Internationalizing the Western Liberal Constitution

Author(s):  
Vijayashri Sripati

This chapter traces United Nations Constitutional Assistance’s historical origins non-chronologically through Ralph Wilde’s family of Foreign Territorial Administration (FTA) policy institutions. It reveals that the following entities internationalized the Western liberal constitution: States, groups of state groups of state representatives, and the League of Nations (including the Permanent Mandates Commission. These predecessors of the UN did so to achieve four common ends: free markets, the rule of law, good governance (including natural resources’ exploitation), and civilized standards, aimed at emancipating women. This chapter establishes that the Constitution gives rise to, and works with each of Wilde’s FTA or international territorial administration, ITA institutions toward common ends. Wilde’s Family reflects the conceptual relations that Chapter 2 established. Wilde’s Family comprises symbiotic parent-child Policy Institutions: The Constitution’s internationalized making and FTA/ITA. On this basis, this chapter argues that Wilde’s Family must be reframed to admit the former: The Parent policy institution.

Author(s):  
Vijayashri Sripati

This book asks: Why has the UN empowered itself to offer constitutional assistance in sovereign Third World states? This Chapter, which draws from the UN’s official explanations completes the answer. It shows that since its birth in 1949, UNCA has: a) assisted colonies and/or sovereign states adopt what is central to colonial trusteeship: the Western liberal constitution; b) worked in response to perceived problems with their constitution-making process and the type of constitutional content they create; c) worked to achieve four ostensible ends: free markets, the rule of law, good governance (including natural resources exploitation), and civilized customs, and their modern equivalent: women’s rights; d) served ostensibly to civilize/ ‘modernize’ Third World peoples, in market-oriented ways, with a view to either manufacture their sovereignty, or ‘strengthen’ it. In these ways, since its birth, UNCA has acted as international trusteeship. Therefore, so does its child: UN/International Territorial Administration. This chapter concludes that UNCA has spawned a new civilized standard: participatory constitution-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-572
Author(s):  
Emil W. Pływaczewski

For over 65 years, the United Nations has held congresses aimed at strengthening international cooperation against expanding crime. The First Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders took place in Geneva in 1955. Sixty-six years later, in 2021, this tradition continued, postponed by the Covid-19 epidemic, as the Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice took place in the former capital of Japan — Kyoto. The aim of the paper is to present the most important achievements of all 14 congresses, especially focusing on the development of UN standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice. The author also presents the history of the participation and activities of Polish participants of the Congresses (official delegates and individual experts) in the years 1960–2021. The general conclusion is that the institution of the UN Crime Congresses is a major high-level forum to steer the development of the rule of law, to promote global security and good governance, and to improve the response to crime.


Author(s):  
Vijayashri Sripati

This chapter analyses United Nations Constitutional Assistance’s post-1989 rise, setting the stage for Chapter 6. It traces the Constitution’s internationalization from 1950, focussing on its conceptualization after 1989, as a rule of law strategy, and from 1999 onwards, as a ‘development’ understood as a ‘market-oriented poverty reduction’ strategy. It establishes that the Constitution, so conceptualized by the UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions was promoted in two contexts: post-conflict and development assistance. It was promoted ostensibly to achieve international law and policy ends: free markets, good governance, the rule of law and women’s rights. How the UN Development Programme melds constitutional assistance with development assistance to achieve international law and policy ends, receives focal attention. This chapter concludes that the good governance story is not about the promotion of the ‘rule of law’ or ‘development.’ Rather, it is about the internationalization of the Constitution subsumed under the ‘rule of law.’


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-422
Author(s):  
Christiane Ahlborn

Abstract This contribution discusses how the United Nations (UN) adapted to the working conditions under the COVID-19 pandemic while respecting the rule of law and good governance at different levels. The article first examines what the rule of law means in the UN context. On this basis, the article then considers the different COVID-19-related emergency measures taken by the UN with a focus on four of the UN principal organs: the Secretariat, the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the International Court of Justice. Overall, the UN has succeeded in maintaining public trust, including the trust of its member states, in responding to and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic because it continued to respect standards of good governance and the rule of law during the pandemic. Moreover, the UN has learned important lessons that will allow it to adapt even better to future emergencies.


