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This chapter explores the nature of military law and IHL during the cold war period. It explores what treaties were completed, Additional Protocols I and II of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the ad hoc international tribunals of the 1990s and 2000s, and examines the ICJ’s ruling of the legality of nuclear weapons.

This chapter examines World War II and its impact on international and military law. It covers the war’s key crimes, the Nürnberg and Tokyo tribunals, and the creation of the United Nations, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the Genocide Convention of 1948.

This chapter examines how the nature of World War I catalyzed significant changes in the laws of war, the Treaty of Versailles, the failed Leipzig Trials, and the multiple treaties enacted in the 1920s, with particular focus on the Geneva Convention of 1929.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) stands as a significant player in the hydrocarbon landscape of the Middle East, necessitating an in-depth analysis of its role in the exportation process to Turkey and Mediterranean ports, thereby fostering economic and political ties and projecting toward the future. Situated as a semi-autonomous entity in northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Region boasts abundant natural gas resources, attracting interest from Russian firms and Turkish stakeholders. However, Iran’s influence in Iraq and the wider region poses a regional threat to the Kurdistan Region’s natural resources. This chapter meticulously examines the oil and gas blocks within the Kurdistan Region amidst the backdrop of transformative global energy market shifts, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian–Ukrainian conflict. Through this lens, it seeks to delineate the Kurdistan Region’s political and economic positioning within the evolving regional order.

In the past 10 years, the scale of running events in China has increased dramatically, and the forms of running events have also become rich and diverse. Running is not only a social phenomenon but also a historical and cultural phenomenon as an organic part of human culture with its own sociological values in China. This chapter offers insight into the development of Chinese running culture and how this has emerged from ancient and modern Chinese running cultures based on Foucault's disciplinary power theory, biopower and the technologies of the self. This chapter argues that running culture in China constructs the subjectivity of the Chinese runners under the joint action of the technologies of power and the technologies of the self. The findings acknowledge how Chinese Runners present and express themselves by showing a ‘sense of presence’. Runners illustrate the implicit or explicit meaning and value of a particular way of life through running. Runners regard running as the technology of the self for self-expression and self-creation so that individuals can control their bodies and soul, thoughts, behaviours and ways of existence. Emerging technologies of power provide possibilities for the production of running culture in China, and the current policy under the technologies of power meets the needs of runners. In Chinese running culture, power was not oppressive but productive.

This paper aims to unravel the puzzle that the United Kingdom’s high-quality government accounting and fiscal architecture is associated with low-quality outcomes, including poor productivity growth, high public debt, public services which do not meet citizen expectations and historically high levels of taxation. It contributes to public sector accounting research in the fields of fiscal transparency and governance.

This paper uses Miller and Power’s (2013) economization framework and Dunsire’s (1990) concept of collibration to explain why being a global leader in public sector accounting reform and in fiscal and monetary architecture has not protected the UK from weak governance. The intersection of economization’s roles of accounting with modes of government accounting clarifies the puzzle.

Whereas accruals government accounting contributes to fiscal transparency, this is not a sufficient condition for well-judged policy and its effective application. Collibration is the dominant mechanism for mediation in the fiscally centralized UK, but it has failed to deliver stable outcomes, in part because Parliament is limited in its ability to hold back inappropriate behaviour by the Executive. Subjectivization has disrupted adjudication because governments at all levels resist constraints on their behaviour, with unpredictable and often damaging consequences.

This paper provides insights through the combined lens of economization and modes of government accounting, demonstrating the practical value of this conceptualization. Although some causes for unsatisfactory outcomes are specific to the UK, there are cautions for accounting and fiscal reformers in other countries, such as Member States of the European Union.

In this paper, the authors examine the strategies used to reduce labour costs in three public hospitals in South Africa, which were effective and why. In the democratic era, after the revelations of large-scale corruption, the authors ask whether their case studies provide lessons for how public service institutions might re-make themselves, under circumstances of austerity.

A comparative qualitative case study approach, collecting data using a combination of interviews with managers, focus group discussions and interviews with shop stewards and staff was used.

Management in two hospitals relied on their financial power, divisions between unions and employees' loyalty. They lacked the insight to manage different actors, and their efforts to outsource services and draw on the Extended Public Works Program failed. They failed to support staff when working beyond their scope of practice, reducing employees' willingness to take on extra responsibilities. In the remaining hospital, while previous management had been removed due to protests by the unions, the new CEO provided stability and union–management relations were collaborative. Her legitimate power enabled unions and management to agree on appropriate cost cutting strategies.

Finding an appropriate balance between the new reality of reduced financial resources and the needs of staff and patients, requires competent unions and management, transparency and trust to develop legitimate power; managing in an authoritarian manner, without legitimate power, reduces organisational capacity. Ensuring a fair and orderly process to replace ineffective management is key, while South Africa grows cohorts of competent managers and builds managerial experience.