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4651. The UN Arms Trade Treaty: arms export controls, the human security agenda and the lessons of history

Author:
Mark Bromley, Paul Holtom, and Neil Cooper
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The UN-led process aimed at negotiating an arms trade treaty (ATT), formally launched in 2006, reached the end of its mandate on 27 July 2012 after a four-week negotiating conference. The conference had been tasked with reaching consensus on an international treaty to establish the 'highest possible common international standards for the transfer of conventional arms'. Such a task was always going to be hard to achieve, but it was widely assumed that there was broad acceptance of a draft treaty text that was circulated on the penultimate day of the conference. However, on the final day the United States declared that the text needed further work and they proposed convening another conference to conclude negotiations. Russia, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela supported the US position. At the time of writing it is unclear whether the next stage in the ATT process will be a vote on the adoption of the draft treaty text in the General Assembly in December 2012, an additional round of UN negotiations or something else entirely.
Political Geography:
Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela

4652. Climate security, risk assessment and military planning

Author:
Chad Michael Briggs
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The effort to tie together environment and security is not a new endeavour. The Epic of Gilgamesh spoke of floods, possibly referring to actual changes in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, resulting in clashes over water access and land use. Stories from the Third Punic War (albeit of disputed veracity) spoke of the Romans sowing the fields of Carthaginians with salt in order to prevent the communities from rebuilding. Environmental factors have been crucial in warfare throughout history, from storms warding off the Spanish Armada in Elizabethan times to the decimation of European troops by disease during the Crusades. Later colonial powers, recognizing that the conquest of land overseas required also the conquest of nature, established schools of tropical hygiene and medicine to provide adaptation strategies for new environmental conditions.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

4653. Resource wars: searching for a new definition

Author:
Jasper Humphreys
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
It is a sad and startling fact that the second highest segment of global illicit commerce is in wildlife, dead or alive; in May 2012 the average price for rhino horn was higher than that of either gold or cocaine at US$60,000 per kilo.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

4654. Mainstreaming the environment into postwar recovery: the case for 'ecological development'

Author:
Richard Milburn
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
In the past decade there has been an increased realization of the shared geography between biodiversity and conflict, with recent research finding that over 80 per cent of major armed conflicts between 1950 and 2000 occurred within biodiversity hotspots, and 90 per cent of conflicts occurred in countries containing biodiversity hotspots. This finding is accompanied by an expanding body of literature detailing the effects of armed conflict and the post-conflict development process on biodiversity, leading to the observation that 'while war is bad for biodiversity, peace is often worse'.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

4655. Book Reviews: International Relations theory

Author:
Patrick Chabal
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
An ever more pressing issue in the social sciences today is the question of standpoint. From where do social scientists identify and analyse the problems they wish to understand and explain? Which theories do they deploy and why? And what concepts do they use to achieve enlightening results? This question is more often than not elided, both because we feel secure in the use of the standard theories we employ, and because we are not accustomed to think critically about the matter of standpoint, or perspective. Having acquired the theoretical tools of our discipline, we are not tempted to re-examine their merit whenever we embark on our analytical journeys. However, there are now voices calling into question this unthinking use of social, political and economic theories. Two critiques are particularly significant. The first is that which challenges social theory on the grounds that it is the theoretical tool of the West, or North, which is blind to the fact that, in the words of Edward Saïd, it is 'Orientalist'. The second is that which disputes the 'scientific' nature of the so-called social sciences.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Asia

4656. Managing Malaysia–Indonesia relations in the context of democratization: the emergence of non-state actors

Author:
Khadijah Md. Khalid and Shakila Yacob
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This paper argues that Malaysia–Indonesia relations have become increasingly problematic and complex to manage in a post-Mahathir/Suharto era. The unequal pace of the democratization pattern in both countries has largely contributed to this state of affairs. The four key 'transnational' variables or determinants such as migrant labor, mass media, non-governmental organizations and the Anwar factor have significantly impacted on Malaysia's ties with Indonesia against the backdrop of the unequal domestic political changes. These four variables have over the years become more prominent in bilateral relations – often in negative terms. More specifically, they represent the dynamics of the people-to-people dimension in bilateral ties. As such, the deterioration in people-to-people relations threatens to significantly reshape government-to-government diplomacy. Bilateral relations could yet face their severest contradictions when official diplomacy is incapable of reflecting accurately popular sentiments. In effect, the roles of state and non-state actors have been instrumental in influencing recent developments of Malaysia–Indonesia relations.
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Malaysia

