蔡沛倫：Dispute over the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) and the Plan for Referendum

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Pei-Lun Tsai
Ph.D. student, School of Law,
University of Nottingham

On 12 June 2012, the Falkland Islands Government announced the plan of holding a referendum on the islands’ political status.  Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, located in the South Atlantic Ocean and with a population of approximately 3,000, has been a subject of long-term dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom (UK).  This year marks the 30-year anniversary of the Falklands War, the conflict between the two countries that attracted the attention of the international community and the United Nations (UN) Security Council.  Various theories have been put forward to justify the respective claims of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, among which are some of the modes of acquisition of territory, such as occupation, prescription, and conquest.  The right to self-determination may also be of relevance in light of the Falklanders’ campaign for their entitlement to exercise such a right.

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林宜亭：An Examination on the Integration theories of the European Union

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Christine Ie-Ting Lin

Universiteit Leiden, MIRD

As the integration of Europe has been credited as the most successful experience in regional integration, and with various theories in International Relations attempt on giving the integration process a theoretical discourse, the study of European integration has been thrived ever since, and also taken as the module of other regional integration process.  This essay will discuss the comparative advantages of the theoretical approaches of functionalism, neo-functionalism, and federalism to explain European integration and the enlargement of the European Union[1].  The selection of the theoretical approaches is based on Lelieveldt and Princen’s categorisation of subcategories of European integration study respectively on the integration and political theories of the European integration[2].

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