Suchergebnisse

This article traces the evolution of the international governance of agriculture as a sequential process, in which the negotiation of new trading and enforcement rules interacts with legal disputes over the interpretation of existing rules. The interaction between negotiation and litigation has produced a governance trajectory from vague to precise commitments and a strengthened dispute settlement process. We contest standard histories, which identify the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture as the singular event that established agriculture for the first time under the auspices of the World Trade Organization and which claim this represents the legalization of the agricultural trade regime. The case of agriculture contains important lessons for broader debates on international governance by articulating: (1) dynamic feedback processes, challenging the view that bargaining and enforcement aspects of international agreements are concluded simultaneously, and (2) key mechanisms underlying the greater precision of institutional commitments that tend to emerge over time.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has dealt primarily with cases relating to African countries, this is significant because several countries in Africa feel the ICCs manner of operation & jurisdiction is inapplicable & in several cases the ICC has aggravated conflict as opposed to resolving it. This article cites the ICC imposed setbacks in peace negotiations between the Ugandan government & the Lords Resistance Army & questions raised about the ICCs ability to mediate peace in Dafur. These examples challenge the founding principle of the ICC, that all countries can agree upon certain standards of justice & cooperation in order put an end to humanity's greatest calamities. C. Goger

International norms change over time, but we do not fully understand how and why they evolve as they do. In this article, I explore a general model of international norm change. The model builds on two foundations. First, normative systems themselves generate tensions that lead to change. Those tensions are of two major types: (1) conflicts between the generality of rules and the specificity of concrete experience; and (2) conflicts between separate bodies of rules. Second, specific disputes push these normative conflicts to the fore and provoke arguments about the meaning and application of rules. The outcomes of those arguments necessarily modify the rules. The process of normative change is thus a cycle, linking rules to actions to arguments, which in turn reshape the rules. In order to explore the empirical utility of the model, the article assesses the evolution of the rules of war with respect to the plundering of artistic and cultural treasures. Relying on both secondary and archival materials, the analysis focuses on two crucial turns through the cycle of normative change, the Napoleonic Wars and World War II. The empirical account shows that the cycle of normative change depicted in the abstract does correspond to real-world processes.

This dissertation constructs a framework for understanding the determinants of remittances. It develops the effects of multiple macro economic variables in one area in the Middle East on the remittances flows and the future development of (another Arab neighboring country) Egypt. The framework will explore the relationship between oil prices and remittances from oil based economies (mainly Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait and the Arab Emirates) to a labor exporting country (Egypt). It also highlights the impact of multiple variables affecting the flow of remittances from labor exporting Arab countries: (1) Prices of oil. (2) Oil revenues. (3) Differentials in deposit interest rate between the host and the home countries. (4) The income level in the host countries. (5) The income level in the home country. (6) Inflation rate in the home country. (7) Political instability in the area that might affect remittances flow from the host countries. These variables produce a three-outcome model, presented as three testable hypotheses. Workers' remittances in the Arab countries would be adversely affected by war in the Persian Gulf. Even though there is a tremendous increase in oil prices, remittances flow to Egypt from neighboring Arab countries will decrease. Political and economic factors circumscribe the future of demand for migrant labor (imported labor) and, consequently, growth of remittances in the labor-importing countries from labor-exporting countries. This will be explained by developing a number of econometric models to test the effect of macro economic variables on the flow of remittances. Remittance is the dependent variable and the independent variables are price of oil and political instability. Other macro variables will be added to the model to be tested as independent variables: the interest rate in Egypt and host countries, the inflation rate in Egypt, and the income level of the host and the home countries.

This report discusses the new Palestinian unity government, which established in March 2007 complicates U.S. policy toward the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the peace process.