4657. Southeast Asian peace revisited: a capitalist trajectory

Author:
Chih-Mao Tang
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
The scholarship has argued that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) security management, outweighing democracy and economic interdependence, is the main force constituting Southeast Asian peace. However, although neither democracy nor economic interdependence significantly contributes to peacefulness in Southeast Asia, this study posits and finds that prior literature overlooks the possible conflict-constraining effect of a ruling group's desire and resolve to pursue economic development with liberal capitalist economic policy, which causes that the pacifying effect of ASEAN security management to be exaggerated. This study distinguishes the conflict-constraining effect of liberal capitalist economic development policy from the outcome effects of economic interdependence and the ASEAN security management and argues that the common interests and preferences of adopting economic liberalization policy for economic development exert a more significant effect in preventing conflicts in Southeast Asia. Empirical analyses of the onset of militarized interstate disputes between Southeast Asian states from 1950 to 2000 support this argument.
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia

4658. Sovereignty, hegemony, and peace in Western Europe and in East Asia

Author:
Timo Kivimäki
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan wrote in volume seven of this journal that ' the main ideas in this discipline (of international relations) are deeply rooted in the particularities and peculiarities of European history, the rise of the West to world power, and the imposition of its own political structure onto the rest of the world. ' Taking this claim as the starting point the intention of this article is to see where international relations theory over-generalizes and how it could learn from the alternative experience of East Asia. The main focus of the critique will be on two central ideas: first, the idea that unrestricted state sovereignty is necessarily a problem and a security dilemma in international relations; and second, the idea that there is a need for global hierarchy and hegemony in order to tackle the security dilemma. The article uses qualitative scholarship on the dynamics and structures of peace as the point of departure and then assesses the plausibility of these ideas quantitatively using two data sets, the Correlates of War and the PRIO/Uppsala data set (1946 – 2008).
Political Geography:
Europe and East Asia

4659. The politics of compassion: examining a divided China's humanitarian assistance to Haiti

Author:
Czeslaw Tubilewicz
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This article examines China's and Taiwan's humanitarian assistance to Haiti, as well as the extent to which China and Taiwan – as non- Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors – adhered to the DAC-established humanitarian assistance architecture. It argues that China's and Taiwan's emergency aid was comparable with the DAC donorship in terms of its declaratory commitment to altruism and the pursuit of strategic objectives. Both Beijing and Taipei considered cross-Strait relations and domestic and international public opinion when strategizing emergency aid. The primacy of politics determined a divided China's modalities of aid, funding levels, and institutional framework. The article concludes that strategic considerations – including cross-Strait politics, a suspension of cross-Strait diplomatic rivalry notwithstanding – are at least as significant as altruism in driving China' s and Taiwan's humanitarian assistance.
Political Geography:
China and Taiwan

4660. Constructing Japan's 'Northern Territories': Domestic Actors, Interests, and the Symbolism of the Disputed Islands

Author:
Alexander Bukh
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This article seeks to contribute both to the scholarly debate on Japan's territorial dispute with USSR/Russia and to the broader body of academic literature devoted to the ideational factor in foreign policy. By focusing on the formative years of the dispute and examining the variety of symbolic meanings attached to the Soviet-occupied islands by the domestic actors, this article examines the process of the emergence of the idea of the 'Northern Territories' as a national mission. It argues that the formation and institutionalization of the idea of the 'Northern Territories' in its present form can be traced to a complex web of power relations among the domestic actors, none of which perceived the return of the territory as its ultimate goal.
Political Geography:
Russia and Japan