Browsing: Development and Security Matters

Globalization and International Civil Society: Are Human Rights still the Exclusive Preserve of States?

Development and Security Matters

The defeat of Germany in the Second World War, and the subsequent birth of the United Nations in 1945 ushered in the modern human rights regime. Prior to this post-war era, human rights was not a salient feature in the parlance of international law, and for good reason; nation-states were guided by the civility of the ‘good-neighbor,’ which meant that ‘good-neighbors’ do not interfere or unilaterally intervene in matters of purely domestic character outside their territorial competence. Formally, the ‘good-neighbor’ ethos came under the umbrella of state sovereignty, and to a large extent, continued to dictate how states dealt with one another even after the advent of the UN, and the consequence on human rights movement remained unchanged: States continued to regard human rights as domestic matters that should be dealt with domestically, any outside intervention was considered ‘bad form’ and an affront to the norm of state sovereignty. That was then!

The Ills of Absolute Corruption: Equatorial Guinea Deserves Better

Anti-corruption

Fleet of luxury cars including Ferraris and Lamborghinis worth more than $20m are sold at auction after Swiss authorities seized them from son of Equatorial Guinea’s president in money-laundering probe.
• Auction house in Switzerland sells off 25 luxury sports cars including rare Lamborghini Veneno roadster
• Vehicles were seized from son of Equatorial Guinea’s president of 40 years, Teodoro Obiang

Why Norway is not panicking about the oil price collapse

Academic Papers

Norway’s petroleum sector is its most important industry. The petroleum sector accounts for 21.5% of its GDP, and almost half (48.9%) of total exports. In 2013 Norway was ranked the 15th-largest oil producer, and the 11th-largest oil exporter in the world. It is also the biggest oil producer in western Europe.