scholarly journals International Organizations: Enablers or Impediments for Authoritarian International Law?

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 226-231
Author(s):  
Cassandra V. Emmons
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
The Cold War

International organizations (IOs) provide space for the exchange of ideas. Particularly since the Cold War ended, many expected that this exchange would inevitably lead to more democratization and liberalization around the globe. Instead, some of the largest non-democratic actors on the global stage have functioned within these organizations for decades without liberalizing, while others joined as full or newly transitioned democracies just to see those qualities slowly erode. As Tom Ginsburg's recent article concludes, today's autocrats might instead use international law—including the legal apparatus of IOs—to further their own authoritarian agendas. This essay engages with Ginsburg's thoughtful piece by suggesting that IOs both enable and resist the emergence of “Authoritarian International Law” (AIL). Creating or joining IOs is a costly but attractive strategy for revisionist states since members equally influence IO evolution. Fortunately for democracy's advocates, IOs are usually status quo entities, and liberalism is deeply embedded in many existing today. Cross-temporal observations of changes in IO membership, members’ regime types, and IO features beyond the founding documents are needed to fully understand how organizations simultaneously perform these paradoxical functions.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 26 The US Hostage Rescue Operation in Iran—1980

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Forteau Mathias ◽  
Ying Xiu Alison See
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Rescue Operation ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

The present contribution discusses the US hostage recuse operation in Iran in 1980. After the presentation of the relevant facts and context of the (eventually aborted) operation, including the official positions of the US and Iran as publicly expressed at that time, the present contribution assesses the legality of the operation, taking into account the reactions of other states and competent international organizations. The legality of the operation is assessed under Article 2(4) and 51 of the UN Charter and other possible exceptions under customary international law such as self-help. It concludes that it is doubtful that the operation was in conformity with international law.

Beyond Srebrenica and Haiti

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 588-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Schrijver
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Member States ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War, international organizations have frequently called upon their member States to respect the principles of good governance and international law. Increasingly, however, questions are raised concerning the behaviour of international organizations themselves and whether their own practice corresponds to what they expect from their member States. In other words: do organizations practise what they preach? Since many international organizations aim to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, it is reasonable to consider the extent to which these organizations respect such rights and freedoms themselves. Given the immunity of the United Nations, this paper examines some alternative legal procedures for the settlement of claims against the United Nations, taking into consideration contemporary international principles in relation to access to court, due process and reparation. It concludes with a number of recommendations.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 33 The Israeli Raid Against the PLO Headquarters in Tunis—1985

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pobjie Erin ◽  
Declercq Fanny ◽  
van Steenberghe Raphaël
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Self Defence

This chapter examines the Israeli raid against the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) headquarters in Tunis in 1985. It first sets out the facts and context of the raid, the positions of the main protagonists (Israel and Tunisia) and the reactions of third States and international organizations. The chapter then analyses the legal issues raised by the incident under international law as it stood at the time, and its impact on the jus ad bellum. The 1985 raid was an early example of a claimed right to exercise self-defence in response to attacks committed by non-state actors without those attacks being attributable to the state on whose territory the action in self-defence takes place. However, it is argued that this incident left unsettled whether or not such a right was accepted at the time.

Global Development

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Lorenzini
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

In the Cold War, “development” was a catchphrase that came to signify progress, modernity, and economic growth. Development aid was closely aligned with the security concerns of the great powers, for whom infrastructure and development projects were ideological tools for conquering hearts and minds around the globe, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Latin America. This book provides a global history of development, drawing on a wealth of archival evidence to offer a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a Cold War phenomenon that transformed the modern world. Taking readers from the aftermath of the Second World War to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the book shows how development projects altered local realities, transnational interactions, and even ideas about development itself. The book shines new light on the international organizations behind these projects—examining their strategies and priorities and assessing the actual results on the ground—and it also gives voice to the recipients of development aid. It shows how the Cold War shaped the global ambitions of development on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and how international organizations promoted an unrealistically harmonious vision of development that did not reflect local and international differences. The book presents a global perspective on Cold War development, demonstrating how its impacts are still being felt today.

