Manchester Digital Textbooks
This chapter offers a critical account of historiography since c. 2010 on experiences of the 1918–19 Revolution in urban settings. The first section tackles the question of visual landscapes and soundscapes in general, looking particularly at how the poorest urban districts were often the sites of the greatest violence and social stigmatisation in the last weeks of 1918 and the early months of 1919. Parallels with the Paris Commune of March–May 1871 are brought into the discussion, while posters are set alongside other means of occupying public space, such as speeches containing revolutionary rhetoric or occupation of symbolically important buildings. Subsequent sections go on to look at more specific markers of the urban experience: railway stations, prisons, funeral processions and cemeteries. All of these spatial locations became sites of revolutionary experience and socialist protest in 1918–19, although the left’s battle for urban space grew increasingly defensive and less confident as time went on.
This chapter looks at East German views of the revolution of 1918–19 from the 1950s through to the 1980s. It demonstrates that competition with West Germany was just one factor in shaping GDR claims to ‘ownership’ of the revolution. Another important consideration was the anxiety of the KPD, and its political successor after 1946, the SED, to cover up certain aspects of their own history, not least the purges of ex-Spartacists during the Stalinist terror of 1936–38, which remained largely unknown and unspoken about, even after the partial rehabilitation of some victims in 1955–62. For many years, SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht’s 1958 definition of November 1918 as a ‘failed bourgeois revolution’ was the only lens through which East German scholars were permitted to interpret the events of 1918–19. However, the chapter ends by suggesting that some limited spaces for alternative views were already beginning to emerge in the early to mid-1980s, particularly in the spheres of peace history and women’s history.
The Basics of International Law presents a comprehensive and accessible entry-level text which provides the most essential and basic rules and facts of international law in pocket format. This quick reference text offers UK-specific examples to contextualise international law concepts and directs the reader to further sources. Topics covered include: the place of international law in the national legal order; subjects of international law; sources of public international law; treaty law; jurisdiction; immunities; state responsibility; settlement of disputes; the enforcement of international law; peace and security; the law of international organisations; the United Nations; other global international organisations; regional intergovernmental organisations; international human rights; international criminal law; international economic law; and, international environmental law.
This chapter addresses the enforcement of international law. It covers the characteristics of the enforcement of international law, retorsion, reprisals, and collective measures.
This chapter addresses immunities. To do so, it covers limitation of territorial jurisdiction, state immunity, derived immunities, and diplomatic immunities.
This chapter addresses international criminal law. It covers the development and character of international criminal law, international criminal responsibility, prosecution and punishment of international crimes by national authorities, international crimes in domestic criminal law, international criminal courts and tribunals, the International Criminal Court and its procedures, cross-border organised crime, terrorism, and international organisations for combating crime.
This chapter focuses on international economic law. It covers the development of international economic law, the World Trade Organization, the International Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, international monetary organisations, regional economic organisations and agreements, and development cooperation.
This chapter addresses international environmental law. It covers the internationalisation of environmental law, principles of environmental law, relevant UN conferences, institutionalisation, and environmental treaties.
This chapter focuses on international human rights. It covers the recognition and development of implementation and enforcement mechanisms in international human rights treaties, monitoring mechanisms, and regional human rights instruments.
This chapter introduces the foundations of international law. It covers the definition of public international law, the legal nature of public international law, historical developments, natural law and positivism, alternative approaches, sub-areas of international law, adjacent legal fields, and the nation state and international law.