2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-132
Author(s):  
Steven Westervelt ◽  
Bibi van Ginkel

AbstractThe United Nations established a counterterrorism mechanism in the form of the Counterterrorism Committee when it adopted Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001). The Committee has so far worked with regional organizations and individual states in capacity building efforts to augment local counterterrorism abilities. However, ethical bottlenecks remain. The problem of ethics arises when laws lack legitimacy regarding criminality and state power and when they diverge from the rule of law and good governance. Regional organizations are keenly placed to ensure that states adopt legitimate counterterrorism measures, thus avoiding ethical bottlenecks. By working with states to maintain the moral high ground, regional organizations such as the OSCE can prevent unnecessary compromises between human rights and security.


Author(s):  
Vijayashri Sripati

This is the first and the shorter of two chapters that establishes United Nations Constitutional Assistance’s (UNCA) historical background. UNCA equates to the internationalization of the Western liberal Constitution which provides a blue print for territorial administration. This chapter, therefore, provides the historical context in which the Constitution’s conceptual ties with territorial administration were forged. It establishes that from 1700-1960, Western colonial powers imposed the Constitution to establish foreign territorial administration to achieve common ends: free markets, rule of law, good governance, and civilized practices. In this way, Colonial powers colonized Third World peoples, ostensibly acting as trustees to ‘civilize’ them. This sets the stage for tracing UNCA’s origins non-chronologically (in the next chapter) through Ralph Wilde’s Family of Foreign Territorial Administration (FTA) policy institutions, of which Colonialism is the first.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-104
Author(s):  
Rustam Magun Pikahulan

Abstract: The Plato's conception of the rule of law states that good governance is based on good law. The organization also spreads to the world of Supreme Court justices, the election caused a decadence to the institutional status of the House of Representatives as a people's representative in the government whose implementation was not in line with the decision of the Constitutional Court. Based on the decision of the Constitutional Court No.27/PUU-XI/2013 explains that the House of Representatives no longer has the authority to conduct due diligence and suitability (elect) to prospective Supreme Judges proposed by the Judicial Commission. The House of Representatives can only approve or disapprove candidates for Supreme Court Justices that have been submitted by the Judicial Commission. In addition, the proportion of proposed Supreme Court Justices from the judicial commission to the House of Representatives (DPR) has changed, whereas previously the Judicial Commission had to propose 3 (three) of each vacancy for the Justices, now it is only one of each vacant for Supreme Court Judges. by the Supreme Court. The House of Representatives no longer has the authority to conduct due diligence and suitability (elect) to prospective Supreme Judges proposed by the Judicial Commission. The House of Representatives can only "approve" or "disagree" the Supreme Judge candidates nominated by the Judicial Commission.


Author(s):  
Henk Addink

The pivotal aim of this book is to explain the creation, development, and impact of good governance from a conceptual, principal perspective and in the context of national administrative law. Three lines of reasoning have been worked out: developing the concept of good governance; specification of this concept by developing principles of good governance; and implementation of these principles of good governance on the national level. In this phase of further development of good governance, it is important to have a clear concept of good governance, presented in this book as the third cornerstone of a modern state, alongside the concepts of the rule of law and democracy. That is a rather new national administrative law perspective which is influenced by regional and international legal developments; thus, we can speak about good governance as a multilevel concept. But the question is: how is this concept of good governance further developed? Six principles of good governance (which in a narrower sense also qualify as principles of good administration) have been further specified in a systematic way, from a legal perspective. These are the principles of properness, transparency, participation, effectiveness, accountability, and human rights. Furthermore, the link has been made with integrity standards. The important developments of each of these principles are described on the national level in Europe, but also in countries outside Europe (such as Australia, Canada, and South Africa). This book gives a systematic comparison of the implementation of the principles of good governance between countries.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-74
Author(s):  
Korwa G. Adar

There is nothing more fundamental to Africans who are concerned with the future of the African continent than the issues of democracy, human rights, good governance, and the rule of law. These basic human liberties, among other concerns, constitute the central driving force behind what is often referred to as Africa’s “second liberation.” The primary purpose of this article is to assess the Clinton administration’s role in this second liberation, particularly in terms of its involvement in issues of democracy and human rights. This assessment is offered from the perspective of an individual who has been directly involved in the prodemocracy and human rights movement in Kenya. This article focuses on whether the Clinton administration’s policies are still heavily influenced by classic U.S. conceptions of realpolitik, or if enlightened leadership more in line with a neo-Wilsonian idealpolitik—as official rhetoric suggests—has permitted a fundamental departure in favor of a more coherent and tangible democracy and human rights foreign policy stance in the post-Cold War era.


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