G+S impacts of globalisation knowledge flashcards

International laws are the rules generally regarded as binding in relations between states and that serve as a framework for the practice of international relations. International law differs from state-based legal systems in that it is …

 primarily applicable to countries rather than to private citizens. These laws are formed through a state's membership of international organisations and its signature of binding treaties, and such membership and agreements require the state to follow the rules set down.

Membership of the EU carries the requirement that EU law will apply to every  member state. Failure to do so could result in fines or expulsion from the EU. Similarly, signature of the UNs …

Universal Declaration of Human Rights legally binds the state into complying with the 30 articles of that agreement (however the UN lacks the tools to force signatory states to comply and can only use moral pressure).

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a non-UN organisation that states join in order to boost trade and economic globalisation. In order to …

 join, states have to agree to follow its rules on trade and intellectual property rights etc. or risk expulsion.

Much of international law is consent-based - meaning that a state is not obliged by a type of international law, unless it has expressly consented to it by joining the organisation issuing the law. Even then …

states may choose to ignore the law set down, as the UK has done with many ruling of the ECHR.

Globalisation requires the redesigning of international law away from the “society of states” model and towards a model of a universal global society. Globalisation has changed the nature of global social relations, demanding a …

fundamental change in the theory of international law towards the establishment of global law for all states, which expands the ‘domain of justice’ from the state to the global community. Through a complete reexamination of core ideas such as boundaries, sovereignty and control of resources, the international law of a society of states can be re-fashioned into a global law for a global society.

. Currently/originally, international law was framed largely in the view of the interests of states. The approach to international law was that states are the principal bodies of such law. All other entities …

(IGOs and Individuals) derive their legal rights in international law, only in so much as these rights flow through the state and down to them. 

The advent of globalisation has undermined the role of the state as the only significant actor internationally - demanding international law to be rethought. In the mid-20th century ….

interest in universal human rights, international economic law and the emergence of international civil society through NGOs has rendered the ‘society of states’ model entirely deficient. 

By effectively eliminating time and space as factors in social interaction, globalisation is changing the nature of global social relations. It is lifting relationships out of the strictly territorial into the global. To be effective, laws must increasingly involve the global level. Globalisation thus …

requires a fundamental re-examination of governance at the global level, leading to a system where states still have roles - but not the only roles.

States create laws because the ‘nature of their societies’ demand rules for the regulation of human behaviour within a territory. Globalisation is now bringing about the same circumstances at the ‘global society’ level too…

The ‘nature of these societies’ circumstances include that there is basic scarcity of resources and competition for those resources (whether on a state level, global scale or in shared territory), we now have the capacity to help and to harm others on the global level and states now have a capacity to effectively respond to the needs and concerns of others beyond boundaries e.g. trans national mobilisation or resources, power and capital.

States policies and personal political and consumer choices are influencing the prospects of others lives. The globalisation of markets means theStates policies and personal political and consumer choices are influencing the prospects of others lives. The globalisation of markets means the …

direct profiting from the economic and social conditions of other parts of the world.

Globalisation shows states and their own laws can no longer be self-sufficient. The growing tendency to look beyond the state for the responses to global social and environmental problems constitutes a …

shared understanding that global institutions will increasingly formulate policy decisions, and that few states can act without them on any important social issue.

Introducing global law requires a re-examination of core international legal doctrines such as boundaries, sovereignty, legitimacy, citizenship and the territorial control of resources. For example …

territorial boundaries must be rethought eg. in justice as citizenship and territorial control of resources, which profoundly influences the life prospects of individuals. By privileging citizens over non-citizens in terms of access to wealth and justice, boundaries dramatically shift, along with life prospects. 

“Citizenship in western liberal democracies is the modern equivalent of feudal privilege - an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances” - Citizenship illustrates how the “society of states” model of international law permits territorial boundaries to function on a …

global level as one of the largest obstacles to delivering basic global justice. If a global community is possible, the discretion given to states to use boundaries as determinants of justice must be rethought.

International law is already challenging the notion of total sovereignty of states. However …

 the current purpose of international law is primarily to regulate states interactions with other states - and therefore the impact this has on the notion of the sovereignty of states is severely limited.

There is little role for people as individuals in international law. Whilst in area such as human rights the idea that peoples rights have transcended national borders as …

universal and absolute, international law seems to have reinforced the notion of states as sovereign, rather than challenging the idea.

