The roles of:

The nation state and state sovereignty:

• State are sovereign, which means that they have the right to make all the laws within the territories that they govern

• State sovereignty is in the second article of the UN charter

The United Nations:

• The United Nations has:

  • promoted the idea that everyone has human rights regardless of where they live

  • led numerous peacekeeping operations

  • served as the hub of a massive body of international law

  • enabled dialogue to continue between hostile states

  • comissioned research and reports

  • promoted human rights and arms control

• The security council allows for world order issue to be resolved (problems with big 5’s power of veto)

International instruments

• Treaties and customary law

• Treaties can be bilateral or multilateral

• Customary law included the prinicple and rules of international law that existed before the UN and are not in writing

Courts and tribunals:

• International court of justice:

  • Is a UN body - primary judicial organ

  • Only for nation states

  • Goverened by UN charter article 14 and decisions can be enforced by the Security Council

  • Limited in effectiveness as on technicalities you don’t really have to go or listen to the judgement

• Ad Hoc tribunals:

  • Only temporary and deal with one situation

  • Set up by the security council to deal with their one conflict

  • Two main tribunals throughout history International Crimminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and International Crimminal Tribunal for Rwanda

  • Have been found to be quite effective

• International Criminal Court:

  • Aim to bring justice to people who have committed international crimes

  • Another arm of the UN goverened by the Rome Statute

  • Has issues (Only convicted 2 people despite having 36 on their watch list)

  • Takes a long time, is expensive and is not really effective

Intergovernmental organisations:

• In the UN charter section 5L encourages regional alliances

• Examples include:

  • The EU

  • North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)

  • Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Non-government organisations:

• Non-government organisations (NGOs) also play a crucial role in world order, and there are some 10 million NGOs today that campaign globally for humanitarian ideals.

• NGOs are limited by their power

• Are a way for people to be involved without having any governmental power

• International Crisis group

Australia’s federal government:

• Domestic law:

  • Section 51 Part 29 of the Australian Constitution allows external affairs power which allows the government to sign and ratify international treaties

  • International treaties are ratified into domestic law

  • Australia has signed over 900 treaties and multilateral/bilateral agreements

• World governance:

  • Part of British empire

  • Memeber of the UN

• Peacekeeping operations:

  • Around 65,000 Aussies have been in 50 operations in aabout 25 conflicts

  • East Timor conflict - most involved

Media:

• Plays a large role in how the public hears about world order issues

• Issue in unbalanced reporting on different issues and conflicts

• Example of power seen when the media exposed the treatment of American POWs

Political negotiation, persuasion and the use of force:

Political negotiation:

• Where governments and diplomats work together to resolve conflucts peacefully through discussion

• Can occur on a bilateral or multilateral level

• Problem being that negotiation is non-binding and not mandatory and there aren’t really consequences

Persuasion:

• Varying levels (could be a call or could be sanctions)

• Doesn’t have to be used just by governments (frequently used by NGOs to ‘out’ countries)

• Eg. 2008 ‘genocide’ olympics

Use of force:

• Strong belief in international community that force is the last resort

• Enshrined in UN charter Article 2 Part 4 however Article 51 says force can be used in self- defence, Article 42 says that the Security Council controls force

• US invading Afghanistan in 2001