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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions
This book looks at the centerpiece of the international women's rights discourse, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and asks to what extent it affects the lives of women worldwide. Rather than assuming a trickle-down effect, the author discusses specific methods which have made CEDAW resonate. These methods include attempts to influence the international level by clarifying the meaning of women's rights and strengthening the Convention's monitoring procedure, and building connections between international and domestic contexts that enable diverse actors to engage with CEDAW. This analysis shows that while the Convention has worldwide impact, this impact is fundamentally dependent on context-specific values and agency. Hence, rather than thinking of women's rights exclusively as normative content, Zwingel suggests to see them as in process. This book will especially appeal to students and scholars interested in transnational feminism and gender and global governance.
This book examines the process of Spanish integration into the European Community, from 1962 when Spain under the Franco regime applied to the European Community to 1985, when democratic Spain became a member of the EEC. It aims to prove that, first the European Community was the crucial external factor determining political change in Spain, and secondly that Europeanism was a mechanism of political change, as it was the only aim which unified the whole political spectrum from the Francoist establishment to the democratic opposition.
This book focuses on current key issues of international security from an actor-centered approach. The volume is divided into 3 sections: the first part analyses an array of security issues in Europe, the second one explores how those security issues play out in the Americas, and the third focuses on Africa. Each of the chapter authors outlines the relevant ideas, interests and institutions. The volume provides an overview of how global, regional, and national actors, differ in their management approaches, capacity levels, and how these differences translate into cross-regional cooperation on security issues.
Who is a vulnerable person in human rights law? This important book assesses the treatment of vulnerability by the European Court of Human Rights, an area that has been surprisingly under-explored by European human rights law to date. It explores legal-philosophical understandings of the topic, providing a theoretical framework that can be used when examining the question. Not confining itself to the abstract, however, it provides a bridge from the theoretical to the practical by undertaking a comprehensive examination of the Court's approach under art. 3 ECHR. It also pays particular attention to the concept of human dignity. Well written and compellingly argued, this is an important new book for all scholars of European human rights. The open access edition of this book is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
This volume investigates the nature and changing roles of the non-state armed groups in the Middle East with a special focus on Kurdish, Shia and Islamic State groups. To understand the nature of transformation in the Middle Eastern geopolitical space, it provides new empirical and analytical insights into the impact of three prominent actors, namely ISIS, YPG and Shia Militias. With its distinctive detailed and multi-faceted analyses, it offers new findings on the changing contours of sovereignty, geopolitics and ideology, particularly after the Arab Uprisings. Overall this volume contributes to the study of violent geopolitics, critical security studies and international relations particularly by exploring the ideologies and strategies of the new non-state armed actors.
The achievements and challenges of the world's largest multilateral donor population programs In the thirty years since the United Nations Population Fund was founded, overall population growth rates have slowed, infant and maternal mortality have been reduced, and women have achieved improved access to reproductive health services. Yet, a multitude of problems remain, including the aging of Western European populations and the growth of others in the Third World, the impact of AIDS, and increases in migration and refugees. An Agenda for People examines the past achievements as well as the current and future challenges of the world's largest multilateral donor population programs. Through essays by experts in the field of development, this book tackles a series of probing questions. How has the Fund evolved and built global support? How have the major international conferences on population and environments shaped the global population agenda? What is the relationship between reproductive rights and human rights? What are the links between population and resource use and abuse? And how does the Fund help to integrate impoverished populations into national development strategies? This book provides an invaluable assessment of the state of world population programs and a fascinating look into the future of community development. Contributors include Tevia Abrams, John Caldwell, Sylvie Cohen, Rebecca Cook, Mahmoud Fathalla, Noeleen heyzer, Don Hinrichsen, Stafford Mousky, Mohammad Nizamuddin, Fred Sai, Sara Sems, Steven W. Sinding, Jyoti Shankar Singh, and Bradman Weerakoon.
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.
This book challenges the common perception that global politics is making progress on indigenous issues and argues that the current global care for indigeneity is, in effect, violent in nature. Examining the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Arctic Council, the authors demonstrate how seemingly benevolent practices of international political and legal recognition are tantamount to colonialism, the historical wrong they purport to redress. By unveiling the ways in which contemporary neoliberal politics commissions a certain type of indigenous subject-one distinguished by resilience in particular-the book offers a pioneering account of how international politics has tightened its grip on indigeneity.
