine, who would be aware of the importance and necessity of such approaches in their daily professional activities.

Reinforcing Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Health in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Panacea for Sustainable Human Rights Protection

The rights of indigenous peoples have become an important issue of international law and policy over the past three decades as a result of movements led by indigenous peoples, civil society, international mechanisms and states at the domestic, regional and international levels. Indigenous peoples are widely recognized as being among the world’s most vulnerable, disadvantaged and marginalized peoples. In order to identify, recognize and protect the rights of indigenous peoples, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of who the indigenous people are. Moreover, the definition that is derived cannot be static, but must change with the times and from place to place as well as adapt to the changing circumstances and environments. This paper analyses the statutory definitions of indigenous peoples and their rights as provided under the United Nations legal framework and other regional frameworks. Furthermore, it examines the unique perspectives on health held by indigenous peoples as well as their vulnerability to the COVID-19 pandemic. The question that was posed in this paper, however, was whether the right to health extends to indigenous peoples, thereby making it binding on a far greater number of actors. And what are the issues that pertain to the human rights of indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, this paper noted that the United Nations Human Rights System, as well as its mechanisms, laws and policies have been at the heart of these developments. This paper takes an analytical and qualitative approach to its research and builds its argument on existing literature, which is achieved through a synthesis of ideas. The paper concludes that the rights of indigenous peoples are increasingly being formally incorporated into the domestic legal systems of various countries.

Fairness in International Taxation: The Ability-to-Pay Case for Taxing Worldwide Income

Copyright © 2001 by J. Clifton Fleming, Jr., Robert J. Peroni & Stephen E. Shay. All rights reserved.The ability-to-pay fairness concept is a key factor underlying the historic U.S. policy of relying principally on the income tax to finance federal government expenditures. Indeed a major justification for this reliance, as opposed to significant dependence on consumption levies, is that the income tax is a system for spreading the costs of government in a way that advances fairness by giving substantial deference to comparative ability-to-pay.Consequently, one would expect tax policy analysts to routinely examine the equity implications of international income tax rules by applying the fairness criterion with the same rigor as in the domestic context. But surprisingly, there has been relatively little discussion in the literature regarding the role of the ability-to-pay concept in analyzing international tax policy issues. This may be because the composition of international investment historically has been dominated by the direct foreign investments of multinational corporations, which pose perplexing issues in evaluating fairness concerns. Even if true, however, this is an inadequate reason to forego analysis of fairness considerations when scrutinizing the important international dimension of a modern income tax. In this article, we examine the role that fairness concerns, embedded in the abilityto-pay concept, play in justifying the U.S. policy of taxing U.S. residents on their worldwide incomes.

How Disability Income Benefits Affect Employment for Persons with Disabilities in China: An Impairment-Based Work Disability Assessment Perspective.

Reconciling the potentially conflicting goals between income benefits and employment has become one of the key issues in international disability policy for working-age persons with disabilities. Inspired by the often-criticized experience of disability income benefits having an exclusory effect on employment of persons with disabilities in welfare states by two mechanisms—the disincentive effect of the generous benefits based on the work incapacity of persons with disabilities and the impairment-based work disability assessment for attaining these benefits—this paper aims to examine how disability income benefits affect employment for persons with disabilities in China. Using the life-story interviews method, this paper found that the disability income benefits for persons with disabilities based on their work incapability create “quasi-employment” perceptions among recipients with disabilities. The impairment-based work disability assessment for attaining these benefits excludes persons with disabilities from formal employment but does open them to more informal employment. Implications for policy are discussed.