International law needs to be fundamentally reimagined to meet the needs of the globalised world. Our interconnectedness requires

laws to exist on a global level to operate above the state.

The possibilities of international law represent a significant challenge to the idea of the state as a sovereign actor. Hence …

international law demands a world in which states will eventually no longer hold monopoly on the delivery of justice, welfare, equality, fairness, economic development and political organisation.

International law undermines the state: The idea of states having a monopoly over laws within its own territory has been challenged by universal human rights. All humans are entitled to such rights by virtue of humanity, regardless of the state they live in. The UN declaration of Human Rights sets out the global consensus on human rights agreed to in 1948, in part as response to the holocaust. These 20 rights focus on …

 1. Individual rights (Eg. right to life) 2. Rights of individuals within a state (eg. fair trial) 3. spiritual/political freedoms (e.g. freedom of religion, right to assembly) 4. Social, economic and cultural rights (eg. right to adequate standards of living). UDHR principles have been incorporated into over 185 nations’ constitutions, and has achieved the status of ‘de facto’ international law despite not being legally binding. 

International law undermines the state: The 1950 European Convention on Human Rights binds all signatories to its declarations. The ECtHR in Strasbourg acts as a …

court of appeal for a citizen to take its own government to court if they believe their human rights are being infringed by the state. This grants the citizen and state legal equality.

International law undermines the state: The International Criminal Court (ICC) works closely with, but not as the UN. It was set up in the Hague in 1998 and hears international criminal law cases, notably …

genocide and war crimes. As of 2020, 123 states have signed up to it.

International law undermines the state: When states have signed up to any form of international law, they lose the power to legislate and act freely within its own territory. For example …

 if a state built on religious principles believes homosexuality is wrong, then the enforcement of global universal human rights law allowing for its practice would be a breach of state sovereignty. This is the case in Iran, where gay people are routinely hanged.

International law doesn’t affect the state: Unlike national laws which have courts to enforce them, there is no international court to enforce human rights that states sign up to follow. The International Criminal Court partly does this, but only deals with a small number of the most serious violations, and in many cases, states refuse to be bound by these decisions. The UDHR has been …

criticised for having a ‘western bias’, and alienating other states eg. in 2000 the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation declared their support for the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam instead, an alternative document in accordance with  Shari'ah law.

International law doesn’t affect the state:  Whilst decisions made by the European Court are supposedly binding, the court has no means of enforcing them, other than its moral authority. As for the ICC, as of 2020 …

70 states have still not signed up to the court, including three members of the UN Security Council - China, Russia and the USA. In 2014, the African Union narrowly voted against withdrawing from the ICC, however its membership remains precarious.

International law doesn’t affect the state: It is clear that even in democratic countries, many principles found in international law and human rights legislation cease to exist. For example …

the freedom of political assembly (through voting) and access to elementary education. Many minority groups throughout the world would deny the right to free cultural practices such as the Kurds in Turkey and Tamils in Sri Lanka.

As of 2015, some 1557 asylum seekers who’d committed crimes such as rape and paedophilia were allowed to stay in Britain, rather than be deported, due to the HRA. Many of the criminals have won the right to stay in the UK by claiming deportation would breach their rights to a family life. One of the cases is that of William Danga. He was jailed for 10 years for …

r raping a 16 year old girl. He then raped two young girls and is now serving a 15 year sentence. He used the fact he has two children to stay in Britain. Similarly, Somali rapist Mustafa Abdullahi was jailed for 10 years after holding a knife to a pregnant woman’s throat as he attacked her, also managed to avoid deportation as this would have breached his right to family life as Abdullahi’s mother lived in the UK.

Following appeals by prisoners that breaches of their human right to participate in government by fair elections, the ECtHR since 2005 have ruled four times against the UK government and its blanket ban on prisoners having the vote. Despite this …

the British government has stated they believed that this is a UK issue - and that the ECtHRs instructions to change the law is an infringement of UK sovereignty. In 2018, the dispute was settled when May's government agreed to allow prisoners on licence the vote, but not others. 

