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From the discussion in the previous chapters, it is clear that we need to improve the agents and mechanisms of humanitarian intervention so that we can legitimately tackle egregious violations of human rights on a much more frequent basis. This chapter therefore considers five proposals for reform: (a) the codification of criteria for humanitarian intervention in international law; (b) the extension of UN standby arrangements; (c) the creation of a small cosmopolitan UN force; (d) the creation of a large‐sized cosmopolitan UN force under the control of cosmopolitan democratic institutions; and (e) the improvement of the capacity of regional organizations to undertake humanitarian intervention.

An examination is made of US policy towards and participation in several key regional multilateral organizations in the Asia–Pacific area, with the aim of establishing how central these organizations are to the overall development of US policy and the extent to which, and how, they influence or constrain US behaviour. The first section of the chapter reviews US strategic goals and briefly discusses some of the domestic and external factors that have led to the development and implementation of these goals in East Asia. The next section discusses multilateral security cooperation in the region, and gives an overview of regional multilateral security organizations, focusing primarily on the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum (ARF), given its all‐encompassing nature and relatively advanced (by Asian standards) stage of development; other US‐instigated multilateral institutions and initiatives (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) are touched upon briefly to assess how these more narrowly focused approaches also serve American interests. The third section looks at Asia–Pacific multilateral economic cooperation, and here the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) provides the centrepiece of the discussion; its role both in creating an Asia–Pacific economic community and, more recently, as a vehicle for political cooperation through the institutionalization of the US‐instigated Leaders’ Meetings, which bring many of the region's heads of state and government together annually, ostensibly for economic discussions. The conclusion to the chapter briefly evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of these organizations from a US perspective in order to understand better how security and economic multilateralism fits with the largely bilaterally oriented US national security strategy.

This chapter begins by bringing together the findings of the previous six chapters to outline the complete conception of legitimacy—the Moderate Instrumentalist Approach. It goes on to use this approach to consider to answer two central questions: (a) ‘Who has the right to intervene?’ and (b) ‘Who has the duty to intervene?’ It first suggests that any agent that has an adequate degree of legitimacy has the right to intervene. Second, it argues that the duty to intervene should fall on the most legitimate intervener. Assigning the duty to intervene raises additional issues, such as that of fairness. The chapter therefore defends the view that the most legitimate agent has the duty to intervene against three leading alternatives and the claims that this is unfair. The third section considers who, out of current agents (the NATO, the states, the UN, the regional organizations, and the private military companies), (a) has an adequate degree of legitimacy, and therefore the right to intervene, and (b) is the most legitimate agent, and therefore has the duty to intervene. It concludes that, although some agents of intervention possess an adequate degree of legitimacy, no current agent is fully legitimate.

The central argument is that US power, once established as predominant in the hemisphere, has been nothing short of decisive in the founding, nature, and functioning of the regional multilateral institutions/organizations in the Americas in which it has taken part. The examples of the Pan American Union (PAU) Organization of American States (OAS) and of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are used to show this state of affairs in play; the most attention is paid to the OAS because of the lessons that can be derived from the very long history of US membership of this organization. In another case, that of Mercado Comun del Sur (Mercosur, or the Common Market of the South), it is shown how, even where the US is not a member of a multilateral organization in the hemisphere, its weight is still felt in terms of the aims and behaviour of that body. At the same time, it is seen that such organizations may on occasion be useful for the smaller states in restraining to at least some extent US behaviour, although in general such a restraining role is reserved for moments when US vital interests tend not to be involved and where Latin American, or more recently Canadian, actions to limit US unilateralism do not negatively affect goals perceived to be key by Washington. The first section gives an overview of the US and the hemisphere over the more than two centuries of its diplomatic and related action therein, the next looks at the specific experience of the PAU and the OAS, and the following two at NAFTA and Mercosur.

The purpose is to trace and assess the ways in which the US has used multilateral institutions/organizations (both those international institutions/organizations of which it is a member and those regional institutions/organizations of which it is not) and multilateralism itself to pursue its interests on the African continent. The emergence of a noticeable multilateral dimension to American policy towards Africa is situated against two backgrounds: the first (Sect. 1 of the chapter) deals with the general features of American policy towards Africa since the Second World War and the role that multilateralism in general has played in that; the second (Sect. 2) deals with the rise of multilateralism (and multilateral regional institutions/organizations) on the African continent as a process that has a dynamic of its own. This perspective on Africa as an agent, and not simply as an object, of US policy is important for maintaining a critical perspective on the successes but also the contradictions and failures of US policy towards Africa. The final two sections offer a detailed description and evaluation of the dimensions of multilateralism in post‐cold‐war US policy, and, in particular, the Clinton era, which, in many respects, encapsulates much of what is right and wrong with US policy towards the continent. The evaluation made and the general assumptions used to approach the theme of US policy towards Africa are informed by a broadly neo‐Gramscian appraisal of the hegemonic function of the US in the current global political and economic order, and of the place of multilateralism within that hegemonic function.

This chapter examines how and whether African regional organizations, acting within the framework of the African peace and security architecture (APSA), can ensure an effective regime of human security in Africa. Section 1 of the chapter briefly recounts the nature of the relationship between the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and regional economic communities (RECs) as a prelude to understanding the relationship that has evolved between the African Union (AU) and the RECs. Section 2 discusses how the AU has conceptualized human security. Section 3 examines the operation of APSA, focusing on cooperation between the AU and the RECs within the framework of APSA to determine how this might augur for the protection of human security of Africans. Section 4 discusses the roles played by AU/RECs in the Zimbabwe and Kenyan crises, as well as the AU's response to the unconstitutional takeover of governments in Africa.

This chapter examines the policy and principles of competence allocation as between the UN and regional organizations. There are multiple policy considerations as to why the relevant institution should engage with or stay out of the pertinent crisis. These include closeness to the crisis, socio-political and ideological affiliations, or the availability of resources. Policy considerations are however elusive and open-ended, and resort has to be made to normative and quasi-normative principles of competence allocation that are either enshrined in constitutive instruments of collective security institutions or derive their essence therefrom. Chapter 3 consequently examines the principles of complementarity and subsidiarity that explain much of the area of collaboration and confrontation between institutions. After this, the chapter examines the scope and reach of competence allocation clauses under constituent instruments, the relevance of regional attitudes in formation of the UN position in relation to relevant crises, and claims in practice as to the autonomy of some organizations from others.

This chapter explores how national factors affected variation in TRIPS implementation. National economic circumstances and political factors within developing countries shaped the capacity of governments to filter and manage international pressures. First, government capacity came into play, most notably differences in the extent of technical expertise, institutional competence, and the dominance of IP offices. Second, the degree of public debate and engagement on IP issues in developing countries mattered, especially the role of interest groups, and the relationships between governments and parliaments. Third, there were differences in how governments coordinated, especially in terms of the strength of internal communication, links to broader public policymaking, how the governments managed relationships with donors, regional arrangements, and international organizations. To illustrate how the interplay of global IP debates, international pressures and national politics played out on the ground, the chapter concludes with four vignettes.

The participation ideal has affected Swedish politics in many ways and at first seems to contradict the notion of a professional political class. Yet, this has never been true for the national level and is less and less true for the local and regional level, the latter two often being a training ground for higher positions but also a career stage in their own right. It is unclear if a political class has already been established in Sweden – professional politicians may have made their careers quite safe, there is a social distinction (but take note of e.g. the high share of female politicians), and it is possible to live off politics (but not at a very high- level). However, a common class interest is hard to detect, and recent developments in public distrust of politicians and a resulting pressure for new political personnel could be a further hindrance towards the unrestrained development of a political class.

The authors focus on the European Union both as a regional organization with distinctive norms and practices, and as a grouping of states that reflect specific individual traditions and views. The chapter describes two core paradigms: the national and the post‐national. The national paradigm is recognizably realist and state‐centric in approach. It suggests that the focus of external behaviour should be the promotion of order via traditional power‐political means and for traditional state‐based normative ends. The post‐national paradigm, however, reflects a more cosmopolitan understanding of global society in which Europe's institutional and substantive understanding of justice questions can be reflected in its policies beyond EU borders. These propositions are tested in three issue areas. The authors conclude that while the EU may have the capacity to shape an order/justice agenda beyond its borders, its members have not yet agreed what that agenda should be.

Takes up the relationship between the US and regional multilateral organizations in Europe, in particular, NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the European Union (specifically the common European security and defence policy, or ESDP). It is suggested that US relations with Europe are an indicator of the US commitment to multilateralism more generally, and argued that the US approach to NATO has been driven by a combination of international structural factors (the distribution of capabilities) and the key domestic factor of national character (the liberal identity of the US). These very same factors hold important consequences for NATO because the US is the decisive actor in NATO, which, as a political entity, reflects the multilateralism that has its foundations in US national character, but as a military instrument, reflects the dominant power of the US. The resulting tensions in NATO were finessed more easily during the cold war, in the face of a common enemy, but are more significant in the current unipolar system, which exaggerates both the incentives for the US to act unilaterally and the frustration of European states who are less able to constrain the US yet unwilling to act independently. The author expects NATO to become less rather than more important to the US in the years ahead, and thus to matter less as a multilateral organization. The different sections of the chapter are: Isolationism as Multilateralism's ‘Other’?; Sources of America's Eurocentric Multilateralism; Systemic Change and American Behaviour: The Case of NATO; Consequences for Multilateral Organizations: The EU and the ESDP; and The Bush Administration and the European Allies.

The chapter examines different legitimation claims made by regional organisations and the UN with regard to their activities to maintain international peace and security. It argues that the legitimation relationships between the UN Security Council and regional organisations are more complex than the clear normative and institutional hierarchy outlined in the UN Charter suggests: some regional organisations rely on UN Security Council mandates for their legitimation claims, while in other cases the Council has sought the support of regional organisations before authorising an operation or the use of force. It shows how the legitimation dynamics between the UN and regional organisations are shaped by the audiences who need to recognise different legitimation claims and who respond differently to the claims by different organisations. Overall, the chapter argues, the Council remains the most authoritative institution addressing peace and security issues, but often relied on partnerships with regional organisations to bolster its legitimacy.

This chapter argues that a strategy for post-conflict economic reconstruction should rest on six basic premises. Although closely interrelated, these premises may have different implications for policymaking. Adherence to them would have greatly facilitated ‘peacebuilding’ and ‘state-building’ efforts and improved their chances of success. Premise 1 states that the transition to peace is a development-plus challenge because of the extra activities required. Premise 2 states that, should the objectives of peace and development come into conflict, the political objective should prevail at all times. Premise 3 states that lack of government legitimacy will limit policymaking choices in reconstruction. Premise 4 states that, given the primacy of the political objective, a different yardstick is necessary to measure success. Premise 5 states that the UN should lead reconstruction, although development and regional organizations should play a best-supporting role. Finally, Premise 6 states that the economic framework for reconstruction should be simple and flexible.

This chapter frames the examinations of legitimation in the volume. It identifies three reasons why legitimation of international organisations merits further analysis: the recognition of the importance of hierarchy in international order, the growing involvement of international organisations in the domestic affairs of states, and the emergence of legitimacy gaps as a result of rapid social change. It proceeds to unpack the concepts of legitimacy and legitimation, and to identify three conceptual challenges to examining the legitimation efforts of international organisations: first, their Janus-faced character as both actors and frameworks for action; second, the need of international organisations to address different and diverse audiences; and third, the multifaceted relationship between power and legitimation. It concludes with a brief overview of the other chapters.

In Chapter Eight, Sovereignty versus Responsibility to Protect, Joseph Hongoh argues that the struggle in navigating the tension surrounding sovereignty as responsibility to protect actually obscures rather than enables productive engagements with the concept and practice of intervention. Referring to case studies from Africa, Hongoh suggests that integrating regional organizations (ROs) within the international-regional-national axes of R2P potentially restricts the broader conception of intervention. In undertaking this examination, he begins by providing an alternative reading of sovereignty as a responsibility. In this regard, he demonstrates how regional organizations in Africa have perennially engaged with the questions of sovereignty, responsibility, protection and human solidarity within the broader frames of political and economic empowerment and emancipation. In the last two sections of his chapter, Hongo shows how the broader conception of intervention has the potential effect of producing transnational sovereignty, and in ways that are not imagined within R2P. The result, he suggests, may lead to implementation of R2P within the conditions of sovereignty that are determined by ROs.

This chapter describes the regional organization of class. It also presents a spatial framework in which to place Morelos' intimate cultures and the “flow of mestizaje” in the region. Localities in Morelos are classified according to three main criteria: position in the marketing hierarchy, position in the core/periphery structure, and position in the political-administrative structure. It then presents a general picture of the regional organization of Morelos' culture, as well as an outline of the transformations that Morelos' regional culture has undergone in the past thirty years. It is shown that the processes of cultural change involve four main classes: the peasantry, the petite bourgeoisie, the rural proletariat, and the urban or modern proletariat. During the period of industrialization, the old jornalero class is revitalized in the form of migrant labor from outside of the state.