Canadian Leadership in the Circumpolar World: An Agenda for the Arctic Council Chairmanship 2013-2015
Abstract: The Arctic is a region of increasing global interest. Canadian interests in the region-economic, political, social, and environmental-would benefit from the development of an effective governance framework for the Arctic in terms of providing for stable, predictable, and sustainable use of the area's resources in a manner that benefits northern inhabitants. Canada has an opportunity to influence the Arctic policy agenda and promote Canada's interests as in 2013 it assumes the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, the high-level intergovernmental forum that discusses common circumpolar policy. This article outlines the issue areas most likely to benefit from regional co-operation, and which Canada should promote in the lead up to and during its chairmanship: Search and rescue, fisheries management, shipping regulations, and a regional seas agreement. The article argues that Canada should lead governance reform in the Arctic both because it is in Canada's interests to do so, and because Canada is uniquely placed to do so within the Circumpolar World.
Role of the Arctic Council Chairmanship
In spite of its arguable relevance the question of the role of the chair in the Arctic Council (AC) has until now received relatively little academic attention. When in 2013 Canada assumed the AC chairmanship, which rotates on the biennial basis among the Council’s Members, the Arctic Council entered the second round of chairmanships, with the first one being over after sixteen years since the formation of the AC in 1996. In the meantime, in result of processes of climate change and globalization the Arctic region has gone through profound transformation and the United States, the AC Chair from 2015 to 2017, has evolved from one of the greatest opponents of the Council to its outspoken proponent. Yet most of the rules pertaining to chairmanship have remained intact since AC rules of procedure were adopted during the first AC Ministerial meeting in Iqaluit in 1998. What tasks do they assign to the Arctic Council chair? What is the actual role of AC the chairmanship? To address these questions, this article first looks into theoretical insights on the influence wielded by formal leaders in international cooperation and multilateral bargaining. It then turns its attention to origins of the institutional setup of circumpolar cooperation and continues with application of theory to rules and practice of the Arctic Council, complemented by inclusion of effects of the external developments on the course of the AC. In conclusion, it offers an initial assessment of the role exerted by the country chairing the Arctic Council.
European Consumer Access to Justice Revisited
Part I. Setting the Stage: Access to Justice 2.0: 1. At the very outset 2. Access to justice 2.0: breaking it into pieces Part II. Procedural Law: The Traditional Pillar of Access to Justice 2.0: 3. A brief outline of the developments at the pan-EU level 4. Prime examples 5. Compensatory collective redress: the next step? 6. Where to go from here? Part III. Substantive Law: Complementing Access to Justice 2.0: 7. Widening the scope of the value-oriented justice discussion 8. Substantive consumer law-making in the course of time 9. Recent trends and developments 10. The common European sales law 11. Summarising comments on the defragmentation of substantive consumer laws in the context of the CRD and the CESL Part IV. Consumer Access to Justice 2.0: A Multidimensional Framework: 12. From the current state of consumer law to consumer access to justice 2.0 13. The justice debate and consumer legislation 14. (Responses to) counter-arguments to third-party intervention 15. Consumer empowerment 16. Lessons to be drawn.