Volume 8, Issue 2

This article employs a `rights-based approach' in evaluating a `single state solution' to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. International human rights provide a necessary normative standard for the just resolution of this long-running dispute. A single state, as compared to the two-state solution that has been broadly supported by the international community since 1947, offers superior opportunities to maximize the legitimate rights, interests, and aspirations of the greatest number of Israelis and Palestinians. Yet Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs each enjoy internationally recognized rights of self-determination and sovereignty. Accordingly, there is no legal means by which a one-state solution could be directly imposed on the parties to the dispute without violating the respective rights of each people. As a matter of law, then, a one-state solution could only come about through the agreement of Palestinians and Israelis and as an exercise of their respective rights to self-determination. The inability to implement a one-state solution without consent of the parties requires consideration of the means by which such an agreement might be encouraged. There is no indication that states are likely to brook the current international consensus in support of a two-state solution. Thus it is necessary to examine whether international civil society is capable of playing a facilitating role analogous to the role it played in the demise of apartheid in South Africa. A variety of scenarios can be imagined, but in any of them, ultimately, broad Israeli Jewish opposition to a single state solution will have to be overcome. This suggests that a non-violent campaign, or at least one that scrupulously avoids attack on innocent civilians, is the most promising route to achieving a one-state solution. While such a shift appears farfetched at the moment, no other solution to the conflict currently seems imminent. The moral power of a single state, based on equal rights for all residents of Israel/Palestine, has transformative power that should not be underestimated.

This paper challenges the traditionally normative perspective on the teaching of Law and Economics that focuses on evaluating the economic efficiency of specific laws. Widening the lens of analysis from normative to positive by accounting for the political process of law and policy design would help students of economics, public policy and law to reconcile the frequent divergence between normative recommendations and actual policy implementation. The case study of an undergraduate course on the Political Economy of Public Policy highlights the unique benefits of an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum design through enhancing student learning and the development of critical analytical skills.

In October 1999 "the second Chechen war" broke out. In December the Russian federal army started an operation to take control of Grozny. During the confrontation between the Federal forces and the Chechen separatists, serious human rights violations occurred. Several cases concerning violations of fundamental rights, in and around the city, have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights against Russia. The lawsuits concerned physical integrity issues in particular. This study provides some insights on the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights in order to ascertain the adequacy of the mechanism of protection provided by the European Convention of 1950 in situations of armed conflict.

Over the past ten years the issue of energy security concerning the major economies, and in particular the European Union, has occupied the minds of politicians and lawmakers around the world. For Europe, measures to decrease its oil and gas dependence on a limited number of energy suppliers have resulted in a search for alternative exporters and export routes and the establishment of new legal mechanisms, such as the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which has been a perfect starting point for international cooperation in the field of European energy security. At the same time, many large oil-producing economies, which export energy to the EU, are now in the process of market liberalization and energy-related reforms due to their aspiration to become members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This tendency has diverse legal and economic implications for the current and future members of the ECT and the WTO, including legal consequences in terms of dispute settlement under the ECT.Economic data predict that the EU's dependence on oil imports from non-members of the ECT, mainly Middle Eastern countries, will increase dramatically after 2020 while gas imports from the Commonwealth of Independent States and especially Russia, (CIS: republics of the former Soviet Union) most of which are members of the ECT (Russia and Belarus apply the ECT on a provisional basis ), will steadily increase by that time. Therefore, one issue of energy security for the EU is that the protection offered by the ECT dispute settlement mechanism may become more necessary in the years to come.However, from a private investor's point of view it is still uncertain whether the ECT dispute settlement mechanism is the best tool for considering an energy-related investment dispute in terms of time and cost management for a number of reasons. First, the ECT is a complex legal document with numerous exceptions and limitations that are present in annexes, decisions and protocols to the treaty. A trade practitioner must pay particular attention to all provisions while advising on an ECT legal issue and few ECT cases have been adjudicated so far resulting in doubt and ambiguity in the interpretation of some provisions of the ECT. Second, the scope of the ECT is rather limited: the majority of energy producing countries in the Middle East, Africa and South America are not members of the treaty and investors in those states will continue to rely on the bilateral investment treaties (BITs).Nevertheless, this article intends to analyze some ECT-related arbitration cases in order to demonstrate that the ECT dispute settlement mechanism has become a reliable arbitration forum that can protect foreign investors' rights in trade in energy.

This account of judicialised politics in the Nigerian transition experience examines the regulation of the judiciary of the political space, through the resolution of intergovernmental contestations in a dysfunctional federation. It analyses the judicialisation of elite power disputes which have resonance for due process and the rule of law in particular and governance in general. A study of the role of the judiciary in stabilising the country, itself a pivot in the West Africa region in particular and Africa in general, is important. This is especially in view of its classification as a 'weak state,' despite its enormous human and natural resources. The analyses here suggest the Supreme Court has taken a strategic position in the task of democratic institutional building and the reinstitution of the rule of law in the country. This strategic measure has received the acclaim of the public. However, the account also discloses that the judiciary, in the course of its numerous interventions, has been drawn into overly political disputes that overreach its jurisprudential preferences. Of even more significance, it demonstrates that the judiciary is itself still challenged by institutional dysfunctions constituting part of the legacies of the authoritarian era. The situation leads back to the need for closer scrutiny of the judicial function in transitional societies.

``Every person has the right to profess and practise his religion." Article 11 of the Malaysian Constitution could hardly be more explicit. However, Lina Joy was told by the Federal Court that she could not exercise her constitutional right without prior approval by the syariah court. The case of Lina Joy has important consequences for Malaysia's political and constitutional development especially if viewed within the context of Malaysia's increasing Islamization. In this case, syariah law moved beyond the confines of the syariah court to influence the legal outcome of a common law adjudication in the civil court. An analysis of the majority and minority judgments in Lina Joy reveals two conceptions and usages of the common law in the face of Islamization: it can either be a Trojan horse to import syariah law principles into the legal system, or a tool of resistance against the Islamization of the Malaysian legal system.

Malaysia's National Economic Policy was formulated with two objectives: to eradicate poverty and restructure society. In this article we trace the origins of the policy and review it from a legal perspective. We found that although the policy is not law in the sense used by traditional model jurisprudence, it has nevertheless been adhered to. We argue that this adherence was not because of any moral obligation to comply or that it reflected popular consciousness, but because of the prevailing political and institutional structures which allows the state to impose non-legal sanctions. Thus, although not law, the policy carries with it the state's coercive powers to induce compliance.