How to identify customary international law? – On the final outcome of the work of the international law commission (2018)

How to identify customary international law is an important question of international law. The International Law Commission has in 2018 adopted a set of sixteen conclusions, together with commentaries, on this topic. The paper consists of three parts: First, the reasons are discussed why the Commission came to work on the topic “Identification of customary international law”. Then, some of its conclusions are highlighted. Finally, the outcome of the work of the Commission is placed in a general context, before concluding

Points of Departure

The paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of current developments of international law for the purpose of mapping the ground for a larger research project. The research project pursues the goal of determining whether public international law, as it has developed since the end of the Cold War, is continuing its progressive move towards a more human-rights- and multi-actor-oriented order, or whether we are seeing a renewed emphasis of more classical elements of international law. In this context the term “international rule of law” is chosen to designate the more recent and “thicker” understanding of international law. The paper discusses how it can be determined whether this form of international law continues to unfold, and whether we are witnessing challenges to this order which could give rise to more fundamental reassessments

Intolerant Democracies

International law is increasingly concerned with national transitions to democratic government. The holding of free and fair elections alone, however, provides no guarantee that a democratic system will become firmly established and capable of resisting challenges by anti-democratic actors. The question thus arises of how intolerant a democracy may become toward such actors in order to preserve itself without relinquishing the claim of being democratic. This problem has arisen on a number of occasions, perhaps the most dramatically upon the cancellation of the second round of the Algerian elections in early 1992. This Article explores the legal issues raised by the presence of anti-democratic actors in an otherwise generally \u27free and fair electoral process. The Article first examines two models of democratic government- the procedural and the substantive-which take opposite perspectives on the permissibility of excluding anti-democratic actors. Using these models as organizing themes, it then examines the practice of a number of democratic states and the jurisprudence of international human rights regimes. The Article concludes that both national and international practice favor a substantive model of democracy, which holds that the long-term survival of democratic institutions outweighs short-term deprivation of political rights to anti-democratic actors. Having reached this general conclusion, the Article goes on to examine the standards required under international human rights law for the exclusion of such actors and the type of conduct that might justify a ban. Finally, the Article asks whether states that have obligations under human rights treaties to guarantee democratic government are now legally required to exclude anti-democratic actors if the integrity of their democratic institutions is at stake. The Article concludes that such a requirement does exist, though its concrete meaning will differ greatly from state to state

BLACK BEAR DAMAGE MANAGEMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE

Black bears (Ursus americanus) foraging on trees can be extremely detrimental to the health and economic value of a timber stand. A supplemental feeding program to reduce bear damage is coordinated by the Washington Forest Protection Association\u27s Animal Damage Control Program (ADCP). A brief overview of the ADCP is provided along with a description of bear damage and the supplemental feeding program. Success of the feeding program is demonstrated by an increasing participation and its general acceptance by the public. Timber producers placed over 400 thousand pounds of pellets in 700 feeding stations this past year

BLACK BEAR DAMAGE MANAGEMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE

Black bears (Ursus americanus) foraging on trees can be extremely detrimental to the health and economic value of a timber stand. A supplemental feeding program to reduce bear damage is coordinated by the Washington Forest Protection Association\u27s Animal Damage Control Program (ADCP). A brief overview of the ADCP is provided along with a description of bear damage and the supplemental feeding program. Success of the feeding program is demonstrated by an increasing participation and its general acceptance by the public. Timber producers placed over 400 thousand pounds of pellets in 700 feeding stations this past year

Social Network Services: Competition and Privacy

Social Network Services (SNS) business models highly depend on the gathering and analyzation of user data to obtain an advantage in competition for advertising clients. Nevertheless, an extensive collection and analysis of this data poses a threat to users’ privacy. Based on an economic perspective it seems rational for Social Network Operators (SNO) to ignore the users’ desire for privacy. However, privacy-friendly services might have the potential to earn users’ trust, leading to an increased revelation of personal data. Addressing these issues, we examine the existing privacy problem in SNS in the context of competition between SNO to investigate whether competition tend to enhance user privacy or whether it is the root of its violation. Therefore, this paper investigates the interconnectedness of the market structure and privacy problems in SNS. After analyzing the users’ and the advertisers’ side of SNS, their competitiveness and its influence on user privacy are examined

Mit- oder Gegeneinander : Digitalisierungsstrategien von Bibliotheken und Verlagen : Der Streit um den § 52b UrhG : Der Kasus Darmstadt

Auseinandersetzung zwischen Verlagen und Bibliotheken um die Ausgestaltung des neu geschaffenen Digitalisierungsrechts der Bibliotheken nach $ 52b des Urheberrechtsgesetes von 2008. Der Prozeß zwischen Ulmer und der TU Darmstad

The Rise of Certificate Transparency and Its Implications on the Internet Ecosystem

In this paper, we analyze the evolution of Certificate Transparency (CT) over time and explore the implications of exposing certificate DNS names from the perspective of security and privacy. We find that certificates in CT logs have seen exponential growth. Website support for CT has also constantly increased, with now 33% of established connections supporting CT. With the increasing deployment of CT, there are also concerns of information leakage due to all certificates being visible in CT logs. To understand this threat, we introduce a CT honeypot and show that data from CT logs is being used to identify targets for scanning campaigns only minutes after certificate issuance. We present and evaluate a methodology to learn and validate new subdomains from the vast number of domains extracted from CT logged certificates.Comment: To be published at ACM IMC 201