The Law of Attraction is ultimately not about control (although I do think people try to use it to control their fate) - it is about accepting a flow of good that comes from God. The idea is that this is available to everyone, and anyone can accept it at any time and their life will begin to flow more. The law of attraction is an age-old concept, but has recently gained immense popularity as more people realize there must be a better way to live. This site is dedicated to the concept of manifesting with the law of attraction using meditation, positive thinking, creative visualization and positive affirmations for a better life. The Law of Attraction is a very powerful force which affects our lives. We attract into our lives what we focus on and put our emotions and attention on.
The law of attraction is the attractive, magnetic power of the Universe that draws similar energies together. It manifests through the power of creation, everywhere and in multiple ways. The Law of Attraction is merely doing its work to deliver what you're thinking. You think of debts? The Law of Attraction is very easy and fun to learn because you are deliberately gaining what you really desire. The law is in force in our lives right this moment and whether we're aware or not, we are actually attracting jobs, people and positive situations into our lives.
The Law of Attraction is bullshit and I wasted my personal time to actually watch it (was I attracting bullshit at that time? In example, if we come up with the case that the law did not work, the blame goes on US! The Law of Attraction is not some magic art form, nor is it some 'method' by which you can improve yourself with pumps and drugs; it is simply about harnessing what is already available to you. The law is based around the laws of the Universe which state we were born with the in-built knowledge that we create our own reality ? The law of attraction is more powerful if you open up and allow yourself to receive the abundance that the universe supplies to you. If you reject your blessings, you are stopping the flow of prosperity and decreasing your attracting force.
The Law Of Attraction is not as big a Secret, as the hit movie would have you believe. Having been in existence since the very beginning of time, it is an unyielding, never bending, unbreakable Universal Rule. By becoming conscious of our thoughts and our beliefs, which are repeating thought patterns, we can gain mastery over our lives. The law of attraction is natural law. However, people's approaches to it are entirely different, unique.
The Law of attraction is at work at all times, for each of us, without exception. Once you discover that you are in fact attracting every element of your life to you, you can begin to manipulate this process and create your life by design -- that is when things start getting really interesting. The law of attraction is a positive fact that one's mental disposition attracts similar external circumstances and events. In other words, your mental intentions and attitudes draw people and things of like intention and attitude to yourself. The law of attraction is not new. Its all about the first step in becoming successful.
The law of attraction is always at work and negative thinking equals fatal attraction! The Law of Attraction is spiritual and Universal, and works on all the planes of life, from the physical to the spiritual. Its operations are uniform and constant, and we may take the phenomena of one plane and thereby study the phenomena of another plane, for the same rule applies in each case - the same Law is in operation in the same way.
The Law of Attraction is the universal law that determines how everything on this planet works. It is a law that works 100% of the time, for every person, without exception.
The Secret Pays is an online wholesaler of just about any digitally downloadable money making software and how-to products on the Internet. The retail value of the products is over $5,000. The Secret Pays is not here today and gone tomorrow. It's a very powerful income generating program. The Secret Pays is a simple three step plan that requires very little explanation. You will quickly learn how you too can have abundance and prosperity flowing quickly and directly into your hands.
The secret pays is not some blip on the internet where it's here today and gone tomorrow. But instead the secret pays is a powerful affiliate program which is over 10,000 members strong. The Secret Pays is based on The Law Of Attraction principles and does work. I saw it a couple of years ago by chance. The Secret Pays is an online wholesaler of just about any digitally downloadable software and how-to product on the internet. Our mission is to create the largest online network of successful first time and seasoned money makers through the sale of a massive collection of profit pulling products.
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Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Law of Attraction
Saturday, November 29, 2008
10 Reasons People Quit Law School
There are many reasons why people quit law school - it's a difficult and taxing time for any students, and thousands quit at the start of their first year. Let's look at the top 10 reasons why students drop out of law school.
1. Cost - The primary reason that people leave law school is because of the cost. It is very expensive to go to law school. Law school students will amass over $100,000 of student loan debts that they will be paying back for quite some time. While it's true that lawyers do make a lot of money, they don't start out that way and these debts can be a little overwhelming.
2. Job competition - Finding a job after law school is very difficult and there is a lot of competition for the best jobs. Jobs at top law firms throughout the country are highly competitive for students just out of school. This is something that even first year law school students learn quickly. Coupled with the massive debt, students are all the more deflated when they find out they will likely be making under $40,000 for the first five years after they are out of school - put this up against more than $100,000 in student loans and you find many students dropping law school for cheaper schooling careers.
3. Hours - Law school takes a lot of time - not only do you have to attend classes, you have to spend hours upon hours cramming the information into your head for the examinations and, eventually, the bar. Many law school students still want to have a social life and find that they don't have any because of the studying and homework they have to do. As a result, this cycle doesn't end out of law school - the hours in a law firm are long and arduous too.
4. The Bar Exam - The bar is a brutal exam - two to three days of testing of questions that are hard to answer because it seems a real answer doesn't exist. The preparation for the bar exam is intense - months of studying and cramming. Over 40 per cent of law students fail the bar on the first try which means doing it all over again in six months. Over 33 per cent of law students fail the bar on the second try.
5. Lack of Applicable Knowledge - Law school focuses on how to make you think like a lawyer, which doesn't really translate well to the work you will be doing. Many students figure this out in the first term of law school and find out that this isn't what they want to be doing.
6. The Need for Money - Most law school students need to have a part time job to help pay for school, and work full time during the summer. Breaks aren't spent having fun partying with friends, rather they are spent working to improve a resume and the time off from work is spent studying and reviewing material.
7. Brutal Competition - Most law school students figure out before they even get to law school that college will be a time of buckling down to get the work done. All students know that it's imperative to be near the top of the class - those are the students that land the high paying jobs. However, not all students can be at the top of the class so the competition in class is brutal, resulting in a lack of social scene; not to mention the long hours of working and studying that are also cramping their social life style.
8. Difficult Teaching Styles - Many law students can't take the heat from their professors, who are arrogant and pretentious while they are trying to drill a bunch of information into their heads.
9. Final Examinations - The final exams for any semester are almost as grueling as the bar exam itself.
10. Dealing with Others - many people will ask a law student about law, trying to get lawyer information for free on an issue they are having. Law students can do nothing to stop this endless harassment - it is something they will cope with from friends and family forever. Many can't take the constant barrage of questions and queries and thusly drop out of law school before it becomes a life long nightmare.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for reasons why law school students leave law school. If you are a law school student, you need to seriously weigh your options - school loan officers don't care if you drop out - you'll still have to pay those back. Is dropping out worth it?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Universal Laws of Attraction (Creation) and Emotional Freedom Technique
To leverage the power of Emotional Freedom Technique and the Universal Laws of Creation, it is essential to know and to understand the basic principles that govern our Universe.
The Universal Laws govern all of life without exception; from the glaciers to earthquakes, from spinning tops and spinning planets to newborns and world leaders, from elephants and arachnids to amoebas, to orchids, oranges and microorganisms.
Metaphysics is the term used to study that which is beyond the physical, beyond what we can touch, see, taste and feel. The Universal Laws are the non-physical principles that govern our Universe in an unfailing, impartial, consistent and dependable fashion.
As we study the laws that govern our Universe, we see certain empirical Truths. It is through the study of these Universal Principles and Truths that we master our creative abilities.
With study, we begin to comprehend the profound implications of each law; we become more and more conscious of the power of our intentionality and of our minds; more and more conscious of the unwavering influence of our thoughts, emotions and beliefs on our experience.
As we begin to work with these Universal Truths (studying, applying, practicing, and redirecting), we learn how it is that we live either in harmony or disharmony with our dreams and goals.
By choosing to become acutely aware of our harmonious or disharmonious actions and thoughts, we experience and observe first hand the Universal Laws playing out in our lives. We experience both the 'negative' and the 'positive'.
Ultimately, we want to use this awareness to intentionally guide and direct our experience, focusing on the 'ascending' or 'positive' thoughts to attract the highest and best that life has to offer.
Now, with the support of Emotional Freedom Technique we can quickly and systematically neutralize the thoughts that oppose our goals and cause the postponement of our life's dreams.
This means that with EFT we can more easily and naturally apply the Laws of the Universe!
When we become aware of our limiting beliefs we can use this awareness to realign our energy; to align our thoughts and beliefs with the Universal Laws.
Many a metaphysical student can attest to their personal 'vibrational thesis' (their theory behind which ball of thoughts, feelings and beliefs actually created their experience.)
As we continue, we become more and more adept at specifically recalling and tracing back the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that literally foretold our experience.
It's very important to understand that when we review our past experience it is not to repudiate or cause anxiety about our creative abilities, failings, or 'mistakes' but to discern which habitual or "beliefs by rote" may be causing us to attract an experience less than Heaven on Earth.
By assessing how and where our beliefs are either supporting or repelling our dreams, we can then intentionally alter our beliefs and thought patterns (with tools such as meditation, silence, prayer and EFT) to navigate towards our optimal future with greater effortlessness, ease and speed.
The Universal Laws of Creation:
The Universal Laws cannot be segmented or independently applied, they work consistently and inter-dependently of one another at all times.
Therefore, to 'apply the law of attraction' intentionally, one must also learn to apply the 'law of detachment', for example.
To summarize, the laws:
The Law of Attraction (aka the Law of Creation) says that whatever you put your attention upon expands.
We draw into our lives whatever we focus upon and emotionalize - be it positive or negative. The more we focus, the more attractive and stronger our vibration becomes, and the more quickly it manifests. To practice the Law of Attraction, simply put your attention and your positive emotions upon the essence of your dreams fulfilled, as if you already have them now!
The Law of Detachment (aka the Law of Allowing) says that in order to intentionally attract something, we must relinquish our attachment to it.
If we are attached, then we project negative emotions of fear, doubt, or craving, for example, which actually repels our dreams. To practice the Law of Detachment, be willing to trust in the Divine Order and Divine Timing. Choose to elevate your consciousness to a place of peaceful expectancy, a place of allowing; where you feel absolutely certain that all is well, right now.
