When (Not) to Trade with Autocrats: Complicity, Exploitation, and Human Rights

Transnational trade is at the heart of the global economy. Trade relations often transcend both ideological divides and regime type. Trading with autocratic regimes, however, raises significant moral issues. In their recent book, On Trade Justice, Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner argue that trade with autocratic regimes is morally permissible only under a very limited set of circumstances. This article discusses the morally permissible trade policies that liberal democracies ought to adopt toward autocratic regimes. Liberal democracies trading with autocratic regimes have a special obligation to improve the human rights conditions in these regimes. This duty is partly based on their complicity in human rights violations and on the fact that the democracies benefit from these violations in their trading relationships. Their responsibility goes beyond the improvement of labor conditions and requires various strategies such as imposing trade sanctions and export controls, and making trade conditional on human rights performance.

Gender and Access to Land Ownership: Christian Reflection on the Experience of Malawian Widows

Most women in Malawi encounter gender-based discrimination and violence when attempting to access land rights. Although legally land is transferred from parents to children, culturally in practical terms, land is either controlled by a brother or an uncle, leaving female members of the family with no decision-making powers. Upon the death of the husband, the widow loses property jointly held with the husband, as well as her own marital property to either the brother of the husband, or to her own brothers and uncles. Regardless of the many years spent in building their life together while enjoying the land they lived on and cared for together, unfortunately, the death of her husband leaves the widow with nothing. Lack of civic education makes many widows remain ignorant of the fact that the Malawian law protects them, and their land claims. This ignorance contributes to the suffering and impoverishment of many widows and leads some to live in acute poverty. The church has a special obligation to protect the rights of widows. It has an obligation to help empower women to secure land and the right to land so that widows can contribute to the larger community. Using a narrative approach, this article will demonstrate the difficulties faced by Malawian widows in terms of land claims. Current practices of inheritance and the ways widows are dispossessed will be uplifted through widows’ own stories about their lived realities. The article will conclude by proffering constructive proposals about how the church can empower widows to find solutions to these very real problems

Archaeology, Participatory Democracy and Social Justice in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Memorial University, located in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, was created in 1925 to help build a better future for the people of Canada’s easternmost province, whose largely rural fishing communities were rapidly transforming through industrialization and urbanization. Mandated by a “special obligation to the people of the province,” university archaeologists embraced applied, community-based projects which encouraged local solutions to the social and economic issues arising from the transformation to modernity. Today, community archaeology remains integral to our research program and the majority of our research is undertaken in partnership with rural and Indigenous populations who continue to be marginalized both geographically and economically. Two case studies describe how archaeological resources are being used to promote economic and social justice, as well as reconciliation, and how archaeology has the potential to make valuable local contributions that change lives in the present.

The Value of Postgraduate Students Opinions in the Quality Management of Academic E-Learning

The quality of online education is of interest to universities around the world. Only high quality and cyclical evaluation are the conditions for obtaining students’ satisfaction with this form of education. In the pandemic era, digital dissemination and open education have become a special obligation of academic education. This paper aims to present the opinions of postgraduate students on the quality of e-learning forced by the Covid-19 pandemic. The study was conducted using an online survey questionnaire sent to all 173 MBA and Executive MBA (EMBA) students studying during the pandemic era in Poland's leading Business School, 40% of whom returned completed valid surveys. Students assessed aspects of e-learning such as teaching materials, communication with lecturers, the attractiveness of online classes, networking, strategies, and criteria for evaluating didactic activities, e-learning platform, and support received from the university. The results showed that although most examined aspects are perceived very well or well by the students, there is always some space for improvement. Despite the fact that the study was conducted on a small sample of students, their opinions obtained during the survey provide valuable information to universities about the quality of postgraduate e-learning from its main actors, that is, students. Based on this, the paper presents clear recommendations to universities on how the quality of online education could be managed and improved.

Half-Remembering and Half-Forgetting? On Turning the Past of Old Norse Studies into a Future of Old Norse Studies

Many Humanities scholars seem to have become increasingly pessimistic due to a lack of success in their efforts to be recognized as a serious player next to their science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) colleagues. This appears to be the result of a profound uncertainty in the self-perception of individual disciplines within the Humanities regarding their role both in academia and society. This ambiguity, not least, has its roots in their own history, which often appears as an interwoven texture of conflicting opinions. Taking a stance on the current and future role of the Humanities in general, and individual disciplines in particular thus asks for increased engagement with their own past, i.e., histories of scholarship, which are contingent on societal and political contexts. This article’s focus is on a case study from the field of Old Norse Studies. In the face of the rise of populism and nationalism in our days, Old Norse Studies, with their focus on a ‘Germanic’ past, have a special obligation to address societal challenges. The article argues for the public engagement with the histories of individual disciplines to strengthen scholarly credibility in the face of public opinion and to overcome trenches which hamper attempts at uniting Humanities experts and regaining distinct social relevance.

