مطالب

Marine noise pollution has emerged as a critical environmental challenge in international law, posing serious threats to marine biodiversity, particularly to noise-sensitive species such as marine mammals, fish, and invertebrates. The increasing industrialization of the seas, driven by activities such as commercial shipping, military sonar operations, offshore energy exploration, and deep-sea mining, has significantly intensified underwater noise pollution. This phenomenon disrupts marine life by interfering with communication, navigation, reproduction, and feeding patterns, ultimately affecting ecosystem stability. This study examines the role of international conventions in addressing marine noise pollution, with a particular focus on domestic legislation in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The main research question seeks to determine how international legal frameworks regulate marine noise pollution and to what extent Iran’s national legal system aligns with these global standards. The research hypothesizes that while international conventions, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and related environmental agreements, provide general legal principles, they lack effective enforcement mechanisms. Consequently, the absence of specific, binding global regulations necessitates stronger national implementation measures. A qualitative methodology is employed, relying on doctrinal legal analysis and comparative studies to assess international legal provisions and domestic regulations. The study reviews primary legal sources, including treaties, judicial decisions, and national legislation, alongside secondary sources such as academic literature, policy reports, and expert opinions. The findings reveal that while various international instruments recognize marine noise pollution as a threat to marine biodiversity, they lack precise and binding regulations for its prevention and mitigation. UNCLOS, for instance, sets general obligations for states to prevent marine pollution but does not explicitly define marine noise as a pollutant, leading to legal ambiguities in enforcement. Similarly, agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) guidelines provide recommendations rather than legally binding measures. At the national level, Iran’s environmental legal framework incorporates general provisions for marine environmental protection. However, it does not specifically address noise pollution in marine environments, leaving a regulatory gap. Given Iran’s strategic maritime position and extensive coastline, the absence of specific noise pollution regulations poses challenges in fulfilling its international obligations. This study concludes that the mitigation of marine noise pollution requires a multifaceted approach, combining stronger international legal instruments with enhanced enforcement mechanisms and more robust domestic policies. Effective legal frameworks should incorporate mandatory noise reduction measures, stricter environmental impact assessments, and clear liability rules. Additionally, strengthening regional cooperation, fostering scientific research on noise pollution’s impact, and integrating global best practices into national legislation are essential steps. Iran, as a key maritime state, would benefit from adopting specific laws addressing marine noise pollution and aligning its domestic legal system with international environmental standards.

Background and Theoretical Foundations: Tourism has an efficient and effective potential in the economic, social, and cultural growth of countries, especially developing countries such as Iran, which, if implemented, can lead to development. Iran has a significant and unique potential in terms of tourism attractions, so that the capacity of this country can be compared with countries such as Greece, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and some other ancient countries. As an invisible export of goods and services, due to its effectiveness on the process of production and employment, the Tourism industry is one of the most important and most profitable industries of the world and can play a significant role in meeting foreign exchange earnings and economic growth, and development of countries. Methodology: The objective of conducting the present study is to present a model to realize the competitive model of the tourism industry. In this study, the indicators of the Crouch and Ritchie model were used to create a framework that includes the views of experts. The reliability and validity of the research were confirmed through statistical methods to establish the primary indicators along with the defined sub-indices. The statistical universe of the study includes the tourism experts, including university professors, experts employed in the organizations related to tourism, in two sections of governmental and private, who have sufficient acquaintance with the Mazandaran region. The sampling method will be available sampling with the Cochran formula. In available sampling, the researcher uses the available samples, and it is an inexpensive and available sampling method. Findings: The findings of the study show that the rating of factors effective on attraction of tourism destinations of Mazandaran Province are inheritable Cultural resources, built resources, supportive and situational factors, natural inheritable resources, policy making, planning and development, key resources and attractions, condition of demand, management of tourism destination, ability of controlling expense, public infrastructure, ability of concentration and differentiability, respectively. Therefore, it is inferred that, concerning importance towards, other factors effective on attraction of tourism destination of Mazandaran province, competitiveness of destination has less priority. Conclusion: The results show that three main factors are effective in the development of marine and non-marine tourism in Mazandaran province. These factors include primary factors such as heritable cultural resources, heritable natural resources, and built resources. Secondary factors include policy-making, destination planning and development, tourism destination management and supporting situational factors. And tertiary factors such as public infrastructure, demand conditions, key resources, and attractions. This study finally evaluates the destination's competitiveness based on cost control, differentiation, and focusability. The results of the Friedman test show that the highest priority is given to heritable cultural resources with an average score of 11.8, followed by built resources with 8.03 and supporting and situational factors with 31.7. The next priorities include inherited natural resources (7.16), policy and planning (7.14), key resources and attractions (6.81), demand conditions (6.26), tourism destination management (5.88), cost control (5.58), public infrastructure (5.48), focusability (5.27), and finally, differentiation with an average of 0.06.

In 19th century Iran, through the publication of travelogues, the expansion of capitalism, and familiarity with the governance methods of Western countries, a system of knowledge or grand discourse emerged that represented Iran's backwardness and illness. Within this system of knowledge (episteme), various discourses aimed at remedying this illness were formed, one of the vital being the discourse of modernist nationalism which served as a counter-discourse to the "Anti-autocratic Constitutionalist" discourse and sought to justify its propositions in response to it, was extensively exploited by the Pahlavi court and managed to become the dominant discourse of the court for a long time. The present study employs the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, focusing on the question of ‘What the semantic network of modernist nationalism discourse was and what function it aimed to achieve?’ The semantic coordinates of this discourse are examined. The results indicated that the most significant signifier of the modernist nationalism discourse was "Iranian nationalism," which, by outlining a semantic network composed of various elements such as superficial and top-down modernization, centralization (establishment of a dominant state), the necessity of reviving the monarchy and kingship, secularism and opposition to Islamism, and the strengthening of militarism, aimed to consolidate the power of the Pahlavi regime by providing a solution for Iran's backwardness.