The Law of Unlimited Potential (aka the Law of Pure Potentiality) says that we are unlimited children of a very prosperous, powerful, omnipotent, impartial, all-providing, all-sufficient, all-loving Father/Mother/God. Our Divine Inheritance is all that we desire: wealth, joy, love, peace, abundance, health, beauty, wisdom, wholeness, and harmony.
Practicing the Law of Unlimited Potential requires that we accept our divinity and realize that the Presence of the Divine is within. We do not have to earn the right to our dreams; we were born deserving of all that we desire.
When we accept our unlimited nature, we know that the Source is internal, not external. By expanding our consciousness of this Truth, that the Presence of God is within, we exalt our positive vibrational offering in an organic, all- encompassing and symbiotic manner.
The Law of Reciprocity (aka the Law of Giving) says that as you give you shall receive.
There is a failsafe method of getting everything you want; simply begin giving more of what you want away. To practice the law of reciprocity, begin taking action daily (giving of yourself towards your dreams) and begin tithing of your time, talent, and treasure to wherever you feel spiritually fed. If you aren't sure where you feel spiritual nourishment, just start giving 'it' away everywhere you go. If you aren't sure where or how to take action, just start
taking action is some way (any way) and you will be led. Give freely and with an open and unattached heart. Think of the Law of Reciprocity as priming the pump, the pump of your never-ending, all-providing well of prosperity, love, and success. Taking inspired action is the act of priming the pump and to receive we must be willing to give, both through action and generosity.
The Law of Cause and Effect: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
There is nothing in our Universe that exists independently. In other words, everything was created by something else and every new creation causes a reaction to the existing reality.
Thus, we cannot intentionally attract a new job, without causing the old job to change or cease to exist. We cannot intentionally attract a better relationship, without causing the current relationship (or situation) to change or cease to exist.
In studying this law, we become truly aware that the Universe is not random. There is no such thing as mere coincidence and in order to grow, change, and intentionally attract what we really want, we must be willing to go through the effects of change. When we immerse ourselves in the study and application of the laws of the Universe, we will notice certain 'thoughts' and 'feelings' that prevent us from mastering them.
For example, let's say we want to attract a mate using the law of attraction. If we practice the law of attraction, we will actually visualize ourselves fully embracing, loving, adoring and being loved and adored by our ideal life partner.
Then, we would practice detachment by sending forth love and gratitude for already having them in our lives. We would then maintain our vision and our faith for as long as possible. Here's where most of us go astray!
At some point, we may find ourselves looking around, wondering where our perfect man/woman is; sighing at night when they aren't laying down with us, or anxious at a dinner where everyone else is 'coupled', for example. We may find ourselves longing (not allowing but craving) a mate.
When we observe our attention going to 'he/she isn't here yet'; and this attention triggers negative emotions such as fear, sadness, worry, anxiety, or disappointment then we are attached and not practicing the law of detachment or the law of unlimited potential.
NOW, as conscious creation students, we have the opportunity to USE this awareness to pivot our attention and our vibration; we have the opportunity to eliminate the limiting beliefs that prevent us from practicing the Law of Pure Potentiality (that we are unlimited and therefore would of course have nothing to fear or worry about) and practice the Law of Detachment (that we trust in the Divine Order and know that all is well now).
With EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) we can get in there, dig out those limiting beliefs of 'he/she isn't here yet' and neutralize them. Negative thoughts and emotions are poisonous acid to our dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Think of EFT as the antidote to the poison. EFT pours an energetic alkaline solution on the acid that's repelling our dreams. When we use EFT, we are alkalizing the poisonous thoughts and returning to a space of courage and neutrality.
When we obtain a consciousness of neutrality, we can then intentionally raise our positive emotions - our level of certainty and purely and intentionally attract outstanding success!
If you haven't used EFT in a consistent manner to eliminate the doubts that hold you back, try it for 30 days. Just give it 3 minutes a day for 30 days. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain - health, wealth, success, love, beauty, joy, peace.and so much more!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Lemon Law
Lemon laws are made by United States state laws to help car consumers whose cars repeatedly fail to meet certain standards of quality and performance. The position of such cars is called lemons. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act or federal lemon law protects every one of all states and they vary by state. Lemon law may not cover used or leased cars. The Lemon law rights managed to consumers may go beyond the warranties expressed in purchase contracts. Lemon law is just a common nickname for these laws buy every state have their own different names for such laws and acts.
In California, anything mechanical is covered by lemon laws as well as the federal lemon laws. The federal lemon law provides that the warranter may be obligated to pay attorney fees if he is involved in a lemon law suit.
Used car purchases:
If anyone purchased a used car then there are two situations where he is qualified for cash or other lemon law benefits:
Situation #1: One may be entitled to compensation for breach of warranty if he had one of the following Warranties:
a) Any warranty left from the manufacturer when you purchased your vehicle (for example, almost all vehicles sold with less than 36,000 miles will have this. But if the warranty is longer, you may have even more time).
b) The vehicle was "Certified" by the Manufacturer (in which case it came with a short Manufacturer's Warranty, typically 1 year).
c) He purchased an Extended Warranty backed by the Manufacturer (typically 5 years or longer).
Normally, these types of cases fall outside the scope of the state lemon law but are covered under special federal lemon laws.
Situation #2: When No Manufacturer's Warranty Exists. If he does not have a manufacturer's warranty of any kind he may be entitled to compensation for violations of consumer protection laws that fall outside of the lemon laws. The following is a list of some of the problems and/or issues which may be present in your vehicle. Your vehicle may be/have a:
Laundered Lemon;
Previously salvaged or wrecked;
Fraudulently rolled back odometer;
Rental car, police car, taxi, etc.;
Stolen, stripped and rebuilt; and/or
Involved in a flood.
Since Lemon Laws vary from state to state so accurate information on the scope and restrictions of Lemon Laws in a particular state can be obtained from an attorney practicing in that state.
"As is" purchases:
If a person knowingly purchase a car in "as is" condition then he accepts the defects and void his rights under the lemon law.
Other lemon laws:
Lemon laws are not limited to cars. There are RV lemon laws, boat lemon laws, motorcycle, wheelchair and computer lemon laws.
If you have a defective Motorcycle, Motor Home, used car, leased car, or a car used for business purposes and your State Lemon Law does not cover these vehicles, you still have other recourses such as the Uniform Commercial Code and the Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (providing you were given a written warranty).
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
California Lemon Law
Lemon laws are made by United States state laws to help car consumers whose cars repeatedly fail to meet certain standards of quality and performance. The position of such cars is called lemons. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act or federal lemon law protects every one of all states and they vary by state. Lemon law may not cover used or leased cars. The Lemon law rights managed to consumers may go beyond the warranties expressed in purchase contracts. Lemon law is just a common nickname for these laws buy every state have their own different names for such laws and acts.
In California, anything mechanical is covered by lemon laws as well as the federal lemon laws. The federal lemon law provides that the warranter may be obligated to pay attorney fees if he is involved in a lemon law suit.
Used car purchases:
If anyone purchased a used car then there are two situations where he is qualified for cash or other lemon law benefits:
Situation #1: One may be entitled to compensation for breach of warranty if he had one of the following Warranties:
a) Any warranty left from the manufacturer when you purchased your vehicle (for example, almost all vehicles sold with less than 36,000 miles will have this. But if the warranty is longer, you may have even more time).
b) The vehicle was "Certified" by the Manufacturer (in which case it came with a short Manufacturer's Warranty, typically 1 year).
c) He purchased an Extended Warranty backed by the Manufacturer (typically 5 years or longer).
Normally, these types of cases fall outside the scope of the state lemon law but are covered under special federal lemon laws.
Situation #2: When No Manufacturer's Warranty Exists. If he does not have a manufacturer's warranty of any kind he may be entitled to compensation for violations of consumer protection laws that fall outside of the lemon laws. The following is a list of some of the problems and/or issues which may be present in your vehicle. Your vehicle may be/have a:
Laundered Lemon;
Previously salvaged or wrecked;
Fraudulently rolled back odometer;
Rental car, police car, taxi, etc.;
Stolen, stripped and rebuilt; and/or
Involved in a flood.
Since Lemon Laws vary from state to state so accurate information on the scope and restrictions of Lemon Laws in a particular state can be obtained from an attorney practicing in that state.
"As is" purchases:
If a person knowingly purchase a car in "as is" condition then he accepts the defects and void his rights under the lemon law.
Other lemon laws:
Lemon laws are not limited to cars. There are RV lemon laws, boat lemon laws, motorcycle, wheelchair and computer lemon laws.
If you have a defective Motorcycle, Motor Home, used car, leased car, or a car used for business purposes and your State Lemon Law does not cover these vehicles, you still have other recourses such as the Uniform Commercial Code and the Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (providing you were given a written warranty).
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Texas Lemon Law
Lemon laws are made by United States state laws to help car consumers whose cars repeatedly fail to meet certain standards of quality and performance. The position of such cars is called lemons. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act or federal lemon law protects every one of all states and they vary by state. Lemon law may not cover used or leased cars. The Lemon law rights managed to consumers may go beyond the warranties expressed in purchase contracts. Lemon law is just a common nickname for these laws buy every state have their own different names for such laws and acts.
In Texas, anything mechanical is covered by lemon laws as well as the federal lemon laws. The federal lemon law provides that the warranter may be obligated to pay attorney fees if he is involved in a lemon law suit.
Used car purchases:
If anyone purchased a used car then there are two situations where he is qualified for cash or other lemon law benefits:
Situation #1: One may be entitled to compensation for breach of warranty if he had one of the following Warranties:
a) Any warranty left from the manufacturer when you purchased your vehicle (for example, almost all vehicles sold with less than 36,000 miles will have this. But if the warranty is longer, you may have even more time).
b) The vehicle was "Certified" by the Manufacturer (in which case it came with a short Manufacturer's Warranty, typically 1 year).
c) He purchased an Extended Warranty backed by the Manufacturer (typically 5 years or longer).
Normally, these types of cases fall outside the scope of the state lemon law but are covered under special federal lemon laws.
