Responsibility and obligation in the ‘Responsibility to Protect’

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (S1) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM BAIN

AbstractThis article takes up Louise Arbour's claim that the doctrine of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ is grounded in existing obligations of international law, specifically those pertaining to the prevention and punishment of genocide. In doing so, it argues that the aspirations of the R2P project cannot be sustained by the idea of ‘responsibility’ alone. The article proceeds in arguing that the coherence of R2P depends on an unacknowledged and unarticulated theory of obligation that connects notions of culpability, blame, and accountability with the kind of preventive, punitive, and restorative action that Arbour and others advocate. Two theories of obligation are then offered, one natural the other conventional, which make this connection explicit. But the ensuing clarity comes at a cost: the naturalist account escapes the ‘real’ world to redeem the intrinsic dignity of all men and women, while the conventionalist account remains firmly tethered to the ‘real’ world in redeeming whatever dignity can be had by way of an agreement. The article concludes by arguing that the advocate of the responsibility to protect can have one or the other, but not both.

Author(s):  
Peters Anne

This chapter discusses fragmentation and constitutionalization—which are understood to be two trends in the evolution of international law. ‘Fragmentation’ has a negative connotation, and is used as a pejorative term (rather than diversity, specialization, or pluralism). ‘Constitutionalization’, in contrast, feeds on the positive ring of the concept of constitution. Both constitutionalization and fragmentation are terms that describe not only legal processes in the real world of law but are also labels for the accompanying discourses (mostly among academics, less so among judges, and even less so among political law-making actors). The putative trends so far do not have a clearly definable end-result, such as a completely fragmented international legal order on the one hand, or a world constitution on the other.


Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Lei Shi ◽  
Cosmin Copot ◽  
Steve Vanlanduit

In gaze-based Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), it is important to determine human visual intention for interacting with robots. One typical HRI interaction scenario is that a human selects an object by gaze and a robotic manipulator will pick up the object. In this work, we propose an approach, GazeEMD, that can be used to detect whether a human is looking at an object for HRI application. We use Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD) to measure the similarity between the hypothetical gazes at objects and the actual gazes. Then, the similarity score is used to determine if the human visual intention is on the object. We compare our approach with a fixation-based method and HitScan with a run length in the scenario of selecting daily objects by gaze. Our experimental results indicate that the GazeEMD approach has higher accuracy and is more robust to noises than the other approaches. Hence, the users can lessen cognitive load by using our approach in the real-world HRI scenario.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhida CHEN

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has, on various occasions, concluded treaties on behalf of its Member States. This raises some interesting questions: is ASEAN entitled to enter into treaties on behalf of its Member States; and if so, what should be the status of ASEAN and its Member States vis-à-vis the other party to the treaty? The issue is not one of whether the ASEAN Member States have consented to such a practice—it must be assumed that they have. Instead, the real issue is whether such treaty-making practice can and should be valid under international law, even if the Member States have consented for ASEAN to conclude these treaties on their behalf. This paper will argue that, under international law, ASEAN is entitled to conclude treaties on behalf of its Member States.


First Monday ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Brusseau

Compartmentalizing our distinct personal identities is increasingly difficult in big data reality. Pictures of the person we were on past vacations resurface in employers’ Google searches; LinkedIn which exhibits our income level is increasingly used as a dating web site. Whether on vacation, at work, or seeking romance, our digital selves stream together. One result is that a perennial ethical question about personal identity has spilled out of philosophy departments and into the real world. Ought we possess one, unified identity that coherently integrates the various aspects of our lives, or, incarnate deeply distinct selves suited to different occasions and contexts? At bottom, are we one, or many? The question is not only palpable today, but also urgent because if a decision is not made by us, the forces of big data and surveillance capitalism will make it for us by compelling unity. Speaking in favor of the big data tendency, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg promotes the ethics of an integrated identity, a single version of selfhood maintained across diverse contexts and human relationships. This essay goes in the other direction by sketching two ethical frameworks arranged to defend our compartmentalized identities, which amounts to promoting the dis-integration of our selves. One framework connects with natural law, the other with language, and both aim to create a sense of selfhood that breaks away from its own past, and from the unifying powers of big data technology.


1971 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 320-321
Author(s):  
Charles Brumfiel

In the November 1970 issue of the Arithmetic Teacher there appeared my article, “Mathematical Systems and Their Relationship to the Real World.” One point I made is that mathematics provides us with a vast array of symbols and concepts to use in solving real-life problems. When we use mathematics to solve a real problem, we make certa in mental associations between mathematical symbols and real objects. I suggested that arguments sometimes arise because two persons may make different associations, mathematical symbols to real objects, and each thinks his associations are correct while the other person's are incorrect.


1970 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Ratton Sanchez Badin ◽  
Douglas Castro ◽  
Arthur Roberto Capella Giannattasio

According to a theoretical and empirical framework, didactic cases are an important tool to teacho International Law. This instrument increase students’ active participation in the classroom, empowers them to exercise their autonomy in the learning process, helps professors to present the foundations of the discipline and its complexity in the real world and helps to build the interdisciplinary bridge between International Law and International Relations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Glaz

Grounded in a rich philosophical and semiotic tradition, the most influential models of the linguistic sign have been Saussure’s intimate connection between the signifier and the signi-fied and Ogden and Richards’ semiotic triangle. Within the triangle, claim the cognitive lin-guists Radden and Kövecses, the sign functions in a metonymic fashion. The triangular semi-otic model is expanded here to a trapezium and calibrated with, on the one hand, Peirce’s conception of virtuality, and on the other hand, with some of the tenets of Langacker’s Cogni-tive Grammar. In conclusion, the question “How does the linguistic sign mean?” is answered thus: it means by virtue of the linguistic form activating (virtually) the entire trapezium-like configuration of forms, concepts, experienced projections, and relationships between all of the above. Activation of the real world remains dubious or indirect. The process is both meto-nymic and virtual, in the sense specified.


Author(s):  
BARTOLOMIEJ SKOWRON ◽  

From an ontological point of view, virtuality is generally considered a simulation: i.e. not a case of true being, and never more than an illusory copy, referring in each instance to its real original. It is treated as something imagined — and, phenomenologically speaking, as an intentional object. It is also often characterized as fictive. On the other hand, the virtual world itself is extremely rich, and thanks to new technologies is growing with unbelievable speed, so that it now influences the real world in quite unexpected ways. Thus, it is also sometimes considered real. In this paper, against those who would regard virtuality as fictional or as real, I claim that the virtual world straddles the boundary between these two ways of existence: that it becomes real. I appeal to Roman Ingarden’s existential ontology to show that virtual objects become existentially autonomous, and so can be attributed a form of actuality and causal efficaciousness. I conclude that the existential autonomy and actuality of virtual objects makes them count as real objects, but also means that they undergo a change in their mode of existence.


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