Among the most significant variables defining trends in the international order and the international environment surrounding Japan are domestic circumstances in China and its foreign policies prescribed by them. China ranks highest among the emerging powers that have rapidly increased their presence within the international community over a short period and is, from Japan’s standpoint, simultaneously a real threat to Japanese security in the East China Sea and Japan’s largest trading partner.
Two of the most important variables influencing trends within the international order are the domestic circumstances within the US and China and the foreign policy shifts stemming therefrom. An element of equal or perhaps even greater significance is the nature of relations between these two major powers.
Confronted with a challenging security environment, the Japanese government formulated a “National Security Strategy” in 2013 and then amended the National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) and the Medium Term Defense Program (MTDP) accordingly. To ensure a seamless response to any situation threatening the nation’s security and prosperity, the Cabinet adopted a resolution in July of last year regarding the legal foundations for security (security legislation). Against this backdrop, the Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation (“the Guidelines”) were revised and efforts made to pass the proposed security legislation.
This Research Group will assess the new security legislation and the revised Guidelines, and conduct reality checks of Japan’s new security policy and the Japan-US alliance. In carrying out studies/research on the implications of enacting security legislation and revising the US-Japan Guidelines, this Research Group will work with the two regional research groups being set up independently and simultaneously to jointly carry out the simulations that are the central focus of this project
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
In the last decade of the 20th century, when the Cold War came to an end, there was a growing understanding that International Law was consolidated as legitimation body for state actions. It was the begin- ning of a new peaceful world order, the world hoped that an old problem of geopolitics could finally be fully addressed by the International Law, a problem which the Athenian General Thucydides observed already more than 2000 years ago, according to which in the realm of the international, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. In this new world order right was supposed to finally come before might.
Topic:
International Law, Political Theory, and Geopolitics
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
The present study aims to develop an analysis of how the fast-changing geopolitics and geoeconomics of East Asia impacts current and potential trends in cross-regional economic cooperation, with a focus on Latin America. The paper revolves around three anchor trends: i. The Economic Transformation of East Asia; ii. Security and Cooperation in the Pacific; and iii. Mega-Agreements. For each of these areas, the study provides a succinct yet analytical overview of current debates by incorporating both Western and non-Western perspectives from academe and policy.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Geopolitics, and Global Political Economy
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
In December 2015, members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) gathered in Paris at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP). Expectations regarding the Conference were high: having failed to agree on a legally binding treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol at COP 15, in Copenhagen, when expectations were very high because of the new climate friendly presidency of Obama and the possibility of a shift in the Chinese position, and in 2012, when the first commitment period of the Protocol expired, members settled COP 21 as the new deadline. Achievements of the Conference, especially the Paris Agreement, will be judged differently depending from the point of view.
Topic:
Climate Change, International Cooperation, and International Affairs
What are the arguments for and against centralisation of insurance supervision? What would be the scope of a possible insurance union, and what would the legal basis be? How rapid should the move to insurance union be? This Policy Brief sets out to answer these questions.
Vladimir Putin delivered his Annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly at St. George’s Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace on December 1. The state-of-the- nation address is regarded as a major speech over a 12-month period. It usually recounts the progress and outlines national priorities and the development agenda for the near future. This format is not unique1, but it tends to command attention of the general public at home and abroad as well as of parliamentarians to whom, judging by its very name, it is addressed.
Topic:
International Relations, International Cooperation, International Security, and International Affairs
Vyacheslav Volodin was elected as head of the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s Parliamentary Assembly during the 9th Plenary Session of the CSTO’s PA in St. Petersburg on November 24th. Thus concludes a relatively fast and interesting transition personally for the influential Volodin, who in just three months has gone from the first deputy chief of President Putin’s staff in the Kremlin to being elected to the Russian Duma from his native Saratov to quickly becoming that body’s Speaker, officially putting him fourth in line in terms of Russian political power, behind the President, Prime Minister, and speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the national parliament.
Topic:
International Affairs, Political Theory, and Political Power Sharing