scholarly journals Humanitarian Diplomacy

2018 ◽  
pp. 382-392
Author(s):  
Antonio Gazzanti Pugliese di Cotrone

The article describes humanitarian diplomacy that has to break a potential ideological ice between belligerent parties, establish a network of diplomatic connections in a skillful way, and use every opportunity available to support victims of war. An indisputable fact is that the higher the reputation and the stronger the trust to those using humanitarian diplomacy strategies, the better results will be achieved. The combination of diplomacy and humanitarian activities may lead to the emergence of unexpected interactions. The International Federation of Red Cross mentions that the goal humanitarian diplomacy seeks to achieve is the provision of better care for socially disadvantaged groups of society from governments; establishment of closer ties with decision-makers to generate opportunities to influence them; maintenance of a permanent dialogue at both national and international levels; engagement to a discussion of those who work in the field of humanitarian diplomacy; increase in transparency of such discussion; enhancement of the ability to govern all the useful resources; cooperation with other actors pursuing the same humanitarian goals. Humanitarian diplomacy has to direct its actions at all crises and to both governmental and non-governmental entities of international law; take into account that its aim is to open borders and establish humanitarian corridors ensuring the provision of direct assistance to refugees. The main task is to guarantee long-term actions, while avoiding temporary and fragile alternatives. That is the basis for humanitarian diplomacy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta with all its peculiarities. Keywords: the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Red Cross, international law, humanitarian diplomacy, crises.

1996 ◽  
Vol 36 (310) ◽  
pp. 14-19

I shall speak today of a bright prospect for our world which can become a reality if we all believe in it and work together for it.I express this hope in the same spirit that prevailed at the first International Conference — convened 132 years ago — which overcame the misgivings of the sceptics and led to the creation of the initial Geneva Convention. That treaty conferred protection on wounded and sick soldiers in time of war and on those who cared for them. Since then, the same protection has been given in international law to wounded and sick members of the armed forces at sea, prisoners of war, civilians in wartime and -- to some extent owing to the change in the nature of conflict over recent decades -- vulnerable victims of civil strife.


2010 ◽  
pp. 487-495
Author(s):  
Martin Bruhns ◽  
Peter Glaviè ◽  
Arne Sloth Jensen ◽  
Michael Narodoslawsky ◽  
Giorgio Pezzi ◽  
...  

The paper is based on the results of international project entitled “Towards Sustainable Sugar Industry in Europe (TOSSIE)”. 33 research topics of major importance to the sugar sector are listed and briefly described, and compared with research priorities of the European Technology Platforms: “Food for Life”, “Sustainable Chemistry”, “Biofuels”, and “Plant for the Future”. Most topics are compatible with the research themes included in the COOPERATION part of the 7th Framework Program of the EU (2007-2013). However, some topics may require long-term R&D with the time horizon of up to 15 years. The list of topics is divided into four parts: Sugar manufacturing, Applications of biotechnology and biorefinery processing, Sugarbeet breeding and growing, Horizontal issues. Apart from possible use of the list by policy- and decision makers with an interest in sugarbeet sector, the description of each research topic can be used as a starting point in setting up a research project or other R&D activities.


Author(s):  
Cymie R. Payne

The principle of ‘environmental integrity’ is a fundamental aspect of jus post bellum. Human life, economy, and culture depend on a healthy, functioning environment. However, environmental integrity is a complex concept to describe. Doctrinal thresholds for legally material environmental damage (significant, long-term, widespread) do not capture it. This chapter interrogates the jus post bellum literature and then turns to scholarship on wilderness management in the Anthropocene era, which also engages with the meaning of ‘environmental integrity’, ‘naturalness’, ‘unimpaired’, or, in the words of the Factory at Chorzów case which sets the international law standard for reparations of damage, ‘the situation which would, in all probability, have existed if that act had not been committed’. Recognition that pristine or historical conditions are often impossible to recover or maintain leads to the legal, ethical, and scientific analysis of evolving environmental norms that this chapter offers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1514
Author(s):  
Rebecca Peters ◽  
Jürgen Berlekamp ◽  
Ana Lucía ◽  
Vittoria Stefani ◽  
Klement Tockner ◽  
...  