Prawo okupacji a międzynarodowe budowanie państwa: mój przyjaciel wróg

2016 ◽  
pp. 7-38
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Gil
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
State Building ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
Jus Post Bellum ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
Imperial Politics ◽  
The Hague ◽  
The Cold War

Following the end of the cold war, the incidence of statebuilding interventions has visibly increased in the case of dysfunctional (failed) states. Today, such interventionism in a good faith promotes liberal values and is believed to be in line with international legal regimes that makes it distinctive from neo-imperial politics. Even if state-building does not generally refer to regular warfare, it often takes analogous forms to occupation, which was codified in jus in bello at the beginning of the XXth century. While the occupation law requires occupants to maintain status quo on the occupying territory (article 43 of Hague Regulations), armed state-building is transformative by definition that seems to undermine conservative provisions of the former. The article presents traditional criteria for occupation in the Hague and Geneva conventions as well as prospects and limitations of its refinement (jus post bellum). In theory, such a redefinition could launch the formulation of the statebuilding regime, which aims to reduce deficits or double-standards in international state-building by focusing on the interests of local stakeholders of transformative projects. Hence, the Author addresses three interlocking issues: occupation within state-building, the occupation law and state-building, and transformative occupation as state-building.

On the Road to Vienna

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Bruns
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
The Road ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

This chapter focuses on the negotiations that preceded the 1961 Vienna Conference (which led to the conclusion of the VCDR). The author challenges the view that the successful codification was an obvious step and refers in this regard to a history of intense negotiation which spanned fifteen years. With particular reference to the International Law Commission (ILC), the chapter explores the difficult task faced by ILC members to strike a balance between the codification of existing practice and progressive development of diplomatic law. It reaches the finding that the ILC negotiations were crucial for the success of the Conference, but notes also that certain States supported a less-binding form of codification. The chapter also underlines the fact that many issues that had caused friction between the Cold War parties were settled during the preparatory meetings and remained largely untouched during the 1961 negotiations.

The Futurists. Experts in World Futures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Way

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.

Regime Type and Political Destabilization in Cross-National Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Slinko ◽  
Stanislav Bilyuga ◽  
Julia Zinkina ◽  
Andrey Korotayev
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
The Cold War

In this article, we re-analyze the hypothesis that the relationship between the type of political regime and its political instability forms an inverted U shape. Following this logic, consistent democracies and autocracies are more stable regimes, whereas intermediate regimes (anocracies) display the lowest levels of political stability. We re-test this hypothesis using a data set that has not been previously used for this purpose, finding sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis pertaining to the aforementioned U-shaped relationship. Our analysis is specifically focused on the symmetry of this U shape, whereby our findings suggest that the U-shaped relationship between regime types and sociopolitical destabilization is typically characterized by an asymmetry, with consistently authoritarian regimes being generally less stable than consolidated democracies. We also find that the character of this asymmetry can change with time. In particular, our re-analysis suggests that U-shaped relationship experienced significant changes after the end of the Cold War. Before the end of the Cold War (1946-1991), the asymmetry of inverted U-shaped relationship was much less pronounced—though during this period consistent authoritarian regimes were already less stable than consolidated democracies, this very difference was only marginally significant. In the period that follows the end of the Cold War (1992-2014), this asymmetry underwent a substantial change: Consolidated democracies became significantly more stable, whereas consolidated autocracies became significantly more unstable. As a result, the asymmetry of the U-shaped relationship has become much more pronounced. The article discusses a number of factors that could account for this change.

a declaration on friendly relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-184
Author(s):  
Gerry Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Cuban Missile Crisis ◽  
John Adams ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter reconstructs, in a descriptive and aspirational mode, lawful friendship through an encounter between the literary figure of ‘the friend’ and an international law of friendly and unfriendly relations. It begins with a gesture of elegiac friendship before locating friendship in an international law of enemies, criminals, pirates and neutrals. It finishes by elaborating a politics of international legal friendship and makes a plea for a tentative, careful friendliness suggested by friendships found in Montaigne, Nietzsche and Derrida, and in three moments of friendship set in the Cold War: one literary (the depiction of friendship in John Adams’ opera, Nixon in China), one an unlikely performance of anti-imperial friendly relations (the friendship between Nehru and Tito, begun in Belgrade) and one epistolary (a letter sent by Nikita Khrushchev to Fidel Castro in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis). Each represents in its rudimentary way a ‘lawful friendship’, a declaration on friendly relations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document