Situation #2: When No Manufacturer's Warranty Exists. If he does not have a manufacturer's warranty of any kind he may be entitled to compensation for violations of consumer protection laws that fall outside of the lemon laws. The following is a list of some of the problems and/or issues which may be present in your vehicle. Your vehicle may be/have a:
Laundered Lemon;
Previously salvaged or wrecked;
Fraudulently rolled back odometer;
Rental car, police car, taxi, etc.;
Stolen, stripped and rebuilt; and/or
Involved in a flood.
Since Lemon Laws vary from state to state so accurate information on the scope and restrictions of Lemon Laws in a particular state can be obtained from an attorney practicing in that state.
"As is" purchases:
If a person knowingly purchase a car in "as is" condition then he accepts the defects and void his rights under the lemon law.
Other lemon laws:
Lemon laws are not limited to cars. There are RV lemon laws, boat lemon laws, motorcycle, wheelchair and computer lemon laws.
If you have a defective Motorcycle, Motor Home, used car, leased car, or a car used for business purposes and your State Lemon Law does not cover these vehicles, you still have other recourses such as the Uniform Commercial Code and the Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (providing you were given a written warranty).
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Specialization, a Huge Word in Los Angeles Law Firms
As defined, a law firm is a business entity, which was formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. It is an office where all the functions of an advocate are exercised, and where the regular course of business dealings of a lawyer is performed.
Just like any other law firms, Los Angeles Law firms impart legal services. They are the same with respect to the constitution, creation, and its components.
The difference lies mainly in the manner of their specialization. There are plenty of law offices in Los Angeles, as there are lawyers. Each law firm has its own line of expertise, just as a medical practitioner has its own specialization.
In Los Angeles, a great number of schools have sanctioned special programs of study akin to undergraduate majors. General practitioners in the legal profession have become less common, it had lost its trend in the legal career.
Specialization has become the trend of the future. Most schools in Los Angeles have now offered a formal program of specialization in a given area of the law. Some schools, however, keep specialization informal.
In present times, considering that the law is complex and has a variety of areas, it is a common practice nowadays, that a lawyer or law firm for that matter have a field of specialization.
Some Los Angeles law firms cater legal services in the area of torts-under it; we have personal injury, of family laws, of labor laws, mercantile law, banking laws, admiralty, taxation laws and other areas of law. Some firms are more inclined to specialize in criminal law and constitutional law.
The abovementioned areas of law are composed of several parts. Each part can be subject to specialization. As if for instance, in the area of family law, we have specialization in adoption laws - which cover inter-state and inter-country adoption, child custody, divorce, domestic violence and child support.
The evolution of specialization in the law profession brought so much change. General practice of law has lost its demand and utility. Specialization marks the set up of future law firms.
In Los Angeles, big law firms handled specialized cases. It is manifest how successful their venture to a particular special area of law. Some law firms in Los Angeles have become well known and had a full load of clientele. Some even becomes the authority in a particular area of law.
An observation could conclude that the profession has changed its course, so as the movement of law firms.
With this set up, the focus is concentrated on the specialized field. The efforts of a lawyer in attending to a clients cause are maximized. Consequently, the clientele has become limited.
The specialization broadened the knowledge of a lawyer to a particular field of law. The parameters are defined and it is expected that a high-level of practice be observed. The legal practice had become limited but effective.
These had become the prevailing practice in the law profession, especially in Los Angeles. Specialization had become the watchword in the legal profession.
Our Los Angeles law firm specializes in handling cases involving personal injury, employment law, social security and business law. Just link on our website and learn more about our distinguished team of expert lawyers.
Friday, November 21, 2008
State Laws and Employer I-9 Employment Verification Responsibilities
The most common regulation states have imposed on businesses in recent years is requiring employers to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm workers' immigration status and employment eligibility or work authorization, specifically illegal immigrant employment eligibility, work authorization and immigration status.
E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by Department of Homeland Security (DHS/U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA). E-Verify is currently free to employers and is available in all 50 states. E-Verify provides an automated link to federal databases to help employers determine employment eligibility or work authorization of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.
Employers or "Designated Agents" (e.g., payroll companies) must register online and agree to the terms of participation to use E-Verify. [Registration includes agreeing to the DHS/Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). A discussion of the ICE E-Verify MOU is outside the scope of this post.]
E-Verify will soon be required of all federal contractors. DHS is now promulgating "final" E-Verify regs. I present an E-Verify overview and update in this post.
Review of Relevant State Laws
State Laws Requiring Use of E-Verify

Arizona
Arizona
The Arizona Fair and Legal Employment Act (HB 2779), enacted in 2007, prohibits employers from knowingly hiring unauthorized workers and requires all employers to use the Basic Pilot Program to verify employment eligibility. It establishes substantial penalties and threatens noncompliant employers with suspension and potential revocation of their business licenses. Effective date Jan. 1, 2008.
Colorado
Colorado HB 1343 (signed 6/6/2006) prohibits state agencies from entering into contract agreements with contractors who knowingly employ illegal immigrants and requires prospective contractors to verify legal work status of all employees. The contractor must confirm that the Basic Pilot Program has been used to verify the status of all employees. If the contractor discovers that an illegal alien is employed, the contractor must alert the state agency within 3 days.
Georgia
The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, SB 529, covered employment, enforcement, and benefits and was signed by the Governor on April 17, 2006. The bill requires public employers, contractors and subcontractors with 500 or more employees to participate in E-Verify for all new employees beginning July 1, 2007. The law is phased in for public employers, contractors and subcontractors with 100 or more employees effective July 1, 2008; and for all employers by July 1, 2009.
Idaho Executive Order
On December 13, 2006, Governor Jim Risch issued an executive order requiring that state agencies participate in the E-Verify system. Also, all workers employed to the state through contractors must also be from companies that have been verified to have eligible employees.
Minnesota Executive Order
Governor Tim Pawlenty issued an executive order on Jan. 7, 2008, stating that all hiring authorities within the executive branch of state government as well as any employer seeking to enter into a state contract worth in excess of $50,000 must participate in the E-Verify program. The Executive Order's effective date is January 29, 2008.
Mississippi
Mississippi SB2988 (signed 3/17/08) requires public and private employers to participate in E-Verify. The phase-in period is: all government agencies and businesses with more than 250 employees by July 1, 2008; companies with 100 to 250 employees by July 1, 2009; those with 30 to 100 employees by July 1, 2010; and all remaining companies by July 1, 2011. An employer violating the law is subject to the cancellation of public contracts, ineligibility for contracts for up to three years, and loss of business license for up to one year. The law also makes it a felony to accept or perform employment knowing or in reckless disregard of the immigrant's ineligibility to work, with penalties from one to five years of imprisonment and/or $1,000 to $10,000 in fines.
North Carolina
All state agencies, offices, and universities must use E-Verify, required by SB 1523 in 2006. This applies to employees hired on or after January 1, 2007, except for employees of local education agencies hired on or after March 1, 2007.
Oklahoma
The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 (HB 1804) addressed multiple issues: transporting and harboring, driver's licenses, public benefits, law enforcement and employment. It made it a felony to transport or harbor unauthorized immigrants, with exceptions for health or benefits guaranteed by federal law. It requires public employers, contractors and subcontractors to participate in a federal electronic employment verification system and requires income tax withholding for independent contractors who do not have valid Social Security numbers. The law became effective Nov. 1, 2007.
Rhode Island Executive Order
On March 27, 2008,Governor Carcieri issued an executive order requiring executive agencies to use E-Verify; and for all persons and businesses, including grantees, contractors and their subcontractors and vendors to use E-Verify.
Utah
SB 81 was signed into law 3/13/08. The law address multiple issues, including driver's licenses, law enforcement, harboring and transporting, public benefits and employment. It requires public employers to register and use the Basic Pilot program for new employees; state contractors must use Basic Pilot effective July 1, 2009. The law makes it a Class A misdemeanor to conceal, harbor, transport or shelter undocumented immigrants, though church, charitable and humanitarian assistance groups are exempted.
Encourages the Use of E-Verify (1)
Tennessee
HB 729, signed into law on June 26, 2007 and effective January 1, 2008 states that employers who "knowingly employ, recruit or refer for a fee for employment an illegal alien" are subject to a temporary suspension of their business license; repeat offenders are subject to a one-year suspension. Employers who comply with the requirements of the current I-9 process or who verify new hires through the E-Verify within 14 days of employment are shielded from sanctions.
One State Limits The Use of E-Verify
Illinois
Illinois enacted HB 1744, which bars Illinois companies from enrolling in any Employment Eligibility Verification System until accuracy and timeliness issues are resolved. Illinois also enacted HB 1743, which creates privacy and antidiscrimination protections for workers if employers participating in E-Verify don't follow the program's procedures.
State Laws Targeting Employers On Immigration Status
Current Litigation Over State Laws: Federal Pre-emption
Two lawsuits now making their way through the federal court system could restrict states' ability to continue to crack down on businesses that hire unauthorized workers. One is a court challenge to the 2007 Arizona employer sanctions law filed by a coalition of Arizona trade groups. In February, a federal judge denied the coalition's request to delay implementation of the law with a temporary restraining order, and the plaintiffs took their case to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are scheduled for this summer and a decision is expected in the fall.
Another lawsuit making its way through the federal courts originated last year in Hazleton, PA, where a local ordinance enacted in 2006 denies business permits to employers who hire illegal immigrants and fines landlords who rent to them. In a ruling issued last summer, a federal judge struck down the Hazleton ordinance, saying it treads on federal terrain and violates illegal immigrants' constitutional right to due process.
The town is appealing the decision, and the case will be heard in the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals this summer. A decision in this case is also expected in the fall.
If the two appellate courts hand down similar rulings; either both upholding the local laws, or both asserting federal authority, the battle over federal preemption could end there. But if the courts hand down opposing decisions – one supporting state authority and the other backing federal preemption – the debate will likely go to the Supreme Court. The consequence: no clear direction for state lawmakers for at least a year or two.
Many legal experts say the bills being passed in state capitals are not constitutional, and many of the new laws are being challenged in court. The U.S. Constitution gives federal law "supremacy" over state statutes. My personal understanding of the fundamental "pre-emption" issue is that the federal laws do not pre-empt these state laws. Frankly, this is a very complex constitutional issue.
