BiblioVault - Books about International

Dead in the Water

Global Lessons from the World Bank's Model Hydropower Project in Laos

Edited by Bruce Shoemaker and William Robichaud; foreword by Yos Santasombat; afterword by Philip Hirsch

University of Wisconsin Press, 2019

For decades, large dam projects have been undertaken by both nations and international agencies with the aim of doing good: preventing floods, bringing electricity to rural populations, producing revenues for poor countries, and more. But time after time, the social, economic, and environmental costs have outweighed the benefits of the dams, sometimes to a disastrous degree. In this volume, a diverse group of experts—involved for years with the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos—issue an urgent call for critical reassessment of the approach to, and rationale for, these kinds of large infrastructure projects in developing countries.

In the 2000s, as the World Bank was reeling from revelations of past hydropower failures, it nonetheless promoted the enormous Nam Theun 2 project. NT2, the Bank believed, offered a new, wiser model of dam development that would alleviate poverty, protect the environment, engage locally affected people in a transparent fashion, and stimulate political transformation. This was a tall order. For the first time, this book shows in detail why, despite assertions of success from the World Bank and other agencies involved in the project, the dam's true story has been one of substantial loss for affected villagers and the regional environment. Nam Theun 2 is an important case study that illustrates much broader problems of global development policy.

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Dealing in Virtue

International Commercial Arbitration and the Construction of a Transnational Legal Order

Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth

University of Chicago Press, 1996

In recent years, international business disputes have increasingly been resolved through private arbitration. The first book of its kind, Dealing in Virtue details how an elite group of transnational lawyers constructed an autonomous legal field that has given them a central and powerful role in the global marketplace.

Building on Pierre Bourdieu's structural approach, the authors show how an informal, settlement-oriented system became formalized and litigious. Integral to this new legal field is the intense personal competition among arbitrators to gain a reputation for virtue, hoping to be selected for arbitration panels. Since arbitration fees have skyrocketed, this is a high-stakes game.

Using multiple examples, Dezalay and Garth explore how international developments can transform domestic methods for handling disputes and analyze the changing prospects for international business dispute resolution given the growing presence of such international market and regulatory institutions as the EEC, the WTO, and NAFTA.

"A fascinating book, which I strongly recommend to all those active in international commercial arbitration, as they will see the arbitral world from new and unthought of perspectives."—Jacques Werner, Journal of International Arbitration

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The Decline of Latin American Economies

Growth, Institutions, and Crises

Editied by Sebastian Edwards, Gerardo Esquivel, and Graciela Márquez

University of Chicago Press, 2007

Latin America’s economic performance is mediocre at best, despite abundant natural resources and flourishing neighbors to the north. The perplexing question of how some of the wealthiest nations in the world in the nineteenth century are now the most crisis-prone has long puzzled economists and historians. The Decline of Latin American Economies examines the reality behind the struggling economies of Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.

A distinguished panel of experts argues here that slow growth, rampant protectionism, and rising inflation plagued Latin America for years, where corrupt institutions and political unrest undermined the financial outlook of already besieged economies. Tracing Latin America’s growth and decline through two centuries, this volume illustrates how a once-prosperous continent now lags behind. Of interest to scholars and policymakers alike, it offers new insight into the relationship between political systems and economic development.

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Defending the Environment

Civil Society Strategies to Enforce International Environmental Law

Linda A. Malone and Scott Pasternack

Island Press, 2006

Defending the Environment provides the means for nongovernmental organizations, community groups, and individuals to bring environmental and public health problems to the attention of international courts, tribunals, and commissions, or to their domestic counterparts. It suggests specific strategies and provides detailed information for taking action. This revised and updated edition also contains new case studies of the application of those strategies that has occurred in recent years.

Each chapter provides a description of the institutional mechanisms that can potentially receive, review, and remedy the alleged violation, along with a set of guidelines that explain how the reader can employ a particular strategy, and an example that indicates the effectiveness of a given strategy. In addition, the book offers an appendix that lists individuals and organizations who can assist with the various strategies described.

Defending the Environment represents the first concise, comprehensive guide to international environmental law and institutions that offers readers hands-on strategies for addressing environmental and public health problems.

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Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Bumba Mukherjee

University of Chicago Press, 2016

Since the 1970s, two major trends have emerged among developing countries: the rise of new democracies and the rush to free trade. For some, the confluence of these events suggests that a free-market economy complements a fledgling democracy. Others argue that the two are inherently incompatible and that exposure to economic globalization actually jeopardizes new democracies. Which view is correct? Bumba Mukherjee argues that the reality of how democracy and trade policy unravel in developing countries is more nuanced than either account.

Mukherjee offers the first comprehensive cross-national framework for identifying the specific economic conditions that influence trade policy in developing countries. Laying out the causes of variation in trade policy in four developing or recently developed countries—Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa—he argues persuasively that changing political interactions among parties, party leaders, and the labor market are often key to trade policy outcome. For instance, if workers are in a position to benefit from opening up to trade, party leaders in turn support trade reforms by decreasing tariffs and other trade barriers.

At a time when discussions about the stability of new democracies are at the forefront, Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries provides invaluable insight into the conditions needed for a democracy to survive in the developing world in the context of globalization.

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The Derecognition of States

Gëzim Visoka

University of Michigan Press, 2024

Although a great deal is known about the recognition of states, less is known about the practice of derecognition of states, namely why and how states withdraw the recognition of other contested and partially recognized states. The Derecognition of States offers a global and comparative outlook of this unexplored diplomatic practice. Using original empirical research, it addresses the complex processes, justifications, and consequences of state derecognition. In particular, it provides unique insights into five aspirant states facing withdrawal of recognition: Taiwan, Western Sahara, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Kosovo.

Gëzim Visoka argues that state derecognition is a highly controversial and unstable practice that has less to do with the unfulfillment of the conditions of statehood by the claimant than with the advancement of the self-interest of the former base state and derecognizing state. The derecognition of states is not a rule; rather, it is an exception in international diplomacy, driven by political expediency and is incompatible with original rationales for granting recognition. Yet, the derecognition of states is far more important than previously recognized in shaping the reversal dynamics of secession and state creation and in influencing regional peace, geopolitical rivalries, and the international order. By analyzing the withdrawal of recognition, the book offers a window into the reversal politics of unbecoming a sovereign state and how the arbitrary beginning and the end of diplomatic relations between states take place.

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Development As a Human Right

Legal, Political, and Economic Dimensions, A Nobel Book

Bård A. Andreassen

Harvard University Press

Download PDF of corrected version of Chapter 2The intrinsic links between economics and human rights has led some scholars and practitioners to affirm that if strategies of economic development and policies to implement human rights are united, they will reinforce one another and improve the human condition.

This book draws on the papers presented at the Nobel Symposium on The Right to Development and Human Rights in Development. Opening with an essay by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, the book contains chapters by experts in the fields of philosophy, economics, international law, and international relations on the conceptual underpinnings of development as a human right, the national dimensions of this right, and the role of international institutions. The contributors explore the meaning and practical implications of human rights-based approaches to economic development and ask what this relationship may add to our understanding and thinking about human and global development.

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Development Prospects in Cuba

An Agenda in the Making

Edited by Pedro Monreal

University of London Press, 2002

The 1990s witnessed significant changes in the Cuban economy. The first half of the decade focused on obtaining the adjustments necessary to enable the country to overcome the profound economic crisis that had befallen it. The second half was characterized by the reality and possibilities of economic recovery. This volume may be the first academic text specifically written to assess the development perspectives of Cuba in the new conditions that prevail. The overarching question is "What comes after recovery?" The authors deal with questions of immediate relevance to the Cuban economy and its recent past, with emphasis placed on the implications for long-term prospects for development. This reflects the conviction that solutions to the challenge of development will require longer periods of analysis and different areas of focus than those which have served as the temporal and conceptual references for recent studies of the island's economy.
Contributors include Julio Carranza, Anicia Garcia, Hiram Marquetti, Lazaro Pena, Omar Everleny Perez, and Julio Diaz Vazquez (University of Havana, Cuba), Claes Brundenius (Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen, Denmark), David Dapice (Tufts University and Harvard University, USA), Francisco Leon (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), and Mauricio de Miranda (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia).

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The Diplomacy of Involvement

American Economic Expansion across the Pacific, 1784-1900

David M. Pletcher

University of Missouri Press, 2001

Like its predecessor, this important new work is focused on the connection between trade and investment on the one hand and U.S. foreign policy on the other. David Pletcher describes the trade of the United States with the Far East, the islands of the Pacific, and the northwest coast of North America from 1784 (the year of the first American trading expedition to China) to 1844 (the year of the first trade treaty with China, followed immediately by the U.S. acquisition of Oregon and California). He then traces the growth of trade and investment in Alaska, Hawaii, and the South Pacific from 1844 to 1890 and proceeds to do the same for China, Japan, and Korea. In the ensuing chapters, Pletcher covers the 1890s, including the annexation of Hawaii, the Sino-Japanese War, the acquisition of the Philippines, and the Open Door policy in China.

He concludes that the American expansion across the Pacific and into the Far East was not a deliberate, consistent drive for economic hegemony but a halting, experimental, improvised movement, carried out against determined opposition and indifference and dotted with setbacks and failures. Providing his own judgments about the wisdom and effectiveness of America's new endeavors, Pletcher summarizes the problems and handicaps involved, demonstrating that errors of the twentieth century were at least partly the result of poor preparation in the 1880s and 1890s.

Touching on every place where Americans undertook significant economic activity, The Diplomacy of Involvement will be an important aid for seasoned scholars, as well as an excellent introduction for the novice.

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Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict

Ethical, Legal, and Strategic Implications

Edited by David Cortright, Rachel Fairhurst, and Kristen Wall

University of Chicago Press, 2015

During the past decade, armed drones have entered the American military arsenal as a core tactic for countering terrorism. When coupled with access to reliable information, they make it possible to deploy lethal force accurately across borders while keeping one’s own soldiers out of harm’s way. The potential to direct force with great precision also offers the possibility of reducing harm to civilians. At the same time, because drones eliminate some of the traditional constraints on the use of force—like the need to gain political support for full mobilization—they lower the threshold for launching military strikes. The development of drone use capacity across dozens of countries increases the need for global standards on the use of these weapons to assure that their deployment is strategically wise and ethically and legally sound.

Presenting a robust conversation among leading scholars in the areas of international legal standards, counterterrorism strategy, humanitarian law, and the ethics of force, Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict takes account of current American drone campaigns and the developing legal, ethical, and strategic implications of this new way of warfare. Among the contributions to this volume are a thorough examination of the American government’s legal justifications for the targeting of enemies using drones, an analysis of American drone campaigns’ notable successes and failures, and a discussion of the linked issues of human rights, freedom of information, and government accountability.

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The Dynamics of Business-Government Relations

Industry and Exports, 1893-1921

William H. Becker

University of Chicago Press, 1982

This work represents an important advance in the study of the interrelationships between business and U.S. foreign policy. Focusing on a single aspect of this broad field—the growth of industrial exports—William H. Becker demonstrates the complexity of business interests and behavior, of the bureaucratic and political forces at work in Congress and the Departments of Commerce and State, and of the interplay between business and governmental practices and concerns. In so doing, he provides the first full analysis of the industrial, political, and bureaucratic context in which the U.S. became a major exporter of industrial products.

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