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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions > General
What explains contemporary variations in African legislative institutions - including their strengths and weaknesses? Compared with the more powerful executive branches, legislatures throughout the continent have historically been classified as weak and largely inconsequential to policy-making processes. But, as Ken Ochieng' Opalo suggests here, African legislatures actually serve important roles, and under certain conditions, powerful and independent democratic legislatures can emerge from their autocratic foundations. In this book, Opalo examines the colonial origins of African legislatures, as well as how postcolonial intra-elite politics structured the processes of adapting inherited colonial legislatures to local political contexts and therefore continued legislative development. Through case studies of Kenya and Zambia, Opalo offers a comparative longitudinal study of the evolution of legislative strength and institutionalization as well as a regional survey of legislative development under colonial rule, postcolonial autocratic single-party rule, and multiparty politics throughout Africa.
As global governance appears to become more inclusive and democratic, many scholars argue that international institutions act as motors of expansion and democratization. The Closure of the International System challenges this view, arguing that the history of the international system is a series of institutional closures, in which institutions such as diplomacy, international law, and international organizations make rules to legitimate the inclusion of some actors and the exclusion of others. While international institutions facilitate collective action and common goods, Viola's closure thesis demonstrates how these gains are achieved by limiting access to rights and resources, creating a stratified system of political equals and unequals. The coexistence of equality and hierarchy is a constitutive feature of the international system and its institutions. This tension is relevant today as multilateral institutions are challenged by disaffected citizens, non-Western powers, and established great powers discontent with the distribution of political rights and authority.
This supplementary volume to The Papers of Woodrow Wilson contains a collection of letters that eloquently reflect the ideals and expectations shared by those American intellectuals who hoped to build a new order out of the chaos of the First World War. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The World Trade Organization is a central player in international trade regulation. The rights and duties that form WTO law are not created in a vacuum, however, and there exists a complex network of domestic, regional and international influences on the development of WTO law that go beyond the disciplines found in the covered agreements or the interpretations given by panels and the Appellate Body. As such, understanding the development of WTO law in a wider institutional context is critical to comprehending WTO law in a new age of legal globalization. The Development of World Trade Organization Law: Examining Change in International Law examines the development of WTO law through an analysis of competing global actors, norms, and institutions. Taking a different approach to social-scientific or traditional legal models, this book argues that such globalized actors are the driving force behind the development of WTO law yet not in control of it. Identifying causal language as key to understanding this development, the volume examines three different causal influences: instrumental, systemic, and constitutive. It applies this causal methodology to three key areas of WTO law: safeguard measures, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and subsidies. The volume provides detailed explanations of why the law has developed as it has and offers insights into the future functioning of the WTO system.
The founding, structure, and operations of the League of Arab States since its organization in 1945 are analyzed. In the first half of the book the author discusses the League's decision-making processes, considers regional dynamics, the polarization of power between Egypt and Iraq, and the impact of such major issues as Palestine on the League. He considers the League's techniques of cooperation with the United Nations and its specialized agencies, neutralism and nonalignment, and the boycott of Israel. In the latter half of the study, three major operational questions typical of regional organizations are examined: functional integration in cultural, social, economic, and scientific affairs; problems of regional security and peaceful settlement of disputes; and interaction between the Arab League and the United Nations. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This supplementary volume to The Papers of Woodrow Wilson contains a collection of letters that eloquently reflect the ideals and expectations shared by those American intellectuals who hoped to build a new order out of the chaos of the First World War. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Why are there so many crises in the world? Is it true that the global system is today riskier and more dangerous than in past decades? Do we have any tools at our disposal to bring these problems under control, to reduce the global system's proneness to instability? These are the tantalizing questions addressed in this book. Using a variety of demographic, economic, financial, social, and political indicators, the book demonstrates that the global system has indeed become an 'architecture of collapse' subject to a variety of shocks. An analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China, and the European sovereign debt crisis illustrates how the complexity and tight coupling of system components creates a situation of precarious stability and periodic disruption. This state of affairs can only be improved by enhancing the shock-absorbing components of the system, especially the capacity of states and governments to act, and by containing the shock-diffusing mechanisms. In particular, those related to phenomena such as trade imbalances, portfolio investment, cross-border banking, population ageing, and income and wealth inequality.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the most important international organizations in existence today. It contains a set of disciplines that affect the ability of governments to impose trade restrictions, and has helped to support the steady expansion of international trade since the 1950s. The WTO has been the focus of vociferous protests by anti-globalization activists and has experienced great difficulties in agreeing to new trade rules since its establishment. At the same time it has become the premier global forum for the settlement of trade disputes and has proven to provide a robust framework for international cooperation in the trade area. This book separates the facts from the propaganda and provides an accessible overview of the WTO's history, structure and policies as well as a discussion of the future of the organization. It also confronts the criticisms of the WTO and assesses their validity. New to the second edition: discussion of legislative amendments to the WTO Agreement, in particular Aid for Trade, the Agreement on Trade Facilitation and the Bali Package evaluation of case law developments and major disputes since 2007, including analysis of the WTO and the financial crisis - in particular the trade policy responses of WTO Members and institutional response reflection on recent shifts to mega-regional agreements (TPP, TISA, TTIP) and their implications what next post Bali? Fully updated throughout, this book continues to be essential reading for students of international trade, international political economy, commercial law and international organizations as well as activists and others interested in a balanced account of a key global institution.
