Property Rights versus "Public Necessity": A Perspective on Emergency Powers and the Supreme Court

Chief Justice Earl Warren once wrote that a free government is continuously "on trial for its life." ¹ And never are the foundations of constitutional liberties more fragile than in periods of emergency, when government invokes extraordinary powers. Invariably, emergency powers involve the immediate curtailment of some rights; at their extreme in martial law, they can warrant an entire suspension of normal civilian governmental functions, as well as full suspension of due-process guarantees. ² Once the constitutional fabric has been stretched to accommodate urgent public necessity in such situations, moreover, restoration to its earlier condition is not automatic or inevitable. On the contrary, as Justice Robert Jackson presciently warned, once the Supreme Court validates as constitutional the abridgement of essential rights during an emergency—and especially when the Court does so in relation to "the vague, undefined and undefinable 'war power'"—any principle that is thus articulated to justify such emergency action "then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need." ³     

International Human Rights Conventions and Australian Political Debates: Issues Raised by the 'Toonen Case'

In April 1994, the United Nations Human Rights Committee communicated its view to the Australian Government that Tasmanian anti-gay laws were inconsistent with Australia's international human rights obligations. Issues of Australia's human rights protection, treaty accession and Commonwealth-State relations, each of which have traditionally been characterised by major partisan differences, were brought to the fore of political debate. While the HRC decision at first appeared to give the coalition much scope to advance its arguments, subsequent developments highlighted considerable weaknesses in the rhetorical strategies of conservatives, and the difficulty of using the Tasmanian laws as a federalist cause ce le bre. In the long term, ironically, the coalition may well have weakened the efficacy of sovereignty-based arguments in Australian political debate.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Democratic Development in the Russian Provinces: A Preliminary Analysis

Foreign investment in Russia has consistently lagged behind East European countries throughout the last decade. Although formidable obstacles to attracting foreign investment remain throughout the country, some of Russia's 89 provinces have been more successful than others in creating attractive investment environments. One reason for this varied success may be related to the degree of economic and political elite consensus that exists in some regions. This, in turn, may help in the formulation of incentives to attract foreign investors. However, the political consensus that helps to establish a stable policy environment for foreign investment may well imperil pluralistic political development in the long run. Thus, we must be wary of conflating foreign investor interest with liberal politics and democratic development in Russia's regions.     

Seizing the Future: The South, Sustainable Development and International Trade

The failure at Seattle to agree the mandate for a new round of trade negotiations represents a dual crisis, not only for the trade community, but also for those supporting a shift to sustainable development. At the root of the crisis lies the North-South faultline, with an embedded sense of inequity keeping developing countries forever wary of the industrialized countries, not least on linkages between trade and the environment. But Seattle also showed that the South's current non-strategy towards trade and environment-opposing any formal linkage within the WTO, for example-is flawed. As a result, the South is now seen as the global scapegoat for inaction on trade and environment, and has shut itself out of opportunities to shape the direction of the debate. Furthermore, trade and environmental factors are being progressively linked in the marketplace-not because of the WTO, but in spite of it. The challenge for the South is to take a more proactive approach, generating a positive agenda for change based on issues of sustainable livelihoods, environmental justice and sustainable development more broadly. One starting point is to test current policy positions against the alternative visions of the future-for example, through scenario planning-and to develop a robust 'no regrets' programme for engagement. The South has the most to gain from a world structured around the norms of sustainable development, and, as a result, it has the primary responsibility for reorienting the goals of trade away from the limited agenda of 'free trade', towards the more inclusive programme of 'sustainable trade'. Whether this reorientation takes place, and whether the South takes a hand in shaping this process, will be one of the central questions for the years ahead.     

Examining the Potential of Indigenous Institutions for Development: A Perspective from Borana,Ethiopia

This article examines an institutional approach to development in which indigenous institutions are viewed as a resource for achieving development. It concentrates on indigenous natural resource management (NRM) institutions which have been seen by some development agencies to be a means to address the needs of people and the environment in a way that is also participatory. Using material from Borana, Ethiopia, the article describes the indigenous NRM institutions and examines the outcome of one attempt to work with them. In the process, it shows that partnerships between development agencies and indigenous NRM institutions are often fragile, and tend to dissolve when they fail to meet the preconceptions of the developers. Through an examination of this approach to development, the article also examines the usefulness of recent broad approaches to institutions.     

