At King's Agramant's camp: Old debates, new constitutional times

Copyright 2010 @ The Author. This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in the International Journal of Constitutional Law following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at: http://icon.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/3/580.The article explores the genesis of constitutionalism in the science of international law during the interwar years and offers a genealogical sketch of the fate of the constitutional idea from the Second World War to the emergence of a postreconstruction doctrine in the post–Cold War era. To account for the contemporary hydra-like renewal of constitutional parlance in international law, a series of converging factors, namely, fragmentation and deformalization, as well as the effects of empire and the illegitimacy of global governance on both domestic and international democratic grounds, are examined. The article goes on to argue that the terms of the debate, which shaped the foundational period of contemporary international law, today appear reversed in international legal scholarship and hints at how the field of international constitutionalism can be profitably enriched when set against the doctrinal background offered by the democratic debate in international law. The possibilities of this doctrinal cross-fertilization are shown by reference to three dimensions of emergence of the democratic principle, which, I argue, is the wind rose of international law

The fascist mimesis of Spanish international law and its Vitorian aftermath, 1939-1953

Copyright © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV.This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.The figure and works of Francisco de Vitoria, the father of international law, have fascinated generations of non Spanish international legal scholars - past and present. These range from classic figures as diverse as the founder of the American Society of International Law, James Brown Scott, or the Crown Jurist of the Third Reich, Carl Schmitt, to the recent post-colonial approaches to international law proposed by Antony Anghie or the most recent inquiries of Martti Koskenniemi on the private law underpinnings that for the universal ordering of international relations were contained in the work of the Spanish Scholastics of the sixteenth century. In this work, which is part of an on-going series, I examine how a climate of severe intellectual repression and organically nationalist-directed scientific work in Spain and the nationalist reaffirmation of a culture grounded in Catholic conservatism and traditionalism fostered the adoption of a marked thematic orientation towards natural law and the reinstatement of the Siglo de Oro’s Salamanca School among Spanish international lawyers after the Fascist Mimesis of Spanish International Law

"In the general interest of peace" - British international lawyers and the Spanish civil war

The first section of this study examines the establishment of the international non-intervention agreement and of the London Committee and their combined neutralizing effect on the League of Nations in the light of a series of underlying factors, including the European powers´ leaning towards neutrality in the late interwar period. The second section reviews the core issues and different doctrinal positions present in the international legal debates triggered by the Spanish Civil War. It pays particular attention to the contributions of the first two British judges at the International Court of Justice, A. D. McNair (1946-1955) and H. Lauterpacht (1955-1960) to these debates. Their writings can be seen as respectively representative of the two stages through which British international lawyers went in the international legal debates on the Spanish Civil War. Upto early 1938, British International lawyers adopted a characteristically apologetic approach to the policy undertaken by the British Government on the advice of the British Foreign Office. The second stage, from early 1938 to the end of the Spanish Civil War in March 1939, was in turn informed by a “practitioner´s approach” to the analysis of the domestic cases brought before the British courts as a result of the hostilities. The article concludes with a brief analysis of the case for British “benevolent neutrality to the Nationalists”26 in the Spanish Civil War, reviewing the underlying motives which historians have highlighted as lurking behind the British-led non-intervention policy in the Spanish Civil War

Heat waves and human well-being in Madrid (Spain)

Heat waves pose additional risks to urban spaces because of the additional heat provided by urban heat islands (UHIs) as well as poorer air quality. Our study focuses on the analysis of UHIs, human thermal comfort, and air quality for the city of Madrid, Spain during heat waves. Heat wave periods are defined using the long-term records from the urban station Madrid-Retiro. Two types of UHI were studied: the canopy layer UHI (CLUHI) was evaluated using air temperature time-series from five meteorological stations; the surface UHI (SUHI) was derived from land surface temperature (LST) images from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) products. To assess human thermal comfort, the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) index was applied. Air quality was analyzed from the records of two air quality networks. More frequent and longer heat waves have been observed since 1980; the nocturnal CLUHI and both the diurnal and nocturnal SUHI experience an intensification, which have led to an increasing number of tropical nights. Conversely, thermal stress is extreme by day in the city due to the lack of cooling by winds. Finally, air quality during heat waves deteriorates because of the higher than normal amount of particles arriving from Northern AfricaThis research was funded by the research project number CGL2016-80154-R “Análisis y modelización de eventos climáticos extremos en Madrid: olas de calor e inversiones térmicas” funded by Convocatoria 2016 de Proyectos de I+D+I, correspondientes al programa estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, from the Spanish Ministry of Educatio

Impact of Climate Variability on Climate Beach-Based Tourism Aptitude: A Case Study in the Atlantic Coast of SW Europe

ABSTRACT: The spatial and temporal variability of the summer (July-August) climate beach-based tourism aptitude along the Atlantic coast of SW Europe from 1973 to 2017 and its links with the atmospheric circulation has been analyzed, combining an empirical index and a circulation pattern approach. Three different coastal sectors were defined from a PCA analysis: Galicia-N of Portugal, the Gulf of Biscay, and the western coast of France and the English Channel. Each region experienced a contrasted evolution due to geographical factors such as latitude, orography and exposure to the prevailing circulation patterns. No significant increase in aptitude was found because the background warming has not been balanced by trends in cloudiness or precipitation. Several possible causes are discussed, from local to large-scale, such as the recent evolution of the summer NAO pattern impacting the northernmost region

El lenguaje de la puesta en escena: el texto teatral, un texto escrito por muchas manos

La aparente sencillez del teatro esconde una gran complejidad. El espectáculo teatral es un texto escrito por muchas manos. El encuentro entre el actor, que interpreta el texto previo de un dramaturgo, y el espectador requiere la complicidad de éste. El espectáculo se completa precisamente porque el espectador conoce y acepta la convención teatral y participa de ella a través de lo que se ha llamado la suspensión de la incredulidad. Pero también el actor rellena los huecos que ofrece un texto. Su fisico, su voz, su edad, su apostura fisica construyen una historia que sólo de una manera esquemática adivinábamos en el texto. La elección del actor y su trabajo condicionan al dramaturgo cuando escribe y, a la vez, estos elementos están condicionados precisamente por el imaginario colectivo del espectador. Desde hace un siglo hay que añadir a este esquema la figura del director, a quien hoy consideramos el principal creador del espectáculo, hasta el punto de que se habla ya de los derechos de autor de la dirección de escena.Seemingly, theatre appears to be simple, but it hides a great complexity. Performance is a text written by many hands. The meeting between the actor, who plays a previous text, and the audience requires the complicity of the latter. The show completes itself through the audience's knowledge of theatre conventions, and its willing participating in the suspension of disbelief. But the actor also filling in the holes found in all dramatical works. His physical presence, voice and age build up a story that was somehow unfinished in the written text. The choice of the actor and his performance determine the author's performance as well; moreover, all these factors are conditioned by the collective imagination of the audience. Since the beginning of the last century, the director of the play has appeared to be the main creator behind the show, so much so that it is even argued that there should be a copyright for the mise en scéne.Publicad

El cuestionamiento de la ficcionalidad en el teatro: la creación teatral de Ana Vallés

Una de las tendencias del teatro español de vanguardia se caracteriza por poner en duda la ilusión de realidad escénica y por prescindir de los componentes habituales del texto dramático tradicional. Esta tendencia se apoya en una poderosa tradición que recorre el mejor teatro contemporáneo: Brecht, Becket, Handke o Müller. Su evolución llega hasta el presente y es visible en la obra de creadores como Rodrigo García, Carlos Marqueríe, Antonio Fernández Lera, Sara Molina, la compañía Amaranto, Sonia Gómez, etc. Pero es sobre todo Ana Vallés y su compañía Matarile quien, desde un humor muy personal, propone una renuncia radical a la ficción escénica. Questioning the illusion of the scenic reality and a full disregard for the usual parts of the traditional plays are characteristics of one of the tendencies of the vanguard Spanish theatre. This tendency has its roots in the best contemporary theatre: Brecht, Becket, Handke or Müller. Its evolution remains at present and it is patent in the performers such as Rodrigo García, Carlos Marqueríe, Antonio Fernández Lera, Sara Molina, la compañía Amaranto, Sonia Gómez, and the company “Amaranto”. But it is Ana Vallés, with her company “Matarile”, who proposes the most radical refuse to the scenic fiction by means of her particular sense of humour

Beyond the Spanish classics - The ephemeral awakening of the history of international law in pre-democratic Spain

Cuadernos para el Diálogo (1963-1978) played a key-role in nurturing the intellectual soil for the Spanish Transition to democracy and it has spawned an extensive amount of literature among historians. This work links for the first time the course of this emblematic monthly journal with the short-lived period of methodological and historiographical innovation of Revista Española de Derecho Internacional under the direction of the international jurist Mariano Aguilar Navarro

Autorretratos del Estado: El sello postal del franquismo [review]

Review of: Autorretratos del Estado: El sello postal del franquismo. Ed. Guillermo Navarro Oltra. Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2013