Journal of International Law and International Relations 2013 — N 2

Summaries 

International Law

International Migration Law

Legal Regulation of Forced Migration in the Republic of Belarus — Alexander Fedorako

International Organisations

Modern Trends in the Development of Lawmaking Activities of the Commonwealth of Independent States — Igor Barkovsky

International Private Law

Interest Claim as a Consequence of Breach of a Contract on International Sale of Goods (under the 1980 Vienna Convention — Anna Bagdasarova

Expropriation: the Genesis of the Concept in Pre-revolutionary and Soviet Civil Law — Aleksei Zenkov

International Relations

International Issues in the Outlook and Practice of Jose Marti (to the 160th Anniversary of his Birth) — Alexander Chelyadinsky

The Development of Belarusian-Lithuanian Relations in 1990s — Andrey Volodkin

Specific Features of the Foreign Policy Mechanism in Denmark at the End of the 20th — the Beginning of the 21st Century — Elizaveta Dubinko-Gushcha

Basic Approaches to China’s Activity in Latin America — Ilia Reznikov

West German Academic Centres of Research on the System of Education, Literature and Art of the USSR (1949—1990) — Viktoryia Andreyeva

Main Trends and Features of the Foreign Policy of Lebanon in 1989—2010 — Saleh Malek Mohamad 

Foreign Experience

Official Language Debates in American Civil Society Essentialist vs. Utilitarian Arguments — Renee Buhr

International Economic Relations

Information and Communications Technology Sector: Development Evaluation — Petr Lemeshchenko, Olga Tryasunova

FULL ISSUE 

English Summaries

«Legal Regulation of Forced Migration in the Republic of Belarus» (Alexander Fedorako)

The article analyses the peculiarities of legal regulation of forced migration of foreigners in the Republic of Belarus. It examines the forms of protection of forced migrants in the Republic of Belarus and the procedure of consideration of applications for protection. The article also proposes measures to improve the legislation of the Republic of Belarus in the field of forced migration.

«Modern Trends in the Development of Lawmaking Activities of the Commonwealth of Independent States» (Igor Barkovsky)

The article defines modern trends in the development of lawmaking activities of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The major trends characterizing the contemporary period of the CIS lawmaking activities fall into the following: strengthening the role of the state, presiding in the Commonwealth, in forming the normative legal base of the organization; establishing the practice of preparation of complex and program documents regulating collaboration in specific areas of cooperation and intended for a long-term period; setting up the practice of announcing and holding of the thematic years in the Commonwealth, which allows to activate lawmaking in the framework of specific area.

«Interest Claim as a Consequence of Breach of a Contract on International Sale of Goods (under the 1980 Vienna Convention)» (Anna Bagdasarova)

The present article is devoted to the analysis of the legal regulation of responsibility for late payment of the price or any other sum that is in arrears in the form of interest, stipulated in article 78 of the Vienna Convention. In order to reveal law application problems of article 78 in the framework of Belarusian law system and to propose possible solutions the author analyzes the following aspects of the right to charge such interest: the legal nature of the interest, the content of the term «another sum», estimation of the interest rate, and determination of the time period for interest recovery.

«Expropriation: the Genesis of the Concept in Pre-revolutionary and Soviet Civil Law» (Aleksei Zenkov)

The article focuses on the legal issues of expropriation in pre-revolutionary and Soviet civil law. The research is based on legal and doctrinal sources dated back to the epoch of the Russian Empire (late 19th — early 20th century) and to the Soviet period. This article aims to identify the main approaches to the definition and regulation of expropriation and, as a result, to distinguish the main elements of the concept of «expropriation» that existed under Belarusian law during the above-mentioned periods.

The issue needs to be studied because the formulation of the expropriation as a concept is required, which could be considered as the basis for fixing the relevant provision in the civil legislation of the Republic of Belarus so that the property law, including the regulations that involve a foreign element, could be improved.

Based on the analysis of the legislation during these periods, the works of pre-revolutionary lawyers and Soviet scientists, the author identifies a number of regularities in respect to how the legal forms of forced seizure of property developed and what transformation they went through in the context of the development of the domestic legal system before 1991.

«International Issues in the Outlook and Practice of Jose Marti (to the 160th Anniversary of his Birth)» (Alexander Chelyadinsky)

The study of the works of the great Cuban enlightener Jose Marti and of his practical diplomatic experience provided the basis for the academic analysis of his assessments and conclusions on the international relations issues in Latin America which is carried out in the article. They also concern the USA foreign policy and the struggle of the Cuban people for the political and economic independence.

