LILA KARI, University of Western Ontario
Email: lkari@uwo.ca
HALINA KAMINSKI, University of Western Ontario
Email: hkaminsk@csd.uwo.ca
MARK PERRY, University of Western Ontario - Faculty of Law
Email: mperry@uwo.ca

Open and fair elections are paramount to modern democracy. Although some people claim that the pencil-and-paper systems used in countries such as Canada and UK are still the best method of avoiding vote rigging, recent election problems have sparked great interest in managing the election process through the use of electronic voting systems. It is a goal of this paper to describe a voting system that is secret and secure as well as verifiable and usable over an existing computer network.

FERNANDO ESTRADA, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Finanzas, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales
Email: persuacion@gmail.com

This article presents the basics of argumentation theory. The relations of the argument with the concept of logical inference and an illustration of argument in international comparative policy analysis: the analysis of arguments in the invasion of Iraq.

JOSEPHINE K. MASON, University of California, San Francisco - Hastings College of the Law
Email: masonjo@uchastings.edu

The Sudanese civil war has been called one of the most devastating conflicts of all time. Just last year, the North and the South of Sudan agreed to arbitrate their differences over where the border should lie between the two regions. The ensuing arbitration process raised sensitive issues regarding race, heritage, religion, and oil. This article addresses the Sudanese border arbitration, Government of Sudan v. Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, that was meant to be part of the peace process between Northern and Southern Sudan. The international community has watched the case with great interest, as the success of the Sudanese arbitration will likely determine whether peace in the Sudan will be realized in the near future. The arbitrators took pains to decide the case according to “the rule of law,� rejecting the Government of Sudan’s contention that the arbitrators were engaging in ex aequo et bono adjudication – that is to say, extra-legal adjudication made on the basis of fairness rather than positive law.

With so much at stake in the Sudanese border arbitration, the methods employed by the arbitrators were crucial, and in this case, they may have failed: violence has re-emerged in the Sudan despite the border arbitration. I will argue that parts of the Sudanese border were in fact determined on an ex aequo et bono basis, but that other parts were not; and that it was the Tribunal’s haphazard, ad hoc approach that risks undermining the success of peace in the Sudan. I also argue that in some cases, it will be preferable for international border arbitrations to be decided on an openly ex aequo et bono basis rather than merely by black-letter law because of the special need for fairness and equitability in conflict resolution, but that parties to the arbitration as well as tribunals need to be open about their approach.

MONICA RAO BIRADAVOLU, Duke University
Email: monica.biradavolu@duke.edu
SCOTT BURRIS, Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law
Email: scott.burris@temple.edu
ANNIE GEORGE, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: anngeor@gmail.com
ASIMA JENA, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: ashimajena@gmail.com
KIM BLANKENSHIP, Yale University - School of Medicine
Email: kmb5@email.med.yale.edu

There is evidence that policing practices exacerbate HIV risk, particularly for female sex workers. Interventions in India that mobilize sex workers to seek changes in laws and law enforcement practices have received considerable scholarly attention. Yet, there are few studies on the strategies sex worker advocates use to modify police behavior or the struggles they face in challenging state institutions. This paper draws upon contemporary theories of governance and non-state regulation to analyze the evolving strategies of an HIV prevention non-governmental organization (NGO) and female sex worker community-based organizations (CBOs) to reform police practices in a southern Indian city. Using detailed ethnographic observations of NGO and CBO activities over a two year period, and key informant interviews with various actors in the sex trade, this paper shows how a powerless group of marginalized and stigmatized women were able to leverage the combined forces of community empowerment, collective action and network-based governance to regulate a powerful state actor, and considers the impact of the advocacy strategies on sex worker well-being.