Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Louis Sohn was an émigré scholar who fled Poland for the USA in 1939, two weeks before the Nazis invaded. His most widely known work is World Peace through World Law, co-written with Grenville Clark, a vision for a reconstructed United Nations. Writing at a time when political realism was ascendant in the USA, Sohn was labeled an 'idealist'. Yet a strain of pragmatism also runs through his scholarship, leading many to praise him as one of the architects of modern international law. As a scholar-practitioner with a mission to help build the post-World War II international order, little overt legal theorizing appears in his work. But a close reading reveals ideas that drew implicitly on extant theory or were developed by later theorists without reference to Sohn's writing. To help frame the analysis, this article situates Sohn's writing in two strands of theoretical literature: pre-positivist, positivist and 'post-positivist' approaches to law-making by international organizations; and functionalist, constitutionalist and deliberative approaches to the powers of, and constraints on, those organizations. Sohn does not fall neatly into any of those categories; instead, fragments of his work can be found at many points along each spectrum. While the fragments do not add up to a coherent whole, the theoretical contributions of this 'pragmatic idealist' are greater than meets the eye.

In 1945, world leaders gathered in San Francisco to sign the United Nations Charter, which laid the blueprint for today's international system. The institutional architecture that was built around the United Nations, including its specialized agencies (such as the World Bank and World Health Organization) and funds and programs (such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)), survived the Cold War and seemed to have hit its stride in the immediate post-Cold War era. Yet the global distribution of power has changed, states are no longer the sole actors in international affairs, and the very idea of global governance is being called into question. Not surprisingly, there is much questioning of whether the institutional architecture that was built almost seventy-five years ago is still fit for purpose. Policymakers are rightly focused on reform of that architecture. Rather than tinkering at the margins, this panel was conceived with a more radical agenda. If the UN did not exist today, would we create it? If so, what would it look like?

AbstractAs the range of actors, issues and levels of negotiation at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow demonstrates, the defining feature of global governance today is pluralism. Geopolitics, including swings in US global leadership and surging US–China competition, are part of the picture, but do not adequately explain the complexity of contemporary multilateralism. Deeper, systemic forces are at work – the birth pains of a more plural global system. This article identifies and examines four dimensions of pluralism: multipolarity, multiple issues, multi‐level governance, and multiple stakeholders. The effect is that all states – including middle and small states – must be more active, more agile, more self‐reliant, more willing to lead, and more oriented towards issues than ideology. The article illustrates the four dimensions through reviews of multilateral responses to COVID‐19, cyber attacks, and mass migration, before asking how states and non‐state actors can effectively manage a more plural system of governance. Three capacities for success are discussed: to act early and decisively by finding partners and fora for success; to embrace adhocracy internally and externally; and to rebalance effectiveness and trust through greater technocratic expertise, transboundary scientific cooperation, and a more inclusive diplomacy.

The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations provides an authoritative account of the law and politics of international organizations. Looking at the role, function, and history of organizations, this Handbook offers a wide ranging and thorough analysis of the area.

Virtually every important question of public policy today involves an international organization. From trade to intellectual property to health policy and beyond, governments interact with international organizations in almost everything they do. Increasingly, individual citizens are directly affected by the work of international organizations. Aimed at academics, students, practitioners, and lawyers, this book gives a comprehensive overview of the world of international organizations today. It emphasizes both the practical aspects of their organization and operation, and the conceptual issues that arise at the junctures between nation-states and international authority, and between law and politics. While the focus is on inter-governmental organizations, the book also encompasses non-governmental organizations and public policy networks. With essays by the leading scholars and practitioners, the book first considers the main international organizations and the kinds of problems they address. This includes chapters on the organizations that relate to trade, humanitarian aid, peace operations, and more, as well as chapters on the history of international organizations. The book then looks at the constituent parts and internal functioning of international organizations. This addresses the internal management of the organization, and includes chapters on the distribution of decision-making power within the organizations, the structure of their assemblies, the role of Secretaries-General and other heads, budgets and finance, and other elements of complex bureaucracies at the international level.

This book combines primary materials with expert commentary, demonstrating the interaction between law and practice in the UN organisation, as well as the possibilities and limitations of multilateral institutions in general. Each chapter begins with a short introductory essay by the authors that describes how the documents that follow illustrate a set of legal, institutional, and political issues relevant to the practice of diplomacy and the development of public international law through the United Nations. This second edition updates the materials in the first edition and introduces new features that reflect a changing global landscape

Providing a much-needed study on cybersecurity regime building, this comprehensive book is a detailed analysis of cybersecurity norm-making processes and country positions, through the lens of multi-stakeholder diplomacy. Multi-disciplinary and multi-national scholars and practitioners use insights drawn from high-level discussion groups to provide a rigorous analysis of how major cyber powers view multi-stakeholder diplomacy. Looking at how past cybersecurity initiatives and multi-stakeholder negotiations in other fields illuminate its dynamics, this book will help put states' approaches towards multi-stakeholder cyber diplomacy into perspective, and frame the role of private actors in cybersecurity regime building. Evaluating the most promising institutional arrangements and mechanisms for implementing cybersecurity, this book combines top-down analyses relevant to the design of international cybersecurity regimes with bottom-up case studies, tracing the approaches of important states towards multi-stakeholder participation in cyber diplomacy. With a wealth of policy-relevant findings, this book will be welcomed by practitioners and scholars of international law, international organisation and international cybersecurity as well as multi-stakeholder governance and multilateral regimes. Policymakers and diplomats involved in international cybersecurity processes will also benefit from its cutting-edge comparative analysis of the approaches of key cyber powers.