China actively promotes CO2 capture, utilization and storage research to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality

China actively promotes CO2 capture, utilization and storage research to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality

Z. Brzezinski’s Strategic Vision of the U.S. Foreign Policy in Late 20th Century and First Two Decades of the 21st Сentury

The study of the influence of Brzezinski (both - as of scientist and politician) on the formation of directions and principles of foreign policy of the United States presidential administrations for almost 50 years allows us to understand the essence of U.S. world leadership and its dynamics in the context of global security and cooperation architecture. The article considers the issue of practical use of elements of Z. Brzezinski's paradigm in the U.S. foreign policy since 1977 until now, yet it is stressed that the advisory and assistance regarding international policy issues was provided by Z.Brzezinski to the US highest level decision-makers and leaders since 1956. The impact of his consultations and recommendations on the foreign policy decisions of the presidential administrations of J. Carter, R. Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, B. Clinton and B. Obama has been analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the incorporation of Z. Brzezinski's concepts during his work on the position of National Security Adviser to President J. Carter (1977-1981) into the field of the U.S. foreign policy of that time. Special focus is made on his role in supporting of anti-communist underground movements, human rights and independence supporters and political dissidents inside the Warsaw Pact countries and USSR itself, including Poland, Baltic countries and Ukraine during the presidencies of J.Carter and R.Reagan. Some international political problems that occurred in the process of implementing the U.S. foreign policy under the presidencies of G. W. Bush Jr and D. Trump in the context of deviations from the concepts proposed by Z. Brzezinski are emphasized especially those that led to the attempts of restoring the Russian neo-empire and violation of the international laws and rules of coexistence. The potential use of the ideas and approaches from Z.Brzezinski’s scientific and political heritage by President J. Biden are considered.

Legal protection of Germany's national interests in the field of environmental security: the evolution of approaches

It is widely recognised that climate change is having malign effects on human life. Climate change is a global issue, but the political action necessary to address it is inevitably local and national as well as international. The security dilemma is one of the most important theoretical ideas in international relations. The content of security policy is evolving because "security" is a social structure, the content and structure of which is constantly changing depending on the transformation of existing and the emergence of new threats and challenges (climate change, destruction of the ozone layer, desertification, fresh water shortages, etc. - the list of current environmental problems in the XXI century is increasingly supplemented by new threats. Scholars, policy-makers, and activists have proposed broadening use of the concept security beyond its traditional military focus to take into account environmental threats that seriously jeopardize human well-being. This paper explores how ecological and climate problems have fundamentally changed the way we think about security. The non-physical security, diversification of threats, and the salience of identity are key effects of globalization in the security realm. These security effects translate into certain behavioral tendencies in a Germany foreign policy that have thus far not been studied in the literature. The claim that environmental factors should be integrated into the concept of security was first made in the early 1980s. In the late twentieth - early twenty-first century the concept of security has been expanded and applied to address many of the most important issues of international relations theory and security policy. Environmental issues are not only to be treated as non-military threats to the security of societies, but can also work to promote cooperation and peace-building. In modern conditions, the ability of the state system to respond to environmental hazards is criticized, and therefore fundamentally different management structures are proposed as a replacement for it. Therefore, targeted climate protection policies at the international and regional levels, as well as at the national and local levels, are needed to effectively address environmental and climate threats and challenges. Germany positions itself as a regional and world leader in the field of environmental protection and climate. The idea of ​​caring for the environment is gradually becoming an essential element of the value system, legal culture and national identity of German society and the state, which it not only promotes both in the European Communities / European Union and beyond, but also consistently protects. Within the framework of the EU environmental policy, there is room for independent national action by the German government. This guarantees Germany a free choice of national strategies in promoting environmental policy.

Betamax: Has The Privy Council Gone Too Far In Seeking To Ensure That The Second Look Test Does Not Become A Second Guess Test?

Questions of public policy often arise in international arbitrations, including, in particular, issues of competition law and corruption. Arbitrators’ power to adjudicate these issues is conditional upon national courts’ power to review such issues when faced with annulment applications and/or objections to enforcement applications (the ‘second look’ test). However, national courts are divided as to whether, when doing so, they should be allowed to second-guess an arbitral tribunal’s decision on whether there has been a breach of international public policy. In its recent decision in Betamax, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the highest court of appeal for Mauritius, constituted of members of the UK Supreme Court) came down very firmly against second-guessing. After having presented the different approaches that various jurisdictions have adopted on this issue, this article proposes that national courts should be allowed to further inquire into and potentially second-guess arbitrators’ decisions on issues of international public policy, provided that the party applying for the setting aside of the award establishes before the competent court a strong prima facie case that there has been illegality such that recognising or enforcing the award would give rise to a breach of international public policy. Betamax, Public policy, corruption, bribery, money laundering, competition law, illegality, setting aside of arbitral awards, enforcement proceedings

