Rena Ju

International Relations
Outline Chapter 7.
1. International norms are expectations actors hold about
normal international relations
a. Morality is an element of soft power
i. (Liberal or constructivist) because actors want to
be seen as devoted to an accepted high moral
ii. (Realist) More powerful/dominant states in the
international community set up norms and other
actors look up to them and follow
iii. Difference in morality between interacting states
can also lead to conflicts
b. Institutionalize over time and become habitual and
legitimate
i. States begin to skip calculating for costs and
benefits; instead, simply follow the norms
ii. The decided action might have little to do with the
actual material interests/calculations
2. Realists and international norms
a. Despite the anarchic nature and the of the international
system possibility of a security dilemma, states seldom
resort to wars when facing a dispute
b. States work together for self-interests (mutual gains)
c. States cooperate according to international norms and
through international organizations to avoid costly
outcomes that may result from a breakdown of
cooperation
i. Arms race
3. Kant and international norms
a. Autonomous individuals or states cooperate for
collective interests knowing that the pursuit for mere
self-interests would undermine benefits for all
4. Constructivists and international norms
a. Emphasize the importance of international norms and
international organizations as part of the lens they use
to interpret the international system
b. When states violate the international norms, they
provide lengthy explanation to justify their action,
showing that they take serious consideration of these
norms
5. Liberalists and international norms
a. Institutions codify international norms and strengthen
their influences
i. Provide incentives for states to conform to norms
6. International organizations
a. Regional ones, ones that have a narrower goal tend to
be more successful

b. A network in which a world order is established and

despite possible small disturbances such as changes of
leaders or minor violations of the norms
7. The United Nations
a. Purpose
i. A global institutional structure through which
states can sometimes settle conflicts with less
reliance on the use of force
ii. Respect state sovereignty; view states as equal
before the international law; states should hold
independence and territorial integrity; states
should fulfill obligations such as observing or
implementing the terms of the treaties signed
iii. The international community agreed on the
creation of UN not to impose laws upon states but
instead to work for more beneficial
outcomes/mutual gains of states
iv. Costs for the leverage: expenses of diplomatic
representatives, act in accordance with the
Charter
v. The UN serves for international stability and
security (collective security: states banding
together to deter aggression, sometimes through
the use of force), as a symbol for international
order and global identity, allows states to promote
their view, promotes development assistance, as a
coordinating system of information and planning
vi. However important, the international community
puts budget on UN programs less than on military
b. Structure
i. Universality of the memberships gives it a
strength, one of the reasons why the League of
Nations existed prior to the UN failed was a lack of
participation of many important states
1) One way to ensure the participation of great
powers is granting veto powers to them in
the SC
2) Veto power sometimes become obstacles for
the UN to effectively stop aggression by (or
supported by) the P5 great powers
3) It can also provoke resentment from the
smaller powers (Principle of dominance)
ii. The General Assembly:
1) All representatives of the UN member states
negotiate for resolutions to issues, mainly
finances for UN programs
2) Coordinates with other autonomous
agencies and programs through the
Economic and Social Council

3) Holds plenary sessions regularly for states to

present ideas and arguments
4) Special sessions discuss general topics
5) Emergency sessions deal with immediate
threats to international peace and security
(uncommon)
6) The GA has the power to accredit
membership in the UN, some actors apply
for permanent observer missions; they did
not have the power to vote
7) Resolutions passed are merely advisory
8) Regional commissions work in a particular
region; functional commissions deal with
global topics; expert bodies work on
technical subjects; specialized committees
focus on specific issue areas
iii. The Security Council:
1) Five permanent powers and ten rotating
memberships decide to dispatch
peacekeeping forces to places in need
2) Decisions are binding to on all UN member
states
3) 3/5 of the council must vote in favor of a
resolution in order for it to pass
4) States that are not one of the permanent
five members of the council compete for
nonpermanent seats during regional
caucuses
5) Conferences are not held regularly; instead,
it serves as an emergency hotline for the
international communitycalled upon when
needed
6) Weaknesses:
a) May be ineffective since decisions are
entirely dependent on the interests of
the member states
b) Although decisions are theoretically
binding, states often choose to evade
or soften effects of those decisions
c) Military forces responding to
aggression under the authorization of
the SC remain under national
command
7) Resolutions that are passed not necessarily
directly deal with the problem at hand, they
can also serve as basis for future
negotiations
8) Problems lie in the structure as there are
rising powers in the international system

that can be added to the permanent

members of the council
iv. Peacekeeping forces
1) Military forces borrowed from member
states under the UN flag and command of
the UN to play a neutral role between
warring forces
2) Do not succeeded well in a situation in
which the SC has clearly identify one side as
the aggressor
3) The secretary general assembles a
peacekeeping force for each mission
4) Authority for the mission comes from the SC
5) The funds must be voted on by the GA
(funding is a major issue now with
peacekeeping missions)
6) Crimes became a problem with the
peacekeeping forces in postwar societies
7) Responsibility and power of the
peacekeeping forces expanded to, more
broadly, peace operationswhich work for
peace building after conflict through
protecting civilians, supervising elections or
even running the state government
temporarily
8) States contribute in provision of soldiers as
peacekeeping forces to advance the interest
of peace while projecting an image of a
strong military power or as a caring state;
others find it financially beneficial as the
soldiers are paid by the UN contributions
9) Keep peace instead of make peace
10)
Peacemaking systems has been
proposed but was rejected (a group did
form, composed of European forces, in the
late 1990s as a standby brigade)
v. The Secretariat:
1) Administration, executive branch of the UN
2) The secretary general is nominated by the
Security Council and approved by the GA
3) The Secretariat is divided into function
areas, with under-secretaries general and
assistant secretaries general
4) Technical and economic experts as UN staffs
work on various programs
5) Creating a network of diplomats who
represent the interest of the international
community as a whole instead of a state

