scholarly journals Regulating computational propaganda: lessons from international law

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-240
Author(s):  
M R Leiser
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Limit States ◽  
Regulatory Oversight ◽  
General Data Protection Regulation ◽  
Mapping Tool

A historical analysis of the regulation of propaganda and obligations on States to prevent its dissemination reveals competing origins of the protection (and suppression) of free expression in international law. The conflict between the ‘marketplace of ideas’ approach favoured by Western democracies and the Soviet Union's proposed direct control of media outlets have indirectly contributed to both the fake-news crisis and engineered polarisation via computational propaganda. From the troubled League of Nations to the Friendly Relations Declaration of 1970, several international agreements and resolutions limit State use of propaganda to interfere with ‘malicious intent’ in the affairs of another. Yet State and non-State actors continually use a variety of methods to disseminate deceptive content sowing civil discord and damaging democracies in the process. In Europe, much of the discourse about the regulation of ‘fake news’ has revolved around the role of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and the role of platforms in preventing ‘online manipulation’. There is also a common perception that human rights frameworks limit States' ability to constrain political speech; however, using the principle of subsidiarity as a mapping tool, a regulatory anomaly is revealed. There is a significant lack of regulatory oversight of actors responsible for, and the flow of, computational propaganda that is disseminated as deceptive political advertising. The article examines whether there is a right to disseminate propaganda within our free expression rights and focuses on the harms associated with the engineered polarisation that is often the objective of a computational propaganda campaign. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of maintaining this status quo and some suggestions for plugging the regulatory holes identified.

International Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kleinlein
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This contribution reflects on the role of tradition-building in international law, the implications of the recent ‘turn to history’ and the ‘presentisms’ discernible in the history of international legal thought. It first analyses how international legal thought created its own tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These projects of establishing a tradition implied a considerable amount of what historians would reject as ‘presentism’. Remarkably, critical scholars of our day and age who unsettled celebratory histories of international law and unveiled ‘colonial origins’ of international law were also criticized for committing the ‘sin of anachronism’. This contribution therefore examines the basis of this critique and defends ‘presentism’ in international legal thought. However, the ‘paradox of instrumentalism’ remains: The ‘better’ historical analysis becomes, the more it loses its critical potential for current international law. At best, the turn to history activates a potential of disciplinary self-reflection.

‘Our passion for legality’: international law and imperialism in late nineteenth-century Britain

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
CASPER SYLVEST
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Congo Free State

AbstractThis article deploys a historical analysis of the relationship between law and imperialism to highlight questions about the character and role of international law in global politics. The involvement of two British international lawyers in practices of imperialism in Africa during the late nineteenth century is critically examined: the role of Travers Twiss (1809–1897) in the creation of the Congo Free State and John Westlake’s (1828–1913) support for the South African War. The analysis demonstrates the inescapably political character of international law and the dangers that follow from fusing a particular form of liberal moralism with notions of legal hierarchy. The historical cases raise ethico-political questions, the importance of which is only heightened by the character of contemporary world politics and the attention accorded to international law in recent years.

Spatial Effects in Risk-Based Design and Maintenance of Pipelines

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Maes ◽  
Michael Havbro Faber
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Correlation ◽  
Unit Length ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Spatial Extent ◽  
System Component ◽  
Continuous Systems ◽  
Spatial Effects ◽  
Limit States

Pipelines are to a large extent spatially continuous systems having a system-component relationship that is not as clearly articulated as for other structural systems. Reliability-based design methods for pipelines often provide conflicting views about the spatial extent of limit states, the effect of spatial correlation, the applicability of target risks and target reliabilities (for instance on a per unit length basis), the link with lifecycle cost methods, and risk acceptability in general. The present paper first reviews probabilistic design and assessment approaches for pipelines, ranging from partial factors and limit state design, to reliability based and consequence-based methods. Subsequently we identify the various types of limit states from the point of view of their spatial characteristics. The paper also reviews the possible approaches to target risks and target reliabilities in view of the different spatial extent of the limit states. The role of spatial correlation as it impacts on different kind of pipeline limit states and on the risk acceptance process is discussed. The role of inspection, repair and maintenance can easily be included in many of the reliability-based pipeline design and assessment approaches as the lifetime costs of mitigative actions are fairly well defined, together with the spatially distributed consequences of failure, but they do add some additional challenges to the spatial modeling of the system.

Editor's Note

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Kaliel
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Red River ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The Past ◽  
Relationship Of

The articles published in our Fall 2016 edition are connected loosely under the themes of public memory and the uses of identity in the past. We are thrilled to present to you three excellent articles in our Fall 2016 edition: The article "Dentro de la Revolución: Mobilizing the Artist in Alfredo Sosa Bravo's Libertad, Cultura, Igualdad (1961)" analyzes Cuban artwork as multi-layered work of propaganda whose conditions of creation, content, and exhibition reinforce a relationship of collaboration between artists and the state-run cultural institutions of post-revolutionary Cuba; moving through fifty years of history “’I Shall Never Forget’: The Civil War in American Historical Memory, 1863-1915" provides a captivating look at the role of reconciliationist and emancipationist intellectuals, politicians, and organizations as they contested and shaped the enduring memory of the Civil War; and finally, the article “Politics as Metis Ethnogenesis in Red River: Instrumental Ethnogenesis in the 1830s and 1840s in Red River” takes the reader through a historical analysis of the development of the Metis identity as a means to further their economic rights. We wholly hope you enjoy our Fall 2016 edition as much as our staff has enjoyed curating it. Editors  Jean Middleton and Emily Kaliel Assistant Editors Magie Aiken and Hannah Rudderham Senior Reviewers Emily Tran Connor Thompson Callum McDonald James Matiko Bronte Wells

The Origins of Human Rights in Global Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence O. Gostin ◽  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
The Right

This chapter introduces the foundational importance of human rights for global health, providing a theoretical basis for the edited volume by laying out the role of human rights under international law as a normative basis for public health. By addressing public health harms as human rights violations, international law has offered global standards by which to frame government responsibilities and evaluate health practices, providing legal accountability in global health policy. The authors trace the historical foundations for understanding the development of human rights and the role of human rights in protecting and promoting health since the end of World War II and the birth of the United Nations. Examining the development of human rights under international law, the authors introduce the right to health as an encompassing right to health care and underlying determinants of health, exploring this right alongside other “health-related human rights.”

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