This book explores the relations between the EU and the BRICS in the areas of politics, economic development, trade and security. The contributions cover topics such as the position of the EU and BRICS in the global order and the EU as a "normative power," as well as the evolution, characteristics and institutionalization of BRICS and the roles of its member countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. The book will appeal to researchers and scholars interested in the rise of BRICS and the resulting challenges and opportunities for the European Union and Global Governance.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) struggled to apprehend and try high-profile defendants like the Serbian leader Slobodan Milo evi, and often received more criticism than praise. This volume argues that the underappreciated court has in fact made a substantial contribution to Bosnia and Herzegovina s transition to democracy. Based on more than three years of field research and several hundred interviews, this study brings together multiple research methods, including surveys, ethnography, and archival materials, to show the court s impact on five segments of Bosnian society, emphasizing the role of the social setting in translating international law in domestic contexts. Much of the early rhetoric about the transformative potential of international criminal law helped foster unrealistic expectations that institutions like the ICTY could not meet, but judged by more realistic standards, international law is seen to play a modest yet important role in postwar transitions. The findings of this study have implications for the study of international courts around the world and the role law plays in contributing to social change.

This book constitutes an up-to-date methodology reference work for International Relations (IR) scholars and students. The study of IR calls for the use of multiple and various tools to try and describe international phenomena, analyze and understand them, compare them, interpret them, and try to offer theoretical approaches. In a nutshell, doing research in IR requires both tools and methods-from the use of archives to the translation of results through mapping, from conducting interviews to analyzing quantitative data, from constituting a corpus to the always touchy interpretation of images and discourses. This volume assembles twenty young researchers and professors in the field of IR and political science to discuss numerous rich and thoroughly explained case studies. Merging traditional political science approaches with methods borrowed from sociology and history, it offers a clear and instructive synthesis of the main resources and applied methods to study International Relations.

This book argues that early European Commission officials envisaged an integrated civil Europe from the outset. Largely overlooked is the fact that between 1951 and 1972 there was a group of European Commission (and before that the High Authority) officials who wished to build a Civil Europe to sit alongside an economic and political Europe. This Civil Europe was, it was hoped, to become home to a European citizenry equipped with a European civil consciousness that complemented their national and local loyalties. To this end these officials pioneered a series of civil initiatives designed to begin the process of building Civil Europe. This book analyses three such civil initiatives: the building of the first European School, the European Community's participation in Expo 58 and the production of the European Community's own documentaries. From the start Europe was designed and conceived of in terms of a European general civil public and not solely in terms dictated by economic and political interests.

This book examines selected actions and investments of the European Central Bank (ECB) from a climate and sustainability standpoint. Shedding new light on the topic from various angles - ethical, philosophical, political, economical and legal - it situates sustainability mainstreaming in the finance and investment field at all levels. The former ECB President Mario Draghi once said that he considered sustainable development and an intact environment to be human rights, and therefore enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The acting ECB President Christine Lagarde added that the future path for the climate is uncertain, but it would remain within our power to influence it. However, with all that in mind the ECB's policy of buying assets as securities is often questionable. This volume analyzes these actions in connection with sustainability, and puts forward practical recommendations for improving the ECB's investment strategy on its way creating a sustainable financial market.

The European Union's (EU) powerful legal framework drives the process of European integration. The Court of Justice (ECJ) has established a uniquely effective supranational legal order, beyond the original wording of the Treaty of Rome and transforming our traditional understanding of international law. This work investigates how these fundamental transformations in the European legal system were received in one of the most important member states, Germany. On the one hand, Germany has been highly supportive of political and economic integration; yet on the other, a fundamental pillar of the post-war German identity was the integrity of its constitutional order. How did a state whose constitution was so essential to its self-understanding subscribe to the constitutional practice of EU law, which challenged precisely this aspect of its identity? How did a country who could not say no to Europe become the member state most reluctant to accept the new power of the ECJ?"

Thanks to new transparency rules and increased efforts by scholars, researchers are better equipped than ever before to analyze the decision-making processes of the Council of the European Union and to test old wisdoms. This book covers the most contentious areas and important debates in current research.

