1. Impact of transnational business activities on the lives of people living under occupation – While often remaining under the radar, private business activities have always played a significant role in the context of armed conflicts. It is no secret that belligerent parties heavily depend on corporations’ collaboration to carry out their military objectives, for example, by producing or supplying military equipment or raw materials. Vice versa, corporations have also often economically profited from the unsure, chaotic conditions that typify situations of armed conflict. This reality is no different for situations of (illegal) occupation. For instance, in its 2013 report, the independent international factfinding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the human rights of the Palestinian people demonstrated that “business enterprises have, directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of [illegal Israeli] settlements” in the OPT, which play a crucial role in Israel's strategy of prolonged occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territory.

Party Autonomy and (Public Interest) Regulation have a complex relationship. This relationship does not necessarily become less complex if one reduces the topic to one area, at least not if this area is European Contract Law – as the overall framing of this book would indeed suggest. On the contrary, focusing the discussion of this relationship on European Contract Law in particular adds at least three types of complexity. First is the complexity of several levels of rule-setting and their multiple application issues (see below sections 2.2. and 4.2.). Second is the complexity of a theoretical basis and underpinning nourished by multiple traditions (comparative history of thought – which runs in parallel, at the level of theories, to what is comparative law at the level of rules, concepts and legal solutions). Finally, there is also the complexity of starting from more than one concept of private autonomy and one concept of regulation – probably more complex than within one legal tradition, for instance one national law such as German law. Indeed, and just as an example, ‘regulating contracts’ can be understood as a concept where contract law is analysed and designed mainly from an incentive perspective, steering human behaviour. In this case, one would for instance analyse such concepts as unfair contract terms law from this perspective, but also any regulation of breach of contract or very traditional private law concepts such as the theory of mistake.

This introductory chapter explains the objective of this volume, which is to explore the peace and conflict resolution role of European integration by testing its somewhat vague, albeit well-established, macro-political rationale of a peace project in the practical settings of conflicts. It examines how the European Union is causally important for conflict resolution by using analytical tools specific to integration studies, drawing upon theories and frameworks explaining the modus operandi of European integration. This volume argues that European integration as a peace project cannot be explained by macro-level theories as they tend to prioritise individual aspects of the phenomenon leaving aside the potential interaction effects of these attributes. It provides case studies of conflict resolution related to the Franco-German relationship, Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Kosovo/Serbia conflict.

Building on Muriel Fabre-Magnan's thought-provoking Chapter 6 of this volume, I endeavour here to offer another view of Rouen Cathedral. I mainly juxtapose her egalitarian views with more liberal ones; at the same time, I do not conceal my own preference for certain positions in relation to the content of freedom of contract and its reasonable limits. In this context, I use some illustrative examples that help capture the strained relationship between freedom of contract and paternalistic interventions mainly in favour of weaker transacting parties.

The structure of this chapter is as follows. In section 1, I elaborate on an account of the jurisprudential background that underpins freedom of contract, personal autonomy, and their limits. In section 2, my main focus is on practical cases in which some sort of paternalistic interference may come into play. In section 3, I first briefly present the limits of freedom of contract according to civil law and then deal with a typical case of intervention for the protection of the weaker party, namely spousal and parent suretyships, which are usually characterised by a structural bargaining imbalance between the contracting parties. In section 4, I try to shed light on the possible power imbalances in arbitration agreements, within the framework of the general trend towards privatisation of the state's adjudicating (and enforcing) mechanisms.

1. Aim of the chapter – After having clarified the meaning of the notion of “illegal occupation” and how it relates to non-directly affected states’ and international organisations’ aggravated responsibility in case of serious breaches of jus cogens (see supra Chapter 1 and also infra Chapter 5), this second preliminary chapter focuses on the actual object of this study: business activities of private corporate actors in or pertaining to (illegally) occupied territories. What are they? How may they impact illegal occupations and potentially render aid or assistance to the maintaining of situations created in serious breach of jus cogens? What does international law have to say about them? These are but some of the questions which will be zoomed in on in this chapter. In the broader framework of this book, this chapter mainly aims to provide insight into the potential connection between private business conduct in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories and the maintaining of illegal occupations. This is crucial as it facilitates the understanding of which forms of corporate conduct may fall within the ambit of the obligation advanced in this book: a duty incumbent on home states and competent international organisations to regulate potentially harmful private business activities in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories based on their aggravated responsibility in case of serious breaches of jus cogens – more in particular, the duty of non-assistance.

