Am 14. Juli reichte Luis Moreno Ocampo, der Chefankläger des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs (IStGH), vor dem Gericht ein Ersuchen um Ausstellung eines Haftbefehls gegen den Präsidenten des Sudan, Umar Hassan al Bashir, ein. Ocampo wirft al Bashir Völkermord, Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit und Kriegsverbrechen in der sudanesischen Konfliktregion Darfur vor. Zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte des IStGH gründet sich ein solches Ersuchen auf dem Tatbestand des Völkermords, und zum ersten Mal wird ein amtierender Staatschef ins Visier genommen. Während Menschenrechtsgruppen den Schritt als Meilenstein auf dem Weg der Durchsetzung der Menschenrechte feiern, sorgen sich andere, einschließlich des Generalsekretärs der Vereinten Nationen Ban Ki Moon, um die Auswirkungen des Verfahrens auf den Frieden im Sudan
This Essay explains how the political theorists Hobbes, Kant, and Locke interpret the decision to go to war (us ad bellum) and the manner in which the war is conducted (just in bello). It also considers the implications of the three theories for compliance with international law more generally. It concludes that although all three can lay claim to certain key features of modern international law, it is Locke who provides the most complete support for both the laws of war, in particular, and with international law, in general.
This article takes a broadly liberal institutionalist approach to explore the substantively important and neglected issue of international cooperation in the global refugee regime. It seeks to explain the nature of the cooperation problem in the global refugee regime and the conditions under which that cooperation has historically been overcome. The article argues that the dominant conception of the refugee regime as characterised by a Prisoner's Dilemma game is misrepresentative because it fails to capture the asymmetric power relations in the regime. Given that the majority of the world's refugee are in the South and the regime sets out few norms obligating Northern states to contribute to the protection of refugees who are not on their territory, the regime is more appropriately characterised by the game theoretical analogy of a Suasion Game. In order to examine the conditions under which the Suasion Game logic has historically been overcome, the article explores the four main examples of ad hoc bargaining processes convened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) between 1980 and 2005 to facilitate international cooperation to address longstanding refugee situations. It argues that international cooperation has taken place under two conditions. Firstly, Northern states have needed to have linked interests in other issue-areas - such as security, immigration, and trade - that result from interdependence between refugee protection in the South and consequences in other issue-areas in the North. Secondly, though, UNHCR has been an important actor in facilitating issue-linkage within bargaining because, where interdependence has been complex, it has played a role in recognising and effectively communicating these interdependencies to Northern states. The article suggests that the analysis has wider theoretical implications by highlighting the role that the recognition and effective communication of complex interdependencies across issue-areas can play in enabling weaker actors (such as IOs and Southern states) to influence stronger actors' strategies while working within the constraints of their existing preference structures.
In the last decades the interaction between labour standards and international trade has assumed new importance. We use an incentive based-approach to assess the efficiency of trade policy instruments and private schemes for the promotion of international labour standards in Southern Firms. We show that trade policy instruments may implement minimum standards. On the other hand, we find that private schemes may overcome minimum standards if and only if there is an exclusive contract between the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) and the Southern firm, due to free riding effect. ; Ces dernières années, la relation entre normes du travail et commerce international s'est intensifiée. Nous utilisons une approche basée sur les incitations pour évaluer l'efficacité des instruments de politiques commerciales et des mécanismes privés pour la promotion des normes internationales du travail dans les firmes du Sud. Nous montrons que les instruments de politiques commerciales peuvent appliquer les normes minimales. Cependant, nous trouvons que les mecanismes privés peuvent dépasser les normes minimales si et seulement si, il existe un contrat exclusif entre l'entreprise multinationale et le sous-traitant, due à l'effet de passager clandestin.
In the last decades the interaction between labour standards and international trade has assumed new importance. We use an incentive based-approach to assess the efficiency of trade policy instruments and private schemes for the promotion of international labour standards in Southern Firms. We show that trade policy instruments may implement minimum standards. On the other hand, we find that private schemes may overcome minimum standards if and only if there is an exclusive contract between the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) and the Southern firm, due to free riding effect. ; Ces dernières années, la relation entre normes du travail et commerce international s'est intensifiée. Nous utilisons une approche basée sur les incitations pour évaluer l'efficacité des instruments de politiques commerciales et des mécanismes privés pour la promotion des normes internationales du travail dans les firmes du Sud. Nous montrons que les instruments de politiques commerciales peuvent appliquer les normes minimales. Cependant, nous trouvons que les mecanismes privés peuvent dépasser les normes minimales si et seulement si, il existe un contrat exclusif entre l'entreprise multinationale et le sous-traitant, due à l'effet de passager clandestin.
