States have long been understood to have an obligation to protect the international legal rights and interests of others, consistent with the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas (use what is yours in such a manner as not to injure that of another). As the world's population becomes more interdependent, this no harm obligation becomes more significant. Further, as knowledge increases about the consequences of human activity for the climate and the environment, the no harm obligation takes on greater relevance vis-à-vis the interests of the Earth's future populations. Future generations’ legal interests have been recognized in the context of sustainable development and through the principle of intergenerational equity. The no harm rule requires that these interests be properly considered and addressed appropriately, commensurate with what is at stake. At a minimum, this may require avoidance of ‘manifestly excessive adverse impacts’.

This article analyzes Turkish foreign policy during the Iranian oil crisis of 1951–1953 and argues that Turkey shaped its policy based on Cold War politics. While Turkey cared less for Iran’s nationalization of oil, it was more concerned about the political implications of the crisis. At the beginning of the crisis, Turkey was focused on guaranteeing its own NATO membership. After joining NATO in 1952, the country assumed a more active role in the crisis. As the coalition behind Premier Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh dissolved, Turkey became more concerned about both the internal situation in Iran and the broader Middle Eastern context following the July 21, 1952 events in Iran and the 1952 Egyptian coup. The strongest opposition to Mosaddegh came from Ayatollah Abul Qassim Kashani who was both an important religious figure and the speaker of the Majlis. Turkey was concerned about Kashani’s politics of a “third bloc” and supported Mosaddegh’s pro-American position. Keeping Mosaddegh in power was in line with Turkey’s general Middle Eastern policy which aimed at forming a Western-oriented regional defense organization. This article will analyze the shaping of Turkish foreign policy towards the Iranian oil crisis within the context of this regional rivalry.

This article discusses the significance of the extensive data-gathering procedures incorporated into recent synodal preparations and how they advance Pope Francis’s commitment to forging a church informed by a dialogue between theological ideas and empirical realities. Drawing on my prior case analysis of the Synod on the Family, I argue that despite the limits in place then on lay participation in the formal synod discussions, the diversity of the laity’s self-reported experiences penetrated the bishops’ deliberations. This achievement is in part a function of the synod communication structure whereby participants are allocated to shared-language groups, thus avoiding self-selection based on a priori doctrinal or country-specific biases; the resulting (forced) dialogue with difference helps foster the gradual development of more inclusive doctrinal framings as seen in the post-synodal Amoris Laetitia. In a historic expansion, the Synod on Synodality formally includes lay voting participants and therefore lay perspectives will directly shape the synod proposal outcomes. Like the bishops, lay Catholics do not speak with one voice, and thus the task of finding moral consensus will still necessarily require respectful mutual listening and reciprocal dialogue.

Money pushes sports to extremes. As the rewards for success grow, so does the pressure, with sportspeople pushing themselves ever harder. In equestrian sports, this can mean pushing the horse as well, too often to the point of abuse. This article discusses the beautiful side of equestrianism as well as its darker side, which is a bitter reality for many competition horses. It sets out a comparison of legal standards for equine animal welfare (at the level of international law, EU law and national laws) as well as those coming from sports laws. It also examines dependencies between animal protection rules under EU law and animal protection rules under the laws of individual EU Member States concerning equestrian sports. It aims to answer the questions of whether equestrian sports constitute a general exemption to their being considered animal abuse and on what grounds this exemption might be changed in the future.

Our article describes the lifecycle of Lithuania’s Electoral Action of Poles–Christian Families Alliance (LLRA-KŠS) party that has been a part of country’s political landscape for near 30 years. Despite its seemingly ethnic program, the party has a poor track record for delivering on its electoral promises. Yet, it has been continuously supported by the majority of Polish-speakers in Lithuania. The background of the nationalizing state, which encourages the party elites to conflate substantive representation with the signposting of ethnic identity in party politics, offers one of the reasons for the LLRA-KŠS’s electoral success. Although the party effectively consolidated its regional electorate, it came to control service delivery to their ethnic constituency by engaging in pork barrel politics. Poor performance in recent national and municipal elections put this strategy to bond with its voters into question, casting doubt on the LLRA-KŠS’s ability to survive as an ethnic party in the long term.

This article examines the evolution of the Russian Orthodox Church’s identities and political alignments from the post-Soviet era to the present in three chronological phases. First, the author explores the church’s varied post-Soviet identities shaped by experiences of repression, collaboration, dissidence, and emigration from 1991 to approximately 2010. The author identifies key legislative and political developments between 2010 and 2021 that have aligned the Russian Orthodox Church with the autocratic state. Finally, the author analyzes the shifting stance of the Moscow Patriarchate on Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, including Patriarch Kirill’s support for Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine since 2022, which is interpreted as a continuation of the church’s historical role as a collaborator during Soviet times. The author argues that the church’s contemporary role is confined to providing ritualistic and spiritual legitimization for state ideology, perpetuating a logic of authority, control, obedience, and dichotomous friend/enemy thinking reminiscent of Soviet-era security services. Through this analysis, the author reveals how the state and church leadership of the past decades has strategically positioned the church in preparation for conflict.

Slovak national communism as a specific approach to the problem of Czech-Slovak relations gained a significant position within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia soon after its establishment in 1921. This article analyzes the foundations of this phenomenon and the evolving attitudes of the first generation of Slovak communist intellectuals and Party functionaries. The article’s primary focus is on the Slovak communists’ views regarding the official state doctrine of a unified Czechoslovak nation, Czech-Slovak relations, and the issue of Slovak autonomy. The study highlights the significant external influences, particularly the directives of the Communist International and the pre-existing national stereotypes, that shaped the worldview and nationalist tendencies of Slovak communists.

This article analyses the scholarly results concerning the social phenomenon of intermarriage. It specifically focuses on the similarities and differences in the latter in Europe, between migrants and host society members, and between national minorities and majorities. The study shows that while intermarriage between migrants and host society members is often seen as a vehicle for bridging social gaps and promoting social cohesion, intermarriages between national minorities and majorities is more likely to lead to erosion of minority identities and cultural traits. Common challenges faced by intermarried couples include resistance from family members and bureaucratic obstacles, with gender dynamics playing a crucial role, particularly in traditional societies where women often bear the brunt of cultural assimilation. Intermarriage also promotes the perspective of the integrative nature of nation-states without requiring intervention by the states themselves. The article underscores the importance of deepening the discourse on intermarriage and focusing on the impact of the latter on both migrant and national minority communities through both quantitative analyses and qualitative approaches. This may improve the understanding of the transformative potential and challenges of these unions.

After its initial founding by the Council on Religion and Law at Harvard, the Journal of Law and Religion had its first life at Hamline University School of Law beginning in 1983. This essay is a history of its second life—from 1987/1988 to 2013—describing the vision and the people who pursued that vision through the journal in those years and some of the roundtables and symposia it published.

Turkey’s Europeanization process provides a particularly interesting case study of the extra-jurisdictional impact of European Union (EU) law, both through policy convergence and through the so-called Brussels effect. Formally, Turkey must adopt certain EU rules due to its status as an EU candidate country, but its candidacy process has been lengthy and uncertain, resulting in partial and uneven adoption of EU rules. Nevertheless, EU-style policymaking has persisted in various policy areas, including environmental and climate policy. This paper aims to analyze the convergence of climate change policies between the EU and Turkey by employing multidimensional scaling, a method that enables the visualization and examination of the connectivity and intensity of cooperation between states. For the period from 2007 to 2023, our comparative analysis demonstrates that policy divergence occurs when the EU’s share of Turkey’s total trade decreases and when political challenges are experienced. On the other hand, periods of policy convergence coincide with periods of increased trade volume and expanded trade opportunities. The results suggest that through its market size and regulatory capacity, the EU exerts soft power which forces Turkey to align its climate policies with the EU to protect and maintain its competitiveness in the European marketplace.