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722. Online Exclusive, Response TO "Missile Defense Malfunction": Setting the Record Straight
- Author:
- Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In the Spring 2008 Ethics International Affairs article, "Missile Defense Malfunction," Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson systematically misrepresent or ignore key facts to bolster their arguments against deploying defenses in Europe to protect our allies and forces in that region against an emerging intermediate and long-range Iranian ballistic missile threat. I want to set the record straight.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Iran
723. Can There Be a "Kindered" Peace?
- Author:
- Alison M. S. Watson
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- There are more resources now devoted to the pursuit of peace than at any time in the history of the international system. The participating cast of actors—international, regional, state, and nonstate—seek to create a peace that is essentially Kantian in spirit, and thus heavily dependent upon the maintenance of an international liberal order through international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations. The resultant peace-building strategies are then often justified in terms of the promotion of human rights, democratization, and ''human security''—concepts that together form the cornerstone of what has come to be termed the ''liberal peace.'' Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that the mechanisms used to achieve such a peace typically fail to secure a sustainable peace, and in particular that they may not adequately take into account those actors whose claims for peace may prove especially intransigent—such as those with ethnic and identity claims, and those, ironically, for whom the achievement of human security is particularly pertinent.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, Human Rights, and United Nations
724. The Resurgent Idea of World Government
- Author:
- Campbell Craig
- Publication Date:
- 07-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The idea of world government is returning to the mainstream of scholarly thinking about international relations. Universities in North America and Europe now routinely advertise for positions in ''global governance,'' a term that few would have heard of a decade ago. Chapters on cosmopolitanism and governance appear in many current international relations (IR) textbooks. Leading scholars are wrestling with the topic, including Alexander Wendt, perhaps now America's most influential IR theorist, who has recently suggested that a world government is simply ''inevitable.'' While some scholars envision a more formal world state, and others argue for a much looser system of ''global governance,'' it is probably safe to say that the growing number of works on this topic can be grouped together into the broader category of ''world government''—a school of thought that supports the creation of international authority (or authorities) that can tackle the global problems that nation-states currently cannot.
- Topic:
- Government and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and North America
725. Horizontal Accountability in Intergovernmental Organizations
- Author:
- Alexandru Grigorescu
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Many intergovernmental organizations (IOs) have recently established offices of internal oversight. Yet scandals such as the one surrounding the Oil-for-Food Program in the United Nations have revealed serious flaws in the design of these institutions, especially their lack of independence from top administrators of the bureaucracies that they are supposed to oversee. This study argues that this is due, in great part, to the initial use of an imperfect domestic model. It shows that, in addition to using a flawed model as a starting point for negotiations, states and IO officials intentionally weakened oversight offices even more. The study argues that member-states need to quickly give such offices increased independence in order to make them more effective and to avoid the continued erosion of the legitimacy of IOs.
- Topic:
- Government and United Nations
726. Redesigning the European Court of Human Rights: Embeddedness as a Deep Structural Principle of the European Human Rights Regime
- Author:
- Laurence R. Helfer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is the crown jewel of the world's most advanced international system for protecting civil and political liberties. In recent years, however, the ECtHR has become a victim of its own success. The Court now faces a docket crisis of massive proportions, the consequence of the growing number of states subject to its jurisdiction, its favourable public reputation, its expansive interpretations of individual liberties, a distrust of domestic judiciaries in some countries, and entrenched human rights problems in others. In response to this growing backlog of individual complaints, the Council of Europe has, over the last five years, considered numerous proposals to restructure the European human rights regime and redesign the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This article argues that these proposals should be understood not as ministerial changes in supranational judicial procedure, nor as resolving a debate over whether the ECtHR should strive for individual or constitutional justice, but rather as raising more fundamental questions concerning the Court's future identity. In particular, the article argues for recognition of 'embeddedness' in national legal systems as a deep structural principle of the ECHR, a principle that functions as a necessary counterpoint to the subsidiary doctrine that has animated the Convention since its founding. Embeddedness does not substitute ECtHR rulings for the decisions of national parliaments or domestic courts. Rather, it requires the Council of Europe and the Court to bolster the mechanisms for governments to remedy human rights violations at home, obviating the need for individuals to seek supranational relief and restoring countries to a position in which the ECtHR's deference to national decision-makers is appropriate.
