El Tribunal Especial para el Líbano y la sentencia Hariri. ¿Justicia selectiva?

The article analyses the complex relation between politics and justice in the international arena that is reflected in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The subject matters developed are its problematic establishment by means of Security Council resolution 1757 (2007) and its selective nature, as well as the legal-doctrinal dispute laid out in the Ayyash et al. case, also known as the Hariri case. It is stressed the importance of circumstantial factors, especially those triggered since 2004, with the aim to explain the internal division —with international protagonists— of the country into two blocks whose confrontation would serve as a pretext for starting-up a unique tribunal that would meet the interests of an international community captivated by the possibility of achieving a judicial terrorism sentence against Hizballah —and/or Syria— who was gathering momentum. The 2011 interlocutory decision of the Appeals Chamber seemed to reveal itself as a good omen in said direction when it stated the necessity to interpret the crime of terrorism established in article 314 of the Lebanese Criminal Code in accordance with an international crime of terrorism of customary nature. The revolutionary decision —together with the process that led to its publication— disclosed nevertheless, a certain hasty and opportunistic character, which the 2020 judgment finally rejected for being unnecessary and untrue. The article upholds that all the above has contributed to undermine the credibility of the Tribunal, which is a model of selective justice, and has demonstrated little deference towards the sovereignty of the Lebanese State.

WAS THE POLIS A PERSON IN CLASSICAL ATHENS? CIVIC BODIES AND CHORAL POLITICS IN THE THEATER

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides waits until he has passed the midpoint of Book 1 to introduce an individual speaking ‘character’ into his narrative. He does not do so until the scene of the Congress at Sparta (1.67–88), where it is first ‘the Corinthians’ and then ‘the Athenians’ who plead their cases before the Spartan assembly. One of the functions of this scene is to illustrate the internal division of opinion among the Spartans, and Thucydides now brings two distinct, elite Spartans onstage to voice their conflicting perspectives: King Archidamus addresses his countrymen urging caution (1.80–5), while the ephor Sthenelaidas makes suitably laconic remarks pressing for war (1.86). Before this turning point, Thucydides had carried out his analysis of the war's causes exclusively with reference to foreign rulers and Greek polis-populations (‘the Athenians’, ‘the Spartans’, etc.)—and not to any individual actors or leaders of those poleis, such as Archidamus and Sthenelaidas of Sparta.

Pluralism, Populism, and the Impossibility of Grand Strategy

The impediments to designing a coherent grand strategy and pursuing it consistently have always been considerable. But developments in recent decades—the rise of multiculturalism from the 1970s, and the populist backlash that reached its apparent apex 40 years later—have conspired to make those obstacles all but insurmountable. Multiculturalism and populism have both made formulating and executing a consistent and durable grand strategy much more difficult, if not impossible. The essay reaches this conclusion through the lens of narrative and legitimation. Multiculturalism does not impede the articulation of grand strategy, but it does—by undercutting a shared national narrative—complicate the mobilization of societal resources, render the implementation of a consistent strategy, across policy domains, more difficult, and make grand strategy less sustainable over time. Populist politics has similar effects, accentuating and hardening lines of internal division and concentrating authority in the charismatic leader. After chronicling grand strategy’s demise, the essay concludes with a call for burying it, not grieving its passing.

The Causes and Consequences of Bad Strategy and Poor Tactics

This chapter identifies the causes and consequences of bad strategy and poor tactics. It distinguishes three sources of error: incomplete information, wishful thinking, and mixed objectives. The chapter also explains the metaphor of the “game” when referring to the subject matter as the sovereignty game, noting that the sovereignty game is shaped by an evolving set of formal and informal rules and practices. The chapter presents two reasons why wishful thinking is present in secessionist movements: the first follows from the problem of incomplete information and the second is the simple penchant for hope. The chapter also analyses how internal division (factionalism) complicates the strategic and tactical playing field and its effects within self-determination groups. The product of the different causes of bad strategy is a game where play is varied and where actors often make poor choices. The game is coherent enough to shape play but sufficiently vague to produce misaligned tactics. With such awareness, the chapter outlines these causes and their consequences and, in doing so, begin to set the stage for a more prescriptive discussion.

Pufendorf and Leibniz on duties of esteem in diplomatic relations

The striving for self-worth is recognized as a driving force in international relations; but if self-worth is understood as a function of status in a power hierarchy, this striving often is a source of anxiety and conflict over status. The quasi-international relations within the early modern German Empire have prompted seventeenth-century natural law theorists such as Samuel Pufendorf and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to reflect about this problem. In his De statu imperii Germanici (1667), Pufendorf regards the power differences and dependencies between the Reichsstände to be an expression of the deficits of constitutional structure of the Empire—a structure that, in his view, causes internal division because it leads to distorted practices of esteem between the estates. Against Pufendorf, Leibniz argues De jure suprematus ac legationis (1671) that political actors such as the German princes who are not Electors could fulfill functions under the law of nations such as forming confederations and peace keeping. Incoherently, however, Leibniz excludes less powerful estates such as the Imperial cities and the Hanseatic cities from the ensuing duties of esteem. This shortcoming, in turn, is arguably remedied in Pufendorf’s later considerations concerning duties of esteem in diplomatic relations.

DETERMINATION OF THE VOLUME OF THE TANK OF RAILWAY WAGON WITH RIBBING

This article is aimed at comparing the effectiveness of testing the dimensional parameters of a tank wagon with an internal ribbing with a nominal volume of 85 m3 in a production plant. One of the used methods is the traditional volumetric method, ie measuring the volume of water with a pair of flowmeters when filling the vessel. The second method is a method of computer processing of data obtained by 3d scanning of the interior of the tank from several positions and the subsequent composition of the tank model and calculation of its volume using the PolyWorks program. Evaluation of both measurement methods revealed that despite the non-trivial internal division of the measured object, both methods are sufficiently accurate, and even in this case the scanning method provides the measurement result several times faster compared to the volumetric method. In the reported example, measurement time spent to achieve results for the scanning method was approximately one third comparing with that of the water filling.

A Mix of Motives

Scholarly debates over the nature of political parties and the identity of their principal actors have been hampered by relative inattention to the historical processes of internal party change. This study, drawing on archival sources, interviews, and one of the co-author’s personal experiences, analyzes the Georgia delegate challenge to the 1968 Democratic Convention as a case of internal party conflict generating lasting institutional reform, with implications for existing theories of party development, nominating politics, and democratic representation. In a convention marked by an unusually large number of challenges to state party delegations, the Georgia delegate challenge was unique. There, a conflict between the segregationist regulars and the moderate and liberal Democrats was complicated by an internal division in the latter camp between Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy supporters. The McCarthy forces’ success in garnering a dominant position within the challenge delegation alienated many of the Georgia movement’s organizers and leaders. The McCarthy campaign's takeover also linked this southern challenge both to the antiwar politics coloring the national nomination fight and to a particular conception of representation that would influence subsequent party reform efforts. In tracing the origins, dynamics, and aftermath of Georgia’s delegate challenge, we show both that group- and candidate-driven efforts together shape party development over time, and that normative ideas concerning representation can play causal roles in party development.

The internal division of the Pliocene Lillo Formation: correlation between Cone Penetration Tests and lithostratigraphic type sections

The highly fossiliferous Lillo Formation (Pliocene, southern margin North Sea Basin) is formally subdivided in five lithostratigraphical members. While these members are generally relatively easily identifiable in outcrops, they are much more difficultly identifiable in boreholes, hampering geological studies. In the Port of Antwerp area, however, an already existing and dense network of Cone Penetration Tests (CPTs) provides an alternative and additional tool for the recognition of the different lithologies in the Lillo Formation. CPTs reveal a clear geotechnical threefold division of the Formation. The lower and upper intervals, herein named CPT units Li-A and Li-C respectively, are characterized by high qc and low Rf values and correspond to shell-bearing, sandy lithologies. CPT unit Li-A can further be divided in a shelly basal subunit Li-A1 and an overlying sandy subunit Li-A2. CPT units Li-A and Li-C are separated by CPT unit Li-B characterized by low qc and high Rf values which correspond to more clayey lithologies. Four CPTs selected in close vicinity of four well-documented outcrops, some of them being formal stratotypes for the Formation and some of its members, allowed to correlate the geotechnical units with detailed lithological descriptions as well as the formal stratigraphy. CPT unit Li-A1 can be correlated to the Luchtbal Member and the basal part of the Oorderen Member, whereas unit Li-A2 corresponds to the superjacent sandy body of the Oorderen Member. The overlying CPT units Li-B and Li-C seem to correlate differently in different outcrops to the clayey upper part of the Oorderen Member, Kruisschans and Merksem Members. This inconsistency hinders any direct correlation between the geotechnical stratigraphy and lithostratigraphy of the Members of the Lillo Formation. Further research is needed to find the reason(s) for this inconsistency.

Religious Elite Cues, Internal Division, and the Impact of Pope Francis' Laudato Si'

What impact do cues from religious elites have on followers, particularly when religious communities are internally divided? Could religious elites promote internal consensus, or would their cues stoke further internal polarization? This article utilizes the release of Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si', to explore these questions. A unique survey experiment, conducted on a nationally representative sample of Catholic voters in the United States in late 2015, tests the impact of Francis' message relative to a similar message from unidentified environmental elites. In keeping with other studies of Laudato's impact in the United States, findings reveal real, but nuanced, effects from Francis' environmental cue. The Francis cue did impact conservatives and high religiosity Catholics, but these effects were not distinct from those on other Catholics in the sample, suggesting limitations in promoting consensus. Instead, responses to a Francis cue varied sharply depending on pre-existing views of Francis' leadership.

Stutter and phenomena: The phenomenology and deconstruction of delayed auditory feedback

Jacques Derrida’s early critique of Husserlian phenomenology discusses the production of the ‘phenomenological voice’ as the consummate model of human consciousness. Challenging Husserl’s conviction that consciousness is produced from the self-enclosed act of ‘hearing-oneself-speak’, Derrida points to vocality as the complex site of the self’s relationship to presence and exteriority. The internal division between hearing and speaking, he argues, introduces difference into the generation of conscious life. The use of delayed auditory feedback (DAF) as a prosthetic for stuttering provides an opportunity to engage Derrida’s insights on the connection between consciousness and voice with an ear to the speech of people who stutter. DAF, which may reduce or increase dysfluency depending on the speech of the user, introduces a series of delays, alterations and supplements to speech that underwrite the heterogeneous experience of conscious life. What can the philosophy of deconstruction add to conversations about the function of DAF, and what can theory about and experiences with DAF teach us about the self’s presence to itself and the role of alterity in shaping speech? What does stuttering teach us about the necessity of dysfluency for all speech? This article examines the relation between the voice and the phenomenological voice, and between stuttering and prosthetics. Concluding with an analysis of Richard Serra’s experimental recording, Boomerang (1974), it argues that voice is always already prostheticized with alterity, and that in hearing-oneself-speak we exist with voice in an expansive and unfinished conversation with our own mystery.