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This open access volume explores Ukraine's challenges post-war, focusing on economic revival and sustainable development. Addressing scholars, policymakers, and practitioners the book discusses pivotal issues for the rebuilding of Ukraine, such as institutional changes, economic hurdles, social stability, and environmental rejuvenation. The book highlights the inevitable need for Ukraine's institutional transformation, essential for EU and NATO integration. It goes on to examine the global geopolitical and economic repercussions and emphasizes the pivotal role of energy independence in the European landscape. Through a multi-disciplinary lens encompassing political science, economics, and law, this book provides evidence-based insights and policy recommendations. Offering a comprehensive presentation of post-war challenges, it offers an invaluable guide for policymakers and practitioners interested in the complexities of Ukraine's reconstruction. This is an open access book.

Although a great deal is known about the recognition of states, less is known about the practice of derecognition of states, namely why and how states withdraw the recognition of other contested and partially recognized states. The Derecognition of States offers a global and comparative outlook of this unexplored diplomatic practice. Using original empirical research, it addresses the complex processes, justifications, and consequences of state derecognition. In particular, it provides unique insights into five aspirant states facing withdrawal of recognition: Taiwan, Western Sahara, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Kosovo. Gëzim Visoka argues that state derecognition is a highly controversial and unstable practice that has less to do with the unfulfillment of the conditions of statehood by the claimant than with the advancement of the self-interest of the former base state and derecognizing state. The derecognition of states is not a rule; rather, it is an exception in international diplomacy, driven by political expediency and is incompatible with original rationales for granting recognition. Yet, the derecognition of states is far more important than previously recognized in shaping the reversal dynamics of secession and state creation and in influencing regional peace, geopolitical rivalries, and the international order. By analyzing the withdrawal of recognition, the book offers a window into the reversal politics of unbecoming a sovereign state and how the arbitrary beginning and the end of diplomatic relations between states take place.

This open access book examines the implications for the EU of a radically changed international context characterized by systemic rivalry, competition over norms and regulations, and growing strategic tension. Globalization that once tied national economies together and internationalized social phenomena, such as education, research and innovation, and tourism, has gone in reverse. An opposite trend is driving the world into distinct spheres of competing models of governance, regulation, technological development, and communication. Facing the most extensive rupture of economic and inter-state relations since the onset of the Cold War, the management of the EU’s internal and external borders is taking on a completely new meaning. The open access book brings together scholars from economics, law, and political science to provide up dated assessments and policy advice on the insecurity in the neighborhood and war in Ukraine, the EU’s role in the future European security architecture,weaponized energy dependence, and the global competition on norms.

This book examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has engendered a new and challenging environment in which borders drawn around people, places, and social structures have hardened and new ones have emerged. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, borders closed or became unwelcoming at the international, national, sub-national, and local levels. Debate persists as to whether those countries and territories that tightly managed their borders, like New Zealand, Australia, or Hong Kong, got it ‘right’ compared to those that did not. Without doubt, a majority of those who suffered and died throughout the pandemic have been those from vulnerable populations. Yet on the other hand, efforts taken to manage the spread of the disease, such as through border management, have also disproportionately affected those who are most vulnerable. How then is the right balance to be struck, acknowledging, too, the economic and other imperatives that may dissuade governments from taking public health steps? This book considers how international organizations, countries, and institutions within those countries should conceive of, and manage, borders as the world continues to struggle with COVID-19 and prepares for the next pandemic. Engaging a range of international, and sub-national, examples, the book thematizes the main issues at stake in the control and management of borders in the interests of public health. This book will be of considerable interest to academics in the fields of health law, anthropology, economics, history, medicine, public health, and political science, as well as policymakers and public health planners at national and sub-national levels.

Book of the Disappeared confronts worldwide human rights violations of enforced disappearance and genocide and explores the global quest for justice with forceful, outstanding contributions by respected scholars, expert practitioners, and provocative contemporary artists. This profoundly humane book spotlights our historic inhumanity while offering insights for survival and transformation.