- Topic:
- Government and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Europe
727. Human Rights, International Economic Law and 'Constitutional Justice'
- Author:
- Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- According to J. Rawls, 'in a constitutional regime with judicial review, public reason is the reason of its supreme court'; it is of constitutional importance for the 'overlapping, constitutional consensus' necessary for a stable and just society among free, equal, and rational citizens who tend to be deeply divided by conflicting moral, religious, and philosophical doctrines. The European Court of Justice (ECJ), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) Court successfully transformed the intergovernmental European Community (EC) treaties and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into constitutional orders founded on respect for human rights. Their 'judicial constitutionalization' of intergovernmental treaty regimes was accepted by citizens, national courts, parliaments, and governments because the judicial 'European public reason' protected more effectively individual rights and European 'public goods' (like the EC's common market). The 'Solange method' of cooperation among European courts 'as long as' constitutional rights are adequately protected reflects an 'overlapping constitutional consensus' on the need for 'constitutional justice' in European law. The power-oriented rationality of governments interested in limiting their judicial accountability is increasingly challenged also in worldwide dispute settlement practices. Judicial interpretation of intergovernmental rules as protecting also individual rights may be justifiable notably in citizen-driven areas of international economic law protecting mutually beneficial cooperation among citizens and individual rights (e.g. of access to courts). Multilevel economic, environmental, and human rights governance can become more reasonable and more effective if national and international courts cooperate in protecting the rule of international law for the benefit of citizens (as 'democratic principals' of governments) with due regard for human rights and their constitutional concretization in national and international legal systems.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe
728. U.S.-Korea Relations
- Author:
- Victor D. Cha
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The big news in the penultimate quarter of 2008 centered on leadership ills (literally) in North Korea and Pyongyang's rolling back of the six-party denuclearization agreement. On the U.S.-ROK front, President George W. Bush made his last trip to Asia of his presidency, stopping for a brief visit in South Korea on his way to the Beijing Olympics. While the free trade agreement (FTA) remains mired in U.S. domestic politics, important low-key agreements were reached to help bolster the people-to-people aspects of the alliance. As the quarter ended, the Bush administration was making preparations to make what some described as a last ditch effort to salvage the aid-for-denuclearization deal with North Korea by sending Six-Party Talks negotiator Christopher Hill to Pyongyang for a third time.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Beijing, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea
729. U.S.-Southeast Asia Relations
- Author:
- Sheldon W. Simon
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The cancellation of a draft peace agreement between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippine government triggered renewed violence in the Philippine south and allegations that U.S. forces are involved in Philippine armed forces suppression activities. Both Manila and Washington deny the charges, though U.S. Special Operations Forces have been training the Philippine military in Mindanao since 2002. The U.S. has added new sanctions against Burma's junta and continues to criticize its political repression, while aid for the victims of Cyclone Nargis remains under the Burmese military's control. Ratification for ASEAN's new Charter by its member states has been achieved by eight of the 10 countries. The delays include concerns in the Indonesian and Philippine legislatures about Burma's detention of Aung San Suu Kyi as well as the junta's insistence that any ASEAN Human Rights Commission be toothless. The U.S. State Department has expressed concern over the Malaysian government's arrest of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on suspicious sodomy charges. Malaysian leaders responded angrily that the U.S. complaint constitutes interference in Kuala Lumpur's domestic politics and that Washington is not “the policeman of the world.”
- Topic:
- Development and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Burma, and Southeast Asia
730. Japan-Korea Relations
- Author:
- Ji-Young Lee and David C. Kang
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Although there was little movement in Japan's relations with North Korea, this quarter was dominated by the news leaking out of North Korea in early September that Kim Jong-il was potentially very sick. Questions about Kim's health, the status of his leadership in North Korea, and the future of North Korea's leadership quickly dominated discussion. Coupled with Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda's surprise resignation and the quick choice of Aso Taro as prime minister, Japanese foreign policy was on a brief hiatus while the new leader set his own agenda. Known as a conservative, it is expected that Aso will take a harder line toward the North – and the region more generally – than did Fukuda. But his official appointment, coming on Sept. 24, was so recent that it is too early to see how Aso plans to proceed. Thus, there was actually little substantive change in Japan's relations with North Korea, and the quarter ended basically where it began.
- Topic:
- Government and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Japan, North Korea, and Korea