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3031. The Future of Diplomacy: European and Global Challenges

Author:
Ondřej Horký
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract:
As identified by the participants of the 1st Czech-French Forum of Young Talents, diplomacy needs to face globalization, geopolitical shifts, the call for transparency and budgetary restrictions. The diplomat has to act as a manager and interpreter of knowledge in a world characterized by an overflow of information. The need for a strong and effective EU diplomacy is not disputed but the European interest has not been clearly defined so far. The European External Action Service seems to offer an institutional setting that will help to articulate the European interest through everyday practice. The contradictory ideal of a generalist diplomat has not waned, but the diplomat must update its competences, enter the public debate and keep up dated with technological progress.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Globalization
Political Geography:
Europe

3032. Gambit or Endgame? The New State of Arms Control

Author:
Alexei Arbatov
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The pursuit of nuclear arms control has enjoyed something of a renaissance recently, with the signing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in spring 2010 in Prague. Whether that momentum will dissipate after New START or lead to further nuclear arms control agreements depends on several factors: The new U.S. and Russian nuclear doctrines. While there is always some distance between a state's declared policy and that policy's implementation, both documents show that, behind their more ambitious disarmament rhetoric, the United States and Russia maintain conservative nuclear policies that make radical nuclear disarmament unlikely—to say nothing of a nuclear-weapon-free world. The peculiarities of the recently signed and ratified New START agreement. Among these are the modest cuts stipulated by the treaty relative to its predecessors; the acrimonious ratification debates in both the U.S. and Russian legislatures; and the dim prospects for a follow-on agreement (in sharp contrast to the mood prevailing after past START agreements). The dynamics of obsolescence and modernization of U.S. and Russian strategic offensive forces. The United States should have little problem cutting its forces to get below New START's limits. Russia, however, will have problems, not in reducing its numbers, but in raising them to treaty ceilings, due to their removal of obsolete weapons from service and slow deployment of new systems. Either Russia can negotiate a New START follow-on treaty with even lower ceilings or it can accelerate the development and deployment of new systems. While the former is obviously a more attractive alternative, it would require the United States and Russia to resolve many thorny arms control issues, such as ballistic missile defense, conventional strategic weapons, and tactical nuclear weapons. Ballistic missile defense. President Obama's decision to modify the Bush administration's ballistic missile defense plans in Central Europe opened the way for New START and eased Russian concerns, even if they could never have been allayed entirely. Moscow believes that U.S. ballistic missile defense programs are ultimately designed to degrade Russia's nuclear deterrent, and it is far from clear that U.S. proposals to jointly develop such capabilities with Russia would allay those concerns—or that the idea even makes any sense. Russia's perceptions of U.S. conventional strategic weapons. Russian officials are especially concerned about the U.S. Prompt Global Strike concept and do not trust American assurances that such capabilities are only directed at terrorists and rogue states. There has already been some progress made in dealing with these weapons in negotiations, and future progress on this issue will likely depend on legal agreements and confidence-building measures to scale U.S. capabilities in ways that would threaten Russia's (or China's) strategic deterrent. Joint development of ballistic missile defenses with Russia. This issue could seriously complicate Washington's and Moscow's strategic relations with China and India. Officials on both sides would do well to start small and proceed step-by-step, using incremental successes to build the momentum necessary to work through more difficult issues. Non-strategic—that is, tactical—nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, the United States and Europe relied on tactical nuclear weapons to counterbalance Warsaw Pact superiority in conventional forces in Europe; today, the situation is reversed, with Moscow relying on tactical nuclear weapons as a counterbalance not only to NATO conventional superiority but also to U.S. strategic nuclear superiority and long-range precision-guided weapons. No one now knows which weapons systems should be categorized as non-strategic, and how limits across regions could be accounted for and verified. In addition, reviving the moribund Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty is essential to dealing with the issue of tactical nuclear weapons.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, Washington, and Moscow

3033. Editorial: Demystifying the EJIL Selection and Editorial Process: How Does One Get Published in EJIL?; Who Gets Published in EJIL?; In the Dock, in Paris – The Judgment; In this Issue

Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
EJIL receives hundreds of unsolicited articles each year. We welcome these submissions. They are an important part of who we are. They constitute the pool from which, alongside the pieces we commission ourselves, we build our individual issues. A few of the submissions are just awful. But most are good and, naturally, we receive many more fine articles than we are able to publish. We know it is disappointing for authors to receive a rejection letter. We truly hope that authors will not give up on us if they are not always successful with this or that submission. In 21 years we have never laid bare our selection and editorial process. This is not exactly an apology: at one time or another I have sat on the Editorial, Advisory, Scientific and other such Boards of over 23 different journals and do not recall ever seeing another journal doing such. Be that as it may, I decided that both our authors and readers should know how the process works. I also compiled some basic aggregate statistics on our authors over the first 20 years of EJIL – and slightly more detailed stats from the last two years. (Relax, nothing personal – country of submission, gender, etc.) We ourselves were surprised by some of the results. But first things first: How is the selection of articles for publication made?
Political Geography:
Europe

3034. Andrea Carcano. L'occupazione dell'Iraq nel diritto internazionale

Author:
Mirko Sossai
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The renewed interest in the law of belligerent occupation probably reached its peak in 2009, when various monographs were published by distinguished authors as well as by younger scholars. The book under review originated from a doctoral thesis defended by Andrea Carcano at the University of Milan. His investigation focuses on the 2003 occupation of Iraq as the ideal test-case to verify whether the existing legal regime is adequate to address the challenges posed by present-day scenarios, including Afghanistan, Congo, and the Arab–Israeli conflict. The book is divided into three parts. The first one comprises two chapters, which present respectively the legal framework of belligerent occupation and the other applicable norms of international law. Chapter I takes a historical perspective on the legal concept of occupation, which the author considers functional to the subsequent analysis for two main reasons: to investigate the underlying values guiding the development of the law of belligerent occupation; and to compare current theories regarding the role of the law in such a situation with similar arguments upheld in the past (at 13). Carcano identifies three epochs, which modelled different concepts of occupation. The first one is valid until the Modern Age and is influenced by the Roman law tradition: occupation is considered as 'conquest and exploitation of the territory'. The modern notion of occupation, defined as 'administration and effective control', emerged during the 18th century, at the time of the consolidation of sovereign states in Europe. Whereas Vattel had already in theory identified the differentiation between sovereignty and private ownership, it was August Heffter, a century later, who first recognized the legal implications of the distinction between occupatio bellica and debellatio (at 24). Finally, the last model is that of the occupation as 'transformation': Carcano identifies it as 'a military action aimed at the radical …
Topic:
Development and International Law
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, Israel, Paris, and Arabia

3035. Aida Torres Pérez. Conflicts of Rights in the European Union. A Theory of Supranational Adjudication

Author:
Constantin von der Groeben
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Aida Torres Pérez' Conflicts of Rights in the European Union. A Theory of Supranational Adjudication 1 is a comprehensive monograph dealing with one of the most striking normative challenges in the European Union (EU): the relationship between the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Member State courts in adjudicating fundamental rights. Torres Pérez presents the existing spheres of fundamental rights protection in the EU and provides a thorough analysis of the conflicts that emerge where these different spheres overlap. Her volume covers a number of different approaches and provides suggestions on how to deal with these conflicts and eventually proposes a normative model for ECJ adjudication through judicial dialogue based on comparative constitutional reasoning. The book is well structured in three parts. The first part gives a brief but thorough overview of the different systems of fundamental rights protection open to EU citizens. The author describes these different systems as the multilevel protection of rights in Europe and distinguishes between human rights protection through national constitutions (constitutional rights), through the ECJ (EU fundamental rights) and through the European Convention on Human Rights (convention rights). She outlines the conflicts that arise when these different systems of fundamental rights protection overlap. In general, such conflicts may arise when different rights are considered to be fundamental (at 10) and where community members disagree regarding fundamental rights interpretation (at 11), especially concerning sensitive issues like abortion or affirmative action (at 16). A potential for conflict exists whenever states act within a field of application of EU law which includes two types of situations: (i) state acts implementing EU law, and (ii) state acts derogating from the EU basic freedoms of movement (at 16). An example of a rights conflict between German courts and the ECJ is the 'banana saga', where the courts disagreed on …
Topic:
Human Rights and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe

3036. 'Great friends': Creating legacies, networks and policies that perpetuate the memory of the Fathers of Europe

Author:
Cornelia Constantin
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article highlights the uses of friendship by associations that perpetuate the memory of the Fathers of Europe. It demonstrates that the invention of the tradition of the 'Fathers of Europe' is not the monopoly of European institutions. It was made possible by the mobilization of associations of heirs that have perpetuated these Fathers' memory since the 1960s. From a social history perspective, the article analyzes some case studies that show how associations of friends devoted to the Fathers of Europe have been created, and what kind of activities they have led throughout time. International friendship emerges as a set of reconstructed memories through the practices of the transnational spheres, by transforming a dead friend into an exemplary friend in order to legitimize a certain vision of the European past.
Political Geography:
Europe

3037. From Colonialism to Partnership in Africa-Europe Relations?

Author:
Gerrit Olivier
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The European Union has been trying to achieve its long-term goals through partnerships and cooperation with other like-minded global actors. Africa (through its regional institutional body, the African Union) has been the first and only multilateral entity with which the EU has forged a long-term partnership. Despite its rhetorical language, the Africa-EU Strategic Partnership is unlikely to upgrade the political and economic interaction between the two partners. In the past few years, serious rifts have grown between the EU and its African counterparts concerning trade agreements and development policies. Moreover, new actors have made significant inroads in Africa, providing an alternative to its long-standing dependence on Europe.
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

3038. Public and Elite Views on Europe vs. China in Africa

Author:
Lorenzo Fioramonti and Patrick Kimunguyi
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Europe has been the privileged economic and political partner of Africa, but more recently China has increased its foothold in Africa through important financial investments and trade agreements. Against this backdrop, the empirical research conducted in 2007-08 in Kenya and South Africa as part of a pioneering international project investigates the perceptions of public opinion, political leaders, civil society activists and media operators. While confirming their continent's traditional proximity to Europe, African citizens are increasingly interested in China and its impact on Africa's development. Europe is criticised for not having been able to dismiss the traditionally 'patronising' attitude towards Africa. While African civil society leaders and media operators describe China as an opportunity for Africa to break free of its historical dependence on European markets, other opinion leaders warn against too much enthusiasm for the Asian giant. There is a suspicion that the Chinese strategy might, in the long run, turn into a new form of economic patronage.
Topic:
Civil Society and Economics
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, China, Europe, Asia, and South Africa

3039. Pax or Pox Europeana after the Lisbon Treaty?

Author:
Simon Duke
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The time is nigh for the EU to think more strategically about its global role. This is suggested by the confluence of changes in the international system itself and the internal changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. When approached via a geopolitical prism, the EU's main interests lie in its neighbourhood, to the east and south, central Asia and the Gulf. These are regions where the EU enjoys the most influence. The EU should therefore engage with other international actors, both traditional and emerging, in an intensified dialogue concentrating in particular on these areas. A Union with a clearer idea of what it is trying to accomplish on the world stage, backed by the means and determination to succeed, could herald a regional pax Europeana, while a continuation of the EU's current drift will condemn it to increasing irrelevance - a pox Europeana.
Political Geography:
Europe, Central Asia, and Lisbon

3040. How to Renew Transatlantic Relations in the 21st Century

Author:
Marcin Zaborowski
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The EU and the US, mainly through NATO, have been successful in securing peace and prosperity in Europe during the Cold War and in promoting peace beyond Europe after 1990. With the emergence of new powers and the rise of multipolarity, however, it is no longer apparent that transatlantic relations are indispensable and ways must be found to make sure that the relationship remains relevant. The EU and the US currently relate poorly to each other and as a result do not obtain the best possible outcome from their combined resources. Two elements are key to improving transatlantic relations: an inclusive policy towards Turkey (in the strategic interests of both the EU and the US) and more permanent and workable structures suited to the realities of the 21st century.
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Turkey