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Robert Howse

Bio: Robert Howse is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Liberal democracy & Welfare state. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 7 citations.

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Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define globalization as the cumulative process of a worldwide expansion of trade and production, commodity and financial markets, fashions, the media and computer programs, news and communications networks, transportation systems and flows of migration, the risks generated by large-scale technology, environmental damage and epidemics, as well as organized crime and terrorism.
Abstract: CAPITAL RULES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GLOBAL FINANCE. By Rawi Abdelal. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. 2007. Pp. xi, 304. $49.95. IN DEFENSE OF GLOBALIZATION. By Jagdish Bhagwati. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. With new afterword, 2007. Pp. xiii, 330. $16.95. TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS: FROM MEDIEVAL TO GLOBAL ASSEMBLAGES. By Saskia Sassen. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 493. $37.95. MAKING GLOBALIZATION WORK. By Joseph E. Stiglitz. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2006. Pp. xxv, 358. $16.95. Reviewed by Robert Howse * I. INTRODUCTION Since the end of the Cold War, scholars and citizens, politicians and pundits, have been trying to discern and define the structures and tendencies of a new world order. We bear witness to rapid and complex change: new threats and conflicts emerge just as old ones return and resurge unpredictably. Climate change; terrorism; the rise of religion as a global force; the ascent of China as an economic power; the Internet: how do we grasp the full implications of each for our lives today and tomorrow? The notion of globalization has emerged as one of the predominant conceptual constructs for understanding the tendencies of our age. Its range of meanings in our discourse is well captured in a recent definition by the philosopher Jurgen Habermas: By "globalization" is meant the cumulative processes of a worldwide expansion of trade and production, commodity and financial markets, fashions, the media and computer programs, news and communications networks, transportation systems and flows of migration, the risks generated by large-scale technology, environmental damage and epidemics, as well as organized crime and terrorism. (1) Significantly, Habermas leaves out of his definition the globalization of law. His omission reflects the general assumption--quite likely incorrect or at least too simplistic--that law's role is to react to globalization as a given force, and that law has not itself been an element in that force. (2) At the same time, the breadth of Habermas's definition raises the question of whether "economic globalization" ought to be analyzed separately, in the idioms of economics, as Jagdish Bhagwati does in In Defense of Globalization, or whether, as Saskia Sassen suggests in Territory, Authority, Rights, it is through understanding the many links between the economic and other dimensions of globalization that we will grasp the ways in which structures of human order are being recast globally. In popular discourse, globalization is much more than something that explains and begs to be explained at the same time: it is a magnet for a range of deeply felt hopes and fears, and still produces intense polemics "for" and "against." Many of us, though, can feel both a sense of loss and disorientation from the collapse or erosion of familiar structures fixed within the territorial nation-state model of human organization, and exhilaration at new possibilities of connectedness and human flourishing. Already by the end of the Cold War, the old struggle between right and left over the governance of the economy and the redistribution of wealth within the advanced liberal democracies had yielded to a new pro-market consensus. The center-left embraced many of the center-right critiques of the postwar regulatory and welfare state as inefficient, wasteful, and dependency-inducing, and sought to pursue traditional progressive values through a more economically liberal (in the sense of pro--free market) approach to governance of the economy. (3) Throughout much of the political spectrum, support declined for command-and-control regulation, trade protection and capital controls as instruments of progressive governance that ensured the state's ability to maintain a stable and fair social contract with business, labor, and the disadvantaged. …

8 citations


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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss inter alia the question whether globalization necessarily leads to a lowering of environmental quality and whether it should lead to an argument in favour of centralization of decision making concerning environmental harm.
Abstract: This paper is a chapter in a book on globalization and private law and deals with the mutual influence of globalization on environmental issues. Both a positive as well as a normative analysis is provided. The paper discusses inter alia the question whether globalization necessarily leads to a lowering of environmental quality and whether it should lead to an argument in favour of centralization of decision making concerning environmental harm. Also, the contribution of environmental law to the globalization debate is discussed.

17 citations

Book
14 Oct 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, international economic institutions and the autonomy of development policy: a pluralist approach Yuka Fukunaga and the WTO Treaty Interpretation: Implications and Consequences: 4. Demanding perfection: private food standards and the SPS Agreement Tracey Epps 5. Eroding national autonomy from the TRIPS Agreement Susy Frankel 6. 'Gambling' with sovereignty: complying with international obligations or upholding national autonomy Henning Grosse Ruse-Kahn Part III. Transformations in International Economic Law: 11.
Abstract: Part I. International Economic Law: Conceptions of Convergence and Divergence: 1. The end of the globalization debate - continued Robert Howse 2. Global economic institutions and the autonomy of development policy: a pluralist approach Yuka Fukunaga 3. Fragmentation, openness, and hegemony: adjudication and the WTO Jason Beckett Part II. WTO Treaty Interpretation: Implications and Consequences: 4. Demanding perfection: private food standards and the SPS Agreement Tracey Epps 5. Eroding national autonomy from the TRIPS Agreement Susy Frankel 6. The WTO and RTAs: a 'bottom-up' interpretation of RTAs' autonomy over WTO law Alberta Fabbricotti 7. 'Gambling' with sovereignty: complying with international obligations or upholding national autonomy Henning Grosse Ruse-Kahn Part III. Responding to International Economic Law Commitments: 8. Safety standards and indigenous products: what role for traditional knowledge? Meredith Kolsky Lewis 9. The GATS and temporary migration policy Rafael Leal-Arcas 10. A different approach to the external trade requirement of GATT Article XXIV: assessing 'other regulations of commerce' in the context of EC enlargement and its heightened regulatory standards Pinar Artiran Part IV. Transformations in International Economic Law: 11. Foreign investors vs. sovereign states: towards a global framework, BIT by BIT Ko-Yung Tung 12. What about the people? How GATS Mode 4 transforms national regulation of temporary migration for remittances in poor countries Jane Kelsey 13. Reconceptualising international investment law: bringing the public interest into private business Kate Miles.

14 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the time has come to re-design the interrelationship between these special-purpose funds and the UN and the World Bank so that these funds can operate in sync with these institutions rather than as bypasses of them.
Abstract: Recent development challenges highlight a pressing need to re-evaluate whether the post-World War II behemoths of multilateral development finance are up to the tasks being demanded of them today. The institutions that dominate the current order, the United Nations (“UN”) and the World Bank, are undergoing a crisis of confidence as the world’s development aid donors engage in an ongoing quest to find alternatives to them. This quest takes the form of setting up numerous funds narrowly tailored to finance specific, narrowly-defined needs. Examples of these funds include the Global Environment Trust Fund (GEF) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. The Climate Change Fund, proposed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord (and recently renamed the Green Climate Fund), is poised to follow this approach. This ad hoc special purpose fund approach lacks a coherent, unifying vision of how to meet today’s development challenges. The funds that have been created fill a need but suffer from several deficits, ranging from governance gaps and lacunae in accountability, to high transaction costs and uncertain status in the international political and legal order. These deficits generate new risks and costs for the international aid architecture. In this Article, I argue that the time has come to re-design the interrelationship between these special-purpose funds and the UN and the World Bank so that these funds can operate in sync with these institutions rather than as bypasses of them.

13 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the factors that drive the emergence of formalised networks/coalitions of civil society actors in the supranational legal arena, including the diffusion of technology, which has decreased the costs of trans-boundary communications, providing means for non-state actors to communicate with greater frequency.
Abstract: This chapter explores the factors that drive the emergence of formalised networks/coalitions of civil society actors in the supranational legal arena. Seven factors are key. The first is the dramatic increase of problems of global – rather than local – dimensions that are dealt with by civil society activists. Exemplary are environmental protection and human rights. The second factor is the diffusion of technology, which has decreased the costs of trans-boundary communications, providing means for non-state actors to communicate with greater frequency. The globalisation of mass media is the third factor that is driving the tendency to a networked civil society. The fourth factor consists of the dramatic increase of transportation of goods and people around the world. A fifth catalyst of a networked civil society is globalized knowledge. This has enabled a growth in interactions between students, scholars, universities, think tanks and other centres of cultural activity, and is shaping the identity of future civil society leaders. Fundraising is the sixth factor behind the emergence of civil society coalitions. Finally, but decisively, this Chapter explains the growing prominence of coalitions of civil society actors by addressing the benefits for both non-state actors and supranational regulators that result from joining into a network. Benefits for civil society actors include increased visibility and opportunity for advocacy. Benefits for supranational regulators include the chance to improve their accountability/legitimacy and reduce costs.

1 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In 2003, Zimmerling wrote an article titled Globalization and democracy: a framework for discussion, which was an outcome of the second annual meeting of the Tampere Club.
Abstract: In 2003, Ruth Zimmerling wrote an article titled Globalization and democracy: a framework for discussion, which was an outcome of the second annual meeting of the Tampere Club (Zimmerling 2005). The aim of that article was to offer “a systematic overview over ideas and assumptions about the relationship between globalization and democracy” (Zimmerling 2005: 61). As many other of her works, this was conceived as a contribution to bring some clarity and systematization to a discussion that back then in 2003 was already fashionable and overwhelmingly omnipresent.