Sino-African State Trading in Services: Added-Value through Angola-Model loaning, GATS commitments or FTAs?

Paper presented by Charlotte Sieber-Gasser at the 5th Annual TRAPCA Conference, Arusha (Tanzania), 25-26 November 2010. Despite the increasing volume of trade between China and African countries, not one single conventional free trade agreement (FTA) or economic partnership agreement (EPA) has yet been signed between an African country and China. Initially, Sino-African trade relations were to a very large extent centred on investments secured through bilateral investment agreements (BITs). The more recent Chinese investments on the African continent, however, are more informally based on FDI contracts with the state at the receiving end and a government-owned private company as the investor, or loosely attached to loans commonly known under term ‘the Angola-Model’. This rather unusual basis for economic integration and development assistance, outside the trodden path of free trade agreements and ODA, requires further analysis in order to understand how the current legal framework between China and the African continent impacts economic development and national sovereignty, and what kind of distributive consequences it may have.

Vigilância e monitorização dos espaços marítimos sob soberania ou jurisdição portuguesa

Portugal tem uma das maiores Zonas Económicas Exclusivas a nível mundial, encerrando este espaço marítimo uma riqueza que ainda não se encontra devidamente aferida, mas que se julga ser enorme. Por ela passam anualmente milhares de navios, com os mais diversos destinos e transportando as mais variadas cargas. A posição geostratégica do país coloca-o no centro de algumas das mais movimentadas rotas marítimas, sendo por isso de extrema importância vigiar e monitorizar as águas portuguesas, por forma a garantir que as leis e regulamentos de direito internacional marítimo são cumpridos e que o interesse nacional é devidamente salvaguardado. Deste modo, a presente dissertação tem como objeto de estudo os sistemas de vigilância e monitorização marítimos, pretendendo constituir-se como um contributo para a melhoria do atual sistema de vigilância e monitorização dos espaços marítimos sob soberania ou jurisdição portuguesa, focando-se, para tal, nos sistemas aéreos e espaciais para a deteção de meios de superfície. Para tal, numa primeira parte considera-se estudar o ambiente marítimo e as ameaças que o afetam. Na segunda parte estudam-se os atuais sistemas que contribuem para o conhecimento situacional marítimo em Portugal culminando na terceira parte com o estudo dos meios e sensores que permitem melhorar a cobertura do espaço marítimo, com o objetivo final de garantir a segurança no mar. Através do estudo realizado foi possível concluir-se que as aeronaves não tripuladas afiguram-se como o futuro mais imediato para o esclarecimento do panorama marítimo, sendo que os satélites surgem numa segunda linha, pois apesar dos seus custos mais elevados, poderão também dar um enorme contributo para o conhecimento situacional marítimo ao serem capazes de cobrir maiores áreas e mais rapidamente.

Enquadramento legal da Cibersegurança em Portugal e no Mundo

O cibercrime deixou há muito de ser uma palavra desconhecida para a generalidade da população mundial, sendo cada vez mais comum a execução dos mesmos por parte de indivíduos ou mesmo nações. Como tal, reveste-se de elevada importância a existência de uma resposta jurídica adequada às novas ameaças potenciadas pelo ciberespaço, a nível nacional e internacional. A evolução tecnológica levou à criação de novos elementos estratégicos, como os conceitos estratégicos de cibersegurança, e legislativos, com o objetivo de fazer face à especificidade da temática, tendo a União Europeia elaborado a Convenção de Budapeste sobre o Cibercrime de 23 de Novembro de 2001, e Portugal promulgado a Lei nº109/2009 de 15 de Setembro de 2009, a chamada Lei do Cibercrime. Apesar da existência da atual legislação, a ameaça pendente dos ciberataques tornou-se cada vez mais uma preocupação de todos os países, tendo em conta que um ataque no ciberespaço pode pôr em causa a sua segurança e soberania. Tendo estes factos em consideração, importa analisar qual o possível impacto dos ataques cibernéticos a nível nacional e das relações internacionais.

Cruzeiros Científicos Estrangeiros em águas de soberania Portuguesa: O caso da Alemanha

Desde cedo que a ligação de Portugal ao mar é reconhecida como sendo de extrema importância. Olhando para a geografia do país e ao percurso histórico observa-se uma ligação natural ao mar e tal facto pode-se comprovar através de dados de fácil acesso e conhecimento geral: 100% do petróleo chega ao nosso país através do mar, 70% das importações usam a via marítima, 90% do turismo procura o litoral, 95% da internet circula por cabos submarinos. Não distante destes números, encontra-se a abundante riqueza geológica e biológica presente nas águas de soberania ou jurisdição portuguesa – ou seja, na 3ª maior Zona Económica Exclusiva da União Europeia e a 11ª do mundo, num total de cerca de1,727,408 km² – riqueza essa que desperta interesse cientifico em diversos estados internacionais, como abordado ao longo da presente dissertação. Neste sentido, é importante entender quais os recursos presentes nas águas sob jurisdição portuguesa, qual o tipo de missões efetuadas por intervenientes internacionais ao nível dos cruzeiros científicos e, tomando uma investigação e estudo mais estreito, o papel da Alemanha como um dos Estados internacionais presentes em águas Portuguesas para investigação cientifica. A presente dissertação começa por abordar, portanto, o quadro legal que regula toda a matéria dos cruzeiros de investigação cientifica a nível nacional assim como todo o processo de pedidos de autorização para a realização de cruzeiros científicos, por parte de entidades estrangeiras, procedendo-se de seguida à apresentação dos recursos presentes em águas de soberania ou jurisdição portuguesa. É então explicada a definição de cruzeiro cientifico e diversos tipos de cruzeiros existentes e por fim, o caso particular da Alemanha no contexto dos cruzeiros científicos na ZEE Portuguesa.

Segurança da Informação no Ciberespaço – A Cibereducação no caminho da Cibersegurança

O papel das Tecnologias de Informação (TI) nas sociedades atuais épreponderante. O aparecimento da Internet e a vulgarização do seu uso veio alterar o paradigma do modo de funcionamento das sociedades. As sociedades industriais transformaram-se em sociedades da informação, onde o conhecimento e a informação são valorizados e têm um papel fulcral. A internet,primeiramente considerada como um espaço de liberdade absoluta e que possibilitava oacesso e compartilhamento de dados instantaneamente e a partir de qualquer ponto do globo, é hoje vista como um fator de insegurança. O ciberespaço está suscetível a novas formas de ameaça sobre a forma de crimeno mundo virtual. Os ciberataques colocam em risco a privacidade e liberdade dos cidadãos, põem em causa a soberania do Estado e podem, ainda, divulgar informação queameace a segurança nacional. O presente trabalho discute os desafios que o ciberespaço nos coloca e analisa acomponente legal que contribui para a cultura de segurança no ciberespaço, por forma autilizá-lo de forma mais livre e fiável. E não só, também propõe formas de mitigar os resultados de um ciberataqueatravés de mecanismos de formação, onde cada um tem conhecimento dos problemasatuais da internet e quais as eventuais soluções para se protegerem.

CRISIS ALIMENTARIA Y DESAFÍOS DE LA SEGURIDAD ALIMENTARIA EN CENTROAMÉRICA

Resumen La crisis mundial de alimentos puso en evidencia la vulnerabilidad de los sistemas alimenticios, demostrando que el impacto más profundo se produce en los países con una mayor dependencia en la importación de alimentos y acompañados de mayores niveles de pobreza. En la región centroamericana, la crisis podría provocar un incremento del costo de la canasta básica alimentaria, un menor acceso a los alimentos, un aumento en la pobreza y en la inseguridad alimentaria y nutricional de la población más vulnerable. Abstract The international food crisis showed the vulnerability of the food supply system. The crisis exposed that the deepest shocks were produced in the countries with the major dependency in imports and highest levels of poverty. In the upcoming moths, the crisis could provoke an increase in the cost of the alimentary basic basket, a decrease in food access and an enlargement of poverty levels for the countries in Central America. In addition, the weakness on the sovereignty in the alimentary and nutritional security will provoke a major vulnerability in the population with the lowest income.

O genocídio como problema internacional contemporâneo : um estudo do caso sudanês

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Relações Internacionais, 2016.

