Suchergebnisse

For example, in dealing with interfaith marriage, he points to the fact that, while the Old Testament, the Talmud, and Christian canon law uniformly frown on mixed marriages, the Muslim legal schools allowed Muslim men to marry Jewish and Christian women (p. 160-61). According to the Qur'an, Jews and Christians represent a special category of religious adherents called People of the Book, who were not required to accept Islam or face death, but were allowed to pay a tax and to remain in their communities of faith.

International friendship is a distinct type of interstate relationship, and that as such, it can contribute to capture aspects of international politics that have long remained unattended. This book offers a framework for analyzing friendship in international politics by presenting a variety of conceptual approaches and empirical cases

This topical and timely book critically explores contemporary liberal international relations theory. In the fifty years since the declaration of human rights, the language of international relations has come to incorporate the language of justice and injustice. The book argues that if justice is to become the governing principle of international politics, then liberals must recognise that their political preferences cannot be the preconditions of global ethics. The hierarchy of international political ethics must be constructed afresh so that the first principles of justice are accessible.

Oil is a highly political commodity and has more than once taken the centre of the stage in international affairs. This is not surprising in view of its importance in industry and transportation as well as for military activities. Mesopotamian oil was a crucial consideration in a number of the political settlements in the Middle East after the First World War, with the French, British and Americans playing the leading roles, just before that war the British navy had converted to oil, and Britain considered the security of her oil supplies to be an important objective of foreign policy. She had no domestic production. In the 1920s the United States began to fear that her oil reserves were becoming dangerously depleted and she also felt that her security as well as her prosperity depended on obtaining control of oil abroad. The United States sought access to oil concessions in the Middle East, and the diplomatic skirmishes were sharp as the British and Dutch tried to keep her out, not merely from the Middle East, but from south-eastern Asia as well, where production was dominated by the Dutch. Thus oil was an important source of controversy in the foreign policy of a number of countries in the inter-war period.

'Rogue states' have been high on the international security agenda for many years but their theoretical significance for International Relations has remained poorly understood. In contrast to the bulk of writings on 'rogue states' that address them merely as a policy challenge, this book focuses on what we can learn from deviance about the international system and international society. Building on three basic insights developed in social constructivism and critical theory, this volume brings together interdisciplinary insights into the study of 'rogue states', exploring the role of comity and decency in labelling of 'rogue states', the impact labelling has on behaviour, how to treat a 'rogue state', how 'rogue' status can be withdrawn and what part the role of international law has to play in this process. This unique and wide-ranging study will appeal to scholars of Sociology, Criminology, Political Science, International Relations and International Law.