Download or read book Taking Aim at the Arms Trade written by Doctor Anna Stavrianakis and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking Aim at The Arms Trade: NGOs, Global Civil Society and the World Military Order takes a critical look at the ways in which NGOs portray the arms trade as a problem of international politics and the strategies they use to effect change. NGOs have been pivotal in bringing the suffering caused by the arms trade to public attention, documenting its negative impact on human rights, conflict, security and development around the world, and pushing for measures to control or eradicate the trade. Overall, however, their activity has helped sideline debate on Northern military predominance while facilitating intervention in the South based on liberal understandings of the arms trade, conflict, development and human rights. They thus contribute to the perpetuation of a hierarchical world military order and the construction of the South as a site of Northern benevolence and intervention. Stavrianakis exposes the tensions inherent in NGOs' engagement with the arms trade and argues for a re-examination of dominant assumptions about NGOs as global civil society actors.
Download or read book The Arms Trade Treaty written by Rachel Dunaway and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article brings light to the misguided efforts of the United Nations in trying to control weapons entering into the illicit market. The recent Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) focuses on the legal trade in weapons to prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in arms while missing a vital component: corrupt government officials. Corruption in the area of international trade law is an ongoing and growing issue as countries and governments struggle to control groups using weapons to commit violence against women, children, and other vulnerable persons. This article focuses on the trade of a subset of weapons covered by the treaty: small arms and light weapons (SALW), as these types of weapons are used more often to commit human-rights abuses than any other type of weapon manufactured.The article examines the previous efforts by the United Nations to prevent weapons from being used to commit human rights violations and how the ATT's lack of focus on anti-corruption procedures will make the treaty ineffective. The legal trade in weapons, especially in the United States, is thorough and has been called the “gold standard” across the world. However, similar laws are needed in developing countries that are more prone to corruption and are at a greater risk of placing weapons into the illicit (“black”) market.The article recommends that subsequent revisions of the ATT and discussions regarding it need more focus on anti-corruption policies and procedure to correct the overly broad regulations that leave the interpretation of the treaty up to the member states. Additionally, countries should implement municipal laws similar to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the United States to assist in combating the illegal trade in weapons. This will help limit corrupt government officials from circumventing the provisions of the ATT for their personal benefit.
Download or read book The Arms Trade Treaty written by Clare Da Silva and published by Intersentia. This book was released on 2021 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a unique and comprehensive commentary on the Arms Trade Treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, with several contributors having direct involvement in the negotation of the Treaty.
Download or read book Dangerous Trade written by Jennifer Erickson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United Nations's groundbreaking Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which went into effect in 2014, sets legally binding standards to regulate global arms exports and reflects the growing concerns toward the significant role that small and major conventional arms play in perpetuating human rights violations, conflict, and societal instability worldwide. Many countries that once staunchly opposed shared export controls and their perceived threat to political and economic autonomy are now beginning to embrace numerous agreements, such as the ATT and the EU Code of Conduct. Jennifer L. Erickson explores the reasons top arms-exporting democracies have put aside past sovereignty, security, and economic worries in favor of humanitarian arms transfer controls, and she follows the early effects of this about-face on export practice. She begins with a brief history of failed arms export control initiatives and then tracks arms transfer trends over time. Pinpointing the normative shifts in the 1990s that put humanitarian arms control on the table, she reveals that these states committed to these policies out of concern for their international reputations. She also highlights how arms trade scandals threaten domestic reputations and thus help improve compliance. Using statistical data and interviews conducted in France, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Erickson challenges existing IR theories of state behavior while providing insight into the role of reputation as a social mechanism and the importance of government transparency and accountability in generating compliance with new norms and rules.
Download or read book The Peace Protestors written by Symon Hill and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Afghanistan to the Falklands, from Northern Ireland to Iraq, British troops are nearly always in action somewhere in the world. But whenever there is war, there will be people who resist it. Sometimes, they can draw on public sympathy. At other times, they stand alone against the crowd. Peace movements large and small have been a constant part of UK history, not least in the last 40 years. This book tells their stories. Drawing on interviews, fresh research and newly released government documents, the book sheds light on some of the most surprising and overlooked events of recent decades. Peace activists in the 1980s did not know that Margaret Thatcher's government feared that US troops on UK bases would fire on unarmed demonstrators. When the ceasefire came about in Northern Ireland, few noticed the peace work that Quakers had been doing behind the scenes for years. While the jingoistic atmosphere of the Falklands War is much remembered, there is less talk about the protests against it that saw more than 100 arrests at navy recruitment centres and public demonstrations. Four women who successfully disarmed a warplane in the 1990s were just a few of those to be acquitted after actions that could have resulted in years in prison. Apparent public support for the campaign against the Iraq war masked deep and bitter divisions amongst anti-war activists. Dissent and disobedience within the armed forces continues far from the public gaze. As recently as 2011, Michael Lyons was refused discharge from the Royal Navy despite developing a conscientious objection to war. He spent seven months in a military prison. This is a book that brings to life the realities of resistance by people whose refusal to conform has much to say about how we see the UK and British history today.