This book provides an analysis of the institutional and constitutional effects of EU international agreements, with a particular focus on their potential effects on private parties. The European Union has entered into a number of international agreements that raise serious fundamental rights concerns due to a lack of parliamentary and judicial scrutiny. The book addresses these issues in the context of developments contained in the Lisbon Treaty, focusing on primary and secondary sources, including German/French scholarship, as well as EU and national case law.

This book traces the history of UNESCO from its foundational idealism to its current stature as the preeminent international organization for science, education, and culture, building a well rounded understanding of this important organization. The book: * provides an overview of the organization and its institutional architecture in the context of its humanistic idealism * details the subsequent challenges UNESCO faced through cold war and power politics, global dependence and interdependence, and the rise of identity and culture in global politics * analyses the functioning of UNESCO administration, finance, and its various constituencies including the secretariat, member-states, and civil society * explores the major controversies and issues underlying the initiatives in education, sciences, culture and communication * examines the current agenda and future challenges through three major issues in UNESCO: Education or All, digital divide issues, and norms on cultural diversity * assesses the role of UNESCO in making norms in complex world of multiple actors and intersecting issue-areas. Reflecting on UNESCO's vision, its everyday practices, and future challenges; this work is an essential resource for students and scholars of international relations and international organizations.

This book offers a multidisciplinary approach to the Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) by bringing together contributions from legal scholars and political scientists. Most of the authors belong to a tightly knit legal epistemic community, trained at the University of Sao Paulo and at the top-ranked research and policy centers on WTO law in Europe. Presenting a novel and unique perspective on the DSM, it provides an analysis of current themes at the heart of the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism through the lenses of scholars with a "developing country" perspective. Focusing on assessment, substance, and process, it presents a three-fold approach to the analysis and offers a singular contribution to the scholarly literature on the WTO. The book discusses the topic from the viewpoint of individuals deeply involved in the scholarly production as well as the daily operation of the mechanism. The contributors include academics in the fields of international economic law and political science, diplomats, individuals engaged in legal private practice, and individuals affiliated with the WTO as well as WTO-related think tanks. The result is a balanced perspective on pressing issues that have arisen and that are likely to remain at the center of the scholarly and policy debate for years to come.

This book outlines the foreign and security policy of the European Union as envisaged under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Since establishing the CFSP in the 1990s, the European Union (EU) has showed its enthusiasm for global leadership, empowering European citizenship, and developing its international standing as an economic and political supranational organization. In particular, the book examines the EU's peacekeeping and conflict resolution dynamics in order to analyze the political and security dimensions of the EU. It argues that, due to the loose collective foreign policy and inter-bloc dilemmas, the EU has failed to perform as an actor of substance in international politics. However, at the regional level, the EU's peacekeeping efforts have enjoyed considerable success. The book further explains the dynamics of successful (regional) and unsuccessful (extra-regional) peacekeeping and conflict resolution efforts on the part of the EU with the help of a case study. The case study assesses two key hypotheses: that the stronger an EU member state's collective Europeanization approach is, the higher the success of the EU is in inter-bloc disputes; and that the weaker an EU member state's execution of the CFSP on international disputes is, the less successful the EU is in the context of international peacekeeping.

Since emerging in 2006 from a ten-year Maoist insurgency, the 'People's War', Nepal has struggled with the difficult transition from war to peace, from autocracy to democracy, and from an exclusionary and centralized state to a more inclusive and federal one. The present volume, drawing on both international and Nepali scholars and leading practitioners, analyzes the context, dynamics and key players shaping Nepal's ongoing peace process. While the peace process is largely domestically driven, it has been accompanied by wide-ranging international involvement, including initiatives in peacemaking by NGOs, the United Nations and India, which, throughout the process, wielded considerable political influence; significant investments by international donors; and the deployment of a Security Council-mandated UN field mission. This book shines a light on the limits, opportunities and challenges of international efforts to assist Nepal in its quest for peace and stability and offers valuable lessons for similar endeavors elsewhere.

This volume explores the Western-led liberal order that is claimed to be in crisis. Currently, the West appears less as a modernizing or civilizing entity leading the way and more as being engulfed in a deep crisis. Simultaneously, the West still appears to be needed in order to imagine the global order by promoters of liberal peace as well as its opponents. This book asks how and why "crisis" is needed for constituting "the West," liberal, and global order and how these three are conjoined and reinvented. The book encompasses narratives endorsing and rejecting the West and the liberal international order, as well as alternative visions for a post-Western world conceived within the rising and challenging powers. The study is of interest to scholars and students of international relations, critical security studies, peace and conflict research, and social sciences in general.

Why are constitutionalist ideals so prominent in science fiction? Does Independence Day depict self-defence as a legal concept with absolute limits? Is international law lost in space? This innovative interdisciplinary volume represents the first exploration of the relationship between international law and cinema. From Star Wars to Werner Herzog, The Godfather to The West Wing, this book uncovers a diverse range of representations of international law and its norms in film and television. Examining the wider links between international law, cinema, and ideology, the contributions not only examine visual representations of international law, but they offer an essential insight into the functions fulfilled by these cinematic representations. Providing an extraordinary introduction to a variety of perspectives on core international legal questions, Cinematic perspectives on international law extends a valuable methodology by which international lawyers can critique the depiction of international law in film. -- .

Examining how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) has responded to external threats since 1975 and drawing on rarely analysed material including declassified government documents and WikiLeaks cables, this book develops the `vanguard state theory' to explain why regional states act as they do in the face of potential sovereignty violation.

The development of non-binding new governance methods has challenged the traditional ideals of EU law by suggesting that soft norms and executive networks may provide a viable alternative. Rather than see law and new governance as oppositional projects, Mark Dawson argues that new governance can be seen as an example of legal 'transformation', in which soft norms and hard law institutions begin to cohabit and interact. He charts this transformation by analysing the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) for Social Inclusion and Protection. While this process illustrates some of the concrete advantages for EU social policy which new governance has brought, it also illustrates their extensive legitimacy challenges. Methods like the OMC have both excluded traditional institutions, such as Courts and Parliaments, and altered the boundaries of domestic constitutional frameworks. The book concludes with some practical suggestions for how a political 'constitutionalisation' of new governance could look.

The idea of the EU as a constitutional order has recently taken on renewed life, as the Court of Justice declared the primacy of EU law not just over national constitutions but also over the international legal order, including the UN Charter. This book explores the nature and character of EU legal and political authority, and the complex analytical and normative questions which the notion of European constitutionalism raises, both in the EU's internal and its external relations. The book culminates in an interactive epilogue in which the authors' arguments are questioned and challenged by the editor, providing a unique and stimulating approach to the subject. By bringing together leading constitutional theorists of the European Union, this book offers a sharp, challenging and engaging discussion for students and researchers alike.

This book examines the domestic and international dimensions of European Union (EU) competition policy, particularly mergers, anti-competitive practices and state aids. The authors argue that important changes in EU competition policy are having profound effects on the global political economy, and these changes are best understood as European Commission responses to new domestic and international pressures. Using a two-level game analytical framework that is both intra-EU and global in scope, Damro and Guay investigate a wide variety of domestic and foreign public and private actors that interact in crucial ways to determine the development and implementation of EU competition policy. They address this broad question: In what ways do changing external and internal factors affect the evolution of the EU's competition policy and the role that the Commission plays in it? Among the conclusions is that the EU - and particularly the European Commission - has become a leading global regulator.

How does the EU resolve controversy when making laws that affect citizens? How has the EU been affected by the recent enlargements that brought its membership to a diverse group of twenty-seven countries? This book answers these questions with analyses of the EU's legislative system that include the roles played by the European Commission, European Parliament and member states' national governments in the Council of Ministers. Robert Thomson examines more than 300 controversial issues in the EU from the past decade and describes many cases of controversial decision-making as well as rigorous comparative analyses. The analyses test competing expectations regarding key aspects of the political system, including the policy demands made by different institutions and member states, the distributions of power among the institutions and member states, and the contents of decision outcomes. These analyses are also highly relevant to the EU's democratic deficit and various reform proposals.

This book analyses the revised European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which entered into force in May 2011, thereby replacing its predecessor of 2003/2004. The edited volume provides a structured and comprehensive overview of the most recent developments in EU foreign policy (EUFP) towards the EU's southern and eastern neighbourhood through the prism of continuity and change. By critically examining EU action and inaction in the framework of the 2011 ENP, it also puts the ENP's most recent review of 2015 in perspective. Topics covered include: conceptual, theoretical and methodological issues; the legal and institutional aspects of the revised ENP and the changes brought by the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty; and conflicts and crises in the EU's neighbourhood, such as the Western Sahara conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the South Caucasus conflicts and the crisis in Ukraine. The authors also focus on sectoral cooperation, analysing the changes brought by the revised ENP of 2011 in the domains of energy cooperation and migration. This volume will appeal to scholars and upper level students in EU/European Studies, International Relations, Political Science, as well as practitioners and policy-makers in the field.

The European Convention on Human Rights has been a standard-setting text for transitions to peace and democracy in states throughout Europe. This book analyses the content, role and effects of the jurisprudence of the European Court relating to societies in transition. It features a wide range of transitional challenges, from killings by security forces in Northern Ireland to property restitution in East Central Europe, and from political upheaval in the Balkans to the position of religious minorities and Roma. Has the European Court developed a specific transitional jurisprudence? How do politics affect the ways in which the Court's judgments are implemented? Does the Court's case-law itself become woven into narratives of struggle in transitional societies? This book seeks to answer these questions by highlighting the unique role of Europe's main guardian of human rights, the Court in Strasbourg. It includes a comparison with the Inter-American and African human rights systems.

European studies frequently regard the economic and social dimensions of EU integration as diametrically opposed, maintaining that this state of affairs is beyond change. This edited collection challenges this perceived wisdom, focusing on the post-Lisbon constitutional landscape. Taking the multi-layered polity that is Europe today as its central organising theme, it examines how the social and the economic might be reconciled under the Union's different forms of governance. The collection has a clear structure, opening with a theoretical appraisal of its theme, before considering three specific policy fields: migration policy and civic integration, company law and corporate social responsibility and the role of third sector providers in public healthcare. It concludes with three case studies in these fields, illustrating how the argument can be practically applied. Insightful and topical, with a unique interdisciplinary perspective, this is an important contribution to European Union law after the Lisbon Treaty.

As the world's population continues to grow, there is an ever increasing need for huge investment in basic infrastructure: water and sewage, energy production and distribution, transportation and telecommunication. At the same time, infrastructure systems in developed countries are deteriorating and in need of renewal. Today, many of the engineering and economic problems surrounding infrastructure construction projects have been solved, but the threat of social misalignments and political conflicts renders the development and management of such projects more challenging than ever before. This book presents a new theoretical framework that allows us to analyze the institutional and social movement processes, both negative and positive, that surround global infrastructure projects as they confront cross-national and cross-sectoral (such as private-public partnerships) institutional differences. The value of this framework is illustrated through a series of studies on a wide range of infrastructure projects, including roads, railroads, ports, airports, water supply and energy pipelines.

European Regulatory Agencies (ERAs) have become increasingly important features in EU decision-making. They aim to provide expert advice independent of political or economic considerations. This book explains whether and under what conditions ERAs comply with this scientific mandate. Expanding on rational institutionalism, Ossege provides novel insights into the behaviour of ERAs, their autonomy from 'undue' external influence, and their impact on EU policy-making. The empirical comparison of three major ERAs - the European Medicines Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, and the European Chemicals Agency - not only shows that agencies capitalise on their expertise and rule-making competences to protect their autonomy. Rather, in making strategic use of their expertise, the ERAs also guard their autonomy in areas of high political salience, though their policy influence in these areas is partially circumscribed. Based on these insights, European Regulatory Agencies in EU Decision-Making locates its subject in the wider system of European Governance and considers the perennial question of how to reconcile the need for expert advice with democratic decision-making.