Interview with President Rosalyn Higgins of the International Court of Justice
President Higgins has a distinguished and accomplished career. She is Dame Commander of the British Empire, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. President Higgins is also a Barrister, Queen’s Counsel, and a Bencher of the Inner Temple. President Higgins practiced public international law and petroleum law in the English courts, and before various international tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Court of the European Communities. Prior to her appointment to the Court, Dame Rosalyn was Counsel for the following cases in the International Court of Justice: case concerning East Timor (Portugal v. Australia); Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Chad); Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United Kingdom); case concerning Gabčíkovo‑Nagymaros Project (Hungary/Slovakia).
Read the interview on The Law Journal
International Court of Justice
Does Law Require Legislation?
About the author: Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School. He was an economist, economic historian, and libertarian political philosopher.
While at least a corporal’s guard of libertarian economists exists in America today, the situation in the other disciplines of human action is indeed bleak. Most political scientists, for example, are either engaged in spinning fallacious scientistic “models” or in solemnly recording the empirical minutiae of the workings of government bureaucracy. The small minority of political philosophers (those who still grapple with such basic questions as the nature and proper function of the State) trumpet the alleged glories of Order, Tradition, Community, the “Leap in Being,” and Good Manners, but somehow remain silent about the liberty of the individual. This pervading miasma makes all the more welcome the publication of a notable series of lectures by Professor Bruno Leoni, eminent jurist and political scientist of the University of Pavia, Italy. For here at last is a political scientist with strong libertarian inclinations.
Professor Leoni’s major thesis is that even the staunchest free-market economists have unwisely admitted that laws must be created by governmental legislation; this concession, Leoni shows, provides an inevitable gateway for State tyranny over the individual. The other side of the coin to increasing intervention by government in the free market has been the burgeoning of legislation, with its inherent coercion by a majority—or, more often, by an oligarchy of pseudo-”representatives” of a majority—over the rest of the population. In this connection, Leoni presents a brilliant critique of F.A. Hayek’s recent writings on the “rule of the law.” In contrast to Hayek, who calls for general legislative rules as opposed to the vagaries of arbitrary bureaucracy or of “administrative law,” Leoni points out that the real and underlying menace to individual freedom is not the administrator but the legislative statute that makes the administrative ruling possible.[1] It is not enough, demonstrates Leoni, to have general rules applicable to everyone and written down in advance; for these rules themselves may—and generally do—invade freedom.
Law firm sees strong case for Signify two-factor authentication
Reputational risk drives move to secure remote access
Law firm Hodge Jones and Allen is providing many of its 170 staff with secure, round-the-clock remote access to email and client case notes using an RSA SecurID two-factor authentication (2FA) hosted service from Cambridge-based Signify. This is part of the London firm’s ongoing commitment to the highest levels of security to prevent confidential information being compromised and also to avoid any risk to its reputation.
In addition to providing senior staff with access to company resources and applications, selected clients, partners and third-party companies can also log-in securely using the Signify two-factor authentication service. This includes typists who are able to work flexibly from home through secure access to the digital dictation system.
Users are issued with a small RSA SecurID token from Signify that produces a new unique one-time passcode (OTP) every 60 seconds. By using this, along with their known user name and secret PIN via the web-based Citrix Application Portal, they can log in safely at any time and from anywhere. This gives users the same desktop look and feel and access to authorised applications and data as if they were sitting at their desks in the office.
As a hosted service, Signify handles everything from dispatching Tokens and rights administration to providing a 24/7 support and dealing with forgotten passwords. “We used to run an RSA solution in-house but it was a hassle to manage and maintain the authentication servers and support our users round-the-clock,” says Celina Ho, IT Manager at Hodge Jones & Allen.
“The Signify hosted service now handles everything and just keeps running, so we can get on dealing with other important issues. The system is easy to use, is always available and simple to deploy, manage and scale.”
Celina Ho is also able to enforce corporate security policy, add or remove users, define what they are authorised to access and view detailed reports using Signify’s powerful Identity Management Centre web portal. The law firm is also looking at using Signify’s Passcode OnDemand service that sends unique one time passcodes to a mobile phone or PDA. This is ideal for less frequent users and for those that don’t want to carry a separate token.
“With increasing pressure and competition, lawyers and other legal professionals need reliable, round the clock access to client information and communications,” says Dave Abrahams, CEO at Signify. “But while most law firms recognise that simple passwords are not secure, many don’t want the additional hassle or don’t have the resources to run an in-house two-factor authentication solution. That’s why we are finding increasing interest in our hosted services.”