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381. The Changing Fortunes of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Genesis and Symbolic Dimensions of the Turn to Rights in International Law

Author:
Jochen von Bernstorff
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The article explores the genesis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the turn to rights in international law. To this end, it focuses on how international lawyers have received the Declaration in their contemporary doctrinal and political contexts. The fact that the political and moral importance of the Declaration from the very beginning outweighed its concrete legal significance invited intriguing scholarly reflections on the symbolic dimension of the document. Despite early sceptical voices about its legal and moral value, international lawyers welcomed and reaffirmed its significance during the 1960s and 1970s. While attention turned to human rights treaty law in the 1980s, the Declaration embodied the hope for a new era of human rights protection after the end of the Cold War. Throughout the 1990s a new scholarly defence of the universal character of the Declaration could be observed, later being accompanied by new insecurity and soul-searching in the face of institutional limitations. In general, the Declaration became synonymous with the turn to individual rights in international law, and whenever there was a sense of crisis because of institutional blockades or challenged foundations, the Declaration received new and increased attention. It symbolized unity in an increasingly fragmented and contentious institutional and political environment for international human rights protection. The story of its scholarly reception is therefore also a story of the failed and perhaps unattainable attempt fully to institutionalize international human rights in a cosmopolitan legal order.
Topic:
Cold War, Environment, Human Rights, and International Law

382. Hierarchy and the role of the United States in the East Asian security order

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
To construct a coherent account of East Asia's evolving security order, this article treats the United States not as an extra-regional actor, but as the central force in constituting regional stability and order. It proposes that there is a layered regional hierarchy in East Asia, led by the United States, with China, Japan, and India constituting layers underneath its dominance. The major patterns of equilibrium and turbulence in the region since 1945 can be explained by the relative stability of the US position at the top of the regional hierarchy, with periods of greatest insecurity being correlated with greatest uncertainty over the American commitment to managing regional order. Furthermore, relationships of hierarchical assurance and hierarchical deference help to explain critical puzzles about the regional order in the post-Cold War era.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, India, and East Asia

383. Securing Japan: Tokyo's grand strategy and the future of East Asia

Author:
Tomohito Shinoda
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
Throughout the Cold War era, Japan maintained the national security formula crafted by Yoshida Shigeru. At the center of the so-called 'Yoshida Doctrine' was a dependence on the alliance with the United States, which allowed for a minimal military rearmament by Japan and a focus on economic recovery. Since the 1980s, however, the United States pressured Tokyo to take on more of the burden in the asymmetrical alliance. During the 1990 Gulf Crisis, Americans were very critical of Japan's checkbook diplomacy after Tokyo's financial contribution of US$13 billion in war support, but no contribution in terms of personnel.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, East Asia, and Tokyo

384. Globalization and Global Governance in the 21st Century

Author:
Jeffrey Hart and Joan Edelman Spero
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
Abstract:
An examination of international economic relations in the six decades since World War II reveals many ways in which political factors have shaped economic outcomes. The postwar security system significantly affected the postwar economic system. The creation of a bipolar security system following the outbreak of the Cold War led to the separation of the Eastern and Western economic systems and provided a basis for the dominant role of the United States in the Western system and of the Soviet Union in the Eastern system. The end of the Cold War led in turn to the end of the East-West economic divide and to the integration of the formerly Communist countries and China into the global capitalist economy.
Topic:
Cold War, Globalization, Government, International Cooperation, International Political Economy, International Security, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
United States and China

385. Markets, Rights and Power: The Rise (and Fall?) of the Anglo-American Vision of World Order, 1975-2005

Author:
James Cronin
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The so-called “special relationship” has been a fixture of international relations since at least 1940, but it seemed of declining significance during the 1960s and 1970s. It has nevertheless been revived, even refounded, since then; and it has served as the strategic base on which a new Anglo-American vision of the world has been articulated. At the core of the new connection, and the vision to which it gave rise, is a strong preference for the market and a set of foreign and domestic policies that privilege markets and see their expansion as critical to peace, prosperity and the expansion of democracy. This essay examines the origins of this new paradigm as a response to a set of interrelated crises in the 1970s, its elaboration and application during the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher, its curious history since the end of the Cold War, and the way it evolved into the failed policies of the post-9/11 era.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
America and Europe

