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3561. Warum betreibt der Europäische Gerichtshof Rechtsfortbildung? Die Politisierungshypothese

Author:
Martin Höpner
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
Scholars from law, political science and sociology agree that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) interprets European law extensively and that the Court has become an “engine of integration” that, de facto, conducts integration policy. On the basis of ten landmark ECJ decisions, this paper discusses whether the politicization hypothesis can help to explain this development. The politicization hypothesis posits that ECJ judges make their decisions based on the political interests of either the countries they come from or the parties they sympathize with. The party-based variant of the hypothesis does not seem to have any explanatory power. Similarly, the country-based variant delivers no systematic explanation that could supersede alternative explanations. However, the country-based variant fits quite well with some of the cases observed. I conclude that while situationally motivated acts of politicization may actually occur at the ECJ, which does not imply that the judicial code is being totally replaced by political considerations.
Topic:
International Law and Law
Political Geography:
Europe

3562. Capital flows, the carry trade and 'sand in the wheels'

Author:
Stephen Grenville
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The 'carry trade', in which capital shifts from countries with low interest rates to countries with significantly higher rates, has become an important element of international capital flows over the past decade. With low interest rates in the United States, Japan, the UK and much of the rest of Europe expected to persist for some time, these flows seem likely to become larger in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Particularly for the emerging countries with shallow financial markets, interest-sensitive inflows have the potential to be disruptive. Exchange rates will tend to be overvalued for sustained periods, punctuated by sharp depreciations. These distorted and varying price signals will be unhelpful for good policy-making and steady economic growth.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, United Kingdom, and Europe

3563. Is a model EU BIT possible—or even desirable?

Author:
Armand de Mestral
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which entered into force on December 1, 2009, extends the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) articles 206 and 207 to embrace “foreign direct investment.” This raises the question of whether the EU is now in a position to adopt a model BIT articulating a common policy on foreign direct investment (FDI). An EU policy on FDI could replace the disparate efforts of the 27 member states, complementing and reinforcing their efforts and presenting a stronger image to the world, especially at a time when the EU appears to have lost ground to other jurisdictions as a preferred destination for FDI.
Topic:
Economics, Treaties and Agreements, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Europe

3564. It's time for an EU Investment Promotion Agency

Author:
José Guimón
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
One important novelty of the Lisbon Treaty, ratified by the EU in December 2009, is the inclusion of FDI within the scope of Common Commercial Policy, implying a transfer of certain FDI competences from the member states to the EU, which now has the ability to conclude international investment treaties. Until now, member states had full competence over FDI, and the role of EU institutions was very limited. It remains to be seen how the new Treaty will be interpreted and implemented in light of the difficult legal and political questions that this development raises.
Topic:
Economics, Treaties and Agreements, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Europe

3565. New Treaty, New Influence? Europe's Chance to Punch Its Weight

Author:
Stuart E. Eizenstat and Anthony Luzzatto Gardner
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
On December 1, 2009, after nearly a decade of acrimonious debate, the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force across the 27 member states of the European Union. The treaty reforms EU institutions, making the organization more accountable to voters and enhancing its ability to address European and global challenges. Over the long term, the treaty may make the EU a more coherent international actor, thereby significantly affecting non-EU countries, including the United States. The Lisbon Treaty is the latest in a long line of EU reform efforts. It is the fifth amendment to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, the EU's predecessor. Following the Single European Act of 1986 -- which laid the foundations for Europe's single market, assuring for the first time the free flow of goods, capital, people, and services among the member states -- the EU reformed its institutions and decision-making process through the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, and the Nice Treaty of 2001. But with the cumulative effect of these amendments widely acknowledged to have complicated decision-making -- and with the organization planning to enlarge from 15 to 25 member states in 2004 -- EU leaders sought to replace the confusing patchwork of EU treaties with a single, overarching constitution. The resulting document, drafted by a constitutional convention in 2002-3, was signed by all EU heads of government in 2004 but was rejected the following year by French and Dutch voters, who feared that a European constitution would limit their countries' national voting rights, sovereignty, and access to EU funds. In 2007, after a two-year "period of reflection," the EU heads of state agreed in Lisbon on a draft treaty that was nearly identical in substance to the constitution but -- in deference to public opinion in some member states -- dropped references to the trappings of statehood (such as an EU flag and an EU anthem) and sought to amend, rather than replace, earlier EU treaties. By November 2009, every EU member state had ratified the treaty.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe

3566. Enemies Into Friends: How the United States Can Court Its Adversaries

Author:
Charles A. Kupchan
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In his inaugural address, U.S. President Barack Obama informed those regimes "on the wrong side of history" that the United States "will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." He soon backed up his words with deeds, making engagement with U.S. adversaries one of the new administration's priorities. During his first year in office, Obama pursued direct negotiations with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs. He sought to "reset" relations with Russia by searching for common ground on arms control, missile defense, and Afghanistan. He began scaling back economic sanctions against Cuba. And he put out diplomatic feelers to Myanmar (also called Burma) and Syria. Over a year into Obama's presidency, the jury is still out on whether this strategy of engagement is bearing fruit. Policymakers and scholars are divided over the merits and the risks of Obama's outreach to adversaries and over how best to increase the likelihood that his overtures will be reciprocated. Debate continues on whether rapprochement results from mutual concessions that tame rivalries or rather from the iron fist that forces adversaries into submission. Equally controversial is whether the United States should pursue reconciliation with hardened autocracies or instead make engagement contingent on democratization. And disagreement persists over whether diplomacy or economic engagement represents the most effective pathway to peace. Many of Obama's critics have already made up their minds on the merits of his outreach to adversaries, concluding not only that the president has little to show for his efforts but also that his pliant diplomacy demeans the United States and weakens its hand. Following Obama's September 2009 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he called for "a new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect" and "new coalitions that bridge old divides," the conservative commentator Michelle Malkin charged that the president had "solidified his place in the international view as the great appeaser and the groveler in chief."
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Europe, and North Korea

3567. Frostbitten: Decoding the Cold War, 20 Years Later

Author:
Lawrence D. Freedman
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
As the years pass, the Cold War increasingly appears as an undifferentiated chunk of history that stretched across time and space, with a vast cast of characters and occasional moments of drama. It is presented as a curious concatenation of summits and negotiations, alliances and clients, spies and border posts, ideological dogmas and underground resistance, and a combination of arcane theories about deterrence and some nasty actual wars.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

3568. Why Are Jews Liberals?

Author:
Gideon Reich
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Norman Podhoretz, Jewish neoconservative and former editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine, attempts in his book Why Are Jews Liberals? to answer the perplexing commitment of American Jews to modern liberalism. Jews, according to Podhoretz, violate "commonplace assumptions" about political behavior, such as that "people tend to vote their pocket books"; they "take pride . . . in their refusal to put self-interest . . . above the demands of \'social justice\'"; and they have consistently sided with the left in the "culture war" (pp. 2-3). According to statistics cited by Podhoretz, 74 percent of Jews support increased government spending and, since 1928, on average, 75 percent have voted for candidates of the Democratic Party. Such political behavior "finds no warrant either in the Jewish religion or in the socioeconomic condition of the American Jewish community" (p. 3), argues Podhoretz; it can be explained only by realizing that Jews are treating liberalism as a "religion . . . obdurately resistant to facts that undermine its claims and promises" (p. 283). Podhoretz traces the prevalent political orientation of present-day Jews to conditions suffered by their Jewish ancestors in medieval Europe and later in the United States. During the Dark and Middle Ages, Christian authorities in Europe placed severe restrictions on Jews, including where they could live and what professions they could practice. In later centuries, as the influence of Christianity declined, liberal revolutions swept much of the European continent, and, in the 19th century, Western European governments began recognizing the rights of Jews and treating them as equal under the law (p. 57). Even so, conservative Christians, who still supported the monarchies, remained opposed to the "emancipation" of the Jews (pp. 55-57). Consequently, Jews entered politics in Europe almost exclusively as liberals, in opposition to the Christian right that had oppressed them and their ancestors (pp. 58-59). Governments in Eastern Europe and Russia, however, continued to persecute Jews well into the early 20th century (pp. 65-67), and, between 1881 and 1924, two million Jews immigrated to America, where they would be treated equally before the law. Most were poor, and few ventured out of Lower East Side Manhattan, where the majority found jobs in the textile industry, working more than sixty hours a week for low wages, and where even "modest improvements in their condition" were achieved only by the efforts of a Jewish labor movement (pp. 99-100). . . .
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Russia, America, and Europe