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) explicitly prohibits states from imposing sanctions on businesses that hire unauthorized workers. But one phrase in the 1986 law – a seven-word parenthesis allowing states some leeway in the matter of "licenses and similar laws" – has created a contested gray area.
Many states have taken the IRCA parenthesis to mean they have the authority to suspend or revoke the business licenses of employers who hire unauthorized workers. Businesses and many constitutional lawyers disagree.
"You have this complex overlay of statutes and regulations and court cases, and you've got this federalism question of what has traditionally been federal power and what the states can do," Jan Ting, a Temple University law professor, told the Washington Post. "There could not be an area of law that is less clear than this."
Because states have until recently stayed away from imposing sanctions for immigration violations, federal preemption has rarely been tested and few court precedents exist.
Private Rights of Action
While E-Verify requirements have so far proven the most popular method to deter the hiring of illegal immigrants, some states are beginning to make use of another tool: giving employees a "private right of action." Oklahoma was the first state to pass such legislation, in 2007, allowing fired U.S. workers to sue their employers if unauthorized workers were subsequently found to be working in their place. Mississippi, Utah and South Carolina followed with similar provisions this year, allowing fired workers to sue if they are then replaced by illegal immigrants. Some say the laws could open businesses to lawsuits if they employ any unauthorized workers, whether or not they have hired them to replace fired legal workers. Other states are expected to adopt this approach next year.
Also still in place are provisions mandating that all businesses in Arizona enroll in E-Verify and allowing prosecutors to investigate anonymous tips made against businesses alleged to be employing unauthorized workers.
State Felony Laws
Companies should also be concerned about a Mississippi law that makes it a felony for illegal immigrants to accept unauthorized employment. Violators are subject to imprisonment from one to five years and fines of between $1,000 and $10,000. And while the measure seemingly applies only to unauthorized workers, if I had clients who do business in Mississippi I would be strongly cautioning them. I have many clients, both individual and business, where the kind employer assists driving the very good employee to work because the employee does not have a valid state driver license because s/he lacks immigration status. In my opinion a business can be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a felony or harboring a felon under this law.
Oklahoma also imposed felony penalties, in 2007 – in that case, against anyone caught transporting, concealing, harboring or sheltering illegal immigrants in any location,
including any building or means of transportation. Utah, Missouri and South Carolina passed similar measures this year, and many fear the provisions could be used against employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
7 Laws to Attract Wealth Into your Life
1. The Law of Perpetual Transmutation:
The best definition of Natural Law seems to be that, "it is the uniform and orderly method of the omnipotent God. Unlike any other form of animal life that has been created, we were given the power of choice or free will; along with this power came certain responsibilities. The capacity to choose does not involve freedom from the consequence of our choice. The laws or rules which govern every individual, and which we cover to some degree in this book, are as exact as the laws which govern the material universe. You can act in accordance with these laws or you can disregard them, but you cannot in any way alter them. The law forever operates and holds you to strict accountability, and there is not the slightest allowance made for ignorance. The law of attraction will deliver to you what you do not want as quickly and as certainly as it will deliver what you do want.
2. The Law of Relativity:
In the study of this law, we find that all things are relative. All laws are related to each other and correspond with each other. The laws of the little are the laws of the great. There is no big nor small, fast nor slow, except by comparison. Every law that is a law must be relative to all other laws. In other words, they must be in harmony, agreement and correspond with each other. An understanding of this law will give one the means of solving many of the secrets of nature that seem to be para- doxical. The much discussed fourth dimension is nothing more nor less than the dimension of vibration. Again, all rates of vibration are either high or low, only by comparison with those above or below them.
Whenever the law is properly used, you win. Let's remember that everyone does something better than you and, likewise, you do something better than every person you meet. When you relate something you do that you are not proficient at, to something another person does that they have mastered, you will not look good. You are using the law against yourself. Begin using this law to heighten your self esteem. You will then become aware of how special you are in the light of truth.
3. The Law of Vibration and Attraction:
Everything in the universe vibrates...nothing rests. We really do live in an ocean of motion. This truly contains the great secret of life. You are always moving toward something and it is always moving toward you... it's action and attraction. This is where your intuitive factor is used (or should be). You can use it to pick up other people's vibrations. When you consciously become aware of vibrations, you call them feelings. When you feel bad, you can change your feelings by thinking good thoughts. When you pick up abad feeling from another person...you know they must be thinking disturbing thoughts. You must not let their negative vibrations affect your way of thinking.
Your thoughts are vibrations that you send off into the universe. When you concentrate, the vibrations are stronger. Your thoughts are cosmic waves of energy that penetrate all time and space (vibrations). Thought is the most potent vibration and remember that you can think...that makes you a very special creation (God's greatest masterpiece). You should always be delighted with yourself. (All creation begins in thought.) Your thought controls the vibration your physical body is in. Disease is a body that is not at ease. Health is a body at ease.
4. The Law of Polarity:
Everything in the universe has its opposite. There would be no inside to a room without an outside. If you referred to this side of the sheet of paper that these words are writen on as the top, then the other side would be the bottom. You have a right and left side to your body, a front and back. Every up has a down and every down has an up. The law of polarity not only states that everything has an opposite...it is equal and opposite. If it was 3 feet from the floor up on to the table, it would be 3 feet from the table down to the floor. If it is 150 miles from Manchester to London, by law it must be 150 miles from London to Manchester; It could not be any other way.
If something you considered bad happens in your life, there has to be something good about it. If it was only a little bad, when you mentally work your way around to the other side, you will find it will only be a little good.
5. The Law of Rhythm:
The law of rhythm embodies the truth that everything is moving to and fro, flowing in and out, swinging backward and forward. There is a high and a low tide. Everything is flowing, both in and out, in accordance with the law. There is always a reaction to every action. Something must advance when anything retreats; Something must rise when anything sinks. This law governs the movement of the planets in their orbits and also manifests in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Men and women can observe this law in their mental, physical and emotional states. The law of rhythm is universal. This can be observed in the rising and setting of the sun and moon, ebb and flow of the tides, coming and going of the seasons, and in the rhythmic swing of consciousness and unconsciousness.
You are not going to feel good all the time; No one does. If you did, you wouldn't even know it. The low feelings are what permit you to enjoy the high feelings.
There will always be highs and lows in life. Reason gives us the ability to choose our thoughts (that is free will). Even when you are on a natural down swing, you can choose good thoughts with your free will and continue to move up toward your goal.
6. The Law of Cause and Effect:
Every cause has its effect; every effect, its cause. There is no such thing as chance. Everything happens according to law. Nothing in the entire universe ever happens, unless it occurs according to law. Nothing ever escapes the law. It is impossible for the human mind to conceive of starting a new chain of causation, for the simple reason that every effect must have a cause; and in turn, that cause must have an effect. Thus, we have the perpetual, never-ending cycle of cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo emerson called the law of cause and effect, the law of laws. You are, of course, very interested in results. Your physical health, your relationships, the respect you earn, your material income. You must concentrate on the cause, and the effect will automatically take care of itself. That is how the law works.
7. The Law of Gender:
The law of gender manifests in all things as masculine and feminine. It is this law that governs what we know as creation. The word creation is often erroneously used, for, in reality, nothing is ever created. All new things merely result from the changing of something that was, into something else that now is. The law of gender manifests in the animal kingdom as sex. It also manifests in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Without the dual principle of male and female in all things, there could not be a difference of potential, perpetuation of motion, nor a regeneration. This law is the one which finally closes the cycle and completes the circle of the seven subsidiary laws under one great law.
This is in truth, the creative law. This law decrees everything in nature is both male and female. Both are required for life to exist.
This law also decrees that all seeds (ideas are spiritual seeds) have a gestation or incubation period before they manifest. In other words, when you choose a goal or build the image in your mind, a definate period of time must elapse before that image manifests in physical results.
International Humanitarian Law
International Humanitarian Law
What is International Humanitarian law?
Fact sheet providing a summary description of the sources, content and field of application of international humanitarian law.
- International humanitarian law is a set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict. It protects persons who are not or are no longer participating in the hostilities and restricts the means and methods of warfare. International humanitarian law is also known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict.
- International humanitarian law is part of international law, which is the body of rules governing relations between States. International law is contained in agreements between States – treaties or conventions – in customary rules, which consist of State practice considered by them as legally binding, and in general principles.
- International humanitarian law applies to armed conflicts. It does not regulate whether a State may actually use force; this is governed by an important, but distinct, part of international law set out in the United Nations Charter.
Where did International Humanitarian Law originate?
International humanitarian law is rooted in the rules of ancient civilizations and religions – warfare has always been subject to certain principles and customs.
Universal codification of international humanitarian law began in the nineteenth century. Since then, States have agreed to a series of practical rules, based on the bitter experience of modern warfare. These rules strike a careful balance between humanitarian concerns and the military requirements of States. As the international community has grown, an increasing number of States have contributed to the development of those rules. International humanitarian law forms today a universal body of law.
Historical Convergence between International Humanitarian Law and the Laws of War
For most of the 20th century, international humanitarian law or the "Law of Geneva" was distinguished from the "Law of The Hague" or the Laws of War proper. The Law of The Hague "determines the rights and duties of belligerents in the conduct of operations and limits the choice of means in doing harm." In particular, it concerns itself with the definition of combatants, establishes rules relating to the means and methods of warfare, and examines the issue of military objectives.
At the same time, the Law of Geneva, which focuses mainly on human beings as victims of war, is directly inspired by the principle of humanity. It relates to those who are not participating in the conflict as well as military personnel hors de combat. It provides the legal basis for protection and humanitarian assistance carried out by impartial humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. This focus can be found in the Geneva Conventions.
With the adoption of the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, the two strains of law began to converge. Already before, articles focusing on humanity could be found in the Law of The Hague (i.e. the protection of certain prisoners of war and civilians in occupied territories) articles which were later incorporated into the Law of Geneva in 1929 and 1949). However the Protocols of 1977 relating to the protection of victims in both international and internal conflict not only incorporated aspects of both the Law of The Hague and the Law of Geneva, but also important human rights aspects.
Where is International Humanitarian Law to be found?
A major part of international humanitarian law is contained in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.Nearly every State in the world has agreed to be bound by them. The Conventions have been developed and supplemented by two further
agreements: the Additional Protocols of 1977 relating to the protection of victims of armed conflicts. Other agreements prohibit the use of certain weapons and military tactics and protect certain categories of people and goods.
These agreements include:
Ø the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, plus its two protocols;
Ø the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention;
Ø the 1980 Conventional Weapons Convention and its five protocols;
Ø the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention;
Ø the 1997 Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines;
Ø the 2000 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. Many provisions international humanitarian law are now accepted as customary law – that is, a general rules by which all States are bound.
When does International Humanitarian Law apply?
International humanitarian law applies only to armed conflict; it does not cover internal tensions or disturbances such as isolated acts of violence. The law applies only once a conflict has begun, and then equally to all sides regardless of who started the fighting. International humanitarian law distinguishes between international and non-international armed conflict.
International armed conflicts are those in which at least two States are involved. They are subject to a wide range of rules, including those set out in the four Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I.
Non-international armed conflicts are those restricted to the territory of a single State, involving either regular armed forces fighting groups of armed dissidents, or armed groups fighting each other. A more limited range of rules apply to internal armed conflicts and are laid down in Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions as well as in Additional Protocol II. It is important to differentiate between international humanitarian law and human rights law. While
some of their rules are similar, these two bodies of law have developed separately and are contained in different treaties. In particular, human rights law– unlike international humanitarian law –applies in peacetime, and many of its provisions may be suspended during an armed conflict.
What does International Humanitarian Law cover?
International humanitarian law covers two areas:
Ø the protection of those who are not, or no longer, taking part in fighting;
Ø restrictions on the means of warfare – in particular weapons– and the methods of warfare, such as military tactics.
Basic rules of International Humanitarian Law
- Persons hors de combat and those not taking part in hostilities shall be protected and treated humanely.
- It is forbidden to kill or injure an enemy who surrenders or who is hors de combat.
- The wounded and sick shall be cared for and protected by the party to the conflict which has them in its power. The emblem of the red cross or the red crescent must be respected as the sign of protection.
- Captured combatants and civilians must be protected against acts of violence and reprisals. They shall have the right to correspond with their families and to receive relief.
- No one shall be subjected to torture, corporal punishment or cruel or degrading treatment.
- Parties to a conflict and members of their armed forces do not have an unlimited choice of methods and means of warfare.
- Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants. Attacks shall be directed solely against military objectives.
What is "protection"?
International humanitarian law protects those who do not take part in the fighting, such as civilians and medical and religious military personnel. It also protects those who have ceased to take part, such as wounded, shipwrecked and sick combatants, and prisoners of war. These categories of person are entitled to respect for their lives and for their physical and mental integrity. They also enjoy legal guarantees. They must be protected and treated humanely in all circumstances, with no adverse distinction. More specifically: it is forbidden to kill or wound an enemy who surrenders or is unable to fight; the sick and wounded must be collected and cared for by the party in whose power they find themselves. Medical personnel, supplies, hospitals and ambulances must all be protected. There are also detailed rules governing the conditions of detention for prisoners of war and the way in which civilians are to be treated when under the authority of an enemy power. This includes the provision of food, shelter and medical care, and the right to exchange messages with their families. The law sets out a number of clearly recognizable symbols which can be used to identify protected people, places and objects. The main emblems are the Red Cross, the red crescent and the symbols identifying cultural property and civil defense facilities.
What restrictions are there on weapons and tactics?
International humanitarian law prohibits all means and methods of warfare which:
Ø fail to discriminate between those taking part in the fighting and those, such as civilians, who are not, the purpose being to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian property;
Ø cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering;
Ø cause severe or long-term damage to the environment. Humanitarian law has therefore banned the use of many weapons, including exploding bullets, chemical and biological weapons, blinding laser weapons and anti-personnel mines.
Is International Humanitarian Law actually complied with?
Sadly, there are countless examples of violation of international humanitarian law. Increasingly, the victims of war are civilians. However, there are important cases where international humanitarian law has made a difference in protecting civilians, prisoners, the sick and the wounded, and in restricting the use of barbaric weapons. Given that this body of law applies during times of extreme violence, implementing the law will always be a matter of great difficulty. That said, striving for effective compliance remains as urgent as ever.
What should be done to implement the law?
Measures must be taken to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. States have an obligation to teach its rules to their armed forces and the general public. They must prevent violations or punish them if these nevertheless occur. In particular, they must enact laws to punish the most serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, which are regarded as war crimes. The States must also pass laws protecting the Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems. Measures have also been taken at an international level: tribunals have been created to punish acts committed in two recent conflicts (the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda). An international criminal court, with the responsibility of repressing inter alia war crimes, was created by the 1998 Rome Statute. Whether as individuals or through governments and various organizations, we can all make an important contribution to compliance with international humanitarian law.
Province of International Laws Determined
The international laws in the current aspects as viewed by most of the jurists round the globe are the laws that govern the relations of the nations with each other and the control over the individualism and freedom of these democratic as well as otherwise nations. the international laws are thought to be the governing machineries of the contemporary scenario in which the accountability of the nations for the most inhumane crimes being done by them are brought to the court. in the various books that talk of "taking the state to court" and the "mobilization" standards of the present F1 generations are being expressly interviewed. These scholar works tend to connote that the international laws are the tools that can limit the future dangers of the international insecurity and other problems of colonization etc. faced by most of the nations of the world. These nations are threatened by the superpowers for being forced to remove their ruling strategy. The United Nations has done several peacekeeping operations and has set various organizations that intend to store the peace and spirit of coordination and cooperation in the world. The theories of the international laws that are found to be dealing with the origin and the gradual development of the international laws have been asked a lot of questions as the race for hegemony is on the peak. Growing problems of racism and international terrorism are the new challenges being faced by the international laws today. This article presents various such aspects and put the suggestions for their solutions under one umbrella. The first question before everyone is this that "what are the international laws and what purpose do they serve for humanity and international peace?" This is the most critical question that corresponds to the enforcement of international and the limits of the international courts of justice being determined. We know that the function of the national laws is to regulate the behavior of the individuals but when we intend to talk of the international laws, the shoes of individuals are wore by the states. What if the international laws are the vanishing point of the world? It is well known to the students of the international laws that the primary function of the international law is to regulate the conduct of the states while on the other hand the national laws intend to regulate the conduct of the individuals. If we examine the contours on which the body of international law is explained we could easily derive the conclusion that most of the allegations that are imposed upon the rule of international laws are concerning their applicability or jurisdiction in one way or the other. Thus the international laws are to be made more binding and the forces that provide sanctioning power to such laws are to be extending to ensure the desired obedience. The identity of the international laws another such aspect that is necessary to limit the province of international laws. The state and non-sate actors are also the key aspects that correspond to the applicability of the international laws. We here mean the kinds of acts performed by the international superpowers and other small newly independent states. In various cases of hegemonic expansion and colonialism, it could be traced that the war-crimes and crimes against humanity are recorded.
02. TAKING THE STATE TO THE COURT
:-In the contemporary growth of the international law, the growing awareness among the people of the various countries has led to the introduction of the concept of public interest litigation which has increased and widened the opportunities that even the states could be brought under the jurisdiction of the courts. In a study by the German philosopher "Hans Dembowski", it has been concluded that the growing political unfairness and other political reasoning have led to the introduction of Judicial Activism which has led to the growth of the power and abilities accompanied with the authoritativeness of the judiciary. International laws deal with the sociology of governance and in this respect connote to the division of power between the administrative and judicial branches of the government and their interaction with society as a whole in the particular cases that have been studied. The ongoing, excited media debate about the public interest litigation and judicial activism makes this evident. This function has typical stand point in certain countries of the world. The international arena on which various countries are brought on the same standard in the international court are is seemingly an attempt to ensure fairness and security in the international contour. Let us have a look over the two important aspects that have been the focus of study in the international society.
[A]. State Sovereignty
Sovereignty, for the past several centuries, has been the foundation of interstate relations and the world order. The concept- defined as the independent and unfettered power of a state in its jurisdiction-lies at the heart of the customary international law and the UN charter. It remains both an essential component of the maintenance of international peace and security and a defense for weak states against the strong. At the same time, the concept has never been as inviolable, either in law or in practice, as a formal legal definition might imply. In his 1992 An agenda for peace, UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali pronounced that the theory of sovereignty never matched the reality. In exploring why the westphalian sovereignty is continuously ignored or violated, Stephen Kraser has noted straightforwardly that "organized hypocrisy is the normal state of affairs. Sovereignty has routinely been violated by the powerful. In today’s globalizing world, it is generally recognized that cultural, economic influences neither respect borders nor require entry visas in both powerful and the powerless countries. The concept of state sovereignty is well envisaged in the legal and the political discourse, but territorial boundaries have come under the stress. Not only technology but also communications have made the boundaries permeable, but the political dimensions of the internal disorder and suffering often can result in wider international disorder. The initial purpose of this discussion is to set out the scope and significance of state sovereignty as a foundation on which to explore the contemporary debates about intervention. The literature on this subject is vast and contentious. As one legal analyst accurately summarizes:
Few subjects in the international law and international relations are as sensitive as the notion of sovereignty. Steinberger refers to it in the Encyclopedia of Public International Law as "the most glittering and controversial notion in the history, doctrine and the practice of the international law." On the other hand, Henkin seeks to banish it from our vocabulary and others call it " a word that has emotive quality lacking meaningful specific content". There is little neutral ground when it comes to sovereignty.
