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43442. Politis and the Limits of Legal Form
- Author:
- Umut Özsu
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Prolific as a scholar, active in the League of Nations, and agent for Greece before the Permanent Court, Nicolas Politis is remembered today as a key figure both in the development of international legal doctrine and in the organization of international political relations. This short article examines three of Politis' texts – the first an early foray into scholarship dealing with issues arising from the 1897 Greek–Turkish War, the second a set of mid-career lectures at the Hague Academy of International Law, and the third the posthumously published La morale internationale, a work of considerable ambition that never quite managed to find its audience. The article's chief aim is to demonstrate that Politis' trajectory was marked by recurring appeals to extra-legal ideas and arguments – a broadly anti-formalistic tendency which made its influence felt with increasing visibility over time, but which was present even in his earliest and most conventional work.
- Political Geography:
- Greece
43443. Nicolas Politis' Initiatives to Outlaw War and Define Aggression, and the Narrative of Progress in International Law
- Author:
- Nicholas Tsagourias
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article focuses on Nicholas Politis' efforts to outlaw war and define aggression, and places them within the progress narrative of the interwar international law discourse. This narrative is defined by its rejection of sovereignty; its belief in codification; and the recognition of the individual as a subject of international law. Politis' projects envisage international law as a means towards an ecumenical world order built around individuals.
43444. Neutrality – A Survivor?
- Author:
- Maria Gavouneli
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Nicolas Politis argued in 1935 that the law of neutrality was obsolete, a product of the international anarchy of the times, doomed to be replaced by a new centralized international community. His vision of the League of Nations ended in the fire of World War II but his prediction proved to be mostly true. In the collective security system created by the UN Charter and its prohibition of the use of force, the traditional rules of neutrality do not find scope of application. Yet, transposed into fundamental principles of humanitarian law, they continue to rule over peace-keeping and humanitarian operations. In addition, they complement the existing rules for military action mandated by the UN Security Council, especially during operations at sea. He was essentially right: the institution had to change and it has changed.
43445. Kimberley N. Trapp, State Responsibility for International Terrorism.Problems and Prospects
- Author:
- Helmut Philipp Aust
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Ten years after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the priorities of world politics now appear to shift to different topics and themes. Accordingly, it is time for international lawyers to identify whether the international fight against terrorism has an enduring legacy. The monograph by Kimberley Trapp will be of particular help for this endeavour with respect to the allocation of state responsibility for international terrorism.
43446. Ralph Zacklin, The United Nations Secretariat and the Use of Force in a Unipolar World. Power v. Principle
- Author:
- Günther Auth
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Global governance has been the buzzword for many internationalists for quite some time now, and the United Nations has been one of the primordial focal points in controversies about global order. This prominence of the UN has been especially remarkable in the context of deliberations about the legality and legitimacy of military force. For, despite the growing importance of the US as the world's most capable superpower, internationalists have not been muted by voices stressing the impossibility of successfully grappling with power-based interests and high-political considerations of predominant states through international law and organization. The emergence of a unipolar moment, a constellation supposedly characterized by a high concentration of military capabilities and widespread scepticism as regards the fruitfulness of multilateralism in the US has rather enticed many commentators to ponder all the more seriously the potential role of multilateral institutions, such as the UN – as a mediating structure vis-à-vis national interests, as a legitimacy-conferring agent the main function of which it is to rationalize the regime of the great powers, or as a potential counterweight to US-American unilateralism. The author of the book under review adds to this list as he endeavours to show that, after the end of the Cold War in 1990, the Secretariat of the UN repeatedly championed views that brought it into conflict with the US and other influential member states of the UN. Based on his own experience as a staff member in the Office of Legal Affairs since 1973, as the Director of the UN Secretariat's Office of Legal Counsel since 1988, and as an Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs of the United Nations from 1998 to 2005, he delivered The Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures at Cambridge University in 2008, in which he made a strong point for an independent role for the UN Secretariat as regards questions concerning the legality and legitimacy of military force.