Mitigating climate change, while human population and economy are growing globally, requires a bold shift to renewable energy sources. Among renewables, hydropower is currently the most economic and efficient technique. However, due to a lack of impact assessments at the catchment scale in the planning process, the construction of hydropower plants (HPP) may have unexpected ecological, socioeconomic, and political ramifications in the short and in the long term. The Vjosa River, draining parts of Northern Greece and Albania, is one of the few predominantly free-flowing rivers left in Europe; at the same time its catchment is identified an important resource for future hydropower development. While current hydropower plants are located along tributaries, planned HPP would highly impact the free-flowing main stem. Taking the Vjosa catchment as a case study, the aim of this study was to develop a transferable impact assessment that ranks potential hydropower sites according to their projected impacts on a catchment scale. Therefore, we integrated established ecological, social, and economic indicators for all HPP planned in the river catchment, while considering their capacity, and developed a ranking method based on impact categories. For the Vjosa catchment, ten hydropower sites were ranked as very harmful to the environment as well as to society. A sensitivity analysis revealed that this ranking is dependent upon the selection of indicators. Small HPP showed higher cumulative impacts than large HPP, when normalized to capacity. This study empowers decision-makers to compare both the ranked impacts and the generated energy of planned dam projects at the catchment scale.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 242-247
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

A growing body of research applies behavioral approaches to the study of international law, mainly by studying convenience samples of students or other segments of the general public. Alongside the promises of this agenda are concerns about applying findings from non-elite populations to the people, and groups of people, charged with most real-world decision-making in the domain of law and governance. This concern is compounded by the fact that it is extremely difficult to recruit these actual decision-makers in a way that allows for direct study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 602-641
Author(s):  
Günther Handl

AbstractKey maritime conventions governing liability and compensation for pollution of the marine environment, foremost among them the 1992 Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Convention and the 2003 Supplementary Fund Protocol (the CLC/Fund regime), exclude compensation for pure environmental loss. This article discusses whether anything less than full compensation of damage to the marine environment, including the loss of ecosystem services, comports with contemporary international public policy or law. After reviewing and rejecting traditional arguments opposing such compensability, the article contrasts the CLC/Fund regime’s environmental claims practice with emerging trends in decision on the international legal plane and in select domestic legal systems, all of which support full compensation. The article thus concludes that an adjustment of the CLC/Fund regime’s environmental claims approach is desirable to align it with this international (and national) practice and thereby to protect the long-term integrity of the regime itself.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Raso ◽  
Jan Kwakkel ◽  
Jos Timmermans

Climate change raises serious concerns for policymakers that want to ensure the success of long-term policies. To guarantee satisfactory decisions in the face of deep uncertainties, adaptive policy pathways might be used. Adaptive policy pathways are designed to take actions according to how the future will actually unfold. In adaptive pathways, a monitoring system collects the evidence required for activating the next adaptive action. This monitoring system is made of signposts and triggers. Signposts are indicators that track the performance of the pathway. When signposts reach pre-specified trigger values, the next action on the pathway is implemented. The effectiveness of the monitoring system is pivotal to the success of adaptive policy pathways, therefore the decision-makers would like to have sufficient confidence about the future capacity to adapt on time. “On time” means activating the next action on a pathway neither so early that it incurs unnecessary costs, nor so late that it incurs avoidable damages. In this paper, we show how mapping the relations between triggers and the probability of misclassification errors inform the level of confidence that a monitoring system for adaptive policy pathways can provide. Specifically, we present the “trigger-probability” mapping and the “trigger-consequences” mappings. The former mapping displays the interplay between trigger values for a given signpost and the level of confidence regarding whether change occurs and adaptation is needed. The latter mapping displays the interplay between trigger values for a given signpost and the consequences of misclassification errors for both adapting the policy or not. In a case study, we illustrate how these mappings can be used to test the effectiveness of a monitoring system, and how they can be integrated into the process of designing an adaptive policy.


2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Matheson

The International Law Commission held its fifty-sixdi session in Geneva from May 3 to June 4, and from July 5 to August 6, 2004, under the chairmanship of Teodor Melescanu of Romania. The Commission completed its first reading of draft principles on international liability for transboundary harm and draft articles on diplomatic protection, which have now been submitted for comment by states with a view to their completion in 2006. The Commission also continued its work on reservations to treaties, responsibility of international organizations, unilateral acts of states, fragmentation of international law, and shared natural resources. In addition, the Commission decided to start work next year on the effect of armed conflict on treaties and the expulsion of aliens, and to recommend adding a new topic—the obligation to prosecute or extradite—to its long-term program. The following is a summary of where each topic stands and what issues are likely to be most prominent at the Commission's 2005 session.


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