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35281. 'The Loud Dissenter and its Cautious Partner' – Russia, China, global governance and humanitarian intervention

Author:
Marc Lanteigne and Aglaya Snetkov
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
The global issue of humanitarian intervention has become more pronounced and complicated in recent years due to increasingly diverging views on addressing security crises between the West on one side and Russia and China on the other. Despite their support for the principles of 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P), both Russia and China are wary of Western intervention in internal conflicts after the Cold War and have become increasingly critical of Western-led armed intervention in humanitarian conflicts. Unease in Beijing and Moscow over the multilateral intervention in the 2011 Libyan conflict and their ongoing opposition to Western policies in the Syrian Civil War since 2011 would seem to point to ever more coincidence in their negative views of American and Western intervention policies. A conventional wisdom has thus emerged that there is something akin to a Sino–Russian 'bloc', with near-identical policies of discouraging armed intervention within state borders under the aegis of humanitarian intervention or the R2P doctrine, signed in 2005 (2005 World Summit). However, closer examination of Russian and Chinese positions on the Libyan and Syrian conflicts, drawing on normative and identity perspectives, reveals significant differences in how both states address intervention in civil conflicts involving human rights emergencies. Indeed, the Libyan and Syrian cases suggest that the distance between the two states on 'acceptable' policies toward international intervention in civil conflicts may actually be increasing. While Russia has assumed the role of the 'loud dissenter' in global dialogs on humanitarian intervention, China has opted for the position of a 'cautious partner'.
Topic:
Cold War and Governance
Political Geography:
Russia, China, and Syria

35282. The rationale for supporting nuclear power: analysis of Taiwanese public opinion survey

Author:
Xiaochen Su, Chung-li Wu, Yen-chieh Liao, Tai-De Lee, and Chen Tsao
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
The future of nuclear energy use has become increasingly contentious across the world. This is especially the case in Taiwan, which simultaneously suffers from the instabilities associated with fossil fuel imports and widespread public doubts about the government's ability to handle a Fukushima-scale disaster, while also being increasingly dependent on nuclear energy. This study employs the 2013 Taiwan Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) survey on the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant to gauge public opinion on the nuclear issue. The results demonstrate that while the public tends to be pro-nuclear when they are informed about the financial consequences of abandoning nuclear power and reassured about safety concerns, opponents of nuclear power, though numerically fewer, tend to be more vocal. Further research is needed to determine the exact logic of the public's decision making, based on a more precise set of preconditions.
Topic:
Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Taiwan

35283. Diplomacy in Japan–EU Relations: From the Cold War to the Post-Bipolar Era EU–Japan Relations, 1970–2012

Author:
Julie Gilson
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
<p>The European Union and Japan are, respectively, the world's leading and third largest economies by gross domestic product (GDP) and, when combined, make up one-third of global GDP. They are major trading partners and key actors in contemporary international politics, represented in all major international fora and participants in key security agenda, from peacekeeping to various multilateral security structures. And yet there remains very little scholarship on this important bilateral relationship. It is refreshing, therefore, to see the simultaneous publication of two volumes on JapanEU relations. Oliviero Frattolillo's single-authored book offers a concise retelling of the history of relations between Japan and the EU, aiming to recapture as it goes the principal milestones in their history with a focus on the three elements of the context of a changing international system, pragmatic nationalism and identity discourse. Indeed, these concepts provide the core of his conclusion but would have made an excellent structuring device for the entire book. He chooses instead to divide the book into two parts: looking first at the international environment on their bilateral relations and then at the idea of mediating actorness and culture in their dialogue. In contrast, Keck et al.'s much longer, edited, volume brings together practitioners of diplomacy alongside academics to cover much of the same ground. It is divided into three parts: taking an historical overview, examining case studies, and looking to the future. The case studies of Part 2 include several historical events and the third part tells us very little about the changes to which Japan and the EU have had to respond in more recent times. Whilst both books, then, offer a concise retelling of history, it is a shame that neither fully engages with the period of EUJapan relations since the start of the new millennium./p

35284. Economic Diplomacy: Japan and the Balance of National Interests

Author:
Sara Konoe
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
<p>Okano-Heijmans's Economic Diplomacy powerfully presents how regional and global strategic factors have formulated Japan's economic diplomacy, while also considering how domestic business interests have impacted it. In particular, the book analyzes continuity and changes in Japan's economic diplomacy since the 1990s. The major cases green environmental and energy policies and Japan's diplomacy toward North Korea are drawn from the two extremes on the spectrum of economic diplomacy between the business end and the power-play end. The former involves cooperative efforts by business and government to maximize business opportunities, and the latter involves the strategic goals of a government. The analysis is based on the theories of economic diplomacy and related fields, as well as an extensive survey of empirical materials related to the selected case studies of Japan, including both English-written and Japanese-written ones, thus contributing to the understanding of economic diplomacy in general and that of Japan in particular./p