State sovereignty denotes the competence, independence and legal equality of the states. The concept is normally used to encompass all matters in which each state is permitted by international law to decide and act without intrusions from the other sovereign states. The scope of freedom of choice in these matters is not unlimited; it depends upon developments in international law and in international relations. The current foundations of the international law with regard to sovereignty were shaped by the agreements concluded by the European states as part of the treaties of Westphalia in 1648. the 1993 Montevideo Convention On Rights and Duties of States spells out the following main essentials: a permanent population, a defined territory, a functioning government, and the ability to enter into relations with the other states. The Montevideo definition includes both empirical (population and effective government) and juridical (borders and independence) components. There is a controversy regarding the accurate sovereignty of the states in Africa which has been the problem in the enforcement of the principles of the convention. These states are sovereign de jure but not de facto. As a hallmark of statehood, the territorial sovereignty is a must in the international system. An act of aggression is unlawful for two reasons: it undermines the international order, and states have exercised their sovereignty to outlaw war in the UN charter. The failure or the weakening of the state capacity brings tragedies and international insecurity. In sum, sovereignty is the key constitutional safeguard of the contemporary international order. Despite the pluralisation of the international relations resulting from the proliferation of the non-state actors which is evidenced by globalization, democratizationand privatization worldwide- the sate remains the fundamental guarantor of human rights locally as well as building block of international society.Critical Issues
Instead of the heavy recommendations on the maintenance and enforcement of sovereignty among the states, this constitutional aspect of every nation is subject to limitation in the statements of the United Nations which have dealt heavily upon the matters concerning the world peace and a definite civil order in the international community. These limitations are as described under:-
Firstly, the charter of the United Nations contains collective international obligations for the maintenance of international peace and security. According to Chapter VII, sovereignty is not a barrier to Security Council action in response to " a threat to peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression."
Secondly, sovereignty may be limited by customary international law and treaties. States are responsible for their international obligations, and therefore sovereignty cannot be an excuse for not performing the duties to which they have agreed sovereignty thus carries with it responsibilities to protect the persons and property, as well as to regulate political and economic affairs. Sovereignty cannot shield internal violations of Human rights that contradict the international obligations. It has been evident in the pages of history that in a no of cases, the Security Council endorsed the use of military force for the protection of the populations in the states which were caught in the throes of war.
[B.] Changes And Continuity In The International System
Limits to the sovereignty are widely accepted-its erosion by economic, cultural and environmental factors, for example, or by customary law and voluntarily agreed treaty obligations. But Annan’s assertion of popular sovereignty was a far more radical challenge. It joined three other threats to traditional notions of state sovereignty that arose in the 1990s and are relevant for our consideration of humanitarian intervention: the right of self-determination, a broadband conception of international peace and security; and the collapse of state authority. In spite of significant change, the international system reflects substantial continuities: in centrality of state decision making and the lack of any changes overriding central authority. But situating the nature of changes and continuities is the task of political analysis and judgment. However, after the end of the cold war, these situations changed to a great extent. Firstly, the soviet union became a superpower in which Russia led the legal status of USSR, including a permanent seat on the Security Council, but 14 other states were created by the implosion of the former soviet union. Shortly, thereafter, Yugoslavia broke up into six independent states, with Serbia and Montenegro later forming the republic of Yugoslavia. Contemporary politics in developing countries is conditioned by the legacy of colonialism. The second challenge is that the broadening interpretation of threats to international peace and security, the charter’s only enshrined license to override the principle of noninterference. The third challenge was to the traditional interpretations of the sovereignty has arisen because of the incapacity of some states to exercise effective authority over their authorities and populations, a topic that is dealt extensively by the international community. For these states sovereignty is a legal fiction which never matches to reality. The political vacuum leads to the nonstate actors taking matters into their own hands and is usually accompanied by the forced displacement of the people. The United Nations confronts the same constraints today as the diplomats and politicians have since time immemorial, and certainly since the beginning of the modern efforts at the multilateral cooperation in the 19th century.
[C.] The International Court of Justice (ICJ):-
The international court of justice even though working for the enforcement of the principles behind the objective of maintenance of peace among the states of the world have been posed by various questions that are the critical areas of thought that concern the epistemology behind the working of the international courts. The states which are prosecuted in the court suffer from various discriminations and differentiations. The trials that are governed or were carried out at Nuremberg etc. follow the traditional principles i.e. TRC Act, 1995. This method has been given the name "Victor’s Justice". The victor prosecuting the accused in his own sort of understanding and reasoning is clearly presenting the breaking of the basic norm of the law that "nobody could be a judge in his cause". This method of trial was applied in the Saddam’s trial when USA attacked it after it had the security threats from Iraq that it possessed nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The differentiation and the discrimination which has been done against Saddam have been, clearly witnessed by the world that dreams of making a new world order that involves the concept of Justice. The influence of Gandhian thought is clearly visible in the TRC Act. The basic problem is that most of the overwhelming systems of justice of the contemporary world are penal, and having very less imports of the impressions of peace. There the troublesome atmosphere prevails in the international level. It imposes stress upon the mind that what does the phrase "Taking the state to court" means. The solution is thus provided:
01.
02.
03.
04.
05.
The concept of collective security of the nations should be enforced and that the violence as the means of achieving objectives should be destroyed to the maximum extent possible.The inter-state relations should be given more importance and the suppression of the voice of the mobilized groups should not occur. The concept that could prevent a party from giving statements should be abandoned. The method od prosecution called as "victor’s justice" should be deleted because that leads to the serious violation of the principle of "audi alterum partum" and the judgment seems to be biased. The limits over the application of the international laws and the scope of the obedience of the same should be expanded. The international laws/treaties/conventions should be accompanied with more degree of sanction. The retributive nature of punishment should be overcome and new strategies to make the international laws more humane should be attempted.There should be prosecution of the states that interfere with the enjoyment of the right of sovereignty of the other states without any firm and reasonable cause.Besides prosecuting a state for the violation of treaty or other humanitarian principles, the focus of the prosecution should be to derive a method for the solution of the problem. The same may include the support of fellow members of the UN.03. DEMOCRACY AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
Democracy as a norm and the promotion of democracy as an activity has become far more deeply embedded within international society in various ways. In the first place, there has been an enormous expansion in the involvement of the UN and regional organization in elections. Electoral assistance has become an established part of UN activities and has also led to development of a broad transnational and trans-governmental network of electoral assistance, party support, and monitoring.second, external actors have routinely become involved in democracy promotion as a result of the expansion in the number and scope of peacekeeping operations, whose multi dimensional character came in many places to include human rights and democracy as well as demilitarization, refugee protection and state-building. In the cases of direct international administration of territory, the assumption of the sovereign power involved both transitional administration and also democratic regime-building. Third, democratic membership criteria have been established in two regions, and, in the case of Europe, democracy, human rights, and minority rights have all played a central part of the process of EU enlargement, the conditionality policies of the EU, and its extensive programme of member-state building. Finally, an increasing body of academic writing has opened up the idea of a legal right to democratic governance. The normative expansion of the international society to include democracy was also driven by political factors. Although there were references to ‘democratic’ rights in UN Declaration, the conditions of the cold war meant that formal incorporation of political democracy into the human rights system was politically impossible. This changed as a result of the wave of transitions from authoritarian rule in Southern Europe and the developing world in the late 1970s and 1980s; and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union; by the liberal self-confidence that followed the ending of cold war and the belief that liberal democracy and free markets were sweeping the world; and the consolidation of the place of democracy in US foreign policy. Two broader shifts need to be highlighted, both of which link academic analysis and political perceptions. The first concerns the progress of democratic change and the possibilities of democratization. During the cold war, Western governments were suspicious that the political change would be destabilizing, bringing to power either those who would ally themselves with the Soviet Union or who would challenge western economic interests. Democratization then carried with it some counter-hegemonic potential. It is also widely held in Western capitals and amongst the private sector that authoritarian governments were most suited to promoting economic development. Many academicians argued that, in any case, democracy required a wide range of ‘prerequisites’ that were lacking in many postcolonial societies. The wave of transition that began in Southern Europe and Latin America in the late 1970s ushered in a striking reassessment: democratization becomes the norm rather than the exception; the exception is of generally forward movement; and the democratization appears to be easier and less problematic than had been previously believed. A post-cold war world meant that unstable and potentially oppositional regimes could no longer look to the Soviet Union. And a globalized world meant that economic nationalism was no longer and option. The trade-offs between uncertain democratization, security interests, and economic preferences were apparently easing and a strong sense of difficulties of democracy gave way to an increased sense of ‘possiblism’. The conversion by the mid 1980s of US foreign policy was retold through a different lens that stressed the country’s historic mission to extend and promote democracy. The other important shift in thinking reflected the allegedly proven link between democracy and peace. Democratic peace theory builds on long tradition writing on international relations, often associated with Kant. However, it only formed one part of Kant’s political thought and had already become a liberal commonplace by the end of the 18th century. Other precursors of modern DPT include Karl Deutsch’s writing in the 1950s on security communities- groups of states in which there is real assurance that the members of that community will not fight each other physically but will settle their disputes in some other way. Overlooked or neglected by many studies of war causation, it became a major theme both of academic writing on international relations and of political and public debate on the nature of the post-cold war international order. Theorists argue that two sets of casual factors are important in explaining the democratic peace. In the first place, the structural constraints of democratic institutions and of democratic politics make it difficult or even impossible for war-prone leaders to drag their states into wars. They also stress the joint effect of these democratic constraints, together with the greater openness and transparency of liberal democracies. If both sides are governed by cautious, cost-sensitive politicians that only use force defensively, then conflict is far less likely to occur. Second, democratic peace theorists highlight the importance of normative mechanisms. Liberal and democratic norms include shared understandings of appropriate behavior, stabilize expectations of the future, and are embedded in both institutions and political culture. Rule-governed change is a basic principle; the use of coercive force outside the structure of rules is prescribed; and trust and reciprocity, rule of law are at the heart of democratic politics. From this view, then, the democratic peace is produced by the way in which democracies externalize their domestic political norms of tolerance and compromise into their foreign relations, thus making war with others like them unlikely. The democratic peace hypothesis rests on two claims: (a) that democracies almost never fight each other and very rarely consider the use of force in their mutual relations and (b) that other types of relations are much more conflictual including democracies’ interactions with non-democracies. The claim is almost always made in probabilistic terms. Few claim that it is a deterministic law. It is not a general theory since it is agnostic or at least much less certain about the relationship between democracies and non-democracies. But it provides some grounds for liberal optimism, even if only within the democratic zone. If true, it holds out the possibility that the homogenization of domestic political systems could transform global political order- in marked contrast both to traditional realist accounts of world politics and pluralistic accounts of international society. The main debates surrounding the democratic peace and the main issues raised by critics and skeptics include: (a) the reliability of the statistical evidence for the democratic peace, especially in the pre 1945 period; (b) the existence of alternative casual logics, especially in explaining regional clusters of peaceful states as in Europe or the Americas; (c) the difficulties of defining key terms in the theory, especially war and democracy; (d) and the problems raised by democratization processes and the evidence that, whilst fully consolidated democracies could be peaceful, democratizing states, specially in unstable areas, may be more conflict-prone than authoritarian regimes. Here are certain important issues noted from the speech (annual report) by the UN secretary general which was delivered in the General Assembly in 2007:--
01.