386. Political Crises and Democracy in Latin America Since the End of the Cold War

Author:
Luis E. González
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper addresses current problems of democratic instability in continental Latin America, assuming that all its countries have been at least “minimalist” democracies during the years 2000–07. To identify essential factors leading to instability, it focuses on the countries' most recent and acute political crises. It considers two periods in the post–cold war years: 1992–99 and 2000–07. The number of crises is similar in both periods, but their nature changes, from mostly “traditional” crises in the first (essentially elite-led affairs) to mostly non-traditional crises in the second (with crucial participation by the population). The data suggest that the main causes of the 2000–07 crises were already in place before the 1990s. Building on the available literature this leads to an explanation based on two medium-to-long term processes: the accumulation of unsatisfied expectations during a generation or so, and the still-precarious nature of these minimalist democracies. A cluster analysis strongly confirms that this model can explain both acute crises and their opposite, cases of democratic consolidation. The model also produces some post-dictions on electoral volatility (empirically confirmed), and some predictions for the years 2008–15. The discussion leads to some conclusions concerning prospects for democracy in the region. First, in spite of the crises, minimalist democracy is helping to impel democracy beyond minimalism. Second, to define “democracy,” it is not necessary to include stronger political requisites than those of “minimalism,” nor socioeconomic requisites. Both are needed, in any case, merely to stabilize minimalist democracies.
Topic:
Cold War, Democratization, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America

387. Foreword: End of Post-Cold War Honeymoon

Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
European Affairs
Institution:
The European Institute
Abstract:
Russia's actions in Georgia showed that Moscow has rejected the Western-sponsored vision of transcending military threats in Europe for the ex-Soviet regime. Robert Hunter, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, explains what was lost. Dieter Dettke, a veteran German policy analyst, sees Berlin will not confront Moscow. With much of the global financial superstructure in meltdown, EA's previous analyses are followed up in this issue with a discussion on the limits of sovereign wealth funds as a source of salvation for U.S. and European businesses. In defense, despite the urgent need of a new aerial refueling tanker for the U.S. Air Force, politics has forced an unfortunate delay in the battle between Airbus and Boeing for the order. The book reviews in this issue include an insightful account of the long-term trends making it almost unthinkable for Europe to field enough soldiers to fight any of the world's new wars. Presciently, France's former foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, talked to EA in the summer about the return of nationalist real politik after the demise of over-optimistic assumptions about a Pax Americana.
Topic:
NATO and Cold War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Moscow, and Georgia

388. The End of Happy Endings in the Post-Cold War

Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
European Affairs
Institution:
The European Institute
Abstract:
All this year the EU has been grappling with challenges coming from its periphery: Kosovo's fate, Turkey's evolution, and immigration flows north across the Mediterranean. The idea of closer ties among all the countries around the Med was an ambitious attempt to come to grips with the southern problems. The war in Georgia demonstrated that there are hotter issues for the EU to the east.
Topic:
International Relations and Cold War
Political Geography:
Turkey, Kosovo, and Georgia

389. The Divide Over European Security

Author:
C.D. Van Aller
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The war in Iraq continues to divide the Western democracies, nations once optimistic that the post-Cold War environment might lead to a more secure world. Even if solutions proved difficult to achieve, many hoped that these societies would share common viewpoints on threats to peace. Yet there have been contrasting security perspectives that have been highlighted by the conflict in Iraq, such as that of former European Union High Commissioner for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, who stated in 2003 that “Europe is not at war.” One of the main cleavages is between Europe and the United States generally, with the former considering that the U.S. has increasingly been too dedicated to the unilateral use of force, views held by both elites and the general public in Europe. Even before the Bush Administration, Samuel Huntington de-scribed U.S. foreign policy as one of “world unilateralism,” with a single-minded devotion to its own interests while minimizing those of other countries. Since the Iraq war, Harold Pinter has stated, the U.S. “has become a fully-fledged, award-winning, gold-plated monster. It has effectively declared war on the world....” Many people in Western Europe have some sympathy with this view, if not its hyperbolic quality, and the war in Iraq appears to have amplified long-held convictions about the world's sole remaining superpower.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Europe

390. Earning from History: Financial Markets and the Approach of World Wars

Author:
Niall Ferguson
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
We are living through a paradox-or so it seems. Since September 11, 2001, according to a number of neo-conservative commentators, America has been fighting World War III (or IV, if you like to give the Cold War a number). For more than six years, these commentators have repeatedly drawn parallels between the "War on Terror" that is said to have begun in September 2001 and World War II. Immediately after 9/11, Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups were branded "Islamofascists". Their attack on the World Trade Center was said to be our generation's Pearl Harbor. In addition to coveting weapons of mass destruction and covertly sponsoring terrorism, Saddam Hussein was denounced as an Arab Hitler. The fall of Baghdad was supposed to be like the liberation of Paris. Anyone who opposed the policy of pre-emption was an appeaser. And so on.
Topic:
Cold War, Economics, Terrorism, War, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
America and Iran