In 1993, ministers from Asian states adopted the Bangkok declaration, reaffirming their commitment to the UDHR. However, at the same time, they emphasized the principles of sovereignty and economic development in their own states’ affairs. They also called for …

greater emphasis on the right to non-interference over cultural, social and political rights. The Bangkok declaration is considered to be a landmark expression of the Asian values perspective, which offers an extended critique of the UDHR ‘universalism’

The principle that human rights abuses invalidate a state's sovereignty is now enshrined in the UNs 2004 declaration on ‘responsible sovereignty’. This says state sovereignty is only valid when a state’s government is acting ‘responsibly’. The idea of responsible sovereignty is only valid when a state’s government is acting ‘responsibly’. The idea of responsible sovereignty was used by the UN security council to …

allow the intervention by use of air-strikes in 2011 in Libya to prevent its dictator Muammar Gaddafi killing civilians. Military intervention however wasn’t authorised when President Assad used chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War, where they targeted ISIS and not Assad. No intervention was used in Darfur despite the genocide happening there in 2004 - so the application of ‘responsible sovereignty’ and UN led interventions is a very uncertain business.

‘Humanitarian Intervention is defined as a state’s use of military force against another state for the purpose of ending violations of human rights (rather than being pursued for strategic purposes)’. It is controversial because of …

the difficult balance between the application of human rights and the right of state sovereignty. Additionally, since it is applied selectively, there is no particular correlation between the nature of humanitarian interventions and the level of human rights abuses.

The ‘Golden Era’ of humanitarian intervention was considered to have been the 1990s; 1998 UN intervention in Kosovo was seen as a shining light. The concept was largely soured by …

the quagmire of post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan, and only reinforced by unsatisfactory outcomes from the limited involvement in Libya.

Arguments for humanitarian intervention include that there is a legal duty in the UN charter to protect human rights,  a moral duty to intervene in other states to protect abuses of human rights - the common humanity we all share is more important than notions of state sovereignty, and that the UNs …

‘Responsibility to Protect’ (adopted in 2005) declared that if states were unwilling or unable to protect their citizens from genocide, mass killings or ethnic cleansing (forced population movements), then that responsibility would be passed to the international community.

Arguments against humanitarian intervention include that there is no basis for humanitarian intervention in international law, that states have mixed motives for armed interventions and might claim they are doing it for moral reasons whilst actually having national interests as the key concern. Russia has claimed its military intervention in Syria was motivated by a humanitarian concern to stop Isis. This is nonsense - Russia’s intervention was to prop up its ally Assad. Also …

states should not risk the lives of their people for foreigners, they often act  selectively and inconsistently on humanitarian intervention - there are no ‘rules’ eg. NATO helped in Kosovo, but not Darfur, a comparably much larger problem. Intervention can also be said to not work -  especially when it is coupled with an attempt to introduce democracy ‘from above’.

As with the application of universal human rights, globalisation has led to calls for greater humanitarian interventions. The connectedness felt towards others as a result of globalisation suggests we as citizens, particularly in the West, care more about the welfare of those in other societies - and therefore …

put pressure on our governments to intervene. The globalisation of the media coverage means that awareness of conflicts is very much better than it has ever been (however how many people in the UK could tell you one thing about the conflict in the 1027-18 Central African Republic - so this ‘global knowledge’ is relative). The international neoliberal economic system demands international stability in order for markets to operate - hence conflict needs to be prevented. 

As the role of NGOs and TNCs as actors in global politics has increased, so has their potential to influence public and political opinion for humanitarian intervention. NGOs may call for this to …

protect civilians and human rights, and TNCs may do so for genuine humanitarian reasons, such as the role of Belgium’s Sabina Airlines in putting pressure on the Belgian government to ensure the protection of employees during the Rwandan genocide, or as a cloak to disguise their desire to secure important economic considerations.

The UN security council authorised a ‘No fly zone’ in Northern Iraq in 1991 to protect the minority Kurdish population from persecution by …

Sadam Hussein’s regime and the despair of civilian populations.

Between 1994 and 1995 in Haiti, a US-led multinational force was authorised by the UN resolution 940 to intervene and remove the military junta that had overthrown elected President Aristide. Aristide was …

restored, military leaders stepped down and free elections were established. Haiti’s democracy remains fragile, however it established a far more stable environment.

In 1999, Australia led a UN-mandated force to stop violence in Timor L’este following a referendum for independence from Indonesia. This helped stabilise …

the territory, safeguard civilians and prove independence. It is considered one of the cleaner examples of forceful humanitarian protection.

Around 2000, the UK intervened to help contain civil war in Sierra Leone, support the UN mission and …

 assist restoration of order and disarmament. The intervention was limited but well-focused.