From 2001 to 2011, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and its International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), acquired a central position in the practice and regulation of financial reporting around the world. As a unique instance of a private-sector body setting standards with legal force in many jurisdictions, the IASB's rise to prominence has been accompanied by vivid political debates about its governance and accountability. Similarly, the IASB's often innovative attempts to change the face of financial reporting have made it the centre of numerous controversies. This book traces the history of the IASB from its foundation as successor to the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), and discusses its operation, changing membership and leadership, the development of its standards, and their reception in jurisdictions around the world. The book gives particular attention to the IASB's relationships with the European Union, the United States, and Japan, as well as to the impact of the financial crisis on the IASB's work. By its in-depth coverage of the history of the IASB, the book provides essential background information that will enrich the perspective of everyone who has to deal with IFRSs or the IASB at a technical or policy-making level.
An updated new edition of the original publication issued by the ANC Elections Committee to honour the legacy of Comrade Oliver Tambo, late president and national chairman of the African National Congress. This little book provides an overview of his life and generous contributions during the struggle for a new South Africa. Written in an engaging style by esteemed historian Luli Callinicos, this `mini-biography' is accessible to all ages.
At the turn of the century the regional-global security partnership became a key element of peace and security policy-making. This book investigates the impact of the joint effort made by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) to keep the peace and protect civilians in Darfur. This book focuses on the collaboration that takes place in the field of conflict management between the global centre and the African regional level. It moves beyond the dominant framework on regional-global security partnerships, which mainly considers one-sided legal and political factors. Instead, new perspectives on the relationships are presented through the lens of international legitimacy. The book argues that the AU and the UN Security Council fight for legitimacy to ensure their positions of authority and to improve the chances of success of their activities. It demonstrates in regard to the case of Darfur why and how legitimacy matters for states, international organisations, and also for global actors and local populations. Legitimacy, Peace Operations and Global-Regional Security will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations, African Security and Global Governance.
During the second half of the 20th century, Colombia suffered extreme levels of political violence. This book explores the involvement of the international community in peacebuilding efforts in Colombia since 2016. In particular, it examines how interventions were framed in order to promote and sustain their involvement and questions whether these frames reflected reality within Colombia. The book focuses on key donors, including the US, the EU, Canada, Sweden and the UK, as well as multinational actors, such as the UN and the World Bank, to demonstrate how their framing of local issues for national and international consumption can have real world implications for peacebuilding efforts on the ground.
This leading undergraduate textbook now covers international relations theory in more depth and includes new material on NATO and the EU, while its case studies have been updated throughout. Unlike other textbooks in the field, it takes readers behind the scenes of the world's most important international organizations (IOs), inviting them to ask: What are the legal obligations that give IOs international power? How do IOs ensure compliance from their members? And how do they enforce their rules? International Organizations explores these questions through in-depth, chapter-length case studies of the world's key international organizations, allowing students to connect essential IO theory with the law, practice and philosophy of the leading IOs, including the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Concise and engagingly written and with end-of-chapter questions, legal appendices and suggestions for further reading, this is core reading for any course on international institutions.
