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In early and prehistoric times, human groups cooperated among themselves and competed viciously with other groups. Concepts of international relations, notably universal hegemony and exclusive nationalism, go back to the earliest recorded history. Only the ancient Greeks experienced inter-state relations somewhat analogous to those of modern Europe; and the first reflections on these may be found in Thucydides. The Greeks, and later the Romans, above all Cicero, developed a notion of cosmopolitanism. During the Latin Middle Ages, the papacy perpetuated the idea of universal hegemony. The principle of state sovereignty was also formulated. The pre-modern Chinese empire was held to rule 'all-under-Heaven'; Confucian ethics contributes the notion of humanity (ren) as the fundamental category. Muslims deepened the us-them distinction by claiming sole legitimacy for their religious community under the Caliph (Deputy of Muhammad). Today, Muslims veer between this and a more Western approach to international relations. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

item I. International codification of the rules relating to seamen's articles of agreement.--item II. General principles for the inspection of the conditions of work of seamen. ; Mode of access: Internet.

THE ARCTIC IS EMERGING TODAY AS AN INTERNATIONAL REGION WHOSE IMPORTANCE IN POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND ENVIRONMENTAL TERMS RIVALS THAT OF THE WORLD'S OTHER MAJOR REGIONS. WHAT REMAINS IN DOUBT, AT THIS JUNCTURE, IS HOW THE ARCTIC STATES NOT TO MENTION OTHERS - WILL RESPOND TO THIS DEVELOPMENT IN POLICY TERMS. ARE THESE STATES LIKELY TO UPGRADE THEIR CAPACITY TO HANDLE ARCTIC ISSUES BY ADDING SUBSTANTIAL ARCTIC EXPERTISE TO THEIR POLICY PLANNING STAFFS; CREATING BUREAUX OF ARCTIC OR NORTHERN AFFAIRS IN THEIR FOREIGN MINISTRIES; ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE INTERAGENCY COORDINATING MECHANISMS TO HANDLE COMPLEX ARCTIC ISSUES, OR DEVISING NEW ARCTIC POLICIES TO REPLACE THE POLICIES OF BENIGN NEGLECT THEY HAVE LONG RELIED ON IN DEALING WITH ARCTIC MATTERS? THESE ARE SERIOUS CONCERNS WHOSE RESOLUTION WILL TAKE TIME AND MAY DIFFER FROM STATE TO STATE. JUST AS THE RECOGNITION OF THE ARCTIC AS A DISTINCTIVE INTERNATIONAL REGION HAS BEEN A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE 1980S, THE FORMULATION OF APPROPRIATE PUBLIC RESPONSES TO THIS DEVELOPMENT SEEMS LIKELY TO BECOME A CENTRAL ARCTIC CONCERN OF THE 1990S. NOTE: ARTICLE IS PRINTED IN FRENCH

The number of non-state actors, in the past not accountable for committing international crimes or violating human rights, is proliferating rapidly. Their ways of operating evolve, with some groups being increasingly fragmented and others organizing transnationally or in cyber space. As non-state armed groups are involved in the vast majority of todays armed conflicts and crisis situations, a new and increasingly important question has to be raised as to whether, and at what point, these groups are bound by international law and thereby accountable for their acts. Breaking new ground in addressing international human rights law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law in one swoop, Rodenhäusers text will be essential to academics and practitioners alike.

Policymakers concerned with climate change face a complex risk management problem. The final objective of climate risk management is to avert climate-induced loss of livelihood and economic damage. This can be achieved by two major strategies: first, mitigation, aimed at reducing the probability of climate damage; second, adaptation, aimed at reducing the severity of climate damage. It is recognized that the most appropriate means to combat climate change is a portfolio of adaptation and mitigation policies; it is, however, often overlooked that the optimal composition of this portfolio not only depends on immediate costs and benefits, but also on the strategic interdependencies between mitigation and adaptation. This dissertation analyses the strategic relevance of adaptation in international climate policy. Its key finding is that the possibility to adapt to climate change aggravates the social dilemma associated with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The first part proposes a game-theoretic model of the climate risk management problem. The model is set up in general terms with mitigation and adaptation levels as individual decision variables. The particular structure of expected utilities under climate risk is made explicit by applying an endogenous probability distribution over different states of nature. Adaptation lowers the individual damage suffered if an extreme weather event occurs. Aggregate mitigation lowers the probability of an extreme weather event. The possibility to adapt causes two opposite effects: adaptation can serve as a partial substitute for mitigation, which has a positive direct welfare effect, provided that adaptation is individually more profitable than mitigation. This same substitution, however, lowers the aggregate level of mutually beneficial mitigation, which has a negative strategic effect. The strategic effect tends to outweigh the direct effect if the number of countries involved is large, if the damage from climate change is large, and if the relative costs of adaptation are high. The second part describes an experimental test of the strategic impact of adaptation on climate risk management decisions and on the resulting expected payoffs. The design is a simplified version of the generic model presented in the first part. The experiment is set up as a non-cooperative, symmetric, one-shot game with homogeneous players. Six treatments were played to independently set three treatment variables: (i) possibility to adapt (yes/no), (ii) unit cost of adaptation (low/high), and (iii) group size (small/large). The results yield qualitative support for the hypotheses derived from the theoretical model: adaptation decreases and mitigation increases as adaptation costs increase. Payoffs behave non-monotonically: they are lower for medium high adaptation cost than for low adaptation cost, but higher for prohibitively high adaptation cost than for medium high adaptation cost. The direct effect of substitution outweighs the strategic effect for smaller groups, and the strategic effect outweighs the direct effect for larger groups. The third part describes an experimental test of the implications of adaptation cost heterogeneity for investment decisions regarding mitigation and adaptation. A particular focus is set on interpersonal differences in expected payoffs. As in the second part, the experiment is designed as a non-cooperative one-shot game, based upon the theoretical model presented in the first part; however, this experiment features heterogeneous adaptation cost. We define three cost types differing in their unit cost of adaptation. Subjects are assigned to cost types and split into groups of four according to nine treatments covering different group compositions. Subjects respond to their co-players' cost type as predicted by the model: mitigation decreases as the co-players' adaptation cost increase, adaptation remains unchanged, and the average expected payoff increases. Within heterogeneous groups, the higher-cost type contributes a bigger share to the aggregate mitigation level than the lower-cost type. Beyond these confirmative results, we observe some quantitative deviations from the model predictions. In the heterogeneous games, the type-specific proportional shares of group aggregate mitigation are less divergent than predicted, which leads to more equitable payoffs, but also entails an efficiency loss. We attribute this behavior to inequity aversion.

I examine enforcement and capacity building in international cooperation. In a game-theoretic model, a wealthy donor gives foreign aid in exchange for policy implementation by a poor recipient. The recipient has limited capacity to comply with international agreements, so the donor is not sure if cooperation failure is caused by willful disobedience or unintended error. I show that if perceived cooperation failure prompts reciprocal suspension of cooperation, the donor and recipient have a common preference for capacity building. But when the donor can request compensation for perceived cooperation failure, it only chooses to build capacity if cooperation is otherwise impossible. Consequently, the choice of enforcement mechanism shapes capacity building. This result lays a foundation for a genuine synthesis between the enforcement and managerialist schools of compliance. It generates falsifiable hypotheses and explains why reciprocal enforcement, which unfortunately inflicts collateral damage on the victim, is often considered legitimate.

"Evolution, Adaptation, and Imitation in International Relations" published on by Oxford University Press.