In the last decades the interaction between labour standards and international trade has assumed new importance. We use an incentive based-approach to assess the efficiency of trade policy instruments and private schemes for the promotion of international labour standards in Southern Firms. We show that trade policy instruments may implement minimum standards. On the other hand, we find that private schemes may overcome minimum standards if and only if there is an exclusive contract between the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) and the Southern firm, due to free riding effect. ; Ces dernières années, la relation entre normes du travail et commerce international s'est intensifiée. Nous utilisons une approche basée sur les incitations pour évaluer l'efficacité des instruments de politiques commerciales et des mécanismes privés pour la promotion des normes internationales du travail dans les firmes du Sud. Nous montrons que les instruments de politiques commerciales peuvent appliquer les normes minimales. Cependant, nous trouvons que les mecanismes privés peuvent dépasser les normes minimales si et seulement si, il existe un contrat exclusif entre l'entreprise multinationale et le sous-traitant, due à l'effet de passager clandestin.
In the last decades the interaction between labour standards and international trade has assumed new importance. We use an incentive based-approach to assess the efficiency of trade policy instruments and private schemes for the promotion of international labour standards in Southern Firms. We show that trade policy instruments may implement minimum standards. On the other hand, we find that private schemes may overcome minimum standards if and only if there is an exclusive contract between the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) and the Southern firm, due to free riding effect. ; Ces dernières années, la relation entre normes du travail et commerce international s'est intensifiée. Nous utilisons une approche basée sur les incitations pour évaluer l'efficacité des instruments de politiques commerciales et des mécanismes privés pour la promotion des normes internationales du travail dans les firmes du Sud. Nous montrons que les instruments de politiques commerciales peuvent appliquer les normes minimales. Cependant, nous trouvons que les mecanismes privés peuvent dépasser les normes minimales si et seulement si, il existe un contrat exclusif entre l'entreprise multinationale et le sous-traitant, due à l'effet de passager clandestin.
In the last decades the interaction between labour standards and international trade has assumed new importance. We use an incentive based-approach to assess the efficiency of trade policy instruments and private schemes for the promotion of international labour standards in Southern Firms. We show that trade policy instruments may implement minimum standards. On the other hand, we find that private schemes may overcome minimum standards if and only if there is an exclusive contract between the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) and the Southern firm, due to free riding effect. ; Ces dernières années, la relation entre normes du travail et commerce international s'est intensifiée. Nous utilisons une approche basée sur les incitations pour évaluer l'efficacité des instruments de politiques commerciales et des mécanismes privés pour la promotion des normes internationales du travail dans les firmes du Sud. Nous montrons que les instruments de politiques commerciales peuvent appliquer les normes minimales. Cependant, nous trouvons que les mecanismes privés peuvent dépasser les normes minimales si et seulement si, il existe un contrat exclusif entre l'entreprise multinationale et le sous-traitant, due à l'effet de passager clandestin.
The suffering that initially prompts ethical reflection is frequently forgotten in the generalised rational response of much contemporary International Relations theory. This thesis draws on Theodor W. Adorno and Gillian Rose to propose an alternative approach to suffering in world politics. Adorno argues suffering and trauma play a key role in the task of enlightening Enlightenment. They emphasise the concrete particularity of human existence in a way that is radically challenging to Enlightenment thought. Understanding suffering helps to drive a negative dialectics that preserves the non-identical (that which cannot be understood, manipulated or controlled by reason), holding it up against the instrumentalism and abstraction that have prevented Enlightenment thought from fulfilling its promise. Part One reviews contemporary approaches to international ethics in a way that draws out their affinity with the Enlightenment thought Adorno criticises. Despite their variety, liberal and Habermasian approaches to international ethics tend to be rational and problem-solving, to assume moral progress, to underestimate the importance of history and culture, and to neglect inner lives. They approach ethics in a way that pays too little attention to the social, historical, and cultural antecedents of suffering and therefore promotes solutions that, whilst in some ways inspiring, are too disconnected from the suffering they seek to address to be effective in practice. Part Two deepens the critique of modern ethics through an exposition of Adorno's work. It then draws on Adorno's conception of promise, Rose's writing on mourning and political risk, and a broader literature on ways of working through trauma to propose an alternative way of being in the world with ethical and political implications. I advocate a neo-Hegelian work of mourning, which deepens understanding of the complexities of violence and informs a difficult, tentative, anxiety-ridden taking of political risk in pursuit of a good enough justice.
