The Responsibility to Protect and International Law

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a major new international principle, adopted unanimously in 2005 by Heads of State and Government. Whilst it is broadly acknowledged that the principle has an important and intimate relationship with international law, especially the law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights and armed conflict, there has yet to be a volume dedicated to this question. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law fills that gap by bringing together leading scholars from North America, Europe and Australia to examine R2P’s legal content. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law focuses on questions relating to R2P’s legal quality, its relationship with sovereignty, and the question of whether the norm establishes legal obligations. It also aims to introduce readers to different legal perspectives, including feminism, and pressing practical questions such as how the law might be used to prevent genocide and mass atrocities, and punish the perpetrators.

Corporate governance in 2010 : what will change?

2010 is expected to see the publication of a new UK Code on Corporate Governance, replacing the Combined Code. Why is a new code being issued? What significant changes are proposed? WIll it change the corporate governance world?

Ranskan rooli ja asema läntisessä liittoutumassa neljännen ja viidennen tasavallan vaihtumakohdassa 1956-1958

The study discusses the position of France as the United States’ ally in NATO in 1956-1958. The concrete position of France and the role that it was envisioned to have are being treated from the point of view of three participants of the Cold War: France, the United States and the Soviet Union. How did these different parties perceive the question and did these views change when the French Fourth Republic turned into the Fifth in 1958? The study is based on published French and American documents of Foreign Affairs. Because of problems with accessibility to the Soviet archival sources, the study uses reports on France-NATO relations of Pravda newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party of the USSR, to provide information about how the Soviet side saw the question. Due to the nature and use of source material, and the chronological structure of the work, the study belongs methodologically to the research field of History of International Relations. As distinct from political scientists’ field of research, more prone to theorize, the study is characteristically a historical research, a work based on qualitative method and original sources that aims at creating a coherent narrative of the views expressed during the period covered by the study. France’s road to a full membership of NATO is being treated on the basis of research literature, after which discussions about France’s position in the Western Alliance are being chronologically traced for the period of last years of the Fourth Republic and the immediate months of coming back to power of Charles de Gaulle. Right from the spring of 1956 there can be seen aspirations of France, on one hand, to maintain her freedom of action inside the Western Alliance and, on the other, to widen the dialogue between the allies. The decision on France’s own nuclear deterrent was made already during the Fourth Republic, when it was thought to become part of NATO’s common defence. This was to change with de Gaulle. The USA felt that France still fancied herself as a great power and that she could not participate in full in NATO’s common defence because of her colonies. The Soviet Union saw the concrete position of France in the Alliance as in complete dependence on the USA, but her desired role was expressed largely in “Gaullist” terms. The expressions used by the General and the Soviet propaganda were close to each other, but the Soviet Union could not support de Gaulle without endangering the position of the French Communist Party. Between the Fourth and Fifth Republics no great rupture in content took place concerning the views of France’s role and position in the Western Alliance. The questions posed by de Gaulle had been expressed during the whole period of Fourth Republic’s existence. Instead, along with the General the weight and rhetoric of these questions saw a great change. Already in the early phase the Americans saw it possible that with de Gaulle, France would try to change her role. The rupture took place in the form of expression, rather than in its content.

Co2 emissions and income trajectory in Australia: The role of technological change

This study investigates the relationship between per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and per capita GDP in Australia, while controlling for technological state as measured by multifactor productivity and export of black coal. Although technological progress seems to play a critical role in achieving long term goals of CO2 reduction and economic growth, empirical studies have often considered time trend to proxy technological change. However, as discoveries and diffusion of new technologies may not progress smoothly with time, the assumption of a deterministic technological progress may be incorrect in the long run. The use of multifactor productivity as a measure of technological state, therefore, overcomes the limitations and provides practical policy directions. This study uses recently developed bound-testing approach, which is complemented by Johansen- Juselius maximum likelihood approach and a reasonably large sample size to investigate the cointegration relationship. Both of the techniques suggest that cointegration relationship exists among the variables. The long-run and short-run coefficients of CO2 emissions function is estimated using ARDL approach. The empirical findings in the study show evidence of the existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve type relationship for per capita CO2 emissions in the Australian context. The technology as measured by the multifactor productivity, however, is not found as an influencing variable in emissionsincome trajectory.

