From a globalization and glocalization lens, this article has examined two interdependent communication traditions (socio-cultural and rhetorical), outlined by Robert Craig in his magnum opus ‘Communication theory as a field’ published in Communication Theory in 1999; and how African thought and, to an extent, emotion can be repositioned through the local and international legal system, more specifically in the popular Bhe Case in South Africa. African thought can effectively and efficiently be explained through a theoretical binocular of what Molefi Asante has aptly called ‘Afrocentricity.’ The African thought on which this article is anchored is what Karenga also called ‘Maat,’ which means ‘rightness in the spiritual and the moral sense in three realms: the divine, the natural and the social.’ We conclude that yoking globalization influences on the socio-cultural and rhetorical traditions of the African and Black people can create uncomfortable bedmates.

This paper is in part inspired by the comments of the participants in the WAAS February 2012 electronic seminar on individuality. In the paper prepared for that seminar, I suggested the possibility that there may be an aspect of aesthetics that is vested with fundamental human rights
importance. I was challenged to develop this idea, and this paper is an initiation of this discourse, which I suspect will be continued. The paper introduces the reader to provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The articles in these instruments stress more generally the basic
importance of cultural life as well as of the arts and sciences. The texts do not mention
aesthetics. This is the challenge that we explore.
The paper starts with an effort to better understand the process of aesthetic experience. It provides a threshold clarification of two important views about the nature of artistic creativity itself. One view focuses almost exclusively on the individual, and it seeks to suggest that the value and meaning of art is to be found in the isolation of the artist. An alternative view suggests that art only captures meaning in the context of social life and therefore it can only be meaningfully understood contextually. The paper explores these themes in terms of a suggested dynamism between individuated subjectivity of the artist and the context within which art is created and communicated. It suggests that the outlines of modern communications theory
provide us with a method of better understanding the inter-determination of personality and culture in the process of creating art of aesthetic value. The paper then looks at aesthetics as a social process involving artists, aesthetic interpretation, and community. In this context, an effort
is made to develop the boundaries of aesthetics by examining the work of an Oxford Don, Walter Pater, who was a famous aesthete and who died in the late 19th century. Pater’s view of creativity anticipates the Freudian tradition insights into creativity and the role of the
unconscious and conscious ego inter-determined behavior. The paper then illustrates one of the complexities of the interpreter having the skills of artistic creativity, using the Mona Lisa and the
interpretation by Pater of that painting, which represents almost a distinct work of art. The paper goes on to examine philosophical insights into aesthetics as a way of patching aesthetic insights into philosophical understanding. The paper then provides representative illustrations of
conventional art and high art film, and how these forms of expression are loaded with value implications relevant to an aesthetic value implicated in human rights. The last part of the paper examines the development of human rights law and the protection of art and aesthetic values. It
draws attention in particular to the work of UNESCO in seeking to clarify the human rights aspects of culture in terms of areas such as the intangible cultural heritage, the protection of living human treasures, and the recognition that participation and enjoyment in culture should not be confined to elites but to broadest level of democratic participation. And finally, UNESCO’s development of the Masterpieces Project is another step in the direction of the protection of aesthetic values. The paper then explores the way in which cultural rights are protected by the Committee, seeking to give importance to Article 27 of the ICCPR. The paper examines the classifications of culture and suggests that aesthetics as a human right be focused
on classical highbrow, elitist art. The paper explores the development of these ideas in the context of the Committee on CESCR and UNESCO. It also references a number of other international agencies implicated in these developments. The last part of the paper examines human rights values in the context of the art/aesthetic process. In this part of the paper, we show that human rights aspects of aesthetics are implicated in one way or another in all the basic
values behind the human rights principles in international law.

Our article emphasizes the essential role of the individual as a transformative agent in society and the demand by individuals as essential to the development of human rights. The article contends that human rights emerge out of struggle in social process at all levels. That struggle is the struggle for the recognition of basic rights and essential dignity. In this regard, the paper also provides an insight into the foundation of values behind the idea of rights in human rights. In this regard, it also explores the importance of aesthetics as a human rights value. Additionally, the paper makes the essential linkage between rights and opportunities, and insists that values require processes to secure the satisfaction of human wants and needs. Reference is made to Dworkin’s emphasis on the right of every individual to make his life a successful experience rather than a wasted opportunity (ethical principle) and conceding the same right to others (moral principle) provides a powerful and compelling rationale for enhancing human rights value demands universally

