Editorial Apr 2011
Welcome to the latest edition ofย MEPIELAN E-Bulletin.
We are gratified that the previous edition has been so well received by many readers. Nearly six months after the MEPIELAN E-Bulletinโs launch, there have been over 3.700 visits to the Bulletinโs website from 118 countries worldwide. Once again, I wish to express my gratitude to all those who provide us with continuous and valuable feedback and comments, an aspect that may emerge as a promising component of this Bulletin.
Each time we are striving to offer contributions from many perspectives, thus offering a dynamic forum for inter-disciplinary knowledge and discussion, and adequately serving the vision of this Bulletin and its critical as well as its theoretical undertaking. This edition is featured by several new articles, along with the steady stream of thematic news and the presentation of selected new, knowledge-advancing books. A Guest Article written by Professorย Moira McConnellย who perceptively explores the importance and special features of the ILOโs Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, in advancing an integrated approach to international environmental governance, as it covers the regime gap of the LOSC regime and complements the major IMO conventional maritime regimes, effectively injecting into them the human condition as distinct from human activities. Two new Insight Articles also feature this edition:ย Dr. Elli Louka, sheds light on the multifaceted aspects of management and disposal of nuclear materials that come out of weapons programs focusing on the regime of the Plutonium Disposition Agreement between the United States and Russia (2000) and its recent, more adapting, 2010 Protocol, addressing the context and the problems of the application of this regime in light of its unique technical characteristics and overtones and its distinct safety and environmental dimensions. Professorย Dimitris Chryssochoouย usefully theorizes on the new sovereignty discourse, bringing forward the individual-collective quality of sovereignty in a governance perspective thus providing more creative space for the challenging approach to consider global system as โan ordered pluralityโ โ a critical point, in my view, to understand the nature and functioning of international (environmental) order as a process of governance of international common interest. Last, Ms.ย Theano Manetaย provides an interesting presentation of the Final Report of the U.S. National Commission, appointed by President Obama, on the causes of the Gulf of Mexico disaster and the future of offshore drilling.