The evolution of the responsibility to protect: at a crossroads?

The Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P), now ten years old, has been widely accepted at the international level. As the books under review demonstrate, debates around its legitimacy are over. Instead, we see a developing second generation of literature focusing on how the R2P needs to be understood more concretely in both academic and policy terms, as well as how it affects the linked issues of humanitarian intervention and state‐building. Within this literature, we see new and important questions emerging. These include how and when we should intervene and whether we can be successful at it; how we can assist states to ensure they fulfill their own responsibilities towards their populations; and where international authority lies. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are hard ones. Implementation, and how it reflects embedded culture at the international level, may be as hard—if not harder—as introducing the doctrine originally.     

A Parliamentary Victory: The British Labour Party and Irish Republican Deportees, 1923

After the 1918 general election the Labour Party became the official opposition party at Westminster. In response to the growing Irish republican campaign to establish an independent Irish state the Labour Party had to re-assess its relationship with Irish nationalism. The Labour Party was now acutely conscious that it was on the verge of forming a government and was concerned to be seen by the British electorate as a responsible, moderate and patriotic government-in-waiting. Although it had traditionally supported Irish demands for home rule and was vehemently opposed to the partition of Ireland, the Labour Party became increasingly wary of any closer relationship with extreme Irish nationalism which it believed would only damage its rapidly improving electoral prospects. Therefore the Labour Party supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 even though it underpinned the partition of Ireland and sought to distance itself from any association with Irish republicanism as the new Irish Free State drifted into civil war. In early 1923 the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) alighted upon the new issue of the arrest and deportation without trial, to the Irish Free State, of Irish republicans living in Britain who were obviously British citizens. The attraction of this campaign for the Labour Party was that it enabled the party to portray itself as the defender of Irish people living in Britain without having to take sides in the Irish civil war. In addition the Labour Party was able to present itself as the protector of civil liberties in Britain against the excesses of an overweening and authoritarian Conservative government. One of the main reasons the issue was progressed so energetically on the floor of the House by the new PLP was because it now contained many Independent Labour Party (ILP) ‘Red Clydesiders’ who themselves had been interned without trial during the First World War. Through brilliant and astute use of parliamentary tactics Bonar Law's Conservative government was forced into an embarrassing climb-down which required the cobbling together of an Indemnity Bill which gave tory ministers retrospective legal protection for having exceeded their authority. By any standard, it was a major achievement by a novice opposition party. It enhanced the party's reputation and its growing sophistication in the use of parliamentary tactics benefited it electorally at the next election which led to the first Labour government.     

Planning,Law, and Sexuality: Hiding Immorality in Plain View

Emerging research in sexuality and space outlines the diverse forms of spatial governmentality used to discipline non‐normative sexual behaviours, exploring how exclusion, concealment, and repression combines to ensure that ‘immoral’ sexualities are out of the sight of the ‘moral majority’. In this paper, we explore this contention in relation to planning for sex service premises (brothels) in New South Wales, Australia. Though such sex service premises are now legal, our analysis nonetheless considers the way that these premises have been subject to forms of planning constraint that reflect planners' assumptions about the appropriate manifestation of sex premises within the urban landscape. By exposing the assumptions written into planning law that sex premises are legal but potentially disorderly, we demonstrate the evidential power of planning to reinforce dominant moral geographies through instruments which, at first glance, appear to be focused on objective questions of amenity and the ‘best use of land’. This paper hence explores the ways in which planners have translated assumptions of disorder into categories of visibility and distance, meaning that brothels have become hidden in plain view so as not to disturb the integrity of residential ‘family’ spaces.     

Exploring the Transition: Coursework to Research‐Based Study in the Geography Honours Year

The transition from coursework study to independent research is a component of many geography Honours programs in Australian tertiary institutions. Despite being canvassed at the 2003 annual meeting of the Australian Heads of Geography Units, it is a topic that has, to date, received relatively little academic attention. This paper developed from a review of the Geography Honours program at the University of Sydney, conducted by the authors in early 2004. The paper aims to help address the perceived deficiency of research into Honours study. Three topics, related to the Honours year transition, are discussed. These are: the rationale for the Honours year transition from undergraduate coursework to research‐focussed study; the composition and rationale behind coursework programs for geography Honours students, and student‐supervisor relations and their impact on independent Honours research. In the process of examining these issues this paper offers suggestions as to how tertiary geography schools can look to develop their Honours year programs. These recommendations are made with the understanding that all tertiary Honours programs are unique and that issues such as staffing levels and departmental structure will influence what suggestions are appropriate for individual institutions. It is hoped that this paper will encourage more discussion about the nature of the Honours year. It is through such communication that the value of the Honours year in student development can be enhanced     

The Canary in the Coalmine: Australian Ski Resorts and their Response to Climate Change

The Australian ski industry represents a ‘canary in the coalmine’. Globally, it is one of the first and most visibly impacted industries by the risk of climate change. This study explores the perceptions of people associated with the operations of ski resorts in south‐eastern Australia. It was hypothesised that ski resorts, given the value of their assets, would anticipate and respond to the threat of climate change. The responses demonstrate how representatives of the Australian ski industry perceive climate change issues, and the measures that are being taken to address this issue at particular resorts. These responses provide insights into how other firms and industries might respond to the biophysical impacts of climate change. Using in‐depth interviews, the study compares the perceptions and responses of resort managers and government representatives with those from previous studies. The analysis draws on and improves the model of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its development as a policy framework for adaptation. The major findings of this study are that a physical meltdown may not lead to a financial meltdown, that business responses to climate changes are more varied than has been represented in the literature to date and that the tension between competing firms on the one hand and industry cooperation on the other strongly influences the types of response that may develop.     

Towards Household Sustainability in Sydney? Impacts of Two Sustainable Lifestyle Workshop Programs on Water Consumption in Existing Homes

Residential water consumption accounts for approximately 70 per cent of Sydney's water consumption. The capacity of households to reduce water consumption is limited by expectations and conventions of water supply shaped by existing water infrastructure ( Allon and Sofoulis, 2006 ) and ‘saver‐unfriendly’ household water fittings ( Sofoulis, 2005 ). Sustainable lifestyle workshop programs – many of which address water use – are relatively new, and rigorous research into their impacts is scarce. Existing research generally relies on reported behaviour change from participants, which is then used to estimate resource savings. This paper examines water consumption data, and the questionnaire responses of participants in two sustainable lifestyle workshop programs, to examine whether reported behavioural and technical changes are translating into significant water savings. The Sustainability Street (Penrith) and GreenHome (Parramatta) programs are changing participant behaviours, but reductions achieved by Sustainability Street are not significant at the 0.05 level. GreenHome reductions, while significant, cannot be fully attributed to the program due to the downward trend commencing prior to the program. The improved behaviour of participants – in comparison to their previous behaviour and the behaviour of non‐participants – is thus not translating into significant water savings. This indicates that the relationship between improved environmental behaviour and actual water savings is not as straightforward as program operators might assume. The implications of this are that research should use real consumption data and not estimations derived from behaviour change, and strategies to reduce household water consumption need to involve bigger technical changes to household water infrastructures.