In the 1990s there were calls in the post-Cold War ‘New World Order’ period for states to intervene to prevent gross violations of human rights. The NATO operation to prevent Serbia (then Yugoslavia) mistreating muslims in Kosovo (now independent, but was part of Yugoslavia in 1999). By doing so they …

 heavily compromised Serbian sovereignty, but the grounds that protections of Kosovans human rights trumped the principle. Despite the success of the enterprise, the era of western intervention in foreign civil war seems at an end for the foreseeable. 

After years of UN inaction, NATO and UN forces combined air strikes (Operation deliberate Force) in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 (escalation escalated in the latter half). Despite the …

genocide of Bosnian people by the Serbs, a peace agreement was reached (Dayton) and the widespread ethnic cleansing was put to an end, leading to an imperfect stabilisation in Bosnia.

US intervention was taken in Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2001 under the Clinton Doctrine, justified on the grounds of liberal intervention which had wider goals of regime change and democracy. Saddam Hussein had been …

repressing the rights of Kurds and the majority Shia population while the Taliban has been restricting the rights of women in particular (the Taliban have since returned to power since the US withdrawal under Biden in 2021).

In 1994, UN peacekeepers (UNAMIR) were sent to Rwanda as it was facing a genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu’s. Whilst the international community was aware genocide was in progress, little was …

done to late and in the 100 day period of conflict, up to 800,000 were slaughtered. The international community had failed to stop the genocide.

Between 1992 and 1995, UNITAF and Operation Restore Hope were taken out in Somalia to ensure security and delivery of aid; later involving broader peace enforcement under UNOSOM II. while some lives were saved …

the mission suffered from a lack of clarity, clashes with local factions and significant casualties led to inability to achieve long term stability.

A French led force ‘Operation Turqioise’ was sent the Rwanda in 1994 to create safe zones for those fleeing genocide. It is accused of …

being too little too late as it failed to prevent any slaughter of the Tutsi, however was arguably more successful than UN intervention.

A no fly-zone was created in Libya in 2011 where NATO used air strikes to support rebel forces under UN resolution in the face of Muammar Gaddafi using chemical weapons against his own people. The UN security council demanded …

an immediate ceasefire to prevent ongoing attacks on civilians which might have amounted to crimes against humanity. NATO forces started striking Gaddafi’s forces when the ceasefire was not adhered to and created the no fly zone.

The principle that human rights abuses invalidate state sovereignty is now enshrined into the UNs declaration on ‘responsible sovereignty’. This says state sovereignty is only valid when a state’s government acts responsibly. This idea was used …

in 2011 in Libya to prevent Muammar Gaddafi killing citizens by use of air strikes. However, no intervention took place in Darfur despite the genocide in 2004, so the application of ‘responsible sovereignty’ and UN led interventions is uncertain.

Is HI ever justified?  In September 2005, UN member states adopted R2P, presented by the ICISS, which recognised that sovereignty was conditional on adherence to human rights. This drew upon liberal ideas that the primary responsibility of the states is to protect its people. If it does not, it forfeits its sovereignty to the international community. This was seen when the security council authorised a ‘no fly zone’ in Northern Iraq in 1991 to protect the minority Kurdish population from persecution under Saddam Hussein's regime.  R2P was again seen in 2011 when the security council demanded an immediate ceasefire in Libya to prevent ongoing civilian attacks which may amount to crimes against humanity. NATO planes eventually …

started striking Gaddafi's forces when the ceasefire was not adhered to and created a no fly zone. Both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2001 were justified on the grounds of liberal intervention in the name of R2P, as Saddam Hussein had been repressing the rights of Kurds while the Taliban had been restricting the rights of women.

Is HI ever justified?Humanitarian emergencies/ crises tend to have radical implications for the regional balance of power, creating instability and wider unrest. For realists, this would provide an incentive for regional powers to favour humanitarian intervention. This was exemplified with …

India’s intervention in the 1971 East-West Pakistan War due to the war’s implications of redefining the make up of the Indian Subcontinent, creating the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Intervention to preserve regional stability was also shown in

Is HI ever justified? During the Kosovo War, non-intervention could have created wider unrest in Europe as a whole. Blair’s ‘Doctrine of International Community’ was the basis for intervening in Kosovo in 2003 against the Serbs who were repressing the Kosovans. NATO therefore had an incentive for humanitarian intervention since in this age of globalism, what happens within the borders of a state is subject to widespread criticism. Arguably …

this is also the reason as to why many countries have urged US intervention in Syria to prevent the influence of Russia and Iran in the Middle East. Trump has arguably begun this by authorising an attack on a Syrian military airfield in Homs in April 2016 even though as a candidate he had sought isolationism and retrenchment.