02.
03.
04.
05.
06.
07.
Despite these positive developments, however, efforts to expand democratic governments still face significant challenges. Many countries continue to limit fundamental freedoms, and governments face problems of the public sector efficiency, transparency and accountability. Women are playing a growing role in building democracy, but in the top leadership positions their numbers remain limited. Indigenous peoples and marginalized groups are also often excluded from power. Moreover, without vigorous participation democratic participation, official accountability, and strengthened institutional capacity, governments are unlikely to deliver on their commitments to achieve the millennium declaration, including the millennium development goals, and other internationally agreed development goals.The Un democracy fund has begun to make its mark. During first year of activities it funded 122 projects out of 1300 proposals submitted. The projects are implemented in partnership with diverse national actors. The fund’s activities encouraged transparency in government and supported national human rights institutions, civic education, electoral systems and processes, as well as political parties. There was a major focus on the participation of the youth and women in decision-making, 62 % of the submitted proposals containing a significant gender component and 37% explicitly promoting women’s rights and gender equality.The sixth international conference of new or restored democracies, held in Dolha from 29 October to 1 November 2006, reaffirmed a common commitment to democratization on the part of 100 governments, 69 parliaments and 97 civil society organization which took part. An advisory board and a nucleus secretariat were established to assist the chair of the conference in implementing the decisions of the conference.As countries enter the post-conflict phase, the focus of the UN assistance often shifts to consolidating the experience gained by newly created electoral institutions. An example is Liberia, where in September 2006 the UN mission in Liberia handed over the responsibility for long-term UN electoral assistance to UNDP.Meanwhile, the volume of technical electoral assistance to member states continued to increase. More than 30 technical assistance projects were launched in 2006, mainly through UNDP. United nations electoral assistance is often provided, moreover, in complex political environments. In the case of Mauritania, following the advice of the united Nations, the national authorities put specific measures in place that contributed to the credibility of a constitutional referendum and parliamentary and local elections in 2006, and presidential elections in 2007.Although the past year saw the scaling-down of several large and complex electoral operations, including operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia, the UN made a major contribution to the holding of historic parliamentary, presidential and provincial assembly elections in July and October 2006 in the democratic republic of the CongoThe United Nations continues to foster democracy and good governance, not only through its assistance in the holding of credible elections, but through a wide range of activities to promote democratic institutions and practices. These include support for independent judiciaries and parliaments, strong national human rights policies and institutions, transparency and accountability in government, civic education, free expression, and vibrant civil societies with opportunities for participation. In this regard, electoral processes are increasingly considered not as an end in themselves but as a bridge to peace building and sustainable development. The implementation of the United Nations convention against corruption has become a special priority for the UN system in improving the quality of governance in its member states.Review:- 01. The situation in Iraq
[A.] The global order:-
[A.] The global order:-
01. The situation in Iraq
is causing widespread concern in the international community. The future of Iraq is vital to the stability of the region and the world. During the past year, the UN worked to foster regional engagement through initiatives including the international compact with Iraq and continued to promote national reconciliation and consensus-building, in particular through the support to the constitutional review process. UN will continue to assist Iraq through the challenges ahead. In Lebanon, the aftermath of 2006 war saw political divisions deepen, rendering more difficult the fulfillment of various UN mandates in support of the Lebanese sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence. In the Middle East, the UN continues to increase the peaceful settlements.02. Concerns about Asia
:- in Nepal, progress was made towards resolving the conflict and its underlying causes; the UN mission in Nepal was instituted at the request of the Nepalese parties to assist in the election of the constituent assembly and the political transition.03. Northern Uganda
:- the special envoy of the UN for the lord’s resistance army affected areas worked with the regional actors to reinvigorate peace talks. A joint African Union-UN initiative was launched to advance the political process in Dafur. There is active representative of UN in Somalia for the purpose of national reconciliation.04. Myanmar and Fiji
:- Asia also saw the greater use of secretary general’s good offices, with renewed high level dialogue between the UN and Myanmar, and the dispatch of an inter-agency fact finding mission to fiji following the coup in December 2006.[B.] On Peace-keeping attempts of the UN
01.
At the beginning of 2006, UN peacekeeping supported 18 peacekeeping operations and 13 other field missions and offices, involving approximately 85,000 deployed personnel. By august, 2007, this number has got considerably increased.02.
Among the myriad challenges faced by the UN peacekeeping during 2006 was the situation in Sudan and its spillover effects into Chad and the Central African Republic. The UNMIS has been to monitor the peacekeeping agreement of 2006. Another challenge facing UN peacekeeping operations was the Kosovo status talks and the eventual transition of the UN interim administration mission in Kosovo.03.
The UNIFIL continued to cooperate closely with the Lebanese armed forces with a view to consolidating the new strategic military and security environment in the southern Lebanon, and to prevent violations of the blue line and maintain the cessation of the hostilities. UNIFIL has created has created a stable operational area as a basis for international efforts to revitalize the political process leading to a permanent ceasefire.04.
The growing number of similar incidents require United Nations intervention demonstrates the central importance of control over security institutions to build a legitimate state. Enhancing national capacity and institutions particularly in the security sector is a long term process involving political commitment on the part of national stakeholders and the support of international community, especially donors. A critical aspect of this process is fostering national and local ownership of reforms intended to limit the role of the military in internal security, ensure that all security forces are under the civilian control, and meet basic standards of accountability, transparency and respect for human rights. The operational record for strengthening the capacity of national security institutions has been mixed. In Sierra Leone there has been a measure of national ownership for reforming the military and the police, although UN is concerned about its self sustainability in the absence of the continuing and long-term international technical and financial support. Similar problems faced Liberia and Congo, which are in the early stages of security sector reform. Security sector reform has been also less successful in Afghanistan, where the war against the Taliban and other anti-government elements has forced the security agencies to play a larger-than-ideal role in the attempt to provide internal security.
[C.] THE RULE OF LAW:-
The rule of law is a fundamental principle on which the United Nations was established. The United Nations goal continues to be a community of nations operating according to rules that promote human rights, human dignity and the settlement of the international disputes through peaceful means. International criminal justice, a concept based on the premise that the achievement of justice provides a firmer foundation for lasting peace, has become a defining aspect of the work of the organization. The international tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda continued to conduct the trials of those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other war crimes. The extraordinary courts charged the defendant for the crimes against humanity and placed him in detention. The courts for Sierra Leone commenced the trials of Charles Taylor and rendered two historic judgments that convicted five defendants for war crimes. In March, the Security Council requested UN to negotiate with the government of Lebanon an agreement aimed at establishing a tribunal to bring justice those accused of the attack that killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri. The Security Council took resolution on 30 May, 2007 for establishment of special tribunal in Lebanon.in order to better the coordinate working of these institutions, at the end of 2006, the report entitled ‘Uniting our strengths: enhancing the United Nations support for the rule of law’ announced the establishment of a rule of law coordination and resource group. The group consists of major rule of law assistance providers in the UN system, who met to ensure that programmes are carried out in a coherent manner and are of high quality commensurate with the need of those requesting the support.
04. PURSUIT OF JUSTICE:-
One of the attractions of an old fashioned state-based pluralism and of a very thin view of international society was precisely that it appeared to offer a way of dealing with diversity and disagreement. If the diversity and the value are such important features of international life, then we should seek to organize global politics in such a way as to give groups scope of the for the collective self-government and cultural autonomy in their own affairs and to reduce the degree to which they will clash over how the world should be ordered. Equally, if the dangers of predation by the powerful are deep-rooted, even if not structurally determined, then we should continue to place a heavy emphasis on sovereignty and on the balance of power. In addition, the skeptical pluralist is attracted to the idea that it might also be possible to develop a cross-cultural consensus over the minimal rules around which a such a limited international society might be built. Hence the attraction to the international society writers of Hart’s notion of a minimum content of natural law built around Hobbesian assumptions. Hence, too null’s emphasis on the ‘elementary conditions of social life’, his attempt to isolate the elementary primary, and universal goals of the society of states; and his analytical effort to link these goals to the historical institutions of the international society. Negotiating the terms of cooperation is certainly a quintessentially political exercise. But it is also an inherently normative one both because acting in the world requires that we think about morally desirable change and because moral debate forms one part of how that political exercise will unfold. As noted in many places in this book, debates on global justice within the political theory and political philosophy have increased enormously in scope and sophistication. There is an increasingly rich array of potential answers to the problems of global political theory, including those related to just war, to humanitarian intervention, distributive justice, and to global democracy. The fragility of global political order makes it unconvincing to see this challenge as a second-order issue of moral methodology.
