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AbstractHistorically, the strait between South Korea and Japan, officially designated the “Korea Strait” in which the powerful Ao-shio ocean current flows, is the place of a unique civilization at the eastern tip of the Asian mainland. The islands and shores of the strait have been marked by ancient commercial trade and shared cultures, but also by violent conflicts and endemic piracy. The island of Tsushima, in the centre of the strait, is the best example of this. Territorial disputes for the rights to maritime resources, fishing in particular, are in these days settled in the strait with exclusive economical zones delimitation. Today, trends are now shifting to cross border trade and development of an economic region within the strait.

Keywords: détroit de Corée-Tsushima, océanographie, toponymie, cartographie ancienne, civilisation de l'Ao-shio, insularité, piraterie, géopolitique, frontière, ZEE, pêche, trafic portuaire, région maritime, Korea-Tsushima strait, oceanography, toponymy, old cartography, Ao-shio civilization, insularity, piracy, geopolitics, boundary, EEZ, fishing, port trading, sea region

We seek to find the factors that influence European Union member states' support for a common natural gas strategy. Even though the EU already expressed its will to act in energy issues, member states' national interests still prevent a coherent energy policy from being implemented. We test three member states with the LIG theory, which considers that groups that represent economic and industrial interests are the most influential on their national foreign policy. We compare this theory with realist and constructivist approaches and conclude that the level of gas import dependency and national identity factors are less influent on state support to the common policy than is the level of investment of national energy champions in the Russian gas sector.

Keywords: intégration européenne, groupes d'intérêts, sécurité énergétique, European integration, interest groups, energy security

AbstractThe recent hydrocarbons fields discovered in the Brazilian coast are about to completely change the energy strategy of Brazil. This paper aims to analyze the technological, financial and environmental challenges that Brazil will face in the coming years, but also how the country is working to ensure its international insertion.

Keywords: pétrole, Brésil, politique énergétique, insertion internationale, petroleum, Brazil, energy policy, international insertion, petróleo, Brasil, política energética, inserción internacional

The author analyzes the post-Cold War international arena thoroughly, be delineating one by one Us different systemic, geopolitical, hegemonic, and strategic metamorphoses. The emergence of a fragmented transnational subsystem — the social component of the international System — has made this era fertile ground for third-wave conflicts, i.e. cultural conflicts or shocks between civilizations. The lack of any recognized leadership and the collective exercise of the system's governability may lead one to observe that armed violence is being waged by means other than those of major inter-state wars. In such a context, one may deduce that emphasis on the concept of collective security is working to the detriment of defence-minded thinking and to the benefit of strategies for active and very early conflict prevention. The entire realm of strategy is thus open to a wide-ranging, Worldwide arena. The main consequences have been an end to the old custodial arrangements of geopolitics, thereby transforming NATO in Europe, and a renewed activism in Asia, where the trend is towards creation of a specific security subsystem. These transformations of the international System have brought about metamorphoses in the notions of enemy, boundary, conflict, and power. Such changes also highlight the « rationality deficit » now affecting the System and the proliferation of the notion of « meaning », which is everywhere lacking in consistency. The shifting of the security dilemma to the subnational, internal level has accordingly resulted from the breakup of nations and the decolonization of empires. The author concludes that it may prove useful, even valuable, to try and identify the normative elements of the post-Cold War international System and to outline, however imperfectly, the new distribution of international power. The reader will also find afresh look at the doctrinal debate about international System theory and about the epistemology of the discipline that deals with it.

On decolonisation, France, leaning on its often-proclaimed messianic vocation and a long tradition of cultural policy, set in motion a politico-linguistic set-up of French-speaking communities. This was also stimulated by various cultural bouts of enthusiasm springing up simultaneously in the French-speaking surroundings. We shall evaluate the driving force of these identity renewals expressed in various ways throughout the 60's and 70's. In Quebec – by means of a “quiet revolution” accompanying autonomy in the cultural field, of which the best-known forms (singers, poets) are successfully exported into the French-speaking areas. In the French-speaking part of Switzerland, by the emergence of a new generation eager to be involved in breaking up the established lines of a Swiss culture considered rigidified, and expressing its new creative forces in various cultural sectors (cinema, song, theatre, literature) whose reputation rapidly reaches beyond its frontiers. To what extent have the emergence and the development of this French-speaking cultural enthusiasm – whether coming from new institutional centres or from surrounding cultural fields – been considered as a political danger by the Swiss or Canadian federal authorities ? And this, even if not directly related to actions led by separatist movements nor, as in Quebec and in the Swiss Jura, much engaged in an identity struggle based on the defence of the French language. The analysis of bilateral cultural relations Quebec-Switzerland in this important period of the quiet revolution will thus permit the evaluation, for each partner, of the degree of autonomy of its cultural field as opposed to the political sphere.