- Political Geography:
- United States and United Nations
43447. Daniel H. Joyner, Interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
- Author:
- Dieter Fleck
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was extended indefinitely in 1995, provides a comprehensive legal structure of rights and obligations designed to protect mankind from nuclear aggression and accidental extinction. Yet its implementation takes place in a political environment of uncertainties and controversies. The still existing universality gap, an apparent implementation gap (Iran), and the absence of effective measures towards general and complete nuclear disarmament – which are to be seen against the background of the global challenge that non-state actors are getting access to weapons of mass destruction – call for urgent and effective measures to increase implementation of the NPT and ensure compliance with its rules. Any of these measures at first requires an interpretation of the Treaty.
- Political Geography:
- Iran and Beijing
43448. Anne Orford, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect
- Author:
- Ramesh Thakur
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Rwanda's three-month 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 people was not prevented due to a failure of political will, not lack of military capacity. Then in Kosovo in 1999, NATO did take forceful action in the name of humanitarian intervention, but without UN authorization. Both incidents triggered legal and political controversies, as a consequence of which Secretary- General (SG) Kofi Annan pushed for a new doctrine which would allow the international community to take timely and effective action against humanitarian atrocities.
43449. P.G. McHugh, Aboriginal Title. The Modern Jurisprudence of Tribal Land Rights
- Author:
- Katja Göcke
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The recognition of aboriginal title – i.e., land rights not derived from the Crown/government but rooted solely in the use and ownership of the land by indigenous peoples since time immemorial – is probably the greatest achievement of indigenous peoples in their decade-long struggle to de - fend their land and culture. Since indigenous peoples define themselves as a people through their genealogical connection to certain areas, the realization of the right to own, use, and live on their ancestral territories has always been at the centre of their struggle for the recognition and enforcement of their rights. Ownership of and control over their ancestral land and its resources are not only considered a significant contribution to solving the terrible social and economic problems indigenous peoples are facing. A considerable degree of self-management and control over land and natural resources is also regarded as essential to the indigenous peoples' survival as peoples and the preservation of their distinct culture. Yet until the 1970s the rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands were almost completely ignored by states and international law. The loss of indigenous peoples' control of and ownership over these lands during colonization was regarded as a historical and irreversible fact by national governments. When from the 1970s onwards courts in several common law jurisdictions began to hold that the indigenous peoples' customary tenure had indeed survived the acquisition of sovereignty by the Crown and continued to exist as a burden on the Crown's radical title to the land, the national governments were – after years of inactivity and neglect – finally forced to act and to enter into negotiations with indigenous peoples to settle the indigenous peoples' land claims. In the 1990s, United Nations human rights monitoring bodies and regional human rights courts picked up the aboriginal title idea, thereby placing indigenous peoples' issues and concerns on the international agenda and providing indigenous peoples with additional leverage against their respective governments. The recognition of inherent indigenous land rights not only enabled indigenous peoples to retain and regain ownership and control over land and resources, but it also became the platform for the recognition of other indigenous rights, in particular, the right to self-determination and the right to autonomy. Hence, through the recognition of the aboriginal title doctrine, indigenous peoples were not only brought to the attention of their respective governments, but they also became recognized as actors – and no longer as mere subjects – on the national as well as on the international level.
- Political Geography:
- United Nations
43450. Kate Parlett, The Individual in the International Legal System. Continuity and Change in International Law
- Author:
- Andreas Müller
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Whether and where to locate the individual in the universe of international law has become a standard question for the discipline. While in the 19th and still in the early 20th centuries international legal doctrine could not see in the human person anything other than a mere object of international law, at the beginning of the 21st century, the individual presents itself as habitué of international law with major treatises dedicating a substantial number of pages, if not whole chapters to the topic. The last hundred years have thus witnessed a remarkable development which has shifted the individual's place in international law from the utmost periphery of the discipline to perhaps not its centre, but at least to its inner circles.
