The alternative vote re-visited
Electoral reform re-emerged in the 1980s as a significant issue in British politics. After a long spell in which the established system was very widely accepted, warts and all, political developments in the last ten years have undermined satisfaction with the system. The 1983 and 1987 general elections produced a particularly disproportional relationship between the parties' votes and seats, and thereby highlighted the inherent unfairness of first-past-the-post. The Liberals and Social Democrats presented electoral reform as a central feature of their Alliance programme, and the Nationalists and Greens advocated systems other than first-past-the-post. Since 1987 growing concern over the Conservatives' electoral dominance has prompted renewed interest in electoral pacts between out-of-office parties, and thus in electoral systems which might facilitate such pacts. As well as doubts about the adequacy of the electoral system for the House of Commons, the proposals to create Assemblies for Scotland, Wales and the English regions, and Labour's recent proposals to establish an elected Upper House, involve the question of the electoral system that should be used. The 1990 Labour Conference recommended that the party consider the creation of a Speakers' Conference to examine the whole issue of electoral reform.
Voter Reactions to a Preferential Ballot: Some Survey Evidence
THE QLJESTION of electoral reform continues to hover at the edge of the agenda of British politics. It remains, of course, a central policy objective of the Social and Liberal Democrats, but it has also recently come to be considered seriously as an option by some leading members of the Labour party, as they contemplate their party’s electoral prospeas. There is also evidence of increasing interest in reform among Labour’s rank and file. Almost as many motions on electoral reform as on unemployment or health were submitted for debate at the 1989 party conference (Cwrdian, 31 July 1989). Not surprisingly, then, then continues to be discussion a b u t the likely consequences of introducing a preferential voting system into British elections. Attempts to use general election results to estimate the likely effects of preferential voting upon election outcomes are seriously hampered, however, by our lack of knowledge about how voters would react to a ballot which allowed them to place parties in order of preference. Generally, the assumption that has been made is that the party chosen under X-voting would continue to be the first preference, that both Labour and Consewati? supporters would place the Alliance (now the SLD) second, and that centre voters would divide their second prefer ences between the two major parties. Relatively little attention has been given to how other parties would fare!. In this note, we provide some evidence about how one group of people react to a prefer ential ballot. The data are derived from the second of,a series of surveys of young people throughout England and Wales, carried out in May 1987. The respondents were school sixthformers studying for A-levels, they were young people who had just joined, or were about to join, the electorate.’ In addition to eliciting their voting intentions by means of the standard opinion poll question, we asked our respondents to complete a dummy ballot paper, indicating how they would vote if there were a preferential voting system. Seven parties were listed on the ballot paper Conservative, Labour, Alliance, Gmn, Communist, National Front and Plaid Cymru. Analysis of the returns sheds some light on the likely responses of British electors to a preferential ballot.
Protection of the Marine Environment: The International and National Regulation of Deep Seabed Mining Activities
This chapter provides an overview of the international and national regulatory framework pertaining to deep seabed mining activities. It begins by discussing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the backdrop for all marine activities – be they national or international – and examines the obligations of states to protect the marine environment from the harmful effects arising from deep seabed mining. Next, the chapter examines the international regime for deep seabed mining (i.e. “activities in the Area”), explaining the “common heritage of mankind” status of the Area (i.e. the international seabed); the functions of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the international organization established to govern deep seabed mining in the Area; and the concept of state sponsorship of non-state entities (i.e. private actors) for deep seabed mining in the Area. The chapter follows with a discussion of the development of national legislation to regulate deep seabed mining, examining efforts in the Pacific region where many prospective deep-sea mining sites are located. This includes a look at the legislative regimes of several Pacific Island nations, namely, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and the Cook Islands, for whom deep seabed mining may soon become a reality – as well as New Zealand and Japan, countries with comparatively developed rule of law and legislative regimes that have undertaken or considered deep seabed mining in their national waters. Overall, the chapter critically describes and evaluates the current regulatory status in the international and national seabed areas and highlights some salient gaps that require urgent attention in order to ensure marine environmental protection and mitigate impacts on humans.