«The Development of Belarusian-Lithuanian Relations in 1990s» (Andrey Volodkin)

The goal of the article is to reveal and explore the main trends and phases of relations between the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Lithuania in the 1990s. Its structure includes three sections dedicated to the analysis of three main fields of the Belarusian-Lithuanian interstate relations during this period: the dynamics of political contacts (taking into account their level and frequency), the development of the legal base of the Belarusian-Lithuanian interstate cooperation and the development of trade and economic relations.

Comparing the results of the analysis of these directions, the author identifies three main periods in the development of Belarusian-Lithuanian relations in the 1990s. The initial stage (1991—1994) can be described as a time of intensive, but not very fruitful political contacts and rather slow progress in economic relations and legal base development. The second stage (1994—1998) was a time of activisation of Belarusian-Lithuanian relations in all fields, yet overclouded after the 1996 referendum in Belarus by the worsening of the official Minsk relations with the EU and the West in general. After a short period of Lithuanian President A. Brazauskas efforts to mediate between Belarus and the West there came the third stage of gradual «freezing» of Belarusian-Lithuanian political contacts and the economization of the whole agenda of bilateral relations.

«Specific Features of the Foreign Policy Mechanism in Denmark at the End of the 20th — the Beginning of the 21st Century» (Elizaveta Dubinko-Gushcha)

The article deals with the role of the political system in the formation of the Danish foreign policy. Drawing attention to the growing influence of non-governmental actors on foreign policy, the author concluded that the main participants in the foreign policy mechanism are still the government and the parliament, who represent a broad spectrum of political parties in Denmark. Despite their different views, the formulation of foreign policy is always a result of consensus among the major political parties of the country. This explains such characteristic features of the Danish political system as resistance to crises and continuity of the main vectors of the foreign policy.

«Basic Approaches to China’s Activity in Latin America» (Ilia Reznikov)

Presidential and legislative elections in several states of Latin America as well as definitive power transition in the governing bodies of China are scheduled for the current year. On this account international relations experts afford special consideration in their professional discourse to the analysis of China’s geopolitical designs on Latin America. Recently there have been three fundamentally diverse approaches to the subject matter in political and academic circles concerned. The article is dedicated to comparative research of these approaches. Special attention is paid to the factual basis of each of them, alongside with potential consequences of their objectivation as specific foreign policy measures and, as a result, changes in the regional subsystem of international relations in general.

«West German Academic Centres of Research on the System of Education, Literature and Art of the USSR (1949—1990)» (Viktoryia Andreyeva)

The article describes the history, activities and main research directions of the leading West German academic centers of research on the system of education, literature and art of the USSR in 1949—1990. Conceptual basics and main characteristics of the West German research on this subject as well as the intention of researchers to discern the current tendencies in the development of Soviet state and society through investigations of its cultural phenomena are pointed out. The paper concludes that these academic centres’ activities had high topicality and strategic importance in the Federal Republic of Germany in the context of the international relations during the Cold War.

«Main Trends and Features of the Foreign Policy of Lebanon in 1989—2010» (Saleh Malek Mohamad)

The article covers the main trends and features of the foreign policy of Lebanon from 1989 to the first decade of the 2000s. Special attention is paid to the Lebanese-Syrian bilateral relations.

«Official Language Debates in American Civil Society Essentialist vs. Utilitarian Arguments» (Renee Buhr)

What role does language play in national identity? Does language represent the «soul» of the nation, or is it simply a tool of «intercultural communication?» In the United States, both government and civil society continue to debate these questions, with no apparent consensus in sight. On the one hand, the Official English movement calls for making English the official language and cautions that multilingualism threatens the core of American national identity, while the English Plus movement advocates embracing multilingualism and ensuring English competency in American citizens. While both camps believe that English is and will continue to be the key language in the United States, they have been unable to find any common ground on which to advocate policy. In this article, it is argued that their lack of common ground stems from epistemological differences. The Official English movement, and its predecessors throughout U.S. history, appears to operate from an «essentialist» viewpoint of language and national identity. The English Plus movement, and its predecessors — the «Founding Fathers», appears to operate according to a «utilitarian» view of the role that language plays in society; English is not so much an object of national affection as it is a language of intercultural communication. This case study, and the essentialist/constructivist/utilitarianist approach it takes, provides us with a useful means through which to study contemporary contestation in national identity building.

«Information and Communications Technology Sector: Development Evaluation» (Petr Lemeshchenko, Olga Tryasunova)

The article is dedicated to the research of dynamics of Information and Communications (ICT) sector development. The authors compared growth rates of major economics sectors such as Industry, Agriculture, Services and ICT-sector. The existing ICT development indexes were examined as well. The authors suggested using the ICT Dynamic Index as a parameter to assess ICT branch development. The application of such an index will allow to identify the countries with the fast growing ICT-sector and choose a more successful national ICT strategy.

This publication was prepared in the framework of EU — UNHCR project “Regional Protection Programme (Phase II)”