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The “Black Lives Matter” civil rights movement has left profound effects on the international approach of the US government toward human rights. This movement reached its peak in 2020 and profoundly affected culture, politics, and policy making in the US. The two major parties reacted differently – the Democrats showed support but Republicans opposed it. These reactions help us analyze the US international policy toward human rights. US human rights policy has been embedded in the theory of “American exceptionalism”, which considered US the best incarnation of human rights and its interests as a superpower equal to its protection. But the Black Lives Matter movement challenges this narrative and claims that human rights violations are an untold part of this story. The Democrats have adopted a new approach to American exceptionalism in response which considers The US to have an exceptional potential to embody human rights values but this potential is yet to be realized. Joe Biden has also prioritized human rights more than his predecessors since 1980s by criticizing the US and also adopting harsher policies toward US allies that violate human rights. It can be predicted that the Democrats will adopt a more normative approach toward human rights in the future.

According to Article 7 of the Rome Statute, the crime of Apartheid refers to actions, policies, and courses of conduct with the purpose of maintaining an institutionalized regime of systematic racism and racial domination. Based on this definition, the word "Apartheid" will not only refer to the historical regime of South Africa (1948-1994) but is also recognized as a crime against humanity on par with torture and slavery. Due to certain similarities in legal systems and roots of establishment, Israel and the Apartheid Regime of South Africa have been considered to be analogous in various international documents sponsored by the United Nations until 1991. This study aims to analyze the historical rationale behind this recognition and the reversal of course by the United Nations General Assembly, which was initiated with the revocation of A/RES/3379 resolution (the equation of Zionism with racism). Furthermore, in the light of recent developments on domestic and international levels, it seems several unaligned trends are gaining ground in this respect to reaffirm the previous attribution of the crime of Apartheid to Israel. Through using E-Library data and employing the descriptive-analytical method, the veracity of the said trends, their projection, and their perseverance will be further discussed in this paper.

The oceans which cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface contain the most biologically diverse ecosystems on earth, we depend on the seas for our survival since they support life on earth. They are also essential for our economic prosperity, social well-being, and quality of life. Yet the marine environment is deteriorating fast. We need to find better ways of managing it. Over the last decade, significant advances in citizen science have occurred, allowing projects to extend areas beyond national jurisdiction. Perhaps, however, our greatest challenges are those that exist in the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), where management is reliant on international agreements and enforcement is likely to need remote monitoring methods using satellite technologies. In view of this development, the aim of this article is to provide some information on marine scientific research and examines the applicability of the marine scientific research (MSR) regime of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). However, the MSR regime of UNCLOS is far from absolute freedom, it is conditional on responsibilities including, for example, providing the legal basis for setting up obligations such as conservation and sustainable use of the environment. The article concludes by outlining some of the issues that should play important role in the process of research.

The conflict between sovereignty over parts of the sea and the necessity of "innocent passage" concept has been the most contentious field in the law of the sea." Two hypotheses in this field have collided in the history of international law of the sea. The first hypothesis is that every human possesses the seas together. "Navigation" and other operations are also allowed for all. Under the excuse of owning the sea, no state has the right to restrict other people's use. However, the second theory says that the sea is owned by someone who controls part of it, and its use can be limited. In international law, the "innocent passage" by foreign vessels from the territorial sea of a country is widely recognized. However, in some territories, the requirements for the "innocent passage" of military vessels include the need for prior notice or the coastal state's permission. Most forces, led by the US, believe in absolute freedom of the military vessel's "innocent passage." However, most Asian countries, including Iran, assume that they can prior notification or approval for a foreign military vessel passage. This activity was often resisted in operational as well as diplomatic phases by naval forces such as the United States. 

Over the past few years, two events have radically transformed American identity and global perceptions of America with respect to human rights. The first of these is the detention of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay and the second is the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This paper considers how Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have altered the intellectual and popular perceptions of human rights in America and abroad. The paper argues that the very different reactions to these events in the US and abroad suggest a move toward a relativist view of human rights in the US, limited by necessity and legality, but a universalist approach to human rights abroad. Moving toward a common global understanding of necessity and legality is critical to the pursuit of universal human rights. The reactions to Guantanamo indicate a growing acceptance in the United States of a relative conception of human rights. In the winter and spring of 2003, United States military forces at Abu Ghraib prison committed a range of often gruesome violations of Iraqi prisoners.

