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The paper proposes the classification of health security as one of the non-military security dimensions of the second generation, determined more by globalization processes than by the end of the Cold War (first generation). The cognitive goal of the article is to identify and analyse the elements of the structure of international health security such as 1) the essence and specificity of securitization of threats to health security; 2) health security threats; 3) the referent object or whom it concerns; and 4) measures to ensure it. Specific to this dimension is the political motivation for its securitization. In the world of interrelated and global mobilities, what is significant for health security is the diversity of the development level, preferred values, and, consequently, the diversity of sensitivity and susceptibility of national healthcare systems to cross-border threats.

Thucydides is considered to be the founder of political realism. Even in those times he determined the basic premises of realism - security and survival. He made an impact on subsequent development of realism embodied in the works of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Morgenthau, Car, Niebuhr, Aaron, Waltz etc. They will call the system of international relations as anarchical one since there is no supreme arbitrator which will force states to adequate behaviour. His views of realism were given in the volume 'The Peloponnesian War' where he had determined the anarchy of the relationships among states. Such system did not rely on justice and morale, but force and power were the predominant facts. He also introduces the category of just wars by claiming that Sparta led a just war against the increased power of Athens, and observed morale principles. Nevertheless, Thucydides faces contradictory, since Sparta itself as the largest land force of that time had to use force in order to beat Athens. He went ahead since he considered force and power as a necessary condition to achieve other objectives, which was later on adopted by Raymond Aaron. Following the example of the war between Athens and Sparta, he successfully analysed bipolar system of balance of power in which the conflict between the leading members of the two opposite blocks was possible in the end, while beforehand there should have been conflicts among weaker members of both blocks. Thucydides explained the manifestation of force and power using example of the Melian dialogue between the envoys of Athens and Melos. It was about the pure politics of force of Athens regardless of the fact that Melos had its independence.

Adjusting the legal status, and support policies for migrant workers is an issue on the agenda of international institutions for nearly a hundred years. The first efforts to protect foreign workers have been taken during the first session of the International Labour Conference in 1919. In the following decades ILO activities has led to the preparation of three international documents concerning this issue (non-binding ILO Convention No. 66 in 1939, and Convention No. 97 of 1949, and No. 143 of 1975). For many decades, the problem of the protection and assistance of migrant workers' rights was considered as a narrow issue of international labor law. Codification efforts, undertaken during seventies, has led to the adaptation of the UN document (International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families) in 1990, and inclusion this issue into more general area of international human rights law. Despite this fact, and the existence of several categories of documents concerning migrant workers within Council of Europe, the European Union, and even ASEAN, the protection of migrant workers has never been effectively functioning system. The aim of this article is the analysis of the codification of that issue, and the main obstacles to consensus on the protection of migrant workers' rights. The state parties of the UN Convention contains primarily countries of origin of migrants (such as Mexico, Morocco and the Philippines). It seems, therefore, that despite 46 ratifications the, UN convention does not have a global character, and activities of its monitoring body (Committee on Migrant Workers-CMW) reflects primarily demands of sending countries. The article closely examines particularly controversial provisions of the ILO and UN documents from the point of view of current labour migrations and policies of sending and host countries.

The article concerns German discussions and plans regarding the future of the European Union and its international role. The fi rst part discusses confl icts or diff erences that burden relations between EU Member States regarding refugee policy, energy policy, the euro currency and arms policy. In addition, phenomena and processes such as nationalism and populism, Brexit and separatism are emphasized. Then the global changes are presented with which the European Union is confronted: the end of Eurocentrism, the US exit from the INF treaty, the future of the nuclear agreement with Iran and the US trade war with China. The rest of the article presents briefl y reactions in Germany, which fall into the mainstream of opinion formation, as well as concepts to overcome crises and shape the role of the European Union: democratization of the EU, the EU as a social union and a new policy of relaxation. ; Artykuł dotyczy niemieckich dyskusji i planów odnośnie przyszłości Unii Europejskiej i jej roli międzynarodowej. W pierwszej części omawiane są konfl ikty względnie różnice, które obciążają stosunki między państwami członkowskimi UE, tyczące się polityki uchodźczej, polityki energetycznej, waluty euro i polityki zbrojeniowej. Ponadto akcentowane są takie zjawiska i procesy, jak nacjonalizm i populizm, Brexit i separatyzm. Następnie prezentowane są globalne zmiany, z którymi konfrontowana jest Unia Europejska: koniec eurocentryzmu, wyjście USA z traktatu INF, przyszłość porozumienia atomowego z Iranem i wojna handlowa USA z Chinami. W dalszej części artykułu przedstawiono pokrótce reakcje w Niemczech, które mieszczą się w głównym nurcie kształtowania opinii, jak również koncepcje pozwalające przezwyciężyć kryzysy i kształtować rolę Unii Europejskiej: demokratyzacja UE, UE jako unia społeczna i nowa polityka odprężania.

