فصلنامه پژوهش حقوق عمومی
سال نوزدهم شماره 56 (پاییز 1396)

Cultural Rights (CRs) are the most non-developed rights among human rights in the terms of normative content, the scope of implementation and legal enforceability. In this regard, the right of minorities and persons belonging to these groups to participate in their own life has been affected and neglected more seriously. On 21 December 2009, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCRs) adopted General Comment No. 21 on the right of everyone to take part in cultural life that could be accounted as a reference point in the protection of culture and cultural rights of minorities. In this Comment, the CESCRs gives solid substance to the norm through clearly defining its content and scope, the beneficiaries and the nature of the right, and the range of obligations it imposes on State Parties for its implementation; as such it could serve as a potential pillar for the protection, preservation, and promotion of minorities' culture, and consequently, CRs. The present study aims to investigate the achievements of General Comment No. 21 of CESCRs for the protection of culture and cultural rights of minorities.

In the absence of a fully organized super-State in the field of international relations, it is recognized that the injured State may take countermeasures in response to a breach of an international obligation. However, the scope and the circumstances of resort to countermeasures are not unlimited, especially when dealing with States which have violated their human-rights obligations. Human-rights obligations enjoy particular characteristics and are different from other obligations in certain respects among which are the object and purpose of the human-rights obligations. They are intended to facilitate the enjoyment of human-rights and freedoms by the human beings rather than the regulation of reciprocal inter-state relations. For these reasons, resort to countermeasures in the event of breach of human-rights obligations is either prohibited or it should be made in a manner which does not impair the full application and enforcement of the human-rights obligations.

In this article, we attempt to study a variety of genuine ombudsman institutions at the national level and the institutions which are classified under the general title "quasi-ombudsman" or "ombudsman-like". The reason behind the diversity and complexity of these institutions around the world lies at this point that the idea of ​​ombudsman in dealing and interacting with different cultures has been faced with many ups and downs and because of its great flexibility, it has adapted itself with the requirements of every society and has taken different yet sometimes contradictory forms. To reach our goal, that is, to achieve a correct and expurgated concept of the notion of ombudsman and after studying different types of ombudsman institutions, the article concludes that the independent Ombudsman institutions which are supported by the Constitution or law and their officials appointed or removed by specific majorities are the Genuine Ombudsman Institutions. In other words, Classical and Hybrid Ombudsman Institutions could be regarded as Genuine Institutions.

The Legal nature of budgetary laws and the competence of Parliament and Government in budgeting process are major topics that researchers in public finance study in each country. What binds these subjects together are legal principles governing the budget acts and budgeting processes which are aimed at establishing the budgetary authority of the Executive and the Legislative. The importance of these legal imperatives lies in the historic campaign that led to their creation on the one hand, and their effectiveness on the other. Obviously, all these principles are subject to exceptions or have changed over time. In this paper, firstly we study the legal notion and nature of these rules briefly. Then, the emergence and transformation of annual and perennial nature of budget especially in Iranian context (1906 to 2016) will be examined. It is deduced that annual principle is politically still important but, economically its dysfunction has contributed to the emergence of perennial budgeting principle.

Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is an International Agreement which provides a multilateral outline for transborder coopretion on Enenrgy. Bearing in mind the continuance of economic and Enenrgy Crisis around the world and paying attention to increasing importance of energy in internatinal relations and due to the direct impact of energy and its influence on resolving the International community problems, some states and International organizations introduce new vision on the nature of international obligations in the field of enenrgy and its charactrestics. On this base, surveying the legal status of International treaties –namely ECT- will aid us undrestanding the stream and its process of fornation among International Subjects. That is what is going on in this paper.

Since the beginning of its theory, the public services faced with conceptual ambiguity and its substantive diagnostic criteria, at least in practice, has not been clear. The privatization of public services and undermining the criterion of "government intervention" and "public interest purpose" added to the existing ambiguity. In these circumstances, the public function doctrine, aimed at protecting the fundamental rights of citizens and their legitimate expectations and consolidation of state responsibility and prescription of regulatory in the market of public services was outlined and welcomed. According to this doctrine, apart from public services that are offered directly by the government, services that were previously provided by the government, but are now provided by the private sector, are also consideredaspublic services. This paper usingdescriptive and analyticalmethod, at first, analyzesverbalandsubstantiveconceptof public service, then reviews thecontentof public function doctrine and evolution of concept of public service and finally studiespurposes and effects ofadoption of public function doctrine.