The publication of Frederick Abbott's new book could not be more timely. The impact of the NAFTA on the North American marketplace has clearly manifested itself over the past year and the emergence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the regulator of global commerce will have a profound influence on the conduct of international trade. This book provides a comprehensive approach to the study of the NAFTA and its implications for the global trading system. It covers the political and legal process of NAFTA approval as well as the NAFTA's potential economic impact. Detailed analysis is given to the NAFTA rule systems, dispute settlement mechanisms, and environmental implications. Perhaps most importantly, this book situates the NAFTA into the broader global multilateral trading system now to be embodied in the WTO. It examines the legal rules of the WTO designed to regulate the activities of regional integration arrangements. It considers the potential for conflict between the rules and trade policies of the WTO and those of the NAFTA. This book holds a strong appeal for practitioners and academics interested in international economic law. This book is the first volume in the new NAFTA LAW AND POLICY series. This series will include high-quality studies of different aspects of NAFTA, including legal analysis and commentary on the Agreement. Among the numerous areas that will be covered in the series are NAFTA topics as diverse as agriculture, dispute settlement, environment, intellectual property rights, investment, and labour.
This work seeks to provide insight into the role that discourse and rhetorical analysis plays in the crucial area of international conflict resolution and diplomatic process. Using analyses of situations that have come into play in the United Nations as the backdrop to their study, Donahue and Prosser first develop the concept of discourse analysis and the various approaches to it, including the role of genre and culture. They then turn their attention to rhetorical analysis, from its classical beginnings through to contemporary Western perspectives. The final part of the work applies the tools of discourse and rhetorical analysis to an understanding of various modern historical conflicts (including the Middle East conflict) and issues of current and future interest (such as human and women's rights).
The book discusses five examples of NGO action in four countries - Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa and Sri Lanka - with authoritarian regimes. It poses the question of whose interest was served by these activities, the beneficiary group or the NGOs and argues that where these coincided, identifiable benefits accrued to beneficiary groups. This underlines the importance of ensuring that NGOs are accountable to the communities with which they seek to work.
Countless editorials have addressed the if, how, why, when, and who dimensions of NATO enlargement. These issues will continue to generate debate despite the Madrid summit decisions and will invariably influence legislators in discharging their historic responsibility to provide advice and consent to ratification of the protocols of accession before April 1999. Congressman Solomon's volume will help place these issues in perspective, answer the skeptics of enlargement, and provide the missing historical context for the profound geopolitical challenge of European security on the cusp of the 21st century. He begins by reviewing NATO's initial response, from 1989 to 1990, to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The early moves from outreach toward enlargement are then explored, and then he examines how NATO sought to combine the two strands of prospective enlargement while engaging nations not seeking NATO membership, especially Russia, to prepare for coalition operations and the spread of democratic security values. Next he analyzes how the Partnership for Peace concept eventually progressed toward the decisions to invite the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance by 1999. Important reading for scholars, policymakers, and citizens concerned with current strategic and international relations issues.
British post-imperial decline has been much examined. In these memoirs, David Hannay, one of Britain's leading behind-the-scenes players in this process, provides fascinating frontline information and insights into Britain's complex relations with Washington and Europe. From his early career in the Middle East to his role as a top diplomat, Hannay presents a detailed and authoritative narrative of British foreign policy in the second half of the 20th Century. A key player in European policy-making, he was directly involved in bringing about the UK's entry into the European Community, as well as being closely involved in the Annan plan while he was the UK's Special Representative in Cyprus. Hannay illuminates vital themes in the early relationship between Britain and the EU that are increasingly relevant today: British membership, EU enlargement and Britain's contribution to the European budget. From the complex relations between Margaret Thatcher and her diplomatic establishment to Britain's decisions leading up to the 1970s oil supply crisis, Hannay analyses the causes and consequences of major British foreign policy decisions over the past 50 years. An informed and balanced ringside view of diplomatic history over 50 years, this book will fascinate general readers and prove essential reading for specialists.
This is the story of the most powerful NATO Supreme Commander of the Cold War, General Lauris Norstad was both a 'nuclear' general and an 'international' general. His primary goal was to keep the Alliance together as he accommodated British and French nuclear ambitions while forestalling the same in the West Germans. He also was at the centre of the political/military manoeuvrings over Berlin and the Soviet attempt to blackmail the West into recognizing East Germany, all of which culminated in the building of the infamous 'Wall'.
This is the first study of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). It provides a concise description of UNIDO's activities as an actor in the field of international industrial cooperation from the 1960's to the present day. The emergence of UNIDO as a specialized agency of the United Nations is analyzed with emphasis on legal and institutional issues, and problems related to UNIDO's efficiency and its dependence upon political consideration, especially with respect to major countries, are examined. Finally, recommendations are made for the improvement of UNIDO's industrial development activities. This work will be of interest to scholars and students in development economics, international economics, international relations, and international organizations.
Developing countries comprise a two-thirds majority of the membership of the World Trade Organization, with nearly 30 of these classed by the UN as being among the 48 least-developed countries in the world. In order to ensure the equitable participation of these countries in the benefits of the global trading system, the GATT Uruguay Round Agreements that created the WTO accorded special and differential treatment to developing countries. This guide covers these provisions of the WTO Agreements, with detailed information on how developing countries can benefit from special rules governing such areas as; access to developed country markets in all major commodities and services, the dispute settlement process, trade policy review, foreign direct investment, environmental and labour standards, and technical assistance. The Guide also offers the reader case studies on how some developing country members of the WTO (Uganda, India, and Cote d'Ivoire) are making progress in working with the obligations and the benefits provided to them by the WTO Agreements.
This book provides a multilayered analysis of food import dependency and its impact on food security in the Caribbean region. The study analyses the main impact of trade liberalization in the Caribbean within the WTO framework and main policy mechanisms to support domestic food production in order to reduce food import dependency. Moreover, the author evaluates economic and social benefits of food self-sufficiency as a strategy aimed to improve domestic food production by increased availability of locally produced food products.
This accessible introductory text provides a comprehensive and accessible account of the evolution of the Eurozone, from its beginnings in fixed exchange rate systems through to the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis. It examines why the EMU was created, what went wrong to bring about the global financial crisis, and why countries were affected so differently. It assesses the impact of monetary union both in Europe and beyond and evaluates the prospects for the Euro as an international currency. Recognising that political union has long been seen as part of monetary integration, and that Eurozone membership often impacts domestic policy, Chang widens the scope of her evaluation to include consider effects and developments that are not purely economic in scope. Using theories drawn from economics and political science, this book provides students with an up-to-date analysis of the recent reforms undertaken, grounded in a long-term perspective of the trajectory of European integration. As well as suiting upper-level undergraduate and Master's courses on European Monetary Union, this text is beneficial for students of Politics, International Relations and European Studies on more general courses to foster an understanding of the impact of the EMU on the wider functioning of the EU. The text is filled with figures, maps, timelines and other pedagogical features to ensure this topic accessible to students of all levels.
Before it became a federation, the United States was briefly a confederation, a much looser union composed of states rather than of peoples. Unions of states to promote ecomomic well-being and to prevent war are now being revived. Mr. Lister analyzes modern confederalism, and how it is functioning in the single market of the Europen Union and how it might function if the collective security system of the United Nations could be carried out, as originally planned, by a confederal-style partnership of the world's independent states. Political scientists have traditionally classified voluntary polities as confederations, federations, or unitary states. But they have ignored the first of these classes, perhaps because Alexander Hamilton, wishing to mobilize support for the new federal constitution, discredited not only the United States Confederation but the whole class of confederations as a viable method of governance. More than 200 years later, confederation as a form of governance is still under a cloud. Yet it has been resurfacing, largely unrecognized for what it is, in the repertory of government. In the treaties of Rome and Maastricht and in the collective security system of the Charter, the European Union and the United Nations are already involved in forms of governance that are confederal in all but name. Lister's book describes confederal governance and how such unions of states differ from intergovernmental organizations on the one hand and federations on the other. Meticulously researched and carefully argued, it draws upon his five years of study of confederal unions from Ancient Greece through the 19th-century Germanic Confederation and the German Zollverein. But his book is not a history of confederations. Instead, it shows how long-term alliances sometimes evolve into unions of states and, in time, into communities of the peoples who live in those states. It also shows how the ties of confederal union have been institutionalized in modern times in the EU and how they might be institutionalized in a global collective security body.^L ^L Finally, the book stresses the urgency of moving in this direction because we shall face a very serious security problem in the next century. With the steady leakage of nuclear materials in Russia, the non-proliferation approach to controlling weapons of mass destruction appears to be breaking down. Lister argues that if and when governments are confronted with this looming problem, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, the confederal model may be the one that they will need to have updated and at their disposal.
The Academy of European Law was established by the European University Institute in 1990 and extends the Institute's current programmes into a larger field of interest. It has as its main activity the holding of annual Summer Courses in the law of the European Community and the protection of human rights in Europe. In addition to General Courses, shorter courses are held on subjects of special academic and practical interest in both fields. Finally, special guest lectures on topical issues are given by policy makers, judges and persons who have held or currently hold the highest position in these fields. The courses are published in the language in which they were delivered (English and French).
This book examines the effectiveness and consistency of EU democracy promotion in its Eastern neighbourhood between 1991 and 2014. It concludes that the EU's democratization role in this region was, not surprisingly, weak within this time period. However, this weak role only took shape under four domestic and transnational conditions: (a) a higher cost-benefit balance of rule transfer, (b) a lower structural difficulty a given country would need to overcome on its way towards a democratic regime, (c) increased levels of authority distribution across branches of power, and (d) a higher extent of democratic diffusion resulting from regional interactions. In those countries where these domestic and transnational conditions were present, as in Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia, the EU's democratizing influence was in causal terms only the tip of the iceberg. Most variation in regime dynamics remains to be explained by domestic and transnational contexts.
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.
The Arctic has, for some forty years, been among the most innovative policy environments in the world. The region has developed impressive systems for intra-regional cooperation, responded to the challenges of the rapid environmental change, empowered and engaged with Indigenous peoples, and dealt with the multiple challenges of natural resource development. The Palgrave Handbook on Arctic Policy and Politics has drawn on scholars from many countries and academic disciplines to focus on the central theme of Arctic policy innovation. The portrait that emerges from these chapters is of a complex, fluid policy environment, shaped by internal, national and global dynamics and by a wide range of political, legal, economic, and social transitions. The Arctic is a complex place from a political perspective and is on the verge of becoming even more so. Effective, proactive and forward-looking policy innovation will be required if the Far North is to be able to address its challenges and capitalize on its opportunities.
This book comes out of a conference in April of 1999 at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University on the topic of 'Gender Parity and the Liberal Tradition: Proposals and Debates in Europe and the United States.' It is a collection of short essays that attempt to capture the theoretical arguments and policy changes presented at the conference. The essays are divided into three sections, each of which approaches from a different angle the central question of whether liberalism has failed women. The first section aims to frame the discussion by outlining the theoretical arguments for the amendments or revisions implied by the proponents of the Parity Movement in Europe and for the concerns raised by critics. The second describes recent changes in party rules, European legal framework, and national constitutions, as well as the gains made by women in response to rule change. The third section provides American perspectives on the lessons that parity advocates might draw from affirmative action policies and speculations about how parity rules would work in the American context. The essays are drawn from top European and American scholars.
This book offers a general framework for a better understanding of the differences and similarities between the institutional rules of intergovernmental organizations that include parliamentary elements, and analyzes the role of various types of international parliamentary assemblies in the system of global governance, as well as insights into the process known as "parliamentarization of international organizations." Firstly, it presents a case study of various types of international parliamentary assemblies, which is then used to analyze the law of particular international organizations that include parliamentary assemblies or relate to them. Secondly, the book compares two parliamentary assemblies of international organizations - the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE PA) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) - in terms of structure, powers, and relations with their IGOs. It also investigates the activities of assemblies and their cooperations for the purpose to explore the positive effects of the work of international parliamentary assemblies and their potential for having an impact at the national level. Lastly, the book analyzes the tangible and desirable powers of international assemblies by comparing examples of existing international parliamentary assemblies with the UN Parliamentary Assembly project. Based on that, the author compiles a list of essential requirements and principles for effective international parliamentary assemblies. |
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