Libya and the state of intervention

The international response to the crisis in Libya has been remarkably quick and decisive. Where many other cases of mass atrocity crimes have failed to generate sufficient and timely political will to protect civilians at risk, the early response to Libya in 2011 has shown that the United Nations Security Council is able to give effect to the ‘responsibility to protect’ norm. While not an implementing party in a legal sense, the Australian government has taken a forward-leaning diplomatic stance in helping to mobilise broad support for addressing this crisis. In light of the ongoing political controversy over armed humanitarian intervention, the Libya case shows that state-based advocacy for R2P matters, given the on-going need to bolster the legitimacy of the principle. A discussion of Canberra's diplomatic activity is a prelude to an examination of the proceedings of the UN Security Council and the two key resolutions, the second of which gave effect to the forcible action. The article then considers three dimensions of the Security Council's implementation of the responsibility to protect: the language of the resolutions and the intriguing absence of a textual reference to the international community's responsibility to act; the expansive mandate for civilian protection in Security Council resolution 1973; and the first unanimous referral to the International Criminal Court, with novel support from the United States of America.     

On the path to oblivion: The pilgrims' declining role in the St. Christopher plays of early and early modern Spain

This article examines the representation of the pilgrim in the corpus of St. Christopher dramas of early and early modern Iberia. The importance of the character's supporting role varies according to the era in which each play is written. At first, in the medieval religious dramas of the Crown of Aragon, the pilgrim not only celebrates St. Christopher's piety and anticipates his meeting with Jesus Christ, but also embodies the sanctity and devotion necessitated of pilgrimage. The pilgrims undergo a transformation in the sixteenth century as they become comic and serve as foils to the protagonist's gravity. On the seventeenth-century secular stage, the representations diverge: they begin with a traditional representation of the pilgrim, but then the figure ultimately disappears as the comedias focus on the later period of St. Christopher's life, the result of a Tridentine directive that refocused the general worship of saints and hagiographical literature.     

Confrontation and conciliation: the sami,the crown and the court in seventeenth-century swedish lapland1

This article aims to discover in what kind of legal cases conflicts may be traced between the Sami and representatives of the Crown, and in which situations conciliation is apparent; and it also answers the questions of how and why this happened. It is evident, from the court rolls from the court district of Jukkasjärvi (one of the two northernmost lappmarker in Sweden at this time), that the Crown prosecuted the Sami for sexual offences and crimes against religion. This was due to the prevailing ideology of the seventeenth century, in which Lutheran Christianity prevailed, and because the court was the arena for a power discourse: there was a “right” way to live and behave. This came into conflict with Sami tradition. The Sami themselves pursued a desire and need for conciliation, which becomes apparent in cases of crimes such as murder, manslaughter and grand theft, but also in civil cases, e.g. inheritance. This was due to the fact that the population was quite small, bound together in different relations, and because large-scale conflicts were not beneficial to Sami communities. Even though the Crown Court was an arena of power, it was also used by the Sami for their own ends, and thus we can see an interactive Sami society, independent of the prevailing political Lutheran Christian ideology and its discourse.     

In the Shadow of Great Power Politics: Why Nehru Supported PRC's Admission to the Security Council

In early 1950s, India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru turned down suggestions that India become a Security Council Permanent Member. As per suggestions, India would either take China's seat occupied by Republic of China (RoC) or become the sixth member alongside RoC. Nehru turned down these overtures arguing that People's Republic of China (PRC) should occupy China's seat at the Security Council. This study ascertains why India turned down apparently good offers and instead championed PRC's cause at a time when there existed marked political differences between them. While some have analyzed India's stand strictly in bilateral terms, this study casts the net wider. By closely examining Nehru's writings and correspondences, it argues that Nehru's support was based on his understanding of PRC and its position as a great power in international relations. Early twentieth-century developments had taught him that great powers that were ostracized became a source of instability. In an era that saw the unveiling of nuclear bombs, the cost of a dissatisfied PRC would be tragic. To stabilize the system, it was necessary to accommodate PRC within the Security Council and provide it with the veto. This would assuage PRC and check its revisionist tendencies.     