One of the fundamental categories of general sociology concerns power. Regardless of differences in interpretation, power can be defined as the dependence between subordinator and subordinated. This relation is unidirectional. When discussing influence, this property is significant, as otherwise it could be reciprocal, or an influence could be exerted by many other entities that are not bound by the relationship of subordination. The nature of international relations is too specific to allow a simple transfer of power-related phenomena from the realm of domestic relations. One can indicate the presence of delegated power, resulting from the mutual assignment of subordination rights to international decision- making bodies. The processes of international power are divided into procedures of hard power, soft power and smart power, the latter signifying the manifestation of effective power, making use of the mechanisms of the former two. It is also important to take into account the specificity of the legitimization of international power and manifestations of accountability. Also not without significance is the capacity for the implementation of international power, equipped with the relevant enforcement instruments. ; One of the fundamental categories of general sociology concerns power. Regardless of differences in interpretation, power can be defined as the dependence between subordinator and subordinated. This relation is unidirectional. When discussing influence, this property is significant, as otherwise it could be reciprocal, or an influence could be exerted by many other entities that are not bound by the relationship of subordination. The nature of international relations is too specific to allow a simple transfer of power-related phenomena from the realm of domestic relations. One can indicate the presence of delegated power, resulting from the mutual assignment of subordination rights to international decision- making bodies. The processes of international power are divided into procedures of hard power, soft power and smart power, the latter signifying the manifestation of effective power, making use of the mechanisms of the former two. It is also important to take into account the specificity of the legitimization of international power and manifestations of accountability. Also not without significance is the capacity for the implementation of international power, equipped with the relevant enforcement instruments.

The aim of the paper is the analysis of the relationship between the perception of the success factors in international collaborative relationships and firm's international experience. The results of an empirical study on the sample of 278 Polish exporters and importers cooperating with partners from China and Germany are presented and both the differences in success factor perception depending on foreign partners' home country, and the correlation of the perception of the success factors with the international experience of the firms are discussed. The study revealed that the firms working with partners in China have somewhat more international experience. The importance of the majority of the success factors in relationships with German partners did not differ significantly from those in collaboration with Chinese firms. However, some consequential differences were observed. Internationalization experience is not strongly related with the perception of international cooperation success factors.

The paper deals with the issue of regulation of the right of natural and legal persons to environmental information, in relevant international legal documents. There is a survey of certain international conventions which envisage this right in their field of regulation. The right to access the information is in details regulated in the Aarhus Convention, which comprises significant part of this paper. This kind of regulation of the right to environmental information has performed a significant influence on states and international organizations, which created their domestic and international rules, using the solutions from this Convention. The European Union has enacted a significant number of directives on the right of a public to receive environmental information. The special emphasis will be on the work of the Aarhus Convention's Compliance Committee which has a significant role in supervising and deciding about the compliance with the application of the Convention in its member states.

This study aims to explore the concept of authoritarianism, which – presented in terms of the "wicked problem" of the contemporary world – seems to be a severe challenge to present-day International Relations (IR), both in theoretical and practical dimensions. The author of the article defines the concept of authoritarianism as a form of the political system in which the power and material resources of the state have been centralized, appropriated, and put at the disposal of either an individual or an elitist group "in power." In this way, the possibilities of integrating the authoritarian state – both in the political and economic dimension – with the global system of international relations are limited, and the vital administrative institutions of the state have been manipulated and appropriated. The applied research method allows for interpreting the discussed issues in a complex – albeit specific – systemic form, characteristic not only for politically fragile or declining countries and regions but also for politically stable and economically developed ones. The author's analysis allows for the presentation and reinterpretation of the issue of contemporary authoritarian regimes concerning international relations in terms that not only define but often legitimize – and repeatedly even validate – some of the most despotic, autocratic, and hegemonistic forms of the political systems in modern times.