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International Affairs
January 1998
This is an edited text of the fifth John Vincent Memorial Lecture delivered at the University of Keele on 9 May 1997 in which Jack Donnelly attacks the still common scepticism about international human rights-although from an unorthodox angle.
Jack Donnelly is Andrew Mellon Professor in the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. He is the author of Human rights in theory and practice (1989) and International human rights (2nd edn 1997).
Through an analysis of the impact of military spending on economic growth, the author argues that militarism and human rights are incompatible. Implementation of the economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights set out in the International Bill of Human Rights requires national mobilization of economic resources. If limited national capital is consumed in excessive military expenditures the feasibility of rights fulfilment diminishes. The article outlines initial public policies designed to limit militarism and to allow international human rights to serve as the cornerstone of domestic and foreign policy.
William Felice is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Eckerd College, Florida. He is the author of Taking suffering seriously: the importance of collective human rights (1996).
The eastward enlargement of the European Union may well be the biggest challenge in the history of European integration. It is, however, accompanied by profound internal and external crises highlighted by the EU's difficulties in coping with the effects of economic globalization, of which the most obvious are high unemployment and a growing scepticism with regard to integration. This article argues that the solutions to both these challenges are deeply interconnected: while enlargement is a strategic necessity in its own right, it is also the only factor galvanizing EU member states into action for the reforms which are inevitable if the integration project is to be kept afloat.
As the new democracies of central and eastern Europe prepare for EU membership and the EU prepares for enlargement, Poland and Germany can reflect on the past eight years of a historically unprecedented improvement in their relationship. Bringing Poland into the EU (as well as into NATO) has become a key item in the Polish-German 'community of interest'.
Roland Freudenstein is Head of the Warsaw Office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. From 1993 to 1995 he was Adviser to the Planning Staff of the Directorate General 1A of the European Commission. JOHN GRAY is Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Endgames: questions in late modern political thought (1997) and False dawn: the utopia of the global free market (forthcoming 1998).
In a year from now, eleven of the current fifteen member states of the EU will, in all probability, sign up to European Monetary Union. In this article Pierre Jacquet looks at the reasons for widespread EMU support and at the economic as well as the political rationale for the single currency. Weighing up the cost-benefit analysis of monetary union and comparing it to alternatives, the author argues that EMU is a worthwhile gamble and that the task should now be to make it a success. This implies the willingness of member states to undergo overdue structural reforms and to be more forthcoming in promoting an effective coordination of economic policies.
Pierre Jacquet is Deputy Director of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Paris, and Chief Editor of Politique Etrangère. He edits (with Thierry de Montbrial) IFRI's annual RAMSES report on the world economy.
Few international journalists have been as intimately involved in the conflict in former Yugoslavia as Ed Vulliamy. In this vivid personal account of the war years he argues that the international community's response to Serbian claims amounted to nothing less than appeasement.
Ed Vulliamy is an international reporter for the Guardian and the Observer. His awards for coverage of the wars in former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1996 include the 1994 James Cameron Memorial Award; and in 1997, for the second time, for the British Press Awards, International Reporter of the Year.
The key question often asked of the new Labour government's approach to Europe is whether this is new Labour, new Europe or new government, old Britain? There are three routes into the EU which Britain could follow: (1) it could play a leading part in the definition of a new political role and vision for an enlarged EU in the twenty-first century; (2) it could be a constructive and pragmatic participant in EU policy discussions, but without an overall vision for the EU; (3) it could become a side player within the EU, left behind as Europe develops in directions it cannot support.
In its tone and rhetoric, the new government is certainly aiming for the first of these roles. On policy substance, however, its approch somewhat cautious and pragmatic. In the four policy areas examined in this article-employment, the single currency, enlargement and institutional reform-some striking changes in tone and emphasis are not wholly matched by new policy innovations. This indicates continued caution over public opinion and the question of sovereignty. However, as the authors argue in the final section, British public opinion allows considerable scope to define a new role for Britain in the EU, while domestic constitutional reform could begin to change the nature of the sovereignty debate.
Kirsty Hughes is Head of the European Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.Together with Edward Smith, she ran the Commission on Britain and Europe which published its final report, An equal partner: Britain's role in a changing Europe, in December 1997.
Edward Smith is a Research Fellow of the European Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He is completing his Ph.D on EFTA enlargement at the University of Sussex.
After the results of the September 1997 referendums in Scotland and Wales, devolution within the United Kingdom has become a certainty. This article considers the implications of the establishment of a Scottish parliament and a Welsh assembly for 'British' foreign policy. The author traces views of 'Britishness' from the beginning of the century, when 'home for all' had a brief vogue during the imperial heyday, through the mid-century period when an essentially anglocentric 'Britishness' seemed relatively uncontroversial, to the more contentious scene opened up by the end of empire, the retreat of the Commonwealth and the increasing prominence of the European Community/Union. He examines the new Labour government's official statements on the remit of the devolved institutions and considers the prospects after devolution for a UK foreign policy that is more genuinely 'British' than before, and for the emergence of, in particular, a distinctively 'Scottish' foreign policy.
Keith Robbins is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Lampeter. He is the author of Politicians, diplomacy and war in modern British history (1994).
Equivocation by Western governments about the place of Russia in Europe in the context of the enlargement of NATO and the EU leaves a critical issue unresolved. In effect, Russia has been excluded from the Euro-American ambit. Russia's present weakness has enabled its own reservations about these developments to be sidelined; but an economically rejuvenated Russia could pose a threat of dominance in eastern and central Europe every bit as substantial as the military dominance of former times. A way needs to be found to incorporate Russia into a modified European system to avoid its retreating into a potentially dangerous isolation.
Jonathan Haslam is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge and teaches International Relations at the University of Cambridge. He is the editor (with Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Andrew Kutchins) of Russia and Japan: an unresolved dilemma between distant neighbors (1993). He has just completed a biography of E. H. Carr (forthcoming).
Since 1989, six new sub-regional cooperation groups have emerged as the states of northern, central and eastern Europe work towards forging relationships with one another and their neighbours to east and west. Five of these groups are still in existence and have had considerable success in establishing cooperative relations in many areas outside the realm of purely military security. The authors suggest that such sub-regional groups could provide a useful model in the search for stability among the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union. Acknowledging and describing the ways in which this environment differs markedly from that of northern, central and eastern Europe, they point out the suitability of the model to the particular circumstances of the post-Soviet republics.
Ian Bremmer is President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities and CEO of the Eurasia Group. He is a specialist on post-Soviet countries in transition and author of New states, new politics: building the post-Soviet nations (1997).
Alyson Bailes is a career member of Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, currently on special leave as Political Director of the Western European Union in Brussels. From 1996 to 1997 she was on sabbatical as Vice President for the European Security Programme at the Institute for EastWest Studies, New York Office.
This is an edited text of the 23rd Martin Wight Memorial Lecture delivered at the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 14 October 1997 in which John Gray argues that international conflict does not come from 'clashes of civilization', but rather from the conflicting interests and policies of states. In order to cope better with such conflicts, we should understand that some conflicts of are intractable.
The Council on Foreign Relations in New York is known throughout the world both as a leading centre for the study of international affairs and as having an influential voice in current debates on the future global role of the United States. Since the First World War the Council has promoted these goals through organizing working groups, sponsoring specialized monographs, and publishing a number of journals and yearbooks. The Council has now sponsored the publication of a multivolume encyclopaedic dictionary of American foreign relations. Michael Dunne's review of these four volumes concentrates upon the broad themes which run through the many hundreds of essays, and asks whether the study of the American diplomatic past can help us to understand the special features of the course and conduct of US foreign relations.
Michael Dunne is senior lecturer in American Studies at the University of Sussex. He is Editor (with Tiziano Bonazzi) of Citizenship and Rights in Multicultural Societies (1995).
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