Captive or Criminal?: Reappraising the Legal Status of IRA Prisoners at the Height of the Troubles under International Law

For the citizens of Ireland and Great Britain, the second half of the twentieth century represents a period of great political struggle. The historical debate concerns the constitutional status of Northern Ireland; that is, whether the six northeastern most counties on the emerald isle belong to Ireland or to the United Kingdom. The late 1960s through the early 1990s is referred to commonly as “The Troubles,” a time rife with political struggle, violence, and reactionary laws aimed at restricting civil liberties in the name of security. One topic of contention during this era relates to the political status of prisoners convicted of terrorism. These men and women—mostly suspected members of a nationalist paramilitary, the provisional Irish Republican Army—claimed a right to special treatment as prisoners of war. The British rejected the notion that an international war existed in fact, and insisted on treating the prisoners as ordinary criminals under domestic law. The conflict in Northern Ireland is too often and too easily dismissed as a purely internal matter, regarded a domestic civil rights movement. Consequently, any potential consideration of the conflict as an international armed conflict has been disregarded. This paper will reexamine the classification of The Troubles in light of current, applicable international law to make two determinations: first, to ascertain whether the armed conflict may be classified as one of an international, rather than a non-international, character. Based on this classification, this paper will then discern whether IRA prisoners should have been entitled to prisoner of war or some other discrete legal status, separate from that of ordinary criminals

Captive or Criminal?: Reappraising the Legal Status of IRA Prisoners at the Height of the Troubles under International Law

For the citizens of Ireland and Great Britain, the second half of the twentieth century represents a period of great political struggle. The historical debate concerns the constitutional status of Northern Ireland; that is, whether the six northeastern most counties on the emerald isle belong to Ireland or to the United Kingdom. The late 1960s through the early 1990s is referred to commonly as “The Troubles,” a time rife with political struggle, violence, and reactionary laws aimed at restricting civil liberties in the name of security. One topic of contention during this era relates to the political status of prisoners convicted of terrorism. These men and women—mostly suspected members of a nationalist paramilitary, the provisional Irish Republican Army—claimed a right to special treatment as prisoners of war. The British rejected the notion that an international war existed in fact, and insisted on treating the prisoners as ordinary criminals under domestic law. The conflict in Northern Ireland is too often and too easily dismissed as a purely internal matter, regarded a domestic civil rights movement. Consequently, any potential consideration of the conflict as an international armed conflict has been disregarded. This paper will reexamine the classification of The Troubles in light of current, applicable international law to make two determinations: first, to ascertain whether the armed conflict may be classified as one of an international, rather than a non-international, character. Based on this classification, this paper will then discern whether IRA prisoners should have been entitled to prisoner of war or some other discrete legal status, separate from that of ordinary criminals

Forecasting Swiss inflation using VAR models

A procedure that has been used at the Swiss National Bank for selecting vector-autoregressive (VAR) models in order to forecast Swiss consumer price inflation is presented. In order to examine and improve the quality of the procedure, it is submitted to several modifications and the results are compared with one another. Combining forecasts substantially improves the quality of the forecasts. Models specified with respect to levels of variables are superior to those specified with respect to differences in variables. Bank loans and the monetary aggregate M3 are the most important variables for inflation forecasting. The optimized procedure reduces the root mean squared error (RMSE) of the inflation forecast to one third of the RMSE of a naive "no change" forecast over the period from 1987 to 2005.inflation forecasting, VAR models, model selection, model evaluation

No. 72: Food Remittances: Migration and Food Security in Africa

By drawing attention to the importance of food remittances for urban and rural food security and identifying the current knowledge gaps, this report contributes to the study of the relationship between migration and food security and creates a platform for the design of a new research agenda. Across Africa, there is considerable evidence of a massive informal trade in food, including staples, fresh and processed products. While most cross-border trade in foodstuffs is a result of commercial transactions by small-scale traders who buy in one country and sell in another, an unknown proportion is actually food remittances on their way from migrants to kin in their country of origin. A SAMP survey of 4,765 migrant-sending households in five SADC countries found that goods remitting was a significant component of overall remittance flows within the region. Within countries there is now considerable evidence that urban migrant households rely to varying degrees on an informal supply of food from their rural counterparts to survive in precarious urban environments. The two case studies presented in this report are designed to highlight different facets of food remitting with potentially broader applicability. The Harare study looks at food remittances under conditions of extreme economic and political duress, and the Windhoek research provides an important example of cash remittances for food remittances reciprocity