Seeking to open paths for reconsidering the trade and development relationship at the WTO, this book takes into account both the heritage of the trade regime and its present dynamics. It argues that the institutional processes for creating and implementing trade rules at the WTO and the actual regulatory outcomes are inseparable. A consideration of the WTO's development dimension must examine both jointly. It shows that the shortcomings of the Doha Development Round are in part due to a failure to assess trade rules as part of the legal processes and institutions that produced them. This book devotes significant analysis to the systemic impact of the WTO as an institution on developing and least developed members. From a pragmatic perspective, it provides a coherent and systematic analysis of the legal meaning, the implementation, and the adjudication of special and differential treatment rules for developing members. It then evaluates the different regulatory approaches to trade and development from a more theoretical perspective. The book finishes by presenting a range of proposals for a better balance between trade liberalization and the development needs of many WTO members.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is often accused of, at best, not paying enough attention to human rights or, at worst, facilitating and perpetuating human rights abuses. This book weighs these criticisms and examines their validity, incorporating legal arguments as well as some economic and political science perspectives. After introducing the respective WTO and human rights regimes, and discussing their legal and normative relationship to each other, the book presents a detailed analysis of the main human rights concerns relating to the WTO. These include the alleged democratic deficit within the Organization and the impact of WTO rules on the right to health, labour rights, the right to food, and on questions of poverty and development. Given that some of the most important issues within the WTO concern its impact on poor people within developing States, the book asks whether rich States have an obligation to the people of poorer States to construct a fairer trading system that better facilitates the alleviation of poverty and development. Against this background, the book examines the current Doha round proposals as well as suggestions for reform of the WTO to make it more 'human rights-friendly'.
Questions of power are central to understanding global trade politics and no account of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can afford to avoid at least an acknowledgment of the concept. A closer examination of power can help us to explain why the structures and rules of international commerce take their existing forms, how the actions of countries are either enabled or disabled, and what distributional outcomes are achieved. However, within conventional accounts, there has been a tendency to either view power according to a single reading - namely the direct, coercive sense - or to overlook the concept entirely, focusing instead on liberal cooperation and legalization. In this book, Matthew Eagleton-Pierce shows that each of these approaches betray certain limitations which, in turn, have cut short, or worked against, more critical appraisals of power in transnational capitalism. To expand the intellectual space, the book investigates the complex relationship between power and legitimation by drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's notion of symbolic power. A focus on symbolic power aims to alert scholars to how the construction of certain knowledge claims are fundamental to, and entwined within, the material struggle for international trade. Empirically, the argument uncovers and plots the recent strategies adopted by Southern countries in their pursuit of a more equitable trading order. By bringing together insights from political economy, sociology, and law, Symbolic Power in the WTO not only enlivens and enriches the study of diplomatic practice within a major multilateral institution, it also advances the broader understanding of power in world politics.
The African Union (AU) is a continental organization that comprises every African state except for Morocco, is indeed a pioneering undertaking. Its ambitious aim is to integrate all member states, with the ultimate goal of forming the United States of Africa. Despite several attempts to build a union, the AU has remained an intergovernmental organization, one reason being a perceived unwillingness of the AU states to pool their national sovereignties. This study seeks to comprehend why Africa's integration process has not moved towards a supranational organization, using a novel approach. It shifts the usual perspective away from the organization level and provides the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of the AU from the perspective of the states themselves. It includes 8 comprehensive case studies: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mauritius, South African, Swaziland, Uganda and Zimbabwe to help understand their foreign policy and provide key insights into why they are (un)willing to yield sovereignty. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of African politics, international relations and international organizations.
This volume examines the prosecution as an institution and a
function in a dozen international and hybrid criminal tribunals,
from Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court. It is the
result of a sustained collaborative effort among some twenty
scholars and (former) tribunal staffers. The starting point is that
the prosecution shapes a tribunal's practice and legacy more than
any other organ and that a systematic examination of international
prosecutors is therefore warranted.
Seeking to open paths for reconsidering the trade and development relationship at the WTO, this book takes into account both the heritage of the trade regime and its present dynamics. It argues that the institutional processes for creating and implementing trade rules at the WTO and the actual regulatory outcomes are inseparable. A consideration of the development dimension at the WTO must examine both jointly. It shows that the shortcomings of the Doha Development Round are in part due to the failure to assess trade rules as part of the legal processes and institutions that produced them. This book devotes significant analysis to the systemic impact of the WTO as an institution on developing and least developed members. From a pragmatic perspective, it provides a coherent and systematic analysis of the legal meaning, the implementation, and the adjudication of special and differential treatment rules for developing members. It then evaluates the different regulatory approaches to trade and development from a more theoretical perspective. The book finishes by presenting a range of proposals for a better balance between trade liberalization and the development needs of many WTO members.
