Introduction -- Harmonizing Public and Private International Law: Implications of the Apple vs. Samsung IP Litigation / Observations in the Field of Intellectual Property -- The Applicability of Artificial Intelligence in International Law -- Law and Development -- Regulator-led Resolution in Mass Finance Mis-selling -- A Critical Evaluation of the War on Terror -- Asia and New International Economic Order -- International Space Station / Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act -- China's Exclusionary Rule of Illegally Obtained Evidence: A Comparative Study with the International Criminal Court -- Maritime Title in South China Sea -- A Generic Construction of the Right System for Population Ageing -- Human Rights Accountability of Transnational Corporations -- The Hague Conference on Private International Law -- New International Law Theory -- Sea-Level Rise and the Law of the Sea -- Human Rights-Based Approach to Science, Technology and Development -- Conclusion.
Abstract Walking is a nearly universal activity, even given the many contrivances invented to avoid it, yet it is widely absent from the sedentarist disciplines of politics and international relations. This absence is perhaps not surprising, given that so much political thought and practice are deeply tethered to the inventions of the boot and the chair that remove walking from our view, as Tim Ingold has observed. Yet, given the significance of events such as forced death marches as parts of war and genocide; formative collective walks such as Gandhi's march to the sea, the Long March in China, or the Selma to Montgomery marches; or the everyday politics of walking in global cities, such absence might be mistaken. This article suggests instead that walking be understood as integral to the operation of internationality. In particular, it argues that walking is part of a mobile field of power and agency that generates, stabilizes, and unsettles internationality in equal parts. The article diagrams some key conceptual nodes of walking and political power, and then traces their operation in the case of the Long Walk of the Navajo.
The trend in transfers of major conventional arms, as measured by the SIPRI trend-indicator value, is apparently changing from a downward trend since 1997 to a more or less stable trend for 2000-2002 to a slightly upward trend in 2003-2004. Financial data from national export reports show a more or less similar change. However, it is too early to judge if this is really a trend or only a matter of annual fluctuations. Russia established itself as the main supplier of major conventional weapons for the five-year period 2000-2004, replacing the USA which was the main supplier for many years. However, even Russian officials expect a decline in Russian sales in the near future since Russian equipment is mainly based on old technology and Russian military research and development is lagging far behind. Together, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the USA made up 81% of all deliveries in 2000-2004. The combined deliveries of all 25 EU states to non-EU states made up some 19% of all deliveries in 2000-2004, making the EU the third largest exporter. China and India were the two main recipients of major conventional weapons in 2004. China is almost completely dependent on Russia for its arms imports, but its relationship is changing from a recipient of complete weapons to a recipient of components and technology to be used in Chinese weapon platforms. There are indications that China is anxious to gain access to other than Russian technology, partly because that technology is becoming outdated. India is also a major Russian client, but here Russia faces strong competition from France, the UK and other European suppliers, as well as from Israel and most recently from the USA. EU-US relations became strained in 2004 over the issue of technology transfers. The USA has been reluctant to share technology with close European allies even in joint ventures such as the F-35 JSF combat aircraft. The EU's plans to lift its arms embargo against China further strained relations. The non-binding and loosely drafted embargo was established in 1989 in reaction to Chinese human rights abuses. Today, many EU governments consider the embargo outdated and a barrier to improving Chinese-EU relations. The embargo has not stopped several European countries from supplying military technology to China, and most EU member states have argued that lifting the embargo would not mean increases in arms sales. Many EU governments feel that there should still be clear and strong limitations on the arms trade with China, either by keeping the embargo or by improving the 1998 EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. The USA strongly opposes lifting the embargo in order to prevent a Chinese military build-up and has threatened the EU with sanctions if the embargo is lifted. Public transparency in arms transfers increased again slightly, mainly in the EU where several countries improved their reporting and where 10 new EU members are now obliged to report under the EU Code of Conduct. At the international level, man-portable air defense systems and light artillery were added to the UN Register of Conventional Arms. Adapted from the source document.
