نشریه مطالعات بین المللی
سال نوزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 76، بهار 1402)

Democracy is one of the most renown political systems and one of the most valuable assets of human being.However almost all democracies contain deficiencies which impairs their efficiency and can cause deviations in their path toward the optimum purpose.Such deficiencies can be seen in the path of any political system known as democracy and can in turn lead to vulnerabilities of such democracy or delegitimization thereof.It is such risks that necessitate the study of the reasons behind such vulnerabilities. However, considering the variety and differences existing among democracies, any research with a limited subject needs to be focused only on specific types of democracies.The present research addresses the question of identifying those deficiencies based on the hypothesis that such deficiencies can be categorized into two types of intrinsic and extrinsic deficiencies.The research availing itself of analytical-descriptive methods with the support of library and internet resources indicates that the intrinsic deficiencies stem from the citizens who lack a tendency toward public actions, lack the sufficient knowledge and literacy and support those elected authorities who ignore and deviate from the public will and those bureaucrats who prefer their administrative interests to the public interest.As to the extrinsic deficiencies, one can refer to interference by certain stakeholders and deviating the decision making and decision building from the public will as well as the deciations in the public services expected from democracies. Therefore, improvement of democratic life in the framework of democracy through known methods can result in resolution of such deficiencies.

In the contemporary international order, US-North Korea relations have long been fraught with a crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. The unrelenting march of the North Korean nuclear program and the US’ desire or will to destroy this threat have not only prolonged this crisis but exacerbated it. The North Korean leadership’s intellectual tradition, the nuclear program’s link to the nation’s defense and political identity, and the incoming Trump administration’s more aggressive policies compared to the Obama administration all contributed to the US-North Korean tensions. The main question concerns the effect of political intelligence and mindfulness on the decisions of American (Donald Trump) and North Korean (Kim Jong-un) leaders. The research hypothesis states that political intelligence and mindfulness have affected the decisions of North Korean and American leaders to unprecedented levels. US-North Korea relations are fraught with complexities and challenges. Therefore, this qualitative interpretive-comparative content analysis aims to gain a better insight into both leaders' political consciousness and mindfulness and its effect on bilateral relations. The findings show that the political intelligence of both political leaders affects their bilateral relations with specific political-security outcomes.

The Rome Statute authorized the International Criminal Court to exercise jurisdiction over crimes of aggression. In the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute in 2010, the crime of aggression and its elements were delineated and identified with the goal of protecting world peace. The present study explored the Actus Reus of the crime of aggression based on the latest amendments to ICC's Statute. The gravity and broadness of the acts of aggression mean that committing such crimes occurs through special arrangements and conditions. The crime of aggression refers to a series of actions called war management. The aggressors are convicted of this crime when specific conditions are met. At first, there is planning and then military supplies and equipment are procured, which leads to a planned attack by the military leaders. Once the act of aggression and territorial occupation is completed, the last step is war management. The Actus Reus of the crime of aggression in ICC's Statute includes the planning, procurement, initiation, and execution of the act of aggression. These are undertaken by political and military leaders in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the action of a state The actions must be intended for an act of aggression and are deemed violations of the UN Charter given their nature, intensity, and extent.

The rules relating to the prohibition on the use of force, including its exceptions, are at the core of the international legal order that emerged after the greatest human-made disaster of all times: World War II. In that legal order peace is perceived as the main value to be protected and the general prohibition on the use of force embodied in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. The hopes for a new peaceful international order between 1945 and 1989 and also after the collapse of communism were soon disappointed. The resort to force in international relations is even more prevalent today than previous decades. Since the United States has become the only superpower with its overwhelming military supremacy and has been one of the States that has resorted to force the most, this begs the following question: how has the post- cold war US approach to the use of force challenged international law in this important sphere? To provide an answer to this research question, by using a Structural Realism framework and a qualitative-analytical method, the US legal arguments and practice relating to the rules governing the use of force, and the reactions of other countries to them are analyzed in order to show that the post- cold war US challenge on international law will lead to the governing the use of force in international relations and the supremacy of power over law.