43451. José E. Alvarez and Karl P. Sauvant et al. (eds), The Evolving International Investment Regime. Expectations, Realities, Options
- Author:
- Julien Topal
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Jose Alvarez and Karl Sauvant have compiled an interesting and diverse set of 12 essays from authors representing scholarly, NGO, and legal practitioners' perspectives on the international investment regime. The essays are based on papers presented at the second Columbia International Investment Conference of 2007. They are complemented by an insightful introduction from the editors, a sketch of the 'context' (Jeffrey Sachs), and a report on the debates ensuing at the conference (Andrea Bjorklund).
43452. The Second Wave
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
43453. All Azimuth A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- International Relations theory is in crisis: it does not appear to have been successfully accumulating in an integrated manner. Despite abounding theories and concepts aiming to explain what happens globally and to draw lessons for improvement, casualties continue to pile up, and the world is not becoming a safer place to live in. Our supposedly revolutionary new concepts and approaches still tend to remain 'event driven', and in fact follow things that happen in the field, rather than precede them. One needs only to look at the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Arab Spring for recent reminders of this shortcoming.
- Political Geography:
- Arabia
43454. Critique in a time of liberal world order
- Author:
- Beate Jahn
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The dominance of liberalism in world politics today is widely interpreted as attesting to its universal validity. This claim provides the basis for a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate criticism — the former operating within a broadly liberal framework and the latter questioning the universal validity of that framework. This special issue brings together critiques of liberalism in the second register. The introduction sets out the two competing notions of critical analysis and argues that, far from being 'illegitimate', it is this second concept of critique that ensures that liberalism does not betray its core promise of replacing might with right in a time of liberal world order.
- Topic:
- Politics
43455. The liberal renaissance and the end(s) of history
- Author:
- TIm Di Muzio
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Addressing the historical turn in International Relations (IR), this article offers a critical appraisal of what I call the liberal renaissance by interrogating liberal discourse and its renderings of history. The main argument advanced is that whether implicitly or explicitly, liberal perspectives in IR are heir to two overlapping and often contradictory narratives of history that masquerade as universals when they can be shown to be particular (and indeed peculiar). The first narrative is animated by a juridico-philosophical discourse while the second is informed by a stadial-historical discourse. I suggest that both of these narratives contribute to a triumphant, universal and relatively pacific reading of the liberal project, the aim of which is to encourage — through a variety of strategies, tactics and technologies — liberal democratic market societies so that the world will one day be united by capitalist commerce and the institutions of polyarchical democracy. I conclude the article by considering some of the consequences of holding to these historical appreciations for contemporary IR and advocates of the liberal project.
- Topic:
- International Relations
43456. Geniuses, exiles and (liberal) postmodern subjectivities
- Author:
- Rosemary Shinko
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article argues that Ashley and Walker's 'dissident exile' and Mill's 'genius' are virtual mirror images of one another due to the fact that both subject formulations rely on the concept of individual autonomy. Postmodern iterations of subjectivity such as those found in the work of Ashley and Walker place a great deal of emphasis on alterity and ethical engagement, striving to move beyond the ethical limitations of Enlightenment liberalism that valorises the atomised, sovereign individual. But both Mill's genius, who can choose his or her own mode of existence or plan of life, and Ashley and Walker's dissident exile, who engages in self-making in a register of freedom, are inextricably bound up with and reliant upon one of liberalism's seminal concepts: autonomy. The implications of this in terms of theorising new forms of subjectivity in international relations are significant because replacing autonomy with heteronomy or recasting autonomy in relational terms fails to fully acknowledge how central autonomy is to the entire project of critique. The critical attitude that Ashley and Walker, as well as Mill, exhibit emanates from within Enlightenment liberalism; since the very act of critique rests on the exercise of individual autonomy, perhaps the most we can hope for in terms of new iterations of subjectivity may only be one that is more expansively 'liberal'.
43457. Liberal internationalism and the law vs liberty paradox
- Author:
- Linda Bishai
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines and critiques the engagement of liberal international law with liberal internationalism in international relations (IR), demonstrating that the results are not to the credit of either discipline. In particular, two key assumptions of the legal liberal international order are flawed. First, the attempt to establish a two-tiered international liberal order based on law and democracy results in intervention (both forceful and performative) that counterproductively embroils liberal states, generating resentment and counter-democratic movements. Second, the assumption that security in a globalising world can only be created by the total globalisation of the liberal order and the removal of 'outlaw' states creates a new version of the security dilemma in which the actions taken to secure the liberal world order create the very conditions of its insecurity. The article concludes with recommendations for a critical post-structuralist engagement with a post-liberal politics of virtù that paradoxically allows for the liberal identity to be better secured in its international relations with the other.
- Topic:
- Security, Politics, and Law
43458. Missing the target: NGOs, global civil society and the arms trade
- Author:
- Anna Stavrianakis
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Non-governmental organisation (NGO) activism on the arms trade is emblematic of the significant and emancipatory role attributed to civil society in post-Cold War international politics. Discussions of NGOs' efforts are marked by a distinctively liberal understanding of civil society as an increasingly global sphere separate from the state and market, promoting progressive and non-violent social relations. However, there are significant conceptual and empirical problems with these claims, which I illustrate using examples from contemporary NGO activism on the international production of and trade in conventional weaponry. First, liberal accounts underplay the mutual dependence between the state, market and civil society. NGO agency is both constrained and enabled by its historical, structural grounding. Second, I argue for a more ambivalent understanding of NGOs' progressive political value. While some NGOs may play a role in counter-hegemonic struggle, overall they are more likely to contribute to hegemonic social formations. Third, liberal accounts of a global civil society inadequately capture the reproduction of hierarchy in international relations, downplaying ongoing, systematic patterns of North-South asymmetry. Fourth, the emphasis on the non-violent nature of global civil society sidelines the violence of capitalism and the state system, and serves as a means of disciplining dissent and activism.
- Topic:
- Cold War and Non-Governmental Organization
43459. Eternal peace, perpetual war? A critical investigation into Kant's conceptualisations of war
- Author:
- Andreas Behnke
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Most discussions of Immanuel Kant's political theory of international politics focus on his work on Eternal Peace and its normative and empirical relevance for contemporary international relations and international law. Yet for all his concern with peace, Kant's work is characterised by a fascinating preoccupation with the concept of war and its role in human history. The purpose of this essay is to investigate critically Kant's different conceptualisations of war and to evaluate his writing as a critique against contemporary versions of Liberal war and peace, as well as recent attempts to reduce war to an immanent logic of biopolitics.
- Topic:
- Politics
43460. Islam, nihilism and liberal secularity
- Author:
- Mustapha Pasha
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The theme of nihilism offers fertile avenues for exploring the antinomies of classical liberalism. In its instantiation as violence, nihilism challenges classical liberalism and its recognised political settlement, notably received arrangements harnessed to cultivate uncontrolled passions or religious fervour. In its affinity to Islam, nihilism defies the secular settlement through its appeals to transcendence. By seeking legitimacy in the sacred, nihilism disrupts established boundaries between the religious and the secular. Nihilism exposes the difficulty of forging worlds of transcendence on the modern register of immanence. Transcendence affords the possibility of escape, immanence closure. The two can be reversed in politics, as the experience in several Islamic Cultural Zones (ICZs) suggests. Appeals to transcendence seek to reorganise the social world in the name of escaping it. Immanence, on the other hand, can rework notions of redemption and salvation into secular stories of progress. This paper explores how the presumed nihilistic tendency appearing in the ICZs destabilises the liberal settlement, not in the conventional sense of presenting a religious counterpoint, but in reworking religious themes into secularity. Nihilism illustrates both the contradictory character of modernity and modernity's potential to generate varied societal projects, including those informed by the sacred. The recognition that modernity can spawn discordant impulses in reconciling religion and politics helps rethink post-secular lives under the long shadow of disenchantment.
- Topic:
- Islam and Politics