This entry begins with a short background to the problem of terrorism in the postwar era. Probably the most sustained use of terrorism emerged from the independence struggle against French colonialism in Algeria, in which the anti-colonial forces were sufficiently weak not to risk direct confrontation. Their strategy was, therefore, to use terrorist methods against the vastly superior colonial enemy. Terrorism was promoted as a necessary form of struggle for national liberation. It was the weapon of the weak. It is unclear whether the price paid to secure Algerian independence was so high and institutionalization of violence within the culture so deep that, even during independence, the Algerians have experienced the violence of sporadic terrorism and excessive
responses from the authorities to these challenges. Nevertheless, the ostensible message of the Algerian war of national liberation served as a model for other struggles against colonial rule or foreign occupation. Essentially, the struggle was strategically directed by terrorism and, since the Algerians succeeded in discarding colonial rule, terrorism, the weapon of the weak, seemed to be legitimated. 

This article begins with an appraisal of a report published by the United States Institute for Peace, titled “Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,” which is coauthored by the former Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, William S. Cohen. This report generated a great deal of interest and reaction from scholars across the globe. The article will introduce the broad outline of this report and will provide a summary of the principal criticisms that it has generated. This would set the stage for approaching the problem that is sensitive to the issue of exploring this phenomenon with a new view and the goal of developing usable insights and data, as well as methods and guidelines, that may be of value to policy makers responsible for acting in response to the problems of genocide and mass atrocity, and to society as well. The article then explores the problem with a specific emphasis on a better understanding of anti-Semitism, genocide, mass atrocity and the unique elements of the Holocaust. It reviews anti-Semitism from a multi-disciplinary perspective by focusing on the influence of American anti-Semitism on the German Nazis, on exploring the endurance of anti-Semitism in Germany via its intellectual and scholastic elite, and on exploring the political psychology of Hitlerism prior to the Second World War. The article then explores the problem that although anti-Semitism may be a necessary condition of genocide, it is not a sufficient one. This required the understanding of the jump from anti-Semitism, that is repressive and dominating, to the decision to exterminate a population of human beings completely. This also required a more carefully exploration of the specific features of the Nazi decision process as well as its framework of social control. With this background, the article focuses on developing the theoretical and methodological intellectual skills that have been developed in the context of the policy sciences in order to provide an approach to the challenges generated by the problems of mass murder and genocide, which would guide policy makers to more realistic, timely, and effective interventions. The article then explores distinctive but interrelated intellectual tasks that are required for research to guide inquiry and policy making and which include a disciplined commitment to the clarification of the value goals implicated by the problems of mass murder and genocide. These intellectual tasks require a careful specification of the trends in past decisions that have sought, in some measure of efficacy, to respond to these problems. They would also require an understanding of the scientific conditions that have shaped the nature of these trends in order to be able to forecast about the prospect of genocide and mass murder, which could be understood as a tentative forecast of an optimistic and a pessimistic nature, and the possibility of constraining it. Finally, theory requires an element of creativity. That creativity would be expressed in terms of the provided interaction between human rights values and the art/aesthetic process, which is suggested as a tool for realizing the never again goal. The creative aspect of this would be the invention of strategies that might direct intervention of a trend in the direction of a more optimistic possible future.

The issue of Palestinian statehood should be seen in terms of other developments in the Middle East. One of the most important developments in the context of the Middle East are the events that have been characterized as the “Arab Spring.” The Arab Spring was an assertion of unilateral initiative for popular democratic change on the part of the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and most recently, Syria. The Arab Spring has, on the whole, received the support of the United States, in where policy makers have supported the unilateral peaceful demands of the peoples in these states. However, although these people assert their universal rights to human dignity, the Palestinian people have been denied by the international community these same universal rights. In this sense, if Palestinian statehood is packaged as essentially an aspect of the Arab Spring, the timing of the unilateral assertion of these claims would seem to be appropriate.

Conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis may be traced back prior to the events of the Second World War (“WWII”). On the one side, the people of Israel succeeded in creating a de facto and de jure nation state flowing from the United Nations General Assembly (“UNGA”) Resolution (Decision) directing a partition of the territories between Israelis and Palestinians. However, the territory that now comprises both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories was vested, in the aftermath of the defeat of the Turkish Empire in World War I, with a unique international legal status created and administered by a new international organization, The League of Nations (“the League”).

