Suchergebnisse

China's relations with African nationals have changed dramatically over the past decade. African oil now accounts for more than 30% of China's oil imports, and China is Africa's second-largest single-country trading partner, as well as a leading lender and infrastructure investor on the continent. Yet these developments are bringing challenges, not only for Africa and the West, but for China as well. This book examines these challenges, considering Africa as a testing ground, both for Chinese companies 'going global' and for a Chinese government that is increasingly having to deal with issues beyond its shores and immediate control. What does China need to do to protect and develop its African engagements, concerns from Western actors in Africa, and the rival presence of other emerging actors? How sustainable is the momentum that China has established in its African ventures? China's adaptations to the challenges it is facing in Africa are examined and assessed, as are the implications of these changes for China, Africa and the West. China's African engagements are certainly changing Africa, but could they also be changing China?

Hauner reviews 'The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System' by Barnett R. Rubin.

International audience ; High precision levelling is an indispensable method used to monitor benchmark and terrain stability at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). Associated with the International Comparison of Absolute Gravimeters (ICAG), levelling measurements were carried out repeatedly over the past decades. A local gravity field strongly depends on vertical terrain deformation. 1 cm displacement implies about 2 μGal change in the vertical gravity acceleration. The precision of absolute and relative gravimetry nowadays is about 1 μGal. At the beginning of the century, a strategy was outlined that the ICAG should be upgraded to a metrological Key Comparison of the CIPM MRA (Mutual Recognition Arrangement) recognized officially by the designated governmental organizations. As a result of this decision, BIPM site B was constructed and completed in Spring 2001. The site B pillar is 4m × 6m × 1.5m in dimension and more than 80 ton in weight. Such a large, newly built concrete body produces local deformation due to its sinking or tilting. This in turn influences the local gravity field. Rigorous levelling measurements have been performed by the Bureau de Recherches G'eologiques et Mini'eres (BRGM), France, since 2001 and repeated together with the 4-year ICAGs of 2001, 2005 and 2009. ICAG-2009 was characterized by becoming the first Comit'e International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM) Key Comparison which supported meanwhile the BIPM watt balance (WB) project. The WB pillar was built in Spring 2009. The Institut G'eographique National (IGN), France, has hence been invited to participate in the levelling. The latter also measured the link between the BIPM local network and external stations of the French national height reference system IGN69. In this paper, we report the final results of the levelling programmes of 2001, 2005 and 2009 and compare the results. We investigate stability of the BIPM gravity-levelling stations. We conclude that the existing and the newly built stations can be considered ...

International audience ; High precision levelling is an indispensable method used to monitor benchmark and terrain stability at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). Associated with the International Comparison of Absolute Gravimeters (ICAG), levelling measurements were carried out repeatedly over the past decades. A local gravity field strongly depends on vertical terrain deformation. 1 cm displacement implies about 2 μGal change in the vertical gravity acceleration. The precision of absolute and relative gravimetry nowadays is about 1 μGal. At the beginning of the century, a strategy was outlined that the ICAG should be upgraded to a metrological Key Comparison of the CIPM MRA (Mutual Recognition Arrangement) recognized officially by the designated governmental organizations. As a result of this decision, BIPM site B was constructed and completed in Spring 2001. The site B pillar is 4m × 6m × 1.5m in dimension and more than 80 ton in weight. Such a large, newly built concrete body produces local deformation due to its sinking or tilting. This in turn influences the local gravity field. Rigorous levelling measurements have been performed by the Bureau de Recherches G'eologiques et Mini'eres (BRGM), France, since 2001 and repeated together with the 4-year ICAGs of 2001, 2005 and 2009. ICAG-2009 was characterized by becoming the first Comit'e International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM) Key Comparison which supported meanwhile the BIPM watt balance (WB) project. The WB pillar was built in Spring 2009. The Institut G'eographique National (IGN), France, has hence been invited to participate in the levelling. The latter also measured the link between the BIPM local network and external stations of the French national height reference system IGN69. In this paper, we report the final results of the levelling programmes of 2001, 2005 and 2009 and compare the results. We investigate stability of the BIPM gravity-levelling stations. We conclude that the existing and the newly built stations can be considered ...