Перспективные подходы в международной конфликтологии: коммуникационный аспект

The paper presents the analysis of modern political communications in terms of availability of adequate information and scientific and educational resources within the political discourse. The theoretical and methodological framework of the article is based on political communication studies being the most essential focus area of modern political science. The authors present the analysis of history and the current state of political communication issues being an element and a tool to study political processes, identify the specific characteristics of public political discourse in the context of existing contradictions in social development.
 To resolve some of the difficulties, the authors present a new unique interface (link) between political science and political discourse – electronic resources of systematized political science publications and political documents in the form of online libraries with books, articles, reports, documents available – ‘Library of a Political Scientist’ and ‘Library of a Conflictologist’, which are a unique form of inventory of available scientific and educational resources. ‘The Library of a Political Scientist’ is more universal in nature and is intended for rather broad audience. ‘The Library of a Conflictologist’, although being a more specialized information and analytical resource, at the same time contains multimedia (photos, videos, maps, infographics) and interactive (test game on six conflicts) components, which is in line with the modern educational and research paradigm. These resources are a new way of filing political science publications; they are intended to maintain by means of information and references modern scientific discourse in Russia on topical issues of Russian national and international policy, as well as international political conflictology in the geopolitical arena of Russian interests.

What Drives House Price Cycles? International Experience and Policy Issues

The role of real estate during the global financial and economic crisis has prompted efforts to better incorporate housing and financial channels into macro models, improve housing models, develop macroprudential tools, and reform the financial system. This article provides an overview of major, recent contributions to the literature in relation to earlier research on what drives housing prices and how they affect economic activity. Particularly emphasized are studies, both theoretical and more strongly evidence-based, that connect housing markets with credit markets, house price expectations, financial stability, and the wider economy. The literature reveals much diversity in the international and regional behavior of house prices and the need to improve data tracking key housing supply and demand influences. Also reviewed are studies examining how monetary, macroprudential, and other policies affect house prices and access to housing. This survey is designed to help readers navigate the plethora of recent studies and understand the unsettled issues and avenues for further research. The findings should be of interest to policy makers concerned with financial stability as well as those dealing with the role of housing in the wider economy (JEL E32, E44, E63, G01, G21, R31).

Regulating loot boxes as gambling? Towards a combined legal and self-regulatory consumer protection approach

Loot boxes represent a popular and prevalent contemporary monetization innovation in video games that offers the purchasing player-consumer, who always pays a set amount of money for each attempt, the opportunity to obtain randomized virtual rewards of uncertain in-game and real-world value. Loot boxes have been, and continue to be, scrutinized by regulators and policymakers because their randomized nature is akin to gambling. The regulation of loot boxes is a current and challenging international public policy and consumer protection issue. This article reviews the psychology literature on the potential harms of loot boxes and applies the behavioural economics literature in order to identify the potentially abusive nature and harmful effects of loot boxes, which justify their regulation. This article calls on the industry to publish loot box spending data and cooperate with independent empirical research to avoid overregulation. By examining existing regulation, this article identifies the flaws of the ‘regulate-loot-boxes-as-gambling’ approach and critiques the alternative consumer protection approach of adopting ethical game design, such as disclosing the probabilities of obtaining randomized rewards and setting maximum spending limits. This article recommends a combined legal and self-regulatory approach: the law should set out a minimum acceptable standard of consumer protection and industry self-regulation should strive to achieve an even higher standard.

European Union policy on 5G: Context, scope and limits

5G is considered a key technology for society but its implementation is currently surrounded by controversy. Beyond its technical aspects, 5G has become a question of security and national interest for many States as well as an international policy issue. Technological autonomy and digital sovereignty are increasingly recognised as strategic priorities on a global scale. In this context, the EU's position is unique, basically for two reasons. On the one hand, the EU has unintentionally become part of the playing field in the US-China dispute over technology companies and 5G. On the other hand, any policy of the EU or its Member States is constrained by the nature of 5G as an area of either European or national competence. The delimitation of their competences is not clear, just as there is no transparent and understandable distinction of their 5G responsibilities. In order to clarify this situation, a comprehensive analysis of the European competence and legal frameworks is necessary. After that, the study of the evolution process of this European policy provides an overview of its scope and limits. Finally, the paper explains the procedures and instruments of this European policy and concludes by assessing its implementation and development prospects. The possibility of reaching technological autonomy and digital sovereignty for the EU and its member states depends, for the time being, on this European policy.

Some aspects of the study of international standards in the field of combating domestic violence and its impact on the criminal law policy of Ukraine

The article states that domestic violence, existing in all spheres of public life, as a result leads into the destruction of family values, violation of human and civil rights and freedoms, makes an irreparable impact on mental and physical health of victims. Therefore, since ancient times it has been a problem of human existence, and, unfortunately, it is to remain relevant nowadays. In modern social developments, counteraction of domestic violence is one of the priorities not only of internal policy of any state, but also an issue of international criminal law policy. In particular, the study of about its extension in different countries proves the international nature of this negative social phenomenon. The fact that counteraction of domestic violence has become a part of Ukraine's domestic policy to create a society free of gender-based violence, was finally affirmed on November 7, 2011, when the Ukrainian state joined the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence adopted by the Council of Europe of May 11, 2011. The most important event in the history of criminal law policy in the field of domestic violence was the adoption on December 6, 2017, of the bills «On Amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of Ukraine to implement the Council of Europe' Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence». As a result, on January 11, 2019, the General and Special parts of the Criminal Code of Ukraine were supplemented with a number of norms related to the scope of counteraction of this negative social phenomenon.

Ways to Improve the Organizational and Economic Framework for the Use of Marketing in Agriculture in the Context of Modernization of the Economy

After 20 years of neglect by international patrons, agriculture is now again in the headlines because high food prices are increasing food anxiety and poverty. In the coming years, it will be important to increase food productivity and production in developing countries, expressly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian countries like Afghanistan with smallholders. This, however, wants finding viable solutions to a number of complex procedural, institutional, and policy issues, including land markets, research on seeds and inputs, agricultural extension, credit, rural organization, connection to markets, rural non-farm employment, trade policy and food price stabilization. This paper reviews what the economic poetry has to say on these topics. It debates in turn the role played by agriculture in the development course and the interactions between agriculture and other economic sectors, the determinants of the Green Revolt and the foundations of agricultural growth, issues of income diversification by farmers, approaches to rural growth, and issues of international trade policy and food security, which have been at the root of the crisis in agricultural commodity instability in recent years.

Legal aspects related to the access of natural family planning services: patient’s right to accurate and impartial information

Natural family planning methods historically were considered as a separate group of family planning methods as opposed to conventional contraception methods. In the 60‘s of the last century family planning have become an international demographic policy issue and lately it was included into the international public health agenda. Since that time natural family planning experienced a radical transformation in conceptual terms, accompanied by terminological chaos. In the last two decades the term of natural family planning as autonomous concept was almost completely eliminated from the language of international intergovernmental organizations, such as World Health Organization. Natural family planning methods terminologically now are incorporated into the concept of contraception, contrasting them with the so-called „effective modern contraceptive methods“. Two relevant conclusions could be drawn from that. Firstly, these above mentioned terminological innovations arise from working definitions developed by various internal working groups, lack transparency and thus they may not be formally considered as legally or politically binding international community. Secondly, the marginalization of effective natural family planning methods from the agenda of healthcare and the exclusive promotion of “effective modern contraception“ work against the rights and the interests of patients to receive unbiased and comprehensive information about healthcare services and to make an autonomous decision.