Tag Archives: international relations

Mathieu Landriault, Jean-François Payette and Stéphane Roussel (eds.), Mapping Arctic Paradiplomacy – Limits and Opportunities for Sub-National Actors in Arctic Governance (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2022)

Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review), , , ,

The book is an anthology covering the concept of paradiplomacy and other forms of diplomacy in 10 chapters focusing on the North America and Russian Arctic with some example cases also from Scotland and China. The introductory chapter is a typical state-of-the-art chapter going through the literature in the field of Arctic paradiplomacy and is setting the stage for the rest of the book. The book is divided into three overall sections, where the first section is focused on the Arctic subnational governments or administrations. The second section is focusing on the Arctic civil society and Indigenous Peoples and the third section seeks to highlight how paradiplomacy can serve global actors in redefining Arctic governance. The last chapter in the book is a concluding chapter with some future perspectives.

The book is overall a good contribution to the debate about paradiplomacy and is covering interesting case studies, which normally would not be covered in an anthology of Arctic relations. The cases are scattered from Québec, Yakutsk to Arctic cities, Greenland, Indigenous Peoples, Scotland, China, and Bering Strait. The book tries to give a holistic view of the complex relationships between various actors involved in Arctic governance. However, in doing that it might lose its coherent structure and sometimes the reader finds himself/herself a little bit confused over what kind of paradiplomacy that the authors actually are trying to investigate. In the first chapter for instance the authors Payette and Roussel is using the concept of “identity paradiplomacy” and in the second chapter the authors are using “transborder regional microdiplomacy” and in other chapters we are introduced to “public diplomacy” and so on. It would have been better if the authors would have used a clear definition of which kind of paradiplomacy that the book is trying to illustrate. The various theoretical concepts and theories which are introduced in various chapters make maybe sense for the case study as such, but not for the overall framework. It would have been better if the authors would have agreed to a definition about Arctic paradiplomacy in the beginning and then framing the case studies according to that or outlining in the end how we can understand Arctic paradiplomacy. Another critical point is that a few chapters are more directed towards the national level and not the subnational level, which paradiplomacy is about. Here the chapter by Minkova about the cooperation between Canada and Russia illustrate this example and the chapter by Meek and Lovecraft focusing on the Bering Strait can also be seen as such an example. The chapter by Payette and Sun focusing on China’s role in the Arctic is also seen merely from a national, top-down view.

The multilevel approach by using various actors on different levels of government illustrates, of course, the complex reality of Arctic governance, but sometimes it is hard to get grips on which relationships that the authors are referring to. The relationships between the national and regional levels down to the local levels are not clearly outlined in each chapter.

The book gives a good overview of current developments in the Arctic and is therefore a valuable contribution to researchers, teachers, and students of Arctic politics, international relations, comparative politics and foreign policy and governance. The book could be used as literature at universities where Arctic relations and Arctic studies are in focus.

Giampiero Giacomello, Francesco Niccolò Moro, Marco Valigi (eds.), Technology and International Relations: The New Frontier in Global Power (Cheltenham/Northampton: E. Elgar, 2021)

Book review (editorial review), , , ,

The human beings have an ambivalent attitude towards technology, whereas nowadays technology represents not only a presence, but also a significant transformative force of human life, of human realities and, to a certain extent, of human nature itself. The collective volume entitled Technology and International Relations. The New Frontier in Global Power reunites a group of specialists in contemporary technological developments with impact in international relations and addresses the topic of technology as source of empowerment in the near future global power starting from the recognition of the current paramount importance of technology in the exercise and concentration of power (and wealth) in our world. The editors highlight a crucial aspect: “The centrality of technology as a tool for harnessing wealth and power in the twenty-first century is recognized outside the US and China. European Union member states – and the European Commission – have promoted awareness on the centrality of combining science and technology strategies in public policy discourses, planning and implementation, and research funds allocation.” (p. ix) Even more, the argument shows that “European initiatives in civilian domain, such as those to promote so-called key-enabling technologies (micro- and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology, industrial biotechnology, advanced materials, photonics, and advanced manufacturing technologies) have been central to EU’s industrial policy for a decade.” (pp. ix-x) Technological developments take place at an alert pace, triggering organized political attention for this type of developments, which nature is transforming enough to change our historical perceptions, so that a decade becomes a “longer” and more significant duration than the historical perception of a decade during the 20th century.

The structure of the volume follows the areas of fast technological development. The first part is entitled “Technology and International Relations: Political, Economic and Ethical Aspects” and analyses technology as a catalyst of international power. J. Eriksson and L. Newlove-Eriksson provide an overview of the important aspects concerning the interrelation between technology and international relations in the first chapter – “Theorizing technology and international relations: prevailing perspectives and new horizons”. The chapter emphasizes that the theories on technology in IR have developed starting from the main IR theories (realism, liberalism and constructivism), which have considered technology an exogenous factor in IR. “Techno-political studies have yet to make a significant mark in the IR, but they are making progress with regard to conceptualization of, for example, the fusion f new technologies with the social, the political and even the biological. There is also room for new theory and research both on such structural techno-political shifts and on the politics of specific technologies, including AI, automated weapons and bioengineering.” (p. 17)

The next chapter, “Mapping technological innovation”, by Fr. N. Moro and M.Valigi, approaches the matters of intellectual property in technological innovation. Japan, US and China lead the technologically innovative fast track, followed by the EU countries.  The study shows that the future challenge for states stays in the capitalization and administration of technological innovation in the light of benefices, costs and impact in IR. Technological change and innovation represents a problem-solving tool in relation to human resources and opportunities management and in relation to a mindset change. “This mindset change will require major reframing of human resources departments. The persons who will have to coordinate and manage such individuals would have to be ‘different’ themselves and (almost) equally innovative.” (p. 41)

The topic of “Autonomy in weapons systems and its meaningful human control: a differentiated and prudential approach” by D. Amoroso and G. Tamburrini, concluding the first part of the volume, emphasize the necessity to have a meaningful human control (MHC) over the weapons systems, which makes compulsory the compliance with the international rules concerning the use of the lethal and sub-lethal weapons. The authors plea for a general principle of international law implying the necessity of human control over the weapon systems and propose an efficient methodology to evaluate the most relevant weapon systems and their MHC qualities. In what concerns the approach of the theme, we appreciate especially the focus on humanitarian aspects, responsibility and warrants of moral agency.

The second part of the volume is dedicated to “Robotics and Artificial Intelligence: Frontiers and Challenges”. Chapter 4, titled “Context matters: the transformative nature of drones on the battlefield”, by Sarah Kreps and Sarah Maxey, opens the discussion by the evaluation of the destabilizing role of the drones. Two main views on drones are identified: a more pessimistic one, emphasizing the lowering of the social barriers in society against the dispatching of long-distance lethal force weakening the public awareness (vigilance) concerning the potential human implications and deteriorating the protective (ethical) legal standards. The more optimistic view calls attention to the fact that drones are just another platform, less capacious than other technological platforms and posing less risk, since they do not hold territories and they do not actually win wars. (pp. 69-70) Drones may gain positive roles in humanitarian and peacekeeping interventions, where their transformative roles are acclaimed. (p.77)

Technological progress in the field of robotics and AI indicates something close to an AI revolution. L. Martino and F. Merenda approach the theme “Artificial intelligence: a paradigm shift in international law and politics? Autonomous weapon systems as a case study” with the main concern for “the transformative role of the impact of AI on all aspects of our public and private life. In the IR and especially in military sector and activities worldwide the concern addresses the autonomous weapon systems (AWS), which differ from drones, precisely in this autonomy in initializing and finalizing a military action. Some of these may be knowledge-based systems, while others may be machine-learning systems, developed more recently, to perform tasks that are easy to perform for people, but difficult to describe. The lack of a internationally accepted and observed definition for AWS makes it difficult to impose an international body of laws and an international ethical code for these activities. We are at the stage of debate. Legal scholars advance arguments in favour or against the employment of AWS. Technological development might just significantly overcome the ruling and regulating developments.

Part three of the volume is titled “Space and cyberspace: intersection of two security domains”. For more than half a century, the human race took international relations to the outer space. Luciano Anselmo, in the chapter dedicated to the issue of “The use of space and satellites: problems and challenges” starts the discussion from the observation that the outer space stage has been geopolitical in every way and it was mainly the stage for international competition and the activities in the outer space brought along more fallouts than cooperation. The outer space is both a global resource and an opportunity, both tensioned and disputed among national and international interests, between public and private interests. There is a growing technological production for space and a growing presence in space. “In 2018, for example, China carried out more orbital launches, 39, than any other country as compared with 31 by the United States, 20 by Russia and eight by Europe. It already spends more on its space projects than Russia and Japan, but still less than Europe combined, and much less than the United States.” (p. 111) Although the first Space Age is overcome and the competition for Space among superpowers might not be the relevant characteristic in the future, right now, we witness the phenomenon of the assault of the ambitious private commercial players, who conduct a technological revolution of the satellites and quasi touristic trips to the orbit. New problems emerge, nevertheless related to the safe and responsible use of space as a resource. “Moreover, while many of the military functions played by orbital systems could easily be replaced in the battlefield using other means and technologies (…) the maintenance of efficient global intelligence and surveillance capabilities through the conflict would be of paramount importance for reaching a truce (…).” (p. 117) Orbital debris poses serious problems, too. Certain land operations might as well generate complications. There are worries around the probability of space combat generated by unresolved IR tensions, although it is “considered neither advantageous nor probable within the strategic environment and the technology developments foreseen in the coming decades.” (p. 127)

“Cyber attacks and defenses: current capabilities and future trends”, by M. Colajanni and M. Marchetti, follows the evolutions and problems brought along by the digital revolution. The competitivity make it so that software industry delivered insufficiently tested products speculated by cyber criminals. The improvement is dependent on customers’ complaint and on cost efficiency on customers’ and companies’ respective parts. “Business models prevailing in modern digital society are based on ‘free’ services that are paid through data collection” (p. 133). Gray areas of data analytics emerge and they are speculated by cyber criminals and shady opportunists. Cyber defences are difficult, due to the lack of specialists, and ethical and legal vulnerabilities.

