Band 50, Heft 3

Under the guise of Swiss neutrality, the Swiss-based company Crypto AG for decades manufactured and supplied manipulated cipher machines to governments in over 120 States. The company was controlled by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). The Swiss intelligence services had known about this intelligence operation since 1993 at the latest, had access to relevant information, and allowed the foreign intelligence services to continue their operation until 2018. For the permanently neutral State of Switzerland, this raises the question of how Operation RUBICON is to be assessed with regard to Switzerland's duties under the law of neutrality. This author finds that it was unlikely that Switzerland, in its complicity in Operation RUBICON, violated its duties under the law of neutrality. However, if—and this is unlikely but cannot be completely ruled out—Crypto AG exported rigged cipher machines or offered maintenance services during (or immediately before) the Kosovo War in 1999 to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or during (or immediately before) the Iraq invasion in 2003 to the Republic of Iraq, Switzerland would have violated its duties under the law of neutrality. At the very least, Switzerland's complicity in Operation RUBICON plays into its image as a Western neutral and is therefore relevant in terms of Swiss neutrality policy. In any case, it is crucial for Switzerland to refrain from complying with intelligence operations such as Operation RUBICON and to preserve (guided by equidistance, international law, and Switzerland's humanitarian tradition) its permanent neutrality, even during today's challenging circumstances.

Women in India have perpetually been the victims of sexual offenses. The data of the National Crime Records Bureau suggests that such offenses against women are prevalent in almost every part of the country. The year 2013 marked major reforms to the legal and judicial structure for addressing these sexual offenses against female victims. It was felt that special support agencies should be established under one roof to administer every kind of assistance these victims require. Victims should not be mandated to run from pillar to post seeking justice from various agencies and institutions; rather, assistance should be made available to them at one location. To aid and assist the victims of sexual offenses, the Justice Usha Mehra Commission of Inquiry 1 was constituted by India's central government just after the horrific gang rape of a medical student in Delhi in 2012. The Commission recommended the establishment of One Stop Crisis Centres (OSCCs) to help victims of sexual offenses with their legal battles against their offenders. But a primary question has loomed about the effectiveness of such Centres on the ground level, given the lack of resources in our criminal justice enforcement system and a strained policing mechanism. This article deliberates on the fundamental contours of roles and responsibilities to be performed by the OSCCs and deep dives into the investigation of factors presumably responsible for their less-than-desirable output, if any.

The development of globalization processes in the world economy allows reconciling supply and demand for staff regardless of the employee's country of origin and leads to international labor migration. The experience of highly developed countries shows that a country's economy and its subsequent growth largely depend on the effective recruitment and use of skilled labor. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a drastic restriction on population mobility and, consequently, worsened the economic and social situations in countries where labor migration was a widespread phenomenon. The ensuing economic crisis has not only altered trends in labor migration but has also brought new challenges to its legal regulation. The article aims to determine the features of migration trends and policy in the COVID-19 environment, examine them in the context of new regulations adopted to protect the labor rights of migrants under the current circumstances, suggest effective measures to regulate the situation in the labor market, and address the economic crises in the countries of destination and origin. The examination of this issue involved a complex methodological framework where the general scientific dialectical method was central to the research. The conducted research provides a foundation for overcoming the social and economic crises caused by COVID-19, which contributes to its practical significance.