Disarming identities : Ethnic identities in conflict resolution: Hindrance or helpful resource?

This thesis proposes that national or ethnic identity is an important and overlooked resource in conflict resolution. Usually ethnic identity is seen both in international relations and in social psychology as something that fuels the conflict. Using grounded theory to analyze data from interactive problem-solving workshops between Palestinians and Israelis a theory about the role of national identity in turning conflict into protracted conflict is developed. Drawing upon research from, among others, social identity theory, just world theory and prejudice it is argued that national identity is a prime candidate to provide the justification of a conflict party’s goals and the dehumanization of the other necessary to make a conflict protracted. It is not the nature of national identity itself that lets it perform this role but rather the ability to mobilize a constituency for social action (see Stürmer, Simon, Loewy, & Jörger, 2003). Reicher & Hopkins (1996) have demonstrated that national identity is constructed by political entrepreneurs to further their cause, even if this construction is not a conscious one. Data from interactive problem-solving workshops suggest that the possibility of conflict resolution is actually seen by participants as a direct threat of annihilation. Understanding the investment necessary to make conflict protracted this reaction seems plausible. The justification for ones actions provided by national identity makes the conflict an integral part of a conflict party’s identity. Conflict resolution, it is argued, is therefore a threat to the very core of the current national identity. This may explain why so many peace agreements have failed to provide the hoped for resolution of conflict. But if national identity is being used in a constructionist way to attain political goals, a political project of conflict resolution, if it is conscious of the constructionist process, needs to develop a national identity that is independent of conflict and therefore able to accommodate conflict resolution. From this understanding it becomes clear why national identity needs to change, i.e. be disarmed, if conflict resolution is to be successful. This process of disarmament is theorized to be similar to the process of creating and sustaining protracted conflict. What shape and function this change should have is explored from the understanding of the role of national identity in supporting conflict. Ideas how track-two diplomacy efforts, such as the interactive problem-solving workshop, could integrate a process by both conflict parties to disarm their respective identities are developed.

Bridging East and West : The Establishment of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in the United States Foreign Policy of Bridge Building, 1964-1972.

The dissertation examines the foreign policies of the United States through the prism of science and technology. In the focal point of scrutiny is the policy establishing the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the development of the multilateral part of bridge building in American foreign policy during the 1960s and early 1970s. After a long and arduous negotiation process, the institute was finally established by twelve national member organizations from the following countries: Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), France, German Democratic Republic (GDR), Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland, Soviet Union and United States; a few years later Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands also joined. It is said that the goal of the institute was to bring together researchers from East and West to solve pertinent problems caused by the modernization process experienced in industrialized world. It originates from President Lyndon B. Johnson s bridge building policies that were launched in 1964, and was set in a well-contested and crowded domain of other international organizations of environmental and social planning. Since the distinct need for yet another organization was not evident, the process of negotiations in this multinational environment enlightens the foreign policy ambitions of the United States on the road to the Cold War détente. The study places this project within its political era, and juxtaposes it with other international organizations, especially that of the OECD, ECE and NATO. Conventionally, Lyndon Johnson s bridge building policies have been seen as a means to normalize its international relations bilaterally with different East European countries, and the multilateral dimension of the policy has been ignored. This is why IIASA s establishment process in this multilateral environment brings forth new information on US foreign policy goals, the means to achieve these goals, as well as its relations to other advanced industrialized societies before the time of détente, during the 1960s and early 1970s. Furthermore, the substance of the institute applied systems analysis illuminates the differences between European and American methodological thinking in social planning. Systems analysis is closely associated with (American) science and technology policies of the 1960s, especially in its military administrative applications, thus analysis within the foreign policy environment of the United States proved particularly fruitful. In the 1960s the institutional structures of European continent with faltering, and the growing tendencies of integration were in flux. One example of this was the long, drawn-out process of British membership in the EEC, another is de Gaulle s withdrawal from NATO s military-political cooperation. On the other hand, however, economic cooperation in Europe between East and West, and especially with the Soviet Union was expanding rapidly. This American initiative to form a new institutional actor has to be seen in that structural context, showing that bridge building was needed not only to the East, but also to the West. The narrative amounts to an analysis of how the United States managed both cooperation and conflict in its hegemonic aspirations in the emerging modern world, and how it used its special relationship with the United Kingdom to achieve its goals. The research is based on the archives of the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, and IIASA. The primary sources have been complemented with both contemporary and present day research literature, periodicals, and interviews.

