Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

The Law of Peoples John Rawls Harvard 1999 John Rawls, the great political philosopher, has turned his reflections to questions of international justice, much as his philosophical ancestor Kant did toward the end of his career. Indeed, Kant's conception of a "pacific federation" of states in Perpetual Peace is Rawls's acknowledged model for the "realistic utopia" sketched in The Law of Peoples, which expands upon his 1993 essay by the same title (without, however, revising its basic argument). Despite differing philosophical constraints and geopolitical conditions, both Kant and Rawls aim to develop an ideal normative framework for international law that accommodates a measure of realism and rejects the idea of a world-state. Unfortunately, in its uncritical acceptance of so-called "decent hierarchical societies" even at the level of ideal theory, the normative claim of Rawls's Law of Peoples is undermined. This philosophical appeasement, meant to secure perpetual peace in our time through a moderately demanding Law of Peoples that liberal and "decent" hierarchical societies alike can endorse, departs fundamentally from Kant's cosmopolitanism. For Kant, the "First Definitive Article of a Perpetual Peace-as opposed to a temporary interruption of hostilities-is that each member state of the foedus pacif cum must have a republican form of government, which is partly founded upon "the principle of legal equality for everyone (as citizens)." By contrast, Rawls weakens his ideal of international justice to buy the assent of hierarchical societies, which by definition lack equality among citizens, at the price of sacrificing a theoretical basis for justifying reforms of the practices and institutions of these hierarchical societies above a minimal level of decency. Rawls's complex argument begins by extending the original position, in which principles of justice for the basic structure of society are chosen under epistemic constraints that ensure fairness, from a single liberal society to what he calls the Society of Liberal Peoples. In a second step, though still within ideal theory, he argues that the substantive principles comprising the Law of Peoples are also acceptable to decent hierarchical societies, which possess decent consultation hierarchies and common good conceptions of justice. Despite being inegalitarian, decent hierarchical societies do respect basic human rights, allow some dissent, and at least consult with representatives of groups whose members are denied full citizenship rights. …

The Law of Peoples

Escaping carbon lock-in

International regimes have received increasing attention in the literature on international relations. However, little attention has been systematically paid to how compliance with them has been achieved. An analysis of the Mediterranean Action Plan, a coordinated effort to protect the Mediterranean Sea from pollution, shows that this regime actually served to empower a group of experts (members of an epistemic community), who were then able to redirect their governments toward the pursuit of new objectives. Acting in an effective transnational coalition, these new actors contributed to the development of convergent state policies in compliance with the regime and were also effective in promoting stronger and broader rules for pollution control. This suggests that in addition to providing a form of order in an anarchic international political system, regimes may also contribute to governmental learning and influence patterns of behavior by empowering new groups who are able to direct their governments toward new ends.

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Do regimes matter - epistemic communities and mediterranean pollution-control

ural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662) stands as the first great example of modern statistical data analysis, Bernstein also spends some time telling us about the genesis of Lloyd’s of London, the famous insurance firm. This weaving of topics that are standard in the history of probability and statistics with many that are not is one of the strengths and attractions of the book. Another is the obvious zest with which Bernstein describes the many intriguing people and tantalizing mysteries so peculiar to the mathematics of chance.

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

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Lessons Learned in Global Environmental Governance

In spite of early hopes for a “fading out” of sovereignty in the face of global environmental challenges, recent codifications of international law have confirmed the creeping national enclosure of what were once considered common assets—e.g., exclusive economic zones under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, or access to genetic resources from the 1983 International Undertaking via the 1992 Biodiversity Convention to the 2001 Plant Gene Treaty. Yet, because of their explicit limitation and qualification by “common interest” obligations, these expanded sovereign rights of nation states must be considered fiduciary rather than proprietary. Hence, the emerging legal regime is one of international public trusteeship (sometimes referred to as guardianship or stewardship) over a widening range of environmental resources. The article traces the evolution of the trusteeship concept in modern environmental law and its ramifications for international law and governance, as reflected in current proposals suggesting...

Sovereignty Bounded: Public Trusteeship for Common Pool Resources?

The ‘precautionary principle’, as formulated in the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environ ment and Development, calls for regulatory action in the face of serious environmental risks even in the absence of full scientific certainty. This paper traces negotiation of the principle at the Rio Conference, and its history in Europe from 1969 Swedish legislation to the latest directives of the European Union. As illustrated by recent court cases from Germany and France, in particular (on nuclear power plants, electro magnetic fields, and genetically modified organisms), judicial interpretation of the principle has tended to be restrictive. Future law making in this field is likely to focus on public access to environmental risk information, and on the development of new ‘right to know’ instru ments such as mandatory product labelling and transnational pollutant release inven tories, an area where Europe can still learn from North American experience.

The Precautionary Principle: A European Perspective

Preface Contributors I. Introduction 1. The Rhetoric of Precaution II. Case Studies of Relative Precaution regarding Specific Risks 2. Genetically Modified Foods and Crops 3. Beef, Hormones and Mad Cows 4. Smoking 5. Nuclear Power 6. Automobile Emissions 7. Stratospheric Ozone Protection and Global Climate Change 8. The Marine Environment 9. Biodiversity Conservation 10. Chemicals 11. Medical Errors, New Drug Approval and Patient Safety 12. Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction III. Precaution in Risk Information Systems 13. Information Disclosure 14. Frameworks for Risk Assessment IV. A Broader Empirical Test of Relative Precaution 15. A Quantitative Comparison of Relative Precaution in the United States and Europe, 1970-2004 V. Can We Explain the Observed Pattern of Precaution? 16. Political Institutions and the Principle of Precaution 17. Legal and Administrative Systems 18. Risk Perceptions and Risk Attitudes in the US and Europe 19. Precautions Against What? Perceptions, Heuristics and Culture VI. Conclusions 20. The Real Pattern of Precaution Acknowledgments Index

The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe

Preface Criteria for evaluation Summary report on the survey Follow up: agenda 21 1. General environmental concerns A. C. Kiss and P. Hassan 2. Nature conservation and terrestrial living resources M. J. Forster and R. U. Osterwoldt 3. Atmosphere and outer space R. E. Benedick and R. Pronove 4. Marine environment and marine pollution A. E. Boyle, D. A. C. Freestone, K. Kummer and D. M. Ong 5. Marine living resources A. Szekely and B. Kwiatkowska 6. Transboundary freshwaters G. J. Cano 7. Hazardous substances W. F. Jones and M. D. Yeater 8. Nuclear safety M. R. Mazzanti 9. Working environment V. A. Leary 10. Liability for environment damage G. Doeker and T. Gehring 11. Environmental disputes P. N. Bhagwati 12. Sample bilateral instruments A. Borg Olivier 13. Relationship between environmental agreements and instruments related to trade and development J. O. Cameron, T. Mjolo-Thamage and J. C. Robinson Annex.

Peter H. Sand

Papers

Lessons Learned in Global Environmental Governance

Sovereignty Bounded: Public Trusteeship for Common Pool Resources?

The Precautionary Principle: A European Perspective

The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe

The effectiveness of international environmental agreements : a survey of existing legal instruments