Sweat or No Sweat: Foreign Workers in the Garment Industry in Malaysia

In the last decade factory owners, in response to brand-name Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) parameters, have joined associations that verify (through a monitoring and audit system) that management does not exploit labour. There have been no reports of violations of codes of conduct concerning Malaysian workers but for foreign workers on contract there are certain areas that have been reported. These areas, including trade union membership, the withholding of workers' passports and unsuitable accommodation, generally escape notice because auditors who monitor factory compliance do not question the terms of contracts as long as they comply with national labour standards. This paper is based on research with foreign workers in Malaysia and argues that despite the success of the anti-sweatshop movement in a global context, the neo-liberal state in Malaysia continues to place certain restrictions on transnational labour migrants which breach garment industry codes of conduct. Available evidence does not support the assumption that CSR practices provide sufficient protection for both citizen and foreign workers on contract in the garment industry.     

Onwards and Sidewards? The Curious Case of the Responsibility to Protect and Mass Violence in Africa

This article approaches Responsibility to Protect (R2P) from the ground up. Selecting African cases of mass atrocity in the age of R2P, it identifies key general features of contemporary violence. The article goes on to consider the nature and extent of R2P practice in each case. The argument is that R2P engagements in these conflicts display a mixture of weakness and irrelevance. The result of this is that R2P has failed significantly to reduce human suffering in any of the cases dealt with. The article notes that this clear failure does not seem to perturb the mainstream of academic R2P discourses, which, although critical at times, remain confident that R2P is making some difference and represents the best way forward. The article explores how this kind of discourse is propounded in the scholarly work on R2P. This leads us towards an argument that R2P as a discourse and international project can run in parallel with continuing mass suffering in African civil wars without being profoundly troubled.     

检察官办案责任制改革的进路分析——兼对主任检察官制度的反思

主诉(办)检察官制度没有解决检察行政化问题,改革收效有限。为进一步推进检察官的办案责任制,祖国大陆试行主任检察官制度改革:主任检察官是独立办案主体,对本办公室(办公组)内的所有检察业务负责。然而,与我国台湾地区的制度原型比较,祖国大陆主任制的功能定位有误,承办检察官独立司法人格仍未形成,主任检察官与部门负责人的关系并不明朗;主任检察官的身份待遇重保障而轻制约。检察官办案责任制改革的关键在于解决检察行政化问题,这要求检察院人员分类管理,取消业务部门的行政管理层,进一步明确承办检察官的独立地位,业务序列增设主任检察官,协助检察长进行监督。     

The European Union's human security discourse: where are we now?

The language of human security has been prominent in the European Union's (EU) official discourse for a number of years. However, whilst it has been promoted as a new approach for the EU in the development of its security and defence policy, the aim of this article is to assess the extent to which it actually features in the EU's contemporary strategic discourse and practice. It seeks to uncover where and how the concept is spoken within the EU's institutional milieu, how it is understood by the relevant policy-makers in the EU and the implication of this across key areas of human security practice. It is argued in the article that human security has not been embedded as the driving strategic concept for Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in an era of crisis and change in Europe and beyond and that the prospects for this materialising in the near future are rather thin.     

Welfare Reform and the Shifting Threshold of Support for Disabled People

Among the highly significant changes to the benefits system made by the Welfare Reform Act 2012 is provision for a new disability benefit, personal independence payment (PIP). PIP is replacing disability living allowance (DLA), received by three million people, as the principal form of state financial support towards disability‐related care and mobility costs for those of working age. The legislation, including regulations prescribing a new disability assessment framework, plays its traditional role in this field of rationing access to benefit and directing front‐line policy implementation. This article examines how, in the context of the Coalition government's welfare reforms, PIP shifts the threshold of entitlement for people with disabilities and it assesses PIP's potential impact on equality and the right to independent living, to whose realisation disability benefits may be expected to contribute significantly. It also considers the impact on disabled people of other relevant reforms, including the controversial ‘bedroom tax’.     

保护的责任:利比亚问题的国际法实践研究

自从2001年干预及国家主权委员会的《保护的责任》报告问世后,保护的责任理论在国际社会引起广泛的关注.经过多年的发展,保护的责任有比人道主义干涉更为丰富的内涵与外延.2011年多国部队对利比亚的军事打击被称为保护的责任理论的首次实践.保护的责任理论对安理会军事干预的合法性提出了六个标准,若运用该方法来对利比亚问题进行实...