Food Remittances: Rural-urban Linkages and Food Security in Africa

The need for a new research agenda Globally, the transfer of funds by migrants to their home countries or areas (cash remittances) is at an all-time high. By 2017, it is predicted to rise to US$500 billion – and there is a growing policy consensus that cash remittances can be mainstreamed into development. Equally, food remitting also has a role to play in urban and rural food security. Yet despite its importance, researchers and policymakers tend to ignore food remitting. The growing literature on rural-urban linkages highlights their complex, dynamic nature in the context of rapid urbanisation and growing rural-urban migration in Africa. Food remitting cannot be treated in isolation from the ‘complex web of relations and connections incorporating rural and urban dimensions and all that is in between’ (Tacoli, 2007). Yet the remitting of goods, and especially foodstuffs, across international boundaries and within countries has received little attention, particularly in Africa, where it seems that ‘transfers of food are invisible in the sense that they run within the family and outside market channels’ (Andersson Djurfeldt 2015a: 540). This report is aimed at researchers and policymakers interested in transforming rural-urban linkages and the implications for food security of rural and urban residents. The current rural-urban binary is arbitrary, outdated and unhelpful. At a time of rapid urbanisation in the South, a wider lens is needed: focusing on rural-urban linkages and moving beyond cash-based, market transactions to consider the bidirectional flows of goods – including food – and their impact on food security. This report contributes to the study of changing rural-urban linkages by: Expanding the geographic and thematic scope of research, Demonstrating the value of examining the links between informal food transfers and urban-based household food security, and Arguing for a new research and policy agenda focused on food remitting. Using case studies from Zimbabwe and Namibia, this report also demonstrates how lessons related to food remitting can be applied in other African contexts – and highlights the urgent need for a new research agenda. The report concludes with recommendations for policymakers and researchers. What are the main lessons? Rural-urban linkages in a rapidly urbanising world require much more attention from researchers and policymakers. As this report shows, several key findings have emerged from the existing literature on food remitting. The importance of bidirectional food remittances: Most studies overlook food remitting as a key link between rural and urban areas and food security. Understanding these linkages must move beyond cash-based, market transactions to consider bidirectional flows of goods, including foodstuffs, and their impact on food security. Concepts of the divided or stretched household (Francis, 2000) and multi-local household livelihoods (Andersson Djurfeldt, 2015a) should guide any analysis of the dynamics of food remitting. Cross-border migration and food remittances: Food remitting is an important livelihood strategy. Remittances across international boundaries are important to food security (Crush, 2013) and there is a massive informal trade in food in Africa. Internal migration and food remittances: Reciprocal rural-urban-rural remitting is ‘fundamental to the ability of poor urban households to survive’ (Frayne, 2004). Many urban migrant households rely on informal, non-marketed food from rural counterparts. But we still know little about what it means for rural food security in terms of food sent and received. Comparing rural-urban and urban-urban food remittances: For food-insecure households, food remittances from both rural and urban sources are important. In one study around a third of poor urban households received food remittances from outside the city the year before (Frayne et al., 2010). But while rural-urban food remitting was significant, urban-urban food remitting was greater still. This phenomenon suggests that we need a much more nuanced notion of linkages and flows. Frequency and types of food remitting: Frayne et al. (2010) also showed that households receiving food from another urban area did so far more often. This might suggest that urban-urban networks and support mechanisms are stronger than rural-urban ties. What impact this has on the food security of producers and purchasers requires additional research. Food remitters in rural areas: Rural-urban food flows tend to focus more on poor urban neighbourhoods and households and are important to food security. There is some evidence that better-off rural households remit more than their less well-off counterparts – and that the effects of food remitting are much more severe on poorer rural households. Food remittances can be seen as ‘social security’ (Andersson Djurfeldt and Wambugu, 2011) but also as having an important cultural dimension (Kuuire et al. 2013). Lessons from the Zimbabwe and Namibia case studies These case studies highlight different facets of food remitting with potentially broader applicability. The first, of Harare in Zimbabwe, looks at the significance of food remittances under conditions of extreme economic and political duress. It allows an assessment of the impact of macro-economic and political stability on food remitting. The Windhoek case study provides an important example of cash remittances for food remittances reciprocity. It also raises important hypotheses about food remittances that need further elaboration and testing, such as the relationship between urban poverty and the level of food remitting and whether the volume and frequency of food remitting is related to the strength of links between urban and rural residents. What are the main recommendations for researchers and policymakers? The massive global attention paid to cash remittances over the past decade provides a solid evidence base for policymaking and advocacy at international, regional and national levels. Policy prescriptions for maximising the flow and impacts of cash remittances on development are now legion and part of a growing policy consensus that remittances can be mainstreamed into development planning and the practices of the private sector, for the benefit of both senders and recipients, whether individuals, communities or whole countries. Yet no equivalent knowledge base or policy dialogue exists with regard to food remittances. A new research agenda and policy dialogue are urgently required relating to food remittances and urban and rural food security. Food remitting is a major research gap that demands much greater attention and a systematic, comparative programme of primary research. The case studies from Zimbabwe and Namibia in this report highlight how a deeper understanding of food remitting can be applied in other African contexts: the nature of rural-urban linkages under conditions of state failure and crisis (Zimbabwe) and the importance of reciprocal cash and food remittances for food security (Namibia). The notion of a rural-urban divide is outdated and oversimplifies the issues. Food remitting cannot be treated in isolation from the complex web of relations and connections between both rural and urban contexts. An extremely useful starting point is to explore how stretched or multi-nodal households drive and impact on food remitting at both urban and rural ends of the spectrum. Much additional research on this important, yet much-neglected, aspect of urban-rural linkages and informal cross-border transactions is urgently required. By drawing attention to the importance of food remittances for urban and rural food security and identifying the current knowledge gaps, this report creates a platform for the design of a new research agenda

Pasiphae and Daedaius and the four panels of the door of Apollo's Temple : (Vergil, Aeneid 6.20-30)

It has been observed and widely agreed upon that Vergil composed his Aeneid with a structure, sometimes making symmetry even numerical. It has also been shown that to understand why Vergil wrote the poem, one must depart from and be guided by Vergil’s own structure. Studies of Vergil’s structure of the Aeneid have indeed received exhaustive scholarly attention. Particular attention has also been given to appreciating the symbolism behind the Aeneid by means of the observations made on the structure of the poem. The relationship between narrative structure and symbolism is sometimes given special focus by Vergil through ecphrasis. Much has already been said about this method of symbolically adverting the reader of what will take place, and what has taken place; and of the connection between the past and the present both in the ecphrasis and between the ecphrasis and the poem or its message. Some of these ecphrases, precisely because they tend to introduce something important to come, are placed towards the beginning of a book. We are here immediately reminded of Odyssey VII, where Odysseus will meet Alcinous and Arete. Before Odysseus steps into the palace, Homer pauses for a numerically perfectly structured passage describing the garden, and another numerically structured one similarly describing the entrance to the palace. We understand what kind of people the Phaeacians were, remote from the rest of mankind, already from their horticultural and architectural activities, before we meet them.peer-reviewe

Jean Quintin's Insulae Melitae descriptio (1536) : an anniversary and a discussion on its sources

Jean Quentin (1500-1561) was a French Knight of the Order of St. John ·of Jerusalem, a priest, a traveller, a Professor of Canon Law and a writer. His description of Malta, written in 1533, is about how he saw it at the time the Knights first came to Malta, and about the classical and Pauline traditions related to it. This paper analyses the correctness of his version of these traditions.peer-reviewe

The Philippines: Shadow WTO Agricultural Domestic Support Notifications

"The objective of this paper is to review the agricultural trade and domestic policies of the Philippines and to provide an assessment of the types and levels of domestic support relative to the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Changes in trade protection and support in the Philippines, including tariff structure, quantitative restrictions, and domestic support, are discussed and analyzed. The paper also discusses the pattern of public expenditure on agriculture in the Philippines, including major agricultural productivity-enhancing programs. The present structure of protection and support favors the agricultural sector. Trade protection is higher in agriculture relative to manufacturing. There is a quantitative restriction on rice imports and a tariff rate quota in several agricultural commodities. The green box payments and the special and differential treatment constitute the major domestic support for agriculture. These support payments are relatively substantial and will continue to be sizable in the future to support the government's food sufficiency policy. However, the trade-distorting market price support for rice and corn is significantly below the de minimis limit that applies to the Philippines under the WTO Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture." from author's abstractPhilippine agriculture, Agricultural support, WTO support, WTO compliance, Notification of domestic support, trade,

Oil Price Increase: Can Something be Done to Minimize its Adverse Effects?

There seems to be no stopping the increase of the prices of oil products. With this certainty already considered a given, can something be done to minimize its adverse effects? This Policy Notes argues that there may still be one way of lessening these negative effects through the use of the instrument of tariffs on imported oil products.oil price

Who Benefits from the Tariff Reforms?

Who benefits from the tariff reforms launched by the Philippine government from 1994-2000? On the basis of the results of his simulation runs, the author of this Policy Notes suggests that tariff reduction is generally pro-poor as shown by the drop in poverty incidence as a whole due to the increase in factor prices and decline in consumer prices. However, the simulation results also indicate that there is a bias in favor of factors employed in the manufacturing sector as industry expanded while agriculture contracted. More details are shown in this Policy Notes.unemployment, income distribution, computable general equilibrium (CGE), poverty, tariff reform