The need for complex security seems to be the hallmark of our times. Andrea Locatelli argues in the next chapter, “Critical infrastructure protection”, for an optimal balance between functional security and territorial security. Simply put, national security depends on society’s ability to deliver (and access) certain significant, important and vital goods and services. Banking and finances, communications, emergency services, energy, water supply systems, food and agriculture, healthcare, commercial facilities, chemical sector, manufacturing facilities, dams, defence industrial base, information technologies, government facilities, nuclear material, transportation, all these, represent national critical infrastructures, which should be defended and well-managed as a priority matter of national security. Natural hazards, human error, technological failure, cyberattacks or deficient public-private partnerships are main illustrations for the many threats to critical infrastructure.  The study approaches the case studies of the United States and the European Union, following the main models and stages in critical infrastructure security matters. The conclusion shows that “technological remedies are a necessary but not sufficient condition to guarantee protection, human skills being equally if not more important” and system vulnerabilities make offence easier than defence (p. 168).

“A perfect storm: privatization, public-private partnership and the security of critical infrastructure” by Giampiero Giacomello continues the analysis of the previous chapter at a different level, giving a special status to critical information infrastructures in relation to all critical infrastructures, since they may become main vulnerabilities and weapons in computer network attacks against other critical infrastructures. “Modern societies would demand that a ‘balance’ of anticipation and resilience policies be applied to solving the problems exposed and protecting CII (the critical information infrastructure).” (p. 186) Effective security requires effective anticipation of risks, the protective separation of every critical infrastructure, the recognition of priority for public security interests in healthy private-public partnerships. “Ultimately, that cybersecurity should become everyone’s concern is somehow inevitable”. (p. 187) Investing in CIIs’ protection becomes more and more necessary, as the current COVID-19 experience has shown. The stakes we have in technological security, safety and protection are nowadays ever clearer.

Ken S. Coates and Carin Holroyd (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Arctic Policy and Politics (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)

Book review (editorial review), , , ,

The Palgrave Handbook of Arctic Policy and Politics is one of an increasing number of anthologies addressing Arctic governance from a variety of academic perspectives. The collection is organised into seven parts, each representing a different discipline although by the nature of the topic, these often overlap. These are: I Indigenous Peoples and Arctic Social Dynamics; II Economic Development; III Policies of Arctic Nations; IV The Arctic and International Relations; V Arctic Legal and Institutional Systems; Arctic Security; and VII Reflections on Future of the Arctic (emphasis in original).

In addition to the editors, the contributors include some very well-established scholars in their respective fields, such as Joan Larsen and Gail Fondhal (economics); Andrey Petrov (geography and economics); Timo Koivurova and Nigel Bankes (law); Timothy Heleniak (demographics); Lawson Brigham (shipping); and Heather Nicol and Whitney Lackenbauer (security).

The editors state the goal of the handbook is:
to address, as a top priority, the needs of the region and to ensure that the Southern and global actors understand their collective responsibility to reverse and correct the patterns and policies of the past. More than anything, the chapters collected here make it clear that there are policy and political options, many of them urgent, most of them expensive, and all requiring a collaborative approach with the peoples of the Arctic… [It also aims to] generate[s] public policy debate about a new and regionally controlled future for the Arctic (4).

It is not possible to review closely each of the thirty-three contributions so instead some overall remarks will be made regarding the volume with references to examples. The collection is fairly conservative (a term that is not intended to be read negatively). It is heavy on history; it prioritises market economies and emphasises market-based growth as the primary solution to Arctic challenges; it maintains a central focus on states ; it relies on positivist account of international law; and the contributors are not a particularly diverse group nor representative of Arctic populations.

Chapter 8, “Innovation, New Technologies, and the Future of the Circumpolar North” concentrates on marketable applications. Indigenous innovation, both historic and emerging, is largely overlooked except when it is in “community-government-university-industry collaboration” (124). Chapter 14, “Government, Policies, and Priorities in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland): Roads to Independence” “seeks to offer something approaching a Kalaallit perspective” (218) but this would have been more convincing with a Greenlandic co-author or at least more references to Greenlandic scholarship. The reference list includes a few Kalallissut newspaper articles (themselves by Danish authors and likely translated from Danish) and some Danish articles but no academic work, for example, by Mininnguaq Kleist who has written in both English and Danish on the evolving constitution of Greenland. (The author acknowledges his position as neither Danish nor Greenlandic.)

It is not until Part VII, and especially Chapter 32, that we come to “The Future of the Arctic,” by the co-editors, Coates and Holroyd, with most of the chapters that precede establishing the history that has led to the current dynamics. (This is, of course, an important role for any handbook. It is only with knowledge of the past that one can understand the present or envisage futures.) A few typos suggest that this chapter may have been written hurriedly but perhaps the editors can make corrections at least in the eBook version. It is heavily focused on economic challenges and the formal economy. Nevertheless, the authors provide an ambitious list of priorities for decision-makers in the Arctic, concentrating on local, contextualised solutions and involvement of Indigenous expertise (538-40).

Common to much political science scholarship, there are a few inaccuracies on points of law – such as conflating territory, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf (311) and a lengthy discussion of the Nordic Saami Convention as “one of the most important statements of Indigenous aspirations and accomplishments in recent decades” without noting that this treaty has not yet come into force (288-89). Fortunately, these matters are corrected by Bankes’ clear and careful exposition of the law of the sea (Chapter 23) and Newman’s good summary of the international law on Indigenous Peoples (Chapter 26) respectively.

A conservative collection done well – as this one is – certainly has its place in the burgeoning international scholarship of the Arctic. I envisage three contexts in which the Handbook will undoubtedly demonstrate its value. First of all, for scholars in any field seeking a primer on the Arctic. Second for experts in some Arctic-related disciplines, such as law or security studies, who seek to broaden their knowledge with a primer on other fields. Third, this anthology is a very good resource that I expect to turn to whenever I need an authoritative reference on some point or other. The searchable eBook version is particularly conducive for this.

Karen N. Scott and David L. VanderZwaag (eds.) Research Handbook on Polar Law (Cheltenham/Northampton: E. Elgar, 2020)

Book review (editorial review), , , ,

The Research Handbook on Polar Law by Edward Elgar Publishing is part of the series of Research Handbooks that the British publishing house offers as a research focus in different disciplines and properly indexed in particular themes. In the case of the Research Handbook in Polar Law, the collection of 22 articles attempts to offer a comprehensive view of what constitutes the dimension of Polar Law: biodiversity, culture, politics.

The tome is edited by Karen N. Scott and David L. VanderZwaag, who try in the introduction to invite readers to reflect on the existence of a Polar Law and on the need to have this legal exceptionalism. Polar Law arises from the need to accommodate the regional demands of a part of the Planet that historically responds to various natural, economic and cultural claims. For this reason, inserting the term of Polar Law in the nomenclature alone is very difficult, considering the multidisciplinary nature of the subject.

Although the Polar law recalls a rationalistic legal structure, the two Poles, Arctic and Antarctic, require a different treatment as they are two geologically and politically distinct areas. If in the Arctic speaking of cultural diversity is possible, research in Antarctica focuses more on the protection of nature and the correct management of human activities, such as research and tourism.

For this reason, the authors opened the analysis with a historical excursus on polar geology, explaining the effects of the Anthropocene and its developments in the era of climate change. As far as the Poles may seem far and remote areas, they are in fact strongly interconnected with the rest of the Globe. The high temperatures and the sudden melting of glaciers caused an unstoppable rise in sea levels and the sinking of lands and river deltas. But not only. It is interesting to discover how the disappearance of the glaciers has made the polar future increasingly dark, without solar reflection and greater absorption of radiation.

The effects of Climate Change also unfold on traditional and non-traditional human activities in the Arctic, bringing out new priorities and new actors in the political and administrative dimension of the polar areas. After Seck and MacLeod attempt to group the polar population based on activities, Nengye Liu analyses China’s emerging role in Arctic politics, comparing the Chinese situation to the presence and competence of the European Union in both the Arctic and Antarctic. Although Chinese influence is still minimal in Polar Law, China is increasingly present in issues such as fisheries, shipping and tourism, especially in the Southern Ocean.

In fact, fisheries and tourism activities in the Southern Ocean have increased dramatically in the last decade. In his article, Haward traces the salient points of the history of fishing in the Southern Ocean up to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) part of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). Haward underlines the importance of conserving marine biodiversity, recalling when even the smallest element (krill) is indispensable for polar biodiversity. From the very beginning, CCAMLR has faced several resistances. Even today, it is hypothesized how this Convention can be integrated in the management of natural resources, especially in the policies regulating fishing.

A different approach is that explained by Hoel, who explains how fishing in the Arctic is managed, in particular by the Arctic Five, the five coastal Arctic states (Canada, United States of America (Alaska), Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Russia). Fishing in the Arctic has an additional meaning of sustenance for all the communities that live there. For this reason, the coastal Arctic countries have implemented tools to better manage this activity, such as moratoriums (US and Canada) and restrictive measures (Norway).

Natural resources are not just about flora and fauna. The Arctic is a region very rich in minerals and interest in developing these resources has grown over the years. The melting of the ice and the increasing number of fires in the Arctic has uncovered much of the covered land and has allowed further exploration.

Johnstone and Joblin talk about the limitations that Indigenous peoples still suffer in the enjoyment of territorial rights. Indigenous peoples, they points out, are not necessarily opposed to mining but would like to be able to participate more actively in decision-making processes involving the lands they have inhabited since time immemorial. Clearly, the connection sustainable development and extractive activities is not applicable in the Antarctic, as this continent is not permanently inhabited even if the growing presence of new actors (as previously argued by Liu).

Another important human activity in the Arctic and Antarctic is undoubtedly tourism. Again, global warming has opened up new avenues of communication, both by sea and by land, requiring greater controls and monitoring systems (Chapter 15; Chapter 16). Liggett and Stewart explore the regulatory framework of maritime tourism in the Arctic (Nunavut) and Antarctica, questioning whether this is sufficient to promote the diversification of the polar tourism sector. As pointed out by the authors, the non-ratification of some important international instruments (UNCLOS) and the difficult implementation of the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code), has weakened the domestic legal system that guarantees the harmonization of international law on the matter. As everyone knows, the COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects on the tourism sector in general, causing a total shutdown in the polar areas. The cessation of maritime routes has considerably reduced the economic income of the local communities increasingly involved in the sector. The advent of COVID-19 has prompted governors and academics to reflect on the environment, society and the economy. Three strongly interconnected dimensions that make up the concept of sustainability, now at the centre of global policies.

During the pandemic, the media often referred to the “resurgence of Nature”, telling stories of how the fauna and flora have regained the spaces occupied by man. Nature that still struggles to be the holder of rights, but passively undergoes the rules imposed by man to manage itself in order not to be damaged by the environment that it manipulates and transforms. For these reasons, I think it is really interesting and important to read chapter 16, in which Warner traces the international principles of environmental law in both polar regimes, weaving a profound analysis on the precautionary principle and the importance of drafting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) now implemented in many legal systems (thanks also to international influence and European directives in support of greater monitoring of human activities in the environment).

At the 26th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, global sustainability was one of the topics that drove the climate discussions. In fact, governments have talked about the policies to be adopted to lower the levels of carbon emissions, the primary cause of climate change. There continues to be some concern that the measures adopted, especially legal ones, do not take the vulnerability levels of the Poles seriously. In fact, the legal instruments are often of a soft-law nature such as the bodies that issue, albeit important, guidelines and policies in this regard (Arctic Council and containment measures for the levels of Mercury and POPs, especially in Antarctica). In addition, there is also a substantial inconsistency among polar regimes that tend to jeopardize policies relating to climate change (Chapters 16 and 20).

The same perplexities are shared by Suzanne Lalonde, regarding the establishment of marine protected areas (MPA) and other effective area-based conservation measures in both polar regimes. Despite the legal instruments on the matter, the Arctic and Antarctica encounter the same coordination problems. If in the Arctic we find eight countries that manage MPAs according to their own legal system, in the Antarctic there is experience of logistical and regulatory overlaps (ATCM and CCAMLR). The author suggests the strengthening of inspection and monitoring systems in the Arctic (beyond the legal areas of state competence) by supporting cooperation between agencies and local communities.

Since the 1990s, the Arctic Council (AC) has referred to a further consequence of climate change: the acidification of the waters, which affects both the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean. After the Arctic Council states recognized the problem of water acidification in 2015, the Arctic Council immediately adopted pro-active initiatives to combat the damage and risk factors, such as the Enhanced Black Carbon and Methane Emissions Reduction Framework for Action (EBCME Framework), with the commitment of member states to reduce black carbon and methane emissions.

The approach to the South Pole, according to Stephens, would be completely different. If in the Arctic we can speak of regionalism, the problem of acidification of Antarctic waters is treated in a more conservative way. Although the members of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) are more numerous than those of the Arctic Council, the regulatory framework is based only on the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement and to date the ATS did not demonstrate the same dynamic response as the AC.

The volume ends with an examination of the position of Polar Law as a discipline, hypothesizing the factors that led to the creation of a branch of law. According to Rothwell and Hemmings, climate change, the effects of which are very evident in the polar regions, and the exploitation of resources are the main causes of the growing international interest. As mentioned previously, the polar legal framework is very complex and is the result of the first explorations and the first hypotheses of sovereignty of those lands. The fight against sovereignty and, consequently, the management of resources has resulted in conflicts and new theories that have spilled over into what we call “Polar governance” and the decision-making systems that affect the economy, society, and the polar environment. The purpose of Polar Law, as suggested by the authors, is to respond to geopolitical and environmental challenges (p.473), and for this reason it will continue to adapt in an uncertain future marked by climate change.

After this brief and general overview of the volume, I would like to conclude my review with some personal reflections. First of all, I I firmly believe editorial series of this kind are of absolute importance both for those who work in the sector and also for amateurs of Arctic themes. Sustainability and the environment were the two pillars of this book which constituted the common thread through all the articles. Also appreciated the references and postscriptum on COVID-19 which has been an undeniable unknown for the past two years. I really appreciated the variety of disciplines proposed and the themes that the authors selected. Excellent Arctic-Antarctic dichotomy in each contribution that allows the reader to compare the two polar regimes in each field. The only thing that I personally have not fully approved is the order of the articles, poorly organized by argument. I would have preferred to find the scientific and humanities articles in separate sections or in a different group. For these reasons, I invite those interested in Polar Law to read this volume, hoping not to wait too long for a new issue.

 

Special Guest Foreword: Our Home the Arctic

Introductory note, , , , ,

The Arctic has in recent years received outsized attention in international discourse. A perceived last frontier of uninhabited and ungoverned spaces – of which it is neither – ripe for great power competition – for which there is little appetite.

In this special issue on International Relations Theory, the Arctic is examined through the tenets of IR Theory with a firm grasp of the region’s complexities, diversity and fairly clear-cut position in international legal hierarchies.

Not only is the Arctic a home to over 4 million people, it is also a relatively well defined space from the perspective of international governance. All landmass falls under the national jurisdictions of the eight Arctic States or their sub-national jurisdictions. All sea falls under either national jurisdictions or is governed by the tenets of the UN Convention on Law of the Sea, under the auspices of which a number of bilateral and multilateral agreements have been made. The Central Arctic Ocean is the largest area of high seas in the Arctic. Surrounded by the exclusive economic zones of the Arctic States, it is as well subject to international governance through the legally binding Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean, signed in Ilulissat, Greenland on October 3, 2018, and entered into force on June 25th, 2021.

The Arctic Council, the leading intergovernmental forum for the region, serves to promote cooperation and coordination among its members, the Arctic States and its Permanent Participants which represent the Arctic Indigenous peoples. It also serves as an interlocutor to the Observers to the Council, including non-Arctic states, governmental and non-governmental entities.

Thus despite the sometimes high strung exclamations to the contrary, so far all is well in the Arctic when it comes to international cooperation and collaboration. The primacy of national sovereignty combined with observance and respect for the rules and norms of international law, all give substance to the policy of maintaining peaceful cooperation and coexistence so steadfastly pursued by the governments of the Arctic.

This does not mean the region is without its challenges, including but not limited to crowded housing, food insecurities, limited health service in remote communities, lack of connectivity, insufficient infrastructure and ever more rapidly warming climate. Sustainability, economic challenges or opportunities, the impact of climate change, geopolitical rivalries, environmental degradation, all impact a fragile and important region, often disproportionately.

The Covid-19 pandemic has in fact highlighted some of these challenges. Political developments on the national and international level do so as well. To maintain the Arctic as an area of peaceful coexistence and cooperation will become an ever-increasing challenge, not least due to the increasing complexities of the challenges we who call the Arctic home are facing.

For Iceland, managing these challenges, during its two year Chairmanship of the Arctic Council, combined with a global pandemic, was not always easy. It is, however, a task successfully completed. Not least due to the fact that everyone involved kept their focus, recognizing that failure was not really an option. In the end, at the Reykjavik Ministerial at the end of May 2021, an ambitious Strategic Plan for the next ten years of the Council’s work was agreed, collectively and by consensus, accompanied by a comprehensive Ministerial Declaration highlighting our shared challenges and achievements. It certainly provides a positive gateway to the next two years of the Russian chairmanship of the Council.

The security dimension remains outside the scope and function of the Arctic Council. Rightfully so, as it would without any doubt impede its other work. That does not preclude us from finding an eventual appropriate home for those deliberations. That will be one of the tasks for the next months and years, and indeed, Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov, at the Reykjavik Ministerial, called for the resumption of meetings among Arctic Chiefs of defense.

In this collection of essays and articles you will find interesting, illuminating and challenging observations and insights for anyone intrigued by the Arctic from any angle, be it environmental, societal, economic or geopolitical – a resource and inspiration for further deliberation.

For any scholar of International Relations Theory, the compilation provides a vibrant insight into our region from a theoretical perspective not often seen – a foundation from which to study and reflect on the dynamics we see.

To Dr. Zellen and his students and colleagues who have accomplished this excellent work and provided their keen insights I offer my congratulations and sincere appreciation for being allowed to bask a bit in the glory of their collective achievements.

Fridrik Jonsson
Iceland’s Senior Arctic Official
November 2019 – June 2021

Finn Laursen, The Development of the EU as a Sea-Policy Actor (Cheltenman: E. Elgar, 2020)

Book review (editorial review), ,

The Development of the EU as a Sea-Policy Actor represents an important work within the body of contemporary studies dedicated to EU as a fully developed player in international relations. The metaphor of Blue Europe is beneficial in pragmatic terms, too, for the mapping and the investigation of the treaties sustaining the marine and maritime policies of the European Union (EU). This multi-layered analysis is complex and especially important in understanding the achievements and the potential of the EU as an actor of the seas.

Not only the history of Europe after the EEC, but also different theories are revisited to argue that the understanding of the European maritime policies, the so-called Blue Europe can be understood only with a competent theoretical background illuminating the structure induced, the agency, the process and the hypothesis orienting the policies sustained. The exceptional synthetic table (p. 22-23) dedicated to such analytical and theoretical considerations regarding policy development in the EU might be useful for the analysis of other policy achievements in other domains, too. A clear view upon contemporary theories regarding policy making and collaborative bargaining over diverse interests – international relations theories (realism and liberalism), classical integration theories (liberal intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism), neo-institutionalist theories (historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism), and the models based on domestic policies granting a great influence of the sub-national interests is allowing for a complex and nuanced perspective on policy-making.

Finn Laursen emphasizes: “Developing the treaty basis of Blue Europe has been an incremental process including several small steps when the member states concluded that it was necessary to take another step. Often the process was pushed by developments in international politics and political economy, including especially the Law of the Sea” (p. 42). There is a “constitutional” basis of Blue Europe. This investigation approaches both treaties and sea-policies concerning fisheries, maritime transport, maritime environment and maritime safety policies, describing a complete picture of the EU as a sea-policy actor and its particularities, internally and externally. These particularities are defined „from mare liberum to UNCLOS”, via the extension of the coastal state sovereignty stated by the Third UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III, 1982) and the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNLOSC) regarding the off-shore marine resources. At the same time, an important role is granted to the special interest to assess the initiation and development of sea policies in the EU, the existing conceptual frameworks and their relevance and the potential reforms in terms of EU’s sea policies.

The EU’s sea policies developed initially as common environmental policies and the book  analyzes the Single European Act (SEA), the efforts of EEC to be recognized as part of UNCLOS III with an equivalent standing as the member states, in order to clarify the scope and the functionality of Blue Europe. However, “The EU now coordinates LOS activities through the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Working Party on the Law of the Sea known by its French acronym COMAR, composed of experts from member states, the Commission and the Council Secretariat. It has also become more of an international leader in the LOS areas, for instance by supporting the development of legislation for the promotion of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, by showing the way in an EU regulation in 2008.” (p.62)

Discussing the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the book presents the equal access principle in the 1970s and its changes until the establishing of the specific (200-nautical mile) fishery zone in the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean in 1977. International interdependence, “complex interdependence” (Keohane and Nye) as well as the policy consequences of Custom Union, Common Agricultural Policy, the Commission, domestic policies and the demands of the fishermen, all played a role in CFP. The conservation and management policy was adopted in 1983 and several reforms were adopted until more recent reforms (2013), provided that new wider international changes and development imposed renewed attention to environmental agreements, or to new needs and interests or even new actors, such as NGOs and the European Parliament (entitled by the Lisbon Treaty, pp. 104-105).

Common Maritime Transport Policy (CMTP) along with other Blue Europe achievements are ultimately a proof of European and international cooperation and of common concerns (standards, equity, environment safety, pollution etc.) in front of diverse interests. Based on the international conventions, but going further than those the EU developed a body of law regulating fishery maritime transport, the protection of the quality of the environment, the prudent and rational use of resources, the protection of human health. The book captures the legislative developments the explanation of changes, the impact of the recent pro-environment discourse on the attitudes of the laggard member states.

The architecture of internal and external competences of the EU is also explained. EU has exclusive competence for the conclusion of international agreements enabling the Union to act as a whole and to enforce upon these internal common rules, as well as in “conservation of marine biological resources under CFP” (p. 165).  The EU has become an important international actor, it has “normative power” and “market power”, but also “environment power”, however, remaining solely a potential agent, just a part in the “coalitions of the willing”, not a military actor, in the full meaning of the term.  Eventually, as the author indicates in different occasions, the nature of the European policy, its enforcement, sustainability and future depend on the political will and administrative capacity of the member states, and especially on the forms undertaken by the European collective action and its force.

Duncan Depledge, Britain and the Arctic (London: Palgrave Pivot, 2018)

Book review, , , , ,

Does geographical proximity make you closer to a region than long-standing historic ties? Is Britain a “forgotten Arctic State”? How can Britain find its way in the “Global Arctic”? These are the questions, Duncan Depledge, director of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Polar Regions Secretariat in Westminster and Special Adviser to the UK House of Commons Defence Committee tries to answer to in his new book Britain and the Arctic. In the field of polar research – in Britain or abroad – Depledge does not need any introduction anymore. His name, alongside his former professor at Royal Holloway, University of London Klaus Dodds, has become synonymous with high-quality research in both international relations and polar studies. Based on a doctoral thesis Depledge defended at Royal Holloway in 2014, this book might be regarded by some as a timely contribution to the field of polar studies, especially at a time where Britain is gauging its involvement in the Arctic. On a more structural level, Britain and the Arctic is written as a collection of six thematically self-standing essays that each tries to assess Britain’s relation to the high north in an all-encompassing and detailed manner. Written in a short, punchy format, each chapter takes the form of an essay (with an abstract at the beginning) that makes the whole book more reader-friendly.

As pointed out at the beginning of the introduction, Britain’s present interest in the Arctic has never been as high since the Cold War. Although one might be forgiven to think that British interests in the North is an offspring of Britain’s colonial past, Depledge posits the Arctic has come into focus based on the need to make sense of how the Arctic is changing and how understanding these changes can help Britain be more productive in terms of science, trade, conservation and national security (p.6). With this new contribution, Depledge endeavours to analyse four overarching themes to better assess Britain’s relation with the Arctic. Drawing on Britain’s long history as a global power, Depledge first shows that Britain has had a massive role in influencing and defining the Arctic for centuries. He then argues that in spite of the “circumpolarisation” of the Arctic where the Arctic Eight (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US) have pushed non-Arctic states such as Britain towards the periphery of Arctic affairs, interests for the region within Britain domestic political, scientific and public landscapes have continued to grow in the last decades. The third theme is linked with the production of new scientific knowledge and the interests of British scientists in understanding how the region is likely to evolve in the future. This comes at the interplay of science, environmental, military and security concerns. Finally, Depledge also assesses the extent to which Britain’s contemporary engagement in the region, mainly due to its colonial past, is shaped by the country’s need to atone and demonstrate sensitivity in engagement in postcolonialism and neocolonialism debates.

As Lassi Heininen suggests in one of the blurbs, the idea of that Britain might be a “forgotten Arctic State” definitely comes as a surprise at first. The layperson might indeed wonder how a State whose northernmost tip (Out Stack, Shetlands) lies a bit further north than Bergen, Norway but still south of the Faroe Islands  could be an Arctic State, let alone a forgotten one.  In Chapter Two (Britain: The Forgotten Arctic State), Depledge cleverly demonstrates that closeness is not only a matter of topographical proximity. In the Arctic, a geopolitical region that is being construed as more and more global, Depledge highlights the problems with creating an arbitrary dichotomy between Arctic and non-Arctic States that relies solely on geographical proximity. Such closeness, he argues, is also a matter of topology. While acknowledging that Britain’s longstanding history in the Arctic comes as a result of its colonial past, Depledge demonstrates that topography and topology offer two different ways of thinking about Britain’s proximity to the Arctic. Although topography might play a more important role in the contemporary geopolitical landscape and also makes the Arctic look further away from Britain – demonstrated in framing Britain as “The Arctic’s Nearest Neighbour” in successive government policies since 2010 -, Britain, he argues, share deep and extensive topological links with the Arctic. From a topographical perspective, Depledge points out that the Arctic as a regional construct would still be vulnerable to further changes if and when the Faroe Islands and Greenland ever chose to become independent. In this changing Arctic landscape, Depledge also briefly mentions  the “spectre of Scotland one day becoming independent” and how, he argues, “few would seriously question whether the rest of Britain’s interest in the Arctic should be at all diminished or that Scotland should have a greater role than the rest of the Britain in Arctic affairs” (31). However, this analysis might come as oblivious of Scotland sharing a similar set of commonalities with northern/Arctic European states. Scotland’s growing role in Arctic affairs over the past few years from its involvement in para-geopolitical fora such as the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik to being one of the driving Arctic forces within British politics.

Elsewhere in 2011 and 2012, Depledge had already made the case for the UK government to develop an overarching formal Arctic framework which would help Britain and other stakeholders reflect on what actually matters for Britain in the region. Following the release of the Arctic Policy Framework in 2013, British involvement in the Arctic has not ceased to grow. Depledge highlights the challenges the Polar Region Departments have encountered in their attempts to communicate Britain’s Arctic interests at home and abroad and the need for a new British Arctic strategic document. Such challenges include the recent short-term vision that has been dominating British foreign policy making. In Britain and the Arctic, Depledge argues for a review of the Arctic Policy Framework and for a new strategic document to be published. Since Britain and the Arctic’s publication however the UK Polar Regions Department did publish a new Arctic policy (Beyond the Ice: UK policy towards the Arctic) in 2018. However, the 2018 policy did not surprise much and had a rather conservative approach to Britain’s relation to the region.

Britain might not be a forgotten Arctic State, but the book’s overall raison d’être appears less to be putting Britain on the Arctic map once again and more a statement for Britain to become even more involved in the Arctic than it already is. As Depledge argues if Britain wants to have a bigger role and an impact on Arctic affairs, the focus should be less on claiming topographical proximity (“Britain as the Arctic’s nearest neighbour”) and far more on making Britain the Arctic’s closest neighbour through science, defense, trade and cultural links (127). This kind of involvement from contemporary non-Arctic actors is to be welcomed as the Arctic is being construed as a more global and evolving region. Cooperation between Arctic and non-Arctic stakeholders is key to build a better integrated region. Britain and the Arctic is an exemplar of quality research about the globalisation of the Arctic. With its practical outlook, Depledge has made many positive contribution to academic research in the field of polar studies and Britain and the Arctic offers the most recent example of such contributions. Its concise format and affordable price tag make it a must-read for everyone interested in Arctic affairs, from decision-makers and politicians to senior academics and undergraduate students.

G. Baruchello et al. (eds.), No One Is An Island: An Icelandic Perspective (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018)

Book review,

No One Is An Island: An Icelandic Perspective explores how Iceland’s behaviour is influenced by the country’s small size and is a timely contribution to Icelandic studies and small states studies in general. This interdisciplinary edited collection came as a result of “No one is an island: Iceland and the International Community”, a conference held at the University of Akureyri in March 2016. The book provides an extensive overview of the subject at hand as it brings together works by Icelandic scholars, mainly from the field of social sciences.  As Frímannsson points out in the epilogue, the overall aim of this book is to reflect on Iceland’s and Icelanders’ attitudes and relation to the outside world (135) as the country gradually and dramatically changed over the course of the last century. Comprising of six unique articles divided into two sections, this short book in size but not in content will be of help to scholars and students alike interested in small states, microstates and everyone wishing to know more about Iceland’s position and future in the international community.

The first section explores Iceland’s representation through non-Icelandic academic research, within the Icelandic media and through the experience of people who chose to migrate to Iceland. In Chapter One, Giorgio Baruchello reflects on his twelve years as the editor of Nordicum-Mediterraneum (NoMe). As editor of NoMe Baruchello has been dealing with and reading many articles by non-Icelandic, mainly Italian, scholars who have intellectually explored the island from various viewpoints. Baruchello identifies four recurrent themes: Iceland as “the land of the Vikings”, Iceland as a Nordic State, Iceland as an Arctic State, and Iceland as a dimension of the spirit. Fully aware that it would be a difficult task to assess how representative these four themes are of both the stereotypes and the commonplaces in the collective consciousness about Iceland, Baruchello concludes by assessing how well they fit with Icelanders’ self-representation and presentation of their culture to foreigners. Iceland as an Arctic nation might be the fastest-growing identity. In the last decades or so, the Arctic has managed to carve itself a space in the Icelandic consciousness and within Icelandic politics. The majestic, almost spiritual character of the Icelandic landscape and geography will not surprise anyone – it is how Icelandic touring companies have advertise the island since the tourist boom of the last few years. Nonetheless, Baruchello’s conclusion is that although Icelanders still partially enjoy their country in the same way their ancestors did, urbanisation and high living standards have also had an impact on how Icelanders perceive their country’s own identity as they sometimes tend to agree with how the country is regarded abroad rather than on their own perceptions.

Birgir Guðmundsson then shifts the focus to media in a microstate. Using Iceland as a case study, Guðmundsson posits the media system in Iceland is in many way similar to its Scandinavian counterparts, more specifically regarding the extent to which cultural and historical factors play a role in the literacy development and the universality of communication and media (36). Guðmundsson also pinpoints several differences that make the media landscape in Iceland unique, such as a lower trust in internal political pluralism and less developed journalistic professionalism. The latter is due to the cumulative effect of a distrust in political pluralism within different media outlets as well as competition within a small media market. Comparatively, Guðmundsson concludes that changes seen in other Nordic/Northern European countries are also being seen in Iceland. Global-level trends and technological changes have had an impact on the way the Icelandic media now handle the news.

Chapter Three “Migrating to the High North” (Stéphanie Barillé and Markus Meckl) is based on interviews with people who have immigrated to Akureyri, Iceland. Beside the wealth of information about how migrants might feel when moving to Akureyri and how they have adapted to their new life, this chapter is truly of interest because it conveys a positive narrative about migration studies. In researching on migrants’ well-being and happiness – an under-researched topic in migration studies – studies like this shift the focus to the positive impact of migrating onto the host country.

The second section tries to make sense of Iceland’s role and interests within the international community. Of particular interest in this section is Chapter Four and Chapter Five. The former (Rachael Lorna Johnstone and Hjalti Ómar Ágústsson) focuses on Iceland’s role in Arctic governance. This chapter offers a thorough overview of Iceland’s geopolitical and legal interests in the North as it explores Iceland’s multilateral approach to Arctic relations and how Iceland has managed to frame itself as the only “full Arctic” state. Trying to make sense of Iceland’s priorities in the Arctic, the authors show that multilateral cooperation is key to Iceland’s strategic position in the region. From its Arctic policy documents to fisheries management to Iceland’s exclusion from the “Arctic Five” table, the country is shown as promoting cooperation with Arctic and Non-Arctic stakeholders through the Arctic Council, a forum where a small state has as much say in the decision-making process as “big Arctic players” such as Russia or the United States. Toward the end, the chapter also briefly touches on Iceland’s role within the emerging West-Nordic cooperation. Albeit brief, this last part provides readers with a platform to the next chapter in which Grétar Thór Eythórsson and Gestur Hovgaard consider the West-Nordic Region and the Arctic. A republic since 1944, Iceland is the bigger player in this newly emerging cooperation nexus in the North Atlantic. Building on previous research and contributions, the authors examine the unique relation between Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland as this relation intricately evolves between the West-Nordic region and the Arctic. Contrasting each country’s interests as well as Danish interests, the authors find common grounds and challenges for the West Nordic region. West Nordic cooperation needs to challenge the status quo and find innovative ways and structures to have a real impact as a geopolitical subregion.

“Iceland and Foreign Aid” (Gunnlaugsson et al.) depicts Iceland’s path from a poor country under Danish rule in the 19th century to a recipient of foreign aid in the post-WWII period to a donor country in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Iceland’s transformation, often credited to applying free market logic and policies, is mostly due to a combination of several factors within different economic contexts. Its geographic position and military importance during the Cold War meant that Iceland received generous development assistance through the Marshall plan, PL480 and the UN Development Program and beneficial loans from the World Bank. As pointed out in this chapter, this meant that Iceland could lay the foundation for its own development aid agency while still receiving foreign aid. Using Malawi and district (local) cooperation as a case study, the researchers also show how Iceland has shifted its focus in development aid from fisheries only cooperation towards including more social sector initiatives such as health, water and sanitation and education alongside fisheries.

In the epilogue, Guðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson provides some personal reflections on the previous chapter as well as on the small size of Iceland’s society and its effect on Icelandic life as a whole. With the eye and the insight of an Icelandic philosopher, Frímannsson offers what could be deemed as a concluding comment in which he wraps up the contributions to this volume. His final analysis is that the book contributes to a deeper understanding of Iceland’s smallness. One can indeed only agree with such a concluding remark,  overall No One Is An Island is a superb addition to the field of small states, regional and Icelandic studies. Baruchello, Kristjánsson, Jóhannsdóttir and Ingimarson have managed to compile high-quality articles in a readable, small format that will suit even those who lack time for academic readings – the book can be read in one evening. The book’s only drawback might be its price. Coming up at £58.99 on Cambridge Scholars Publishing’s website, this concise book might not be in everyone’s budget but its in-depth and thorough overview of the subject at hand is well worth the read and would make an excellent addition to university libraries’ collections.

Human Rights and International Relations. Some Remarks

Introductory note, , ,

This special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum contains select proceedings from the meeting of the Nordic Summer University (NSU) research circle “Human Rights and International Relations”. The meeting took place in Wroclaw, Poland, from the 24th to the 26th of February 2017, where we were very well received by the University of Wroclaw, for which we thank them warmly.

The program of the research circle, “Human Rights and International Relations”, runs from 2015 to 2017. This circle explores how human rights militancy and more generally the protection of human rights are affected by the international human rights regime and the way this regime enters state relations, and it also examines how the international human rights regime modifies the relations between states and how this is explained in international relations theory.

The contributions from this circle address the issue of human rights implementation. What happens when universal principles are translated into concrete action. Magdalena Tabernacka analyses the political battles surrounding the implementation of the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. Barbara Gornik shows how the plan to redress the erased residents of Slovenia was derailed. Athanasia Petropoulou demonstrates how visions of European citizenship fail the test of reality. Liudmila Ulyashyna reflects on how human rights law can be rooted into national legislation through education, in order to enhance the implementation. Eyassu Gayim addresses the relationship between human rights law and humanitarian law, and reflects on the nature of the human being and its rights in both of them. If they are based on the same fundamental considerations, why implementing them separately? Mogens Chrom Jacobsen challenges common views about Protestantism as the originator or foremost promoter of human rights. Implementation often depends on how human rights conform to pre-existing ideas about religion and politics, but such conformity can also be constructed to fit the purposes of the moment.

An additional contribution by long-time collaborator of Nordicum-Mediterraneum, Prof. John McMurtry, is also included, in which the worrisome implications of Brexit for human rights in the UK are discussed, given their EU-based emanation, with special emphasis on labour, environmental and financial regulation. McMurtry, who was Honorary Theme Editor for UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support System, authored therein the encyclopaedia of philosophy called “Philosophy and World Problems”. It is in the same spirit that he offers his contribution to Nordicum-Mediterraneum, in the hope of prompt and wide circulation. Consistently, the text is listed in a new category called “Philosophy and World Affairs”.

The abstracts of the published papers can be found below, as these were submitted by the authors:

Athanasia Petropoulou

On the Margins of Citizenship: The Refugee Crisis and the Transformation of Identities in Europe

Transformations of the notion of citizenship in today’s globalized context brings us closer to what Yasemin Soysal calls a post national citizenship characterized primarily by the erosion of the national identity as the distinctive form of belonging and the generalization of rights to non-nationals that initially were only attributed to members of the polity. While this vision has proven to be rather relevant in analysing changes in contemporary membership formations, it fails in some measure to capture the shortcomings of the universal human rights regime and the inherent tensions between the status of aliens and nationals-citizens. The current so called “refugee crisis” in Europe shows the predicaments of populations seeking to escape from war and deprivation and the uncertain legal status of these populations, whose rights are seriously impaired. Drawing on the notion of the “right to have rights” the study aims to explore how the European responses in this context, based on strong inclusion-exclusion mechanisms, can be pertinent for analysing and capturing current transformations of the notion of European citizenship and its future developments. In this respect, the current shortcomings of the international human rights regime can help us reconsider the foundation and notion of European citizenship. It is further suggested that the institution of European citizenship in its current form needs to be superseded, in order to attain a truly cosmopolitan content and to provide a foundation for a universalistic human rights regime. The main proposal presented in this direction, stresses the need to rethink human rights in terms of political practices and to “rediscover” the revolutionary heritage of human rights from an Arendtian perspective.

Barbara Gornik

The Politics of Victimhood in Human Rights Violations: The Case of the Erased Residents of Slovenia

In 1992, during the process of gaining national independence, the Slovenian government unlawfully erased 25,671 individuals, mainly citizens of other republics of the former Yugoslavia from the Slovenian Register of Permanent Residents. These individuals, who later become known as the Erased, became irregular foreigners; nevertheless, many of them continued to live in Slovenia for more than a decade without enjoying basic human rights. In 2012 the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Kurić and others vs. Republic of Slovenia held unanimously that there had been a violation of the 8th, 13th and 14th Articles of the European Convention on Human rights. Following this judgement the Slovenian government adopted a compensation scheme for the Erased, where it introduced the criteria determining conditions for their redress. Building on this, the article reflects on the political and legal construction of victimhood and reveals the elements that constitute the victims of human rights violations. The article highlights the notions of political loyalty, legal conformity and territorial attachment as one of the most decisive elements of victimhood. In this manner it shows that the subjectivity of victims in the case of the Erased is not defined within the human rights discourse but is grounded in nationalist terms and categories.

Eyassu Gayim

Humanity and Human Rights: The contours of international law

Laws regulate conducts by responding to social and political requirements. This holds true for international law as well, which now follows two separate tracts, one for international human rights law and another one for international humanitarian law. If these two branches of law are intended to protect the dignity and worth of human beings as it is often said, why separate them? Does humanity really exist? If it does, how does it relate to human rights? If the two are distinct where do they converge? This article highlights these questions by revisiting the contours of international law.

Liudmila Ulyashyna

Human Rights Education for lawyers: A Case Study Into the Universality and Its Relativism

Normative universality in the international human rights law shall be rooted into national legal contexts for its effective implementation. Human Rights training for lawyers ensures that lawyers receive appropriate education for the practical application of the principle universality. The case study shows that learners often lack the knowledge of the peculiarities of international human rights law, which differ from the ”classical” public law notions. Human rights training curricula should include topics, which form lawyers´ understanding of international and national legal regimes in their interdependency. Concepts of ”International Human Rights Standards”, ”Implementation and de facto implementation”, ”Status and Role of Individual/Human Rights Defender” being delivered to learners increase their knowledge and awareness of the direct applicability of international human rights norms and make them effective actors of the two-way process facilitating “a cross-fertilization” between national law and international human rights standards.

Mogens Chrom Jacobsen

Protestant Origins of Human Rights Challenged

This paper will challenge common views about Protestantism as the originator or foremost promoter of human rights. The idea of a Protestant origin is launched by Georg Jellinek and disputed by Emile Boutmy. The idea is still current and John Witte can thus claim that Protestantism was in part a human rights movement. The point of departure for this strain of thinking is religious toleration, which is seen as a particularly Protestant achievement. We will argue that a more precise notion of what 18th century human rights were and a closer look at mainstream Protestant political philosophy will tell another story.

Magdalena Tabernacka

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence in the Polish Social Safeguard System

The ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in Poland was preceded by a heated debate. From the very beginning it was the object of political battles between the conservative and liberal circles. Culturally and socially conditioned position of women has influenced its operation and the scope of its implementation. The Convention is a universally binding tool which guarantees the protection of human rights in events of violence against the woman and children. The case of this Convention in Poland proofs the existence of a universal European understanding of human rights protection standards. The Convention thus has a protective function not only for individuals but also, in a broader context, for the common European cultural identity.

John McMurtry

 

Is Brexit a Neo-Liberal Coup against 45 years of Life-Protective Law and Regulation?

The self-maximizing growth of private-money power over all life and life support systems – life capital in a word – to exploit for non-producer profit is not yet recognized as a master degenerative trend built into the ruling meta program of which Brexit and Trump are the latest Anglo-American expressions. Central to this unseen meta trend is the compulsive dismantling of life-protective law and rights whose masking justification has shifted from ‘globalization’ to ‘nationalism’. The Left is befuddled. It sees the anti-Labour implications in both the financialized EU and the de-regulating Brexit with no coherent program to overcome both. The Right blindly follows the inner logic of the ruling economic model while Liberals offer only partial and incompetent market fixes for collective life capital sustainability. All fail to see Brexit’s giant step towards life capital degeneration and eco-genocide at the margins as environmental and civil commons are stripped of their public funding by privatization and de-regulation.  The cumulative carcinogenic conversion of organic, social and ecological life organization into ever faster private money-profit sequences multiplying to the unproductive few is the predictable system result.

 

Geir Hønneland, Russia and the Arctic: Environment, Identity and Foreign Policy & Leif Christian Jensen, International Relations in the Arctic: Norway and the Struggle for Power in the New North (London/New York: IB Tauris, 2016)

Book review, , ,

Geir Hønneland and Leif Christian Jensen, both friends and colleagues at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway, wrote one book each that were published in the early part of 2016 by indie publisher, I.B. Tauris. Although each book discusses a subject of its own, for many reasons, the two books seem to nicely complement each other especially for scholars seeking a more holistic approach to Norwegian-Russian Arctic relations. As the present author started reading Hønneland’s book first and then went on to read Jensen’s, this review unfolds in exactly the same manner.

In “Russia and the Arctic: Environment, Identity and Foreign Policy,” Geir Hønneland goes back to one of his most prolific research subjects, namely Russia, and more specifically how Russia defines its own Arctic identity. Indeed, the aim of Hønneland’s book is to shift the discourse from the more media-friendly notions of the “Arctic buzz” and the “Scramble for the Arctic” to discuss what Russia actually wants in the Arctic, and how Russia actually defines itself, through its own Arctic and political discourses, as an Arctic nation. At the heart of the book lies an essential conceptualization of narrative and identity theory in which narratives are not construed as being a mere reflection of the world, but rather constitutive of the self, and as Hønneland puts it, narratives are rarely of one’s own making. In having Russia as the main protagonist of his book, Hønneland is able to further explore the role of the Arctic in shaping Russia’s projection of its own identity at the national level as well as onto both the international and the inter-regional (i.e. Arctic) stages. To do so, Hønneland divided his book into six chapters of relatively equal size touching upon subjects such as the so-called “Rush for the Arctic”, the delimitation of the Barents Sea, management of marine resources, continental shelf issues and Region building processes through identity formation. As a Norwegian researcher, Hønneland also strongly focuses on the relation between Norway and Russia, especially at the Barents-region level but also onto the broader stage.

Ambivalent relations could be said to be one of the major premises on which this book is built. Internally, Russia is perceived as the epitome of the epic absurdist genre, the “anti-Disneyland” where everything that could go wrong actually goes wrong, but Russia also likes to be seen as “the territory without limits”, the boundless, borderless land with no edges. And, to this respect, Hønneland shows the readers that the characteristics, which are generally associated with “Northern-ness” or with the Arctic, are the ones Russia associates with itself in a process that aims at constructing its own Arctic identity in blurring the boundaries between the Arctic as such and Russia. On this subject, Geir Hønneland even concludes that the Arctic is more Russian than Russia itself.

In the collective unconsciousness, the Russian struggle for identity is often perceived as being linked to its unconventional relation with the West and, in this view, the only choice there is to make for Russia is between being willing to create relations with the West – to get closer to Europe – or to create a sense of national identity more focused on Russia itself.  In either case, Russian identity is construed as being a narrative in which Russia needs to other the West in order to have a more stable identity. In modern days, as Hønneland points out, the Arctic is the modern incarnation of Russia’s willingness to work with the West, especially when Vladimir Putin talks of the Arctic as “our common Arctic home.” In this mind-set, Russia is both depicted as being warry of the West – especially Norway in the Barents Region and Canada in the broader Arctic – but also as being willing to sit at the table with other Arctic nations.

On top of discussing four key Arctic issues from a Norwegian perspective (i.e. security, Russia, the environment, and the exploitation of natural resources in the Barents Sea), with “International Relations in the Arctic: Norway and the Struggle for Power in the New North,” Leif Christian Jensen aims at offering a new methodological and analytical framework to the field of discourse analysis and to social sciences (more so than Hønneland), thus the first two chapters of the book are heavily theoretical. These methodological chapters focus on how dominant discourses enable and disable actions both at the domestic and the international levels and “how socially oriented discourse analysis can be relevant to analyses of actual political issues.”  Indeed, Jensen himself states that one of his sub-aims is to demystify discourse analysis and make it more accessible (to make it “less frightening and more tempting”) to both scholars and students who are active in political science and other fields within social sciences. Therefore, Jensen’s book, which is an extended version of his doctoral thesis, could well be read with a non-Arctic approach if one was to focus on the broader theoretical framework. Nevertheless, the case study being the Norwegian ‘struggle’ to construct itself as an Arctic nation, being knowledgeable in Arctic matters helps to understand how Jensen’s analysis is to be applied.

Throughout the book, Jensen wants to demonstrate that discourse is constructive, and that, through discourse, it is possible to construct truth, meaning, and knowledge. To do so, he divided his book into eight chapters in which he covers subjects such as discourse analysis of Arctic policy debates and official Norwegian and Russian foreign policy discourses on the New North. Relying on a well-constructed database research analysis of four of the main Norwegian newspapers (i.e. Aftenposten, Dagens Næringsliv, Klassekampen, and Nordlys), Jensen researched how national identities are constructed in newspapers and texts written by those holding power. Furthermore, Jensen uses the example of Norwegian mineral resources exploitation to show to what extent discourses and narratives can be co-opted and how Norway’s main official discourse in the Barents Sea shifted from being environmentally-friendly to “drilling for sake of the environment.” Indeed, the argument of Norwegian environmentalists was co-opted and reversed by the pro-oil side whose argument has been to focus on others, such as Russia, and say that if Norway left it to other states or private businesses, they would do a worse job at being environmentally friendly. To link this with Hønneland’s theory, this can be seen as a Norwegian attempt to other Russia to justify its own Arctic identity. Jensen even goes further in his analysis in stating that this kind of shift in discourses is accentuated by the press and by official publications, through which the main discourse reinforces itself.

One of the most positive aspects of Jensen’s book – and something rare in academia – is Jensen’s strong commitment to connect with his readers and to involve them through the text itself. Far from the generally dry and anonymous academic approach, which, more often than not, tries to suppress any trace of temporality and of self in order to make a lasting contribution to the researched field, Jensen’s inclusion of himself and of his readers into the structure of his research manages to make it easier for the readers to relate and to understand the theoretical framework.

Both Hønneland and Jensen managed to avoid talking of the Arctic as the new hotspot in international affairs, and, to some extent, their down-to-earth approach to Arctic relations can be seen as an attempt to normalise Arctic issues and to hush the “rush for the Arctic” discourse and to finally put it to bed. Both books can also be seen as a successful attempt to show how important it is, in terms of international affairs, to understand how countries perceived themselves and how they would like to be seen on the international stage. Far from gathering dust on libraries’ shelves, these books will be interesting for students, academics, and anyone interested in Arctic relations, especially in Norwegian-Russian Arctic relations and how this relation is construed on both sides of the border. However, these books should not only be read by Arctic scholars, as they also have much to offer to those seeking to read more about identity and discourse analysis and how it can be used in nation building and in international affairs.

The EU’s Open Arms and Small States

Conference proceedings (double blind peer review), , , ,

Recent events notwithstanding, all things considered, the European Union has proved to be a brilliant success along several dimensions. This is why there are still several countries waiting outside the gates aspiring to membership while only the British are considering exit as if to confirm French President Charles de Gaulle´s initial doubts about British membership. And this is why US President Barack Obama encourages British voters openly to say No to Brexit in the upcoming referendum in June 2016, warning them that Brexit may weaken the “special relationship” between the Britain and the United States.

Peace, prosperity, and open arms

Recent troubles notwithstanding, I see three main reasons why the EU deserves to be regarded as a brilliant success: Peace, prosperity, and open arms.

First, the EU has helped keep the peace in Europe since 1945, the longest continuous period of peace and harmony in Europe since time immemorial except for some skirmishes – some major ones, it is true – in former communist countries in the Balkans. Chancellor Helmut Kohl, one of the chief architects of German reunification as well as of European unification, put the matter well when he declared that Germany wanted to share her sovereignty and her fate with her European neighbors lest her neighbors never again need to fear German belligerency.

Second, the EU has promoted prosperity on the continent by engineering a major economic and social transformation with an unwavering emphasis on human rights. European cities from Helsinki to Lisbon – and, yes, also from Athens to Dublin – have been transformed before our eyes, and the same applies to the European countryside. The EU´s strong emphasis on human rights has involved, among many other things, the abolition of the death penalty throughout the union membership. The Americans have begun to take notice: the number of death sentences and executions in the United States has dropped significantly since the mid-1990s.

Third, with open arms, the EU has welcomed formerly autocratic countries back into the European fold – first, Greece, Portugal, and Spain on the southern fringes of Europe, and then the former communist countries in East and Central Europe – enlarging Europe, making it whole. Thus far, only Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland have opted to stay outside the union. Switzerland is a chapter unto itself, having joined the United Nations as late as 2002. Norway is also a special case in that its voters have twice turned down membership in national referenda against the will of the country’s main political parties and interest organizations, a remarkably inward-looking attitude on the part of Norwegians. I will discuss Iceland toward the end of the article.

To continue with the EU’s open arms, Catalonia is eager to join – or rather, remain in – the EU, as is Scotland, after achieving independence. About a half of the Catalan population wants independence from Spain because many of them feel treated like a minority within Spain without full respect and full rights. The government in Madrid threatens to keep an independent Catalonia outside the EU, a threat that contradicts the EU´s open-arms policy and is, therefore, likely to prove empty. The Scottish situation is different. There, also, about a half of the voters want independence, primarily because they want Scotland to be more like Scandinavia, thus setting England free to become even more like the United States. Scotland joined the United Kingdom in 1707 primarily to gain access to a much larger market. Today, as a member of the EU, Scotland enjoys such access and, therefore, does not any longer need to be part of the UK for reasons of trade even if most of Scotland´s trade is still with England. The threat from Westminster that Scotland will lose its EU membership if it leaves the UK sounds hollow because, again, it is incompatible with the EU´s open-arms policy. The threat from Westminster appears also a bit comical in view of the fact that the Conservative government is just about to hold a referendum that may take the UK out of the EU, a result that would almost surely encourage demands for immediate Scottish independence to enable Scotland to remain in the EU.

In both Catalonia and Scotland, the prospect of continued EU membership holds the key to independence. Without membership, many of those who advocate independence would have doubts as they would fear weakened trade relations as President Obama has warned British voters. As members, however, Catalonia and Scotland, would have continued access to Spanish and British markets through the EU, assuming the UK decides against leaving the EU.

Union of small European states

With time, the character of the EU has changed as it has developed into a union of small European states. If Catalonia achieves independence and joins the EU, it will become the typical EU member in terms of population size. Of the 29 members, there will be 15 countries larger than Catalonia and 13 smaller countries. This shows how unreasonable it is to maintain that Catalonia or Scotland are too small to stand on their own feet as EU members. Denmark and Finland are the size of Scotland and smaller than Catalonia. Denmark has been an EU member since 1972 as well as a de facto subscriber to the euro and Finland has been a member of the EU as well as of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) since 1994. If Denmark and Finland were able to do so well by their EU membership, there can be no reasonable doubt about the ability of Catalonia and Scotland to do likewise.

With more small members on the horizon, there is reason also to believe that the common interests of small countries will weigh more heavily in EU policy making and institutions in the future. Clearly, Europe has its political disagreements separating left from right, north from south, east from west, and so on, as does the US and other countries. Even so, Europe´s advanced social model, harking back to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck who can be said to have introduced the first rudiments of the German welfare state in the 1880s, faces no serious challenge within Europe. This makes Europe quite different from the US where the more limited and less ambitious welfare state legislation launched by Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson is under attack by its Republican opponents in Congress, a situation that seems unthinkable in Europe.

The strong parallel emphasis on efficiency and fairness is, as I see it, the key to the economic and social advances accomplished thus far by the EU. This helps to explain the continued attractiveness of EU membership to all but the most eccentric and inward-looking countries in Europe. Further, the minority of voters against EU membership within individual countries includes European advocates of the US Republican extremism that now, with the 2016 US presidential election approaching, seems to threaten the cohesion if not the existence of the Republican Party.

Three comparisons

The weaknesses that have emerged in modern America – lack of trust, imploding politics, stagnant wages, and increased inequality – mirror the strengths of the European model. In his seminal book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam charted the collapse of trust in American society, a gradual process the way Putman describes it.

Let me suggest three related phenomena to highlight some of the current differences between the US and Europe.

  • American workers spend 1,800 hours per year at work compared with 1,400 hours in Denmark and Germany, 1,500 in France, 1,600 in Sweden and Switzerland, and 1,700 in UK (source: The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database). Why? One plausible explanation for these differences is that US workers need to put in long hours to compensate for the lack of social security that Europeans can take for granted (Gylfason, 2007). Unlike Americans, Europeans have seen their economic wellbeing rise through higher incomes as well as less work.
  • In 1960, the average American was 3 cm taller than the average German. Today, the average German is 3 cm taller than the average American as documented in a series of works by John Komlos and his associates (see, e.g., Komlos and Baur (2004) and Komlos and Lauderdale (2007)). Why this reversal? A likely reason seems to be that tens of millions of US citizens have been left behind, in poverty and without adequate social insurance, unable even to attain normal physical stature, thereby dragging down – or, more precisely, slowing down the natural advance of – the average height of the adult population in the US (Gylfason, 2007). If this interpretation is correct, it constitutes a devastating case against inequality of incomes and wealth on economic grounds quite apart from the ethical issues at stake.
  • New research by Nobel-Prize winning Scottish economist Angus Deaton and Anne Case, both at Princeton University, shows that middle-aged non-Hispanic white Americans have faced declining life expectancies since 1999 due to a sharp rise in life-style related diseases and suicides (Case and Deaton, 2015). Declining life expectancies are unheard of in modern times except in Russia after collapse of communism and in Africa due to public health disasters, especially the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The lives thus lost in the US are almost as many as those lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic since 1981 (0.5 million vs. 0.65 million).

Expansion fatigue

There is no denying that the EU presently faces serious difficulties, some of its own doing, some not, including the recent torrent of Syrian refugees into the EU. While the EU cannot be blamed for the influx of refugees, the extent to which the EU bears itself some of the blame for some of its other current problems is debatable. The EU has looked the other way while anti-democratic tendencies have intensified in Hungary and, more recently, also in Poland. The EU could have reacted by, for example, imposing economic sanctions by withdrawing financial support from Hungary but chose not to do so. Likewise, the EU seems not to have done much to try to rein in rampant corruption in Bulgaria and Romania. The economic troubles of Greece can be said to follow in part from the EU´s flawed fiscal and financial architecture, a problem well understood from the inception of the euro but one which the EU has yet to address satisfactorily. This list could be extended. In view of these issues, it is understandable that some older EU members are inclined to think that now is a good time to slow down the geographic expansion of the EU by sharpening the focus on deepening European integration while putting widening on hold for the time being. Even so, EU would benefit from the admission of new members such as deeply democratic Catalonia and Scotland. If they declare independence, the EU will almost surely welcome both of them with open arms. This would lend an even stronger voice to advocates of the EU as a union of small European states eager to advance economic efficiency and social justice side by side.

Back to Greece. Much has been made recently of Greece´s inability to overcome her financial predicament by devaluing her currency. The argument is that macroeconomic adjustment by other means within the confines of the euro is bound to be more costly than devaluation of the drachma would have been. This may well be true as far as it goes. Even so, several euro countries have managed a significant adjustment in recent years, including Ireland, Portugal, and Latvia where, in 2014, unemployment was in the range between 11% and 14% of the labor force compared with 26% in Greece. In 2007, all four countries had unemployment rates between 5% and 8%. The experience of Ireland, Portugal, and Latvia shows that adjustment by other means – fiscal restraint, wage cuts, and more, sometimes referred to as an internal devaluation – with the euro in place is possible even if it can be quite painful. None of these countries seriously considered leaving the euro zone, nor did Greece. Comparisons of the euro with the Gold Standard are misplaced because the European Central Bank can devalue the euro if it wants to; in fact, the ECB did so recently.

Iceland and the EU

Iceland became a founding member of NATO in 1949. The decision to join was not based on detailed benefit-cost analysis. Details did not matter. Rather, the Icelandic parliament decided that NATO is a club where Iceland inextricably belongs. In other words, Iceland´s parliament decided to share Iceland´s fate with that of other members of the alliance, including most of Iceland’s closest friends and allies. No referendum was held. Profiteering from Icelandic NATO membership came later. The defense agreement between Iceland and the US is considered to have generated incomes equivalent to about 2% of GDP per year from the 1950s until 2006 when the US government unilaterally closed the NATO base in Iceland against the will of the Icelandic government.

Similarly, the Icelandic parliament´s decision to apply for EU membership in 2009 was not based on an explicit benefit-cost analysis. The principle is the same as before: those in favor of membership view the EU as a club where Iceland belongs if only because all of our closest allies except Norway are members. Further, in fact, I believe Iceland should join the EU even if it could be demonstrated that the costs of membership outweigh the benefits, but then, of course, it is impossible to assess the monetary value of political benefits.

From the early 1990s until the crash of 2008 opinion polls showed that Icelandic voters were consistently albeit marginally in favor of EU membership whereas political parties, subservient to the oligarchs they had created by granting them virtually free access to Iceland’s valuable fish resources, and interest organizations stood shoulder-to-shoulder against membership. Here the situation was diametrically opposite to that of Norway. Up against the wall after the crash, Iceland filed an application for membership in 2009. The application could be understood as a way of saying to the rest of Europe: Please excuse us for having permitted our banks to separate you from so much of your cash, but from now on we shall abide by the discipline required by EU membership. With the political parties held primarily responsible for pushing Iceland off the cliff in 2008 through their crony privatization of the banks during 1998-2003 back in power in 2013, an attempt was made to withdraw the application in 2012 as if to say: We did not mean to say we are sorry, we were just kidding. This is, however, a controversial interpretation. While many Icelanders apparently sensed a collective guilt about having voted for politicians who through the corrupt privatization of the banks paved the way into the abyss in 2008, others had no such feelings of guilt, blaming the crash on the bankers or the politicians or even on foreign conspirators. Anyhow, the attempt in 2012 to withdraw the EU membership application failed. Specifically, parliament put in the membership application in 2009 whereas the foreign minister, not parliament, attempted to pull out unilaterally in 2012, a pullout considered invalid by the EU because an individual minister cannot undo a formal decision by parliament. Hence, Iceland’s application remains on ice, like the Swiss one from 1992, waiting to be reactivated by a new parliament which will then put the negotiated membership agreement before a national referendum as promised by parliament and as required by the new constitution that was approved by 2/3 of the voters in 2012 and awaits ratification by parliament.

Recent developments in Greece, Ireland, and Spain make Icelandic accession to EU membership a harder case to sell. This helps to explain why public opinion has swung against membership since 2008 even if developments in Baltic and Balkan countries suggest a different conclusion. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the EU in 2004 and by now all three use the euro. Croatia became the EU´s 28th member in 2013, ten years after filing its membership application. Undeterred by events in Greece, Albania became an official candidate for accession to the EU in 2014. Bosnia and Herzegovina applied for membership in 2016.

Another reason for the change in public sentiment in Iceland is that some Icelandic politicians tried to deflect their own responsibility for Iceland´s home-made crash by absurdly blaming it on foreigners and whipping up immigrant-unfriendly chauvinism in Icelandic politics for the first time in history. In terms of economic damage relative to national economic output as well as in terms of fiscal costs, Iceland´s crash was among the greatest ever recorded (Laeven and Valencia, 2012). For example, the damage inflicted on foreign creditors and shareholders was greater than anywhere else relative to the size of the Icelandic economy.

What would be the main benefits and costs of EU membership? The economic benefits are clear even if European Economic Area membership from 1994 has delivered many of them already. Yet, several significant benefits are still missing.

  • Many Icelanders see the adoption of the euro as a key benefit in view of Iceland poor record of monetary management which has allowed the Icelandic króna to lose 95.95% of its value vis-à-vis the Danish krone since 1939. Quite apart from the general philosophy behind the EMU, small countries can benefit from outsourcing the least successful parts of their national policy-making just as they should resist outsourcing their most successful procedures.
  • The Common Agricultural Policy is far less expensive for Europe´s consumers and tax payers than is domestic farm protection in Iceland as has always been the case. Thus, while producer support in the EU decreased from 39% of gross farm receipts in 1986 to 18% in 2014, it decreased from 76% to 48% in Iceland during the same period (OECD, 2015).
  • In view of Iceland´s checkered history of oligopolies and lack of competition in a number of areas, including agriculture, banking, fisheries, and trade, the EU´s Competition Policy and associated monitoring and surveillance could offer significant benefits to Iceland.
  • The Common Fisheries Policy constitutes a problem for Iceland, however, that needs to be solved. Iceland needs to understand and respect that the EU was built on the fundamental premise of the original European Coal and Steel Community stipulating joint management of Europe’s natural resources. At the same time, the EU needs to understand Iceland´s significant dependence on her fisheries – a dependence that concerns the national economy of Iceland as a whole and not just local fishing communities as in the rest of Europe. The EU´s toleration of inefficient fisheries policies, tacitly justified by viewing fisheries as a fairly unimportant regional concern, cannot be accepted in Iceland where fishing remains a macroeconomic concern. Even so, Iceland needs a major overhaul of its fisheries management regime which the Supreme Court of Iceland ruled discriminatory and hence unconstitutional in 1998, a verdict confirmed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2007 (Gylfason, 2009a). In the national referendum on a new post-crash constitution for Iceland, 83% of the voters declared support for a provision stipulating national ownership of natural resources, including full charge for the right to fish in Icelandic waters in keeping with the user-pays principle of environmental policy now openly advocated by the World Bank and the IMF as the best way to deal with climate change (Lagarde and Yong Kim, 2015). Whereas Norwegian tax payers have been able to claim about 80% of Norway´s oil rent from the outset, 90% of the fisheries rent in Iceland still accrues to the vessel owners, Iceland’s answer to Russia´s oligarchs (Thorláksson, 2015).

 

Conclusion

Small can be beautiful. On average, small countries tend to have higher per capita incomes than large ones because various benefits of small size, including cohesion and homogeneity, seem to outweigh the diseconomies of small scope and scale and small pools of talent (Alesina and Spolaore, 2003; Gylfason, 2009b). The EU can expect to benefit from welcoming more small states as members. National boundaries matter less and less when cross-border trade is free. This is why the independence aspirations of Catalonia, Scotland, the Faroe Islands, and others need not be viewed with alarm. Along European lines, ill-designed national boundaries outside Europe would be easier to redraw if trade were free as in Europe, supported by social efficiency, freedom, fairness, and respect for human rights.

 

 

References

Alesina, Alberto, and Enrico Spolaore (2003), The Size of Nations, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Case, Anne, and Angus Deaton (2015), “Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife Among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st Century,” PNAS, National Academy of Science.

Deaton, Angus (2013), The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.

Gylfason, Thorvaldur (2007), “Why Europe Works Less and Grows Taller,” Challenge, January-February, 21-39.

Gylfason, Thorvaldur (2009a), “Hvað segja lögin: Sameignarauðlindir eru mannréttindi” (What Does the Law say? Common Property Resources as Human Rights) in Ragnarsbók (Festschrift for Ragnar Aðalsteinsson), Icelandic Literary Society, Reykjavík, 497-522.

Gylfason, Thorvaldur (2009b), “Is Iceland too small?,” VoxEU.org, 19 August.

Komlos, John, and Marieluise Baur (2004), “From the Tallest to (One of) the Fattest: The Enigmatic Fate of the American Population in the 20th Century,” Economics and Human Biology, Vol. 2, No. 1, March, 57-74.

Komlos, John, and Benjamin E. Lauderdale (2007), “The Mysterious Stagnation and Relative Decline of American Heights after c. 1960, Annals of Human Biology, Vol. 43, No. 2, March-April, 206-15.

Lagarde, Christine, and Jim Yong Kim (2015). “The Path to Carbon Pricing,” Project Syndicate, 19 October.

Laeven, Luc, and Fabián Valencia (2013), “Systemic Banking Crises Data Base,” IMF Economic Review, Vol. 61, 225–270.

OECD (2016), Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2015, OECD, Paris.

Putnam, Robert (2000), Bowling Alone, Simon and Schuster, New York.

Thorláksson, Indridi H. (2015), “Veiðigjöld 2015. Annar hluti” (Fishing Fees 2015. Part Two).

 

Klaus Dodds & Mark Nuttall, The Scramble for the Poles: The geopolitics of the Arctic and the Antarctic (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016)

Book review (editorial review), , ,

When I begin the writing process, I try to start with a title. I figure that if I get that right, then the rest will fall into place. When I saw the title of this new book by Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall, The Scramble for the Poles, my attention fixed on the word ‘scramble’, and it immediately resonated with me that this might be yet another polemic on the actions of polar states to shore up favourable access to polar resources in the future. And then I discovered that the authors actually devote a whole page in the Preface to explaining and justifying their use of this (and similar) terms, which was quite simply because they are in use in the everyday lexicon of polar commentary (p.xiii). So yes, in some respects this is yet another polemic – but at the same time, different.

Continue reading Klaus Dodds & Mark Nuttall, The Scramble for the Poles: The geopolitics of the Arctic and the Antarctic (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016) →

Peter Hough, International Politics of the Arctic: Coming in from the Cold (London: Routledge, 2015 pbk.)

Book review (editorial review), ,

Peter Hough’s contribution to the scholarship of Arctic international relations, International Politics of the Arctic: Coming in from the Cold, has now been made available in paperback. Given that the target audience is likely to consist of students and those with a general interest in the field, the paperback edition (and more accessible price) is most welcome.

Continue reading Peter Hough, International Politics of the Arctic: Coming in from the Cold (London: Routledge, 2015 pbk.) →