[I.] Institutional Authority:-
There are three major reasons why institutions are so important: as a means of helping to secure the framework for mutually intelligible moral debate; as a way of securing the stable implementation of shared rules; and in terms of the potential for the progressive development of a global moral community. In the first place, if we are looking for cross-cultural universals, a good case can be made for starting with process and with near-universality of ideas about fairness of process: hearing the other side, providing arguments for one’s actions, finding some mechanism for adjudicating between conflicting moral claims. All stable societies have to find some agreed process and procedure by which more moral conflicts can be adjudicated and managed, if not resolved. Within world politics the challenge is more daunting, given the diversity and divisiveness of sentiments, attachments, languages, cultures and ways of living, combined with massive inequalities of power, wealth, and capacity. Stuart Hampshire has suggested that there is an irreducible minimum to notions of just process. Second, institutions are also necessary because rules have to be applied. The cry of the liberal solidarist or the cosmopolitan moralist is that we need new rules to meet new circumstances. Terrorism requires that international society rethink rules relating to self-defence and the use of force. The degree to which international society is affected morally and practically by the humanitarian catastrophe means that we need new rules on humanitarian intervention. There are good arguments in favour of both these propositions. But it is a myth that, for example, a new rule on humanitarian intervention would obviate the need for the institutions and institutional debate. Even if the rule is agreed and even if the background criteria for evaluation are agreed, all rules have to be interpreted and applied. The new rule of humanitarian intervention will not avoid the need for that rule to be applied to the circumstances of a new case. On the one side, this inevitability raises the fundamental political issue: who is the body that has the authority to interpret and to apply the rule? There have been certain proximities that have been put-forth by Dallymayr. On the other side, we are faced by problems intrinsic to the idea of interpretation and application. Thus cultural and historical complexity makes it difficult to read off judgments in particular cases from general or universal moral laws and there is good reason for supposing that a great deal o the debate over values and ethics in the twenty-first century will necessarily have to be context-rich and interpretative. At one level, this might simply mean that universal principles need to show sensitivity to local context. But the challenge is deeper. Thus Tully follows criticizing in those who demonstrate a contemptuous attitude to the particular case. In terms of institutionalizing global order such a position lends support to a form of practical reasoning that is constantly navigating between the general rule, whether legal or moral, and it’s always contestable application to the facts and circumstances of a particular case. Third, institutions matter because of their potential for self-reinforcing dynamic. Once created, institutions act as platforms for the ongoing normative debates, or the mobilization of concern and for debating and revising ideas about how the international society should be organized. However much social scientists insist on analyzing international institutions solely in terms of the provision of international public goods, normative issues cannot be kept out of the picture. In addition, there is an inherent tendency for all normative systems to expand and develop, and to enmesh actors within certain patterns of discourse, reasoning, and argumentation. Finally, as we have seen, there are good reasons for believing that international institutions have acted as powerful agents for the diffusion and socialization of norms. Assessing the very mixed empirical record of actually existing institutions can have important implications for our views of global justice. Thomas Nagel, for example, has developed a political conception of global justice. Drawing on Hobbesian traditions, he argues that justice arises amongst those jointly subject to coercive authority. His assessment of where international institutions and global governance are ‘for the moment’ is that they fail to meet a crucial test, namely, they are not collectively enacted and coercively imposed in the name of all the individuals whose lives they affect. Yet this view of justice places too much weight on the difference between coercive and non-coercive situations; and, more importantly, underplays the extent of the changes that have in fact taken place in the density of international institutions, in the extent to which they do in tact exercise power and can be said to be co-authored, and in the relationship of both states and individuals to those institutions.others who either deny the possibility of international distributive justice or see it only in highly constrained forms also place great emphasis on the absence or weakness of international institutions or other cooperative arrangements. Thus, society’s main political, social and economic institutions and how they fit into one unified system of social co-operation’ determine the basic structure and govern ‘the initial focus’ of how to think about the matters of justice. But the emphasis here should be on ‘initial’ since Rawls also recognizes the possibility of reinforcing change. When writing about the domestic society, there is a strong sense that the institutions play a central role in moving from self-interested cooperation towards full overlapping consensus. They have important socializing influences on the citizens and Rawls presents a psychological account of how people come to accept and internalize principles of justice. Equally- when looking at international life- change, evolution, and learning are self recognized. ‘The idea of a reasonably just society of well-ordered peoples will not have an important place in a theory of international politics until such peoples exist and have learned to coordinate their actions in wider forms of political, economic and social cooperation. A global moral community in which claims about justice can secure both authority and can be genuinely accessible to a broad swathe of humanity will be one that is built around some minimal notion of just process, that prioritizes institutions that embed procedural fairness, and that cultivates the shared political culture and the habits of argumentation and deliberation on which such institutions necessarily depend. As Judith Shklar puts it; ‘procedural justice is not merely a formal ritual, as is often charged. It is a system that in principle gives everyone some access to the agencies of rectification and, more significantly, the possibility of expressing a sense of injustice to some effect, at least occasionally. It is important here to avoid too sharp distinction between a consent-based view of international legal legitimacy and a justice based view. Procedural legitimacy is not simply about state consent. On the one hand, consent itself may be moderated and mediated by the complexities of legal process, even without disappearing entirely from the international legal order. On the other hand, there are other important values located within the processes of international law. This may be understood in terms of the old arguments about the ‘inner morality’ of law and the rule of law. Or it may involve principles of public law that can be employed to guide international and global law-making. Or, most generally, it may simply involve an insistence that the justification of a position or a case follows an articulated, discernible, and coherent pattern of legal argument that draws on analogies, precedents, and the principles that are compatible with already widely accepted values. Finally, law can be viewed as a sociologically embedded transnational cultural practice in which claims and counterclaims can be articulated and debated and from which norms can emerge that can have at least some determination and argumentative purchase. Law, then, can play a communicative and epistemic role, shaping the conditions within which claims, including justice claims can be made and debated. The modern day Grotian will be inclined to stress the ongoing, unstable and subtle interplay between the sources of law and legal process on the one hand and the content of the law and o legal rules on the other.
[II.] Political Agency:-
That we should on the institutions, on negotiation, and on dialogue and deliberation is hardly an original suggestion. Albeit with significant variation, many have been tempted to go down a broadly Habermasian road-stressing the extent to which the terms of a just global order cannot be based on coercion nor on whatever bargain states and societies happen to be able to strike with one another, but require instead critical reflexion, uncoerced agreement of rational agents via a shared process of deliberation and reasoned justification.there have also been important arguments in favour of creating global institutional frameworks which widen the boundaries of the dialogic community. Even after assuming the presence of the multiple voices, the location of a stable and shared moral vocabulary and some degree of institutional stability, one still needs to ask about the conditions of effective political agency. Within domestic society, Habermas is ambiguous as to how far the discourse principle requires changes merely in procedures of bargaining or changes to the underlying balance of bargaining power itself. But however, we might think about power within domestic society, the conditions of global society make it impossible to evade the issue of unequal bargaining power. The massive inequalities of power and condition; the continued occurrence of war and intervention and the continued willingness of major states to use military power as an instrument of state policy; the role of power in skewing the terms of the global capitalist economy and the close links that exist between globalization and inequality; and the deformity of many of the core institutions of international society-all these point towards the pressing need to consider the minimal political preconditions that might underpin a global moral community in which reasoned deliberation and uncoerced consensus could have begin to have been possible. Although political theorists are perhaps naturally tempted to argue from the ceiling down, the wholly different scale of inequalities that exist in the world politics should push us to think hard about the minimum preconditions for an acceptable international political process. At a minimum this might include: some acceptance of equality of status, respect, and consideration; some capacity for autonomous decision making on the basis of a reasonable information; a degree of uncoerced willingness to participate; a situation in which the most disadvantaged perceive themselves having some stake in the system; and some institutional processes by which the weak and disadvantaged are able to make their voice heard and to express claims about unjust treatment. Apart from concern with the suffering of the most disadvantaged, Rawls gives two very good reasons why we should be concerned with inequality: first, that a large gap between rich and poor ‘often leads to some citizens being stigmatized and treated as inferiors, and that is unjust’; and second, because of the ‘important role of fairness in the political processes of the basic structure of the society of peoples’. Yet, despite ample evidence that some peoples stigmatized and treated the inferiors and still more evidence of the massive unfairness of international political processes, Rawls draws only the feeblest of conclusions as to what needs to be changed globally in the interests of justice. We need to give far greater attention to the links between the political and moral cosmopolitan and to the possible principles of global political justice that might inform those links. A revalidation of process legitimacy and procedural justice is crucial for the development of a stable, effective, and legitimate international society and for the nurturing of meaningfully shared foundations for the discussion of global justice. In a very important sense, the ethical claims of international society rest on the contention that such a society continues to be the most stable set of globally institutionalized political processes by which norms and rules can be negotiated on the basis of dialogue and consent, rather than simply being imposed by the most powerful. There is very little reason for supposing that progress in the direction of moral accessibility, institutional stability, or more balanced and equitable forms of political agency is likely to be easy. It may not be possible at all. There are nevertheless good reasons for believing that it is a direction which continues to be of crucial importance. Understanding how the rope bridge may be spun across the canyon is central both to the chances of world order in the 21st century and to the promotion of greater global justice.
05. PROSECUTING THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMES:-
The threat of terrorism to international peace, security and development remains a pressing issue for the international community. The expansion of UN efforts on counter-terrorism has produced a unique tool, the UN global counter terrorism strategy adopted by the general assembly. The unanimous endorsement of this document marks an historic step, bringing together 192 member states to demonstrate their resolve and ability to defeat the scourge of terrorism. The strategy outlines a coordinated and comprehensive response to terrorism at national, regional and global levels, while ensuring the respect for human rights and the rule of law. It put forward a concrete plan of action to prevent and combat terrorism and to address grievances and underlying social, economic and political conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism. The strategy will have the greatest success if it is fully achieved. This goal can be achieved by strengthening the capacity of the member states and the UN system, and by seeking the involvement of the civil society and the private sector. The main responsibility for implementing the strategy falls on member states. Nevertheless, various secretariat departments, specialized agencies, and UN programmes and funds contribute to this important endeavor by assisting member states with their implementation efforts.
01. OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAWS IN GENERAL
02. TAKING THE STATE TO THE COURT
[A]. State Sovereignty
[B.] Changes And Continuity In The International System
[C.] The International Court of Justice (ICJ)
03. DEMOCRACY AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
[A.] The global order
[B.] On Peace-keeping attempts of the UN
[C.] THE RULE OF LAW
04. PURSUIT OF JUSTICE
[A.] Institutional Authority
[B.] Political Agency
05. PROSECUTING THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMES:-
06. CONCLUSION
01. OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAWS IN GENERAL:-
