The European Union and Israel’s Occupation: Using Technical Customs Rules as Instruments of Foreign Policy

This article describes the rules of origin dispute between the European Union and Israel, and argues that these technical customs rules are also instruments of foreign policy. Although the rules have had no direct impact on Israel’s industry in the Occupied Territories, they have bolstered the European Union’s self-identification as a “normative power” while constituting an important legal precedent that has served to legitimize other actions against Israel’s occupation

European Union Law as Foreign Law

The importance and significance of comparative sources to the development of Israeli jurisprudence is expressed in local legislation and rulings. The impact of foreign law on the development of Israeli law has been analyzed and vindicated in numerous studies in the local legal literature. These studies typically focus on the two most prominent legal systems—-common law (the Anglo-American system) and civil law (the Continental system). The historical reasons for this are clear, emanating from the fact that Israel’s legal system is based on these legal regimes and is amended in the spirit of changes made to them. Over the years, however, Israeli law has developed and has become a diverse mosaic which has appropriated doctrines and interpretations on legal issues drawn from various other legal traditions. One of the most prominent legal systems to emerge in recent years is that of the European Union (EU), currently the largest democratic bloc in the world. Despite its relative novelty, EU law has greatly influenced the development of legal interpretation in Israel. The Article seeks to complete the portrait painted in the study by the research briefly introduced in these authors’ previous Article, The Image of European Union Law in Bilateral Relations, which laid the theoretical and historical foundations of the role played by comparative law in Israeli jurisprudence and outlined the development of Israel-EU relations over the years under discussion. In the Article, the portrait is completed through an integrated empirical and descriptive analysis of Israeli Supreme Court (ISC) rulings, based on a database of all rulings referencing EU law sources in any manner during the years 1948–2016. The Article’s findings indicate a gradual yet continual diffusion of legal norms emanating from EU law into ISC rulings, as the status and resonance of EU law among Supreme Court justices in Israel demonstrate. The referencing of sources drawn from EU law, as evidenced in the findings, has been made, inter alia, in several principal and precedent-setting rulings which carry far-reaching implications. The EU sources cited in these rulings provide the foundations for interpretive, normative, and theoretical inspiration, and at times serve as a base against which local law is either reinforced or challenged. The Article’s findings highlight a perpetual positive trajectory in the number of ISC rulings citing EU legal sources. In addition, they also point to a steep qualitative rise in the size and scope of these citations during the period examined. These findings challenge the perceived absence of EU law from the discussion of comparative law and underscore the role played by EU law in the normative development of the legal systems of third countries which are not members of the EU. The Article’s results fortify the claim that a theoretical and interpretative approximation of Israeli jurisprudence to the theories and norms found in the EU legal system is underway and that this is part of a larger process of convergence between Israel and the EU in all spheres of life

Understanding EU External Perceptions: Theorising Local ‘Cultural Filters’ in the Normative Power Approach (casestudy of textbooks)

This article argues that one way to advance the ‘Normative Power Europe’ (NPE) discourse is to shift the analytical focus to the ‘locals’ – or ‘norm-receivers’ – rather than to ‘norm-senders/makers’. The analysis examines the range of locals’ reactions – from learning to adaptation or rejection of norms – and explains the factors behind those reactions. Building on Ian Mannersʼ claim that normative power is informed by ‘cultural filters’ which affect the impact of international norms and political learning in non-European Union (EU) countries, the article advances the concept of ‘external recognition’. It considers one type of local cultural filters -- images and perceptions of the EU as a normative power. Deepening and enriching the ‘Normative Power Europe’ Approach (NPA) by theorising ‘cultural filters’ of external perceptions, this article undertakes a comparative study of Europe’s normative images in high school textbooks in Israel and New Zealand

Public Trust and Political Legitimacy: Conflict of Interests and the Role of the Parliament\u27s Speaker in Israel and Europe

In its six sections, this Article examines the role of Speakers, the nexus between their many duties and powers, possible points of conflict among their different duties, as well as the connection between their official duties and personal interests. This Article takes the role of the Speaker of the Israeli Parliament as its organizing principle. Sections Two and Three discuss the constitutional underpinnings of conflicts of interest and the way in which these apply to Members of the Knesset. Section Four takes the Israeli Speaker as a test case and explores in greater details the many flaws and conflicts inherent in the present definition of the Speaker\u27s role. Finally, Chapter Five comparatively examines the interplay between the Speaker of the Parliament, the principle of conflict of interests, and other official duties of the Speaker in the context of European jurisdictions

Sharp power in social media: Patterns from datasets across electoral campaigns

Using Christopher Walker’s and Jessica Ludwig’s ‘sharp power’ theoretical framework, and based on some preliminary findings from the May 2019 European Parliament election and the two 2019 rounds of elections in Israel, this article describes a novel method for the automatic detection of political trolls and bots active in Twitter in the October 2019 federal election in Canada. The research identified thousands of accounts invested in Canadian politics that presented a unique activity pattern, significantly different from accounts in a control group. The large-scale cross-cross-sectional approach enabled a distinctive perspective on foreign political meddling in Twitter during the recent federal election campaign. Thisforeign political meddling, we argue, aims at manipulating and poisoning the democratic process and can challenge democracies and their values, as well as their societal resilience

