Domestic Violence and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v United States

On 21 July 2011 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued its much awaited decision in the case of Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v United States. In a landmark decision the Commission found the United States of America to be in violation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man 1948 due to the failure of the state to protect a victim of domestic violence and her children. This paper analyses the Lenahan decision and its significance for the United States. In particular, the substantial influence of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the Commission’s reasoning is examined.

Excluding Coexistence of GMOs? The Impact of the EU Commission's 2010 Recommendation on Coexistence

In the midst of the European Union (EU) genetically modified organisms (GMOs) regime, coexistence of GM and non-GM crops alongside each other remains technically within the competence of the Member States. Post EU authorization of a GM crop, Member States may legally take appropriate measures to limit or prevent the presence of GMOs within non-GM crops. In July 2010, as part of a Cultivation Package, the Commission created a new Coexistence Recommendation that supports a flexible approach to more stringent coexistence measures by the States, while attempting to maintain control over the legitimate objectives justifying the measures. This article analyzes the impact of the 2010 Recommendation upon coexistence in the context of the existing practices and the previous 2003 Recommendation, taking into account its status as a soft law document and the ‘domino effect’. It is argued that the 2010 Recommendation may have greater practical and legal ramifications for coexistence than might first be thought. In attempting to create guidelines that allow a more flexible and inclusive approach towards national measures, the 2010 Recommendation may act as a catalyst to eventually exclude GM cultivation within Member States.

Rewarding Merit in Judicial Appointments?: A research project undertaken by the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast for the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission

This research involved carrying out an online survey using a number of vignettes/scenarios to explore understandings and attitudes to judicial appointments. This sort of survey is relatively novel in this context and provided a useful way of understanding how a range of factors such as merit and seniority, career paths and connections, as well as gender and visibility, are perceived as operating within the appointments system. The research also involved a series of focus group interviews with a number of individuals with various professional backgrounds and at different levels of seniority. These, and a limited number of individual interviews, afforded an opportunity to explore more closely some of the themes arising from the scenarios as well as a chance to look in some depth at some of the views and concerns of a range of members of the legal professions.

Building upon the previous research project, this work was less concerned with revisiting earlier themes and more interested in exploring how the idea of “merit” as a governing factor in judicial appointment is seen as working in practice, and whether it is perceived as being most likely to be found within particular career profiles. We also investigated issues such as the possible development of formal and informal pathways to a judicial career and practical problems such as how an applicant might become known to the senior judiciary, and the importance of this. Overall our interest was primarily in developing an understanding of how gender is perceived to operate in the appointments process and how any barriers to recruiting women, particularly to the senior judiciary, could be further broken down.

A roadmap for marine spatial planning: A critical examination of the European Commission's guiding principles based on their application in the Clyde MSP Pilot Project

The European Commission has developed a set of common principles for marine spatial planning in the European Union. A critical examination of these principles in practice is undertaken through an evaluation of the Clyde Marine Spatial Planning Pilot Project. The principles are found to be lacking in specificity and somewhat inconsistent with the ecosystem based approach, which they advocate. Lessons for new marine spatial planning initiatives, relating particularly to stakeholder participation, governance, data requirements, objective setting, and skills and knowledge needs, are derived from the Clyde Pilot. © 2011.

Commission on the Voluntary Sector and Ageing: a policy review

This article comments on the English Commission on the Voluntary Sector & Ageing, a voluntary sector-led initiative aimed at making proposals for voluntary sector leaders and charitable organisations on how to approach the ageing population. By examining the work of the commission, the review contributes to debates on the implications of population ageing for the voluntary sector.

Old truths and new politics:Does truth commission 'publicness' impact democratization?

This article analyzes the relationship between truth and politics by asking whether the 'publicness' of a truth commission - defined by whether it has public hearings, releases a public report, and names perpetrators - contributes to democratization. The article reviews scholarship relevant to the potential democratizing effects of truth commissions and derives mechanisms that help explain this relationship. Work from the transitional justice field as well as democratization and political transition more generally is considered. Using a newly-constructed Truth Commission Publicness Dataset (TCPD), the analysis finds that even after statistically controlling for initial levels of democracy, democratic trends in the years prior to a commission, level of wealth, amnesties and/or trials, the influence of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and different cutoff points for measuring democratization across a number of models, more publicness predicts higher levels of democracy years after the commission has finished its work. The more public a truth commission is, the more it will contribute to democratization. The finding that more public truth commissions are associated with higher levels of democratization indicates particular strategies that policymakers, donors, and civil society activists may take to improve prospects for democracy in a country planning a truth commission in the wake of violence and/or government abuse. © The Author(s) 2012.

Commission 15: Physical Studies of Comets and Minor Planets

This report of the business meeting of Commission 15 at the 2009 IAU GA is based on notes provided by Walter Huebner, past president, and on the minutes taken by Daniel Boice, secretary of Commission 15 in the triennium 2006 to 2009, with additional notes from the current secretary, Daniel Hestroffer. The business meeting was split into two sessions, the first held on 5 August and the second held on 11 August. This report presents the minutes of the two Commission 15 business-meeting sessions held during General Assembly XXVII.

Markievicz Commission Report: Gender equality document

Report on implementation of the candidate gender quota in the Fianna Fail Party.

Capital Markets Union and ending short-termism: lessons from the European Commission's public consultation

The European Commission’s initiative to establish a Capital Markets Union is in sharp conflict with the more radical goals of downsizing significantly certain financial activities and firms that have become too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-govern and of ending or at least drastically limiting extreme speculation and short-termism in finance and the real economy in order to increase financial stability. The recent public consultation on the Commission’s Green Paper Building a Capital Markets Union gives evidence of how weak such demands are compared to calls for deeper capital markets with more ‘shadow banking’ and rebuilding (sound) securitisation. The consultation is an example of how framing the problem and the refined better regulation agenda influence post-crisis financial reregulation and help to marginalize more radical ideas demanding a return to a more traditional banking model and transforming finance back to serving the real economy.