This article begins with an appraisal of a report published by the United States Institute for Peace and authored by the former Secretary of State, Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, Cohen. This Report generated a great deal of interest and reaction from scholars across the globe. The article will introduce the broad outline of this Report and provide a summary of the principal criticisms that it has generated. This sets the stage for approaching the problem that is sensitive to the issue that this phenomenon be explore with a view to developing usable insights and data as well as methods and guidelines that may be of value to policy makers who have responsibility for acting in response to the problems of genocide and mass atrocity. The article then explores the problem with the specific emphasis on a better understanding of the Holocaust. It reviews anti-Semitism from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It focuses on the influence of American anti-Semitism on the German Nazis, it explores the endurance of anti-Semitism in Germany via its intellectual and scholastic elite, and it explores the political psychology of Hitlerism prior to the Second World War. The article then explores the problem that anti-Semitism may be a necessary condition of genocide but it is not sufficient. This requires us to understand the jump from anti-Semitism that is repressive and dominating to the decision to exterminate a population of human beings completely. This requires us to more carefully explore specific features of the Nazi decision process as well as its framework of social control. The Article then seeks to underline the unique aspects of the Holocaust, it also identifies the specific lessons which make the Holocaust uniquely distinctive, and it explores the intellectual and policy challenges generated by this experience. Among the issues which have driven Holocaust-like outcomes is the way in which emotion shapes human political behavior in both benign and lethal ways. It explores the tradition of political psychology and its relationship to character and social structure. It also explores the important revelations that quantum physics provides for understanding the influence of emotion and consciousness on the behavior of subatomic particles. From this perspective the article develops a theory that contextualizes the social processes of emotion in terms of social processes of positive and negative sentiment. These are factors that influence the possibility of destructive behaviors or constructive social outcomes. The article then shifts the focus to recurrent genocide and uses the tragedy in the former Yugoslavia as a contemporary case study. With this background the article focuses on developing the theoretical and methodological intellectual skills that have been developed in the context of the policy sciences to provide an approach to the challenges generated by the problems of mass murder and genocide which will guide a policy maker to more realistic, timely, and effective interventions. The article then explores five distinctive but interrelated intellectual tasks required of research to guide inquiry and policy making. These intellectual tasks include a disciplined commitment to the clarification of the value goals implicated by the problems of mass murder and genocide; it focus as well on the intellectual task which requires a careful specification of the trends in past decision that have sought in some measure of efficacy to respond to these problems; it focuses of the third intellectual task which is to understand the scientific conditions that have shaped the nature of the trends; it then focuses on the fourth intellectual task which is the task of forecasting the prospect of mass murder and genocide and the possibility of constraining it. Finally theory requires an element of creativity. That would be expressed in terms of the forecast about the prospect of genocide and mass murder which could be understood as a tentative forecast of an optimistic and a pessimistic nature. The creative aspect of this would be the invention off strategies that might direct intervention of a trend in the direction of the optimistic possible future.

The recognition of Palestinian statehood has now become an important issue in the evolution of the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people. The issue has been made more interesting by decisions of the Canadian Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In particular, this Article refers to the judgment of the ICJ concerning the Unilateral Declaration of Independence of Kosovo. This judgment adds insights to the prospect of a Palestinian claim to statehood and independence from an international law perspective. More generally, 2010 culminated in the widespread perception that Israel’s leaders seek to maintain the status quo indefinitely, leaving Palestinians as an occupied people, which ostensibly secures Israeli interests. If true, such a position is contrary to Israel’s international legal obligations and places Palestinian aspirations at heightened risk. As the Palestinians’ representatives began seeking support for international recognition for the state of Palestine, Israel reached out to other countries-most significantly, the United States-to block such a move.