Is HI ever justified?The 24/7 news and television coverage broadcast around the world has increased awareness of human rights abuses worldwide. The domestic issues of a state can no longer just be contained to the state – human rights violations by a government are subject to international condemnation. Witnessing such atrocities via the news, may force foreign governments to become involved in countries where human rights are being violated. Clinton was drawn to send to US troops to Somalia in 1993, known as Operation Restore Hope. The aim was to

aid the humanitarian operations of food aid, at a time when the country was on the brink of a famine, which were being prevented by warlords. In this case, humanitarian intervention helps to back up humanitarian aid missions in times of emergency in countries where security and human rights are a liability. Liberal, Bernard Henri Levi argues that ‘Aleppo will be the shame of our generation’ if intervention does not occur in Syria.

Is HI ever justified?Humanitarian intervention violates the principles of state sovereignty that were established by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Realists regard humanitarian intervention as a breach of international law as it shows a disregard for traditional respect for national boundaries. Blair’s ‘Doctrine of International Community’ urged intervention in Kosovo in 1999 by asserting that human rights were more important than sovereignty and that the international community had a duty to intervene when a government was violating the rights of its citizens. This was …

heavily criticised in the Security Council by China and Russia for violating international law and the sovereignty of Serbia. US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan was also criticised in the Security Council and it failed in its objectives. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now have de facto control of 80% of the country and have sought legitimacy through the embassy in Qatar. The Iraq War led to increased sectarianism and has given rise to terrorist groups such as ISIS who have become an important force in international politics. Similarly, intervention in Libya has left a failed state which has since become a terrorist hotspot and a dangerous location for refugees. Humanitarian intervention has therefore not adequately protected human rights.

Is HI ever justified? The security council has proved incompetent in addressing human rights violations in many cases. Humanitarian intervention did not occur when 8000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred in Srebrenica and when the Tutsi government in Rwanda murdered 800,000 Hutu’s. It has also failed to address …

the ongoing repression of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, with 100,000 having been exterminated or fled the country. The Security Council has refused to intervene and regard it as a genocide and has instead prioritised its relationship with the Burmese government and promote the ‘good news narrative’ of Burma which has established a democracy from a military dictatorship.

Is HI ever justified? Humanitarian intervention has not taken place where the great powers or their allies are the perpetrators. Russia will not have action taken against it for its suppression of human rights in Chechnya and the Crimea and China will not have action taken against it for its suppression of the human rights of …

Tibetans and the Muslims of Xinjiang province. As of 2015, Israel has been condemned in 62 resolutions by the Human Rights Council but the USA will veto any condemnation of Israel over its actions in Palestine. Ultimately, humanitarian intervention comes down to the security council veto and has become a tool in great power politics. 

Is HI ever justified? it is merely a form of Western cultural imperialism as opposed to altruistic desires to protect human rights. Humanitarian intervention has been used largely in the non-western world while the human rights violations of Western nations goes ignored. Chomsky argues that humanitarian intervention is not new, but is an ‘old project’ used by the West to ‘civilise’ foreign populations and establish its superiority by implementing western ideas. This is also …

the view put forward by post colonial theorists such as Edward Said. Said argues that the West has crafted the idea of the ‘international community’ to ‘sort out’ uncivilised states and alter them via humanitarian intervention. The attempt to establish ‘democracy from above’ during the War on Terror deepened tensions between the Islamic World and the Western world and also violated the human rights of the civilian populations in the process.

Is HI ever justified?  Intervention has been criticised for having economic ends rather than human ends. The War on Terror was arguably part of a wider US strategy of securing oil supplies in the Middle East considering that the region possesses 60% of global oil supplies and consolidating US global hegemony in a region with …

 potentially rogue states. The Western great powers have been immune from intervention due to their structural power – the actions of the USA in Guantanamo Bay and its torture of non-combatants in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and the UK’s use of extraordinary rendition and secret courts have gone uncriticised by the UN.