The Islamic republic of Iran has often been denounced by international organizations for its lack of respect for international obligations, in particular human rights obligations. To justify its lack of compliance towards its human rights obligations, Iran which is a party to several human rights treaties, invokes its constitutional law: indeed, the Iranian constitution states that Iranian law and the Iranian constitutions supersede international law if there is a conflict of laws. This has been publicly asserted at the United Nations and repeated by the Iranian authorities in front of various committees in charge of the enforcement and respect for the instruments of human rights. Consequently, when facing a contradiction between the Convention of the Rights of Children and Iranian law, the latter will take precedence. The origin of Iran's reservations over the international instruments it ratified originates from the same principle: the authorities have to respect Shari'a. Consequently, all international treaties ratified by the country bear the same reservation: the respect of Shari'a principles. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Iran has agreed with guarantees freedom of speech. Iran will respect such a freedom as long as it does not contradict Shari'a principles. This limit also prevents Iran from ratifying new international documents: since the authorities are well-aware of the limits this rule encompasses, they have refused to ratify two major human rights conventions: the 1984 Convention against Torture and the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discriminations against Women. Civil society wants however these two conventions to be ratified. This is why women in particular have encouraged Parliament to present a bill to ratify them. The debate was particularly interesting in the case of the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discriminations against Women. When the bill was presented to the Council of Guardians which is the body in charge of checking the constitutionality of laws, it was rejected for non conformity with the constitution; indeed the convention is said to be contrary to the constitution's article that set the respect of the principles of the Shari'a as a constitutional test of compatibility. Consequently, the convention was declared to be contrary to Iranian law. The outcome was that the Iranian authorities made sure the window of opportunity to reform women's rights in Iran opened by civil society would be closed. By drafting the bill, Parliament and civil society proved that a conciliation between Iranian human rights values and universal human rights standards was possible.
The McCarran-Ferguson Act was enacted to preserve the longstanding prerogative of the States to regulate the insurance industry. States have acted in accordance with this statute to declare arbitration agreements in insurance contracts invalid. However, the Senate has since ratified the New York Convention and appended implementing legislation to the Federal Arbitration Act that obligates domestic courts to recognize arbitration agreements in all international contracts. In an odd convergence of authority, a functional conflict arises between these three bodies of law: the federal law says that state law controls in this area, even over other federal law that might incidentally cover the subject of insurance; the reverse-preemptive state law instructs that arbitration agreements are void in all circumstances; and a later-in-date treaty and corresponding implementing legislation purportedly compel enforcement of the agreement. A resolution of this conflict is required. In a recent case in the district court for the Northern District of Georgia, a British insurer attempted to enforce an arbitration agreement contained within a reinsurance agreement with a Georgia-based investment company. The reinsurer resisted, invoking the McCarran-Ferguson Act and arguing that Georgia law quite clearly states that arbitration agreements in insurance contracts are void as a matter of public policy. The court held that even though the arbitration agreement would be invalid in a domestic setting, special considerations pertaining to international commercial arrangements counseled that this arbitration agreement should be enforced.
Concerns about the duration of China's growth and hence the question of a permanent significant contribution of China to world economic growth relate, amongst other things, to the problem of reducing regional disparity in China. While China's high average growth is driven by a small number of rapidly developing provinces, the majority of provinces have experienced more moderate development. To obtain broad continous growth it is important to identify the determinants of provincial growth. Therefore, we introduce a stylized model of regional development which is characterized by two pillars: (i) International integration indicated by FDI and/or trade lead to imitation of international technologies, technology spill overs and temporary dynamic scale economies, and (ii) domestic factors indicated by human and real capital available through interregional factor mobility. Using panel data analysis and GMM estimates our empirical analysis supports the predictions from our theoretical model of regional development. Positive and significant coefficients for FDI and trade support the importance of international integration and technology imitation. A negative and significant lagged GDP per capita indicates a catching up, non steady state process across China's provinces.Highly significant human and real capital identifies the importance of these domestic growth restricting factors. However, other potentially important factors like labor or government expenditures are (surprisingly) insignificant or even negative. Further, in contrast to implications from NEG models indicators for urbanization and agglomeration do not contribute significantly.
