RAHBORD
Year:2012 | Volume:21 | Issue:63|Papers Count:11

Iraq is country that exemplifies ethnic-linguistic and religious violence in the first decade of the 21st century. Continuation and intensification of violence has foiled the efforts of the Iraqi opposition, the US, and other foreign powers for promotion of democracy in this country. This paper tries to analyze this issue using a multilevel approach as well as a causative – historical explanatory research method which mostly relies on political sociology.The most important reasons or hypotheses offered to explain spread of violence and failure of democratization in post-Saddam Iraq include: 1. Existing crises of identity, integration and deep-rooted legitimacy resulting from imposed nation building and the oligarchic structure that has dominated Iraq from 1920s onward; 2. Undemocratic and non-civil basis of political parties as well as political and social groupings, and domination of violent sectarian, ethnic-linguistic, and religious beliefs and cultures; 3.Inability of the country’s weak government to exercise good governance which is characterized by establishment of security, employment, and provision of various services; and 4. Continued presence and violent treatment of the Iraqi people by military forces of the United States and its allies and disclosure of their real and secret goals in this country.

Frequent debates about political future of Turkey followed the election of the Justice and Development Party officials in 2002. Up to that time, two main characteristics of the Turkish government included an effort to prove itself as a secular and Western-minded government, and longstanding influence of the military on politics. Therefore, coming to power of the Justice and Development Party, as an Islamist party, signaled the beginning of a new era of remarkable changes in domestic and foreign policies of Turkey. The Justice and Development Party politicians gave their highest attention to role and status of this country in international system, especially to relations with neighboring countries. The present paper discusses various theoretical and practical aspects of Turkey’s foreign policy in one of its peripheral regions, South Caucasus. The paper shows that the Turkish government has been able to develop its relations in various fields with South Caucasus countries and increase its influence in that region by following a realistic and multidimensional approach in its foreign policy.

General understanding is that the idea of occupying Kuwait was born in 1990 when Kuwait was occupied and annexed to Iraq. However, Iraq’s Baath Party statesmen dreamt about occupying Kuwait or parts of it since they snatched power in 1968. During that 22-year period, they did not relinquish their territorial claims to Kuwait and raised them at any opportunity. Geopolitical constraints constitute the most important problem that Iraq faces in the Persian Gulf. Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf waters is very limited. Baath Party leaders were aware of this problem and were trying to solve it. They believed that Iran’s Khuzestan province and Kuwait could eliminate Iraq’s geopolitical constraint. Since Iraq had not been able to achieve its goal of dissociating Iran’s Khuzestan province through eight years of war with Iran, when that war was over, Baghdad pursued its second goal; that is, occupation of Kuwait.

Revolutionary developments, which started in some countries of the Middle East and North Africa, especially Tunisia, and soon spread to other countries like Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Oman and even Syria, and ended in victory of revolutions in some of those countries, including Egypt and Libya, face every foreign policy and international relations analyst with this question: what foreign policy will new revolutionary governments in these countries adopt to meet their national interests and deal with external developments? The main goal of this paper is to study foreign policy of these governments on the basis of James Rosen au’s “continuity” model. Therefore, this paper first identifies large- and small-scale approaches to analysis of foreign policy of countries before focusing on the two-level combined model of analysis which is best represented by Rosen au’s model. Based on this model, we reach the conclusion that to identify, study, and even predict foreign policy approaches of new regional governments, one must analyze such factors as the person who makes decisions, the part he plays, governance variables of new governments, as well as society and/or nongovernmental variables which include major value-based orientations. Finally, environmental variables, namely, environmental limitations and opportunities facing the new governments, are discussed and these factors are carefully identified and assessed.

The United Nations Security Council has been playing a more active role in global issues and disputes under the existing international system and influences the fate of countries and sovereignty of the states as an independent variable. Since widespread popular uprisings started to sweep through the Arab countries and due to frequent human rights violations committed by rulers of those countries in dealing with their opposition in 2011, the Security Council has been gradually assuming a more active role in these issues. By massacring the Libyan people, Qaddafi initiated the process of the Security Council’s interference in internal affairs of this country due to frequent and systematic violations of human rights. Since 2011, some dictators in the Middle East and North Africa have been trapped in the iron cage of their behavior and any violent reaction to their people has elicited the international community’s reaction as well as rapid and serious reaction of the Security Council. The goal of this paper is to explore reasons and method of intervention of the Security Council and NATO in the Libyan crisis. One of the most important changes in the global management method is seen in the relationship between the Libyan developments and international politics as embodied by two resolutions adopted by the Security Council against Qaddafi’s government and their consequences. The main goal of this research is to analyze interference of the Security Council, followed by Western and international players, in the uprising of the Libyan people from different viewpoints. This paper focuses on the relationship between adoption of the Security Council resolutions and the fall of the Qaddafi regime. It also analyzes the contents of two resolutions which were approved during the Libyan people’s protests against their ruler from the viewpoint of their impact on the sovereignty of the Libyan government.