This is an Open Access book. Amid the growing debate about models of judicial governance and their relationship to democratic quality, this book offers a systematic and empirical study of this relationship. The book thereby contributes to filling in this gap for the European continent. Taking an interdisciplinary politics and law perspective, and combining empirical and theoretical considerations, the book addresses the important link between democracy and judicial governance. In particular, it provides for three interconnected contributions. First, the book provides for a comprehensive classification of European countries into different models of judicial governance. Second, the book analyses empirically the relationship between the design of judicial governance and the quality of democracy. Third, building on those findings, the book presents policy reflections for the reform and improvement of mechanisms for judicial governance in European countries. The book seeks to refine our knowledge about the relationship between judicial governance and democracy, making an important academic and social contribution. In an era in which many democracies backslide and deconsolidate, it assesses to what extent existing mechanisms for judicial governance have contributed to the stability and quality of democratic systems in which they are implemented. Furthermore, the book puts forward reflections to improve the role of organs for judicial governance in fostering the quality of democracy. Since the book introduces in an accessible form key concepts of Judicial Governance, it will be of interest for the general public as well as academics and students in the fields of Law and Political Science. The book also addresses policy makers, as based on our empirical knowledge about the interaction judicial governance and democracy it puts forward ideas for a design of judicial governance that is more capable of protecting democratic systems of government.

child trafficking; human trafficking; trafficking; anti-trafficking policies; EU-ASEAN; ASEAN; Human Rights; governance

This Chapter examines the regulatory and voluntary anti-trafficking governance architecture in the private sector, as well as the power dynamics in MNEs’ GVCs as vectors of norm transmission. It argues that, whereas the public authorities in the EU and ASEAN’s Member States have an increasingly robust legal and policy framework to fight child trafficking, public authorities and multinational enterprises (MNEs) are jointly contributing to upholding the exploitative practices towards children, by leaving untouched the economic structures that fuel trafficking. The model is starting to be overhauled in some sectors of the economy, through strategies to gain back control over GVCs, whether through the shortening of supply chains, or other strategies such as the establishment of direct relations with small producers, who are given a fairer deal compared to situations when they are end producers in long GVCs. It will require more efforts to scale up these initiatives and create sufficient momentum to efficiently combat anti-trafficking, otherwise “blue” initiatives of social sustainability risk leading to further sustainability-driven supplier-squeezes, reinforcing the divide between small businesses and large corporations, and increasing the structural vulnerability of children to trafficking.

The purpose of the present chapter is to initiate the analysis of the child trafficking apparatus through the examination of a paradox pertaining to the protection of children: the simultaneous acceptance of a universal norm of child protection, and the frequent vulnerabilisation of trafficked children who have been taken into care. This discrepancy raises a set of interrogations about the politics of “making live” or “letting die” (Foucault), and the clashes that shape the manner in which the issue is settled for identified trafficking victims. Drawing on Foucaultian analyses of biopower, Chapter 3 shows the internal tension between “make live” objectives and “let die” practices unfolding in the global protection apparatus and its manifestations in member states of ASEAN and the EU. Through a set of solid data collected through fieldwork and interviews, it argues that the protection apparatus deviates towards unintended consequences or biopolitics of selection, resulting in non-protection mechanisms for children identified as trafficking victims. The biopolitics of the child protection apparatus, where trafficking victims are concerned, is analysed along the lines of their politics of selection; the material, psychological and symbolic liminal spaces it produces; and the fabrics – that is, the mechanisms –, as well as the fabric –namely the intrinsic structure of the protection apparatus – that amplify the initial vulnerability of children.

Male-dominated law and legal knowledge essentially characterized the whole of pre-modern history in that the patriarchy represented the axis of social relations in both the private and public spheres. Indeed, modern and even contemporary law still have embedded elements of patriarchal heritage, even in the secular modern legal systems of Western developed countries, either within the content of legislation or in terms of its implementation and interpretation. This is true to a greater or lesser extent across legal systems, although the secular modern legal systems of the Western developed countries have made great advances in terms of gender equality. The traditional understanding of law has always been self-evidently dominated by men, but modern law and its understanding have also been more or less “malestreamed.” Therefore, it has become necessary to overcome the given “maskulinity” of legal thought. In contemporary legal and political orders, gender mainstreaming of law has been of the utmost importance for overcoming deeply and persistently embedded power relations and gender-based, unequal social relations. At the same time and equally importantly, the gender mainstreaming of legal education – to which this book aims to contribute – can help to gradually eliminate this male dominance and accompanying power relations from legal education and higher education as a whole. This open access textbook provides an overview of gender issues in all areas of law, including sociological, historical and methodological issues. Written for students and teachers around the globe, it is intended to provide both a general overview and in-depth knowledge in the individual areas of law. Relevant court decisions and case studies are supplied throughout the book.

child trafficking; human trafficking; trafficking; anti-trafficking policies; EU-ASEAN; ASEAN; Human Rights; governance

This open access book provides an exhaustive picture of the role that annulment conflicts play in the EU multilevel system. Based on a rich dataset of annulment actions since the 1960s and a number of in-depth case studies, it explores the political dimension of annulment litigation, which has become an increasingly relevant judicial tool in the struggle over policy content and decision-making competences. The book covers the motivations of actors to turn policy conflicts into annulment actions, the emergence of multilevel actors’ litigant configurations, the impact of actors’ constellations on success in court, as well as the impact of annulment actions on the multilevel policy conflicts they originate from.

Dieses Buch ist eine Open-Access-Publikation unter einer CC BY 4.0 Lizenz. Subsidiarität ist zu einem Schlüsselbegriff des Diskurses um die Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention (EMRK) geworden. Neben seiner vielbeachteten materiell-rechtlichen Funktion kommt dem Begriff auch eine verfahrensrechtliche Tragweite zu. Das vorliegende Buch widmet sich dieser prozessualen Dimension des Subsidiaritätsprinzips und beleuchtet das Verhältnis von nationalen Gerichten und Europäischem Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) mit Blick auf die Tatsachenfeststellung. Konkret geht es einerseits um die Frage, wie der EGMR mit Tatsachen umgehen soll, die erst nach Abschluss des nationalen Verfahrens entstanden sind oder vor dem EGMR neu vorgebracht werden (echte und unechte Noven). Anderseits ist aufzuzeigen, ob und unter welchen Umständen der EGMR von den Tatsachenfeststellungen der nationalen Gerichte abweichen darf.

This open access publication discusses exclusionary rules in different criminal justice systems. It is based on the findings of a research project in comparative law with a focus on the question of whether or not a fair trial can be secured through evidence exclusion. Part I explains the legal framework in which exclusionary rules function in six legal systems: Germany, Switzerland, People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United States. Part II is dedicated to selected issues identified as crucial for the assessment of exclusionary rules. These chapters highlight the delicate balance of interests required in the exclusion of potentially relevant information from a criminal trial and discusses possible approaches to alleviate the legal hurdles involved.

The current international investment law system is insufficiently compatible with sustainable development. To better address sustainable development concerns associated with transnational investment activities, international investment agreements should be made more compatible with sustainable development. Integrating Sustainable Development in International Investment Law presents an important systematic study of the issue of sustainable development in the international investment law system, using conceptual, normative and governance perspectives to explore the challenges and possible solutions for making international investment law more compatible with sustainable development. Chi suggests that to effectively address the sustainable development concerns associated with transnational investment activities, the international investment agreements system should be reformed. Such reform should feature redesigning the provisions of the agreements, improving the structure of international investment agreements, strengthening the function of soft law, engaging non-state actors and enhancing the dispute settlement mechanism. The book is primarily aimed at national and international treaty and policy-makers, lawyers and scholars. It is also suitable for graduate students studying international law and policy-making.