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Das zwischenstaatliche Gewaltverbot steht im Zentrum der völkerrechtlichen Aufmerksamkeit. Auf bewaffnete Konflikte auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent trifft dies nur begrenzt zu. An dieses Defizit knüpft die Autorin ab der Zeitwende 1989/90 an. Dabei überschreitet sie die traditionellen Grenzen des Gewaltverbots und analysiert, inwieweit dies, v. a. durch die Fortentwicklung der Menschenrechtslehre, eine inhaltliche Änderungen erfahren hat, die auch die militärische Anwendung von Gewalt im Innern eines Staates ächtet (ius contra bellum internum). Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt sind Interventionen durch Regionalorganisation. Hierbei wird untersucht, ob multilaterale Interventionen schon dann gewohnheitsrechtliche Akzeptanz erfahren, wenn sie entweder formell oder materiell rechtmäßig sind. Zumindest solche, die durch den UN-Sicherheitsrat autorisiert sind, können diese sog. Baugenehmigungsthese für sich in Anspruch nehmen. Doch auch ohne UN-Mandat vermögen humanitäre Interventionen regionaler Organisationen in engen Grenzen völkerrechtmäßig sein.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the passage regime of the Turkish Straits against the background of the evolution of international law, and to discuss the problems of the passage of warships through them in light of the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014. With that objective in mind, the thesis reconsiders the history of the straits regime.
The Turkish Straits are regulated by the Montreux Convention of 1936 which contains restrictive and complex provisions regarding the passage of warships. The Straits took their place as “the Straits question” for centuries and today their importance is enhanced by their geostrategic location in the international arena. They have gained greater significance especially since the resolution of Soviet Russia in 1991, as they have become one of the most important and busiest energy corridors of the world. Due to the increase in the transportation of oil, natural gas and other products from the Caspian region through the Straits, the dense traffic and the regulation of the traffic in the Straits has become a key issue between Turkey and user states. Furthermore, the implementation of restrictive provisions for warships caused many debates during the Second World War, the impact of the restrictive provisions of the Convention on the South Ossetia War in August 2008, and the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 attracted additional international attention. The Straits took their place on the global agenda of the great powers, especially those of NATO, the United States (US) and Russia. These events have resulted in ongoing and intensive discussions over the revision of the Convention.
Although no legal amendment or modification demand to the Montreux Convention has yet arisen, the new order and geopolitical interests in the Black Sea region show that the Montreux passage regime will continue to be debated by the world’s powers under any given political circumstances. For the time being, however, there will be no alternative route with a view at an adaptation to contemporary needs but methods of treaty modification below the threshold of formal revision as, most importantly, the integration of subsequent practice and subsequent agreement into treaty interpretation.
A sound and well-functioning legal system will encourage growth in investment and create opportunities for investors. Trademarks as part of intellectual property play an important role in the future development of a country. A mark or symbol is needed in order to give products and services identity and to distinguish them and their qualities from identical or similar products and services of a competitor.
This research studies, examines and analyses the degree, nature and function of trademark protection within the legal system of Afghanistan and compare them with the Paris, Madrid and TRIPs agreements. It has been divided into four chapters: Chapter one provides general information and an overview of the current legal system of Afghanistan. Chapter two studies and analyses international agreements pertaining to the legal protection of trademark. It also critically assesses the ATML compatibility with these agreements: and answers the research question of to what extent the ATML provisions are compatible with them. Chapter three provides information on the different purposes of trademarks from a development perspective and compares the purposes provided by the ATML. Finally, chapter four assesses and examines the acquisition, assignment and termination of trademarks. The conclusions and findings of the thesis are the final section of this research.
Afghanistan, as a transitioning economy, has not developed a solid legal and practical foundation for providing comprehensive protection mechanisms for trademarks as have been articulated in developed countries and international agreements. Accordingly, the Afghan government has not entirely integrated these needs into its legal system and there are some inconsistencies of the ATML with these agreements.
One more challenge is the lack of appropriate legal institutions for issuing, managing, administering and protecting of trademarks. The establishment of a well-functioning administrative institution will serve to fulfil the objectives of the laws. Therefore, the CBR office holds the administrative responsibility for processing the registration of trademarks.
However, the methods and facilities of the CBR office remain outdated, and the office does not have the capacity to provide applicants with up-to-date administrative and technical facilities.
Therefore, legal protection of trademark in Afghanistan is linked not only to the existence of a well functioning of laws, regulations, clear procedures, mechanism and guidelines but also to an efficient and well-functioning administrative office.
The purpose of this thesis is to achieve two highly interconnected yet distinct tasks. On the one hand, the thesis explains how foreign investment insurance works by focusing on the law governing the relationships between involved actors. On the other hand, it provides a critique of the operation of foreign investment insurance as an investment protection instrument by mainly drawing on critical studies of the investment protection regime.
The main question this thesis attempts to answer is how foreign investment insurance works. I construe foreign investment insurance as a typical insurance product and focus on the operation of insurance arrangements from a legal perspective. Ideas about how insurance should be deployed in any given social, political or economic context are instrumental in the development of insurers, insurance products and insurance techniques. The thesis examines investment insurers, the products they offer and their techniques to identify and deal with so-called political risks.
Another important question concerns the notion of political risk. What are considered political risks in the context of investment insurance and how are they conceptualized by investment insurance providers? Investment insurers have largely adopted a business-oriented political risk definition which denotes governmental intervention in foreign investment as political risk without regard to the objectives of government actions. Descriptive studies explain political risk by replicating investment insurers’ categorization of basic coverages that include expropriation, currency inconvertibility and remittance transfer restrictions, political violence and breach of contract. Yet recent studies have increasingly provided in-depth analyses on the notion of political risk as well as on the specific categories of political risk, particularly expropriation. The thesis draws on these studies to critically discuss the concept of political risk as it is used by investment insurance providers.
I focus on foreign investment insurance provided by OPIC and MIGA due to their mandate to promote economic development in the capital-importing countries and for their historical role as the major providers of investment insurance. While focus is on MIGA and OPIC, the thesis offers a general account of the operation of foreign investment insurance by incorporating the available information on investment insurance industry and the international governance of investment insurance. The central issues explored in this thesis such as the principle of subrogation and the notion of political risk help me generalize the study as these issues are characterized similarly with respect to each public investment insurance provider.
The case studies and most examples in this thesis are based on expropriation risk insurance.
This research attempts to provide for an overview of the state of co-operation between the United Nations and regional organizations like the CoE, OSCE, EU and NATO during the last Yugoslav wars, considering the 1991-2008 period. In this case, the "reconstruction" of what the organisations did in each of the countries involved in the conflicts, the country-by-country approach used in writing the research and the consideration of both headquarters and field level should facilitate the understanding of the state of things at that time. The research further includes an analysis of the co-operative trends developed by the considered international organisations since the beginning of the 1990s and is concluded by a reflection on the normative relevance of the issue of "international cooperation". In this case, the intention of the author was to go beyond the general policy level approach used for the description of UN-regional organizations interaction and propose a re-consideration of the concept of "international co-operation" as a possible normative tool in guiding the so far nebulous division of tasks of international actors in conflict-related scenarios. In this case, the concise description of the general framework for co-operation under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, already matter of wide debate by academics and practitioners, sets the frame for a more elaborate, and hopefully innovative, consideration of the notion of "international cooperation". This, of course, is to be contextualized to the lessons learned extrapolated from the case study.