35285. International Legal Scholarship as a Cooling Medium in International Law and Politics

Author:
Jochen von Bernstorff
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
<p>The article aims to contribute from a history of science angle to the recent debate on the relation between legal scholarship, utopian ideals, and practice, which was spurred by the EJIL Symposium on Antonio Casseses Realizing Utopia and subsequent publications in this journal. It defends a conception of legal scholarship that keeps a reflexive distance vis--vis practice and current political trends in international relations. It focuses on traditional background assumptions of international legal scholarship, which constantly threaten this reflexive distance. Arguably these background assumptions are a 19th century legacy and today in a context of fragmentation and globalization stand in the way of developing the full potential of international legal scholarship as a medium of societal reflection. The classic role of the scholar as a law reformer in the current context turns out to be more problematic than it may have been in the past. Inspired by Kelsenian concerns and Nietzschean metaphorics, the article instead suggests that international legal scholarship functions as a cooling medium for the overheated discursive operations of the political, economic and legal subsystems of World Society./p

35286. Reputation and the Responsibility of International Organizations

Author:
Kristina Daugirdas
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
<p>The International Law Commissions Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations have met a sceptical response from many states, international organizations (IOs), and academics. This article explains why those Articles can nevertheless have significant practical effect. In the course of doing so, this article fills a crucial gap in the IO literature, and provides a theoretical account of why IOs comply with international law. The IO Responsibility Articles may spur IOs and their member states to prevent violations and to address violations promptly if they do occur. The key mechanism for realizing these effects is transnational discourse among both state and non-state actors in a range of national and international forums. IOs have reason to be especially sensitive to the effects of this discourse on their reputations. A reputation for complying with international law is an important facet of an IOs legitimacy. The perception that an IO is legitimate is, in turn, crucial to the organ izations ability to secure cooperation and support from its member states. This article argues that IOs and their member states will take action to prevent and address violations of international law in order to deflect threats to IOs reputations and to preserve their effectiveness./p

35287. The Democratic Legitimacy of International Human Rights Conventions: Political Constitutionalism and the European Convention on Human Rights

Author:
Richard Bellamy
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
<p>International Human Rights Courts (IHRCts), such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), have come under increasing criticism as being incompatible with domestic judicial and legislative mechanisms for upholding rights. These domestic instruments are said to possess greater democratic legitimacy than international instruments do or could do. Within the UK this critique has led some prominent judges and politicians to propose withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Legal cosmopolitans respond by denying the validity of this democratic critique. By contrast this article argues that such criticisms are defensible from a political constitutionalist perspective but that International Human Rights Conventions (IHRCs) can nevertheless be understood in ways that meet them. To do so, IHRC must be conceived as legislated for and controlled by an international association of democratic states, which authorizes IHRCts and holds them accountable, limiting them to weak review. The resulting model of IHRC is that of a two level political constitution. The ECHR is shown to largely accord with this model, which is argued to be both more plausible and desirable than a legal cosmopolitan model that sidelines democracy and advocates strong review./p

35288. Equality in Global Commerce: Towards a Political Theory of International Economic Law

Author:
Oisin Suttle
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
<p>Notwithstanding International Economic Laws (IELs) inevitable distributional effects, IEL scholarship has had limited engagement with theoretical work on global distributive justice and fairness. In part this reflects the failure of global justice theorists to derive principles that can be readily applied to the concrete problems of IEL. This article bridges this gap, drawing on existing coercion-based accounts of global justice in political theory to propose a novel account of global distributive justice that both resolves problems within the existing theoretical literature and can be directly applied to both explain and critique concrete issues in IEL, including in particular WTO law. By complementing existing coercion-based accounts with a more nuanced typology of international coercion, it distinguishes two morally salient classes of economically relevant measures: External Trade Measures (ETMs), which pursue their goals specifically through the regulation of international economic activity; and Domestic Economic Measures (DEMs), which do not. The distinctive intentional relationship between ETMs and the outsiders they affect means such measures require more stringent justification, in terms of global equality or other goals those outsiders themselves share; whereas DEMs can be justified under the principle of self-determination. Non-Product Related Production Processes and Methods (NPRPPMs) provide a case study to show how this framework can illuminate recurring problems in IEL./p

35289. The EU's Human Rights Obligations in Relation to Policies with Extraterritorial Effects

Author:
Lorand Bartels
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
<p>In principle, there are two ways in which states and international organizations can violate the human rights of persons outside their territorial jurisdiction. The first is by extraterri t orial conduct; the second is by domestic conduct, in the form of policies with extraterritor ial effect. This article considers the second of these scenarios, taking as its case study the EUs obligations under EU law. To this end, it analyses Articles 3(5) and 21(3)(1) of the EU Treaty, EU fundamental rights, and the EUs international obligations, which are also binding under EU law. It concludes by looking at the enforcement of any such obligations by individuals, the EU institutions, and EU Member States./p

35290. The EU's Human Rights Obligations in Relation to Policies with Extraterritorial Effects: A Reply to Lorand Bartels

Author:
Enzo Cannizzaro
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
<p>The scope of human rights is undergoing a paradigm shift, from a territory-based conception to a functional conception, which tends to protect human rights against the extraterritorial exercise of public authority. In the EU domestic system, this is upheld by Articles 3(5) and 21 TUE, which establish the promotion and protection of human rights as a foreign policy directive. However, the normative effect of these provisions is limited. Due to restraints deriving from the EU Treaties, these two provisions do not seem capable of providing a sufficient legal basis for EU action aimed at promoting and protecting human rights. To endow the Union with the means of action necessary to discharge the engaging function of global protector of human rights, a further development of the European constitutional framework seems to be indispensable.</p>