Since 2001, the anti -terrorism policy making of European Union unlike United States of America has concentrated over the reinforcement of existing domestic law enforcement instruments and on multilateral action internationally creating at least the outlines of a specific European model. Structural models either realist or culturalist provide partial explanations for this. Neither to say that the drug trade, organized crime and terrorism into the general category of internal security issues and to pose as an organizing question whether a European Model encompassing a generalized security response to these three problems might be emerging. West of the Atlantic, at least since the elections of 2000, terrorism has been emphatically removed from the category of internal security issues to be reframed as an external , and primarily a military threat , As such, it has led to a thoroughgoing reorganization of the command structure or the armed forces, with a renewed emphasis on unilateral pre-emptive and even preventive action and a defense of the "homeland" as well as militarization in style if not always in institutional responsibility on internal security. European states, including UK, on the other hand, have continued to treat the threat of terrorism first and foremost as a matter of internal security to be dealt with by courts and law enforcement agencies, Action beyond borders for the states of Europe has typically taken place in multilateral contexts, with an emphasis on collaboration among intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

The United States is one of the international actors that contributes significantly to the formation of power equations in the Persian Gulf. Iran's security is threatened by the United States and its regional allies' efforts to reduce Iran's influence and dominance in the region in order to control and isolate Tehran regionally. Therefore, given Iran's strategic and superior position in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic has threatened to block this strategic strait to exert pressure on the United States and its regional allies, which would have a substantial impact on their security and energy interests. Thus, the central question of this article is, what measures has Iran taken in response to the expanding U.S. threat in the Persian Gulf? Given the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to U.S. policy in the Middle East, the article posits that Washington is working to establish cooperation and a strategic alliance with the Gulf Cooperation Council in an effort to encircle Iran and remove it from the regional equation while threatening Iran's interests in the Persian Gulf. This, in turn, would reduce Iran's position in the region. Therefore, in response to these threats, Tehran threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic lever to exert pressure on the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf. This article employs a descriptive-analytical approach.

In the process of UN peacekeeping operations and in the process of conducting peacekeeping missions in war and occupied territories; Crimes may be committed against women that require prosecution. On the other hand, it should be noted that women and children are exposed to victims, including sexual victims, due to their poor physical condition. According to numerous reports to the United Nations through female victims and sex victims, UN peacekeeping forces appear to be a new and serious threat to women and even to war. Children in areas of the host State are considered. Therefore, in this article and through the descriptive-analytical method, we seek to answer this key question: What challenges and obstacles does the prosecution and punishment of UN peacekeepers for committing crimes of sexual violence against women during peacekeeping operations face? The findings of this article show that according to Article 7 of the Rome Statute, the possibility of applying the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to the crime of sexual violence against women by UN peacekeepers faces major challenges and obstacles. In fact, the distinction of the present research compared to other related researches is the exploration, finding and detailed analysis of the current capacities of the international legal system for the prosecution and trial of the mentioned criminals.

The construct of conditional sale (CS) was included in Articles 458 to 463 of the Civil Code of Iran at the time of its enactment. The enactment of Article 33 and subsequent articles of the Registration Code of Iran, replaced it with the “transaction with the right of restitution (TWRR)” construct which removed its ownership effects and practically obsoleted it. The research question of this study was, “Since the ownership effects of the CS were removed in the TWRR, does CS in common law have ownership effect?” This was a descriptive-analytical research aimed to answer the latter part of that question using comparative analysis. The results indicated that TWRR, also known as the conditional transaction, is similar to the construct of mortgage in common law before the removal of its ownership effects.

Terrorism is known as a form of violence committed to achieve different international demands. Terrorist attacks might be carried out by individuals, groups, or states. International law has always tried to govern various dimensions of this violent phenomenon to find coping mechanisms. According to the regulations of international law, a state’s action or inaction can cause international liability if it is firstly considered offensive and is secondly attributable to that state. Hence, the Friendly Relations Declaration prohibited the exertion of violence and state terrorism. With the State Liability Convention passed in 2001 and the other legal documents, international law prohibited any actions or inactions causing damage to other states. Therefore, a state violating the regulations of international law will be held internationally liable. The vital infrastructure plays a key role in economic, political, and social conditions and security of a state. Thus, to avoid direct confrontation with a target country, some states resort to proximity terrorist groups to cause serious damage to that country without leaving any trace. Hence, with a focus on terrorist attacks on the vital infrastructure of countries, this paper benefits from a descriptive-analytical method in order to explain the liabilities of states to support terrorist groups.

