Law

The UN Charter envisaged a centralised system of collective security in which the UN Security Council would have readily available forces of its own for the purpose of taking military enforcement action under its own authority and control. These forces were never created and the Security

The increased burden placed upon the UN Security Council in the post-Cold War era in respect of its discharge of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security has fuelled calls for the greater use of regional arrangements as agents of the Council, to relieve its burden. However, the various agendas and capabilities of different arrangements make it difficult to adopt a uniform template of the role which regional arrangements can play as conductors of peace support operations authorised by the Security Council. This article attempts to provide a framework against which the potential role of different arrangements as viable agents to which the Security Council can entrust military enforcement operations, before going on to assess how selected African and European organisations fare against this framework. It will be demonstrated that when assessed against this framework, the organisations selected for comparison are remarkably similar.

Following Russian intervention and a referendum held on 16th March 2014, the Ukrainian republic of Crimea became incorporated within Russia. The Crimean episode marked just the latest in a series of situations arising in former Soviet states in which secessionist movements within disaffected territorial units were able to advance their causes aided by Russian external intervention. These situations raise significant international legal issues pertaining to secession by component parts of existing states, underpinned by external intervention. The unwillingness of the international community to recognise Russia's incorporation of Crimea, similar to its earlier rejection of the purported secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, reinforces the widely held view that non-consensual secession must be grounded in exceptional circumstances which were found to be lacking in all of these situations. It also reaffirms the principle that territorial changes brought about by external intervention will not be recognised. However, while legal assessments of these incidents may appear prima facie straightforward, they cannot be entirely divorced from the wider political phenomenon of ethnic conflict in former Soviet states and tensions existing in those states between factions seeking to further European integration and those prioritising strengthening relations with Russia. The international legal reasoning employed by the key protagonists must be understood with reference to this wider context.

The doctrine of the responsibility to protect, since its inception in the ICISS report of 2001, has been the subject of considerable discussion. Arguably its most publicised component is the principle that the international community has the responsibility to protect civilian populations against severe suffering where the relevant national authorities are unable or unwilling to do so. Consequently, the main focus of discourse upon the responsibility to protect has centred on its impact upon the approach of the international community to intervention in respect of situations posing considerable humanitarian crises. The events of the Arab Spring, in which full blown conflict in some states gave rise to serious human suffering, provided a real opportunity for the international community to evaluate the role of the responsibility to protect in decision-making over responding to such instances, and potentially to develop it into a practical and meaningfully implementable concept. However, due to political flaws inherent in the doctrine, and its arguably overstated significance, the doctrine at best played a minimal role in guiding the international response to developments in the Arab World. Nonetheless, responses to the Arab Spring do allow certain conclusions to be drawn in respect of the future relevance of the doctrine.

In the short term at least, the outcome of the Scottish Independence referendum has settled the constitutional status of Scotland as part of the United Kingdom. During the referendum campaign, however, the major UK wide parties committed themselves to conferring a package of enhanced devolved powers upon Scotland in the event of a rejection of independence and the exact scope of these powers is in the process of being finalised. Although this ignited calls in Wales and Northern Ireland for an expansion of their own devolved powers, arguably more strongly felt pressures in the aftermath of the referendum have concerned the 'West Lothian' question; the fact that decisions on matters which only affect England are taken by a UK Parliament that comprises representatives from all four constituent parts of the UK, whereas the same matters are often legislated upon locally in those other parts of the UK without the involvement of representatives from England. There is much consensus on the need to address this anomaly of the current UK constitutional framework, but less agreement on how this ought to be done. This paper considers the debate over 'English only votes' at Westminster and identifies several flaws to such an initiative, which it is argued make it a dangerous mechanism that threatens the integrity of the UK. A new constitutional framework based upon regional or federal mechanisms represents the most logical and workable step forward, but it is doubtful whether sufficient political or public support exists for such a development to take place. The Scottish referendum campaign highlighted, if anything, the extent to which the UK's future integrity is threatened by ideas of political difference and constitutional reform must take account of such realities. It must not be rushed, but based on sound logic and principle.

In June 2016, the UK voted in a referendum by a 52%-48% margin to leave the European Union. Ever since, the process for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU has dominated political debates. It is quite clear that the issue of “Brexit” has divided the UK’s population, parliament, political parties and the government itself. While the UK has yet to leave the EU, it is nonetheless possible to make a number of observations on the factors resulting in the outcome of the 2016 referendum and developments since. This article seeks to place Brexit within its broader context. It attempts to make sense of the 2016 referendum vote and the subsequent withdrawal process by reference to a broader understanding of the UK’s constitutional framework and the longer term history of relations between the UK and EU, as well as considering the possible future implications of Brexit for the UK, the EU and the wider world. Although it remains unclear how the Brexit process will conclude, it is apparent that its ...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which commenced on 24 February 2022 represented just the latest, albeit most devastating, intervention in a neighbouring former Soviet state. This article considers the legal justifications for Russia’s actions and finds them to be far from satisfactory. The claims advanced by Russia closely mirror those made in respect of its prior interventions in the former Soviet space, underlining an attempt to distort some of the most fundamental norms of international law in order to afford an air of legitimacy to its actions. Although it is too soon to conclude with any certainty what the longer term implications of the recent conflict will be, both politically and legally, it is apparent that it can be seen as part of a wider policy objective on Russia’s part to maintain and/or reassert influence over its ‘near abroad’. While in some respects indicative of the possible emergence of a new ‘Cold War’, the international reaction to its intervention in Ukraine sugge...

This paper focuses on research conducted over a period of thirty months as part of a wider ESRC-funded initiative on violence. It focuses on the sustainability of safer gay space. This paper shows how the generation of the fear of the 'heterosexual other' functions to enable certain claims to be made on the space from a proprietorial aspect which includes recourse to purity, danger and respectability. This shows how property relations become articulated as a property of the person, demonstrating how entitlement to space is formed. It also explores how boundaries are being constructed and maintained in different (and often novel) ways and shows how different intelligibilities are constructed for understanding one's place through concepts of property and propriety that relate to forms of investment and movement through space. It thus challenges traditional ideas on boundary formation and maintenance. Ultimately it foregrounds how these understandings of bodies in space in uence current articulations of citizenship and poltical participation.