Changing Discourses of Marital Violence in Sweden from the Age of Reformation to the Late Nineteenth Century

This article analyses how public attention to marital violence in Sweden changed from a question of maintaining good order and ambitions to discipline self‐indulgent house tyrants into responsible masters of households in the seventeenth century, to the vanishing of the house tyrant as a cultural stereotype in favour of the female shrew in the eighteenth century, following the formal abolition of the husband's legal right to chastise his wife and an equalisation of liabilities and responsibilities. It also traces the beginnings of the social marginalisation and silencing of marital violence in the nineteenth century as a phenomenon associated with the lower classes and regulated by the law as a case for private action only when committed within the household circle.     

King Pedro IV of Aragon, royal propaganda and the tradition of royal speechwriting

In the medieval Crown of Aragon it was customary for the corts to begin with a proposicio or opening speech made by the king. These Aragonese royal speeches were not merely confined to a brief summary of the political situation or a series of points to be considered but were elaborately constructed political sermons, in which affairs of state were portrayed in terms of Christian morality and nationalist pride, with the aid of exempla drawn from the Bible and other religious and classical works. An example is the speech made by Pedro IV ‘the Ceremonious’ of Aragon against the rebellion of the Judge of Arborea in Sardinia. A copy of this speech survives written in the king's own hand which raises the interesting question of whether the kings of Aragon were themselves responsible for the ideas expressed in these speeches and for composing them or whether their efforts were confined to reading out propaganda which was primarily the creation of royal officials.     

Civil Liberties and the Referendum

Abstract

The defeat of the Australian government's attempts to outlaw communism in 1950 and 1951 was a significant victory for the protection of civil liberties. Yet for the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, which had fought a long battle against the measures, the result was not greeted with a sense of triumph. The campaign to avert draconian powers exposed a Council struggling to adapt to the Cold War, and revealed tensions in the Council's belief in democratic institutions and the popular opinion that underpinned them.     

The enforcement problem in Resolution 2094 and the United Nations Security Council sanctions regime: sanctioning North Korea

This article deconstructs United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2094 through the preambulatory statements, objectives, obligations, and implementation and enforcement provisions of UNSC Resolution 2094. The article proceeds in three parts. First, it reviews the academic literature on UNSC sanctions and their application in the North Korean case. Second, it deconstructs UNSC Resolution 2094 according to the common structural components of international legal instruments to assess the level of congruence between the objectives of UNSC Resolution 2094, its enforcement mechanisms and outcomes. Third, it explores the weaknesses of UNSC Resolution 2094, focusing on the gap between the objectives and enforcement mechanisms found in the resolution. The inability of the UNSC sanctions regime to prevent North Korea reaching the cusp of becoming a nuclear weapons power is evidence of the international community's weak leverage over Pyongyang, a situation arising from the vulnerability of South Korea to a North Korean attack and the cross-cutting strategic priorities of China; the absence of economic linkages between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the primary sanctions-sender state in the USA; and North Korea's commitment to a nuclear weapons capability as the foundation of its medium-term economic development strategy, its institutional governance structure and associated ideological commitments.     

Towards a history of emotion, 1562–1660

Abstract

This article examines uses of the word emotion during the seventeenth century, arguing that the term's meaning at this time was in flux. OED gives three principle definitions of emotion, the first as meaning ‘political turmoil or agitation’, the second as meaning literally ‘movement or motion’, and the third as meaning ‘strong feelings or passing’. I argue that a great many uses of emotion during the seventeenth century apply the word in the second sense to the physiological movements of humours. This being so, I suggest that in emotion's seventeenth-century uses it is possible to read a transition in the word's meaning. Through its frequent use with references to humours in motion, the word begins to take on the characteristics which would allow it to develop into meaning ‘feelings or passions’.     