Die Autoren bieten, neben einem Überblick über 50 Jahre internationale Forschung auch einen kritischen Rückblick auf die jüngere Geschichte der deutschen Teilnahme an solchen internationalen Schulvergleichsuntersuchungen, indem sie die vergangenen Dekaden dem jeweils vorherrschenden Zeitgeist in Deutschland gegenüberstellen. In dem Beitrag bleibt es jedoch nicht bei der kritischen Rückschau, abschließend wird vielmehr auch der (positiv bewertete) qualitative Wandel der Untersuchungen hervorgehoben und zusammenfassend auf mögliche Wirkungen, Desiderate und Perspektiven des Forschungsfeldes hingewiesen. (DIPF/Orig.) ; This paper provides an overview over half a century of international large-scale assessments from the viewpoint of the German participation in such studies. Since the Pilot Twelve Country Study was launched in the late 1950s, the international interest in large-scale assessments has constantly grown so that these studies now form an integral part of educational research and policy in many countries worldwide. In Germany and its Federal States, however, this kind of research does not have such a continuous tradition. Despite participating in a number of early studies, Germany refrained from participation for most of the 1970s and 1980s. The rekindled interest since the mid-1990s reveals a change in educational approaches and reflects a certain backlog in view of empirical research. This review of five decades of international large-scale assessments retraces the German involvement in such studies and points out a number of relevant assessment results in international comparison. Further, this paper reveals how the studies have grown over time, not only in numbers of participating countries but also in terms of the subject areas they cover as well as the target groups they assess. The paper also reflects on the development of some major lines of argument that prevail in current discussions among and between educational researchers and practitioners, politicians, and the general public. The paper's summary attempts to mediate this discussion and includes a cautious outlook on a number of possible future areas of research in international large-scale assessments. (DIPF/Orig.)
This paper gives a critical overview of the rules of private international law to be found in the Code of Private International Law adopted in Belgium in 2004 in relation to cross-border commercial contracts. These rules apply in a marginal number of cases due to the priority enjoyed by European rules (such as those found in the Brussels I Regulation and the Rome I Regulation). Nonetheless it is important to analyze whether these rules are well drafted. The analysis reveals serious shortcomings mainly in relation to rules of jurisdiction. On the one hand, the rule pertaining the choice of court agreements gives courts an unnecessary margin of discretion to disregard the agreement of parties. On the other hand, the rule pertaining to the law applicable to agreements, is outdated and based on archaic method of identifying the applicable law.
Dieser Band ist aus einer Tagung entstanden, die im Sommer 2007 am Institut für Politikwissen-schaft der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universtität, Münster durchgeführt wurde. Die Organisatoren dieser Veranstaltung (und Herausgeber dieser Veröffentlichung) sind Doktoranden der Migrati-onsforschungsgruppe an der Graduate School of Politics sowie Kollegiaten des Graduiertenkol-legs Zivilgesellschaftliche Verständigungsprozesse in Münster. Die Tagung mit dem Titel "Migration steuern oder verwalten? Deutschland im internationalen Vergleich" war als interdisziplinäre Studierendentagung der WWU konzipiert. Ziel dieser Veran-staltung war es, Studierenden aller Fachbereiche zu ermöglich, ihre wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten und Fähigkeiten im Rahmen einer Fachkonferenz vorzustellen und Ausarbeitungen auf hohem Niveau in diesem Tagungsband zu veröffentlichen. Damit wurde ihnen ein Einblick in den Ablauf und die Arbeitsweise im Rahmen von Konferenzen gewährt, die sie sonst nicht besitzen. Denn obwohl Studierende während ihres Studiums erlernen, wissenschaftlich zu arbeiten, werden ihre Ergebnisse in dieser Zeit selten einer größeren (Fach-)Öffentlichkeit zugängig gemacht. Thema dieses Tagungsbandes (und auch der Studierendentagung) ist der politische Umgang mit Migrationsprozessen in Europa. Es wird analysiert, wie Zuwanderung staatlich verwaltet oder gesteuert werden kann - und wird. Dabei werden sowohl historische Grundlagen der Migration aufgearbeitet, internationalen Bestimmungen zur Hochqualifiziertenmigration und Asylpolitik verglichen sowie Unterschiedliche Wege zur Integration in Europa analysiert.