Download or read book The European Union s External Action in Times of Crisis written by Piet Eeckhout and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lisbon Treaty modified the legal framework of EU external action and these innovations must be applied in a period of deep economic and financial crisis interacting with other more specific crises affecting the EU's external activities. This volume investigates the recent institutional and substantive developments in EU external relations law and practice in this context of multiple crises for the EU. The economic and financial crisis has a major impact on EU external action, but other crises too affect this sensitive area of the EU's activity and the book takes them into account. For instance, there is a crisis in the relationship between EU law and international law after the ECJ judgement in the Kadi case. In addition to exploring these questions, the volume also examines questions of legitimacy in fields such as foreign investment protection and arbitration. Representing the output of a powerful research team composed of leading scholars in the field this comprehensive collection will appeal to both an expert and non-expert readership.
Download or read book The Arms Trade Treaty A Commentary written by Andrew Clapham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-09 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty became binding international law in late 2014, and although the text of the treaty is a relatively concise framework for assessing whether to authorize or deny proposed conventional weapons transfers by States Parties, there exists controversy as to the meaning of certain key provisions. Furthermore, the treaty requires a national regulatory body to authorize proposed transfers of conventional weapons covered by the treaty, but does not detail how such a body should be established and how it should effectively function. The Arms Trade Treaty: A Commentary explains in detail each of the treaty provisions, the parameters for prohibitions or the denial of transfers, international cooperation and assistance, and implementation obligations and mechanisms. As states ratify and implement the Treaty over the next few years, the commentary provides invaluable guidance to government officials, commentators, and scholars on the meaning of its contentious provisions. This volume describes in detail which weapons are covered by the treaty and explains the different forms of transfer that the Arms Trade Treaty regulates. It covers international human rights, trade, disarmament, humanitarian law, criminal law, and state-to-state use of force, as well as the application of the treaty to non-state actors.
Download or read book Masculinities Gender and International Relations written by Terrell Carver and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explaining gender as both an asymmetrical binary and a hierarchy, the book shows how masculinization works via 'nested hierarchies' of domination and subordination and explores masculinities within nation-state and power politics.
Download or read book Red Cross Interventions in Weapons Control written by Ritu Mathur and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a leading humanitarian actor, addresses the problem of weapons. A triangulation of strategies such as testimonialization, medicalization and legalization, are investigated, with the help of critical security studies literature, to cultivate an understanding of an effects based approach to weapons. The attempt here is not only to introduce some innovative, conceptual tools but also to provide a coherent and critical narrative of the experiences of the ICRC vis-à-vis states to regulate and prohibit weapons. This experiential account of the ICRC’s engagement with the problem of weapons is significant as it produces an empowering, alternative discourse making visible subjugated knowledge in the field of arms control and disarmament.
Download or read book Shadow Trades written by Amos Owen Thomas and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alongside burgeoning global business, which asserts its legality, ethics and social responsibility, there exists a dark side of shadow trades manifesting various shades of legitimacy. Not only do the latter’s corrupt practices, dubious supply chains and other illicit operations run in tandem with global business, these borderless trades intersect with economic structures and contribute to systems adopted by corporations, endorsed by neoliberal capitalism, that are often condoned by governments and unwittingly sustained by consumers. In a very real sense, all of us may be implicated in shadow trades through our work, consumption and citizenship. Even before we can begin to confront and constrain shadow trades, their business models first need to be identified and analysed in all their networked complexity, interconnectivity with global business and embeddedness within the world economy. Numerous hard questions need to be raised around enabling circumstances and responsibilities of stakeholders, as well as the winners and losers resulting from business globalisation and socio-economic inequities within and between countries. Providing background, evidence and analysis on select exemplars of shadow trades, this book provides graduate students of business, plus scholars in the social sciences, together with practitioners and policymakers, consumer groups and civil society, with an indispensable resource for critical engagement. Only through knowledge gained by research and advocacy for transparency can we begin to shed light on this dark side of global business, enabling all of us to grapple with activism against and collaborative action towards undermining all shadow trades. Amos Owen Thomas was a Docent / Reader in Marketing and International Business at Stockholm University until his recent retirement
Download or read book The EU s Common Foreign and Security Policy written by Helene Sjursen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reorients the study of European foreign and security policy towards the question of democracy. Blending insights from international relations and democratic theory, it aims to enhance our understanding of the issues at stake. The main structures, the institutional setting and the procedures that govern decision-making in this domain are examined. In this way, the book supplements studies with a more traditional focus on the substance of foreign policy. What are the democratic challenges in this distinct field of policy-making? The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union (EU) is usually assumed to be intergovernmental. Contributors to this book examine the extent to which a move beyond intergovernmentalism has taken place, how this manifests itself, and what may be the democratic implications. While the EU’s international outlook testifies to a quest for democracy, the institutions and procedures that govern decision-making are found wanting. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of European Public Policy.
