|
|
|
|
International Affairs
January 2001
To ask 'Is Britain European? is to engage in a particularly difficult area of the always elusive business of Identity Studies. The very nature and future viability of Britain have recently been subject to extensive questioning. Meanwhile, one can distinguish at least six politically relevant senses of the term 'European'. Britain was never as exceptional as was suggested by the traditional story of British exceptionalism told by the 'Island Story' school of historians. Moreover, it has become much less insular over the past sixty years. The question is whether the process has been Europeanization, Americanization or simply globalization. There is considerable evidence that the country's ties to what Churchill called 'the English-speaking peoples' are still as strong as those to continental Europe. In fact, both sets of ties have become stronger. But these identities are not exclusive. Britain has always been a place of multiple over-lapping identities: English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish, as well as British, European and transoceanic. That Britain's European identity is bound to remain only a partial identity does not mean it has to be a shallow one. If Britain is to be a full and effective participant in Europe it has to deepen its European identity, to develop something of the normative, idealistic sense of being European which is second nature to most continental Europeans engaged in these debates.
After the debacle in Seattle at the WTO Ministerial meeting in 1999, when the member countries failed to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, new challenges to both free trade and the WTO have acquired importance. The former can be met by confronting the conceptual confusions, unfounded fears and policy-design sloppiness that afflict many of the demands of the critics. The latter, however, require changes in the WTO's functioning. But a distinction must be made among three areas: trade negotiations, the secretariat's work, and the dispute settlement mechanism. Each requires a different treatment.
In recent years interested individuals and pressure groups have expressed considerable concern over the alleged complicity of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in violations of human rights. While such allegations are not historically unprecedented, the context in which they arise has changed. In particular, the increased integration of the global economy has created a perception that MNEs should take more responsibility for the social dimension of their actions, a perception that enterprises themselves have in part accepted through inter alia the issuing codes of corporate conduct. Furthermore, the rise of identity and lifestyle politics has made MNEs, as purveyors of products and services that help to define consumer lifestyles, a target of concern. These changes have significant implications for the evolution of human rights theory. In particular, they require a shift in the traditional view that corporations can only be victims of violations of human rights committed by states, towards one that extends responsibility for the commission, prevention and avoidance of such violations to MNEs themselves. On the other hand, there exist strong arguments against such an extension of human rights responsibilities. In particular, it is said that MNEs should only be responsible for the conduct of their business and should not be forced to involve themselves in such wider social issues. They are also private law entities and so should not possess the same responsibilities as states.
This articles posits that such arguments in favour of extension, though strong and likely to remain influential, cannot answer the need for an extension of responsibility for human rights violations to MNEs where appropriate, on the basis that any attack on human dignity, whatever that legal nature and functions of its originator, must be liable to legal sanction. The technical legal means by which this might be done are considered. None the less, the article ends with a caution that any extension of human rights responsibilities to MNEs must not be allowed to deflect attention from the primary responsibility of states, as the most likely perpetrators of human rights violations, to avoid human rights violations on their own part and to establish a legal order in which the risk of such violations committed by private entities can be minimized, whether through effective national regulatory laws or international agreements on standards of corporate conduct.
The failure at Seattle to agree the mandate for a new round of trade negotiations represents a dual crisis, not only for the trade community, but also for those supporting a shift to sustainable development. At the root of the crisis lies the North-South faultline, with an embedded sense of inequity keeping developing countries forever wary of the industrialized countries, not least on linkages between trade and the environment. But Seattle also showed that the South's current non-strategy towards trade and environment-opposing any formal linkage within the WTO, for example-is flawed. As a result, the South is now seen as the global scapegoat for inaction on trade and environment, and has shut itself out of opportunities to shape the direction of the debate. Furthermore, trade and environmental factors are being progressively linked in the marketplace-not because of the WTO, but in spite of it. The challenge for the South is to take a more proactive approach, generating a positive agenda for change based on issues of sustainable livelihoods, environmental justice and sustainable development more broadly. One starting point is to test current policy positions against the alternative visions of the future-for example, through scenario planning-and to develop a robust 'no regrets' programme for engagement. The South has the most to gain from a world structured around the norms of sustainable development, and, as a result, it has the primary responsibility for reorienting the goals of trade away from the limited agenda of 'free trade', towards the more inclusive programme of 'sustainable trade'. Whether this reorientation takes place, and whether the South takes a hand in shaping this process, will be one of the central questions for the years ahead.
In the past decade the world economy has witnessed both great progress and great inequities resulting in part from the liberalization of markets-including capital markets-that has accompanied the process of globalization, and from the intense pace of technological change. This article highlights the need for individuals, organizations and governments to counterbalance the excesses and abuses of capitalist societies while at the same time noting the importance of ensuring environmental safeguards. It recognizes, however, that efforts must be directed at maintaining the dynamic momentum of globalization and of extending its benefits to greater numbers. For this to happen, there must first be a debate about globalization, focusing on how to intensify its pace and extending its benefits, as well as curbing its excesses. Second, intellectually robust coalitions must be created between business, NGOs, the academic community, the media and other interested parties, to put pressure on national governments in both developed and developing countries, and on international government institutions, to improve, intensify and extend the process of both political and economic liberalization.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (the Bank) are now regularly accused of being secretive, unaccountable and ineffective. Not only radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) but equally their major shareholders are demanding that the institutions become more transparent, more accountable and more participatory. Accountability, in particular, has become the catchcry of officials, scholars and activists in discussing the reform of the institutions. Yet few attempts have been made to dissect the existing structure of accountability within the international financial institutions (IFIs), to explain its flaws and to propose solutions. That is the aim of this article. The first section examines the structure of accountability planned by the founders of the IMF and the World Bank. The second section discusses the defects in this structure. Section three analyses recent attempts to make the institutions more accountable. The conclusion offers some recommendations for improving the institutions, and a warning about the limits of accountability at the international level.
Following the publication of the various enquiries into the circumstances of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, there has developed a view that the UN lacks the ability to manage complex missions. With particular reference to the case of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), the author pays special attention to the oversight of peacekeeping missions and the crucial role of the UN Security Council, the Secretary General and senior officials in the Secretariat and asks whether the Council is sufficiently equipped at ambassadorial level to address professional military issues. Does the Council have a right and a duty to know the details of peacekeeping missions in order to take decisions? A culture of secrecy has developed in the Security Council and it is common practice now for the Council's important debates to be held in secret. This means that its decision-making is unaccountable. The author also questions the lack of enquiry into British policy towards Rwanda in the Security Council between 1993 and 1994.
In March 1999 NATO justified the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the grounds that it was necessary to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe. This action was so controversial because it was the first time since the founding of the United Nations that a group of states, acting without explicit Security Council authority, defended a breach of the sovereignty rule primarily on humanitarian grounds. This article reflects on the legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention in international society by reviewing five books that explore the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary legal and moral framework governing humanitarian intervention. The article identifies three broad positions: first, there is an emergent norm of humanitarian intervention; second, humanitarian intervention is seen as a moral duty; and finally, the claim that humanitarian intervention outside Security Council authority should not be legitimated because it threatens the principles of international order.
As America inaugurates its 43rd president it enters a period of reflection. The danger is that an emphasis on voting procedure will silence a long-standing and ultimately more significant criticism of American democracy and its policy of democracy promotion. The separation of economics from politics and the promotion of so-called 'market democracy' does a disservice to the wider democratic project and is potentially self-defeating. This article reviews three books to argue that America's declining international reputation can be traced to its own democratic shortcomings. It explores the possibility of a popular working-class movement to address these failings and examines the implication this may have on the liberal international order.
The key concerns in work on the politics of the Middle East in the past decade have been economic and political liberalization/democratization (or the absence thereof) and security, both domestic and international, along with a continued focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. There has been an increasing recognition that these issues are strongly interrelated. Europe cannot avoid concerns over economic and political stability in the region affecting its own interests. Together with economic reasons for engagement with the region, this has brought about a desire to see economic and political reform take place. The Euro-Mediter-ranean Partnership Initiative (EMPI) is one result of this. The background against which these policies, concerns and hopes are evolving is 'globalization', both of the discourse of 'democracy' and in the growing hold of liberal market economics internationally. Recent research on the politics and political economy of the region, and on EMPI, however, shows that a combination of political-economic and related political-cultural factors, along with the Arab-Israeli conflict, continue to hamper political and economic reform in the Middle East, and that European policy as currently conceived is unlikely to affect this greatly. Yet such recent work also shows that aspects of globalization are changing the environment in which Middle Eastern regimes are having to function, while at the same time offering civil society new tools. Middle Eastern societies do, to varying extents, possess the necessary 'spaces' and traditions for human 'agency' to escape the constraints of domestic and international 'structures' and evolve new political cultures-including democratic ones. Existing judicial or legislative institutions may acquire volition of their own and reinforce this process. There is nothing in 'Islam' that necessarily obstructs such possibilities. And supposedly 'obsolete' monarchies might yet be among the most successful types of regime in coping with such change.
In November 2000 the Sixth Conference of Parties in The Hague was suspended without reaching agreement. Before the start of the meeting, Executive Secretary Michael Zammit Cutajar described the conference as 'a make or break opportunity for the climate change treaties'. However, the collapse of this meeting does not mean a total breakdown of the climate negotiations. Only 10 days after the collapse, leading developed country negotiators gathered again to revive the talks. Four articles in the April 2001 issue of International Affairs will analyse in much more detail the meeting in The Hague, the revived negotiations and the implications for further climate policy. Four distinguished authors will shed light on the climate change issue from four different perspectives: Europe, the United States, developing countries and the non-governmental organizations.