Countering piracy through private security in the Horn of Africa: prospects and pitfalls

Employing secondary research and semi-structured interviews, this article examines the use of private maritime security companies (PMSC) in providing maritime security services in the Horn of Africa. It consists of four parts. The first part explains the origins and development of the use of PMSC in the Horn of Africa. The second section discusses the regulation of the private security industry, paying particular attention to the maritime context. Part three examines the challenges associated with the use of maritime PMSC in the Horn of Africa, including negative human rights implications, compromising the innocent passage of commercial ships, and creating confusion in the hierarchical control of ships. Finally, the paper analyses the findings and concludes that PMSC, despite their apparent short-term effectiveness, cannot be regarded as a long-term solution to the piracy phenomenon in the Horn of Africa.     

Equal Civil Partnerships,Discrimination and the Indulgence of Time: R (on the application of Steinfeld and Keidan) v Secretary of State for International Development

In R (on the application of Steinfeld and Keidan) v Secretary of State for International Development the Supreme Court unanimously declared that the ban on different‐sex civil partnerships was incompatible with Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In a strikingly robust and, at times, acerbic manner, the Court systematically dismantled the Secretary of State's request for tolerance of a discriminatory and unsustainable legal position. The decision represents a clear victory for those campaigning for reform and the issuing of a declaration of incompatibility by the Court is likely to have influenced the later announcement by Prime Minister Theresa May in October 2018 that different‐sex civil partnerships will ultimately be introduced in England and Wales.     

'This just isn't sustainable': precarious employment, stress and workers' health

This paper explores the impact of precarious employment relationships on health outcomes. It uses a novel framework, "Employment Strain" to describe the characteristics of different employment relationships and how they impact health outcomes. It uses interview data and comments provided on a survey to explore these issues. The paper begins by exploring if the health effects reported by mid-career individuals in precarious employment are different from those of younger and older workers. Finding limited evidence to support this hypothesis, the paper goes on to explore in detail the conditions under which precarious employment does increase stress and tension and impact health outcomes. It concludes that a combination of an individual's desire for more permanent employment, the expectation that permanent employment will be found, and the support individuals receive from various sources are critical to understanding the health effects of precarious employment.     

Evaluating recent trends in peacebuilding research

Peacebuilding is a complex and multidimensional exercise thatencompasses tasks ranging from the disarming of warring factionsto the rebuilding of political, economic, judicial and civilsociety institutions. It utilizes a variety of actors, ideally,in the construction of a culture of peace to replace a structureof violence. Ever since Johan Galtung coined the term ‘peacebuilding’back in the 1970s, there have been very few attempts to fleshout the essence of this concept. It is only recently, beginningwith Boutros Boutros-Ghali's use of the term in his An Agendafor Peace and continuing with the efforts by the UN and regionalbodies to develop sustainable approaches to reconstructing war-tornsocieties that greater attention has been given to this idea.This article critically analyzes broad trends that can be discernedfrom the literature, in rethinking peacebuilding and in bridgingthe chasm between the concept and practices undertaken in itsname.     

How the WTO Matters to Industry: The Case of Scotch Whisky

Although the World Trade Organization (WTO) has spawned a considerable academic literature, as yet research on this organization has rarely been problematized around clear theories of the relationship between law, economics, and politics. Building upon institutionalist premises and concepts drawn from political sociology and industrial economics, this article suggests a means of filling this gap by grasping the "political work" involved in the regulation of specific industries. Illustrated through the case of Scotch whisky, a focus is developed on how the WTO matters to contemporary industry. This reveals that the most powerful actors in industries such as Scotch have developed resources which legitimize their simultaneous engagement in a range of decision-making arenas. These include, but are not necessarily dominated by, the WTO.     

Criminal justice and the voluntary sector: a policy that does not compute

The profile of the women who tend to get caught up in the criminal justice system has changed little over the past 30 years. Compared to the general population, they are socially and economically disadvantaged, poorly educated and have high incidence of mental health and substance misuse problems. Experience of physical violence and sexual abuse is depressingly prevalent in their biographies (see for example, Gelsthorpe et al., 2007). In addition, the steep rise, compared to men, in the imprisonment of women throughout the 1990s, most commonly for short sentences of six months or less, exacerbated their marginalisation and failed to reduce reoffending.