The study focuses on how to establish prohibited airspace over conflict zones.This study endeavors to answer the following research questions:1) What are the conditions, including legal... Show moreThe study focuses on how to establish prohibited airspace over conflict zones.This study endeavors to answer the following research questions:1) What are the conditions, including legal requirements, for establishing prohibited airspace?2) Who has jurisdiction to establish prohibited airspace?3) How can the status quo be changed with respect to prohibited airspace to enhance aviation security?The establishment of prohibited airspace concerns on the one hand, the principle of air sovereignty, agreed by governments as recognized in Article 1 Chicago Convention, and on the other hand, the object of agreeing on this principle to “develop international civil aviation in a safe and orderly manner”.Threads running through the chapters are the themes of sovereignty, jurisdiction, and territory. Show less
This thesis explores a conception of the EU as a modified confederal system of sovereign member peoples and their states. A confederal conception which demonstrates how, contrary to popular belief... Show moreThis thesis explores a conception of the EU as a modified confederal system of sovereign member peoples and their states. A confederal conception which demonstrates how, contrary to popular belief, European integration does not conflict with sovereignty or democracy. For, properly conceived and constituted, the EU reasserts the sovereignty of the member peoples, and liberates national democracy from the confines of the state.To this end, this thesis reconnects the EU to two classic constructs of constitutional theory: confederalism and sovereignty. Two powerful but unfashionable constructs whose joint potential for European integration remains largely unexplored and undervalued. The primary instrument to explore this potential is comparative. The EU is contrasted with the rather unknown but rich example of the American Articles of Confederation, and their evolution into the now famous American federate system. A comparison with the confederal roots of the United States which is revealing for both confederalism and sovereignty, and illustrates the potential of linking both for a constructive constitutional theory of the EU. A theory which does not have to overcome history and the statal system it has created, but connects with it. A theory, therefore, that may help to recapture the EU and the increasing authority it wields, both in theory and in practise. The thesis is subdivided in three parts. Part I addresses confederalism. It demonstrates how the constitutional system of the EU combines a confederal foundation with a federate superstructure, and explores the particular strengths, weaknesses and limits of this modified confederal system. Part II discusses sovereignty. It first demonstrates how the EU forms a logical confederal evolution of popular sovereignty, and how European integration does not conflict with sovereignty. Subsequently, it shows how the concept of confederal sovereignty equally helps to dispel the presumed conflict between statism and pluralism, how it respects and conciliates national and EU claims to supremacy, and how it allows a confederal evolution of national democracy, which updates democracy to the global reality it is to control. Part III applies the findings of Part I and II to the EMU crisis and the challenge of establishing an effective democratic foundation for the EU at the national level. An application which demonstrates the concrete and attractive contributions a confederal approach can make to addressing some of the core challenges facing the EU. Show less
This theoretical study considers the interplay between the rights and responsibilities of (postcolonial) states in forming the underpinnings of public international law. It considers the ways... Show moreThis theoretical study considers the interplay between the rights and responsibilities of (postcolonial) states in forming the underpinnings of public international law. It considers the ways states administer their territory, in some cases after having inherited colonially defined boundaries. It then contrasts this with the general sense in international law that basic human rights standards, including the concept of ‘self-determination’, are to be upheld by states themselves. The thesis observes that international law has become developed to the extent that the concept of self-determination may, in some circumstances, be equated with that of self-defence, and in some circumstances, a 'people' can be formed as a direct response to specific, predatory actions of a state. The thesis concludes by observing that the ability of a state to administer itself in conformity with international human rights law is of equivalent importance to that of its legitimate claims of title to territory, and that territorial modifications may be legitimate legal possibilities in the face of, for example, massive human rights violations. Show less