I.R. Iran has no documented defense doctrine covering specific periods. The five-year socio-economic development plans (FSDPs) of Iran are hence the most significant sources for understanding its “officially announced military viewpoints”. They are also among the most effective instruments of the Iranian government to affect the country’s defense direction. This paper aims to discover the relationship between the “offense-defense balance (ODB) in military doctrine of I.R. Iran ” and the “idealism-realism balance (IRB) in its foreign policy” using content analysis methodology. The main research question is, “What are the relationships between the former (as perceived from the military/defense content of FSDP) and the latter (based on Iranian presidents’ understanding of the international milieu and the optimal way to deal with it)?” Our findings indicate that ODB was at relative equilibrium in Rafsanjani’s government, tipped towards idealism in the governments of Ahmadinejad, Rouhani, and particularly Khatami. However, ODB was tipped towards defensive in the first and second (Rafsanjani’s government) and third and fourth (Khatami’s government) FSDPs and towards offensive in the fifth (Ahmadinejad’s government) and sixth (Rouhani’s government) FSDPs. The positive, nevertheless weak, correlation between “idealism and offense” and “realism and defense” could be attributed to the Iranian executive branch's minimal contribution to Iran's military doctrine via compiling FSDPs.

Corporations and states in the international arena violate rules and regulations by means of different measures such as hiding behind the corporate veil in limited liability companies and gaining fake treaty protection. International tribunals to act against such misuse of rights pierce the veil between the parent company and the subsidiaries and consider their personality as one so that there will be no escape from justice for them. Tribunals in treaty shopping apply veil piercing and disregard the nationality the company gained. In addition, arbitration agreements can be extended to third parties under some conditions using the veil-piercing principle. Thus, applying the corporate veil piercing principle which is an iconoclast principle that puts an exception to those legal structures without which it results in breaching the laws and lack of justice. The research methodology is descriptive-analytical. The main question of this paper is how does the principle of the corporate veil affect the development of international law? The result indicates that this principle developed the legal personality of the corporations, arbitration clause, nationality, and control rule in international law.

Obama’s announced policies and approacheshad realistic consequences despite  his emphasis  on economic cooperation, new regional and international capacity building, democracy, human rights, multilateralism, and smart power, whereas the focus in  Trump’s unilateral and offensive  policies was on American values. Trump’s administration regarded national interest as the most influential factor in foreign policy.This descriptive-analytical study aimed to examine its hypothesis using the data collected from printed and online sources together with  the propositions of the theories of defensive and offensive realism, and to answer the following question: “How can the United States’approachtoward the world order under Obama and Trump’s administrationsbe explained using the theories of offensive and defensive realism?” According to the findings, Obama’s foreign policy improved the functional capacities of the international organizations and institutions despite observing the principles of realism by paying special and intelligent attention to national interests, military power, and the importance of diplomacy and soft power. Incontrast, Trump’s foreign policy increased the importance of hard power, decreased the importance of diplomacy and negotiation, reduced the importance of international institutions, facilitated the trend of moving towards a multipolar world order, and increased pessimism about security trends, occurrence of new regional and international arms races and, finally, the level of differences.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was established in 1959 as a supervisory institution of the European Convention on Human Rights to inspect lawsuits that fall under the jurisdiction of this court per this Convention and the Protocols annexed thereto. One of the characteristics of this court, which was established following the ratification of Protocol No. 9 of the Convention, is the ability for individuals to file lawsuits against states that are members of this Convention. The Convention and Protocols, when examined, do not specifically state that stateless individuals may file lawsuits, regardless of the case’s subject. Moreover, this court does not have jurisdiction over the issue of nationality. Accordingly, the question that arises is how stateless individuals can file lawsuits at the ECtHR, and can special cases of statelessness be brought to this court, given that the concept of nationality is not within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the court. It appears that this court does not have the authority to investigate matters related to statelessness, but that does not prevent it from doing so in relation to lawsuits brought by those who are stateless. A descriptive and analytical investigation into the ECtHR’s subject-matter jurisdiction discovered that, in addition to the court’s jurisdiction to investigate lawsuits by stateless individuals, special cases of statelessness such as denationalization imposed by states as degrading punishment can be included within the court’s jurisdiction.

Western Asia is a crucial and conflict-ridden region in the world. A major conflict has been between Arabs and the Israeli regime, but Saudi Arabia- Israel relations have been normalizing since 2015. Iran, a state that holds Israel and some Arab countries as enemies, founded the “Axis of Resistance” to expand its influence and security in the region. However, the normalization of relations seems to have jeopardized the Axis of Resistance, which this study aimed to analyze. Accordingly, the study's main question was as follows: What threats does the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations pose against the Axis of Resistance, affecting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national security? The significance of this descriptive-analytical study was in the fact that any developing threats against the Axis of Resistance expanding around the Islamic Republic can impact Iran’s national security. The results revealed that normalization of relations has led to threats against the Axis of Resistance, including supporting domestic, separatist, and opposition forces of the Islamic Republic in Iran and supporting regional and international anti-Axis of Resistance forces throughout the axis members, i.e., Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq.