International Relations Commons^™

The Emergence Of A Standards Market: Multiplicity Of Sustainability Standards In The Global Coffee Industry, Juliane Reinecke, Stephan Manning, Oliver Von Hagen

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

The growing number of voluntary standards for governing transnational arenas is presenting standards organizations with a problem. While claiming that they are pursuing shared, overarching objectives, at the same time, they are promoting their own respective standards that are increasingly similar. By developing the notion of ‘standards markets,’ this paper examines this tension and studies how different social movement and industry-driven standards organizations compete as well as collaborate over governance in transnational arenas. Based on an in-depth case study of sustainability standards in the global coffee industry, we find that the ongoing co-existence of multiple standards is being promoted by …

National Contexts Matter: The Co-Evolution Of Sustainability Standards In Global Value Chains, Stephan Manning, Frank Boons, Oliver Von Hagen, Juliane Reinecke

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

In this paper, we investigate the role of key industry and other stakeholders and their embeddedness in particular national contexts in driving the proliferation and co-evolution of sustainability standards, based on the case of the global coffee industry. We find that institutional conditions and market opportunity structures in consuming countries have been important sources of standards variation, for example in the cases of Fairtrade, UTZ Certified and the Common Code for the Coffee Community (4C). In turn, supplier structures in producing countries as well as their linkages with traders and buyers targeting particular consuming countries have been key mechanisms of …

The Implications Of Water Insecurity For Fragile And Failing States: The Case Of Pakistan, Jennifer Norins

Graduate Masters Theses

As we become more firmly established in the 21st century, the international system faces a number of increasingly more difficult challenges that pose threats to global security and human progress. Among these challenges, water scarcity and failing states have each received prominent attention in both the academic and policy realms. Water serves a number of critical purposes for human survival and socio-economic activity. The threat of water scarcity is becoming increasingly salient and the capacity of states to ensure water security, and other securities which water security supports, is being tested. Fragile and failing states also occupy significant space in …

Summary Report: Workshop On International Environmental Governance: Grounding Policy Reform In Rigorous Analysis, Center For Governance And Sustainability At Umass Boston

Center for Governance and Sustainability Publications

From June 27 to 28, 2011, the Federal Office for the Environment of Switzerland, the Global Environmental Governance Project of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern hosted a workshop on International Environmental Governance: Grounding Policy Reform in Rigorous Analysis. The workshop started a dialogue between academics and researchers on one hand and policymakers on the other in order to provide analytical input to the political negotiations on institutional reform in the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012.

The workshop focused …

Global Governance In The 21st Century: Rethinking The Environmental Pillar, Maria Ivanova

Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance Faculty Publication Series

The United Nations was created in 1945 without an environmental body. Almost thirty years later, in 1972, governments established UNEP. Twenty years later, in the early 1990s, when rethinking the institutional arrangements, they created the Global Environment Facility and the Commission on Sustainable Development, as well as several core conventions (on climate, biodiversity and desertification). Despite the attempts to bring about further governance reform over the last decade, however, progress has been limited. While governance discussions continued, they were never explicitly on the political agenda. Now, for the first time since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, a clear political opportunity …

Oil. China And Oil In The Asian Pacific Region: Rising Demand For Oil, Pablo Bustelo

New England Journal of Public Policy

China’s growing demand for oil is significantly changing the international geopolitics of energy, especially in the Asian Pacific region. The recent growth in oil consumption, combined with forecasts of increased oil imports (especially from the Middle East), have led to deep concern among Chinese leaders regarding their country’s energy security. They are responding in a number of different ways. In particular, they are searching for new sources of supply and seeking to control purchases and transport lanes, while boosting national production at any cost. This is already causing tension with the United States and other big oil consumers, such as …

Fueling The Superpowers: Nexus Of Foreign Policy And Energy Security, Jack Blum

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article talks about the oil history and the role government and international politics has played in it.

Water. The Geopolitics Of Water, Paul Michael Wihbey, Ilan Berman

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the great geo-strategic game known as the Middle East, peace politics get much of the press and the attention of policy leaders. On occasion, oil takes center stage but often for the wrong reason (see, e.g., "The End of the Oil Era and the Price of Oil"). What is important to understand is that water is in fact the key strategic resource in the region and if you follow the flow of water, you'll follow the politics and policy machinations that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Syrian dialogue. IASPS Fellow in Strategy Paul Michael Wihbey co-authored an analysis …

Fueling The Superpowers: What Role For Iran?, Hossein Askari

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article by Hossein Askari is taken from the proceedings of the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2005

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy that deals with issues of climate change, oil, and water and the interconnection of the three with the future of the planet.

Initially our topic was conceived as “Oil & Water” only. We planned to present the proceedings of an Institute for Global Leadership symposium held at Tufts University in 2005. There was then still a debate about global warming, although the Kyoto Treaty was in place. But without the world’s preeminent manufacturer of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the United States (20 percent of the total emissions with 5 percent …

Oil. The Geopolitics Of Oil And Natural Gas, Alan Larson

New England Journal of Public Policy

Ensuring the reliability of global energy supplies will call for policies that both encourage the use of newer, cleaner energy technologies and address the political challenges posed by the world’s growing demand for oil and natural gas. U.S. policy seeks to encourage expansion and diversification of world energy supplies and to promote the transparency and democratic institutions that help energy-producing countries make the most productive use of their resources.

Fueling The Superpowers: Russia As A Player In World Energy, Theresa Sabonis-Helf

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article by Theresa Sabonis-Helf is taken from the proceedings of the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2005

Fueling The Superpowers: Potential Hazard For U.S.-China Relations, Travis Tanner

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article by Travis Tanner is taken from the proceedings of the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2005

Oil. Geopolitics Reborn: Oil, Natural Gas, And Other Vital Resources, Michael T. Klare

New England Journal of Public Policy

Competition over vital resources is a potent source of international friction among nations and within states. The result is the increasing interplay of international and internal struggles and the growing militarization of the global energy resource quest.

The War On Terror, Gwyn Prins, Stanley Heginbotham, John Cooley, Steven Van Evera, Jack Blum, Jonathan Schell

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents comments (from the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004) concerning the war on terror; concern on the problem about terrorism; elaboration on the claim that the world is not in a global war on terror; and problems of the use and abuse of the word terrorism.

One Morning In Morocco, Eli Mechanic

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents the journal of an American student studying in Morocco based on his firsthand experiences on how Arabs viewed the Iraq war from January to May 2003. Lesson learned on March 20, 2003 where he felt the anger of Arab people upon seeing an American; Excitement of Arabs upon hearing news about dead Americans; Realization of the Moroccans on the cruelty of the Americans.

We Were Allies Once: Lessons Of D Day, 1944, Nigel Hamilton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nigel Hamilton swivels the century around the pivot of the massive cooperation and collaboration between the United States and its allies during World War II. In the early years, European and British troops suffered a series of discouraging defeats by the Nazis, and then when the United States entered the war the great collaboration among the allies was instrumental in achieving victory in Europe. This joint effort of nations continued for a time with such institutions as the UN and NATO and other international bodies. The war in Iraq ruptured the alliance. American unilateralism has distinguished most of the debacle …

The Role Of The United Nations In A Unipolar World, Brian Urquart, Michael Glennon

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents comments on issues concerning the role of the United Nations in a unipolar world system. Discussion on the issue concerning the failure of the Security Council to reach unanimity on the occupation of Iraq and the regime change; Views on preventive war; Information on several problems encountered by the UN wherein their actions are considered irrelevant. From the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004.

Rhetoric Or Reality Exporting Democracy To The Middle East, Marina Ottoway, Andrew Hess, Naomi Chazan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Focuses on the promotion of democracy to the Middle East. Capacity of the U.S. to promote democracy in the Middle East; Discussion on the claim that spreading democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is influenced by rhetorical flourish designed to impress American audiences; Assumption that the American brand of democracy is at a high price. From the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004.

The Pulse Of War: Writing A Response, Kevin Bowen, Tony Aiello, Chris Agee, Almira El-Zein, Fred Marchant, Carolyn Forché, Fanny Howe

New England Journal of Public Policy

Introduction and a series of articles and poetry concerning the war on terror being imposed by the U.S., and more.

Writes Kevin Bowen:

One year into the war in Iraq, the ugliness of the undertaking has become more and more inescapable. If anything, the experience has reaffirmed a few simple facts that deserve reiteration. There is no such thing as an easily winnable war. There is no such thing as a humane war. In every war, long after the fighting ends, peace will remain elusive, and memories of suffering will endure through generations.

Of course we knew all this before. …

Truth Under Fire: The War And The Media, Gary S. Messinger

New England Journal of Public Policy

Over the last hundred years, the relationship between war and mass communication has become increasingly elaborate. Governments and private-sector organizations have found more and more ways to use the media in wartime, and the range of available technologies has expanded to include print, film, radio, television, and the Internet. The system that exists today, at the start of the twenty-first century, is the product of many twists and turns over the decades: an accretion of some strategies for wartime use of mass communication and a rejection of others. An understanding of this evolution is a starting point for crafting policies …

Cruel Science: Cia Torture And U.S. Foreign Policy, Alfred W. Mccoy

New England Journal of Public Policy

The roots of the recent Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal lie in CIA torture techniques that have metastasized inside the U.S. intelligence community for the past fifty years. A contradictory U.S. foreign policy marked by both public opposition to torture and secret propagation of its practice has influenced American response to UN treaties, shaped federal anti-torture statutes, and produced a succession of domestic political scandals. After a crash research effort in the 1950s, the CIA developed a revolutionary new paradigm of psychological torture and then, for the next thirty years, disseminated it to allies worldwide. After September 11, the U.S. media …

A Bloody Tradition: Ethnic Cleansing In World War Ii Yugoslavia, Paul Bookbinder

New England Journal of Public Policy

When World War II began, a climate for mass violence already existed. The author examines the history of ethnic cleansing, cultural cleansing, mass murder, and genocide in Yugoslavia – Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hertzegovena, and Kosovo – and finds that the historical atrocities are alive in active memory today. With a new awareness of the consequences of ethnic hatred, people can study their own histories cleansed of myth and nationalist delusions so that wars that unleash ethnic violence can be stopped before these excesses erupt.

Intervening In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Strategy And Its Risks, David Matz

New England Journal of Public Policy

The primary problem in reaching a peaceful arrangement between the Israelis and the Palestinians is that a significant number of people on both sides reject dividing the land between the Mediterranean and Jordan (the two-state solution), and neither local government (not the Israelis nor the Palestinians) can control their own rejectionists. As long as any "solution" assumes that the local governments will be able to confront these rejectionists, that plan will fail. The only way around this is with the use of an international coalition composed, at least, of the United States, the EU, the UN, and Arab countries. The …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the months preceding the U.S. presidential election in November 2004, George Bush and John Kerry conducted what passed for a serious debate on U.S. foreign policy, especially the rationale for the war in Iraq and on the state of the "war on terror." It was easy to lose sight of the primary purpose of these two special issues of the New England Journal of Public Policy on war. So I should, perhaps, remind our readers.

The question posed was: what lessons can we draw from the wars and conflicts of the twentieth century that might help us to take …

Weapons Of Mass Destruction & Public International Law, Michael Donlan

New England Journal of Public Policy

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) into the hands of rogue dictators and terrorists has brought a sea change in strategic international relations, and is accelerating the necessity of public international law to protect humanity. Traditional balances of power have little force left to deter WMD. Major powers must seriously revamp and proactively exploit public international law, and, to that end, bolster multilateral institutions to marshal an action plan to leash this unacceptable risk. Leadership is needed on three levels: 1) promote a new mission for public international law to address WMD; 2) muster a broad-based coalition of …

Power And Freedom/I Am Right; You Are Dead, Wole Soyinka

New England Journal of Public Policy

Focuses on issues concerning political power and freedom. Discussion on the concept of quasi-state; Disadvantages of having a quasi-state; Importance of the experience of Algeria in post-colonial reconstruction on the developmental transformation of African nations; Need to accept the factor of power as an unquantifiable element governing social and nation relationships.

The Responsibility To Protect, Romeo Dallaire

New England Journal of Public Policy

From the EPIIC Symposium, Sovereignty & Intervention, at Tufts University in February 2003: Focuses on the responsibility to protect humanity. Experiences during the Rwandan catastrophe; Resolvability of humanitarian catastrophes with security problems; Several ways on how to intervene in the problem.

Genocide: What Do We Want It To Be?, Alan A. Ryan Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

The definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention has been universally accepted, in the statutes of the ad hoc international tribunals and the International Criminal Court, but it conceals a host of ambiguities. Sociologists, political scientists, and others have not devised any legally adequate substitute. This article proposes a non-linear definition of genocide, that is, a definition that takes into account the presence or absence of several factors, rather than one that attempts to generalize the crime of genocide. It disregards the motives or objectives of the perpetrator, sheds the secondary phenomena that often accompany genocide (such as dehumanization of …

The Role Of The Military, General William Nash, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Gwyn Prins

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents comments (from the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004) on the issue concerning the role of the U.S. military on their citizens; Concern on defining victory in the war on terror; Discussion on the relationship between the political objectives of the U.S. grand strategy and how they employ a military instrument; Views on the role of the military force.