Who controls how transnational issues are defined and treated? In recent decades professional coordination on a range of issues has been elevated to the transnational level. International organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and firms all make efforts to control these issues. This volume shifts focus away from looking at organizations and zooms in on how professional networks exert control in transnational governance. It contributes to research on professions and expertise, policy entrepreneurship, normative emergence, and change. The book provides a framework for understanding how professionals and organizations interact, and uses it to investigate a range of transnational cases. The volume also deploys a strong emphasis on methodological strategies to reveal who controls transnational issues, including network, sequence, field, and ethnographic approaches. Bringing together scholars from economic sociology, international relations, and organization studies, the book integrates insights from across fields to reveal how professionals obtain and manage control over transnational issues.
Global lawmaking by international organizations holds the potential for enormous influence over world trade and national economies. Representatives from states, industries, and professions produce laws for worldwide adoption in an effort to alter state lawmaking and commercial behaviors, whether of giant multi-national corporations or micro, small and medium-sized businesses. Who makes that law and who benefits affects all states and all market players. Global Lawmakers offers the first extensive empirical study of commercial lawmaking within the United Nations. It shows who makes law for the world, how they make it, and who comes out ahead. Using extensive and unique data, the book investigates three episodes of lawmaking between the late 1990s and 2012. Through its original socio-legal orientation, it reveals dynamics of competition, cooperation and competitive cooperation within and between international organizations, including the UN, World Bank, IMF and UNIDROIT, as these IOs craft international laws. Global Lawmakers proposes an original theory of international organizations that seek to construct transnational legal orders within social ecologies of lawmaking. The book concludes with an appraisal of creative global governance by the UN in international commerce over the past fifty years and examines prospective challenges for the twenty-first century.
For the first time in one collected volume, mainstream and critical human rights scholars together examine the empirical and normative debates around the future of human rights. They ask what makes human rights effective, what strategies will enhance the chances of compliance, what blocks progress, and whether the hope for human rights is entirely misplaced in a rapidly transforming world. Human Rights Futures sees the world as at a crucial juncture. The project for globalizing rights will either continue to be embedded or will fall backward into a maelstrom of nationalist backlash, religious resurgence and faltering Western power. Each chapter talks directly to the others in an interactive dialogue, providing a theoretical and methodological framework for a clear research agenda for the next decade. Scholars, graduate students and practitioners of political science, history, sociology, law and development will find much to both challenge and provoke them in this innovative book.
Based on a collection of statements delivered between 2003 and 2015, The Vatican in the Family of Nations provides a new understanding of the social doctrine and actions of the Catholic Church in international law and relations. These statements address contemporary issues that stir deep emotional responses, from disarmament, migrations, trade, and intellectual property to discrimination and freedom of conscience. This volume disputes irrational fears of newcomers, offers reasonable adaptations to allow for peaceful coexistence, and insists on investigating the root causes of today's conflicts and displacements. As an independent voice, the Holy See offers these reflections with the view of prioritizing the common good before confessional interests, even when their aims and ends converge. In this sense, this book is a unique collection in international literature on the intersection of theology, human rights and social issues, which opens courageous new paths for the future.
Climate change, nuclear proliferation, and the threat of a global
pandemic have the potential to impact each of our lives. Preventing
these threats poses a serious global challenge, but ignoring them
could have disastrous consequences. How do we engineer institutions
to change incentives so that these global public goods are
provided?
Thoroughly updated, this new edition of the award-winning "International Organizations" reflects the wealth of developments in the world arena since the first edition appeared in 2004. Professors Karns and Mingst trace the evolving roles of the full range of IGOs, NGOs, state and nonstate actors, norms, rules, and other pieces of global governance. In addition, four issue-based chapters - on peace and security, development, human rights, and the environment - present current case studies and examine the elements of global and regional governance that are involved. New case studies include the conflict in the DRC, the current global economic crisis, and efforts to combat human trafficking and other slave-like practices. Throughout, the authors highlight questions of the legitimacy, accountability, and effectiveness of global governance. This is a comprehensive, in-depth examination of the full range of international organizations. |
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