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Thucydides is considered to be the founder of political realism. Even in those times he determined the basic premises of realism - security and survival. He made an impact on subsequent development of realism embodied in the works of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Morgenthau, Car, Niebuhr, Aaron, Waltz etc. They will call the system of international relations as anarchical one since there is no supreme arbitrator which will force states to adequate behaviour. His views of realism were given in the volume 'The Peloponnesian War' where he had determined the anarchy of the relationships among states. Such system did not rely on justice and morale, but force and power were the predominant facts. He also introduces the category of just wars by claiming that Sparta led a just war against the increased power of Athens, and observed morale principles. Nevertheless, Thucydides faces contradictory, since Sparta itself as the largest land force of that time had to use force in order to beat Athens. He went ahead since he considered force and power as a necessary condition to achieve other objectives, which was later on adopted by Raymond Aaron. Following the example of the war between Athens and Sparta, he successfully analysed bipolar system of balance of power in which the conflict between the leading members of the two opposite blocks was possible in the end, while beforehand there should have been conflicts among weaker members of both blocks. Thucydides explained the manifestation of force and power using example of the Melian dialogue between the envoys of Athens and Melos. It was about the pure politics of force of Athens regardless of the fact that Melos had its independence.

Migration; Demography - De raad maakt een onderscheid tussen beleidsvoering en beleidsvoorbereiding. Hergroepering van de beleidsvoering wordt niet bepleit. Wel wordt geconstateerd dat er van een systematische beleidsvoorbereiding geen sprake is. Aanbevolen wordt om een afdeling in te stellen bij het SCP voor analyse, onderzoek en elementen van beleidsvoorbereiding en beleidsadvisering op korte en langere termijn op het gebied van internationale migratie.

Economics - Mondiale crises – zoals rond voedselzekerheid, de Mexicaanse grieppandemie of de recente financiële instabiliteit – zijn het gevolg van toenemende interdependenties tussen landen. Rijke en ontwikkelingslanden raken steeds meer met elkaar verbonden, wat in het ene land gebeurt kan gevolgen hebben aan de andere kant van de planeet, en veel problemen zijn niet langer binnen de grenzen van één land aan te pakken. Op de vraag hoe we in deze nieuwe context internationale problemen en vragen verder kunnen brengen, is nog nergens het definitieve antwoord gevonden, maar daar zijn de afgelopen jaren wel goede aanzetten voor gegeven met coherentiebeleid en internationale publieke goederen. Nederland deed tot voor kort niet veel met het concept internationale publieke goederen.

Dit paper schetst daarom op basis van relevante internationale literatuur een aantal karakteristieken van internationale publieke goederen.

De serie WRR-webpublicaties omvat studies die in het kader van de werkzaamheden van de WRR tot stand zijn gekomen. De verantwoordelijkheid voor de inhoud en de ingenomen standpunten berust bij de auteurs.

The paper deals with the issue of regulation of the right of natural and legal persons to environmental information, in relevant international legal documents. There is a survey of certain international conventions which envisage this right in their field of regulation. The right to access the information is in details regulated in the Aarhus Convention, which comprises significant part of this paper. This kind of regulation of the right to environmental information has performed a significant influence on states and international organizations, which created their domestic and international rules, using the solutions from this Convention. The European Union has enacted a significant number of directives on the right of a public to receive environmental information. The special emphasis will be on the work of the Aarhus Convention's Compliance Committee which has a significant role in supervising and deciding about the compliance with the application of the Convention in its member states.

Political Science; European Union - De serie 'Werkdocumenten' omvat stukken die in het kader van de werkzaamheden van de WRR tot stand zijn gekomen en die op aanvraag door de raad beschikbaar worden gesteld. De verantwoordelijkheid voor de inhoud en de ingenomen standpunten berust bij de auteurs.

International police and other cooperation is a necessity of the modern world and imperative for the survival of human civilization. The goal of cooperation is that states and the international community unite in opposing crime as the greatest peacetime evil in the world. This is particularly in relation to organized crime, terrorism, and corruption and other most serious forms of crime in contemporary society. Cooperation takes place at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. Bilateral cooperation mainly has a trans-border character of neighboring countries, while the regional cooperation between states within certain areas such as the SEE region (Western Balkan) or Europe (e.g. Europol). Multilateral cooperation is mainly on a broader level, e.g. in the field of combating terrorism or through universal organizations (e.g. Interpol). International police cooperation in Europe has a long tradition. One part takes place today in this area through the OSCE, with the caveat that this is a global organization that deals with security issues. The Council of Europe is the next organization through which co-operation began in the past and is partly carried out to this day, given that it brings all European countries together (except Belarus). Cooperation is more intensive still throughout the European Union, its forerunners, the current forms of the organization and present mechanisms (EAW- European surrender and arrest warrant).53 The cooperation in the EU, that takes place through Europol as a specialized agency of the Union is especially current, but with minimal operational competencies. In the SEE region, a significant cooperation between countries of the former Yugoslavia and countries in its neighborhood has been achieved. This cooperation is not only based on bilateral and multilateral acts, but primarily regional documents of which the most important are the International Convention on Police Cooperation in SEE and SELEC Convention. According to these and other acts, all the countries in the region have taken part in regional cooperation, since the fight against crime is the common interest of all. This applies in particular to organized crime, terrorism, corruption and other most serious forms of crime. Extremely important shapes, forms and mechanisms of international police cooperation are: exchange of information, joint investigation teams, joint operational actions, liaison officers, contact points, regional centers for police and customs cooperation, joint police stations and others. To recap, international police cooperation in the world today is an expression of anti-criminal solidarity between states and its prospects are clear, because the danger of crime is global and requires a harmonized response at the international level.