Inferring Mechanisms for Global Constitutional Progress

Constitutions help define domestic political orders, but are known to be influenced by two international mechanisms: one that reflects global temporal trends in legal development, and another that reflects international network dynamics such as shared colonial history. We introduce the provision space; the growing set of all legal provisions existing in the world's constitutions over time. Through this we uncover a third mechanism influencing constitutional change: hierarchical dependencies between legal provisions, under which the adoption of essential, fundamental provisions precedes more advanced provisions. This third mechanism appears to play an especially important role in the emergence of new political rights, and may therefore provide a useful roadmap for advocates of those rights. We further characterise each legal provision in terms of the strength of these mechanisms

Elimination of All Forms of Forced or Compulsory Labor

A compilation of reports submitted by various countries to the ILO by the year 2000, describing labor conditions and relevant laws, specifically relating to forced or compulsory labor

New Media, Free Expression, and the Offences Against the State Acts

New media facilitates communication and creates a common, lived experience. It also carries the potential for great harm on an individual and societal scale. Posting integrates information and emotion, with study after study finding that fear and anger transfer most readily online. Isolation follows, with insular groups forming. The result is an increasing bifurcation of society. Scholars also write about rising levels of depression and suicide that stem from online dependence and replacing analogical experience with digital interaction, as well as escalating levels of anxiety that are rooted in the validation expectation of the ‘like’ function. These changes generate instability and contribute to a volatile social environment. Significant political risks also accompany this novel genre. Hostile actors can use social media platforms to deepen political schisms, to promote certain candidates, and, as demonstrated by the recent Cambridge Analytica debacle, to swing elections. Extremist groups and terrorist organisations can use online interactions to build sympathetic audiences and to recruit adherents. Since 1939, the Offences Against the State Act (OAS) has served as the primary vehicle for confronting political violence and challenges to state authority. How effective is it in light of new media? The challenges are legion. Terrorist recruitment is just the tip of the iceberg. Social networking sites allow for targeted and global fundraising, international direction and control, anonymous power structures, and access to expertise. These platforms create spaces within which extreme ideologies can prosper, targeting individuals likely to be sympathetic to the cause, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ad infinitum. They offer an alternative reality, subject to factual manipulation and direction—a problem exacerbated by the risk of so-called deep fakes: autonomously-generated content that makes it appear that people acted, or that certain circumstances occurred, which never did. In November 2019 the Irish Government adopted a new regulation targeting social media. The measure focuses on political advertising and to ensure that voters have access to accurate information. It does not address the myriad further risks. This chapter, accordingly, focuses on ways in which the Offences Against the State Act (OAS) and related laws have historically treated free expression as a prelude to understanding how and whether the existing provisions are adequate for challenges from new media

Defending Korematsu?: Reflections on Civil Liberties in Wartime

According to Justice William J. Brennan, After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary. But it has proven unable to prevent itself from repeating the error when the next crisis came along. This Article examines that observation, using Korematsu as a vehicle for refining the claim and, I think, reducing it to a more defensible one. Part I opens my discussion, providing some qualifications to the broad claim about threats to civil liberties in wartime. Part II then deals with Korematsu and other historical examples of civil liberties in wartime. It identifies a pattern in those examples and provides a sketch of a social theory that might account for the pattern. Part III describes, in relatively optimistic terms, a process of social learning in which past examples of what come to be understood as incursions on civil liberties progressively reduce the scope of civil liberties violations in wartime. Part IV raises jurisprudential questions about the role of emergency powers in liberal constitutions. In the end, I defend Korematsu in the perhaps ironic sense that Korematsu was part of a process of social learning that both diminishes contemporary threats to civil liberties in our present situation and reproduces a framework of constitutionalism that ensures that such threats will be a permanent part of the constitutional landscape