A transformação dos direitos humanos: questionando a sua universalidade a partir da especificação dos direitos

A compreensão dos direitos humanos considerados como universais variam ao longo da história, uma vez que as necessidades dos homens e os fatores político, econômico, social e cultural também mudam. O argumento da presente dissertação consiste em destacar a variabilidade da dimensão universal dos direitos dos homens por meio da teoria política, social e das relações internacionais, abordando questões tais como a construção do padrão dos direitos humanos na teoria política, sua institucionalização no plano internacional, a transformação dos tipos de direitos que são considerados como universais, para quem eles são estendidos e a quem seu acesso é restrito. O objetivo é discutir sobre a variabilidade do caráter universal dos direitos humanos como valores, focando na questão das reivindicações de direitos específicos a serem considerados no escopo dos direitos humanos.

Intervenção humanitária e a mudança do paradigma do jus ad bellum no Direito Internacional contemporâneo

A partir do exame da formação e identificação da norma consuetudinária, consoante os pressupostos da teoria dos dois elementos, investiga-se a índole consuetudinária das intervenções humanitárias no contexto do Direito Internacional Contemporâneo, a fim de verificar se tais práticas estatais teriam se constituído em um costume internacional e, por conseguinte, se elas ampliaram o rol das exceções ao princípio da proibição do uso da força pelos Estados nas relações internacionais esculpido no artigo 2 (4) da Carta das Nações Unidas. Dada a polissemia existente para a expressão intervenção humanitária, esta pode ser compreendida como o recurso à força armada por um Estado, ou grupo de Estados, para além das suas fronteiras, conforme discricionariedade própria, ou seja, sem a autorização do CSNU, com o propósito de cessar práticas em largas escalas, persistentes e generalizadas, comissivas ou omissivas, de graves violações dos Direito Humanos e Internacional Humanitário. A partir da apuração dos elementos que conformam esse conceito estabelecido, do exame dos casos de ocorrência e das justificativas legais apresentadas pelos Estados interventores para essa prática interventiva, conjugado com a reação dos demais Estados à essa conduta, por uma considerável e persistente falta de expresso reconhecimento do caráter de direito para a intervenção humanitária, é possível afirmar que os Estados sucessivamente reafirmaram o reconhecimento do princípio da interdição do uso da força pelos Estados nas suas relações internacionais e, que nos quadros do Direito Internacional contemporâneo, a este tipo de intervenção não é um costume internacional porque carece de opinio iuris.

Identifying the Aggressor under International Law: A Principles Approach

null RAE2008

Trauma and the Memory of Politics

Edkins, Jenny, Trauma and the Memory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.xvii+265 RAE2008

Political Leadership and Public Support In Belarus: Forward to the Past?

Korosteleva-Polglase Elena, White, S., 'Political Leadership and Public Support In Belarus: Forward to the Past?', In: 'The EU and Belarus: Between Moscow and Brussels', (London: Kogan Page), pp.51-71, 2001 RAE2008

Words, Images, Enemies : Securitization and International Politics

Williams, Mike, 'Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics', International Studies Quarterly (2003) 47(4) pp.511-531 RAE2008

The Kosovo Bombing Campaign

Wheeler, Nicholas. 'The Kosovo Bombing Campaign', In: The Politics of International Law, C. Reus-Smit (Ed.), (Cambridge Studies in International Relations 96. Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 189-216, 2004. 1. Introduction Christian Reus-Smit; 2. The politics of international law Christian Reus-Smit; 3. When states use armed force Dino Kritsiotis; 4. Soft law, hard politics, and the Climate Change Treaty Robyn Eckersley; 5. Emerging customary norms, and anti-personnel landmines Richard Price; 6. International law, politics, and migrant rights Amy Gurowitz; 7. The International Criminal Court David Wippman; 8. The Kosovo bombing campaign Nicholas Wheeler; 9. International financial institutions Antony Anghie; 10. Law, politics, and international governance Wayne Sandholtz and Alec Stone Sweet; 11. Socety, power, and ethics Christian Reus-Smit. RAE2008