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Almost a century ago Canada implemented the War Measures Act to give the federal government extraordinary powers to deal with the domestic implications of the First World War. The government further expanded and institutionalised these powers through the Second World War, the Korean crisis and the cold war period. Now these war emergency powers are entrenched in both federal and provincial emergency measures legislation and exercised for peacetime disasters. This paper reviews the historical progression of these powers to better understand the original context for their development and to connect past abuses of civil rights under the War Measures Act to the protections and limits incorporated in the current legislation. Then, based on this understanding of where the powers originated, the paper takes a comprehensive look at the powers available across the Canadian jurisdictions. It identifies common groups of powers and discusses regional variations. It concludes with a short discussion on the imbalance between extraordinary powers for response and the lack of a corresponding emphasis on reducing the risks that may generate the need for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the threat of nuclear war and seemingly endless regional conflicts, peacekeeping has become an overriding concern of the UN. In the process, its activities have emerged as the most visible role associated with the world organisation. The UN is however, much more than a peacekeeper and forum for conflict resolution. Often without attracting attention, the UN and its family of agencies are engaged in a vast array of work that touches every aspect of people's lives and the world. The focus of this paper is on the UN system of protection of human rights. The achievements of the UN notwithstanding, there remain certain loopholes which must be filled especially with respect to its enforcement mechanisms. An attempt has been made in this paper to identify those loopholes and proffer recommendations, which, in the light of certain 'die-hard' human rights violations, are imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Japan maintains longstanding and well-documented traditions of same-sex eroticism and yet the terminology for describing these traditions as well as the contexts and identities through which they have been expressed have changed greatly since Japan's opening to the West at the end of the nineteenth century. These changes have been most striking in the post-war period, when new rights-centred discourses concerning issues of sexual identity and sexual citizenship began to develop alongside enduring Japanese notions situating sexual expression in the private realm of personal interest or play. Taking a broad historical view, this paper shows that it is only since the mid-1980s that a voluble discourse linking same-sex sexual activity and human rights has gained mainstream attention. The factors that led to this paradigm shift are outlined as are the current and future challenges facing a range of sexual minorities in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]