Part III Regional Regimes, Ch.15 Regional Refugee Regimes: Africa

Author(s):  
Sharpe Marina

This chapter highlights the African approach to refugees, analysing the regional legal framework anchored by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention. The regional legal regime for refugees includes treaty and institutional components. The treaty framework is comprised of the Refugee and OAU conventions and international and regional human rights law, including but not limited to the two covenants, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and African instruments on the rights of women and children. The chapter then addresses regional organizations with relevant mandates: African Union (AU) bodies and judicial organs including the AU Commission, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. It also looks at the role of civil society, as well as contemporary refugee protection achievements and challenges. These include the implementation, in terms of both refugee status determination and rights, of the regional legal framework in national jurisdictions; the rise of displacement in the context of climate change and disasters; and the relationship between European Union policy responses to the so-called migration crisis and refugee protection in Africa.

Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe

This book analyses the legal framework for refugee protection in Africa, including both refugee and human rights law as well as treaty and institutional elements. The regime is addressed in two parts. Part I analyses the relevant treaties: the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, and the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The latter two regional instruments are examined in depth. This includes the first fulsome account of the African Refugee Convention’s drafting, an interpretation of its unique refugee definition, and original analysis of the relationships between the three treaties. Significant attention is devoted to the systemic relationship between the international and the regional refugee treaties and to the discrete relationships of conflict and relationships of interpretation between the two refugee instruments, as well as to the relationships of conflict and of interpretation between the African Refugee Convention and African Charter. Part II focuses on the institutional architecture supporting the treaty framework. The Organization of African Unity is addressed in a historical sense, and the contemporary roles of the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the current and contemplated African human rights courts are examined. This book is the first devoted to the legal framework for refugee protection in Africa.


Author(s):  
Marco Pertile

This chapter examines the role of natural resources such as water, hydrocarbons, and diamonds in international armed conflicts within the framework of international law, as well as the legal regulation of the jus ad bellum aspects of the issue. After outlining some of the international rules relevant to the relationship between natural resources and conflicts, the chapter considers the rules pertaining to the jus ad bellum and assesses the interstate aspects of resource conflicts, paying particular attention to the legal framework for the use of force in international relations. It then looks at the role of sovereignty in the allocation of natural resources among states, the interaction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello with respect to the exploitation of natural resources in occupied territories, , and the effect on transactions in natural resources of the duty of non-recognition of unlawful territorial situations. Finally, it describes the initiatives of the United Nations in addressing the issue of natural resources and their relation to interstate conflicts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-286
Author(s):  
Andrew Derek Holt ◽  
Timothy Stephen Eccles

Purpose The relationship between the owner and an occupier of a commercial property is determined by the lease, inasmuch as it sets out the legally enforceable duties and obligations of each party. However, it is only that, a legal framework; it is not a practical management handbook on how best to operate the premises and generate an amicable business relationship. The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the lease in reinforcing and disrupting the generation of best practice within real estate management. Design/methodology/approach The paper examines actual leases to understand the service charge and how data pertinent to it is collected, disseminated and interpreted by both parties in carrying out their activities within and about the property. This is then benchmarked against provisions of the Service Charge Code of Practice. Findings Despite a number of incarnations of a code of practice on service charges during the lifetime of the leases examined, the research finds a troublingly small uptake of its ideas within new leases. Practical implications The findings predict future problems in the practical management of multi-tenanted properties, coupled with a call that leases are written to the Code’s requirements. Originality/value No such lease examination has been undertaken to date.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valsamis Mitsilegas ◽  
Fabio Giuffrida

The last decades have witnessed a growing emphasis on the relationship between environmental law and criminal law. Legislation aimed at tackling environmental crime has been adopted at national,eu, and international level and has been gradually evolving over time. These developments notwithstanding, the current legal framework faces a number of challenges in tackling the largely inter-related phenomena of transnational, organised and economic environmental crime. This study of Valsamis Mitsilegas and Fabio Giuffrida addresses these challenges by focusing on the role of the European Union- and more specifically its criminal justice agencies (Europol and Eurojust)- in tackling transnational environmental crime. The study analyses the role of Eurojust and Europol in supporting and coordinating the competent national authorities dealing with investigations and/or prosecutions on transnational environmental crime, and it shows that, for the time being, the full potential of these agencies is not adequately fulfilled with regard to fighting this phenomenon effectively.


