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Foreword for Volume 5 Issue 2


Welcome to Volume 5 Issue 2 of the Westminster Law Review (WLR) and to our two new academic editors, Angelina and Rebab. You can read the Editorial Board’s bios on the About page. We are continuing to need more Academic Editors to review the volumes of articles submitted, so if you are interested please do get in touch.

This issue has been put together against an interesting backdrop of a referendum for the United Kingdom to remain or leave the European Union. On the one side was the argument for national and cultural sovereignty. On the other side, it was argued that it was worth giving up some sovereignty where there are common values enshrined in international law. It is therefore appropriate that, in our lead article, Do Universal Ratifications transform Human Rights into Dead Letters?, Tugba Sarikaya Guler asked the same question about the United Nations system. As with the UK’s EU Referendum, there is no black and white answer.

More recently, the world has been rocked by the findings of the Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq War (2003-2008). Totalling about 2.5 million words, the report was extensive and critical of not only the then Labour government but also the military and the intelligence services. However, one issue that was outside the remit of the inquiry was the allegations of human rights abuses by private military contractors. In National Regulatory Mechanisms to Prosecute Private Military and Security Companies’ Employees for Human Rights Violations, Zafeiris Tsiftzis examines the limitations of national law in the UK, United States, South Africa and Germany and in international law, which has meant that such allegations are rarely prosecuted.

In our final article, A Critical Liability of Secondary Liability under copyright laws in the United States and India/a >, Nayomi Goonesekere looks at the difference in court decisions relating to copying video cassettes and internet file-sharing.

Finally, on behalf of the WLR, I would like to congratulate Professor Lisa Webley of University of Westminster Law School for being named “Law Teacher of the Year 2016” . Lisa is a member of our Advisory Board and played an important role in our launch back in 2011. As well as being the internal examiner for my own PhD research, she has written for the WLR . I also recommend the following presentation and video for her advice on writing journal articles.

Pravin Jeyaraj
Editor-in-chief

Article

A Critical Analysis of secondary liability under Copyright Laws in the United States and in India

Nayomi Goonesekere

This article identifies that the trajectory of decisions from Sony to Grokster by the Supreme Court of the United States have resulted in three divergent outcomes on the imposition of secondary liability under copyright laws. This article seeks to distinguish between the landmark decisions made in the Sony, Napster, Aimster and Grokster cases in order to determine the test that is most relevant today under copyright laws. It also seeks to analyse the application of the principles developed in these cases in Indian Intellectual Property (IP) laws. While the Indian Copyright Act of 1957 has laid down the law applicable to direct and indirect infringers of copyright, the two path breaking decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in Sony and Grokster have formed the basis of the argument that secondary infringement extends beyond what is enumerated under the Indian statute. In this context, this article explores the emerging trends in Internet service provider (ISP) liability in India and the safe harbour provisions under the Information Technology Act 2000. The article further explores the question of whether these laws would potentially destroy the business model of file sharing, and how this factor was a primary concern in the most recent amendment to the Indian Copyright Act in 2012.

Article

Do Universal Ratifications transform Human Rights Treaties into Dead Letters?

Tugba Sarikaya Guler

This paper discusses weak and strong aspects of the United Nations (UN) human rights regime in general and the possible outcomes of accepting worst human rights violators into the UN system in particular. On these topics, it mainly argues that the UN is in need of an urgent reformation in order to be more effective and operational. However, reform initiatives should not exclude deviant states from the UN system, because despite the cultural relativity of human rights perceptions amongst the States, ratifications might have constitutive effect for all States in the long term. More specifically, tacit awareness regarding other States’ behaviours and active dialogue amongst the members of the UN over their idiosyncratic characteristics, approaches and human rights patterns might deeply influence the deviant States’ human rights practices. For this reason, as measuring the impact of human rights treaties, the article adopts a critical approach and seeks to analyse both the problems caused by the States who perniciously violate the treaties and the weaknesses of the UN system in an attempt to create a more balanced-picture.

Keywords: United Nations, Human Rights, Ratification, Universality, Cultural Relativity, Acculturation, Persuasion, Coercion

Article

National Regulatory Mechanisms to Prosecute Private Military and Security Companies’ Employees for Human Rights Violations

Zafeiris Tsiftzis

The tragic incidents in Abu Ghraib in Afghanistan (2004) and in the Nisour Square in Iraq (2007) have revealed the existing legal gap under which Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) operate. There was a lack of a coherent international and/or national regulatory regime applicable to these companies, which helped their employees escape prosecution for grave breaches of human rights law. In response to those human rights allegations, a number of non-binding initiatives have been enacted. However, these documents encourage States to adopt specific measures to regulate and monitor PMSCs’ activities. Accordingly, within this context, this paper examines four different types of national regulatory regimes pertaining to PMSCs’ operations (United States, United Kingdom, South Africa and Germany). It explores the existing national legislative framework, under which private contractors may be held accountable for their misconducts. Further, it considers that the absence of an international framework to punish private contractors for human rights violations allows for non-compliance with human rights law.

