New Governance and the EU Courts : The Experimentalist Architecture of Judicial Decision-Making

The dissertation examines the role of the EU courts in new governance. New governance has raised unprecedented interest in the EU in recent years. This is manifested in a plethora of instruments and actors at various levels that challenge more traditional forms of command-and-control regulation. New governance and political experimentation more generally is thought to sap the ability of the EU judiciary to monitor and review these experiments. The exclusion of the courts is then seen to add to the legitimacy problem of new governance. The starting point of this dissertation is the observation that the marginalised role of the courts is based on theoretical and empirical assumptions which invite scrutiny. The theoretical framework of the dissertation is deliberative democracy and democratic experimentalism. The analysis of deliberative democracy is sustained by an attempt to apply theoretical concepts to three distinctive examples of governance in the EU. These are the EU Sustainable Development Strategy, the European Chemicals Agency, and the Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive. The case studies show numerous disincentives and barriers to judicial review. Among these are questions of the role of courts in shaping governance frameworks, the reviewability of science-based measures, the standing of individuals before the courts, and the justiciability of soft law. The dissertation analyses the conditions of judicial review in each governance environment and proposes improvements. From a more theoretical standpoint it could be said that each case study presents a governance regime which builds on legislation that lays out major (guide)lines but leaves details to be filled out at a later stage. Specification of detailed standards takes place through collaborative networks comprising members from national administrations, NGOs, and the Commission. Viewed this way, deliberative problem-solving is needed to bring people together to clarify, elaborate, and revise largely abstract and general norms in order to resolve concrete and specific problems and to make law applicable and enforceable. The dissertation draws attention to the potential of peer review included there and its profound consequences for judicial accountability structures. It is argued that without this kind of ongoing and dynamic peer review of accountability in governance frameworks, judicial review of new governance is difficult and in some cases impossible. This claim has implications for how we understand the concept of soft law, the role of the courts, participation rights, and the legitimacy of governance measures more generally. The experimentalist architecture of judicial decision-making relies upon a wide variety of actors to provide conditions for legitimate and efficient review.

The effect of structure on the dilute solution properties of branched polysaccharides studied with SEC and AsFlFFF

Cereal arabinoxylans, guar galactomannans, and dextrans produced by lactic acid bacteria(LAB) are a structurally diverse group of branched polysaccharides with nutritional and industrial functions. In this thesis, the effect of the chemical structure on the dilute solution properties of these polysaccharides was investigated using size-exclusion chromatography(SEC) and asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation (AsFlFFF) with multiple-detection. The chemical structures of arabinoxylans were determined, whereas galactomannan and dextran structures were studied in previous investigations. Characterization of arabinoxylans revealed differences in the chemical structures of cereal arabinoxylans. Although arabinoxylans from wheat, rye, and barley fiber contained similar amounts of arabinose side units, the substitution pattern of arabinoxylans from different cereals varied. Arabinoxylans from barley husks and commercial low-viscosity wheat arabinoxylan contained a lower number of arabinose side units. Structurally different dextrans were obtained from different LAB. The structural effects on the solution properties could be studied in detail by modifying pure wheat and rye arabinoxylans and guar galactomannan with specific enzymes. The solution characterization of arabinoxylans, enzymatically modified galactomannans, and dextrans revealed the presence of aggregates in aqueous polysaccharide solutions. In the case of arabinoxylans and dextrans, the comparison of molar mass data from aqueous and organic SEC analyses was essential in confirming aggregation, which could not be observed only from the peak or molar mass distribution shapes obtained with aqueous SEC. The AsFlFFF analyses gave further evidence of aggregation. Comparison of molar mass and intrinsic viscosity data of unmodified and partially debranched guar galactomannan, on the other hand, revealed the aggregation of native galactomannan. The arabinoxylan and galactomannan samples with low or enzymatically extensively decreased side unit content behaved similarly in aqueous solution: lower molar mass samples stayed in solution but formed large aggregates, whereas the water solubility of the higher-molar-mass samples decreased significantly. Due to the restricted solubility of galactomannans in organic solvents, only aqueous galactomannan solutions were studied. The SEC and AsFlFFF results differed for the wheat arabinoxylan and dextran samples. Column matrix effects and possible differences in the separation parameters are discussed, and a problem related to the non-established relationship between the separation parameters of the two separation techniques is highlighted. This thesis shows that complementary approaches in the solution characterization of chemically heterogeneous polysaccharides are needed to comprehensively investigate macromolecular behavior in solution. These results may also be valuable when characterizing other branched polysaccharides.

Trafficking in human beings and Foucauldian biopower : A case study in the expansion of the human rights phenomenon

