*** MARIO TELÒ (Editor): Globalisation, Multilateralism, and Europe. Towards a Better Global Governance? Ashgate Publishing Ltd (Wey Court East, Union Road, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, UK. Tel: (44-1252) 736600 - Email: info@ashgatepublishing.com - Internet: http://www.ashgate.com ). "The Globalisation, Europe, Multilateralism Series", No. 2. 2013, 470 pp. £85. ISBN 978-1-4094-6448-8.
This book is the result of a multidisciplinary research programme funded by the European Commission and involving no fewer than sixteen top-flight university institutions from across the whole world. It seeks to provide a reference on what shape tomorrow's world will take in the context of the European construction already established. As explained in his introduction by Professor Mario Telò (until recently he was the head of the European Studies Institute at the Université libre de Bruxelles), the authors' starting point is that a sort of globalised, multipolar and inter-polar world is currently being born in which a number of complex inter- dependent relationships are increasing and coexisting with different levels of power, oscillating between leadership and political asymmetries, as well as different trends displaying fragmented governance. All these different relationships are based on the conviction that tomorrow's world will be very different from the bipolar and furtively unipolar world of yesterday, as well as the deep feeling that the current heterogeneous and post-hegemonic multipolarity is not the end of history. The different academic contributions seek to answer a number of decisive questions such as to what extent can the updated and transformed vision of multilateralism or several alternative multilevel versions help to shape and peacefully supersede the current geopolitical and geostrategic disorder, by including practices that are more contingent with multilateral cooperation and more diverse reciprocity.
The answers provided by these different researchers are contained in twenty-two different contributions in the four different parts of the book. In the first of them, the authors seek to provide a common sense to the polysemic concepts such as multilateralism, sovereignty, multipolarity and globalisation, by revealing the roots and reasons behind multilateral cooperation and identifying the novel character of European construction and the extent to which China is distancing itself from the Westphalian paradigm. In the second part, different disciplinary approaches regarding governance are described. In the third, the action, efficiency and legitimacy of the international institutions are analysed in their task of managing globalisation. These include the United Nations and its Security Council, as well as emerging environmental governance, the International Monetary Fund (whose efficiency deficit is particularly taken to task) and the World Trade Organisation. Finally, the last part of the book includes contributions focusing on current difficulties involving multilateral governance. They also tackle the main challengers at global and regional levels, such as the increasing inequalities in terms of wealth and jobs, as well as cultural questions and the central problem of legitimacy in the context of globalisation.
Obviously, it is impossible to summarise all the different lessons learned from this high-level research in such a short space of time. The book illustrates that the classical paradigm of interstate relations is outmoded and that new approaches are required to understand where the world is heading. Can we, however, conclude that we have arrived at a post-Westphalian, post-modern and post-sovereign state world? None of the authors would dare to affirm this but judging by the evidence, as pointed out by Professor Telò, the hypothesis of a gradual transformation of the Westphalian paradigm is indeed a realistic option if we are to overcome the complexity of this current transition period. The different authors all agree that the Union can act as a guide in this adventure and that its internal multilateralism merges better than anywhere else in the world of diffuse reciprocity, with the legislative process and tackling different questions together. Undoubtedly, the Union will have to agree on how to meet the current challenges. Nonetheless, what it has already achieved constitutes a model in itself for the world of the 21st-century, asserts Andrew Gamble. Michel Theys
*** GRAINNE DE BURCAM, CLAIRE KILPATRICK, JOANNE SCOTT (Editors): Critical Legal Perspective on Global Governance. Liber Amicorum David M. Trubek. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - fax: 51510710 - Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). 2014, 461 pp. £55. ISBN 978-1-84946-419-2.
This book was written in honour of Professor David Trubek and contains a range of essays focusing on the theme of the emerging critical discourse on global governance law and its application. In the preface, the editors explain that this law is increasingly part of transnational governance and that the processes linked and guided by globalisation transform legal systems at all the different levels and that if critical legal traditions are to remain appropriate, they must adapt to the changing and challenging legal order. Through the different European, South and North America contributions, the different legal forms are revealed and analysed in the context of global governance, as well as the processes, legal roles and critical discourses developed in them. By examining the different critical discourses on this law, as well as how these laws interact and their normative implications at global, regional and national levels, the authors highlight the complexity of this law in the current situation in the world. In so doing, this collection of essays demonstrates the value of critical thinking in a perspective of the challenges impacting on governance and contemporary regulation. This book is divided into four different parts and the authors firstly examine the different phases and aspects of the work achieved by David Trubek, before exploring the different transformations that have occurred in global governance. The authors help contribute to the critical study of regional and global institutions and explore the issue of governance and development policies. The high point includes a discussion on the changing role of the lawmaker in the global regulatory area. (SD)
*** ANNAMARIA LA CHIMIA: Tied aid and development aid procurement in the framework of EU and WTO law. The Imperative for Change. Hart Publishing (see address details attached). « Studies in International Trade Law » series. 2013, 463 pp. £85. ISBN 978-1-84946-115-3.
The international community has not been able to keep its promise on guaranteeing, “development for all”. Over the past 60 years, the gap between the poorest and richest people in the world has increased by more than half. This observation challenges the notion of the usefulness of development aid instruments and particularly tied aid mechanisms. This book is the first to tackle the issue of aid from a legal point of view. So-called tied aid is granted when aid is granted to a country on the condition that the goods and services purchased in view of financing a project are bought from the donor country. Many economists have underlined the fact that tied aid can undermine its efficiency. This tie incurs higher costs for goods and services purchased by the receiving country and damages the potential of promoting trade between developing countries. Annamaria La Chimia, Professor in law at the University of Nottingham provides a critical examination of this instrument in the context of Union law and that of the World Trade Organisation. The way aid projects function, as well as the procedures for obtaining bilateral aid are analysed in the practices in the United Kingdom, Italy, the European Union and the US. The author concludes that the practice of tied aid is contrary to Union and WTO law, particularly in the context of liberalisation and the free market. The author also argues that tied aid is also causing problems in the context of national, regional and international instruments for public procurement. (SD)
*** PAROULA NASKOU-PERRAKI: La loi des organisations internationales. La dimension institutionnelle. Editions Sakkoulas (23 Ippokratous Str., GR-10679 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3387500 - fax: 3390075 - Email: info@sakkoulas.gr - Internet: http://www.sakkoulas.gr ). 2013, 736 pp. €75. ISBN 978-960-966420-2.
The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the changes that have occurred in several regional organisations in Europe and Asia explain why this book is now in its fifth edition. The most remarkable developments included in this book are the dissolution of the Western European Union, NATO's new strategic concept, the revised Benelux treaty, the new ASEAN Charter, the new African Court of Justice and Human Rights, the entry into force of the 14th Protocol in the Council of Europe's Human Rights Convention and the Arab League's Charter of Rights. According to Paroula Naskou-Perraki, Professor at the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Macedonia, the setting up of the Council of Human Rights as a subsidiary body to the United Nations General Assembly, at an international level, indicates the organisation's intention to attain the Millennium Goals in slow but gradual steps. The book looks at the majority of international organisations and contains an extremely extensive bibliography. (AKa)
*** MICHAEL KNOLL: Atomare Optionen. Westdeutsche Kernwaffenpolitik in der Ära Adenauer. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P. O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Militärhistorische Untersuchungen" series. 2013, 379 pp. €64.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64791-2.
Michaël Knoll has chosen an original subject for his thesis and provides a detailed examination and analysis of the attempts made by Konrad Adenauer and his government (1949-1963) to obtain nuclear weapons and/or manufacture them. To maintain a coherent approach, the analysis continues up until the end of the 1960s and the Federal Republic's ratification of the 1968 Treaty of Non-proliferation (TNP). Drawing on a wide array of documents, the author, first of all, provides an explanation regarding West Germany's nuclear doctrine in the 1950s by tracing the different developments and demonstrating that this doctrine was mainly influenced by circumstances and not any decisive ideology. The author provides a rigorous approach to the way in which he tackles the different concepts of political science and international relations, as well as the use of cutting-edge technical know-how, which all helps to bolster his overall argument. The sources and works quoted are fully explored and analysed, dissected and put in their context, to the point that the author establishes a certain distance from them. In some cases, he goes as far as doubting the sincerity of the locutor or indeed the veracity of the quotes in question but he always explains the different reasons and doubts that arise in a convincing way. Michaël Knoll is also able to recognise that he is encroaching on the limits of his research area and clearly indicates this. Another interesting aspect that is highlighted is the way in which Adenauer was obliged to conceal his nuclear ambitions from the German and global public and how he attempted to put forward this project to international diplomats despite strong international pressure exerted on West Germany to abandon any nuclear projects, by highlighting the uncertainties and imprecision is in the treaties signed and the agreements concluded. The failure to obtain this nuclear project (clarified with the ratification of the TNP in 1968 and the commitment made by a reunited Germany to renounce all atomic weapons in 1990) does not make this daring and captivating analysis any less interesting and also helps us get to know a page in diplomatic history that is indeed little-known. (GLe)
*** STEFAN QUANDT, ALEXANDER SCHRÖDER: Deutsche und europäische Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik. Mit Beiträgen von Norbert Lammert, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Roland Koch, Wolfgang Schäuble, Jürgen Trittin, Gregor Gysi und Franz Josef Jung. Peter Lang (see address details attached). 2014, 128 pp. €19.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64298-6.
This series of articles drawn up by the students Council of the University of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg (Université Helmut Schmidt) includes talks by different German political leaders on the theme of German and European defence and security policy. The authors have written up the contents initially presented in their oral form, which sometimes leads to some rather clumsy turns of phrase. This weakness, however, is inherent in any exercise of this kind and is relatively well contained, to the point that this oral style gives a certain living feeling to the writing. As a whole, the different contributions focus on international relations themes and avoid too much rhetoric by drawing on the maximum room for manoeuvre allowed in their respective positions, which is quite considerable, given that some of them are ministers. For some of the authors, the explicit objective is to reconcile military institutions with German society, which proves to be a delicate exercise, given the rejection of the Army in both East and West Germany post-1945 5. Some of the other contributions highlight the role played by this institution in these different questions. Some of them are quite open about their support for a given specific project. Nonetheless, they are all buoyed by their firm determination to involve the whole of German society in defence and security issues. (GLe)
*** Rivista di studi politici internazionali. Casa Editrice Le Lettere (8 piazza dei Nerli, I-50124 Firenze. Tel: (39-55) 2342710 - fax: 2346010 - Email: staff@lelettere.it - Internet: http://www.lelettere.it ). July/September 2013, No. 319, 160 pp. €19 (Italy) or €25 (abroad). Subscription: €70 (Italy), €90 (abroad).
This issue of the prestigious Italian journal goes back to last summer and contains three articles on Russia and its relations with European Union. (MT)