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CIAO DATE: 04/02
Volume XXXVI No.4 (October-December 2001)
IAI Library Notes
By Maritza Cricorian
The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the struggle to slow global warming / David G. Victor. - Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2001. - xiv, 178 p. - ISBN 0-691-08870-5
The recent Moroccan summit makes this book especially topica. Dedicated to a critical analysis of the Kyoto Protocol and its prospects, it is a byproduct of a study carried out by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on the role of "technological" policy in dealing with the threat of global warming. Applying an interdisciplinary approach, it uses plain language to express the author's substantial scepticism towards the possibilities of success of the solution set down in the Protocol for regulating harmful emissions, that is emission trading, also because of the weakness of international law in defending property rights (in this case, the right to emit greenhouse gases). The author suggests that the positive points of the Protocol should be extracted to form an alternative political strategy based on emission control. An appendix briefly summarises the state of the art of scientific research on global warming.
Diritto internazionale dei conflitti armati / Natalino Ronzitti. - 2. ed. - Torino : G.Giapichelli, c2001. - XVI, 364 p. - ISBN 88-348-1232-8
Euro-G8 : la nuova Unione europea nel Gruppo degli Otto / Massimo Panebianco, Angela Di Stasi. - Torino : G.Giappichelli, c2001. - X, 261 p. - ISBN 88-348-1208-5
Two recent books on international law. The first is a version updated to December 2000 of a book that first came out in 1998 (cfr. The International Spectator (4/98, p. 101). A concise survey of the rules relating to the phenomenon of armed conflict, the book is divided into three separate but interdependent parts: the first is dedicated to the recourse to armed conflict; the second to the conduct of hostilities and relations between belligerents and third states; the third to disarmament. With respect to the first edition, a new chapter (Part 1) has been introduced on regional organisations (EU and NATO); the chapters relative to the protection of human rights and the international criminal court have been expanded; and such issues as a "uniform code" for war crimes, new conventional instruments for the right to produce, transfer and stockpile arms and the impact of the war in Kosovo on the regulation of air warfare are considered. The bibliography is updated to the beginning of 2001.
The second is an original essay on Europe and globalisation and, in particular, on the G-8 as a new international organisation, as seen from a Eurocentric and an ecumenical point of view. Divided into two parts, the first looks at the European Union as a system of constitutional integration and a pole of global organisation; the second focuses on the G-8 as a system of autonomy, equilibrium and interdependence among states, organisations and groups of states. Two appendices contain the main documents (full text or extracts) of the two organisations.
The foreign policies of European Union member states / edited by Ian Manners and Richard G. Whitman. - Manchester : Manchester University Press, c2000. - xii, 284 . - ISBN 0-7190-5779-5
German foreign policy since unification : theories and case studies / edited by Volker Rittberger. - Manchester : Manchester University Press, c2001. - xiv, 385 p. - (Issues in German politics). - ISBN 0-7190-6040-0
Germany's new foreign policy : decision-making in an interdependent world / edited by Wolf-Dieter Eberwein and Karl Kaiser ; assistant editor Sebastian Bartsch. - New York : Palgrave, 2001. - xx, 326 p. - (New perspectives in German studies). - ISBN 0-333-91963-7
From theory to practice: three books devoted to the international relations of European states, the first, a kind of general introduction, the other two, empirical and theoretical research on a specific reality, Germany.
The first book tries to set up an original European model/framework for comparative analysis of the foreign policy of individual EU member countries, as opposed to the neo-positivist American tradition. Asserting the need for a specific approach to Europe, it postulates a comparative model with six political variables able to shape the foreign policy of a European state: membership in the European Union, social interaction with the political elite, the inter-relation between internal and external factors (two-level game), the impact of bureaucracy, participation in CFSP and the external relations of the EU, and the "special" relations or issues within or outside the EU. These six variables inform the structure of the eleven chapters dedicated to as many European countries, starting with the most important (France, Great Britain and Germany) and concluding with the post-neutrals (Finland, Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Ireland), with the small to medium-sized ones in between (Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain).
