Joanne Miyang Cho

Bio: Joanne Miyang Cho is an academic researcher from William Paterson University. The author has contributed to research in topics: German studies. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 15 citations.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees

Abstract: 4. UNHCR notes with concern that although the country acceded to the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol in 1999, incorporation of the 1951 Convention obligations into national legislation and normative acts has been slow and to date Kazakhstan has failed to comply with its obligation to give full effect to the Covenant in the domestic legal order, inter alia providing for effective judicial and other remedies for violations of these rights

Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany

Abstract: but one feels that Priestland has ultimately read back into history a thesis that will give him the results he desires in the future. To put it bluntly, in order to prove the kind of thesis that Priestland wishes to get across here, he needs to offer much more than the ‘essay’ in question. He wants to do ‘big’ history; but while noone is suggesting one has to go to Toynbee-esque lengths to do this, 300 or so pages simply won’t wash. One might be a little ungenerous in suspecting that the disclaimer about the book being for a general readership and not an academic study is merely a fig leaf; but nonetheless, the suspicion remains. Of course, the question one must always ask of books like this is: How much is prescription and how much is description? Despite proclaiming in the introduction that he had no intention of prognostication, in the epilogue Priestland allows himself to speculate. What will happen to the merchants now that they have been seen to be wearing no clothes? The merchant, we are told, ‘is rarely overthrown by revolutions . . . History suggests that merchant rule tends to be defeated by its inner flaws’ (pp. 249–50) The problems thrown up by the crash of 2008 will not be solved by tinkering: ‘We need a more fundamental change in both values and power relations’ (p. 251). Somewhat predictably, this involves the merchant being reined in and the sage and the worker being given more of a hand in things. But Priestland’s ultimate recommendation is essentially that a Bretton Woods II should be put together. Unfortunatly, he seems to have no idea how this might be brought about—we are told that conditions today are extremely unpromising (pp. 256–257). Ultimately, Merchant, Soldier, Sage is a lightweight affair. Preistland writes well, and it is certainly no chore to breeze through the 300 or so pages here. But aside from a few interesting insights on the nature of power, there is not much to take away from it. Essentially it is the old cry of ‘why don’t we learn from history’ in a quasi-sociological dress. The problem with arguing that by letting history have its say we can clear the present of indeterminacy, is that history rarely has its say just once—to wheel out a trite-but-true phrase, every generation re-writes its own history.