Normative Regimes Research Articles

Disruption of Satellite Transmissionsad Bellumandin Bello: Launching a New Paradigm of Convergence

The dramatic increase over the past decade in the quantity and sophistication of communications satellites in the earth's orbit raises new legal questions regarding the hostile disruption of satellite transmissions. As dependence on satellite communications in the military, governmental, economic and civilian spheres escalates globally, both states and non-state entities have become increasingly vulnerable to the consequences of disrupted transmissions, whether accidental or intentional. The implications of this new phenomenon for international humanitarian law (IHL) are better understood in the context of a preliminary analysis of the principles and norms underlying three regimes which now converge around satellite activitiesad bellum. These are the substantive law regarding freedom of transborder communication, including relevantjus cogensprohibitions; international telecommunications regulation; and space law. The present analysis focuses on (a) the development of a taxonomy of the types of hostile disruption of satellite transmissions, (b) an examination of the three present normative regimes which govern international satellite transmissions in peacetime, and (c) the relevance of these three regimes for the development of applicable IHL. Overall, the article addresses the legal and policy aspects of an improved international response to the growing phenomenon of transmission disruption on the part of state and non-state entities both in peacetime and during war. Greater clarity regarding the applicable legal norms will enable both state and non-state actors to utilise satellite systems with increased certainty, reliability and effectiveness.

Tomer Broude and Yuval Shany (eds). Multi-Sourced Equivalent Norms in International Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011. Pp. 344. $120. ISBN: 9781849461450.

Many scholars have struggled to try to figure out ways to preserve a unitary perspective on international law in light of, and more frequently going beyond, the conservative guidelines formulated by Martti Koskenniemi and his ILC Working Group, collected in the 2006 Report on Fragmentation.1 The proliferation of normative regimes arguably poses a threat to international law's very structure, in the absence of stabilizing elements such as a central legislature, judicial bodies with compulsory and general jurisdiction, and governance legitimized by democratic procedures rather than episodic state consent. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that academics have so far focused on the clash between international law sub-systems, in which norms belonging to different regimes point at different directions and leave states with the unenviable choice of complying with one of them while at the same time incurring state responsibility for breach of the others. The editors of the book under review adopt a new approach: Tomer Broude and Yuval Shany focus on equivalent norms, i.e., norms featuring a certain degree of similarity in their content. The working definition of this novel doctrinal category of Multi-Sourced Equivalent Norms (MSENs), set out in the opening chapter, is as follows: Two or more norms which are (1) binding upon the same international legal subjects; (2) similar or identical in their normative content; and (3) have been established through different international instruments or legislative procedures or are applicable in different substantive areas of the law [at 5]. Could these norms be the ideal lens for the study of international regimes' interplay?. MSENs provide states and individuals with the possibility or at least the temptation to indulge in regime-shifting:2 given the substantial equivalence of two norms, actors will choose to rely on the one belonging to the friendlier regime (in terms of judicial ...

A Cyberwar of Ideas? Deterrence and Norms in Cyberspace

This article relates American efforts to develop strategic ‘cyber deterrence’ as a means to deter adversarial actions in and through global cyberspace. Thus far, interests- based cyber deterrence theory has failed to translate into effective American policy and strategy, due to a divergence between the operational idiosyncrasies of cyberspace and an over-reliance on Cold War models of deterrence. Even while explicit cyber deterrence strategy falters, the United States is pursuing a normsbased approach to cyber strategy generally, and hopes to derive deterrent effects from its attempts to broker international agreements pertaining to the ‘rules of the road’ for the proper and productive use of cyberspace. The United States is not the only norm entrepreneur in this policy space, however, and this article examines how a range of other state and non-state actors are complicating efforts to develop normative regimes that might reduce risks to and from cyberspace. The article concludes that a norms-based approach to cyber deterrence might engender deterrent effects at the state level but is unlikely to do so in the case of ‘rogue’ states and many non-state actors. States will continue, therefore, to develop punitive deterrence capabilities to respond to these actors.

To the Orphaned, Dispossessed, and Illegitimate Children: Human Rights Beyond Republican and Liberal Traditions

After the Helsinki Accords, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, and the collapse of states in Africa and elsewhere, many in the West have come to envisage the enforcement of human rights as a practical matter. Human rights are thus incorporated in normative regimes under the rubrics of either the rule of law or the responsibility to protect to be held against the purveyors of violence. I do not discount the normative underpinnings of the related stands taken today by states and transnational and national civil society organizations. I wish to insist on the futility of envisaging human rights merely as legal standards and norms and on the need to revisit the question of the human on whom rights are bestowed. The present article is an exercise in historical and comparative analysis of what human rights meant to Haitian slaves in the eighteenth century when, as happened in France and the United States, notions of human rights emanated in a constitutional scheme intended to protect the newly freed slaves against violence from the prevailing post-Enlightenment political, economic, and ideological systems—all of which had been integral to the processes of enslavement. It is my contention that, like Haitian slaves, anti-colonialists and some postcolonial entities found liberal human rights schemes to be equally implicated in modern violence and therefore responded by proposing novel grounds for imagining human rights outside of the strictures of liberal constitutionalism.

Coalition

Coalition

Untangling the "transnational social"

This article analyzes how diversity-managing and affirmative action policies targeting Afro-descendants have been introduced into Brazilian workplaces since the late 1990s. It does so by exploring how international regulations and global normative regimes, namely the human rights and the corporate social responsibility movements, have penetrated and shaped the way Brazilian companies deal with racial discrimination. Contending interpretations by executives, managers, and activists are discussed from the perspective of “new legal pluralism,” by looking at how these different actors use the norms to induce, subvert, or even evade dominant orders in specific situations. It can be concluded that, even with no legally binding force, global normative regimes have been particularly effective in creating new “sites of opportunity” for Afro-Brazilians. Conversely, the corporate social responsibility premise of going beyond the law neither challenges the ineffectiveness of the national legal system nor disqualifies illegal discriminatory market behavior.

Da hiperglobalização à proliferação de regimes normativos

Este artigo analisa o conflito entre duas propostas para a solução da crise financeira internacional que representam tradições econômicas e políticas distintas, a anglo-americana e a franco-alemã. Washington e Londres propõem sanar os efeitos da crise internacional, enquanto berlim e paris sugerem uma nova arquitetura para o mercado financeiro, com uma autoridade internacional centralizada para regulá-lo e controlá-lo, com cessão de soberania. estas duas propostas contrapuseram-se na última reunião do g-20 ocorrida em Londres. Mais de setenta anos atrás, a conferência econômica de londres, iniciada em 12 de junho de 1933, teve como objetivo adotar medidas contra a grande depressão, estimulando o comércio internacional e estabilizando o mercado de câmbio. a recusa a uma autoridade central para regular e controlar o mercado financeiro favorece a proliferação de regimes normativos.

Combating weapons of mass destruction: the future of international nonproliferation policy

This title provides cutting-edge essays on controlling the spread of WMDs.The spread of weapons of mass destruction poses one of the greatest threats to international peace and security in modern times - the specter of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons looms over relations among many countries. The September 11 tragedy and other terrorist attacks have been painful warnings about gaps in nonproliferation policies and regimes, specifically with regard to nonstate actors.In this volume, experts in nonproliferation studies examine challenges faced by the international community and propose directions for national and international policy making and lawmaking. The first group of essays outlines the primary threats posed by WMD proliferation and terrorism. Essays in the second section analyze existing treaties and other normative regimes, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Conventions, and recommend ways to address the challenges to their effectiveness. Essays in part three examine the shift some states have made away from nonproliferation treaties and regimes toward more forceful and proactive policies of counterproliferation, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which coordinates efforts to search and seize suspect shipments of WMD-related materials.Nathan E. Busch and Daniel H. Joyner have gathered together many leading scholars in the field to provide their insights on nonproliferation - an issue that has only grown in importance since the end of the cold war.

Complementing Occupation Law? Selective Judicial Treatment of the Suitability of Human Rights Norms

This Article offers a critical evaluation of the treatment of the suitability of applying human rights law to occupation situations offered by the English House of Lords in the Al-Skeini judgment of 2007. Al-Skeini concerned the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to the United Kingdom in Iraq. In the decision, the majority asserted that the application of human rights law would amount to a form of “imperialism” in requiring an occupying State to impose culturally inappropriate norms in occupied territory. They also found that its application would undermine the status quo norm contained in occupation law, by obliging an occupying State to transform the legal system in occupied territory in order to bring it in line with the human rights standards in play. This Article argues that these two assertions are based on a mistaken understanding of the substantive meaning of human rights obligations in occupation situations, and the effect on this meaning of the interface with other areas of international law. It is suggested that the fear of “human rights imperialism” is, as articulated here, misconceived; that applying human rights law to occupation situations may not actually involve breaching the law of occupation; and that in any case a more sophisticated approach to the question of clashes in normative regimes needs to be adopted.

China's Fight Against Hiv/aids

Officially, there were 650,000 people living with HIV in China in 2005.1 The Chinese government has pledged to keep the total under 1.5 million by 2010. The study argues that China must emphasize non-epidemiological factors as mutually-reinforcing factors sustaining the disease. The fight is entwined with profound economic and social transition. Government and civil society have engaged with the principles and agencies of global HIV/AIDS governance. But HIV intersects with normative regimes addressing issues of humane governance in the widest socio-economic and political sense. Based upon primary and secondary research, the study reviews the evidence of the HIV/AIDS challenge facing China, considers the nature and quality of the national response, and evaluates the relationship of global and national regimes. 1. State Council AIDS Working Committee Office, UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS in China and World Health Organization, 2005 Update on the HIV/AIDS Epidemic and Response in China (Beijing: National Center for AIDS/STD Prevention and Control, China CDC, 24 January 2006), p. 1; State Council AIDS Working Committee Office/UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS in China, A Joint Assessment of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment and Care in China (2004) (Beijing: State Council AIDS Working Committee Office, 1 December 2004).

RISK FACTORS IN THE RAPIDLY RISING INCIDENCE OF DIVORCE IN KOREA

For just over a decade between 1990 and 2003, the crude divorce rate tripled from 1.1 to 3.5 in Korea. Using the combined data from two nationally representative surveys of women conducted in 1997 and 2002, this study examines the risk factors of divorce and attempts to provide insights into the rising divorce rate in Korea. The findings show that the period effects on the probability of divorce remain unexplained after taking into account several risk factors. This may suggest societal-level transformations in normative regimes regarding divorce, which seem to have accelerated after the economic recession in the late 1990s. Independent of period effects, women's employment in white-collar occupations and declining fertility increase the risk of divorce, whereas women's unpaid work in the family business and college education lower the risk of divorce. Divorce rates are highest in the middle stage of marital duration in Korea.