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8153.More information
Since whaling still constitutes even today an important economic activity for many aboriginal peoples, the following analysis attempts to evaluate the nature of the legal constraints issuing from international instruments adopted for regulating whale hunting. As such, three legal frameworks are closely examined, the first one being the 1946 Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, the second one the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the one found in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Each of these three framework agreements condemn in varying degrees any contention that would argue in favour of unlimited access to this resource and freedom to trade in whale-derived products on international markets. Indeed, both the moratorium imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1982 and the classifying of whales as an endangered species under CITES are opposed to any form of commercial whaling as well as the international marketing of whales. In this context, the concept of food security may only find its place in a legal framework by squeezing through the narrow opening of whaling as a strictly regulated exception for specific aboriginal peoples ; rightfully so from our standpoint, this situation is far from being an ideal one for interested peoples who would like to see the current commercial regulatory prohibition abolished. Among the various conceivable solutions for putting the food security of Northern peoples on a more solid footing, we maintain that the strategy consisting in working within current frameworks, whether they be the IWC or CITES, would in the long run be the most promising.
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8154.More information
The principles of effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, responsibility and accountability originating from a rejuvenation in public governance act as a catalyst to revise the classic theme of good government. Contemporary public law provides, however, a more subtle portrait of sound government principles issuing from administrative law, political science and management. The integration of these principles into national constitutions represents a new development towards a more protective approach that often exceeds the means furnished to judges in most national systems of law. If the principles of sound administration are associated with the field of administrative law whose function it is to delimit jurisdictional control, there are on the other hand numerous principles closer to the notion of good governance seen from the perspective of accountability. A comprehensive survey reveals that the concerns of public authorities were first drawn to the development of mechanisms for controlling the executive function, while the development of consequential principles arrived later. The choice of mechanisms and principles illustrates a net convergence with the formal characteristics of law. This evolution tends towards a quest for greater effectiveness in the contemporary evolution of constitutionalism such that rights, principles and objectives may be applied “differently”, which makes good sense since the ambitions of new public management are “to manage differently”.
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8155.More information
The lack of autonomy of Western European states, that is, the limitations which they confront in terms of translating their policy preferences into authoritative actions, cannot be considered solely in terms of idiosyncratic domestic political institutions and cultures, or as the result of greater sensibility and vulnerability to interdependence through the flow of goods, capital and technology. The argument develops around the generalisation that during the period of "détente" from 1965 to 1979, the United States, as the world central bank, inflated the world political economy ; thereafter, the questioning of détente accompanied a United States-led policy of world deflation. European politics, in a variety of intricate ways, followed the rythm set by the United States, with a period of state policy activism in the late 1960s to mid-1970s followed by more sceptical attitudes by public officials, supported by conservative or liberal parties, on the limitations of state action. But while it could be argued that the autonomy of OECD European states was strictly limited in economic policy by the integration of national into European and world markets, it is also demonstratable that the most sensitive of these markets - the world financial markets - are most susceptible to state policy, particularly that of the United States. In turn, the influence exerted on government preferences by world financial markets has grown to such an extent that by 1983, Western European governments are all aligning priorities on what are taken to be market criteria. If fact, they are aligning their priorities on the preferences of the great powers in a period of heightened international tension. Thus, the lack of autonomy of Western European states is of political origin: their subordination through lack of continued regional autonomy in defense and finance. Implicitly, this article suggests a move in Western Europe to a confederal armed force and a European Reserve Bank, as the precondition for a revitalised Atlantic alliance.
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8160.