This chapter presents a case study on the European Union's (EU) influence on the intercommunal conflict in Cyprus. It provides an overview of the conflict and maps out integration strategies implemented over the course of the EU–Cyprus relationship. It traces the early stages of Association Agreement in 1973, EU accession in 2004 and the resumption of intercommunal talks in 2008. This chapter argues that the null hypothesis on the EU's involvement in the Cyprus conflict, associating its impacts on conflict resolution with only marginal or random effects can be rejected.

1. Aim of the chapter – The previous chapter demonstrated why the duty of non-assistance is advanced in this book as a potentially adequate legal basis for mandatory home state regulation of potentially harmful private business conduct in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories, as well as how this customary obligation is traditionally shaped in terms of ratio legis, nature, scope and content. Building on these findings, the current chapter turns to the issue of whether this obligation – which is initially conceptualised as a negative obligation – may also include a positive component, obliging states and competent international organisations not only to refrain from certain conduct, but also to take positive action to protect against potentially harmful conduct of private entities, such as businesses. In this context, we recall this book's central research issue, which seeks to examine to what extent the customary duty of non-assistance imposes on home states and competent international organisations a positive obligation to ensure that their private corporate nationals do not render aid or assistance to the maintaining of illegal occupations and, if existing, what such a positive obligation would entail. Before addressing the possible nature, scope and content of such a positive obligation (see infra Chapter 7 and 8), we must, thus, first verify whether a positive component may be read into the duty of non-assistance and, if so, on what legal arguments such contention rests. As such, this chapter aims to give an overview of the different “legal techniques” available under international law to substantiate that the duty of non-assistance, apart from its negative reading, also contains a positive component.

This introductory chapter discusses the objective of this volume, which is to analyse how the United Nations (UN) conceptualise democracy and how far does a UN concept of democracy reach. This volume explores the process of agenda-development and identifies the drivers of the democracy agenda to understand the context in which an idea is shaped. It examines the role of the UN Secretary-General as norm entrepreneur in the conceptualisation of democracy. It also explores the extension of the concept of democracy of UN governance and discusses the concept of developmental democracy.

1. Aim and structure of the conclusion – After having responded in detail to the two components of the book's central research question, namely with regard to (1) the adequacy as a legal basis and (2) the potential operationalisation of the suggested positive due diligence component attached to the customary duty of non-assistance obliging home states and competent international organisations to ensure that their corporate nationals do not render aid or assistance to the maintaining of illegal occupations in the previous chapter, we thought it useful to, on a concluding note, take a step back and put the book's findings as such under scrutiny. What follows is a vetting exercise of the book's findings, in which we aim to provide an overview of both the strengths and challenges the conducted research has unveiled. We start by highlighting how this book has proved to be of added value to provide an additional, adequate legal avenue for home states and competent international organisations to address potentially harmful business conduct in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories on the international plane – both from an academic, legally-scientific perspective, as well as in light of resolving practical issues regarding potentially harmful transnational business activities on the ground (see infra, s 2.). Secondly, we will explain that this legal avenue, by grounding mandatory home state regulation of potentially harmful business conduct in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories on states’ and competent international organisations’ customary duty of non-assistance, is, in and of itself, not sanctifying and presents certain challenges of itself (see infra, s 3.).

This chapter shows how United Nations (UN) democracy emerged and was shaped by the increasing democratisation of member states. It suggests that the vision of democracy—elections—which emerged in the late 1980s/early 1990s only describes a historically distinct phase of the creation and legitimisation of a new UN idea but also represents a particular institutional as well as ideological practice and understanding. This chapter also identifies the political and social changes that provided the impetus for a new international dimension of democracy, which enabled the creation of a UN democracy agenda.

This chapter explores an extended version of democracy, focusing on governance. It explains that this vision of democracy built on both the strengths and weaknesses of elections to create something more comprehensive that would better meet the challenges of an increasing portfolio of demands. This chapter analyses the state of democracy and the trajectory of democratisation in the 1990s and identifies a range of drivers which contributed to the development of this new, governance-focussed democracy agenda. It shows that as democracy was no longer confined to the constraints of a minimal definition, it assumed a greater degree of substance, thereby moving further to the right of the democratic continuum.