Geostrategies of the European neighbourhood policy

The debate about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has, in essence, been about borders and bordering. Such departures could contribute — and often do so — to a rather fixed geopolitical vision of what the EU is about and how it aims to run and to organize the broader European space. However, this article aims to retain space for viewing the ENP as a developmental and somewhat fluid process. A conceptual framework, based on outlining three geopolitical models and a series of different geopolitical strategies employed by the EU in regard to its borders, is hence employed in order to be able to tell a more dynamic story regarding the developing nature of the ENP and the EU's evolving nature more generally. The complexity traced informs us that various geostrategies may be held at the same time at the external border. Moreover, the dominance of one geostrategy may be replaced by another or a different combination of them with regard to the same neighbourhood. It is, more generally, argued that if anything it is precisely this dynamism that should be championed as a valuable resource, avoiding the tendency to close off options through the reification of particular visions of the nature of the EU and its borders

La mujer en la guerra. Roles y discursos en el cine colombiano

La presente investigación tiene como fin indagar sobre la mujer y el conflicto armado en el cine colombiano. Para su desarrollo se decidió, primeramente, realizar un recuento histórico del conflicto armado colombiano y la participación de la mujer en este. Asimismo, se realizó una conceptualización del cine y se abordó el cine colombiano como industria y como fenómeno cultural. Adicionalmente, se abordó, desde una perspectiva psicológica, las nociones de discurso y construcción social a partir de diferentes autores que nutrieran la construcción del análisis. Para el cumplimento del objetivo, centrado en identificar los discursos que reproducen las tres películas escogidas respecto al rol de la mujer en el conflicto, se hizo uso de pentafonías narrativas, analizadas y contrastadas con las fuentes de literatura citadas. Finalmente, se llegó a la conclusión de que las producciones escogidas manejan un discurso limitado y repetido frente a la manera de significar a la mujer.The objective of this investigation is to look into the way women are portrayed in the films related to the Colombian armed conflict. Firstly, it was made a historical re-count about the war in Colombia and the role of women in it. Additionaly, it was considered relevant to carry out a conceptualization of the Colombian cinema as an industry and as a cultural phenomenon. Also, the notions of discourse and social construction from different authors that sustained the construction of the analysis were approached from a psychological perspective. For the fulfillment of the objective, which was focused on the identification of the discourses that are reproduced on the three films previously chosen regarding the role of the women in the conflict, narrative pentafonias, contrasted and analyzed with the literature sources, were used. Lastly, we could reach the conclusion that the films that were chosen use a very limited and repetitive discourse in the way they give a significance to the women.Psicólogo (a)Pregrad

Synthesis

Human activity in the last century has led to a substantial increase in nitrogen (N) emissions and deposition. This N deposition has reached a level that has caused or is likely to cause alterations to the structure and function of many ecosystems across the United States. One approach for quantifying the level of pollution that would be harmful to ecosystems is the critical loads approach. The critical load is dei ned as the level of a pollutant below which no detrimental ecological effect occurs over the long term according to present knowledge. The objective of this project was to synthesize current research relating atmospheric N deposition to effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the United States and to identify empirical critical loads for atmospheric N deposition. The receptors that we evaluated included freshwater diatoms, mycorrhizal fungi and other soil microbes, lichens, herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees. The main responses reported fell into two categories: (1) biogeochemical, and (2) individual species, population, and community responses. This report synthesizes current research relating atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition to effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the United States and to identify empirical critical loads for atmospheric N deposition. The report evaluates the following receptors: freshwater diatoms, mycorrhizal fungi and other soil microbes, lichens, herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees. The main responses reported fell into two categories: (1) biogeochemical; and (2) individual species, population, and community responses. The range of critical loads for nutrient N reported for U.S. ecoregions, inland surface waters, and freshwater wetlands is 1 to 39 kg N ha-1 y-1. This range spans the range of N deposition observed over most of the country. The empirical critical loads for N tend to increase in the following sequence for different life forms: diatoms, lichens and bryophytes, mycorrhizal fungi, herbaceous plants and shrubs, trees

Synthesis

Human activity in the last century has led to a substantial increase in nitrogen (N) emissions and deposition. This N deposition has reached a level that has caused or is likely to cause alterations to the structure and function of many ecosystems across the United States. One approach for quantifying the level of pollution that would be harmful to ecosystems is the critical loads approach. The critical load is dei ned as the level of a pollutant below which no detrimental ecological effect occurs over the long term according to present knowledge. The objective of this project was to synthesize current research relating atmospheric N deposition to effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the United States and to identify empirical critical loads for atmospheric N deposition. The receptors that we evaluated included freshwater diatoms, mycorrhizal fungi and other soil microbes, lichens, herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees. The main responses reported fell into two categories: (1) biogeochemical, and (2) individual species, population, and community responses. This report synthesizes current research relating atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition to effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the United States and to identify empirical critical loads for atmospheric N deposition. The report evaluates the following receptors: freshwater diatoms, mycorrhizal fungi and other soil microbes, lichens, herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees. The main responses reported fell into two categories: (1) biogeochemical; and (2) individual species, population, and community responses. The range of critical loads for nutrient N reported for U.S. ecoregions, inland surface waters, and freshwater wetlands is 1 to 39 kg N ha-1 y-1. This range spans the range of N deposition observed over most of the country. The empirical critical loads for N tend to increase in the following sequence for different life forms: diatoms, lichens and bryophytes, mycorrhizal fungi, herbaceous plants and shrubs, trees