Global Governance
After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order
In this essay, Amitav Acharya argues that as the U.S.-dominated world order comes to an end, liberal values and institutions will not disappear, but will have to coexist and enmesh with the ideas and institutions of the rising powers. This “multiplex world” carries both risks and opportunities for managing international stability.
Rising Powers, Responsibility, and International Society
This article examines statements made by rising powers Brazil, China, and India in UN Security Council meetings between 2011 and 2016 to identify their perspectives on which international actors are responsible and what constitutes responsible action. Gaskarth then analyzes these statements in light of English School theory on responsibility and international society.
Climate Engineering and the Playing God Critique
The “playing God” critique charges that humans should not undertake to control nature in ways that overstep the proper scope of human agency. In this article, Laura M. Hartman explores the way this critique is used with respect to geoengineering, and concludes that climate interventions should be based on contextual awareness and responsive, communal responsibility.
“Utopian in the Right Sense”: The Responsibility to Protect and the Logical Necessity of Reform
In this article, Aidan Hehir writes that claims made about the success of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) echo the pejorative conceptions of “utopianism” as advanced by E. H. Carr and Ken Booth. In order to revive RtoP, Hehir suggests a potential reform of the existing international legal order that meets Carr’s preference for normative thinking that is “utopian in the right sense.”
Yvonne Terlingen on the UN Secretary-General Selection Process
In this interview, Yvonne Terlingen discusses the recent reforms to the UN secretary-general selection process, including the role of civil society in the reforms. She also details how the recent reforms may affect gender parity in senior posts across the UN.
A Better Process, a Stronger UN Secretary-General: How Historic Change Was Forged and What Comes Next
In the past, UN secretaries-general were chosen on the basis of a haphazard and secretive process behind closed doors. Yet over the last two years, the UN forged dramatic change and created a more open, transparent, and inclusive selection process. This essay explores why and how reform finally happened, and what comes next.
The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations by Barry Buzan and George Lawson
The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations, Barry Buzan and George Lawson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 421 pp., $29.99 paper, $98 cloth. This important and impressive book argues that international relations as we know it today was born in the nineteenth century. Buzan and Lawson argue that both the substance […]
Trials as Messages of Justice: What Should Be Expected of International Criminal Courts?
After more than a decade of work, the accomplishments of the International Criminal Court are highly contested. In this article, the authors ask, what can and should we expect from international criminal courts? How can international trial and punishment constitute a suitable response to episodes of mass violence?