3569. Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights

Author:
Ari Armstrong
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
With Congress debating far-reaching bills to expand federal control of health care, politicians and pundits blaming the economic downturn on allegedly free markets, President Obama fulfilling his promise to "spread the wealth around," and dozens of czars overseeing wide swaths of American life, it seems that capitalism is in retreat. A rousing defense of capitalism, therefore, could not have come at a better time, and that is what Andrew Bernstein provides in his new book, Capitalism Unbound. Bernstein ably defends the achievements of the Industrial Revolution, presents the moral foundation for capitalism, skewers socialism, and indicates in some respects how several disasters-including the recent housing bust-were caused by government meddling in the economy. Capitalism Unbound is an updated and highly condensed version of Bernstein's 2005 book, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire. With the new book, Bernstein promises "the essential points-presented in a simple, easy to read format" (p. ix). He begins his sixteen-page Prologue, "The Primordial Struggle for Individual Liberty," by mentioning that capitalism rests on the "moral code . . . of an individual's inalienable right to his own life" (p. 1). After recounting the American Revolution as a key example of the furthering of individual rights, Bernstein applies the principle of rights to issues such as contracts, property, and employment. He then defines some key terms, including capitalism ("the system of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned"), freedom (protection "against the initiation of force by either private citizens or the government"), and statism ("the subordination of the individual to the state [and] the repudiation of inalienable individual rights") (pp. 10-11). The prologue concludes with a discussion of some of history's most horrifying instances of statism, including tribal dictatorships, Soviet communism, National Socialism, and Islamic theocracy. The rest of the book is divided into three parts, about the historical, moral, and economic superiority of capitalism, respectively. In Part One, "The Historic Superiority of Capitalism," Bernstein first summarizes the impoverished conditions of preindustrial Europe. He then explains how, inspired by Enlightenment thinkers, innovators of 18th-century England and 19th-century America achieved profound advances in technology and economic production, created goods and services that radically improved the living conditions of the common person, and often amassed fortunes in the process. These productive giants include steam engineer James Watt, steel titan Andrew Carnegie, and oil pioneer John D. Rockefeller, who by the height of his dominance had driven oil prices from fifty-eight cents to eight cents per gallon (p. 52). Bernstein reviews many of the economic advances of the Industrial Revolution, such as the enormous expansion of cotton cloth-spun English cotton increased twenty-four-fold between 1765 and 1784 alone-enabling "hundreds of millions of people worldwide . . . to dress . . . comfortably, cleanly, and hygienically" (pp. 34-35, emphasis removed). . . .
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America and Europe

3570. Turkey And The Middle East: Ambitions And Constraints

Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Turkey is launching initiative after ambitious initiative aimed at stabilising the Middle East. Building on the successes of its normalisation with Syria and Iraq, it is facilitating efforts to reduce conflicts, expanding visafree travel, ramping up trade, integrating infrastructure, forging strategic relationships and engaging in multilateral regional platforms. For some, this new activism is evidence that Turkey is turning from its traditional allies in Europe and the United States. In fact, its increased role in the Middle East is a complement to and even dependent on its ties to the West.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Islam, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia