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Books > Law > International law > Public international law > General
Environmentally sustainable development has become one of the world's most urgent priorities. But countries cannot achieve it alone: it depends on international coordination and action. Greening International Institutions, the latest in a series of highly-acclaimed publications devoted to environmental and developmental law, assesses how far and how successfully intergovernmental organizations have responded to the challenge. The organizations analyzed include: the UN General Assembly, the new Commission for Sustainable Development, UNEP, UNDP and UNCTAD, WTO, GATT, NAFTA, the Bretton Woods institutions and several regional bodies, as well as treaty bodies and the mechanisms for avoiding and settling disputes. For each, the contributors provide an accessible overview of the organization's mandate and structure, examine substantive policy initiatives and assess the need and scope for procedural and institutional reform. Drawing together a collection of essays by lawyers and researchers from various backgrounds, Greening International Institutions is stimulating reading for students and policy-makers, as well as anyone concerned with the development of international institutions. Jacob Werksman is an attorney, a Programme Director at FIELD, and Visiting Lecturer in International Economic Law at the University of London. Greening International Institutions is the fifth volume in the International Law and Sustainable Development series, co-developed with FIELD. The series aims to address and define the major legal issues associated with sustainable development and to contribute to the progressive development of international law. Other titles in the series are: Greening International Law, Interpreting the Precautionary Principle, Property Rights in the Defence of Nature and Improving Compliance with International Environmental Law. 'A legal parallel to the Blueprint series - welcome, timely and provocative' David Pearce Originally published in 1996
Modern armed conflict has taken a variety of forms and occurs at a variety of levels, raising serious questions concerning the relationship between the law of armed conflict and the reality of contemporary warfare. Many contemporary armed conflicts are fought in pursuit of unlimited objectives, whereas other modern wars seek to advance limited goals. While in some cases modern wars are fought by traditional armies composed of clearly identifiable soldiers, often modern armed conflicts are waged by guerrilla or partisan fighters whose identities are easily confused with non-combatants. Terrorism is increasingly a characteristic manifestation of this contemporary warfare. In the broadest sense, contemporary warfare has raised often controversial and vexing questions concerning the applicability of the law of armed conflict and, when applicable, the interpretation of its principles and tenets. This engaging volume addresses some of the contemporary normative and legal challenges and problems associated with the application of the concepts of just war, the just conduct of war, and the law of armed conflict to 21st century warfare.
The European Union's stalled expansion, the Euro deficit and emerging crises of economic and political sovereignty in Greece, Italy and Spain have significantly altered the image of the EU as a model of progressive civilization. However, despite recent events the EU maintains its international image as the paragon of European politics and global governance. This book unites leading scholars on Europe and Empire to revisit the view of the European Union as an 'imperial' power. It offers a re-appraisal of the EU as empire in response to geopolitical and economic developments since 2007 and asks if the policies, practices, and priorities of the Union exhibit characteristics of a modern empire. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of the EU, European studies, history, sociology, international relations, and economics.
An examination of the conflicts facing traditional pastoralist societies within the developing nations of Africa. The book explores the forms of traditional land tenure and access to grazing resources, which are being increasingly eroded by modern forms of ownership and development. It shows how communal land tenure arrangements are essential not only for the survival of these societies but also to manage the pastures and rangelands in question. The case studies are by local experts. They cover Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Each looks at: the political and legal context, trends in pastoral development, causes of conflict, procedures for resolving conflict, and environmental implications.
Measures for regulating the behaviour of nation states in relation to the global environment have increasingly taken the form of international treaties and conventions. Many have argued that this has proved to be an ineffective way of halting unsustainable development, for the provisions of these agreements are either too weak or are flouted regularly by the parties concerned. This volume seeks to address the crucial question of how compliance with these agreements could be encouraged effectively without damaging the fragile political consensus that is emerging on environmental issues. With extensive use of case studies, Improving Compliance will make stimulating reading for all students and researchers working in this area, as well as for anyone concerned about the effectiveness of international environmental measures.
Effective policies to prevent global warming and climatic change are urgently required by the world community. However, international negotiations on this issue repeatedly come up against the problems of allocating responsibility for the greenhouse effect, and bearing the costs of remedying the situation.;This volume offers a multidisciplinary response to the challenge. It presents the scientific, economic and political issues and goes on to describe the policy options available. The different ways of determining responsibility for greenhouse gases and calculating obligations to pay for hazards to the environment are analyzed. The contributors examine the implications for various countries, while a concluding chapter explores climatic change negotations - what is at stake, and for whom.
Despite its centrality to academic discussions of power and influence, there is little consensus in legal scholarship over what constitutes an actor in rule-making. This book explores the range of actors involved in rule-making within European Union law and Public International law, and focuses especially on actors that are often overlooked by formative and doctrinal approaches. Drawing together contributions from many scholars in various fields the book examines such issues as the accommodation of new actors in the process of postnational rule-making, the visibility or covertness of actors within the process, and the role of social acceptance and legitimacy in postnational rule-making. In its endeavour to render and examine the work and effect of actors often side-lined in the study of postnational rule-making, this book will be of great use and interest to students and scholars of EU law, international law and socio-legal studies.
This volume, published in association with the United Nations Environment Programme, examines how co-ordinated action among neighbouring countries could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in ways which are environmentally, economically and socially beneficial. A framework is presented for analyzing regional mitigation options, along with specific proposals for southern Africa, such as pooling electricity supplies, changing transport patterns and promoting new forms of energy. It shows how regional projects and policies can be developed and supported by the global community to help reduce climate change, and provides a study for decision makers, researchers and students in the areas of global climate change, international relations, energy and environmental studies and African affairs.
This book takes the reader on a sweeping tour of the international legal field to reveal some of the patterns of difference, dominance, and disruption that belie international law's claim to universality. Pulling back the curtain on the "divisible college of international lawyers", Anthea Roberts shows how international lawyers in different states, regions, and geopolitical groupings are often subject to distinct incoming influences and outgoing spheres of influence in ways that reflect and reinforce differences in how they understand and approach international law. These divisions manifest themselves in contemporary controversies, such as debates about Crimea and the South China Sea. Not all approaches to international law are created equal, however. Using case studies and visual representations, the author demonstrates how actors and materials from some states and groups have come to dominate certain transnational flows and forums in ways that make them disproportionately influential in constructing the "international". This point holds true for Western actors, materials, and approaches in general, and for Anglo-American (and sometimes French) ones in particular. However, these patterns are set for disruption. As the world moves past an era of Western dominance and toward greater multipolarity, it is imperative for international lawyers to understand the perspectives and approaches of those coming from diverse backgrounds. By taking readers on a comparative tour of different international law academies and textbooks, the author encourages them to see the world through the eyes of others - an essential skill in this fast changing world of shifting power dynamics and rising nationalism.
The book deals with the secession/separation of territorial entities and the legal consequences that derive from it both for the parent state and for the seceded/separated entity or the entity that intends to secede/separate. This subject is approached from the triple perspective of international law, comparative law, and Spanish law.International law, because it is this legal system which contains the general legal framework within which this issue must be dealt with. Thus, for example, the legal basis of the right to self-determination, the constituent elements of the state, the recognition of states and governments, succession in the matter of treaties, succession in membership of International Organisations, etc.Moreover, international law is also the reference invoked by secessionist/independentist political projects within states in an attempt to provide a legal basis for the legality of their claim.Comparative law, in order to find out not only how most state constitutions deal with secession or independence of their territories, but also the jurisprudence handed down by national courts on the matter (USA, Canada, Italy, France, Spain, among others).And finally, Spanish Law, because the perspective chosen to address the object of study is from the perspective of Spain.
Modern technological development has been both rapid and fundamentally transformative of the means and methods of warfare, and of the broader environment in which warfare is conducted. In many cases, technological development has been stimulated by, and dedicated to, addressing military requirements. On other occasions, technological developments outside the military sphere affect or inform the conduct of warfare and military expectations. The introduction of new technologies such as information technology, space technologies, nanotechnology and robotic technologies into our civil life, and into warfare, is expected to influence the application and interpretation of the existing rules of the law of armed conflict. In this book, scholars and practitioners working in the fields critically examine the potential legal challenges arising from the use of new technologies and future directions of legal development in light of the specific characteristics and challenges each technology presents with regard to foreseeable humanitarian impacts upon the battlespace.
This book takes up one of the key theoretical challenges in the English School's conceptual framework, namely the nature of the institutions of international society. It theorizes their nature through an analysis of the relationship of primary and secondary levels of institutional formation, so far largely ignored in English School theorizing, and provides case studies to illuminate the theory. Hitherto, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organizations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materializations of primary institutions. Building on legal and constructivist arguments about the constitutive character of institutions, it demonstrates how primary institutions frame secondary organizations and regimes, but also how secondary institutions construct agencies with capacities that impinge upon and can change primary institutions. Based on legal and constructivist ideas, it develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions as shared understandings enmeshed in observable historical processes of constitution, reproduction and regulation.
Since 2007 the world has lurched from one crisis to the next. The rise of new powers, the collapse of our global financial system, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and crisis in the Eurozone have led to a build up of risks that is likely to provoke a more general crisis in our system of global governance if it cannot be made fairer, more effective and accountable. In this book, nine leading scholars explore the fault lines and mounting challenges that are putting pressure on existing institutions, the ways in which we are currently attempting to manage them or failing to and the prospects for global governance in the 21st century. In doing so, the contributors offer a fresh look at one of the most important issues confronting the world today and they suggest strategies for adapting current institutions to better manage our mutual interdependence in the future. Contributors include Ha-Joon Chang, Benjamin Cohen, Michael Cox, David Held, George Magnus, Robert Skidelsky, Robert Wade, Martin Wolf and Kevin Young.
The trend for international engagement in post-conflict reconstruction has produced a host of best-practice postulates on topics such as local involvement in decision-making, accountability for past atrocities, sensitivity to context, and the construction of democratic institutions of governance. International law has potential relevance for many of these themes, yet the question of how the implementation of best-practice policy recommendations might be affected by international law remains under-examined. This book offers a fuller understanding of the role of international law in the practice of post-conflict reconstruction. It explores how international legal issues that arise in the post-conflict period relate to a number of strands of the policy debate, including government creation, constitution-making, gender policy, provision of security, justice for past atrocities, rule of law development, economic recovery, returning displaced persons, and responsibilities of international actors. The chapters of the book work to reveal the extent to which international law figures in the policy of internationally enabled post-conflict reconstruction across a range of sectors. They also highlight the scope for international law to be harnessed in a more effective manner from the perspective of the transition to peace and stability. The book lays out a basis for future policy making on post-conflict reconstruction; one that is informed about the international legal parameters, and more aware of how international law can be utilized to promote key objectives.
The last decade has seen some significant changes in international development and in the status of non-governmental organisations operating in the field. Not only has the number of NGOs virtually doubled; many of them have seen a considerable growth in their budgets, and have grown closer to governments and official aid agencies. NGOs are acknowledged by many to be more effective agents of development than governments or commercial interests ? even as a ?magic bullet? for development problems. Despite these positive trends, the real impact of the NGO sector is not well documented. This is partly because NGO performance-assessment and accountability methods are weak, and partly because NGOs are caught up increasingly in the world of official aid, which pushes them towards certain forms of evaluation at the expense of others. This unique book takes a hard and critical look at these issues, and describes how NGOs can, and must, improve the way they measure and account for their performance if they are to be truly effective.
The concept that certain objects and persons may be legitimately attacked during armed conflicts has been well recognised and developed through the history of warfare. This book explores the relationship between international law and targeting practice in determining whether an object is a lawful military target. By examining both the interpretation and its post-ratification application this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the definition of military objective adopted in 1977 Additional Protocol I to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and its use in practice.
This book analyses how national parliaments and parliamentary parties performed their legislative, representative and control functions during the reform of European economic governance. Focusing on domestic approvals of anti-crisis measures (EFSF, ESM and the Fiscal Compact) in all member states of the Eurozone, the book aims at establishing to what extent national parliaments and parliamentary parties secured their competences in EU policy-making during that process. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, In order to address that question the book employs an interdisciplinary approach and analyses (i) in which states parliaments' formal powers in approval of anti-crisis measures were constrained, (ii) how parliamentary parties voted on the analysed measures, (iii) what were the dominant discourses of their proponents and opponents and (iv) which parties advocated neoliberal and which Keynesian measures. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in European Union politics and studies, political parties and parliaments, European Economic governance and more broadly to European politics.
International agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, EU regulation and country-specific national climate policies offer some hope of addressing climate change. But all too often implementation of these high level objectives is derailed at the sub-national, local and - perhaps most important - individual level, by a variety of structural, policy and perceived barriers that result in a failure of effective action. Drawing on original research from Sweden, a world leader in effective environmental solutions, this volume examines the difficulties of aligning climate policy from international to national and sub-national levels. The authors address the full range of barriers and complexities, including governance structures, the relationship between 'experts' and the public, political feasibility, tax measures, perceptions of 'fairness' and self-interest, and the importance of environmental values. Also covered are the roles and perceptions of organizations and professions, the place of carbon-free technologies (such as wind power), the relationship between national and EU regulations, and the monumental challenge of governing the climate in a bordered and divided world. This volume is a vital source of information for all those seeking to create effective, coordinated responses to the challenge of climate change.
It is now more than a decade since the Right to Food Guidelines were negotiated, agreed and adopted internationally by states. This book provides a review of its objectives and the extent of success of its implementation. The focus is on the first key guideline - "Democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law" - with an emphasis on civil society participation in global food governance. The five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are presented as case studies: representing major emerging economies, they blur the line between the Global North and South, and exhibit different levels of human rights realisation. The book first provides an overview of the right to adequate food, accountability and democracy, and an introduction to the history of the development of the right to adequate food and the Right to Food Guidelines. It presents a historical synopsis of each of the BRICS states' experiences with the right to adequate food and an analysis of their related periodic reporting to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as a specific assessment of their progress in regard to the first guideline. The discussion then focuses on the effectiveness of the Right to Food Guidelines as both a policy-making and monitoring tool, based on the analysis of the guidelines and the BRICS states.