The Brandt reports in 1980 and 9183 first coined the term ‘the North/South divide’. It highlights the economic and social divisions between the developed world and developing world. According to this definition, high living standards, wages and industrial productivity are mostly to be found in the northern hemisphere. Poverty, low wages, agriculture and structural disadvantage are mostly concentrated in …

 the southern hemisphere. Supporters of economic globalisation argue that free-trade liberalism has done more than anything else in history to encourage convergence between the global north and the south by creating new opportunities for manufacturing in the developing world. As a result of greater trade than ever between countries, gross world production has massively increased.

Gross world production in 2000 - $33,896 billion. However, in 2019 this was …

$87,552 billion

 the number of people living in extreme poverty has dramatically decreased, as people across the world gain higher-paid jobs in manufacturing and service-based industries and have access to cheaper mass-produced food and medical equipment. According to the World Bank …

the numbers living in extreme poverty (calculated at less than US $1.90 a day) dropped: In 1980 (36% of the global population) and In 2019 (9.2% of the global population). As a result of the enhanced trading opportunities that free trade creates, developing countries have been able to break into global markets and use their comparative advantage in cheap labour in order to lift millions of their citizens out of extreme poverty. 

Tariffs (protectionism) may seem to provide an immediate answer to domestic prosperity by protecting producers from foreign competition. This means that governments put a tax on foreign imported goods to make them less attractive to domestic consumers. However …

 this can also encourage domestic producers to charge higher prices in a protected environment. In contrast, free trade encourages countries to specialise in what they produce most cheaply and abandon those sectors in which they lack comparative advantage. As a result, producers are able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by a global marketplace to maximise the potential of their resources. .

Global competition requires producers to produce as efficiently as possible, so …

benefiting consumers by reducing the cost of goods

The relative success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can, to a great extent, be attributed to the way in which globalisation has lifted more people out of poverty than …

ever before in history. By opening up their markets to foreign investment, developing countries have often been able to climb the development ladder to prosperity. In the process, this has significantly altered the global balance of power, with emerging countries, such as China and India, playing an increasingly assertive role in global politics.

China has used its enormous supply of cheap labour to manufacture low-cost goods. In 2019, exports from China amounted to $2.5 trillion USD, making it the biggest exporting country in the world. In 2020, according to the IMF…

South Korea had the world's tenth biggest GDP, specialising in computers, cars and wireless telecommunications. Its companies, including Hyundai Kia and Samsung have achieved global brand recognition. In the 1970s the economies of North and South Korea were roughly equal. However, North Korea's commitment to Juche (Self-sufficiency) in comparison to South Korean engagement in global free trade means that its GDP in 2019 was 54 times smaller. 

Since the 1950s, Taiwan has focused on export markets, specialising in cheap toys and textiles. The capital this created was then used to diversify into more high-price goods. Taiwan is nowSince the 1950s, Taiwan has focused on export markets, specialising in cheap toys and textiles. The capital this created was then used to diversify into more high-price goods. Taiwan is now …

a high-income country specialising in one of the worlds most advanced information technology sectors.

Vietnam is increasingly focusing on the development of its world export market specialising in low-cost manufacturing such as footwear and textiles.

The EU Vietnam free-trade agreement (2020) is likely to further boost Vietnam’s export market.

Many African countries have also been ale to take advantage of new trading opportunities by concentrating on those sectors in which they possess comparative advantage eg. Botswana with diamonds, palm oil and cacao in Cote d’Ivoire and tea in Kenya. The population of Africa is also …

 expected to rise to 1.7 billion by 2030. As a result, major companies are increasingly moving their operations to Africa in order to take advantage of its labour force and cheap costs.

 in emerging countries’ economies, as growth continues, so do costs, making them less attractive to TNCs. For example, …

Renault, Peugeot and Volkswagen are moving more of their production plants to Africa, Toyota manufactures in Kenya and South Africa and in 2019, Microsoft opened its first Africa Development Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. China has been quick to appreciate the value of cheap outsourcing of labour in Africa’s new urban centres.

According to a report by McKinsey in 2017, there were at least 10,000 Chinese companies operating in Africa. These include …

SIMI in Uganda and Transsion in Ethiopia. By 2020, China had also opened 25 industrial parks in Africa, including the Hawassa Park in Ethiopia with over 30,000 employees. 

Globalisation has also driven down the cost of consumer goods, providing most with the opportunity to own property. In 2020 …

45% of the world's population owned a smartphone, with the world's cheapest being the Freedom 251, launched in the Indian Market for under $4.

The Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang suggests that developing countries should embrace globalisation only when …

they have achieved a sufficient stage of development to be able to withstand foreign competition and exploit globalisation to their advantage. 

Critics have argued that although globalisation has created greater wealth than ever before, it has also had dramatically negative consequences. Too often the wealth that is generated through global free trade is concentrated in the hands of the elite, dramatically increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. For example…

 although China has dramatically increased in wealth since it embraced globalisation, it has also become a much more unequal society, with a huge gap in income and life opportunities between urban and rural areas. It is similar in India where in 2019 1% of the population earned 21% of total income compared to just 11% in 1990, the year before India began to open its markets.

From 1989 to 2016, the income gap between the poorest and wealthiest households in the US more than doubled. The number of middle-income families declined from …

61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019. The anger and resentment this has encouraged among working and middle classes voters who feel excluded from the American Dream provided a key reason for the election of Donald Trump.

In ‘World on Fire’ (2002) Amy Chua argued that by obviously concentrating wealth in the hands of a minority …

resentment and dissatisfaction will grow - undermining social cohesion and encouraging the rise of destabilising political movements. 

The Gini Coefficient measures the extent of inequality within a state. Zero represents perfect equality and one represents perfect inequality. The higher the level of income inequality, the higher the number. Critics of economic globalisation suggest that ….

although it increases wealth, it fails to share the wealth fairly. In the US income inequality has significantly increased from 0.43 in 1990 to 0.48 in 2020 - coinciding with the reelection of populist parties.

Since the end of the Cold War, the rise of human rights-based international law has led to several humanitarian interventions in order to protect people from war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity. These include …

Iraq (2001), Bosnia (1995) and Sierra Leone (2000).

Following the first gulf war, in 1991 UN Resolution 688 condemned Saddam Hussein's retribution against Shia Kurdish rebels, leading to France, the UK and the US establishing ‘no-fly zones’ within Iraqi airspace to protect Daddam opponents from his retribution. In 1992, President George HW Bush sent US troops into …

 Somalia ‘to stop the starvation’. In 1995, as a result of the escalating humanitarian disaster, NATO intervened against the Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian civil war. In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia in order to stop the ‘ethnic cleansing’ that Serb forces were carrying out in Kosovo, a constituent part of the Serbian state. During this conflict, former PM Tony Blair, who had pushed especially hard for military action, defined the principles of this new internationalism in his Chicago speech in which he stated that mass murder could not be ‘a purely internal matter’.

 humanitarian, rather than geostrategic, interventions were made by the UN to keep the peace in East Timor when it secured independence from Indonesia in 1999. In 2000, the UK forces intervened in Sierra Leone in order to stop the country falling into civil war. In 2005 …

 the UNs World Summit committed member states to the Responsiblity to Protect, a global commitment declaring that sovereignty is conditional upon a nation-states protecting its citizens from ‘genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity;. The 2011 NATO led intervention in the Libyan civil war took place in order to fulfil the UN resolution 1973 to deploy ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians.

When the Cold War ended in 1991, the future seemed to be one of greater global cooperation. States increasingly embraced the sorts of common values that led president George HW Bush to speak of a ‘New World Order’ based on a global community increasingly working together to resolve the problems it jointly faced. Former UK foreign secretary …

Douglas Hurd recalls that there were ‘no more enemies - just new friends made;, while ‘out went ideology - in came idealism’. Initially, influenced by liberal idealists like Tony Blair and the dominance of western power, it had seemed as though a determined effort was being made to create an ‘empire of the good’. Westphalian principles of state sovereignty would no longer be used to excuse mass murder within states. 

Liberals hoped that increasing economic, political and cultural exchanges between states would establish the UN as the ultimate arbiter of peace and war, and that a newfound global respect for human rights would restrain the brutality of dictators. Yet …

even during the euphoria of the immediate post-Cold War period, there were unmistakable signs that the influence of the state in determining the treatment of its citizens, together with its relationship with other states and NGOs, was still paramount. When the Yugoslav Federation broke up in 1991 and the Balkans were plunged into civil war, both the UN and the EU were paralysed by indecision, only hesitantly intervening to ease the suffering without being seen to take sides

In Chechnya, during two brutal wars, Russian forces succeeded in quelling independence at the cost of some estimates 160,000 lives. In Rwanda, 800,000 Tutsis were killed during the 1994 genocide while the UN dithered. In all these cases …

the global community failed to confront mass killings, since these were going on within states and so, it could be said, were outside the jurisdiction of another body.

In 2003, the US and UK invaded Iraq without the UNs explicit endorsement, primarily in order to achieve geostrategic objectives in the region. The resulting humanitarian disaster, in which some estimates suggest half a million may have died, together with the rise of militant islamism and the consequence destabilising of the region, further challenged …

both the jurisdiction and effectiveness of intervention. The limits of interventionism were seen by the failure in Afghanistan. In spite of almost 20 years of ‘nation-building’ by Western powers, the Taliban swept into Kabul in August 2021, re-establishing its control of the country.

Although it helped to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi …

NATOs 2011 intervention in Libya has left the country in a state of anarchy

The conflicting strategic interests and declining trust between China, Russia and the US have further discouraged Western powers from pursuing a human-rights based agenda. Even though the civil war in Syria has led to an unparalleled humanitarian disaster, …

Western powers, scarred by failing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, have been wary of fully committing themselves to overthrow the Assad government. 

The Rohingya Muslims are denied citizenship in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. According to the UN, Myanmar's government shows ‘genocidal intent’ towards the Rohingya and in 2017 it launched a military campaign against them forcing …

700,000 to flee Myanmar, mostly into neighbouring Bangladesh. In 2020, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Myanmar must ‘take all measures within its power’ to ensure that the remaining Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are protected from genocide.

According to Myanmar’s then leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, the international community had no justification for intervening in ‘internal armed conflict’ and ‘if war crimes have been committed by members of Myanmar's defence services, they will be prosecuted through our military justice system, in accordance with Myanmar's constitution’. 

Myanmar also has very strong economic, ethnic and diplomatic links with China. It is a member of China’s BRI and just a week before the ICJs judgement, Xi Jinping made the first visit to Myanmar of a Chinese leader since 2001 when he signed a memorandum of understanding with Suu Kyi. 

The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by international law in the Chemical Weapons Convention 1997. However, Syria has built up large stocks of chemical weapons. In 2013, the Assad regime struck Ghouta, a rebel-held suburb of Damascus, with chemical weapons. Many civilians including large members of children were killed. It was the most lethal use of a chemical weapon since the Iran/Iraq war of the 80s.

President Obama declared that the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict would be a ‘red line’ for the US. However, in spite of his strong language, Obama eventually decided to not launch military strikes. In 2017, there was another chemical attack and in 2019 on Douma in which many civilians were killed. As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump had refused to become involved in conflict, stating, ‘Assad’s a bad guy, but they’re all bad guys’. However on both occasions he targeted Syria with missiles in response to this breach of international law. On the first occasion he acted unilaterally and on the second occasion with the support of France and the UK.

Although economic globalisation has lifted millions out of poverty in the developing world, the way in which it has done this through large-scale industrialisation has dramatically increased carbon emissions. The way in which people are now …

 living longer and mortality rates among children are being cut because of better living standards means that the world's population has undergone an unprecedented increase, in 2000, the global population was 6.1 billion, and in 2025, 8.2 billion. A larger population will further contribute to increased carbon emissions, suggesting that, paradoxically, the success of economic globalisation in challenging poverty is creating larger problems for the future of humanity.

The challenge of ‘manmade’ climate change provides a classic example of a ‘collective dilemma’, which can only be resolved if states cooperate in order to lower carbon emissions to protect the environment. The way in which …

 the members of the UN's IPCC have worked together to highlight the dangers of a rise in global temperature demonstrates that IGOs have a vital role in developing global responses to cross-border shared problems. This therefore suggests that political globalisation can play a powerful role in addressing the environmental problems created by economic globalisation. 

 although the IPCC have focused global attention on the risks of climate change, nation-states remain the key players in determining how to respond to this challenge. For example …

 at the Paris Agreement, nation-states themselves decided what their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) to carbon reduction would be rather than having them imposed on them. Also, the UN possesses no coercive power if states fail to reduce their promised carbon emissions to abandon the agreement.

The Trump administration (2017-21) withdrew from the Paris Agreement because it claimed that it would cost the US $3 trillion and 6.5 million jobs. s the president put it - ‘I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh not Paris’, demonstrating that …

even collective dilemmas as fundamental as climate change still depend upon states agreeing to work together for common good. Even though the Biden administration swiftly rejoined the Paris Agreement in 2021, several countries, including Russia and Australia, have fallen short of the cuts in their carbon emissions which they promised.