Where is Canada in the South Caucasus?

Canada had minimal presence or interest in Georgia—or the other countries of the South Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan—in the waning days of the 20th century. Although having recognized all three countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, no Canadian embassies were established in the region, high-level diplomatic visits were rare, and economic or cultural outreach was minimal

New Hactivists and the Old Concept of Levee en Masse

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the continuing debate over the relevance of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to cyberwar It does so by taking what is often said to be a particularly archaic aspect of IHL, the French Revolutionary notion of levee en masse, and asking whether the concept could have relevance in the cyber context. The article treats levee en masse as a litmus test for the law\u27s relevance; if this IHL relic could have relevance in the cyber context, then the continued relevance of the larger body of rules should also be less doubtful

Windsor\u27s Cycling History

There are several themes which recur in this account. The first is that Windsor has had a lengthy and ongoing cycling presence. Repeatedly there have been efforts to marginalize cycling -and indeed write cycling out of the transportation history of Canada’s “motor city”- but Windsor’s engagement with cycling has been significant and unbroken. Engagement with cycling racing has come close to falling off at times but cycling for utilitarian and recreational reasons never has. Another (near) constant in Windsor’s cycling history is unique to the City’s co-location with Detroit; Windsor’s cycling history has often been a cross-border cycling history. Excitingly, with the provision for active transportation on the new Gordie Howe Bridge which will link the two cities, cross-border cycling is on the verge of a renaissance. As the environmental, health, equity and city-building benefits of cycling come into sharp focus in the twenty-first century, it is an opportune time to highlight Windsor’s cycling past and present. In short, Windsor has been and is a cycling city, even if we have never fully realised the potential of our flat topography, mild winters, the good bones of our urban core, and proximity to rich natural and built heritag

The Rebirth of Bicycling Law?

This article sketches the “law of wheelmen” as it developed in the late 19th century and suggests that, with the renaissance of cycling in North America, it is time to renew focus on the legal issues of cyclists. A comprehensive analysis of cycling’s legal needs across a range of issues – from legislation to enforcement and infrastructure – is in order and this article suggests an agenda for undertaking this analysis. For health, environmental and cultural issues, cycling is growing and the law and legal actors need to grapple with this means of active transit in a way that has not been done since before the automobile era

The ILA study group on the Role of Cities in International Law City Report: Windsor

Windsor, Ontario is a border city. Windsor sits opposite Detroit, Michigan on the Detroit River, along the Canada-US boundary. Although this is a city report on Windsor, it is impossible to describe the border experience without the centrality of Detroit to Windsor’s self-perception or role in city diplomacy. The border region is integrated economically, culturally and through interpersonal relations. Despite these ties and the obvious potential for transnational sensibility, neither Windsor - nor its big cousin across the Detroit River - has sought a prominent role as international actors. The governance links between the cities are low-key and informal

The Historic Fire Return Interval and the Ecological Effects of Fire Suppression on Montane Longleaf Pine Dominated Ecosystems in Northwestern Georgia.

Longleaf pine ecosystems have experienced pronounced declines across the southeastern United States since Euro-American settlement took place in the late 19th century. These declines were primarily caused by federal fire suppression policies implemented in the 1920’s, in combination with resource harvesting and land use conversion. In an absence of fire, tree species composition of frequently burned xeric ecosystems progressively becomes more mesic and fire-intolerant (i.e. mesophication). The change in the species composition and historic fire frequency of a montane longleaf pine ecosystem located in Sheffield Wildlife Management Area (WMA), Paulding County, Georgia was investigated. The change in forest composition was measured using modern vegetation surveys and historic “witness tree” vegetation data obtained from a georeferenced 1832 Georgia Land Lottery Survey map. The historic fire return interval was estimated using remnant longleaf stumps and dendrochronological techniques. Results from chi-squared tests indicated the modern forest is significantly more mesic and fire-intolerant than the historic forest (p \u3c 0.0001), with no statistically significant difference in species composition between north- and south-facing slopes. A chronology for longleaf pine was constructed using 214 cores from extant longleaf pine and 14 relict stumps found in Sheffield WMA. Using fire scars found in seven of the preserved stumps, the historic mean fire return interval was calculated to be 5.5-years with a median return interval of 3.5-years. It was concluded that mesophication has occurred in Sheffield WMA since Euro-American settlement, and that fires were historically present in the forest but likely of low intensity and fragmented across the landscape

Reconceptualising Legal Education after War

This paper considers the impact of war on legal education and assesses the contributions of legal education to post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation

Putting Forts in their Place: The Politics of Defense in Antigua, 1670-1785

Between 1670 and 1785, the plantation elite on the British island of Antigua built and maintained at least fifty-four fortifications to protect the island from other European competitors. Rather than being commissioned, engineered, and defended by the metropolitan government in London, the defense of the island was the sole purview of the Antiguan legislature. Money, designs, and locations for these defensive sites came from internal deliberations on the island making them unique places to study iterations of seventeenth and eighteenth century British colonialism, elite thinking, and the impact on the landscape. To interpret these sites, I use archaeological, archival, and spatial analyses to investigate their ability to provide the types of external defenses they were designated for, as well as test the corollary explanation that the forts played a role in providing internal security for the island. Neither paradigm, however, adequately explains the spatial distribution, architectural decisions, or addresses the heterogenous fort societies revealed in this research. Therefore, to better interpret Antigua’s fortifications, I develop the concept martial landscape as an explanatory framework whereby the island elites manipulate defense policy to better reflect their own social standings, rather than considering a holistic defensive structure. I conclude by showing how blanket assumptions about military sites like fortifications and the historic trajectory of colonialism in the Caribbean are concepts which need considerable tempering by a more local, island scale, perspective

A College Outreach Initiative to Connect Paine College Students with Thankful Baptist Church

College students’ declining attendance and participation at Thankful Baptist Church is a growing concern for the congregation and its leadership. For over one hundred years the church has had a strong outreach to the students at Paine College, a local HBCU and private Christian institution. However, over the last five years Thankful Baptist Church’s outreach to Paine College students has declined significantly. This research project implemented training for ten outreach volunteers and six weeks of mentoring for ten Paine College students to revive the declined college ministry to Paine College into an active ministry which attracts and retains college students and implements methods to ensure the continued viability of this ministry. Data was researched from the online library system of Liberty University to discover trends in college outreach ministry, compared with data from current books and journal articles analyzing outreach programs and ministries that have been successful in mentoring and discipling college students. The intervention questionnaires, interviews, and data journals were used to determine issues of concern, effectiveness of the research project and the results of the research project. This research will be helpful to other churches with older congregations as a model for revitalizing their congregation through outreach to college students. The results of this project demonstrate that as an intervention it can be scaled up or down depending on the size of the church, and available resources to mentor, disciple and attract college students to connect with their local church