Social trust is a crucial issue to many aspects of modern society. Policy makers continually aspire to winning it and corporations frequently run the risk of losing it. The 'trust deficit' raises vital questions and problems to which until recently there have been few answers or solutions. Experts from both sides of the Atlantic explore the importance for trust of various influences, from individual perceptions to organizational systems, and consider the conditions involved in building or undermining trust. Several authors examine practical hazard management issues, including medical vaccination programmes and popular participation in pollution control and waste management as strategies for enhancing social trust. This book provides insightful analysis for researchers and students of environmental and social sciences and is essential reading for those engaged in risk management in both the public and private sectors.
At the end of the twentieth century, academics and policymakers welcomed a trend toward fiscal and political decentralization as part of a potential solution for slow economic growth and poor performance by insulated, unaccountable governments. For the last two decades, researchers have been trying to answer a series of vexing questions about the political economy of multi-layered governance. Much of the best recent research on decentralization has come from close collaborations between university researchers and international aid institutions. As the volume and quality of this collaborative research have increased in recent decades, the time has come to review the lessons from this literature and apply them to debates about future programming. In this volume, the contributors place this research in the broader history of engagement between aid institutions and academics, particularly in the area of decentralized governance, and outline the challenges and opportunities to link evidence and policy action.
Public choice, an important subdiscipline in the field of political theory, seeks to understand how people and societies make decisions affecting their collective lives. Relying heavily on theoretical models of decision making, public choice postulates that people act in their individual interests in making collective decisions. As it happens, however, reality does not mirror theory, and people often act contrary to what the principal public choice models suggest. In this book, Russell Hardin looks beyond the models to find out why people choose to act together in situations that the models find quite hopeless. He uses three constructs of modern political economy--public goods, the Prisoner's Dilemma, and game theory--to test public choice theories against real world examples of collective action. These include movements important in American society in the past few decades--civil rights, the Vietnam War, women's rights, and environmental concerns. This classic work on public choice will be of interest to theoreticians and graduate students in the fields of public choice, political economy, or political theory--and to those in other disciplines who are concerned with the problem of collective action in social contexts.
Decentralization is sweeping the world and having dramatic and far-reaching impacts on resource management and livelihoods, particularly in forestry. This book is the most up-to-date examination of the themes, experiences and lessons learned from decentralization worldwide. Drawing on research and support from all of the major international forestry and conservation organizations, the book provides a balanced account that covers the impact of decentralization on resource management worldwide, and provides comparative global insights with wide implications for policy, management, conservation and resource use and planning. Topics covered include forest governance in federal systems, democratic decentralization of forests and natural resources, paths and pitfalls in decentralization and biodiversity conservation in decentralized forests. The book provides in-depth case studies of decentralization from Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Russia, Scotland, Switzerland, Uganda and the US, as well as highlights from federal countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India and Malaysia. It also addresses the critical links between the state, forests, communities and power relations in a range of regions and circumstances, and provides case examples of how decentralization has been viewed and experienced by communities in Guatemala, Philippines and Zimbabwe. The Politics of Decentralization is state-of-the-art coverage of decentralization and is essential for practitioners, academics and policy-makers across forestry and the full spectrum of natural resource management.
Global warming is the most severe environmental challenge faced by humanity today and the costs of responding effectively will be high. While Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol ensures the treaty's entry into force, lack of capacity, or incentives to renege on their commitments, will impede mitigation efforts in many countries. An important prerequisite for the proper functioning of the Protocol is that its compliance system - which is spelled out by the Marrakesh Accords - proves effective. Implementing the Climate Regime describes and analyses Kyoto's compliance system. Organized into four parts, Part I describes the emergence and design of the compliance system, while Part II analyses various challenges to its effective operation - such as the development of norms, verification and the danger that the use of punitive 'consequences' may also hurt compliant countries. Part III discusses the potential role of external enforcement, with particular emphasis on trade sanctions. Part IV addresses the relationship between Kyoto compliance on one hand, and international governance, oil companies and green NGOs on the other.
Military coups are a constant threat in Africa and many former military leaders are now in control of 'civilian states', yet the military remains understudied, especially over the last decade. Drawing on extensive archival research, cross-national data, and four in-depth comparative case studies, When Soldiers Rebel examines the causes of military coups in post-independence Africa and looks at the relationship between ethnic armies and political instability in the region. Kristen A. Harkness argues that the processes of creating and dismantling ethnically exclusionary state institutions engenders organized and violent political resistance. Focusing on rebellions to protect rather than change the status quo, Harkness sheds light on a mechanism of ethnic violence that helps us understand both the motivations and timing of rebellion, and the rarity of group rebellion in the face of persistent political and economic inequalities along ethnic lines. |
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