Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

This article analyses military activities in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from a legal point of view. It starts from the discussion of the principles of Mare Liberum and Mare Clausum, which are at the basis of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This latter is the main instrument regulating the relations among states at sea. The tension between the two principles reflects the tension between coastal State control and maritime State that dominates the whole discussion on which this article is written. The analysis is supported by a recent example, namely the NordBalt case that clearly shows both the uncertainty of the issue and the relevance of the topic in the relations between states.

Security of societies has become one of urgent issues in contemporary world. Too frequently we started encountering one or another form of malicious behavior, criminal activities or terrorism. New and complex threats highlight the need for further synergies and closer cooperation at all levels. Awareness, preparedness and resilience of societies emerge as key preconditions of further secure and sustainable economic development and general well-being. A special attention in those conditions has to be paid to development of theoretically grounded approach to protection of critical infrastructure (CIP), damage or disruption of which can be immensely harmful to unprepared and therefore vulnerable institutions and society. The aim of this paper is to lay theoretical foundations for theoretically grounded approach towards research in CIP area, in order to formulate, ultimately, an approach towards action, which, employing leadership societal stakeholders would allow to enhance awareness of society actors about the threats, i.e, to develop ability to recognize, prevent, and, in case of disaster, to resist to consequences of critical infrastructure infringement. Hence, enhanced resilience of society to critical infrastructure infringement is and ultimate goal of fostering of leadership for critical infrastructure protection.

Security, living environment, or entrepreneurship ecosystem is determined by wide array of factor. We tackle organized crime issues, which can cause potential insolvensy. In this article, the authors deal with a set of European Court of Human Rights decisions concerning the right to a fair trial and the use of an agent in criminal proceedings. From the investigated decisions, the authors conclude that the individual Slovak regulation, agent provocateur under § 117 par. 2 second sentence of the Criminal Procedure Code, a priori, is not inconsistent with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. This is subject to the condition that the provision in question of the Criminal Procedure Code is interpreted in accordance with the principles established in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

The article scrutinizes the importance of sustaining secure ambience for cadets of the Military Academy of Lithuania (MAL) via balancing emotions and perception in attaining accelerated second language learning and acquisition. This Confluent approach to the second language learning and acquisition was constructed by the teachers of MAL to facilitate and accelerate the second language learning and acquisition of the learners via sustaining secure ambience through balancing their emotions and cognitive features necessary for gaining best effect of second learning and acquisition. Consequently, the already constructed Confluent (holistic, emotionally and cognitively balanced) second foreign language learning and acquisition approach, will significantly sustain secure ambience for the learners which will lead to accelerated foreign language learning and acquisition. In terms of verification of this hypothesis, the research was carried out with cadets of the Military Academy of Lithuania. Experimentally achieved results are presented in the article.

Our paper focuses on the analysis of the the role of risk management in sustainable hotel chain policy. We tackle the issue of risk evaluation and prevention in hotel industry as a factor of enhancing its entrepreneurial value. Our empirical value-added is based on its own novel survey based on a case study of a chosen company. We evaluate the problem areas of risk management and make suggestions for the hotel optimization procedures based on our results and findings. Furthremore, we compare the outcomes of our research with those of the the studies conducted by the renown foreign companies and focusing on payment discipline and risk management. Our results demonstrate that in order to optimize the cash flow in hotel operations, it is advisable to provide a balanced business mix and improvement of strategic internal processes. Moreover, it appears that for the optimal application of the risk management it is important that a new or updated strategic analysis is conducted annually within the business entity according to the development of both the external and internal environment. Furthremore, financial and payment risks need to be integrated into the formulation of strategic goals so as to identify which of them can put the strategy and its strategic goals at stake.