The Idea of Israel as a Jewish State

Israel is often described as a Jewish state and as the locus of Jewish self-determination. How should these phrases be understood? How can they be squared with a commitment to equal citizenship for non-Jewish Israelis? This Article distinguishes between descriptive and normative answers to these questions. The descriptive answer interprets the phrases as referring to the fact that a majority of Israelis are Jewish. The normative answer reads into the phrases a special obligation to promote the common good of the Jewish people. The Article argues that the phrases are unobjectionable when taken in the descriptive sense, but problematic when understood in the normative sense. A state that is guided by the normative answer would offer inadequate protection to key interests of minorities. The critique of the normative answer also points to the more positive conclusion that Israel should foster an Israeli civic identity amongst all its citizens.

The Role of the Public Broadcaster in Informing Montenegrin Citizens about European Integration with Special Emphasis on Chapter 27

As a media outlet established, funded and controlled by the public, the public broadcaster has a special obligation in regard to informing the people about topics of public interest in accordance with professional reporting standards. European integration represents one of these topics. bearing in mind the fact that Montenegro started its journey towards the European Union in 2008. So far, 32 chapters have been opened, excluding Chapter 8 which is related to competition. In recent years, public opinion polls have shown a decline in the number of Montenegrin citizens who support Montenegro’s accession to the EU. This result can be explained by the impact of Brexit and the pessimistic estimates of experts that the European Union is going to fall apart in the near future. It is clear that the media – above all the public broadcaster – plays an important role in the process of informing the public on the accession process and shaping public opinion. Therefore, this work shall be dedicated to an analysis of the public broadcaster’s reporting on Chapter 27 which is related to the environment and climate change. This chapter was chosen precisely because Montenegro defi nes itself as an ecological state.

Excellence Is by No Means Enough

This essay asks the question “What would it mean to be a just university?” and answers to that the question may be understood in two ways. One way to understand “just” is procedural, having to do with internal governance and ensuring that a university’s policies are themselves just. The other is substantive, having to do with the university’s purpose or reason for existing. The second assumes the university is to serve some function necessary for the general good. This good is often defined in material terms: fostering a stronger economy, medical breakthroughs, more efficient use of natural resources, and so on. But such a view of the university defines its value entirely by factors external to itself. Proponents of one definition of the university’s purpose typically acknowledge some validity in the other, and universities commonly strive to fulfill the claims of both definitions. But universities also have an obligation to teach the young and to do so within the context of a common set of values that both determines the setting in which teaching takes place and encourages students to develop values that will shape their own lives. Katz argues in particular that intellectuals have a special obligation to work cooperatively to eliminate intellectual obstacles that stand in the way of commensuration, communication, and comprehension globally. It is this responsibility that he calls “intellectual philanthropy.”

THE AGE OF MARRIAGE AND AGE OF CONSENT: CROSS-BRUNCH LEGAL CONFLICTS

Currently, all over the world, including in Muslim countries, there is a tendency to increase the age of marriage. In Russia, the law does not directly set the minimum age of marriage. The reduction of the age of marriage is possible up to 16 years if there are valid reasons for it. The family laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation may establish the conditions and procedure for marriage of persons under this age. A literal interpretation of laws indicates the absence of lower age limit at marriage. The article deals with the correlation of the concepts of "marriage age" and "age of consent". Analysis of the Art. 134 of the Criminal Code allows to conclude that the provision on marriage to the victim, as a basis for exemption from punishment, contradicts the basic conditions of marriage. In fact, when making a decision, the courts cannot reliably determine for what purpose the marriage was concluded, whether there are grounds to consider the marriage fictitious, concluded for the avoidance of criminal punishment or for another selfish purpose. In criminal cases, it should be mandatory to ensure the participation of the staff of the guardianship authority in the criminal process, giving them the right to conduct inspections and to give conclusions about the real desire of the couple to create a family. It seems controversial to apply the rule of exemption from punishment due to change of the situation to the perpetrator who committed the crime under Art. 134 of the Criminal Code. The act itself does not cease to be socially dangerous: sexual relations with a person under the age of consent are still ongoing, and marriage does not entail a legal right to sexual relations with a minor under the age of 16, at least not expressly provided for by law. It is proposed to define a special obligation for the release of the guilty from punishment: if a marriage concluded with a person under the age of 16 years is terminated at the initiative of a probationer earlier than four years after his imprisonment, the court may decide to abolish the conditional sentence and the execution of the sentence imposed by the court.

What Is Global Studies?

This chapter provides an overview of the emerging field of global studies by introducing readers to its growing institutional significance in global higher education. Drawing on influential arguments of major thinkers in global studies to their own framework, the chapter discuss the “four pillars of global studies”: globalization, transdisciplinarity, space and time, and critical thinking. Having presented the new field’s conceptual and thematic framework, this chapter closes by considering its capacity for self-criticism. After all, the critical thinking framing of global studies creates a special obligation for all scholars working in the field to listen to and take seriously internal and external criticisms with the intention of correcting existing shortcomings, illuminating blind spots, and avoiding theoretical pitfalls and dead ends.