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This chapter provides a practitioner’s perspective on the negotiations leading to the 2011 Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) and its aftermath. It explains how international actors constrained peace in Darfur by framing Sudan’s conflicts on a north/south axis; by repeating past mistakes in mediation; and by focusing too much on clashes between government and rebel forces when the main threat to civilians came increasingly from government forces and proxy militias. It argues that international actors often pursued approaches that were at odds with each other and should have put more weight behind democratisation. It shows how the Bashir regime used the DDPD to provide cover for its pursuit of a military solution and manipulated implementation to strengthen its grip in Darfur. It also shows how some lessons from past experience are still valid as a new phase in Sudan’s peace process gets underway.

The response of an incoming government to past crimes and gross violations of human rights depends primarily on a combination of domestic political, military and socioeconomic factors. However, international influences and institutions play an increasing role in shaping and affecting these processes. International efforts are in turn shaped partly by the perceived success or failure of domestic attempts to deal with the past. This chapter focuses on three areas in which these mutual influences manifest themselves: first, it examines the impact of international and transnational activity on the work of national courts, truth commissions, reparation schemes and political discourses about the past; second, it looks at the possibility of simultaneous actions in multiple arenas, since transnational justice also takes the form of legal actions brought in the national courts of one country against civil or criminal defendants based in another; the third area of influence discussed is the creation of new international institutions for accountability, although the extent to which these international efforts have influenced political or social reconstruction within societies is still unclear. The different sections of the chapter are: Introduction; Human Rights Institutions and Norms; Transnational Justice: The Pinochet Precedent; International Justice: The ‘Ad Hoc’ Tribunals and the ICC (International Criminal Court); and Conclusion.

Argues that although many Third World countries have experienced democratic openings, a large part of them are stuck in the initial phases of a democratic transition. International actors have contributed to this outcome in the following ways: (1) failing to appreciate the role of nationalism and political community; (2) overemphasizing economic and political liberalism; (3) supporting elite‐dominated democracies. It explores the connection between democratization and state strength, citing examples of transitions in Africa.

Chapter 7 has broached some avenues to revitalize the current law-ascertainment criteria in international law by moving away from intent but did not provide any indication as to the foundations of such formal law-ascertainment criteria. This is the object of chapter 8 which argues that any set of formal yardsticks of law-ascertainment shaped through ordinary language would remain inextricably beset by the indeterminacy of language if it were not grounded in the social practice of those who apply them. This chapter thus turns to the foundations of law-ascertainment in the theory of the sources of international law and, trying to offset the anti-theoretical bent of the international legal scholarship, demonstrates the possibility of constructing a theory of formal law-ascertainment grounded in the social practice of law-applying authorities. In doing so, this chapter seeks to rejuvenate the social thesis as it has been elaborated in English analytical jurisprudence by borrowing from a variety of thinkers like Wittgenstein and Tamanaha. This brings it to argue that the concept of international law-applying authorities must be broadened as to include a whole new series of international actors. It also points to the vainness of the question of the validity of international law as a whole. It simultaneously shows that the social thesis, if adequately rejuvenated in the framework of the theory of sources of international law, can continue to benefit from the insights from sociological studies, critical legal studies, third world approaches or feminist critiques and is surely not incompatible with them.

The introductory chapter contextualizes the Kosovo crisis within the wider international debate, questioning whether recent action signifies a return to 19th-century power politics or is evidence of an emerging post-modern constitutional order underpinned by universal values. It argues that the Kosovo crisis cuts to the heart of the current international system, and that interpretation of recent events will impact significantly on six core areas of the international order: the relationship between the state and its constituents, state governance, human rights, the problem of opposed unilateral secession, hierarchies and competencies among international actors, and the issue of state consent. A brief analysis of each of these issues lays the analytical foundations for subsequent discussion.

This chapter turns to the effects of international peacebuilding in Kosovo from approximately 1999 until 2012. It also provides some background on the history of this troubled region during the 1990s. The chapter argues that international actors were “vast and richly endowed and full of capabilities”; and despite the fact that many Kosovars, Albanians, and Serbs alike did not agree or support many of their goals, internationals were determined to reconcile society and create a multiethnic democracy in Kosovo. In the process, however, international actors and specifically the scores of NGOs that descended on the region crowded out, rather than complemented, existing institutions.

In a highly globalised world, understanding the policy making process is not complete without looking into international policy making. International policy has two dimensions: 1) influence of international policy process on national policy; and 2) influence of international policy making processes at the supranational levels such as the regional and global level. This chapter examines the two dimensions of international policy through the example of social policy. It discusses how international actors impact upon national social policy and the emergence of supranational social policy of global social regulation, global social redistribution, and global social rights. The chapter first reviews some of the conceptual and analytical frameworks drawn from international relations, political economy literature, and policy transfer. It then explains the complex nature of the international institutional framework and the density of the set of international actors involved in international policy making. The chapter ends with an overview of this multilayered and multi-actor international policy process, and with some comments on what this implies for any political strategy aiming to engage with international social policy making process.

This chapter extends the framework outlined in the previous chapter to examine the most common arguments for delegation to international institutions: information. It distinguishes two rationales: delegation to acquire expertise that states do not individually have and delegation to share expertise and achieve common interpretations of expertise. While the literature emphasizes the former, the latter type of delegation is likely much more common. Moreover, it can be understood only in the context of ideological conflict between states when states have incentives not to share information truthfully. The chapter then looks at the conditions under which transnational and international actors can exploit such ideological conflict to gain influence.

This introductory chapter discusses the complexity of the Syrian conflict and the multiple factors driving and shaping it. It argues that from the start, external factors have been essential in enabling and facilitating both regime and opposition actions. The war's character, scale and scope has been greatly impacted by these factors. The brutality of the Assad regime combined with the incompetence and disunity of the opposition led to a violent and intractable civil war. The role of international actors tends to be presented as secondary: they are sucked in once the war has begun, to pursue their own regional or global agendas. As a result, until the various external actors involved either have their goals sufficiently satisfied or cut their losses and leave the stage, the war is likely to continue in some form.

In 1995, the 26th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent mandated the International Committee of the Red Cross to prepare a ‘report on customary rules of international humanitarian law applicable in international and non-international armed conflicts’. The Study on customary international humanitarian law, published in 2005, identified 161 rules of customary international humanitarian law and presented the material collected in their determination. Complemented by regular updates of its practice part, the Study has also been accessible online via the International Committee of the Red Cross’s customary international humanitarian law database since 2010. For the Study, the International Committee of the Red Cross needed to consider many of the methodological questions that the International Law Commission faced in its work on the identification of customary international law. Like the International Law Commission’s Conclusions on that topic adopted on second reading in 2018, the Study is based on the fundamental requirement of two elements: a general practice that is accepted as law (opinio juris). Among the issues arising from this approach, there were the questions whose practice it is that forms rules of customary international law and whether actors other than States could be relevant in this context.

This chapter provides an overview of the monograph, outlining the structure of the discussion and introducing the key arguments that will be advanced. The principle of distinction, as a targeting rule in international humanitarian law (IHL), is introduced along with the concept of the civilian as it circulates in IHL. Three sets of international actors are presented—humanitarian actors, peacekeepers, and military actors—and the humanitarian actor is situated as the central character of the study. The boundaries between these actors are loosely sketched, so that they can be elucidated gradually over the course of the discussion as the empirical findings are revealed. The three central claims of the monograph are outlined as follows. First, it is argued that a wide range of unconventional actors, operating in unconventional places, produce IHL rules in everyday practice. Second, it is contended that distinction, not only as a grounded practice but also as a vaunted IHL rule, is perpetually disrupted. Third, the existence of a ‘civilian plus’ status in international practice is proposed. A brief overview of the study’s methodology is also provided, along with an introduction to the Kinetic, Pedagogical, and Intellectual realms.

Chapter 2 reflects on the wider literature on state-building and political geography, as well as scholarly work on political settlements, bargains and coalition-building. It offers the theoretical underpinnings for a framework to analyze opium bans not simply as a function of coercion but as the product of complex socio-economic and political processes that vary by both terrain and state-societal relations, and involve a multitude of local, sub-national, national and international actors, each with different and competing interests. This chapter highlights the role that international actors can play in shaping and distorting the political coalitions that are formed in order to impose a ban on opium poppy and how fragile and prone to rupture these coalitions are in areas where economic and political power is diffuse and contested within the rural population. This chapter also examines the structural drivers of rural rebellion and why some areas are particularly prone to violent unrest and resistance to state efforts at encapsulation.

Chapter four deals with the wide range of internal and external pressures for change which were experienced by CEE countries and the relative implications on the construction of poverty in the second phase of transition. Firstly, there is a brief review of the emergence of internal pressures for welfare change and the role of post-industrial social, economic and demographic dynamics, which had a massive impact on the reconfiguration of social policy following the dissolution of the planned economy. The subsequent section reopens the debate on the alleged opposition between “old” and “new Europe” based on the premise that new member states from the CEE region could have jeopardised the European Social Model. In the last section of this chapter the interventions of monetary institutions, the purpose of which was to create a residual social safety net and the role of the EU as a “silent” actor in the construction of social cohesion are examined.

While the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which was the first major international human rights treaty to be signed by the EU, has a notably experimentalist character, the participation of the EU does not seem to have been a strong determinant of these elements of the Convention. Instead, the experimentalist character of the CRPD seems to be explained largely by the prominent role played by disabled persons, disability NGOs, and national human rights institutions within the negotiation process. The EU appears to have treated the international negotiations and treaty-making process as a potential channel for ‘uploading’ its own preferred position, and its own disability-discrimination regime. Nevertheless, the EU has, since the coming into force of the CRPD, been quite active in ‘downloading’ this instrument, implementing the Convention and its provisions within EU law and policy.

This introductory chapter lays out the case of Somaliland and the role of international intervention within the region’s troubled history. Somalilanders’ historically grounded fear about the velocity of war—and the irrelevance of international actors to containing its spread—is foregrounded such that in times of crisis, mobilizing for political violence is largely bracketed out as a viable, or perhaps even logical, course of action. The chapter briefly lays the groundwork for this case study by delving into the history of Somaliland with respect to its parent state, the Republic of Somalia. It notes the unusual divergence in the levels of violence experienced by Somaliland and the Republic of Somalia since the 1990s. In addition to Somaliland’s history, the chapter also lays out the methodology for conducting Somaliland’s case study as well as the impact of discourse literature upon the study.

This chapter considers the problems and dilemmas of building national capacity to protect civilians. Although most international effort to protect civilians focuses on military intervention, humanitarian relief, or promotion of human rights, State responsibility for the security and safety of the people within their borders is the end-goal of the ‘protection chain’. The chapter examines the strategies that international actors use to help build States’ capacities to protect their own people, questioning whether the approaches being used are effective, and, if not, what are the preferred alternatives. There are two primary competing approaches: rigorously pursuing the security and safety of civilians; or working to establish institutions of governance and justice as State-building priorities. The chapter recommends that priority be given to building the capacity of a State to ensure the safety of its population, arguing that a ‘security-first’ approach is the most pragmatic means of achieving the protection chain’s end-goal.