Author(s):  
César Rojas-Orozco

Abstract International humanitarian law (IHL) has traditionally been seen as a legal framework regulating armed hostilities, having little to do with peace. However, recent peacemaking and peacebuilding practice has consistently relied on IHL to frame peace efforts, mainly in non-international armed conflicts. This article explores the relationship between IHL and peace, looking at practice in Colombia, where IHL has been used in a creative way as a means to build trust, facilitate peace negotiations and enforce the resulting peace agreement. Looking at this case, the article offers general insights on how IHL can facilitate the end of conflict and reintegration, frame accountability and reparation, and shield peace deals under a framework in which both State and non-State actors can find a common bargaining zone in their search for peace.


Author(s):  
V. A. Silaeva

In modern world, as more and more states are reluctant to apply direct military force, the role of non-military instruments of coercion such as economic sanctions augments in international relations. In recent years economic sanctions have become firmly anchored in the system of European instruments of foreign policy. Although their implementation and monitoring still requires substantial improvements, progress and high level of consolidation can be witnessed on several recent examples. The article focuses on the evolution of the institutional basis and the mechanisms of coordination of the European Union policy in the sphere of restrictive measures, as well as detailed analysis of current tools of elaboration and implementation of various economic foreign instruments. Three stages can be distinguished in the evolution of European restrictive measures. Originally, there was no coordination as sanctions were introduced by nation states separately and individually. However, with the rise of economic interdependency of the allies there appeared new instruments for the exchange of information and opinions that have evolved into strictly binding mechanisms we can witness today. The example of Iranian sanctions shows what new schemes have been elaborated to increase the effectiveness of sanctions policy and how they have spread and developed, including to work out sanctions against Russia.


Author(s):  
Mark A. Pollack ◽  
Helen Wallace ◽  
Alasdair R. Young

This chapter examines trends and challenges in European Union policy-making during times of crisis. It first considers the main trends in EU policy-making that emerge from policy case studies, including experimentation with new modes of policy-making, often in conjunction with more established modes, leading to hybridization; renegotiation of the role of the member states (and their domestic institutions) in the EU policy process; and erosion of traditional boundaries between internal and external policies. The chapter proceeds by discussing the issue of national governance as well as the interaction between European and global governance. Finally, it explores how the EU has responded to the challenges of coping with enlargement from fifteen to twenty-eight member states, digesting the reforms adopted following the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon, and responding to the economic dislocation associated with the global financial crisis.


Author(s):  
N. A. Bobrova ◽  
◽  
M. A. Vlasova ◽  
V. G. Pozin ◽  
◽  
...  

Despite the permanent interest of scientists in the issue of corruption, the nature of its basics as an anti-social phenomenon remains understudied. As such principle, the paper considers the conflict of interests of participants in various public relations related to the exercise and abuse of power. The paper aims at showing the nature of the conflict of interests as the basis of such anti-social phenomenon as corruption, identifying subjective and objective causes of corruption. The authors analyze the gaps and weaknesses of current anti-corruption legislation and the practice of its application. The paper gives specific examples of a conflict of interests in various corruptogenic spheres and manifestations, for instance, in the sphere of economic entities’ participation in tenders announced by state and municipal authorities. The authors consider the legal and moral ways of preventing conflicts, the role of ethical norms in preventing conflicts, the legal framework of their prevention and resolution, the ratio of the conflict of interests and the employee’s qualification, the relationship between the material and personal interest, the activities of commissions for preventing a conflict of interests guaranteeing the role of written notification of a conflict of interests, special aspects of the notification procedure, and the consequences of non-compliance with the written notification. The study shows that a conflict of interests and corruption risks are eliminated both through legal means and moral ones, whereby the moral qualities of leaders and the requirements imposed on the heads of state and municipal authorities are of particular importance. Nepotism, increasingly prevalent in power and management structures (kinship and clientelism), is a common form of a conflict of interests, which undermines the moral foundations of public and municipal service.


2021 ◽  
pp. 67-106
Author(s):  
Mark Knights

This chapter tracks the evolution of the word and concept of ‘corruption’. Having explored personal, institutional and systemic types of corruption, the next two sections outline key influences on pre-modern ways of thinking about it, highlighting the role of religion and civic humanism or the ‘republican tradition’. These influences put different emphases on personal, institutional, and systemic corruption, even if they shared a common moral purpose. Focus on that moral dimension leads to a discussion about the relationship between corruption and sexual immorality, and between anti-corruption and campaigns for the reformation of manners. The second half of the chapter focuses on the legal framework to show changes in the legal definitions of corruption, which increasingly defined corruption in terms of various forms of monetary forms of crime.


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