The Security Council: Behind the Scenes

Following the publication of the various enquiries into the circumstances of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, there has developed a view that the UN lacks the ability to manage complex missions. With particular reference to the case of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), the author pays special attention to the oversight of peacekeeping missions and the crucial role of the UN Security Council, the Secretary General and senior officials in the Secretariat and asks whether the Council is sufficiently equipped at ambassadorial level to address professional military issues. Does the Council have a right and a duty to know the details of peacekeeping missions in order to take decisions? A culture of secrecy has developed in the Security Council and it is common practice now for the Council's important debates to be held in secret. This means that its decision‐making is unaccountable. The author also questions the lack of enquiry into British policy towards Rwanda in the Security Council between 1993 and 1994.     

John Maynard Keynes,the Bloomsbury group and the origins of the arts council movement

The article examines the origins of the arts council movement in the ideas of the Bloomsbury Group and John Maynard Keynes. The Bloomsbury Groups' sense of experimentation and flexibility, their willingness to take action to create new institutions, and their distrust of bureaucracy, influenced Keynes's development of a new model for state patronage of the arts in 1946. He took an organization established during the Second World War to employ artists and organize morale‐boosting tours of the performing and visual arts, and oversaw its development into the Arts Council of Great Britain, the first such arts council. His model – making grants of public funds through semi‐autonomous government bodies to private individuals and privately operated arts institutions – became a standard form of public funding for the arts by the end of the twentieth century in many countries around the world.     

Gender as national interest at the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has often been identified as a key actor responsible for the uneven trajectory of the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It is, however, the Council members—who also seek to advance their national interest at this intergovernmental forum—that are pivotal in the Council's deliberations and shape its policies. Yet, little attention has been paid to this aspect of deliberative politics at the Council in feminist scholarship on WPS. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature. It notes that gender has increasingly become part of foreign policy interests of UN member states, as evidenced by practices such as invocation of ‘women's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ in broader international security policy discourse. The article demonstrates that this national interest in gender has featured in WPS‐related developments at the Security Council. Using specific illustrations, it examines three sets of member states: the permanent and non‐permanent members as well as non‐members invited to take part in Council meetings. The main argument of this article relates to highlighting member states’ interests underpinning their diplomatic activities around WPS issues in the Security Council, with the aim to present a fuller understanding of political engagements with UNSCR 1325, the first WPS resolution, in its institutional home.     

Italy and the EU's environment and consumer policies: coalition‐building,problem framing and informal channels of influence

This article examines Rome City Council's policies concerning the Roma during Francesco Rutelli's two terms as mayor (1993-2001). It demonstrates that the Rutelli administration's policies for these minority communities shifted from a superficial but genuine attempt to overcome aspects of marginalization to a criminalizing strategy of exclusion. It is argued here that the failure significantly to improve the social conditions of the Roma was due to (a) a refusal to tackle the inter-related causes of their social exclusion and (b) submission to the anti- Roma hostility of parts of the voting public. Following the demolition of Rome's largest shanty town in October 2000, the Council was unable to house many of the Roma it had made homeless. It would seem that a 'cleaning-up' campaign was intro duced to distance undocumented individuals and those with criminal records from the city through a notable rise in police raids. This change in approach was accompanied and justified by an intensification of ethni cized public order discourse.     

The International Character of a Trimmer: Interest,Reason of State,and Balance of Power in Halifax's Political Thought

This article argues that George Savile's thought casts light on international relations in the seventeenth century. Halifax's life and works concern not only England's domestic politics, but also its foreign affairs. Indeed, he develops a clear vision of international politics. This article analyses Halifax's international thought, in particular three concepts that are closely related to one another: ‘interest’, ‘reason of state’, and ‘balance of power’. Through the study of these ideas, this article will try to point out both the novelty of Halifax's thought compared with that of his contemporaries, and to reverse the stereotypical understanding of his intellectual legacy and political behaviour. The ‘trimmer’ contrasts with Louis XIV's attempt to establish a universal monarchy across Europe, outlining a doctrine of moderation that seeks to ensure liberty, security, and restraint in international relations.     

Australia's Campaign for Security Council Membership

The United Nations Security Council has global responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It is therefore essential for Australia to nominate periodically for non-permanent membership, and 2013–14 was the earliest feasible opportunity available to the Rudd government. Australia's uneven record of participation in the United Nations over the last decade and a half was an impediment to election, but recent renewed commitment to international law and upgraded multilateral engagement, among other factors, strengthened the case for election. Australia was elected in the first round of voting, principally due to effective political leadership and the sustained campaign organised by diplomatic officers. Membership will enable Australia to participate actively in discussion of issues on the Council's agenda and to lead discussion of two or three additional subjects.

