The concern for the safety and security of personnel involved in peacekeeping missions has grown in the last two decades, mainly because of the increased risks deriving from deployment in volatile environments and mandates comprising multiple tasks. This article provides an overview of the developments of international law regarding the protection of peacekeepers, with a special focus on international criminal law and its role in enhancing the safety of the personnel and objects involved in peacekeeping missions. Indeed, starting in 2008, international and hybrid tribunals have issued their first decisions and judgments against individuals indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with attacks against peacekeepers.

After an analysis of the legal regimes established by the 1994 Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel and by international humanitarian law, the article examines the relevant international criminal law provisions and their application and interpretation by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court. It is argued that the application of the specific war crime of attacking peacekeepers, introduced for the first time in the Rome Statute in 1998, presents particular challenges, but it has also led to the punishment of a broader range of offences against peacekeepers. Furthermore, the application of this crime may contribute to the broadening of the range of punishable offences under the more general war crime of attacking civilians, thus leading to the enhancement of the protection of civilians.

When computer crime statutes had yet to be enacted, computer crimes were subjected to traditional criminal laws. This policy resulted in greater expense and other considerable difficulties. These problems and difficulties paved the way for the emergence of a consensus calling for legislators to intervene and enact specific computer crime legislation suited to confronting this new type of criminal activity. Many countries in the world responded by enacting new criminal legislation and many others are on their way to take similar legislative steps.

For the legislative intervention to be sound and successful two major questions should be adequately addressed; the scope of legislative intervention and the nature of computer crime legislation enacted. Regarding the first question, new criminal provisions are needed only to cover those crimes that are unique to computers themselves, other crimes in which a computer is used simply as an instrument for perpetration are either covered by existing criminal provisions or can be covered by simple amendments of said provisions. Another step that should be taken by legislators is the amendment of existing criminal laws with an aim to cover some special cases such as the cases in which the computer is used as an instrument for committing known traditional crimes, making the perpetration of such crimes easier or resulting in more dangerous consequences compared to their more traditional forms and cases in which intangible digitized property comes under threat from criminal activities.

While many countries in the world have soundly followed such a method in dealing with computer related misconducts legislatively, others have failed to do so. In some countries, the legislator has criminalized some criminal conducts that have long since been criminalized by that country's penal code. This creates conflict between criminal provisions, posing problems to prosecutors and courts alike.

Regarding the nature of computer crime statutes, the legislator is presented with two options. The first is the inclusion of the aforementioned criminal provisions in one separate code as one specific computer crime statute. The second is inserting substantive criminal provisions related to computer crimes into the existing penal law of the country. While the first method preserves the unity of substantive criminal law of the country in one code and prevents the dispersion of criminal provisions into many separate laws, the second one would, by contrast, create much-needed public awareness of computer crime.

In Viking and Laval, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) adjudicated the rights of labor and capital mobility under E.U. law. Both cases strengthen the single European market through economic liberalization to generate greater prosperity for all Europeans as part of the process of European economic and political integration. Labor and capital mobility create greater prosperity for all through more rational market exchanges. Free trade is good for goods and is even better for labor. A liberalized and fully mobilized labor market results in more productivity and greater wealth in the European polity, as well as interdependence, and thereby deeper integration resulting in greater understanding and less conflict. The decisions, wrongly criticized by some as “bad for workers” are justified by the fact that they will benefit workers in Eastern Europe, consumers in Western Europe, and the Community as a whole by deepening integration. A key challenge for the European Union is to economically anchor and deepen the political restructuring of Eastern Europe by enabling the natural labor and capital movements which an open marketplace generates. Europe does this not with the failed neo-liberal model which has ravaged the wealth of the United States and squandered it in illusory booms based on consumer borrowing and deficit spending to fund war for oil. Rather, Europe is developing a neo-corporatist social model. This article uses the Viking and Laval cases as examples of this development.

In a village of Europe, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those book reviewers that keep a soft-tongue in the lance-rack for his friends' books, an old buckler with partisan coat-of-arms as a mark of his feudal loyalty to his academic ancestors, a lean hack to accompany him in the dark alleys of scholarly fears, and a greyhound for coursing his civil-servant oriented career's ambitions. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. His first years in academia were of such quality as to drive him to the verge of quitting this miserable life more than once. The rest of his income went to a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches to attend academic congresses, and shoes to match for holidays, that were always research-oriented, and on weekdays he made a brave figure in his best homespun.

Professor Joseph Weiler will soon stand trial for criminal libel in France for refusing to remove a book review from a website associated with an academic journal for which he serves as editor. His case has disturbing implications for all those who write, edit, and publish critical scholarly work. In this article, I explore those implications for Canadian scholars at home and as members of a global scholarly community. I assess the likelihood of success of a similar complaint under Canadian defamation law, and I consider the impact of libel chill and libel tourism. I conclude that although the defendant in such a case would have a good chance of prevailing under Canadian law through the defense of fair comment, a threat to academic freedom remains that requires action on the part of individuals and institutions committed to its preservation and enhancement.