Recent migration and other security crisis have made the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region one of the most problematic and challenging for Europe. The lack of effective decisions to solve it raises the question, weather EU has ever had any good strategy for the relations with this region. This article examines the path of “Euro-Med partnerships” and the recent developments within the EU’s external policy titled “Union for the Mediterranean”. Since 1995, when “Barcelona process” was established, the European Union has been developing economic and political relations with the Mediterranean countries in North Africa and Middle East (MENA) region. Within this period EU has introduced several initiatives focused on the same region including “Barcelona process”/ “Euro- Mediterranean Partnership”, “European neighborhood policy” and the newest one- the Union for the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, the results of the policies are far from satisfying the initial goals. Various institutional structures, which have been established for building the partnership, did not contribute much for settling the recent migration and asylum crisis in the EU either. This article analyzes the reasons and the main institutional frameworks paying attention on the goals’ set and comparing it with the achievements of the EU policies in MENA region. It is stated that EU stance is rather based on “low politics” issues leaving aside the “high politics” questions for many years. We argue that the EU’s external policies directed towards the Mediterranean region, namely the Union for Mediterranean (UfM), did not live up to its expectations and is more focused on low politics, topic-specific issues, rather than solving the major political challenges of the Mediterranean region.

The essence of economic and social security as a national and supranational category has been substantiated. The influence of political, economic and social factors on the condition of national and European security has been investigated. Priorities of the economic component of security have been defined: energy security, foreign trade and innovation-investment security, social security. The dialectical interrelationships of economic and social security have been established. The trends in economic and social security have been defined.

The wider awareness and recognition of human security threats has developed over the last several decades. Spurred on by globalization, greater human mobility, global media, economic interconnectedness and technological advancements, the securitization of non-military security threats have deepened and widened security discourses. The percieved risk posed by truly global threats have resulted in new international regimes and cooperation, national governments have reevaluated their national security strategies, and grassroots movements have revealed and mobileized individuals around the world to action. Global health security threats, and in particular, pandemic diseases, are one just one of many threats currently facing the global community that has the potential to envoke fear and feelings of insecurity and panic, particularly when securitized through twenty four hour news networks and social media. The purpose of this study is to explore the securitization process of a health security threat, the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and risk perceptions of individuals living in a global city geographically distant from the outbreak. This study reports the findings from interviews with eleven individuals based in the United Arab Emirates to explore their individual risk perceptions of the outbreak of the Ebola virus, and to understand how information about the outbreak was obtained, processed and consequently construed by these individuals. The findings suggested that with the increasing securitization of diseases, individual risk perceptions of the 2014 Ebola outbreak were a reflection of a variety of discourses concerning the security issue at the national and global levels. Therefore, in light of the increasing emergence and re-emergence of pandemic diseases and transborder global threats, it is important to consider individual perceptions of the threats and the influence of government, media (traditional and social media), and individual experiences in a global and interconnected world.

The concept of safety is closely related to the activities of law enforcement agencies and, above all, the police. In this regard, the individual qualities of police officers and their influence on the effectiveness of the State Police in ensuring individual safety of citizens are of great importance. One of the most pressing problems in modern society is to protect women from sexual and physical violence, which is required by the main provisions of the Istanbul Convention. The article presents the results of the research on the representations of Latvian police officers about victims of sexual violence in connection with individual representations of justice through a study of belief in a just world. The topicality of this topic is based on numerous researches of the stereotypical view on victims of sexual violence and the negative impact of these stereotypes on the further investigation of crimes and provision of assistance to victims, which leads to frequent concealment of rape cases and distrust to law enforcement agencies in the professional context of making a fair decision. The aim of this research was to determine how the belief in a just world among police officers (N = 170) affects their attitude towards women who have been sexually abused and their ability to objectively assess the situation. The research was conducted based on the results of 4 used methods: “Personal belief in a just world”; “General belief in a just world”; Attitudes toward Rape Victims Scale; Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale followed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the LSD Post Hoc test method to identify statistically significant differences between groups.

This article presents a relatively new dimension of kidnapping, known as ritual kidnapping, which has been battling security and polity in Nigeria. The concepts of ritual and ransom kidnapping are explored and analysed within this text through the adoption of a theoretical framework on security with qualitative methods to explain the causes of kidnapping and ritual kidnapping, an overview of security in Nigeria, and a discussion surrounding the challenges regarding implementation of security within Nigeria. Drawing from results acquired during this study, it can be argued that while the concept of security is yet to be agreed on internationally to suit the needs of different states, Nigeria should adopt a hybrid security in addressing issues such as ritual kidnapping and other crimes in the country.