Reinforcing the Law of the Sea Convention of 1982 Through Clarification and Implementation

That the Law of the Sea Convention faces implementation challenges is nothing new; it is, as many have noted, a framework and a scaffold - a constitution for the oceans - which necessarily left many matters of detail to future negotiation, associated instruments, and state practice. What has emerged over the last two decades, however, is an increasing reluctance on the part of states to pursue implantation via new, more detailed, treaty commitments. This article explores alternative options for enhancing Law of the Sea Convention compliance - options that do not necessarily require the \u27more law\u27 path to granularity and implementation. The analysis begins by describing the amenability of the LOSC to refinement processes, focusing upon its flexibility (including its ‘constructive ambiguity’) and conduciveness (the significant allowance built into the LOSC for domestic contextualization, interpretation, and implementation). With this background established, the analysis then explores four alternative pathways to facilitating and reinforcing compliance - pathways that do not involve the negotiation of additional hard law or mixed hard/soft law instruments, nor the establishment of new governance institutions. The first alternative is to employ a ‘process’ approach, noting the relative success of this option in the maritime domain as represented by the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS). The second alternative approach is the adaptable employment of existing rules to meet an evolving governance challenge - the issue of privately contracted armed security personnel (PCASP) being a case study on point. The third option is to apply refined interpretive endeavors to existing authorizations which have hitherto been subject to relatively superficial analysis and application – for example, in relation to vessels without nationality (VWON) and counter-drug interdictions at sea. The fourth option is the employment of existing but under-utilized LOSC-based or LOSC-leveraged mechanisms and authorizations - such as Article 17 of the Vienna Convention on Traffic of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances 1988 - in new or expanded ways

Legal-Policy Considerations and Conflict Characterisation at the Threshold Between Law Enforcement and Non-International Armed Conflict

When characterising a conflict situation as an international armed conflict, states and other analysts traditionally consider the facts on the ground'. When determining whether a situation is one of civil disturbance and riot, or has risen to the level of a non-international armed conflict ('NIAC'), there is much greater latitudefor legal-policy considerations to influence, and indeed direct, the characterisation decision. This article explores three aspects of legal-policy concern for states dealing with conflict characterisation at this lowest law of armed conflict ('LOAC') threshold between less-than-NJAC law enforcement and NIAC: a general outline of three elements of legal-policy discretion that are clearly assumed and inherent within LOAC; legal defensibility, a discourse that is fundamentally governed by the tension between applicable law and policy objectives; and utility, a concern that focuses upon the balance to be struck between the legal argument employed to justify conflict characterisation and the capacity of the state to retain some degree of context control

Resources in Europe of interest to mathematics teachers,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University. This thesis was written in conjunction with Dennis J. Roberts, Mary Lee McLaughlin and Robert F. Pierce.Statement of the problem: It is the purpose of this thesis to formulate plans for a guided tour throughout Western Europe for secondary-school teachers with emphasis on present and past mathematical and allied science contributions. This study will serve as an answer to four fundamental questions: 1. What are the resources available in Europe of value to mathematics teachers? 2. From the standpoint of marginal utility, which of these would be the most important? 3. where are they to be found? 4. How long would it take to see each of them profitably in a limited amount of time? [TRUNCATED

Investigation of a stress concentration factor for analytical stress based failure criterion

Localized necking concerns have traditionally been predicted in sheet metal forming by comparing the strain state within a material to the associated strain based forming limit curve. However, the strain path dependence of this failure criterion is a major concern. Alternatively, an analytical model was developed by Derov et al. to predict a stress based forming limit curve and shown to exhibit less strain path dependence. A critical stress concentration factor, defined as the ratio of the effective stress in the base material to the effective stress in the necking region, characterizes the failure condition for this model. An investigation of the model with past experimental data suggests this critical stress concentration factor is a material parameter. An experiment aimed at validating this observation was performed using a Marciniak test on a steel and aluminum alloy. Preliminary results for steel are discussed. A study was also conducted investigating the use of a stress based failure criterion in numerical simulations to predict failure for a Nakajima test. Finally, the design of a biaxial loading stage which will be used to measure in-plane stresses in-situ is presented

The development of critical thinking in the study of American history.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit