International Commissions And The Power Of Ideas

by Thakur, Ramesh Chandra; Cooper, Andrew F.; English, John

• ISBN13: 9789280811100
• ISBN10: 928081110X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-05
• Publisher: United Nations Univ

Summary

This book assesses how international commissions have shaped, and even reshaped, our understanding of international affairs and the international discourse on a wide range of global issues. These issues include the global economic order and the discrepancies in wealth between economies in the North and the South; international security and the utility of nuclear weapons; and environmentalism and the demands of economic growth. More recently, international commissions have examined whether the international community will ever accept the idea that military intervention is a legitimate option when confronted by the possibility of genocide and mass human rights violations against whole populations. The varying experiences and influences of eight separate international commissions are scrutinised: Brandt, Palme, Brundtland, the Commission on Global Governance, Canberra, the World Commission on Dams, the Kosovo Commission and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Few scholars and practitioners would suggest that international commissions offer perfect solutions to some of the contemporary problems of their time. But this book offers strong support for the argument that ideas matter as key agents in the evolution of global governance. International commissions can often act as the mechanism that brings ideas and institutions together.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	vii
Forward	x
Gareth Evans
Acknowledgements	xiii
International commissions and the mind of global governance	1	(26)
Andrew F. Cooper
John English
The Brandt Commission: The end of an era in North-South politics	27	(19)
Jean-Phillipe Therien
The Palme Commission: New thinking about security	46	(30)
Geoffrey Wiseman
The World Commission on Environment and Development: Ideas and institutions intersect	76	(23)
Heather A. Smith
Equivocating on the future of world order: The Commission on Global Governance	99	(24)
W. Andy Knight
Regulating the possession and use of nuclear weapons: Ideas, commissions, and agency in international security politics - the case of the Canberra Commission	123	(19)
Marianne Hanson
Beyond temples and tombs: Towards effective governance for sustainable development through the World Commission on Dams	142	(25)
Sanjeev Khagram
Fair assessment: The Independent International Commission on Kosovo	167	(13)
Richard J. Goldstone
Nicole Fritz
Intervention, sovereignty, and the responsibility to protect	180	(18)
Ramesh Thakur
The responsibility to protect: Assessing the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty	198	(23)
Jennifer Welsh
Carolin J. Thielking
S. Neil MacFarlane
The responsibility to protect: Humanitarian intervention and the principle of non-intervention in the Americas	221	(25)
Jorge Heine
Ideas, institutions, and the evolution of women's human rights	246	(20)
Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon
Ideas, think-tanks, commissions, and global politics	266	(11)
Jon Pedersen
UN Reform Commissions: Is anyone listening?	277	(11)
Edward C. Luck
Appendix: International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction	288	(7)
Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala
Contributors	295	(5)
Index	300