After many years of negotiations among representatives of various governments within preparatory committees, the Review Conference of the Statute of International Criminal Court was held in Kampala, Uganda, from May 31 to June 11, 2010. One of the most important items on the agenda of the conference was elaboration on definition of the crime of aggression and jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on this crime. After two weeks of intense negotiations, State Parties finally adopted a resolution on the amendments to ICC Statute with regard to the crime of aggression. The resolution adopted at Kampala Conference has two important parts entitled “Article 8 bis ” (on the definition of crime of aggression) and “Article 15 bis ” (on the enforcement of ICC’s jurisdiction). In addition, Article 15 (3) was added on the enforcement of ICC’s jurisdiction on the crime of aggression when a case is referred to the Court by the UN Security Council. On the definition of crime of aggression, State Parties agreed to take the UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, passed on December 14, 1974, as the basis for the definition.Defining the crime of aggression, determining conditions under which ICC will have jurisdiction and, in general, including this crime in the Statute were valuable development. However, certain ambiguities surrounding the definition as well as such limitations as delaying enforcement of ICC’s jurisdiction on this crime until 2017, as well as allowing the Security Council to play a part in determination of the act of aggression, have partially reduced the efficacy of the amendments related to the enforcement of ICC’s jurisdiction on the crime of aggression.

“Subsequent practice” of member states of a treaty, as a possible way for making indirect amendments to that treaty, has been accepted by many authors and has been also recognized in judicial and arbitration decisions. This paper focuses on one aspect of this issue: has the prohibition on the use of force and threat, as a treaty and contractual commitment mentioned in the Charter of the United Nations, been ever amended and changed due to subsequent practice of member states of the treaty? To answer this question, existence of such a prohibition will be first studied in “contractual” terms. Then, various aspects of the prohibition and exceptions made to it in the text of the contract as well as possible impacts of subsequent practice of member states of the contract on this prohibition and its exceptions have been evaluated. To do this, the present paper avoids of in-depth discussion of the details of arguments provided by proponents and opponents of various doctrines which prescribe recourse to force. Instead, it reviews certain points about possible amendment and change in Para.4, Article 2 or Article 15 of the Charter of the United Nations as a result of subsequent practice of member states.

After captivity of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian forces and failure of subsequent negotiations as well as overt and covert efforts made to secure his release, Israel finally attacked the occupied territories, especially the Gaza Strip from land, air and sea on December 27, 2008. The attack continued for 22 days until January 18, 2009. The 22-day war had many negative consequences whose climax was violation of the environmental regulations of international law.Subsequently, chairman of the UN Human Rights Council established a committee in April 2009 to investigate various aspects of the 22-day war in Gaza and violations therein on behalf of the United Nations and gave it absolute powers to explore all dimensions of that event. The committee, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, member of the South African constitutional court and former prosecutor of international criminal court investigating war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was joined by three other prominent legal experts, and finally presented his report to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2009 in 21 chapters and about 600 pages.Information obtained from Goldstone’s report and from other creditable sources pointed to extensive destruction of the environment of Gaza during the 22-day war with the Zionist regime. The present paper just focuses on certain aspects of the 22-day Gaza war and argues that an “international environmental tribunal for criminal and legal protection of the environment against damages of the 22-day war in Gaza” should be established to protect the environment, as common heritage of humanity, and to pave the way for judicial investigation into frequent violations committed by the Zionist regime. This paper also discusses inability of the existing international judicial authorities to provide criminal and legal support for the environment. On the other hand, it explores the reason behind such extensive environmental violations.

During the past two decades, the issue of human rights has turned into one of the most serious topics of international debates. In no other time, has it been a foreign policy concern in bilateral and multilateral interactions among the states and has never had the impact that it currently has on the national security of countries.Development of communications as a result of globalization, universal nature of human rights, increased number of players, empowerment of persons as effective players in international relations, instrumental use of the human rights for political purposes, and collapse of political systems in the past two decades with emphasis on human rights elements are the main reasons behind the current focus on this issue. On the whole, human rights have changed from a theoretical and subjective issue to a vital and strategic one which is closely related to political life of countries. Therefore, the present paper assesses and analyzes relationship between human rights and foreign policy from two conceptual and operational viewpoints.

As pervasive institutions, legislatures have various types of functions. One of the most important functions of the legislatures is policy making power. Policy making power of the legislatures can be evaluated through combination of normative and descriptive- analytic methods and by analyzing the external variables (constitution, political parties and interest groups) and internal factors (parliamentary committees, parliamentary parties and financial resources and staff). In this paper main typologies of the policy making power of the legislatures, provided by Polsby, Blondel and Mezey are discussed. Polsby categorizes legislatures into parliament with power to transform bills from whatever resources into law and those with capacity to influence the bills partly. In his typology of legislatures, power of the policy making capacity of the parliament mostly depend on the external variables. Blondel proposes a spectrum of legislatures' impact, ranging from complaint parliaments in one hand and free legislatures on the other, according to the viscosity level of the policy making process. Final typology which reviewed in this paper is introduced by Mezey through analyzing the policy making power of the legislatures and the level of the public and elites' support. Therefore, he classified legislatures into five types: 1. active, 2. reactive, 3. vulnerable, 4. marginal and 5. minimal legislatures.