The right to attorney in judicial proceedings is one of the basic procedural rights that serves substantive rights. The question that can be raised here is “What is the meaning and characteristics of the attorney in administrative proceedings? Using a comparative and analytical method, the present article seeks to answer the above question. The findings of this article show that the British and Australian legal systems do not recognize the right to attorney in administrative proceedings as an absolute right. If the laws do not recognize the power of attorney in the administrative proceedings, it will be up to administrative courts. However, in cases where procedural fairness requires this right, the courts are sensitive to it in their judicial procedure. The procedure of the European Court of Human Rights also shows that the concepts of fairness of the proceedings and the right to attorney have been extended to administrative proceedings as well. In the Iranian legal system, the attorney is one of the basic procedural rights recognized by the Constitution and according to the approach of the Guardian Council, this right can be extended to administrative courts as well. The judicial procedure of the Court of Administrative Justice also confirms this approach and treats it as a judicial proceeding.

Environmental risks and conflicts in the framework of the relations between countries and subsequently their role-playing in interaction and collaboration or conflicts and struggles between political actors especially in the level of states have reproduced serious discussions and disputes on the environment, security, and power which are interpreted as environmental geopolitics or ecopolitics by modern political geography. Geographically, the Persian Gulf is a semi-enclosed sea that has a very low capacity of self-dredging in comparison to that of high seas; hence, it retains the pollutants for longer periods of time. Some of its environmental problems arise from the various activities of the people residing along the northern and southern shores. If the situation is exacerbated by the factors such as oil and its subsequent pollutions, militarism and its subsequent destruction, desalination of seawater, and the construction of artificial islands, one can conclude that regional convergence between the countries neighboring this body of water in the process of bioregionalism would be of an essential necessity. According to the research findings, states acting in the geopolitical region of the Persian Gulf to produce power, security and to sustain them, from one hand, and to protect this shared aquatic ecosystem in the event of sustainable development, from the other hand, should mobilize all collective cooperations and operationalize the bioregionalism in regional and supranational scales.

Today, advances in science and technology have increased human power to change the environment; This situation has endangered human survival. Sustainable development is one of the solutions to solve this challenge. The emphasis of sustainable development is on intergenerational commitment and intergenerational and intergenerational justice, quality of life and participation of individuals in the development process. Since international judicial authorities play an important role in the development of international law, it is important to address the jurisprudence of these courts in the context of sustainable development and its principles. This article analyzes some of the rulings of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and states that in its decisions of the last two decades, the Court has made good use of the principles of sustainable development and revealed the normative element of the concept of sustainable development. The rulings of this court indicate the establishment of the position of these principles in the practice of this institution and its positive approach to the rights of future generations, while defending the interests of the current generation.

The concerns of the international community regarding the potential environmental crisis for future generations have being increased arising out of the intensification of the challenges and threats to the marine environment as well as diminution of the biological resources as a result of the aggregation of harmful human activities over the maritime zones. At the same time, conservation, sustainable use and governance of the oceans through the application of the rule of law is one of the most important issues that have been at the forefront of the international community's endeavor dealing with law of the sea and ocean affairs. The United Nations General Assembly in order to resolve the challenges of the existing legal framework governing marine biodiversity has established a legally binding instrument for conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction known as the BBNJ process within the framework of the Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The present paper, while considering the basic foundations of the existing international legal framework applicable to marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, describes the strengths and weaknesses of the current legal framework in order to improve the ongoing international legally binding instrument concerning BBNJ and will pursue the monitoring of the ongoing process from international law perspectives.

Discrimination and xenophobia are threats to peace, and in many occasions have led to armed conflicts. Similarly the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Doudou Diène finds racism and xenophobia, rather than terrorism, as “the most serious threats to democracy”. On the other hand, international struggle against non-discrimination, fascism and xenophobia, along with protection of minorities, has been concentrated on the racial and national aspects of vulnerable people, rather than the religious ones. This policy seems no more adequate when as Abdelfattah Amor, the former UN Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance states that “there are borderline cases where racial and religious distinctions are far from clear cut. Abdelfattah Amor adds, “apart from any discrimination, the identity of many minorities, or even large groups of people, is defined by both racial and religious aspects. Hence, many instances of discrimination are aggravated by the effects of multiple identities.” Similarly Diène refers to “the centrality of the amalgamation of the factors of race, culture and religion in the post-9/11 ideological atmosphere of intolerance and polarization.”