This article aims to analyze the challenges for the promotional function of law, as theorized by Norberto Bobbio, in the cultural sphere, in the context of multilateral and bilateral trade. In particular, this article aims to analyze multilateral negotiations conducted within the WTO, free trade agreements (FTAs), and, most generally, the most “legally relevant steps” for the EU and Canada with regard to the protection and promotion of culture in their external trade relations. Concerning the FTAs it focuses on CETA, TPP, CPTPP and CUSMA as well as on TTIP negotiations. This article argues that the positions of the EU and Canada can no longer be considered constant over time. On the contrary, since the adoption of the FTAs they vary significantly. According to the negotiations/agreements, the incentives for the audiovisual sector or, more generally, for the cultural industries, are more or less protected and go through “ups” and “downs.” Regarding the possibility for the EU and Canada to introduce and retain support schemes for cultural diversity, the article suggests the metaphor of a promotional law of cultural diversity on a roller coaster ride. The analysis of each negotiation, agreement, or “step” therefore becomes essential to understand how the EU and Canada address the challenge of using promotional law to encourage culture, and therefore cultural diversity, in the face of global trade. This is accomplished by applying an approach of law in context, which makes it possible to uncover the economic and sociopolitical interests at stake. Furthermore, this article explores the challenges for a promotional law of cultural diversity both of the broader geopolitical framework, in which China has become a major player in global trade, and of the digital environment. In concluding the analysis on these topics, it underlines that they will highly likely be a source of conflict in the implementation of FTAs, as well as in future negotiations.

Environmental protection associations are public authorities' key partners for concertation processes in land use planning. They are therefore a vehicle for specific social representations of the environment which they attempt to bring into public agenda. Trying to uncover which social representations of the environment is part of environmental protection discourses and actions in island territory, this paper will illustrate that there are « territorial factors » influencing environmental commitment as traditional, symbolic and identity dimensions of social representations are embedded in environmental associations dynamics. The territorial organization dynamics concept is then proposed to link governance institutions, social representations of the environment and environmental collective action issues. This concept enables the understanding of how collective action falls within territory and how nature is enshrined in action.

Keywords: Engagement environnemental, insularité, représentations sociales de l'environnement, associations de protection de l'environnement, Corse, Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Environmental Commitment, Insularity, Social Representations of the Environment, Environmental Protection Organizations, Corsica, Magdalene islands

Since the discovery of the first rolls in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of many disputes not only theological and archaeological, but also cultural, political and legal. Currently owned by Israel for the most part, these Manuscripts are now at the heart of competing claims insofar as both Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority claim ownership. In this perspective, the present article aims not only at exploring the legal issues raised by the question of the ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls, more specifically with regard to the norms of international law, but also at exploring the way in which issues relating to cultural and religious heritage retain a highly political dimension due to the involvement of States in their protection, and to the concept of territory they imply.

The Niger and Senegal Rivers have been jointly managed by river States since the 1960s. If both are located in the Sudano-Sahelian region, the political outlook of their common management by the local institutions is contrasted. After initial dam building decisions, conflict erupted between Senegal and Mauritania. In the Niger basin, the overall low water demand enabled a rather weak common management to go on, until recently when the simultaneous emergence of national dam projects crudely poses the question of coordination between them. To what extent did the OMVS and ABN, the basin institutions, design political solutions so as to fend the threat of renewed conflict?

Keywords: fleuve Sénégal, fleuve Niger, gouvernance de l'eau, ressource, conflit, institution, aménagement, barrage, irrigation, hydroélectricité, Senegal River, Niger River, water governance, resource, conflict, institution, land management, dam, irrigation, hydropower