The second book presents the results of a research project undertaken in 1997 by the Centre for International Relations/Peace and Conflict Studies of the University of Tubingen to examine if and how German foreign policy has changed in the last ten years and at the same time verify the congruity of three of the main politilogical theories on the determinants of a country's foreign policy. The three theories, neorealism and its variants, utilitarian liberalism and constructivism, were tested empirically in four sectors or case studies of German foreign policy: German security policy in NATO; Germany's European constitutional policy; Germany's trade policy in the EU and GATT; humanitarian policy in the UN. Two or more practical examples were taken into consideration for each sector. The results show that neorealist theory is not suitable for explaining Germany's foreign behaviour, while the constructivist theory, despite its limitations, gives more positive results: "German foreign policy after unification, it seems, is best explained as norm-consistent foreign policy behaviour" and, therefore, in conclusion, it is unlikely that Germany will depart from a multilateral and cooperative approach in foreign policy.
The third volume is the English translation of a revised and updated edition of the German Deutschlands Neue Aussenpolitik (1998), the result of a research project carried out by the Deutsche Gesellschaft füräAuswärtige Politik (DGAP) aimed at analysing the actors, institutions and decision-making processes involved in German foreign policymaking today. More specifically, the book tries to identify ways in which German foreign policy has changed, the actors involved and possible future problems of adjustment. Priority has been given to the empirical study of institutions, but not only "traditional" ones, also those lying outside the sphere of traditional diplomacy, such as parties, lobbies, etc. This seems to be the book's most original feature. The contents are divided into three parts not including the introduction: the first deals with government institutions, the second with such issues as European integration, security, the economy and the environment, the third is devoted to the political system and social actors.
Guiding global order : G8 governance in the twenty-first century / edited by John J. Kirton, Joseph P. Daniels, Andreas Freytag. - Aldershot : Ashgate, c2001. - xxiv, 368 p. - (The G8 and global governance series). - ISBN 0-7546-1502-2
The fifth book in a series already presented in this column, this one starts out from the Cologne summit of June 1999 in an attempt to extend the series' focus to international processes and institutions other than the G-8, but above all to issues that came to the fore in the period between that summit and the following summit in Okinawa in July 2000. In other words, attention is directed at the problem of global governance per se, changes that have taken place and challenges that will have to be met in order to set up a more legitimate and socially safeguarded global order in the twenty-first century. In doing so, it compares the theses of political scientists and economists in an attempt to improve reciprocal understanding. The subjects treated range from economic issues central to the G-8 to security matters. The authors come from various disciplines, geographic regions and even generations, thus offering different points of view; one part in fact is written by a group of young European scholars. The chapters/papers are also of diverse origin: an academic symposium and a public forum held in Cologne on 17 June 1999,commissioned papers; the G-8 Research Group, the first results of a research project carried out by the University of Toronto. Thus, there is no single theoretical framework for the book nor has any effort been made to provide a consensual interpretation. Nevertheless, on the basis of the preceding chapters, the fourth and conclusive chapter of the book gives an overall assessment with respect to the new direction taken by the G-8 since Cologne, the causes, the good points and, above all, whether or not they respond to the expectations of the international community today.
Introduction to international relations : problems and perspectives / R.J.Barry Jones, Peter M. Jones and Ken Dark ; with Joel Peters. - Manchester : Manchester University Press, c2001. - viii, 207 p. - ISBN 0-7190-5253-X
Aimed above all at first and second year students of political science and international relations, this book provides a survey of the changing conditions of international relations and the principal schools of thought in interpreting them. The first three chapters deal with the "traditional" theories of analysis of the international situation (the centrality of the state) applied to the last three and a half centuries. The next three concentrate on more recent developments and their main contemporary interpretations: globalisation, regionalism, fragmentation of states.
Irish politics today / Neil Collins and Terry Cradden. - 4th ed. - Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2001. - xii, 163 p. - (Politics today). - ISBN 0-7190-6174-1
Complementary to Political Issues and Ireland Today, also edited by Neil Collins in 1999 (cfr. TIS no. 1/2001, p. 130), this book is intended as an introduction to the Irish political system and, particularly, to the constitution, party system, lobbies, decision-making process, external relations, etc, each the subject of a chapter. The basic assumption is that theories and special politological concepts are not needed to identify the lobbies and the power structure in Ireland. With respect to previous editions, this one provides a general update and deals more deeply with the issues of corruption, to which an entire chapter edited by Neil Collins and Mary O'Shea is dedicated, and Northern Ireland and the diplomatic efforts that it has brought into play.
