World Politics Trend and Transformation - International Relations | INR 2001, Study notes of International Relations

Download World Politics Trend and Transformation - International Relations | INR 2001 and more Study notes International Relations in PDF only on Docsity! Best way to prevent armed aggression is to either settle through diplomatic negotiations international disputes before they escalate to warfare or bring the use of armed force under meaningful legal controls that restrict the purposes for which armed aggression can be legally conducted, so that the likelihood of taking up arms will decline. ○ Liberal Routes to International Peace• Problem w/ coercive diplomacy's reliance on the threat of armed force is that such acts usually create a crisis that escalates war. When crisis erupts, the capacity for reaching coolheaded rational decisions is reduced. (Cuban Missile Crisis) ○ Coercive diplomacy (realist recommended strategy) has a goal of politics (exercise influence over an enemy to give in to the opposition's demands) and can be accomplished by delivering an ultimatum. • To liberals, it is always better to talk about percolating divisive issues at a negotiating table than to let anger and anxieties sizzle and tempt the disputants to take up arms. • Returns of favors for favors or punishment for punishment btwn parties in a mutual exchange relationship○ Reciprocated communications can produce a greater cooperation OR greater conflict○ Reciprocity• They display the best track record in terminating international crises Conflict resolution procedure in which third party proposes a nonbinding solution to the disputants.○ 3 forms: manipulation, formulation and facilitation.○ Mediation• Good offices○ Conciliation○ Arbitration: when a third part gives a binding decision about the disputant's claims through and ad hoc forum ○ Adjudication: when a third party offers a binding decision about a conflict through an institutionalized tribunal such as a court. ○ Other conflict resolution practices• All these methods for crisis management and dispute settlement are embedded in the international laws pertaining to negotiation. • International Law has been conceived by and written mostly by realists, who place the privileges of the powerful as their primary concern and have historically advocated that war should be an acceptable practice to protect a dominant state's position in the global hierarchy to increase its power. • The rules that are globally accepted are created at the global level by the most powerful countries, to protect their parochial self interests • The great powers alone have the capacity to promote wide acceptance and then enforce transnational norms of statecraft that favor--the accepted rules for interstate interaction. • International law is "weak and defenseless" according to many critics• Exports skeptically asked whether international law is really law• International law is imperfect but states rely on it to redress their grievances• Law pertaining to routine transnational intercourse between or among states as well as nonstate actors○ Most global activity falls under this○ Regulation of the kinds of transnational activities undertaken every day in such areas as commerce, communications, and travel. ○ The location for almost all international legal activities ○ Largely invisible to the public○ Where the majority of transnational disputes are regularly settled and where the record of compliance compares favorably with that achieved in domestic legal systems. ○ Private International Law• Law pertaining to government to government relations as well as countries' relations with other types of transnational actors. ○ Covers issues of relations btwn governments and interactions of government with intergovernmental ○ Public International Law• Chapter 16 Tuesday, April 19, 2011 2:58 PM INR 2001 Page 1 organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as multinational corporations Dominates the headlines in discussion of public international law○ Greatest weakness: inability to control armed aggression○ Receives the most criticism because failures when they occur are conspicuous.○ Legal doctrine that states have supreme authority to govern their international affairs and manage their foreign relations with other states and nonstate actors. ○ Foundation of international law and its most important transnational norm○ Reinforces international anarchy (no meaningful regulation or true global governance)○ Placed as the core principle of international law as constructed by realists to ensure states' freedom to act in terms of their perceived national interests. ○ Sovereignty• World politics is reduced to the level of interaction without meaningful regulation or true global governance; international politics is legally dependent on what governments choose to do with one another and the kids of rules they voluntarily support • In world politics, no legislative body is capable of making binding laws. Rules are made only when states willingly observe or embrace them in the treaties which they voluntarily subscribe • Accepted as the authoritative definition of the sources of international law○ Declares that international law derives from custom; international treaties and agreements; nation and international court decisions; the writings of legal authorities and specialists; and the "general principles" of law recognized as part of "natural law" and "right reason". ○ Article 38 of the Stature of the International Court of Justice (or World Court)• States are responsibl for performing these tasks themselves. World court does not have the power to perform these functions without states' consent. ○ No judicial body exists to authoritatively identify and record the rules accepted by states, interpret when and how the rules apply and identify violations • Compliance is voluntary○ In world poltiics, there is no executive body capable of enforcing the rules• States themselves determine what the rules are, when they apply and how they should be enforced. No higher power does it. • Legal system must rep the norms shared by those it governs The contemporary international order is culturally and ideologically pluralistic and lacks consensus on common values, as evidenced by the "clash of civilizations" and the rejection by terrorists and others of the Western-based international legal order.  International Law lacks univarsality○ Int'l law legitimizes states' right to take self help measures to pursue power and hegemony by any means, however amoral. (preemptive strike)  National interest > legal obligations (realists think this too) International law justifies the competitive pursuit of national advantage without regard to morality and justice. ○ Rules that the powerful willingly agree are those that serve their interests International law in an instrument of the powerful to oppress the weak○ When a particular behavior pattern is widespread (everyone does it), it becomes legally obligatory. International law is a little more than a justification of existing practices○ States can define and interpret almost any action as legitimate. Stated can exploit int'l law to get what they can and to justify what they have obtained. International law's ambiguity reduces law to a policy tool for propaganda purposes○ Weaknesses reduce confidence in international law• The major reason that even the most powerful states usually abide by international legal rules is that they recognize that adherence pays benefits that outweigh the costs of expedient rule violation • Law helps shape expectations, and rules reduce uncertainty and enhance predictability in international affairs.• No legal system can deter all of its members from breaking existing laws. Can't expect to prevent all criminal behavior. • Core Principles of International Law Sovereignty is the most important principle in international law. It means that no authority is legally above the states, except that which the state voluntarily confers on the international organizations it joins. • Entitles eahc state to full respect by other states as well as equal protection by the system's legal rules Soverign Equality• INR 2001 Page 2