Download or read book Contemporary Security Studies written by Alan Collins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Contemporary Security Studies' introduces students to the broad range of issues that dominate the security agenda in the 21st century and provides up-to-date coverage of traditional and non-traditional threats to survival.
Download or read book Resisting Militarism written by Rossdale Chris Rossdale and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past 15 years, UK anti-militarist activists have auctioned off a tank outside an arms fair, superglued themselves to Lockheed Martin's central London offices and stopped a battleship with a canoe. They have also challenged militarism in many other everyday ways. This book explores why anti-militarists resist, considers the politics of different tactics and examines the tensions and debates within the movement. As it explores the multifaceted, imaginative and highly subversive world of anti-militarism, the book also makes two overarching arguments. First, that anti-militarists can help us to understand militarism in new and useful ways. And secondly, that the methods and ideas used by anti-militarists can be a potent force for radical political change.
Download or read book The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces written by Hugo Meijer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-22 with total page 1014 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe's major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics written by Ruth Kinna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 810 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successive waves of global protest since 1999 have encouraged leading contemporary political theorists to argue that politics has fundamentally changed in the last twenty years, with a new type of politics gaining momentum over elite, representative institutions. The new politics is frequently described as radical, but what does radicalism mean for the conduct of politics? Capturing the innovative practices of contemporary radicals, Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics brings together leading academics and campaigners to answer these questions and explore radicalism’s meaning to their practice. In the thirty-five chapters written for this collection, they collectively develop a picture of radicalism by investigating the intersections of activism and contemporary political theory. Across their experiences, the authors articulate radicalism’s critical politics and discuss how diverse movements support and sustain each other. Together, they provide a wide-ranging account of the tensions, overlaps and promise of radical politics, while utilising scholarly literatures on grassroots populism to present a novel analysis of the relationship between radicalism and populism. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics serves as a key reference for students and scholars interested in the politics and ideas of contemporary activist movements.
Download or read book Militarizing Artificial Intelligence written by Nik Hynek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-07-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the military characteristics and potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the new global revolution in military affairs. Offering an original perspective on the utilization, imagination, and politics of AI in the context of military development and weapons regulation, the work provides a comprehensive response to the question of how we might reflect on the AI revolution in warfare and what can be said about the ways in which this has been handled. In the first part of the book, AI is accommodated, both theoretically and empirically, in the strategic context of the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA). The book offers a novel understanding of autonomous weapons as multi-layered composite systems, pointing to a complex, non-linear interplay between evolutionary and revolutionary dynamics. In the second section, the book provides an impartial analysis of the related politics and operations of power, whereby increases in military budgets and R&D of the great powers are met and countered by advocacy networks and scientists campaigning for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons. As such, it moves beyond popular caricatures of ‘killer robots’ and points out some of the problems which result from over-reliance on such imagery. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, critical security studies, arms control and disarmament, science and technology studies and general International Relations.
Download or read book Secrecy and Methods in Security Research written by Marieke De Goede and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the challenges of secrecy in security research, and develops a set of methods to navigate, encircle and work with secrecy. How can researchers navigate secrecy in their fieldwork, when they encounter confidential material, closed-off quarters or bureaucratic rebuffs? This is a particular challenge for researchers in the security field, which is by nature secretive and difficult to access. This book creatively assesses and analyses the ways in which secrecies operate in security research. The collection sets out new understandings of secrecy, and shows how secrecy itself can be made productive to research analysis. It offers students, PhD researchers and senior scholars a rich toolkit of methods and best-practice examples for ethically appropriate ways of navigating secrecy. It pays attention to the balance between confidentiality, and academic freedom and integrity. The chapters draw on the rich qualitative fieldwork experiences of the contributors, who did research at a diversity of sites, for example at a former atomic weapons research facility, inside deportation units, in conflict zones, in everyday security landscapes, in virtual spaces and at borders, bureaucracies and banks. The book will be of interest to students of research methods, critical security studies and International Relations in general. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