国际关系视角下的博物馆对外展览:作用与挑战

在国际关系视角下,博物馆对外展览既可以被归为服务于一国对外政策的文化外交,也可以被归为致力于长远宏观目标的人文交流.每个对外展览因动因不同,所发挥的作用也不尽相同,但通常作用包括形塑国家形象、搭建沟通桥梁、增进相互理解.与此同时,国内外政治形势、法律框架、国家政策等都是对外展览发生的重要背景和能够发生的决定条件,而展览能否真正改变观众的行为或态度又受到文化偏见的干扰,这就造成了博物馆对外展览影响力的不可控性和缓释性.面对这些挑战,中国博物馆作为民族国家的形象代表,应当致力于在更高层次上将独特性转化成普遍性,以自己的方式表现其他社会和文化同样注重的价值,为推动构建人类命运共同体贡献力量.     

Reflections on the Economic-Noneconomic Debate: A Radical Geographical Perspective from the European South

This paper expands upon the economic/noneconomic (cultural turn) debate in economic geography and proposes an alternative radical perspective through the lens of the European South. Based on the experience of Greece, the paper argues that no matter how important the cultural issues might be, the great political economy problems of distorted growth and incomplete development, sociospatial inequalities, and weak, incoherent and contradictory territorial policies continue to have a primary importance. The paper reviews some basic points of the cultural turn debate and then examines the orientations of radical spatioeconomic thought in postdictatorial (post-1974) Greece in arguing that this thought was mostly problem-driven, policy-oriented and focused upon the political economy of Greek socioeconomic and territorial restructuring. It is argued that a southern radical agenda has to be based more deliberately on holistic and inclusive interdisciplinary resyntheses in which cultural issues are given due attention, but not to the detriment of a radical understanding of the territorial workings of economy, society and power relations. The concluding suggestion of the paper is that it is a political turn , rather than a cultural turn, that is best suited to a radical interpretation of South European economic geographies.     

Trafficking in Law: Cause Lawyer,Bureaucratic State and Rights of Human Trafficking Victims in Thailand

Abstract

In this case study of a young, Thai “cause lawyer”, advocacy for human rights is considered in context. The most important elements of that context are the path of development of Thai political and legal institutions, globalisation of law, and the networks of relationships that penetrate the state. The case study shows that human rights advocacy by NGO lawyers can adapt creatively to unpromising conditions under which courts provide little access or oversight. At the same time, the case study raises profound questions about the ultimate independence of cause lawyers when the state must be made a partner in order to establish the authority of law needed to make human rights advocacy possible. The ambiguity of the lawyer’s position is apparent from the relative ineffectiveness of her interventions and her growing moral authority on behalf of best practices under law. Her position suggests the limitations on law imposed by the underpinnings of the Thai state itself.     

Seeing Red: Liberalism, Communism, and the Black Struggle for Human Rights

Carol Anderson , Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955 . New York : Cambridge University Press , 2003 . 290 pp.     

Presenting the San Hunter-Gatherer Past to the Public: A View from the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park,South Africa

Abstract

The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (UDP) was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 on the basis of its magnificent scenery, biodiversity, and archaeological richness, comprising a rich corpus of rock paintings and occupation deposits relating to the San hunter-gatherers. The desire to encourage heritage tourism to the UDP following the declaration, along with the wish to present a more positive picture of the San hunter-gatherers, led to the development of the Kamberg (in 2002) and Didima Rock Art Centres (in 2003). These centres, together with the Main Caves visitor attraction, which had been redeveloped in 1998, distinguish the UDP as the premier region in South Africa for the interpretation of the San past. Cognizant of the critical role that public interpretation plays in the management of archaeological resources, this paper investigates which aspects of the archaeological record have been stressed and which have been overlooked, the relationship between the interpretations and the findings of UDP archaeological research since the 1970s, and whether these findings enhance the significance and value of the resources and thereby promote their management. It is shown that the overall interpretive emphasis is on rock art and that information derived from Later Stone Age hunter-gatherer excavations since the 1970s have been neglected. Furthermore, it is revealed that the display of Early and Middle Stone Age material at Didima is inconsistent with regional archaeological findings and that there is a neglect of local archaeological remains. It is concluded that the development of any further attractions should be based on an interpretive plan which considers the interpretive requirements of the region as a whole.