Peter van Schilfgaarde, book review of Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice

Arbitrage is een van de alternatieve wijzen van geschilbeslechting waarvoor contractspartijen kunnen kiezen. In dit artikel worden de arbitrageovereenkomst en de potentiële gebreken daarin aan de orde gesteld. Het blijkt in de praktijk maar al te vaak voor te komen dat onduidelijkheden in de arbitrageovereenkomst voor problemen zorgen op het moment dat er daadwerkelijk een geschil rijst tussen contractspartijen.

The upsurge in the use of economic sanctions in the post-Cold War era has prompted much scholarly and policy debate over their effectiveness and humanitarian consequences. Remarkably little attention, however, has been devoted to their criminalizing consequences and legacy for the post-sanctions period. In this article, the author develops an analytical framework identifying and categorizing the potential criminalizing effects of sanctions across place (within and around the targeted country) and time (during and after the sanctions period). This framework is applied and evaluated through an in-depth examination of the case of Yugoslavia. For comparative leverage and to assess the applicability of the argument beyond the Yugoslavia case, the analysis is briefly extended to Croatia. The article suggests that sanctions can unintentionally contribute to the criminalization of the state, economy, and civil society of both the targeted country and its immediate neighbors, fostering a symbiosis between political leaders, organized crime, and transnational smuggling networks. This symbiosis, in turn, can persist beyond the lifting of sanctions, contributing to corruption and crime and undermining the rule of law.

This article aims to explain where, when, how and why piratical activity has taken off in Nigeria and Somalia since the 1970s. The geographical and historical conditions of the continent are compared with those of the other main region of piratical activity in the world during recent decades, Southeast Asia. A critical evaluation is then made of the available information concerning the problem and the different possible, local and global, explanations for the recent surge in African piracy, including opportunity, inequality and the proliferation of small and light weapons. The widespread notion that contemporary piracy can be explained with reference to state failure is challenged, and the rise of organized piratical activity, particularly in the Niger Delta and off the Somali coast, is instead understood as a result of the interaction of local social and political dynamics with transnational and global influences.