Atomic secrets and governmental lies : nuclear science, politics and security in the Pontecorvo case

This paper focuses on the defection of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo from Britain to the USSR in 1950 in an attempt to understand how government and intelligence services assess threats deriving from the unwanted spread of secret scientific information. It questions whether contingent agendas play a role in these assessments, as new evidence suggests that this is exactly what happened in the Pontecorvo case. British diplomatic personnel involved in negotiations with their US counterparts considered playing down the case. Meanwhile, the press decided to play it up, claiming that Pontecorvo was an atom spy. Finally, the British secret services had evidence showing that this was a fabrication, but they did not disclose it. If all these manipulations served various purposes, then they certainly were not aimed at assessing if there was a threat and what this threat really was

John Taylor (1597-1655): English Catholic Gentleman and Caroline Diplomat

During the Thirty Years’ War, John Taylor served at the Habsburg courts in Brussels, Madrid, and Vienna. Although he figured prominently in Charles I’s secret Habsburg foreign policy during the war, published information on Taylor is sparse. His story is especially compelling given his own and his family’s connections with Continental Catholicism as well as his involvement, as a gentleman of indisputably Catholic background, in English diplomacy of the time. Taylor’s story demonstrates that Charles I had no qualms about taking Catholics into his service and entrusting them with negotiations of a sensitive nature. Taylor’s involvement in the King’s secret Habsburg foreign policy was in fact due in large part to his vulnerable financial, religious, and political position, which made him an easy scapegoat should the need for one arise. In the end, however, the King’s underhanded tactics blew up in his face. While he had Taylor thrown into the Tower for openly dealing with the Emperor, this was not enough to conceal the nature of his negotiations with the Catholic Habsburgs. The exposure of Charles’s secret foreign policy had momentous consequences, for it contributed to the hardening of Protestant opinion against him that manifested itself in the Civil War

TPP and Trans-Pacific Perplexities

In the past few years, the United States has been busy negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement with countries in the Asia-Pacific region. These countries include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Although it remains unclear which chapters or provisions will be included in the final text of the TPP Agreement, the negotiations have been quite controversial. In addition to the usual concerns about having high standards that are heavily lobbied by industries and arguably inappropriate for many participating countries, the TPP negotiations have been heavily criticized for their secrecy and lack of transparency, accountability and democratic participation. Written for the inaugural annual Asia-Pacific issue of the Fordham International Law Journal, this article does not seek to continue this line of criticism, although transparency, accountability and democratic participation remain highly important. Nor does the article aim to explore the agreement\u27s implications for each specific trade sector. Instead, this Article focuses on the ramifications of the exclusion of four different parties or groups of parties from the TPP negotiations: (1) China; (2) BRICS and other emerging economies; (3) Europe; and (4) civil society organizations. Targeting these TPP outsiders and using illustrations from the intellectual property sector and the larger trade context, this article seeks to highlight the perplexities created by the TPP negotiations. It cautions policymakers, commentators and the public at large against the negotiations\u27 considerable and largely overlooked costs

Breach of faith? Italian-Soviet Cold War trading and Eni’s international oil scandal

The article was submitted on 10.07.2015.By the late-1950s, Soviet oil exports to Western Europe caused widespread concern in a number of Western countries as these feared that Moscow could use oil to weaken their economic interests. At the same time though, other Western countries had no hesitation in developing trade relations with the Soviets, seeing this as a good commercial opportunity. The paramount example of such political nonchalance was Italy’s oil company, ENI. In 1960, ENI signed a barter contract with the Soviets, causing a scandal in the Western oil world: the Italian company’s act was seen as a serious breach of faith by its international allies. As a consequence, ENI’s contract became a serious bone of contention in the country’s bilateral and international relations. This paper analyzes the origins and development of the ENI-Soviet deal, and focuses on the reactions of Italy’s Western allies and the debate it generated at the European Economic Community.В конце 1950-х гг. поставки нефти из СССР в Западную Европу вызвали озабоченность в некоторых европейских странах, которые опасались, что Москва может использовать нефть в целях ослабления их экономических интересов. Однако наряду с этим, другие европейские страны продолжали поддерживать торговые отношения с Советским Союзом, считая их перспективными. Ярким примером такой политической беспечности стала итальянская нефтяная компания ENI (Национальное нефтегазовое учреждение). В 1960 г. она подписала с СССР соглашение о товарообмене, чем вызвала скандал на европейском нефтяном рынке: международные союзники восприняли действия итальянской компании как измену. В результате контракт ENI стал камнем преткновения в двусторонних и многосторонних отношениях Италии с другими странами. В статье рассматриваются предпосылки и этапы развития сотрудничества ENI и СССР, при этом особое внимание уделяется изучению реакции западных союзников Италии и споров, которые это событие вызвало в Европейском экономическом сообществе

Congressional Lawmaking: A Perspective On Secrecy and Transparency

[Excerpt] Openness is fundamental to representative government. Yet the congressional process is replete with activities and actions that are private and not observable by the public. How to distinguish reasonable legislative secrecy from impractical transparency is a topic that produces disagreement on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Why? Because lawmaking is critical to the governance of the nation. Scores of people in the attentive public want to observe and learn about congressional proceedings. Yet secrecy is an ever-present part of much legislative policymaking; however, secrecy and transparency are not “either/or” constructs. They overlap constantly during the various policymaking stages. The objectives of this report are four-fold: • first, to outline briefly the historical and inherent tension between secrecy and transparency in the congressional process; • second, to review several common and recurring secrecy/transparency issues that emerged again with the 2011 formation of the Joint Select Deficit Reduction Committee; • third, to identify various lawmaking stages typically imbued with closed door activities; and • fourth, to close with several summary observations. This report will not be updated

The Battle to Define Asia’s Intellectual Property Law: From TPP to RCEP

A battle is under way to decide the intellectual property law for half the world’s population. A trade agreement that hopes to create a free trade area even larger than that forged by Genghis Khan will define intellectual property rules across much of Asia and the Pacific. The sixteen countries negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) include China, India, Japan, and South Korea, and stretch to Australia and New Zealand. A review of a leaked draft reveals a struggle largely between India on one side and South Korea and Japan on the other over the intellectual property rules that will govern much of the world. The result of this struggle will affect not only access to innovation in the Asia-Pacific, but also across Africa and other parts of the world that depend on generic medicines from India, which has been called the “pharmacy to the developing world.” Surprisingly, the agreement that includes China as a pillar may result in stricter intellectual property rights than those mandated by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Perhaps even more surprisingly, such TRIPS-plus rights will be available in the RCEP states to the United States and European companies equally by somewhat recondite provisions in TRIPS. In sum, the RCEP draft erodes access to medicines and education across much of the world

State of New York Public Employment Relations Board Decisions from October 12, 1978

10_12_1979_PERB_BD_DecisionsOCR.pdf: 117 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

The Palestine Question: Themes of Justice and Power. Part I: The Palestinians of the Occupied Territories

Ever since 1948, Palestinian politics have been stymied by two conflicting drives: on the one hand the reality of an overwhelming imbalance of power, which mandates major concessions, and on the other a deep conviction of the unassailable justice of the cause, which refuses to accept the dictates of power. Oscillating between these two poles, Palestinians have been unable to develop a clear and consistent strategy. The first part of this essay, here, explores the ramifications of this dichotomy in the occupied territories, specifically with regard to the development of the Oslo process and the second intifada. A second part will explore how it plays out in the case of the Palestinians of Israel