A. Tzanakopoulos,Disobeying the Security Council. Countermeasures against Wrongful Sanctions,Oxford University Press,Oxford 2011, xxxii + 243 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-960076-2. doi:10.1017/S0165070X12000083

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Assessing the historical turn in IR: an anatomy of second wave historical sociology

This article reassesses what is at stake in the historical turn in international relations (IR) and the attendant debate between the Second Wave of neo-Weberian historical sociology (WHS) and Political Marxism (PM). Firstly, it endeavours to recast what is at stake in the ‘historical turn’ in IR: the critique of reification and chronocentrism. Secondly, it examines WHS's argument against reductionism in the light of Weber's own work. We show how the Weberian dualism between the politics and the economics inhibits its capacity to complete its project of historicizing IR. Finally, it explains why recent Weberian's defence of multicausalism creates even more obstacles on the road towards an ontologically consistent historical turn.     

Psychopathy and predatory violence in homicide,violent, and sexual offences: Factor and facet relations

Purpose. Evidence has been found pointing to a relationship between psychopathy and predatory violence. The present study investigated the violence mode and its relationship with psychopathy on factor as well as on facet levels. It was hypothesized that predatory violence would be related to the affective and/or interpersonal facets of psychopathy. A subsidiary hypothesis was that sexual offences could also be differentiated by means of violence mode. Methods. Participants were 82 male inmates convicted of a violent crime, a sexual crime, or a homicide. Psychopathy was assessed with the Hare PCL‐R2 and the violence mode was assessed by means of Cornell's Aggressive Incident Coding Sheet, based on interviews with the offenders and a review of the official record. Results. On the psychopathy subcomponent level, only the interpersonal facet was positively related with predatory violence. This association makes sense considering that psychopaths' interactions with others are defined by gradients of power and control and narcissistic gratification, rather than by attachment patterns. By contrast, the antisocial facet was associated negatively with predatory violence. Our subsidiary hypothesis concerning the possibility of differentiating sexual violence on the basis of the two violence modes was not confirmed. Conclusions. The present results add to the growing evidence that predatory violence is related to the personality traits of psychopathy rather than to its life‐style and antisocial characteristics. Therefore, a risk analysis of future predatory violent behaviour might benefit from the inclusion of the assessment of the personality facets of psychopathy instead of focusing solely on the antisocial behaviour.     

Governing Morality Issues through Procedural Policies

Abstract: Morality issues such as the death penalty, drug consumption, gambling, and same‐sex‐marriage often constitute intractable policy controversies. Classical “morality politics” scholars predict two types of governmental responses to such public problems: either a substantive policy design if there is a broad consensus among electoral constituencies or a non‐decision if there is a fundamental clash of values. We argue that the adoption of a procedural policy design represents a third option. Providing empirical evidence on the plausibility of this hypothesis, we compare the Swiss regulation of four morality issues in the medical field: reproductive medicine and embryo‐related research; abortion; euthanasia; and organ transplant. In fact, “moral values” frames are not always dominant, as the multi‐dimensionality of each morality issue allows for concurrent policy frames promoted by various policy actors.     

Negotiating environmental protection in trade agreements: A regime shift or a tactical linkage?

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - The prolific literature on the relationship between the trade and environmental regimes suffers from three shortcomings. First,...     

俄罗斯对“东北航道”水域和海峡的权利主张及争议

随着全球气候变暖,北极地区的冰层逐渐融化,原本冰封的北极东北航道有了商业化通航的可能性,东北航道的使用权能否向国际社会开放成为普遍关注的问题。在东北航道的法律地位问题上,存在较大争议,俄罗斯主张东北航道通过的相关水域为俄罗斯内水,而依据《联合国海洋法公约》,相关水域宜被认定为领海或专属经济区;俄罗斯强调东北航道中的海峡为内海峡,美国则主张其是"用于国际航行的海峡"。本文认为其应为俄罗斯的领峡,包括中国在内的所有外国船舶享有无害通过的权利。