联合国安理会负有维护国际和平及安全的责任。因此澳大利亚有必要定期提名为非常任理事国,2013—14年对陆克文政府是最早的机会。过去十五年中澳大利亚参与联合国事务颇不均衡,这不利于其当选。而最近它对国际法的重新关注、对多边关系的提升则有助于其当选。澳大利亚主要由于有效的政治领导和外交官坚持不懈的努力而在第一轮投票中当选。有了成员国资格,澳大利亚就能积极参与安理会的讨论,并领导两三个附加议题的讨论。     

The Problems with Patents: A Less than Optimistic Reading of the Future

This article examines a number of problems associated with patents. These are aspects of patents (and patent law) that are masked by conventional discourse that frequently equates strong patent protections with innovation and, ultimately, economic growth. This article will discuss: patents' links with knowledge and expertise; infrastructural requirements; innovation incentive structures; coercive tendencies (via high litigation and transactions costs); and global ‘harmonization' agreements (specifically TRIPs). In sum, it provides a glimpse of why patent law matters for understanding today's political economy and why global inequalities will continue to grow unless the international socio‐legal landscape changes substantially.     

On the City of Anderida,or Andredesceaster

The Duke of Cornwall's palace at Lostwithiel was built towards the end of the thirteenth century as the administrative centre of the Duchy. It also served for the tin ‘coinage’ and as the meeting place of the County Court. It consisted of a large ‘Great Hall’ together with a smaller hall and buildings for the assaying and weighing of tin. This complex of buildings was never a ducal residence. It became ruinous in the seventeenth century, and much of it was demolished. A fragment of the Great Hall survives, though the smaller, or Convocation Hall, drastically rebuilt in the nineteenth century, is still in use.     

‘Piddington's Indiscretion’:1 Ralph Piddington,The Australian National Research Council and Academic Freedom

The primary aim of this paper is to investigate the question why, particularly in the first half of this century, Australian academics were so supine when it came to public criticism of the treatment, conditions and welfare of Australian Aborigines. Its focus is Ralph Piddington and how he was treated by the Australian academic establishment for his public criticism of the treatment of Aborigines at La Grange Bay, North-west Australia. It shows how the Executive Committee of the Australian National Research Council (ANRC), A.P. Elkin, Professor of Anthropology at Sydney University from 1933 to 1956 and chairman, from 1933 to 1955, of the Australian National Research Council's Committee for Anthropological Research, and A.O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia, combined to silence and punish Piddington. The ANRC's criticisms of Piddington were fuelled, above all else, by their concern that his action would create a ‘very uncomfortable atmosphere regarding this Council and anthropological research generally.’ 5 2 Sir George Julius to Raymond Firth, 21 October 1932. 155/4/1/10.
In contrast the Rockefeller Foundation which provided the funding for the ANRC research grants and fellowships took a more lenient view of Piddington's action. It believed from the evidence presented by the ANRC that Piddington had made satisfactory progress toward carrying out the program for which he was given his fellowship and did not believe the charges made against him should impede his fellowship status.     

Restoring Spanish Hispaniola,the First of the Indies: Local Advocacy and Transatlantic Arbitrismo in the Late Seventeenth Century

This article examines a group of restorationist proposals for Spanish Hispaniola from the late seventeenth century in the context of peninsular arbitrismo in order to understand the participatory nature of reform throughout Spain's empire. While their aims were more limited than those of arbistristas across the Atlantic, colonial advocates' idealized visions of the island and claims about the major threats it faced represented a shared local imaginary, and their proposals found a receptive audience in metropolitan authorities, who agreed that Hispaniola had strategic value but were constrained by limited resources. Taken together, the recommendations of overseas advocates and the responses of royal councilors illustrate a transatlantic conception of the Spanish monarchy and an active desire for restoration during the reign of Charles II, despite the supposed decadence of Spain under the last Habsburg monarch.