Cutting the Gordian Knot: Taiwan and U.S. China Relations

Cutting the Gordian Knot: Taiwan and U.S. China Relation

Partition: It’s time to recognise reality in Syria

The creation of an Alawi-minority coastal canton is a sine qua non for cutting the Gordian knot that is the Syrian conflict, argues Eric Kaufmann

NEW BOOK: Cutting the Gordian Knot of Economic Reform

A new book Cutting the Gordian Knot of Economic Reform by Leonardo Baccini (of LSE International Relations Department) and Johannes Urpelainen (of Columbia University) is due to be published by Oxford University Press on 23 October 2014

Neighbors of knots in the Gordian graph

We show that every knot is one crossing change away from a knot of arbitrarily high bridge number and arbitrarily high bridge distance.Comment: Accepted by American Mathematical Monthly. New version incorporates referee comment

Cutting the Gordian Knot: How and Why the United Nations Should Vest the International Court of Justice with Referral Jurisdiction

The International Court of Justice the global system\u27s oldest and most venerable tribunal has failed to meet its full potential. This is in large measure due to the requirement that the Court may only assert jurisdiction over states with their consent, which is often withheld. To help correct for this failure, this article proposes that the Court be given a referral jurisdiction. Referral jurisdiction would empower the Court to issue advisory opinions on interstate disputes without the requirement of state consent. Standing in the way of nonconsent-based jurisdiction, however, is the problem of the Gordian Knot: The world\u27s most powerful countries who are best able to lead or block expansion of the Court\u27s jurisdiction have historically perceived their advantage to lie more with political muscle than expanded judicial process. Today, their power to block is manifest in the ability of each of the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council to veto amendments to the treaty creating the Court. This article, however, suggests that there is a solution to the Gordian Knot problem. It proposes a legal strategy that would allow the United Nations General Assembly to establish referral jurisdiction without a treaty amendment. Having cut the Gordian Knot, this article goes on to make the case for referral jurisdiction. Specifically, it argues that (1) the proposal for referral jurisdiction is legal under the Charter of the United Nations, the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and other general principles of international law; (2) referral jurisdiction would further compliance with international law; and (3) its implementation would institutionally strengthen the Court. This article concludes by suggesting that the rise of many newly industrializing countries that may be willing to spearhead jurisdictional expansion portends new possibilities for cutting the Gordian Knot and, in the process, unleashing a promising era of global rule of law reform

The metabolic syndrome entanglement: Cutting the Gordian knot

Questions have been raised on the clinical value of the metabolic syndrome (MS). The negative opinion regarding MS is anchored basically on a separate analysis of 4 conditions: obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension and glucose intolerance. The common denominator of these 4 sets of arguments is that they represent an utterly simplistic view of MS as a solely predictive tool of morbidity or mortality. We believe that it is inequitable to compare it with statistically constructed predictive tools, including stronger prognostic variables even unrelated to one another from the biological point of view. Several recent large meta-analyses — one of them including nearly one million patients — systematically showed that people with MS are at increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) events. MS was associated with a 2-fold increase in CV outcomes and a 1.5-fold increase in all-cause mortality rates. A very important finding was that CV risk still remained high in patients with MS but without diabetes. The presence of MS possesses a definitely predictive value, but above all it is a widely accepted concept regarding a biological condition based on complex and interrelated pathophysiological mechanisms emanating from excess central adiposity and insulin resistance. The risk factors are multiplicative, meaning that the risk of a CV disease from risk factors rises geometrically, not linearly, as the number of risk factors increases. Therefore, currently available evidences strongly support the concept of the MS as a critical clustering of CV risk factors and diabetes, representing a true and solid evolving clinical entity

Cutting the Gordian Knot: How and Why the United Nations Should Vest the International Court of Justice with Referral Jurisdiction

The International Court of Justice — the global system\u27s oldest and most venerable tribunal — has failed to meet its full potential. This is in large measure due to the requirement that the Court may only assert jurisdiction over states with their consent, which is often withheld. To help correct for this failure, this article proposes that the Court be given a referral jurisdiction. Referral jurisdiction would empower the Court to issue advisory opinions on interstate disputes without the requirement of state consent. Standing in the way of nonconsent-based jurisdiction, however, is the problem of the Gordian Knot: The world\u27s most powerful countries who are best able to lead or block expansion of the Court\u27s jurisdiction have historically perceived their advantage to lie more with political muscle than expanded judicial process. Today, their power to block is manifest in the ability of each of the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council to veto amendments to the treaty creating the Court. This article, however, suggests that there is a solution to the Gordian Knot problem. It proposes a legal strategy that would allow the United Nations General Assembly to establish referral jurisdiction without a treaty amendment. Having cut the Gordian Knot, this article goes on to make the case for referral jurisdiction. Specifically, it argues that (1) the proposal for referral jurisdiction is legal under the Charter of the United Nations, the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and other general principles of international law; (2) referral jurisdiction would further compliance with international law; and (3) its implementation would institutionally strengthen the Court. This article concludes by suggesting that the rise of many newly industrializing countries that may be willing to spearhead jurisdictional expansion portends new possibilities for cutting the Gordian Knot and, in the process, unleashing a promising era of global rule of law reform