The limits of humanitarian intervention : genocide in Rwanda / Alan J. Kuperman. - Washington : Brookings Institutions Press, c2001. - xiv, 162 p. - ISBN 0-8157-0085-7
This essay is the result of a four-year research project aimed at verifying what the potential benefits could have been of a humanitarian military intervention in Rwanda in 1994. The author concludes that the lack of political will was not the only obstacle to humanitarian intervention and that, contrary to general belief, intervention would not have been able to prevent the genocide as it took place too rapidly for intervention to be deployed. Consequently, the author makes several suggestions: humanitarian intervention should not be the only instrument available to Western politicians; the costs and benefits of humanitarian intervention should always be calculated; its effectiveness should be improved and, above all, it should not be considered a substitute for prevention.
Reforming the international financial system : crisis prevention and response / edited by Jan Joost Teunissen. - The Hague : FONDAD, c2000. - 224 p. - ISBN 90-74208-17-7
The treatment and taxation of foreign investment under international law : towards international disciplines / Fiona Beveridge. - New York : Juris Publishing ; Manchester : Manchester University Press, c2000. - xxii, 242 p. - (Melland Schill studies in international law). - ISBN 1-929446-08-X. - ISBN 0-7190-4309-3
Fighting the wrong enemy : antiglobal activists and multinational enterprises / Edward M. Graham. - Washington : Institute for International Economics, 2000. - xviii, 234 p. - ISBN 0-88132-272-5
Global governance and, in particular, the international financial system, are the subjects shared by these three books. Produced by a working group of the Global Financial Governance Initiative (GFCI), specifically at its first meeting in June 2000, this volume is certainly not the first that the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD) has devoted to the subject of reform of the international/global financial system, as seen from a southern perspective. The book is made up of four parts, six chapters in all: the first deals with volatility and the concentration of private capital, urging action by major industrialised countries and the introduction of a regional mechanism to protect against speculative attacks; the second part looks at the involvement of the private sector in crisis prevention and management; the third part discusses the new initiatives for improving the regulation and supervision of private capital flows and, in particular, the recommendations of the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and other institutions and mechanisms to control financial instability in developing countries; the fourth and final part of the book analyses the most recent proposals for reform of the IMF in order to allow it to play a more important and constructive role in the global economy as an international credit institution.
The impact of globalisation on the international community and, in particular, the issue of foreign investment are also dealt with in the second book, but from a legal point of view. The central focus of the essay is the ideological content of international law in this field and the implications for the international community and the developing countries in particular. As concerns taxation, in particular, attention is given to multinationals (transnational corporations). The book considers both the traditional/classic legal approach and the new legal concepts and techniques that have emerged more recently. Also examined are the latest developments in the field of regional economic cooperation, seen from the point of view of both developing and developed countries. Finally, all actors in the international legal sphere - not only states but also actors involved in negotiation processes - are described. The volume has eight chapters: the first four review classic law and the efforts made in treating and taxing foreign investments; the fifth chapter shows the gaps in this traditionalist approach, the sixth examines new models of institutions and processes and, in particular, the two areas of regional integration, the EU and NAFTA; the seventh chapter analyses recent initiatives in dealing with foreign investment; the Foreign Investment Review Act (FIRA), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the Agreement in Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) and the OECD's failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI); the eighth chapter presents the conclusions regarding the WTO's suitability to deal with the principal matters of governance in question.
The third book picks up and expands on the subject of the unsuccessful 1998 Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). The research is part of a project of the Institute for International Economics on the backlash of globalisation. It not only analyses the agreement per se, but also the reasons for its failure and the repercussions that it has had on global governance, drawing lessons for future international attempts at dealing with direct investments and global integration. The author concludes that anti-globalism was not the main cause of the failure, that foreign direct investment is not negative in itself as the no-global movement claims, and that such international efforts at establishing multilateral rules for foreign direct investment are futile.