This article deals with the theory and practice of sovereignty from the perspective of a trend in theoretical perspectives as well as the relevant trend in practice. The article provides a survey of the leading thinkers and philosophers views on the nature and importance of sovereignty. The concept of sovereignty is exceeding the complex. Unpacking its meanings and uses over time is challenging. An aspect of this challenge is that the discourse about sovereignty is vibrant in diverse policy, academic and political constituencies. At times its narratives are relatively discrete and at other times the narratives overlap with the discourses from other professional orientations. In this article we seek to provide enhance clarification about the sovereignty discourses and narratives used in theory and practice. For example the article begins with the work of Bodin and Hobbes. Both of these theorists make a case for the exercise of political power in hierarchical terms. It is unclear whether they are describing political power as it is or recognizing the hierarchical aspect of sovereignty as it ought to be. Both Bodin and Hobbes were scholars, although Bodin was also a prominent politician. They were both attracted to the idea of hierarchical sovereign power because they saw it as important to the maintenance of public order which they saw as threaten by religious sectarian violence. In this sense they would appear to be a normative preference for the concentration and centralization of power to retain minimum order. This would implicate the creeping into their analysis of a minimum normativity. Additionally, they were both aware that the concentration of power could lead to its abuse. They denied sovereign absolutism in somewhat modest terms. In short they were concerned about social chaos and in a limited way sovereign abuse. Our study moves into the sovereignty idea in the context of international law with reference to the work of Grotius, the Dutch international lawyer of the early 17th century. Grotius took the sovereignty discourse to another level by considering the problem of sovereignty in an environment of multiple sovereigns. This was an environment which required law and legal skills and therefore provided a framework within which reasoned legal elaboration would provide a mechanism to coordinate sovereign relations and thereby provide international restraints on sovereign absolutism. The article then considers a significant 17th century juridical event in the practice of international law. We refer to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and its relevance to the development of sovereignty in practice. The importance of the Treaty is that it juridicalized the idea of an international society based on sovereign nation States. It is a framework that has had incredible traction over time and was reflected in the most powerful theories of international law founded on the nation State participants. The article then reviews the work of other international scholars and philosophers from Pufendorf to Austin. These early international lawyers grapple with the idea of sovereignty and the subordination of sovereignty to the idea of international obligation. Their work begins to show the influence of positivism and the development of international law based on empirical sources such as treaty and custom. These developments are then confronted with a new and rigorous jurisprudential theory of sovereignty developed by the English legal philosopher, John Austin. Austin developed the theory of sovereignty of considerable power and durability and modified versions of his idea of sovereignty continue to be important in international law and international relations today. It is important to note that Austin’s view of sovereignty was an explicit indication of the use of a positivistic, scientific view of law. Technically, the logic of Austin’s system was to deny the legal character of international law. Since there was no global super-sovereign, there could be no global super-law that subordinated sovereign competence. In his view, international law was a form of positive morality. Austin did not demolished international law completely, but his thick version of sovereignty had a dramatic influence on the development of international law into the 20th century. Additionally, Austin’s approach to law suggested that all law was rooted in the orders of the sovereign. This reshaped legal thinking globally. It implicated as well two different versions of science: the first, logical and analytical; the second, empirical. Each version had a distinctive approach to the identification of the sovereign, who was the source of all law. The analytical approach was considerably refined in the 20th century by such leading theorists as H.L.A. Hart and his influence has been significant in the scholarship of British international law and the discourse it has generated on the concept of sovereignty. Several important British jurists are considered in this article. The article also shifts its focus in the 20th century. It examines the changing character of sovereignty in the aftermath of the First and the Second World Wars and the implications of the UN Charter for rethinking the boundaries of sovereignty. The article then focuses on the practice of international law and its influence on the boundaries of sovereignty in terms of international agreements regulating global spaces, resources, including the oceans and Polar Regions. Part IV examines the significant contributions made by scholars from the United Kingdom to the theory and understanding of sovereignty. This includes the work of H.L.A. Hart, Brownlie, and other more contemporary UK scholars. Part V shifts the focus to the scholars who had significantly influenced the ideas of sovereignty in US practice and theory. Here the influence of Austin has been less analytical and conceptual and more empirical. In part, this is a reflection of the complexities of the form of constitutional governance in the United States as well as the influence of the revolt against formalism in United States and its influence on legal theory. The article traces the influence of positivism in its empirical sense on such theorists as Holmes, Gray and Thayer. In the social sciences, the influence of the empirical approach was also beginning to find traction. A leader in the behavioral movement in the United States was the political theorist Harold Dwight Lasswell. In the 1930s he published two books which had a significant effect on providing an empirical orientation to the ideas of sovereignty and the nation State. In his book Psychopathology and Politics he reconceptualized the State as a manifold of events and insisted that the State was not a super individual phenomenon, but empirically a many individual phenomenon. He then explored the importance of understanding the global environment in terms of the individual’s perspectives of identity, demand, expectation, insecurity and anxiety in a precautious book called World Politics and Personal Insecurity. In fact, Lasswell was virtually recasting international relations in international law with a focus on sovereign personalities, to the idea of world politics in which the give and take of actual human beings shapes the conditions of world order from the local to the global and vice versa. These ideas were later to emerge in an approach to sovereignty that involves more refined theories and methods of a contextually understanding and the rooting the sovereignty idea in global social, power and constitutive processes. This is discussed in the last part of the article. In the meanwhile there were more intermediate developments in legal and political theory in the US. We explore the works of Hart and Sacks, Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt and in contemporary terms the contributions of Judge Samuel Alito and the scholars Professor Ackerman (Yale), Yoo (Berkley) and Tribe (Harvard). The article concludes by reference to the implications for sovereignty of international practice indicated in the Nuremberg Proceedings and then refers to the developments of Lasswell and the New haven School and the ideas and methods of contextual mapping for the empirical specification of the sovereignty idea.