What are the conditions for a well-functioning currency union? Since the 1960s', there has been a long stream of literature dedicated to this question. Through studying the historical fixed exchange rate regime of the Gold Standard (chapter 2) and the modern day euro area (chapters 3 and 4), this thesis aims to add to the understanding of the economics of currency unions. Chapter 2 "When Do Fixed Exchange Rate Work? Evidence from the Gold Standard" examines external adjustments within a currency union. In particular, my co-author Felix Ward and I look at the historical circumstances of a fixed exchange rate regime that worked smoothly – the 1880-1913 Gold Standard. External adjustment under the Gold Standard was associated with few if any, output costs. How did countries on the Gold Standard equilibrate so smoothly despite inflexible exchange rates that were pegged to gold? To answer this question, we build and estimate an open economy model of the Gold Standard. This allows us to quantitatively assess the relative importance of three prominent channels of external adjustment: flexible prices, international migration, and monetary policy. Our first finding is that the output resilience of Gold Standard members was primarily a consequence of flexible prices. When hit by a shock, quickly adjusting prices induced import- and export responses that stabilized output. Neither restrictions on migration, nor the elimination of countercyclical monetary policy would have given rise to substantially higher output-volatility. Our second finding is that price flexibility was predicated on a historical contingency: namely large primary sectors, whose flexibly priced products dominated the export booms that stabilized output during major external adjustments. Chapter 3 "Sovereign Default Risk and the Role of International Transfers" asks what is the impact of interregional risk sharing arrangements when countries are afflicted with sovereign default risk. This is of particular interest in the setup of currency unions, where countries give up the exchange rate as a tool for business cycle stabilization. I introduce a sovereign default model in which regional sovereign default risk affects private sector financing costs and the linkage between public and private sector financing costs can exacerbate economic downturns. In this context, the benefit of international risk sharing comes in two dimensions. First, it helps to smooth consumption – the traditional channel of insurance. More importantly, by ameliorating large recessions, international risk sharing reduces the asymmetric impact of productivity shocks and raises average output level. Quantitative analysis shows that most of the welfare benefits that are obtainable from the optimal risk sharing arrangement can be reaped by a standby facility that is easy to implement. This finding is of policy relevance because whenever interregional risk sharing schemes are discussed between sovereign nation states, the willingness to part with fiscal autonomy is often severely limited. In Chapter 4 "Sovereign Risk Spillover and Monetary Policy in a Currency Union", I investigate the pass-through of sovereign default risk to the private sector financing condition from a different angle. In particular, I use a two-region currency union model to examine how the spillover affects shock propagation and optimal monetary policy. On the one hand, an increase in a region's sovereign risk premium raises the regional private sector credit spread, depresses inflation and tax revenue and further worsens the fiscal position. On the other hand, it also triggers changes in the policy interest rate. The net impact depends on the maturity of the government debt. When calibrated to the euro area and taken into account the average long maturity of government debt, the impact of the sovereign risk spillover on shock propagation is negligible. This is also reflected in optimal monetary policy. For the euro area, optimal monetary policy is well approximated by a simple target criterion that describes the optimal relation between output and inflation as derived from a basic New Keynesian model without sovereign risk and credit spreads. This continues to be the case even when there are cross-regional differences in their exposure to sovereign default risks. If government debts are short-term, however, the spillover considerably affects shock transmission and optimal monetary policy requires a stronger immediate shock-response.
An economist in an international organization has certain obligations as a member of his profession, as a citizen of his country, and as an international civil servant. These are not always readily harmonized in the individual. For economists from different backgrounds (i.e., economies which are capitalistic, welfare-oriented, underdeveloped, etc.), of different nationalities, and working in different capacities with organizations of differing international functions, there can surely be no single prototype. There may nonetheless be some generalizations which can be made about the role of this sort of professional in this occupational setting. Where may the lines be drawn between the pursuit of truth, however relative it may be, and the advocacy of policies? To what extent must the economist align himself with the practical when that is the enemy of the desirable? Does an economist withdraw from the heady atmosphere of academic recognition into bureaucratic anonymity when he fills out the twenty-page employment form of an international organization; or does he escape from the pallid world of equilibrating models into the invigorating arena of problems, pressure and power? Is an economist trained in a particular school of thought—whether Marxist, Keynesian, Chicago or institutionalist—under any obligation to suppress or dilute the distinctive point of view he initially brings to bear on economic problems?
This special issue seeks to move forward the development of an empirical research agenda that takes seriously the complexity of how international organizations (IOs) function and the need to study that complexity at all levels of analysis by using robust research tools. We advocate for a broad empirical research approach that molds and sharpens theories about IOs by conducting systematic tests in large-sample environments. Two themes create a common thread throughout this issue. First, shifting the focus from whether IOs matter to how they work requires acknowledgment of the contingency of cause and effect. A second common thread lies in the authors' treatment of IO membership as an aggregate phenomenon—that is, as a set of institutions and relationships evolving over time and with many members rather than as a single organization.