International audience ; High precision levelling is an indispensable method used to monitor benchmark and terrain stability at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). Associated with the International Comparison of Absolute Gravimeters (ICAG), levelling measurements were carried out repeatedly over the past decades. A local gravity field strongly depends on vertical terrain deformation. 1 cm displacement implies about 2 μGal change in the vertical gravity acceleration. The precision of absolute and relative gravimetry nowadays is about 1 μGal. At the beginning of the century, a strategy was outlined that the ICAG should be upgraded to a metrological Key Comparison of the CIPM MRA (Mutual Recognition Arrangement) recognized officially by the designated governmental organizations. As a result of this decision, BIPM site B was constructed and completed in Spring 2001. The site B pillar is 4m × 6m × 1.5m in dimension and more than 80 ton in weight. Such a large, newly built concrete body produces local deformation due to its sinking or tilting. This in turn influences the local gravity field. Rigorous levelling measurements have been performed by the Bureau de Recherches G'eologiques et Mini'eres (BRGM), France, since 2001 and repeated together with the 4-year ICAGs of 2001, 2005 and 2009. ICAG-2009 was characterized by becoming the first Comit'e International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM) Key Comparison which supported meanwhile the BIPM watt balance (WB) project. The WB pillar was built in Spring 2009. The Institut G'eographique National (IGN), France, has hence been invited to participate in the levelling. The latter also measured the link between the BIPM local network and external stations of the French national height reference system IGN69. In this paper, we report the final results of the levelling programmes of 2001, 2005 and 2009 and compare the results. We investigate stability of the BIPM gravity-levelling stations. We conclude that the existing and the newly built stations can be considered ...

rezensiertes Werk: Ramcharan, Bertrand G. : The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - The Challenges of International Protection (International Studies in Human Rights, Bd. 71). - 2002. - 272 S. ISBN 90-411-1832-2

AbstractComparisons of peacebuilding with historic practices of imperialism are common, but these comparisons have sustained a hegemonic antagonism between humanitarian and imperialist interpretations of international peace intervention. This article argues that this common framing externalises the problem of intervention, romanticises local resistance, and forecloses to investigation the articulation between militarised peace practices and transnational capitalist relations. To do so, the article analyses the case of Francophone Africa, thus providing a context that has been left unexplored in peacebuilding debates. By bringing back in the historicity of particular Franco-African imperial experiences into peacebuilding research, the article reveals the militarisation of politics, transnational elite networks, and the dominant intellectual predispositions that work to reproduce the legitimacy of hegemonic practices of 'peace' interventionism. In the last section, the article analyses the debates over the UN-French 2011 intervention in Côte d'Ivoire to reveal the connections between the ethics of humanitarian interventions and the political economy of imperialism. The article concludes that the imperial legacy of peacebuilding is found in old capabilities, new organising logics, and specific practices and power relations and that to focus on the humanitarian-imperialist antagonism caricatures the relationships between 'local' and 'international' actors.

Policy makers and other stakeholders are currently asking fundamental questions about whether and to what extent international investment agreements (IIAs) are consistent with and are helping to advance sustainable development objectives at home and abroad. A 2019 paper from CCSI examines the alignment of IIAs with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, arguing that while FDI will play an important role in advancing development outcomes, existing treaties must be reformed and future IIAs reimagined in order to achieve deep alignment with the sustainable development goals. The paper proposes that IIAs should be designed and evaluated with respect to their ability to promote investments that advance sustainable development goals, while withholding benefits from investments that undermine these goals. It then argues that treaties should also be evaluated according to their ability to promote, rather than constrain, responsible, SDG-advancing governance at the national level. It considers the effects of IIAs on policy-making processes and regulatory space, cautioning that current provisions in IIAs protect the interests of investors over those of other stakeholders and constrain states' abilities to regulate investments to conform with the public interest. Finally, it suggests that international agreements could and should do more to address transnational governance gaps, regulatory races to the bottom, and global commons problems, where international commitments related to the governance of investment could advance development outcomes. Lisa Sachs describes the Framework in the video, which was prepared for UNCTAD's 2020 IIA Conference held virtually on November 26, 2020. This framework builds on a previous study, entitled "Aligning Swiss Investment Treaties with Sustainable Development," commissioned by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, that focuses on helping capital-exporting states assess their treaties' alignment with sustainable development and applies the framework to a review of Swiss IIAs. The framework identifies five principles that should guide the content and application of IIAs (if and when the treaties are concluded) in order to align them with sustainable development objectives: Maintain legitimate policy space and allow legal and regulatory frameworks to evolve over time to address new challenges and changing circumstances; Do no harm; Advance labor standards, human rights, and environmental protection; Increase cross-border investment flows; and Ensure coherence across relevant government policy spheres. The study reviews 40 Swiss IIAs – agreements concluded over roughly the past 50 years – in light of those five principles. Based on that review, the report concludes both that Swiss IIAs often risk frustrating sustainable development outcomes, and represent missed opportunities to proactively advance progress on sustainable development goals. At the same time, the report identifies feasible, concrete steps that the government can take to address these issues in both their existing and future treaties. The Swiss Government's initiative to analyze IIAs from a sustainable development perspective offers a framework that other governments – particularly governments of capital exporting states – can use to conduct similar reviews.

The question of voting procedure in international conferences convoked to codify international law has been discussed for more than a hundred years, starting with the first Geneva Red Cross Conference in 1864. At the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 important departures were made from the unanimity rule in favor of near-unanimity or quasi-unanimity. Further steps toward a two-thirds rule were taken by the League of Nations in connection with the Hague Codification Conference of 1930. The question arose anew when the first United Nations conferences were held, and in particular as soon as the United Nations started its ambitious program for the progressive development of international law and its codification, pursuant to Article 13(1) (a) of the UN Charter.