Occupational hazards

This article provides an analysis and a critique of the law governing the employment relationship between Israeli employers and Palestinian employees in industries operating in the West Bank. Through an analysis of Israeli jurisprudence it highlights the intersection among different areas of law: choice of law, public international law (in particular the law of occupation), and labor law. The article explores the tensions that this intersection creates: first, between the importance that public international law ascribes to matters of sovereignty and territory, and the latter’s growing marginality in the labor field, which is increasingly becoming transnational; another tension is between the transience underlying the law of occupation and the exceptional duration of Israel’s occupation of the territories, which has led to an economic conundrum not predicted by the framers of the international legal structure, and with which the law of occupation can deal to a very limited extent. Through discussion of these tensions the article brings to the fore challenges to the role of meaning equality in transnational employment relationships, particularly in situations of structured power disparities deriving from political circumstances. While the challenges explored here are intimately linked to the phenomenon of occupation, the increased swiftness with which private companies worldwide are now able to cross borders and set up enterprises outside their state of origin makes the analysis highly relevant to businesses worldwide

Love thy neighbour? Coronavirus politics and their impact on EU freedoms and rule of law in the Schengen Area. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 2020-04, April 2020

Restrictions on international and intra-EU traffic of persons have been at the heart of the political responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Border controls and suspensions of entry and exist have been presented as key policy priorities to prevent the spread of the virus in the EU. These measures pose however fundamental questions as to the raison d’être of the Union, and the foundations of the Single Market, the Schengen system and European citizenship. They are also profoundly intrusive regarding the fundamental rights of individuals and in many cases derogate domestic and EU rule of law checks and balances over executive decisions. This Paper examines the legality of cross-border mobility restrictions introduced in the name of COVID-19. It provides an in-depth typology and comprehensive assessment of measures including the reintroduction of internal border controls, restrictions of specific international traffic modes and intra-EU and international ‘travel bans’. Many of these have been adopted in combination with declarations of a ‘state of emergency’

Internally Displaced Persons in Nepal

Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology - Peace and Democracy in South Asia, Volume 1, Issue 2, 200

The Covenant on Human Rights

This project began with a microprocessor platform developed by two master’s students: Albert López and Francisco Javier Sánchez. Their platform was designed as a gateway for sensing devices operating in the 868 MHz band. The platform consists of a Texas Instruments MSP430F5437A microcontroller and a Microchip ENC28J60 Ethernet cont roller connected to the MSP430 processor by a Serial Peripheral Interface. Javier Lara Peinado implemented prototype white space sensors using the platform developed by the earlier two students. As part of his effort, he partially implemented a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) system for loading programs in to the flash memory of the microcontroller using Microchip’s TCP/IP stack.  However, he was not successful in loading programs into the flash as the TFTP transfer got stuck at the first block. The first purpose of this project was to find and fix the error(s) in the TFTP loading of programs into the MSP430’s flash memory. The second purpose of this project was to evaluate Microchip’s TCP/IP stack in depth.  This report describes measurements of UDP transmission rates. Additionally, the TFTP processing rate is measured and the TFTP program loading code is documented.  The report concludes with suggestions for possible improvements of this system.Projektet startade med en mikroprocessor-plattform som utvecklades av två masterstudenter: Albert López och Francisco Javier Sánchez.  Deras plattform var utformad som en inkörsport för avkänning av apparater som arbetar i 868 MHz-bandet. Plattformen består av en Texas Instruments MSP430F5437A mikrokontroller och en Microchip ENC28J60 Ethernet controller ansluten till MSP430-processor med en SPI-gränssnitt (Serial Peripheral Interface). Javier Lara Peinado genomförde prototypvitt utrymme sensoreranvända plattformen som utvecklades av de två tidigare nämnda studenter. Som en del av sitt arbete genomförde handelvis ett Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) system för lastning program i flashminne mikrokontroller med hjälp av Microchips TCP / IP-stack. Men han var inte framgångsrik i lastning program i flash som TFTP-överföringen fastnade vid det första blocket. Det första syftet för detta projekt var att hitta och åtgärda felet(er) i TFTP laddning av program i MSP430 flashminne. Det andra syftet för detta projekt var att utvärdera Microchips TCP/IP- stack på djupet. I denna rapport beskrivs mätningar av UDP överföringshastighet.  Dessutom mäts TFTP bearbetningshastighet och TFTP programladdningskoden dokumenteras. Rapporten avslutas med förslag på möjliga förbättringar av systemet.Project for IK2553QC 20140702</p