Amy Maguire

Discourses in Transition: Re-Imagining Women's Security

This article employs data gathered in Lebanon, Northern Ireland and South Africa as part of a project entitled ‘Re-Imagining Womens Security and Participation in Post-Conflict Societies’. It refl ects on three different ‘imaginings’ of security–the state security discourse, the human security discourse and a gendered security approach–with the aim of showing that security discourses are currently undergoing a process of transition which parallels that taking place in post-conflict societies around the world. The article is particularly concerned to explore how a gendered security approach might empower women to re-imagine security in contextualised, bottom-up ways, and advocate social transformation within the broader processes of post-conflict transition. In order to consider womens demands for security policies and approaches in the twenty-fi rst century, the article explores the direct testimony of women in three post-conflict societies, with specifi c reference to three key areas of security central to womens re-imaginings of the concept.

Contemporary anti-colonial self-determination claims and the decolonisation of international law

The most prominent engagement of self-determination was in the decolonisation era, when the right facilitated the emergence to independence of formerly colonised ‘peoples’. The newly decolonised states met the ‘salt-water’ test of colonialism. Some contemporary commentators argue that self-determination’s mission of decolonisation is now complete. Self-determination is less frequently asserted today; however, contemporary ‘hard cases’ remain. Some of these cases involve peoples who can demonstrate a continuing colonial experience. For varying reasons, these claimants do not pass the ‘salt-water’ colonial test, and their claims have not adequately been addressed by the international community. Instead, claimant groups are abandoned to the political whims of their administering states. This article examines the significance of the colonial experience for two contemporary claimant peoples; Indigenous peoples in Australia and Irish nationalists in the North of Ireland. Data gathered through qualitative research interviews, and analysed according to a grounded theory approach, demonstrate that the self-determination claims of these peoples are stifled by the denial of their contemporary colonial experiences. The current failure of international law to consider these claims through a colonial lens is inhibitive of creative self-determination solutions in multi-ethnic states. Self-determination, as a universal human right, retains the potential to meet the needs of these contemporary, anti-colonial claimants. In this article, I demonstrate how international legal approaches to self-determination may be decolonised in order to facilitate the full and fair evaluation of contemporary anti-colonial claims.

Does the ‘No-Harm’ Rule Have a Role in Preventing Transboundary Harm and Harm to the Global Atmospheric Commons from Geoengineering?

Solar Radiation Management (SRM) geoengineering poses a significant risk of transboundary and global atmospheric harm. How might international law regulate the future use of SRM? We explore how the ‘no-harm rule’ from customary international law might contribute to the international governance of future attempts at SRM. The no-harm rule imposes a legal duty on states to prevent significant damage across borders and in the global commons. Existing geoengineering literature assumes that, as the international law system lacks a mandatory enforcement mechanism, the no-harm rule will play little or no role in the governance of SRM. We challenge this assumption by focusing on the possibilities of compliance with the no-harm rule through bolstering its legitimacy and sense of legal obligation. We explain how Brunnee and Toope’s theory of ‘interactional international law’ might provide a useful lens for developing the no-harm rule in this way to independently respond to the risks posed by SRM.

Australia, Asylum Seekers and Crimes Against Humanity?

On 21 October 2014, independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie wrote to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) to request the investigation and prosecution of the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his 19 cabinet ministers. Wilkie alleges that the Australian government has inflicted crimes against humanity upon asylum seekers and refugees. Specifically, Wilkie alleges violations of Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the ICC1 through acts including: • imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;• deportation and other forcible transfer of population; and• other international acts causing great suffering, or serious injury to body and mental and physical health.Wilkie also claims that the government is violating provisions of the Refugee Convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.This article evaluates the prospect of an ICC prosecution against Australia’s Prime Minister and Cabinet, and considers the meaning of Wilkie’s allegations in the context of international criminal law. We conclude that the ICC is unlikely to initiate the requested prosecution, but we acknowledge Wilkie’s initiative as a distinctive means of promoting public and international scrutiny of Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers.