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Learning from Global South Approaches to Tackle Refugee Crises - Assessing the Impact of Latin American Refugee Norms and Practices on the Global Compact on Refugees by Hannah Kroker
Full text linkWith wars and civil unrest brewing in all corners of the world, many states are struggling with an increased influx of refugees. However, by being a refugee-producing as well as -accepting region, Latin America has developed a unique approach towards forced migration over the past decades, characterised by solidarity between states and with refugees. This paper argues that this put the region into a favourable position to influence the UN negotiations on the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) between 2016 and 2018. Since valuable contributions to solve global problems by the Global South often remain underestimated or disregarded, the article highlights the extent to which Latin America’s participation, written statements, and regional conference papers may have impacted the creation of the GCR. It is explored how the Global Compact’s emphasis on solidarity and the linking of concepts like development and integration were likely shaped by the region’s inputs – potentially contributing to positive changes for the human rights of refugees
Book review: Artificial Intelligence, Co-Creation and Creativity: The New Frontier for Innovation
Full text linkA Comparative Analysis of the Prosecutorial Strategies Employed by the United States of America and Germany in the Prosecution of IS-Affiliated Women on Terrorism-Related Charges
Full text linkThis article aims to elucidate the similarities and differences between the prosecutorial strategies employed by the United States of America and Germany in the prosecution of IS-affiliated women on terrorism-related charges. By using comparative and doctrinal legal research methods, this article reviews and dissects the criminal proceedings against seven American and seven German IS-affiliated women prosecuted on terrorism-related charges. The article first highlights the fluctuating role of IS-affiliated women, thereby exhibiting the broad spectrum of female engagement in ISIS, ranging from passive participants to active facilitators of violence. Following this, the article presents the international obligations stemming from terrorism-centred UNSC Resolutions and their subsequent transposition into domestic law, forming §2339A and §2339B of the United States Code and §129a and §129b of the German Criminal Code. Finally, the article compares the prosecutorial strategies employed by the two States on the following four grounds: (1) types of evidence, (2) charges, (3) mitigating and aggravating factors, and (4) sentencing. Ultimately, a juxtaposition of the prosecutorial strategies employed by the United States of America and Germany in the prosecution of IS-affiliated women on terrorism-related charges identifies contrasting, albeit at times similar, approaches to prosecution primarily as a result of the time at which initiation of criminal proceedings ensues
Psychological Explanations for Surveillance Technologies in Crime Prevention
Full text linkThe growth of surveillance technology in relation to crime prevention raises questions about the effectiveness of such tools in altering behavior. This essay provides an examination of surveillance technology through psychological theories and propose that ideas such as social-identity theory and shame culture help to explain where surveillance technology may succeed or fail to prevent crime
Resisting Surveillance: Can Abolitionist Self-Care Truly Provide Liberation from the Male Gaze Within Oppressive Structures?
Full text linkThis paper explores the pervasive nature of the male gaze within patriarchal structures, claiming that women and other marginalised groups are subject to constant surveillance. This leads to the internalisation of the male gaze, which effectively creates women to become their own witnesses in response to societal expectations. By building on Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, the paper applies this theory to social dynamics beyond the original cinematic context. It applies theories of alienation to argue that the male gaze functions as a form of estrangement for those living within systematised oppression. The paper examines how different intersectional identities-such as women of colour and queer individuals- experience its effects in distinct ways. These experiences diverge significantly from those of cisgender, heterosexual women, highlighting the complex intersections of identity within patriarchal systems. The paper makes a clear point that defiance does not erase the gaze but affirms its power as something that must be resisted. Once you become aware of its presence, it cannot simply be forgotten. The author concludes the paper in an optimistic tone, suggesting that abolitionist self-care practices can provide individuals with radical tools to dismantle oppressive structures. Abolitionist self care in isolation finds it difficult to challenge the male gaze, however, activist spaces offers a beacon of hope as means for women to resist the male gaze through mutual recognition and meaningful, interpersonal relationships
To Witness Submission in Human Conditions: A Gendered Redefining of Levinas’ Responsibility in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight.
Full text linkEmmanuel Levinas presents the human condition as fundamentally shaped by responsibility (Morgan 114). In this, we are born with a “debt contracted before any freedom and […] consciousness,” paid off in an endless passivity to the needs of those around us (Morgan 125–29). While he frames this as a universal philosophy, extending beyond social structures and institutions towards an abstract ‘meaning’ (Morgan, 130), he articulates submission using gendered language:—‘Eros, the feminine, modesty, the caress’ (Morgan 125). This has since been the target of gendered critiques by feminist philosophers such as Irigaray, who maintains that “Levinas considers sexual difference as secondary to ethics, [establishing] paternity as the paradigm of self-transcendence” (Vasseleu 110). Thus, the seemingly “universal” state of Levinas’ ethics highlights an important overgeneralization: submission is more readily described as feminine because it disproportionately applies to women’s experiences compared with men. Under these sexual assumptions, I wish to defend the notion that Levinas’ philosophical framework unknowingly functions on the “effacement of the feminine” before the establishment of social and ethical relations (Vasseleu 111).
Accordingly, this essay argues that ‘Levinasian’ responsibility is not an entirely universal human condition but rather a distinctly feminine way of being. To demonstrate this, I examine Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight, where the female protagonists are so deeply constrained to ‘passive’ responsibility that they come to see themselves as sexual and social objects. This self-objectification then mutates in various ways—through imagined futures, ‘dark’ female counterparts, and a painfully embedded subordination, they become reduced to spectators of their own lived experiences. Reframing Levinasian responsibility as extreme feminine passivity, I contend that these women are burdened with the role of observer in order to live ‘meaningfully’. Consequently, the ‘feminine’ drive toward death in these texts is not simply suicidal, but a rejection of the masculine demands that dictate a woman’s world
Back To Quo Warranto: Practical Difficulties In Achieving Justice Within And Against Distributed Autonomous Organizations As An Impediment To Legal Personality In Them Being Plausible
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The Women as witness to desire: Power lines and structures in Lanval by Marie de France.: Exploring the structural importance of women in narratives of the Medieval court as expressed in Marie de France’s Lanval
No full textThis article interrogates the role of women in Marie de France’s Lanval by examining how female figures function as symbolic witnesses and repositories of desire within the feudal court. Drawing on theoretical frameworks advanced by Julia Kristeva, the study argues that medieval literature constructs women as the Other, whose absence of personhood provides a space for the projection of male desire, lending itself to the pursuit of honour and spiritual ascendance. Through a detailed analysis of the dual portrayals of the fairy queen and the feudal queen, the article demonstrates how these figures, though superficially subversive, ultimately reinforce the gendered hierarchies of courtly love. The narrative techniques employed in Lanval—from lexical choices and character juxtapositions to the symbolic settings of the forest and court—reveal a deep reliance on the female form to validate the male quest for refinement and societal worth. By contrasting the two characters, the article underscores how women are reduced to ‘objects of exchange’, serving primarily to witness and substantiate male progress (Kristeva, 1981, p. 50). In doing so, it highlights the inherent tension between the subversive potential of Lanval and its structural adherence to patriarchal values, offering insight into the complex interplay of desire, power, and gender in medieval narratives.