Surveillance, criminal law and sovereighty

Seeking better understanding of the relationship between criminal law and surveillance demands investigating the evolving nature of sovereignty in an era of transnational digital information flows. While territorial boundaries determine the limits of police investigative and surveillance powers under the criminal law, several recent United States (US) examples demonstrate how new forms of extraterritorial surveillance that enable police to access online communications by foreign citizens and digital information stored in offshore locations are authorized by US courts. This discussion outlines how the processes of mutual legal assistance that ordinarily govern the search, seizure and transfer of digital evidence from one jurisdiction to another are increasingly considered to undermine police efficiency, even though they protect the due process rights afforded to crime suspects under established principles of sovereignty (Palmer and Warren 2013).

Génération souverainiste? L'engagement des jeunes au sein du mouvement souverainiste québécois : le cas du Parti québécois

Depuis la défaite du Oui au référendum de 1995, nous observons une perte de vitesse du mouvement souverainiste québécois. Cette dernière est d’abord perceptible d’un point de vue électoral où nous observons une baisse constante des appuis aux partis souverainistes, et ensuite relativement au fractionnement social et idéologique du mouvement souverainiste. Dans un tel contexte, nous nous attardons, dans le cadre de ce mémoire, à l’engagement des jeunes âgé-e-s de 20 à 26 ans au sein du Parti québécois (PQ). Ces personnes ont commencé à s’impliquer dans ce parti alors que le mouvement souverainiste était déjà caractérisé par une perte de vitesse et n’ont jamais connu les moments effervescents de celui-ci. Suite à seize entrevues semi-directives réalisées avec des militant-e-s du PQ, ce mémoire a pour but de comprendre les processus d’engagement de ces personnes. À l’aide d’une analyse sociologique des parcours d’engagement, nous démontrons d’abord que plusieurs types de parcours ont pu mener ces jeunes à s’engager au PQ. Ensuite, nous soulignons le fait que des éléments du passé, notamment par l’entremise des cours d’histoire et de la socialisation familiale, ont eu une plus grande importance que ceux d’actualité pour leur prise de conscience souverainiste. Nous montrons aussi que ces jeunes appartiennent à une génération politique pour laquelle les grands évènements de l’histoire du mouvement souverainiste ne peuvent plus être considérés comme étant des moments critiques des parcours d’engagement. Nous démontrons finalement que l’analyse des orientations politiques des personnes permet de mieux comprendre les différences entre les différents processus d’engagement.

The Multilateralisation of Soviet Bloc Security: The Hungarian Revolution from an Eastern European Perspective

The Hungarian Revolution is often analysed in a national context or from the angle of Hungarian-Soviet relations. From this perspective, the Eastern European satellites seem mere puppets and the Soviet bloc a monolith. Archival evidence nevertheless shows that the Kremlin actually attempted to build a new kind of international relations after Stalin’s death in 1953, in which the Eastern European leaders would gain more scope for manoeuvre. This attempt at liberalisation even facilitated the uprisings in Hungary in 1956. Avoiding a teleological approach to the Hungarian Revolution, this article argues that the Soviet invasion was neither inevitable, nor wholly unilateral. Khrushchev even sought to legitimise the invasion in bilateral and multilateral consultations. There was a mutual interest in sacrificing Hungary’s sovereignty to safeguard the communist monopoly on power. This multilateralisation of Soviet bloc security is an important explanatory factor in an analysis of the Revolution and its repercussions in Eastern Europe.

New Haitian social movements: Alternative modernities, (trans)local nationalisms, and solidarity economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development. ^

Génération souverainiste? L'engagement des jeunes au sein du mouvement souverainiste québécois : le cas du Parti québécois

Depuis la défaite du Oui au référendum de 1995, nous observons une perte de vitesse du mouvement souverainiste québécois. Cette dernière est d’abord perceptible d’un point de vue électoral où nous observons une baisse constante des appuis aux partis souverainistes, et ensuite relativement au fractionnement social et idéologique du mouvement souverainiste. Dans un tel contexte, nous nous attardons, dans le cadre de ce mémoire, à l’engagement des jeunes âgé-e-s de 20 à 26 ans au sein du Parti québécois (PQ). Ces personnes ont commencé à s’impliquer dans ce parti alors que le mouvement souverainiste était déjà caractérisé par une perte de vitesse et n’ont jamais connu les moments effervescents de celui-ci. Suite à seize entrevues semi-directives réalisées avec des militant-e-s du PQ, ce mémoire a pour but de comprendre les processus d’engagement de ces personnes. À l’aide d’une analyse sociologique des parcours d’engagement, nous démontrons d’abord que plusieurs types de parcours ont pu mener ces jeunes à s’engager au PQ. Ensuite, nous soulignons le fait que des éléments du passé, notamment par l’entremise des cours d’histoire et de la socialisation familiale, ont eu une plus grande importance que ceux d’actualité pour leur prise de conscience souverainiste. Nous montrons aussi que ces jeunes appartiennent à une génération politique pour laquelle les grands évènements de l’histoire du mouvement souverainiste ne peuvent plus être considérés comme étant des moments critiques des parcours d’engagement. Nous démontrons finalement que l’analyse des orientations politiques des personnes permet de mieux comprendre les différences entre les différents processus d’engagement.

Expanding our Constitutional Horizons: A Comprehensive Study of Quasi-Constitutionality in Canada

A number of laws in Canada which uphold rights are referred to as quasi-constitutional by the courts in recognition of their special importance. Quasi-constitutional statutes are enacted through the regular legislative process, although they are being interpreted and applied in a fashion which has become remarkably similar to constitutional law, and are therefore having an important affect over other legislation. Quasi-constitutionality has surprisingly received limited scholarly attention, and very few serious attempts at explaining its significance have been made. This dissertation undertakes a comprehensive study of quasi-constitutionality which considers its theoretical basis, its interpretation and legal significance, as well as its similarities to comparable forms of law in other Commonwealth jurisdictions. Part I examines the theoretical basis of quasi-constitutionality and its relationship to the Constitution. As a statutory and common law form of fundamental law, quasi-constitutionality is shown to signify an association with the Canadian Constitution and the foundational principles that underpin it. Part II proceeds to consider the special rules of interpretation applied to quasi-constitutional legislation, the basis of this interpretative approach, and the connection between the interpretation of similar provisions in quasi-constitutional legislation and the Constitution. As a statutory form of fundamental law, quasi-constitutional legislation is given a broad, liberal and purposive interpretation which significantly expands the rights which they protect. The theoretical basis of this approach is found in both the fundamental nature of the rights upheld by quasi-constitutional legislation as well as legislative intent. Part III explores how quasi-constitutional statutes affect the interpretation of regular legislation and how they are used for the purposes of judicial review. Quasi-constitutional legislation has a significant influence over regular statutes in the interpretative exercise, which in some instances results in conflicting statutes being declared inoperable. The basis of this form of judicial review is demonstrated to be rooted in statutory interpretation, and as such it provides an interesting model of rights protection and judicial review that is not conflated to constitutional and judicial supremacy.

Japan and the liberal global-order project: a time to stop and stare

Authority and sovereignty disappeared in the West long ago, when power absorbed them both. The effects of this artifice have become particularly noticeable since the fall of the “bipolar” system. The post-political strategy pursued by universalized liberalism has indeed voided local government through an emphasis on global governance, in so endorsing the substitution of politics with administration. This paper argues that Japan is not affected by this totalizing phenomenon notwithstanding the official transplanting of libero-juridical policies and doctrines within its polity. Through a neorealist contextualization of the Japanese “authority-power” dichotomy and comparison between Western and Japanese “output” schemes of legitimation and accountability that will transcend the boundaries of purely cultural or socio-legal accounts, I contend that the reason why Japan is not part of the liberal scheme is that it is politically governed rather than managerially administered.

The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association

Annually, the association publishes a journal, The Proceedings, which consists of papers presented at the annual meeting. Writing and Research in Southern History by Fletcher Melvin Green – University of North Carolina The South Carolina Constitution of 1865 as a Democratic Document by John Harold Wolfe – Appalachian State Teachers College William Porcher Miles, Progressive Mayor of Charleston, 1855-1857 by Clarence McKittrick Smith Jr. – Newberry College Salient Attributes of Bodin’s Theory of Sovereignty by Charles N. Sisson – Coker College Sources for South Carolina History in the Nation’s Capital by Maxcy Robson Dickson – The National Archives