Cross-border certified electronic mailing: A European perspective

Certified mail is the tool of choice in business processes and proceedings to deliver mail items in a secure and susbstantiated way. By returning a receipt, the sender has proof that a document has been delivered to the designated recipient at a certain point in time. Standard electronic communication systems like e-mail do not have the same evidential value as certified mail for traditional postal mail delivery. To benefit from the security advantages of certified mail delivery in the electronic world, in recent years governments have made several certified mail systems available on the Internet. Like postal certified mail delivery of documents in administrative or judicial matters, the certified electronic mail delivery in these systems is regulated by law. With ongoing (digital) globalization and the continuously increasing Digital Single Market in the European Union, there is a strong need for cross-border certified electronic mail. In the past the European Community has started several interoperability initiatives to couple existing certified electronic mail systems. Even if these systems can be made interoperable on a technical level, a harmonized legal basis is still missing. Therefore, the European community is currently working towards a new regulatory framework for trusted services including certified electronic mail. This article sheds light on both aspects and discusses the current state of affairs of cross-border certified electronic mail from both a technical (security) and legal perspective and explains the proposed new regulatory framework.     

Do human rights offenders oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations?

We investigate whether countries with poor human rights records oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly. An instrumental account of voting would suggest that these countries aim to weaken resolutions since they could be future targets of these policies. We estimate determinants of voting using 13,000 individual voting decisions from 1980 to 2002. Our results from ordered probit estimation show that a country??s human rights situation is irrelevant to voting behavior if regional dependence of voting is controlled for. The results also show that simple rules for aggregating voting choices can lead to misleading results.     

Introduction: Survey and Experimental Research in International Political Economy

Studies in international political economy (IPE) that use survey-response data sets and survey (or field) experiments have grown dramatically in recent years. New developments in survey and experimental methodology have arguably influenced IPE scholars not only to think more deeply about the microfoundations of the preferences, attitudes, and political behavior of key IPE actors but also to use survey or experimental methods to test causal claims and predictions. Yet the reasons for the rapid growth in survey and experimental methods in IPE are more multifaceted. We therefore seek to answer the following three pertinent questions in the introduction. First, what are the main substantive puzzles and issue-areas that IPE scholars analyze via survey and experimental methods in their research? Second, what are the main methodological advantages and drawbacks from using survey and experimental methods in IPE? Third, what are the key substantive theoretical and empirical insights that scholars have learned from recent research in IPE that employs either survey or experimental methods (or both)? In addition to answering these questions here, we also provide a summary of each article included in the special issue. The introduction concludes with a road map for future studies on survey and experimental research in IPE.     

The finnish centre party: Profile of a ‘Hinge group’

Recently, the functioning of Austrian Social Partnership has been increasingly called into question. The strains on the system, often traced to the internationalisation of the economy and the related shift to neoliberally inspired policies, might make Austria prone to disorganising pressures. However, case studies infields of social and economic policy‐making crucial for international competitiveness (working time, vocational training, industrial policy) suggest that many elements of interest intermediation, concertation, and conflict resolution have remained constant over the last 30 years, entailing both elements of concertation and of conflict as well as different trends across policy areas.     

The Legacy of Western Overseas Colonialism on Democratic Survival

Using an original dataset that covers the period from 1951 to 1995, we consider the enduring effects of Western overseas colonialism on the democratic survival of postcolonial democracies. We treat colonialism as a holistic phenomenon and differentiate the relative effects of its legacies with regard to the level of economic development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society. We find that Western overseas colonialism, a factor often overlooked in recent large- n studies, continues to have an effect on the survival of democratic regimes. We further find that the legacy of specific colonial powers has an important effect on survival as well. Unlike previous studies, we find that former Spanish colonies outperform British colonies when colonialism is conceptualized holistically. However, when we break colonial legacy into separate components (development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society), we find that the advantages former British colonies enjoy are attributable to the legacy of the state/civil society relationship. Moreover, we show that at least in the case of former British colonies, time spent under colonial rule is positively associated with democratic survival.     

Cyprus under British Rule: An International Law Analysis of Certain Land Surveys and Land Assignments Between 1878 and 1955

From 1878 onwards, Great Britain exercised sovereign rightscoming close to full sovereignty over Cyprus. The present articledemonstrates that, by undertaking certain land surveys and landassignments with regard to religious property in North Cyprus,Great Britain ultimately failed to abide by the restrictionon the exercise of its sovereign rights flowing from internationallaw, which in turn referred to the Ottoman Law on Foundationsand Endowments. Apart from shedding light on a commonly neglectedaspect of colonial law, which is closely linked to key conceptsof public international law continuing to shape our present-daydiscourse, a loose frame of reference for reparation of pastinjuries is sketched out.