scholarly journals How To Start A War: Eight Cases of Strategic Provocation

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 66 ◽  
Author(s):  
JD Maddox
Keyword(s):  
International Institutions ◽  
International Community ◽  
Basic Pattern ◽  
Self Defense

A leader intent on starting a war must develop a compelling narrative for their domestic constituency and the international community.  For some, strategic provocation – defined here as the use of deceptive tactics to instigate violence against one's own state – has been a reliable means of initiating war under the guise of self-defense. Eight cases of strategic provocation reveal a basic pattern of its use, and some possibly unwelcome truths about state leaders' methods.  As international institutions increasingly scrutinize states' interventionist agendas, the use of deceptive narratives is likely to continue. Despite known indicators of strategic provocation operations, warning of such operations has not typically prevented warfare.

Introduction

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith G. Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Process Monitoring ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Political Process ◽  
International Community ◽  
Election Monitoring

This introductory chapter discusses the credibility of international institutions and the methods the international community uses to promote good domestic governance. It asks about whether international election monitors improve the quality of elections. Given the logistical and political challenges to their efforts to assess elections, skeptics would have plenty of reasons to question claims that monitoring organizations could actually influence the behavior of politicians in any way. Theoretically, monitors may be able to improve elections through several mechanisms. Yet, as early critics noted, international election monitoring organizations are highly complicated actors and monitoring is a complex undertaking. By injecting themselves into the domestic political process, monitoring organizations raise many questions about their conduct and effects and, by extension, about the motivations of the international actors who sponsor them.

scholarly journals International Community’s Approach to Western Balkans: In Search of Stability and Security

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (85) ◽  
pp. 64-88
Author(s):  
Janez Juvan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
International Community ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Stability

Abstract The article presents research on the international community’s engagement in the countries of the Western Balkans in the past and their possible approach in the future. The focus of our research is on the functioning of mechanisms through which the international community performs certain tasks in the region. These interventions are primarily political, in the form of conferences, political programmes, consultations, pressures and continuous persuasion. Economic initiatives follow afterwards. By using different reform approaches, international institutions try to improve cooperation with the European Union (EU) and countries such as the USA, Russia, Turkey and China. Our research attempts to identify possible methods and new solutions for individual cases of conflict in Western Balkans countries, especially where the international community is actively involved. On this basis, we created a more holistic approach. The application of these measures could make the necessary reforms of the future easier. Our approach emphasises all the elements of security that are essential to the stability of the region and for the prevention of conflicts in the future.

Are New Principles Really Needed? The Potential of the Established Distinction Between Responsibility for Attacks by Nonstate Actors and the Law of Self-Defense

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 576-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Hmoud
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Community ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
Legal Policy ◽  
Legal Response ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
State Practice

Daniel Bethlehem’s note on self-defense principles is intended to stimulate debate on one of the most contentious issues facing the international community today, namely, the legal response to imminent or actual terrorist attacks by nonstate actors. The note contains a set of principles that are sensitive to the practical realities of the circumstances that it addresses. But it is also intended to take up a legal policy matter—to create or amend principles of international law related to the use of armed force in dealing with threats from nonstate actors. To create or amend these principles, there must be clear evidence and sufficient state practice, or at least opinio juris, pointing toward the change of existing rules or the creation of new rules to “fill the gap.” The whole balance in international law among the various rights, obligations, and interests of international actors will be compromised if the notion of self-defense is to be expanded beyond its legitimate limitations. As illustrated below by some basic examples drawn from the existing law of self-defense, there is sufficient flexibility in the current legal order to allow for the lawful exercise of self-defense in response to most situations of armed terrorist attacks.

Part 5 Emerging Constitutions in Islamic Countries, 5.8 Constitutional Legitimacy in Iraq: What Role Local Context?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Al-Ali Zaid
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
International Community ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The Future ◽  
Constitutional Legitimacy ◽  
Parliamentary Oversight

This chapter explores how it can be that, despite the attention of international institutions and experts in a particular constitutional process, and despite the application of international norms relating to democratic processes and fundamental rights, a constitutional process can give rise to a text that is incapable of achieving acceptance within the relevant country's borders. It argues that local context is the most important factor that should be considered if a constitution is to have any chance of acquiring some form of internal legitimacy in the future. The chapter begins by defining constitutional legitimacy and by arguing that although the 2006 Constitution has been endorsed by the international community, it was essentially dead on arrival in Iraq. It presents two case studies, to explain how this situation was brought about. The first shows how the drafters' lack of understanding of Iraq's institutional context led to the collapse of its system of parliamentary oversight under the 2006 Constitution, while the second shows how the constitutional drafters (and the internationals who advised and guided the constitutional process) had misjudged the relative popularity of the parties that were allowed to control the drafting process and that dictated the final text's content. Finally, the chapter attempts define the meaning of “local context” and identify its different components, particularly with a view to encouraging greater attention and understanding of local considerations and interests by all parties involved in a constitutional process in the future.

(Re)Building Afghanistan: The Folly of Stateless Democracy

2004 ◽  
Vol 103 (672) ◽  
pp. 165-170
Author(s):  
Barnett R. Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Joint Action ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
International Community ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
Common Goals

Unlike Iraq, in Afghanistan an international consensus supports common goals for the entire operation, providing a test of whether the ‘international community’ is capable of effective joint action to make societies secure, even when their insecurity threatens the whole world. So far the results indicate that governments and international institutions are not up to the job.

The International Community's Responsibility to Protect

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Glanville
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
International Community ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Regional Organisations

AbstractThe concept of the responsibility to protect (R2P) holds that not only do sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their populations, but so too does the international community. The international community is said to be responsible for encouraging and assisting states to protect and also for taking collective action to enforce the protection of populations in instances where states fail to carry out their obligations. This idea that the international community itself bears not merely a right but a responsibility to protect, through military intervention if necessary, is perhaps the most novel aspect of the R2P concept, and it would seem to have extraordinary implications. Yet it remains largely under-examined. In this article, I consider how the notion that the international community bears a responsibility to protect might be fruitfully understood and conceptualised. After briefly outlining from where this idea has emerged, I consider two interrelated questions: What kind of responsibility is it – moral, legal, or political, or some combination of the three? And who in particular bears the responsibility – the international community broadly speaking, particular international institutions such as the Security Council, regional organisations, or individual states?

Beyond "Activism-Lite"?: Issues in Japanese Participation in Peace Operations

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 72-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiyuki Aoi
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
International Community ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Institutional Issues

AbstractThis article discusses legal, political, and institutional issues arising out of Japan's past involvement in international peace and stability missions. Seeking to identify potential strengths and limitations, it focuses on the experience and features of the international missions of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Although the JSDF has proved successful in conducting its assignments on a tactical level, some of the limitations inherent in the JSDF modus operandi—to a large extent imposed by domestic legal system—are nonetheless serious in light of changing operational environments. These limitations are due to lack of consensus in the Japanese political debate on what constitutes the strategic priorities of Japanese security, as well as the indeterminate public attitudes towards these issues. It should be noted, however, that the resulting "activism lite" approach is increasingly untenable if Japan is to remain a credible ally and partner in the international community.

Selfless Intervention

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-63
Author(s):  
Cedric Ryngaert
Keyword(s):  
International Institutions ◽  
International Community ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Unilateral Action ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Common Interests

This chapter fleshes out how unilateral, ‘extraterritorial’ action could be justifiable. The starting point of the analysis is that, in light of institutional failures to protect common interests adequately, unilateral action may at times be necessary to dispense global corrective justice. The author ascertains whether there is such a thing as an ‘international community’, and whether individual states rather than international institutions can be entrusted with ‘selfless’ jurisdictional powers. While acknowledging the risk of self-serving behaviour, the author is inclined to support benevolent unilateralism as the alternative—no action—may be worse. He argues that the justification of such unilateralism should be sought in a reinterpretation of the notion of sovereignty, as well as in the substantive values supposedly furthered by unilateral action.

Justice and Recognizing the Rights of States

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 874-900
Author(s):  
Steve Viner
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
International Community ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
International Laws ◽  
State Rights

In this article, I reject Allen Buchanan's justice-based account of recognizing states as legitimate states in an international community of states. I argue that his account can fail to implement justice and that it does not properly consider the nature or importance of international law. After rejecting Buchanan's approach, I offer my account. My account calls for the unbundling of state rights, and it allows each state right to be subject to moral and legal scrutiny. My unbundling account subjects the rights of states to morally justified international laws, and it supports the conclusion that sovereignty and legitimacy should be seen in degrees. It also provides a framework for thinking about how, why and when, morally speaking, international institutions should have the power to grant or withhold legal rights from states.

scholarly journals The Importance of Diplomacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-114
Author(s):  
Dalma Nemeskéri ◽  
Iván Zádori
Keyword(s):  
International Institutions ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
International Community ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Chinese Nation ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic

After the de facto separation of China in 1949, the international community was divided on the issue which government represents the Chinese nation as a whole. Until the 1970s the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan maintained its seat in the UN, and formal ties to a significant number of countries. However, by the end of this decade, in 1980, Taipei government was left with merely 22 diplomatic allies. Our article focuses on the position of Taiwan after this shift, examining the regime’s perception of the effects of recognition and derecognition. As the Taipei government has put significant efforts into the preservation (and expansion) of diplomatic relations with states that are not considered globally influential, we examined what possible effects and consequences these ties can have on the international legal status of the entity. It has to be noted that for this purpose, only the official relations, and diplomatic allies of the ROC were considered. After describing the diplomatic activities of Taiwan, and the shifts in the number of its diplomatic allies (between 1988–2020), we found three main areas which are positively affected by these ties. They provide basis for the regime’s claim to sovereignty and statehood, and they enhance Taiwanese presence in international institutions (and indicate the unresolved nature of the entity’s international legal status). Most importantly, they help to maintain the international nature of the cross-strait conflict and contribute to preserve the status quo.

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