Trafficking in human beings has become one of the most talked about criminal concerns of the 21st century. But this is not all that it has become. Trafficking has also been declared as one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time. In this sense, it has become a part of the expansion of the human rights phenomenon. Although it is easy to see that the crime of trafficking violates several of the human rights of its victims, it is still, in its essence, a fairly conventional although particularly heinous and often transnational crime, consisting of acts between private actors, and lacking, therefore, the vertical effect associated traditionally with human rights violations. This thesis asks, then, why, and how, has the anti-trafficking campaign been translated in human rights language. And even more fundamentally: in light of the critical, theoretical studies surrounding the expansion of the human rights phenomenon, especially that of Costas Douzinas, who has declared that we have come to the end of human rights as a consequence of the expansion and bureaucratization of the phenomenon, can human rights actually bring salvation to the victims of trafficking? The thesis demonstrates that the translation process of the anti-trafficking campaign into human rights language has been a complicated process involving various actors, including scholars, feminist NGOs, local activists and global human rights NGOs. It has also been driven by a complicated web of interests, the most prevalent one the sincere will to help the victims having become entangled with other aims, such as political, economical, and structural goals. As a consequence of its fragmented background, the human rights approach to trafficking seeks still its final form, consisting of several different claims. After an assessment of these claims from a legal perspective, this thesis concludes that the approach is most relevant regarding the mistreatment of victims of trafficking in the hands of state authorities. It seems to be quite common that authorities have trouble identifying the victims of trafficking, which means that the rights granted to themin international and national documents are not realized in practice, but victims of trafficking are systematically deported as illegal immigrants. It is argued that in order to understand the measures of the authorities, and to assess the usefulness of human rights, it is necessary to adopt a Foucauldian perspective and to observe the measures as biopolitical defence mechanisms. From a biopolitical perspective, the victims of trafficking can be seen as a threat to the population a threat that must be eliminated either by assimilating them to the main population with the help of disciplinary techniques, or by excluding them completely from the society. This biopolitical aim is accomplished through an impenetrable net of seemingly insignificant practices and discourses that not even the participants are aware of. As a result of these practices and discourses, trafficking victims only very few of fit the myth of the perfect victim, produced by biopolitical discourses become invisible and therefore subject to deportation as (risky) illegal immigrants, turning them into bare life in the Agambenian sense, represented by the homo sacer, who cannot be sacrificed, yet does not enjoy the protection of the society and its laws. It is argued, following Jacques Rancière and Slavoj i ek, that human rights can, through their universality and formal equality, provide bare life the tools to formulate political claims and therefore utilize their politicization through their exclusion to return to the sphere of power and politics. Even though human rights have inevitably become entangled with biopolitical practices, they are still perhaps the most efficient way to challenge biopower. Human rights have not, therefore, become useless for the victims of trafficking, but they must be conceived as a universal tool to formulate political claims and challenge power .In the case of trafficking this means that human rights must be utilized to constantly renegotiate the borders of the problematic concept of victim of trafficking created by international instruments, policies and discourses, including those that are sincerely aimed to provide help for the victims.

Sosiaaliturvan ulkopuolella - kokemuksia kansalaisuuden reunalta

Muuttaessaan maasta toiseen ihminen kohtaa useita rajoja. Ylittäessään kohdemaan valtion rajan hän kulkee läpi ensimmäisestä maahanmuuton portista. Toinen raja erottaa tilapäiset asukkaat pysyvistä: tämän maahanmuuton toisen portin läpikulkemisen myötä yksilö pääsee osalliseksi sosiaalisista oikeuksista. Maahanmuuton viimeisestä portista kuljettuaan yksilö saavuttaa kyseisen valtion kansalaisuuden. (Hammar 1990, 21.) Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa tarkastelen toisen maahanmuuton portin aukeamista ja sosiaaliturvan piiriin pääsyä odottavien maahan-muuttajien kokemuksia. Käytän tarkastelussa sosiaalisen kansalaisuuden ja marginaalisuuden käsitteitä. Tutkielmassa selvitän, miten sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluiden sekä toimeentuloturvan ulkopuolelle jääminen vaikuttaa maahanmuuttajien arkeen ja miten he kokevat osallisuutensa ja jäsenyytensä yhteiskunnassa. Tutkimus on lähtökohdiltaan fenomenologis-hermeneuttinen ja sovellan lähestymistapana ko-kemuksiin keskittyvän narratiivista tutkimusta. Tutkimusaineisto on koottu kevään 2011 aikana ja se koostuu 10 teemahaastattelusta. Haastateltavien maahanmuuton keinot ja syyt vaihtelivat: he olivat saapuneet Suomeen perhesyistä, työn vuoksi tai hakeakseen turvaa. Haastateltavat tavoitettiin Helsingin Diakoniaopiston, Pro-tukipisteen, Kansainvälisen seurakunnan ja tuttava-verkostojen kautta. Aineiston analyysi toteutettiin sisällönanalyysillä Atlas-ohjelman avulla syksyn 2011 aikana. Toisen maahanmuuton portin aukeamisen odottaminen oli raskaaksi: tuota aikaa leimasi epä-varmuus, tyhjyys ja yksinäisyys. Sosiaaliturvan ulkopuolella jääminen aiheutti osalle haastatel-tavista taloudellisia vaikeuksia sekä ongelmia terveydenhuollon palveluiden piiriin pääsemisessä. Toisaalta apua hakeneet haastateltavat olivat sitä lopulta saaneet. Auttamistyön ammattilaiset ja maistraatti saivat haastateltavien kertomuksissa portinvartijan aseman. Kaikille sosiaaliturvan ulkopuolelle jääminen ei ollut ongelma vaan he kokivat sosiaaliturvan puutetta suuremmaksi ongelmaksi työnteko-oikeuden puuttumisen. Kuulumisen ja ulkopuolisuuden kokemus voivat olla läsnä samanaikaisesti, ja kuulumisesta neuvotellaan jatkuvasti esimerkiksi sosiaalisessa kanssakäymisessä tai palveluita hakiessa. Insti-tutionaaliset käytännöt ja poiskäännyttämisen kokemukset tuottavat marginaalisia identiteettejä. Tasavertainen oikeus sosiaaliturvaan vahvistaa kokemusta kuulumisesta ja kodista. Sosiaaliturva ei kuitenkaan yksin määritä kuulumisen ja kodin kokemusta vaan siihen vaikuttavat myös muut tekijät. Näistä tärkeimmät ovat kehon fyysinen sijoittuminen Suomeen, perhe- ja ystä-vyyssuhteet, työ, asunto ja rasismin kokemukset.