Westminster Law Review Archive

Volume 1, Issue 1 April 2012

Plasticity, Recycling and Procrastination: The Dialectic between Resistance and Change

Pravin Jeyaraj

Gender, Hierarchy, Power and Inequality: What Sociological Theory Adds to our Understanding of Sex-Discrimination

Dr. Lisa Webley

Beyond Justiciability: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the advance as exponents of a dignified humanity

Helene Albrecht

Volume 2, Issue 1 September 2012

'Diner for all' or: how to not compare apples and oranges

Helene Albrecht

An Analysis of regulation governing hedge funds in the US and the EU from 2002 to July 2010: A Preliminary Assessment

Eva Pakla

The Recent Securities Law Litigation in the US Supreme Court

Sebastian Okinczyc

You Should Never Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth:One-Size-Fits-All Compensation in Wrongful Conception

Jack Clayton Thompson

Volume 2, Issue 2 April 2013

La Loi, La Liberté et La Justice du Chagrin

Matthew Jay

Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Trials in 2012 in review: Will the Court survive 2013?

Tallyn Gray

At the Risk of Ignoring Contract Terms in Construction Law

Saad Minhas

A Subject without Name-the Inclusion of Gender and the Exclusion of the Woman in Contemporary Human Rights Discourse

Daniela Nadj

The Justice and Security Bill:
“focused and proportionate” or a derogation of the right to a fair trial?

Bob Jones

Decoding a Philosophical Enigma: A Critical Evaluation of Dignity-based Conceptions of Human Rights

Daniel Heimler

Forcing Institutional Legal Reform:
A theoretical analysis of contemporary use of force and the redrawing of institutional facilitation of collective peace and security

Janet McKnight

Volume 3, Issue 1 October 2013

Power Struggles in International Economic Law:
Introducing a Political Dimension to Socio-Legal Methods

Rebecca Grace Tan

WTO Dispute Resolution and Cross Retaliation under Trips: Is it Sanctioned Piracy of Intellectual Property?
A Case Study of the US - Gambling (Antigua) Case

Danish

Comment: the Instagram Lawscape

Pravin Jeyaraj & Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos

New Ink: The Perils Of Superimposing Copyright Law On The Tattoo Industry

Elaine O'Connor

Live In Relationships and its Impact on the Institution of Marriage in India

Anjali Agarwal

Towards Mediated Legitimacy: the application of Adorno’s critique of instrumental reason to understanding the possibility of non-instrumental legitimacy

Patrick Wheatley

Volume 3, Issue 2 May 2014

A Critical Evaluation of the Law of Copyright Authorship in Relation to Derivative Musical Works

Shane O’Connor

Automatic security negative pledges – are they effective in protecting creditors?

Peter Madden

Capital Punishment: An Institution Vanishing Through the Evolution of the Eighth Amendment

Charlie Eastaugh

The Tribunal System in India- Increasing in Importance but Increasing in Effectiveness?

Sarayu Satish

Kettel v Bloomfold and the 'ouster principle' in the law of easements

James Fisher

The Right of Political Self-determination and Shifting in the Principle of Non-interference

Yahya Alshammari

Book Review: Samera Esmeir, Juridical Humanity. A Colonial History,

Giorgia Baldi

Is the United Kingdom failing its Children? Applying International Youth Justice Standards in a Devolved Legal System

Caitlin Lisle

‘Freedom and bread: On the justiciability of economic and social rights

Luke Butterly

Volume 4, Issue 1 May 2015

An analysis of the effectiveness of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979 and its Optional Protocol as regards the protection of women who suffer domestic violence.

Luke Butterly

The decision in Re J (Care proceedings: Possible perpetrators) [2013] UKSC 9 is appalling and means that vulnerable children can no longer be sufficiently protected. Did the Supreme Court have no option but to conclude that the threshold criteria had not been made out?

Ben Chester Cheong

Sado Masochism and Consent to Harm:
Are the Courts under undue pressure to overturn R V Brown ?

Zia Akhtar

Volume 5, Issue 1 November 2015

Crossers of the peripheries: Some aspects of cross-border livelihood practices along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border

Debdatta Chowdhury

Network Neutrality and Its Implementation: A Critical Appraisal

Kartik Chawla

Understanding Disability: A Paradigm Shift towards Rights Approach With Special Reference to India

Amratpal Kaur

Tackling transgender discrimination—departing from the ‘comparator’ approach to EU equality law

Sean William Delaney

Volume 5, Issue 2 July 2016

A Critical Analysus of secondary liability under Copyright Laws in the United States and in India

Nayomi Goonesekere

Do Universal Ratifications transform Human Rights Treaties into Dead Letters?

Tugba Sarikaya Guler

National Regulatory Mechanisms to Prosecute Private Military and Security Companies’ Employees for Human Rights Violationsa

Zafeiris Tsiftzis