Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Local Communities’ Mobilisation to Regain Control: The Role of Human Rights

The article reviews trends in international non-binding standards: 1) the equalisation of indigenous peoples and local communities as rights-holders; 2) the strength and weakness of the safeguards approach in the context of redd+; 3) the wide definition of who constitutes stakeholders; and 4) the scope of a due diligence requirement. The article identifies and discusses two approaches: 1) mobilisation, understood as political or legal pressure exerted upon endogenous actors by other endogenous actors, and where international human rights serve as the norm basis for this pressure. 2) control, implying that power asymmetries in relation to external actors are challenged by alliances with human rights organisations and environmental organisations. Both benefit from being embedded in human rights principles: dignity, non-discrimination, rule of law, accountability, transparency, participation and empowerment. Human rights might, however, lead to tensions internally, as these principles can conflict with customary and exclusionary decision-making procedures.

Political Will and Media Law: A Poland Case Analysis

A significant element of Central and Eastern Europe’s democracies backsliding process turns out to be changes in the media law. These changes are now leading to a decline in media freedom. The article attempts to understand this phenomenon by analyzing the process of legal and policy changes in Poland. In the course of the analysis, the reader’s attention is drawn to three elements that form the mainline of events related to the weakening of media freedom. These are, in turn, (a) the takeover of public media by influencing the staffing of media companies, (b) introducing a new, completely politicized body into the legal order, which duplicates the already existing and partially politicized media authority, and (c) exerting economic and legal pressure on the media independent of the authorities, so that they can be taken over by state-owned companies or businessmen favoring the authorities. As a whole, this decline in media freedom can be viewed as a strategy that antagonizes society.

PREVENTION OF TORTURE ON THE TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE

The article reveals the content of armed aggression and the legal status of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Russia's aggression against Ukraine is considered in historical retrospect. Cases of torture and other ill-treatment on the temporarily occupied territories have been demonstrated in specific cases. The article examines the state of human rights on the temporarily occupied territories, namely the prevention of torture and other ill-treatment. Ways to prevent torture and ill-treatment in order to respect human rights and maintain the rule of law have been identified. The author determined that system of counteraction to aggression of Russia, which consists the political, legal and economic means, includes the prevention of torture and ill-treatment.The author notes that the adoption of UN GA resolutions and other documents of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe are new elements of increasing legal pressure on Russia. The submission of interstate applications by the Government of Ukraine to the European Court of Human Rights against the Russian Federation is one of the effective means of preventing torture. The article reveals the impact of expert and advocacy activities of non-governmental human rights organizations on the prevention of torture and the state of human rights on the temporarily occupied territories. It is noted that maintaining contacts with the citizens of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, constant informing, as well as obtaining information by the Ukrainian side on the state of human rights in the temporarily occupied territory provides an opportunity to partially prevent such violations and allow future reintegration of these territories. Keywords: prevention of torture, temporarily occupied territories, armed aggression, observance of human rights.

Why Do States Privatize their Prisons? The Unintended Consequences of Inmate Litigation

The United States has witnessed privatization of a variety of government functions over the last three decades. Media and politicians often attribute the decision to privatize to ideological commitments to small government and fiscal pressure. These claims are particularly notable in the context of prison privatization, where states and the federal government have employed private companies to operate and manage private correctional facilities. I argue that state prison privatization is not a function of simple ideological or economic considerations. Rather, prison privatization has been an unintended consequence of the administrative and legal costs associated with litigation brought by prisoners. I assemble an original database of prison privatization in the United States and demonstrate that the privatization of prisons is best predicted by the legal pressure on state corrections systems, rather than the ideological orientation of a state government.

A Swiftly Changing Tide: Fantasy Sport, Gambling, and Alternative Forms of Participation

The fantasy sport industry has seen tremendous changes in the past five years, thanks in large part to increased participation, media acceptance, easing of legal pressure, and the proliferation of daily fantasy sport. Similarly, sports gambling recently moved further into the spotlight with a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a 1992 law allowing Nevada to be the only state to legally house sports betting. Having once been advised to steer clear of each other, gambling and fantasy sport interests are now becoming increasingly intertwined. Utilizing quantitative data from a national survey of 519 fantasy sport participants, this study explores attitudes of and participation in alternative forms of fantasy sport and sports betting. Insights can be gleaned regarding familiarity in the activities, reluctance in participation, sport consumption, future participation, and connection points between fantasy sport and sports gambling cultures.

Hong Kong opposition may split over delayed election

Significance The current Council will sit until then. The administration justified its decision on the basis of a spike in coronavirus cases, but many believe it is an effort to hamper the opposition, which for the first time stood a real chance of winning a majority despite an electoral system skewed against it. Impacts Despite losing confidence in Hong Kong, other countries will probably not alter their treatment of it as much as the United States has. Referring to decision to postpone the election to Beijing weakens the legal wall between Hong Kong and mainland China. The Hong Kong government will continue to exert legal pressure on prominent activists, including application of the National Security Law.

Open Secrecy: How Police Crackdowns and Creative Problem-Solving Brought Illegal Markets out of the Shadows

Can organized illegal activities grow stronger and more advanced in response to legal pressure? In October 2013, the FBI shut down Silk Road, a thriving e-commerce market for illegal drugs. After the shock, market actors adopted a new identity verification method that enabled mass-migration to other markets, and created websites for information distribution that reduced post-shock uncertainties. The outcome was a decentralized market in which actors could operate in “open secrecy” across multiple websites. With verifiable pseudonyms and securely obfuscated real-world identities, actors could publicly discuss, plan, and participate in illegal activities. Threats from police and opportunistic criminals persisted but were no longer crippling concerns as buyers and sellers could reasonably expect that their exchange partners would be available for future business; the illegal market could operate more like a legal one. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, the author argues that advances in information technology have expanded the opportunity structure for cooperation and creative problem-solving in the underworld, and therefore that shocks did not hinder but rather stimulate development in digital drug markets. Data, collected in 2013–2017, include nearly one million transactions from three illicit e-commerce markets, three million messages from eight discussion forums, and website traffic from two market-independent websites.

The Double Edge of Professional Agency: The Contradictory Roles of Human Resource Professionals in the Implementation of the Parental Leave Policy in South Korea

Why do organizations respond differently to social policies? This is an important question because it gives us a clue as to why social progress is often slow even with successful legislation. We argue that HR professionals’ conflicting roles within organizations affect modes of organizations’ compliance with a law because HR professionals are expected to adjust legal pressure to business interests when translating external requirements into internal policies. How they manage this challenge depends on variation in the development of different dimensions of their professional agency: formalization and substantive empowerment. We demonstrate empirically this argument by taking the case of South Korea’s parental leave policy. Using workplace-level data, we find that the presence of formal HR structures predicts that minimal compliance is more likely than is noncompliance, but is less likely than is maximal compliance, and that substantively empowered HR professionals contribute to making both compliance and maximal compliance more probable.

Sustainable Public Procurement—External Forces and Accountability

Public agencies feel the need to advance sustainability and use procurement as an instrument to do so. Many studies focused on internal forces, explaining the limited success of sustainable public procurement. This study focused on how external forces are able to hold municipalities accountable for sustainable procurement. Three mid-sized Dutch municipalities were investigated through an extensive document study and 34 semi-structured interviews. The results show minor legal pressure to enforce sustainable procurement. National legislation, guidelines and principles are considered non-binding, due to a lack of penalties in the case of non-compliance. Real pressure stems from lobbying by branch organizations and political pressure initiated by citizens. In contrast with the New Public Management principles, municipalities appear to place more emphasis on legal and financial accountability, in contrast to performance accountability. Accountants mainly focus on legitimacy and the finance department only monitors spending within budget. The hybrid organization of the procurement function seems to impede sustainability development. Only the larger projects are subject to sustainability requirements, set by centralized purchasing departments. Smaller projects, responsible for 2/3 of the total spend are managed by decentralized groups, remaining under the radar of sustainability policies.

Problems of Professional Training of Youth Liaison Officers for the Russian Federation Law Enforcement Agencies

Pursuant to the effective laws, the Russian Federation has a functioning system for prevention of minors neglect and delinquency. This system comprises both a number of measures of organizational and legal nature aimed at creation of conditions for the normal physical, mental and moral development of children and teenagers and elimination of conditions promoting minors involvement in sociopathic and unlawful activities, and a combination of various government bodies and institutions of general and special competence implementing these actions. For instance, healthcare bodies, education agencies, authorities for social protection of the population, and many others have their own competence in this area. Police plays special role in the common system for prevention of minors neglect and delinquency. Specialized youth liaison police units are created, the competencies of which include working with teenagers involved in sociopathic activities, as well as identification and elimination of causes and conditions facilitating such activities, including legal pressure on persons infringing rights and lawful interests of minors, committing offenses against minors, or involving them in unlawful activities.