6) The secretary general direct the public

attention to a particular issue and can
eventually drive toward a resolution
7) Still constrained by states sovereignty and
tensions among agencies with the UN
vi. The World Court: judicial arm of the UN
vii. UN programs
1) Organize a flow of resources from richer
parts of the world to the poorer parts
2) Funds are allocated by GA partly by
contributions that are raised separately for
each program
3) Degree of funding and autonomy from GA
varies with programs
viii. Autonomous agencies
1) Specialized technical organizations trough
which states pool efforts to address global
problems
c. History
i. The US and the UN once exist as competing forces
ii. The UN now follows three primary principles:
security, economic development and human rights
which buttress one another
iii. The UN faces problems of limited budget, unipolar
international system and increasingly strong state
sovereignties
8. International laws
a. Lags behind norms: states may violate international law
without violating norms, or vice versa
b. Sources
i. Treaties
1) Agreements signed by states that are to be
observed once signed and ratified (pacta
sunt servanda)
2) Are binding on successor governments
should they are not being (completely)
fulfilled
3) Some have built-in clauses that allow
successor governments to evade
responsibility from the agreements without
violating the international law
4) Ones that deal with broader concepts such
as the UN Charter are more widely accepted
but harder to enforce than more specific
ones
5) UN Charter is one of the most important
treaties that state basic principles of
international relations
ii. Customs

1) The ways states interact with one another

gradually become generally accepted
practice with the status of law over time
iii. General principles
1) Actions considered against most national
legal systems are also not accepted in the
international context
2) Some states may think they can get away
with violating such international law
iv. Legal scholarship
1) Recognizing written arguments of judges
and lawyers around the world on the issues
in question
c. Enforcement
i. Based on reciprocity principle
1) States follow the rules because they want
the others to do so as well
2) Under certain circumstances reprisals are
considered legitimate
ii. Violation may result in collective response costly
to the violator, such as sanctions
iii. Entirely dependent on national powers and state
interests: some issues are too minor to be cared
and taken action upon, some violators are too
powerful to be punished
iv. But with expectations, along with power, the
international law and world order can be
maintained
d. The world court
i. States pursue grievances against another through
request of impartial hearing in the International
Court of Justice
ii. The SC or GA can also request opinions regarding
the international law from the ICJ
iii. 15 judges elected for a term of nine years, ad hoc
judges may be added if the relevant states do not
have a national as one of the judges
iv. Weak because states have not agreed in a
comprehensive way to subject themselves to its
jurisdiction or obey its decisions
v. Mainly used to arbitrate issues of secondary
importance between overall friendly states, not to
settle major conflicts
e. International cases in national courts
i. Judgments are enforceable
ii. Individuals and companies can pursue legal
complaints through national courts

iii. Once can pick a legal system most favorable to

one case by selecting a state in which the case
would be heard
9. Law and sovereignty
a. Laws of diplomacy
i. Rights of the diplomats must be respected
ii. Diplomatic immunity: beyond enforcement of
laws of the host country
iii. Breaking diplomatic relations
1) Withdraw diplomats from each others
country to show a displeasure toward an
action
2) States then do business through a third
country
b. Just war doctrine
i. Just wars are legal wars, distinguished form
aggression which is illegal
ii. Laws of war: legality of war
iii. Laws in war: how a war should be fought
iv. Aggression: a states illegal use of force (or a
threat to use force) against another states
territory or sovereignty which is not a response to
another states aggression
v. Repelling the aggression itself or punishing the
aggressor
vi. The intent of an use of force must be clear and
direct to respond to an aggression in order to be
considered morally just
10.
Human rights
a. Rights are universal to all human beings
b. Relativism:
i. Local traditions and histories must be given due
respect, even if this may limit rights that the
community outside the local context find more
important
c. Rooted in religion, political and legal philosophies and
political revolutions that translated the theory of
natural law and natural rights into practice
d. Human rights institutions
i. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) is adopted to be the core international
document concerning human rights, but it is not
binding to states
ii. Amnesty International is a NGO that operates
globally to monitor and try to rectify abuses of
human rights
iii. Responsibility to protect holds that
governments must act to save civilians from
genocides or other crimes against humanity

11.

iv. Most effective method to promote human rights is

through a combinations of publicity and pressure
1) Publicity: monitoring and publishing
information about human rights abuses
2) Pressure: threats to punish the offender
through nonviolent means
e. War crimes
i. Large-scale human rights abuses occurring during
war
ii. Losers of war can be punished for violations of the
laws of war
iii. Crimes against humanity
1) Inhumane acts and persecutions against
civilians on a vast scale in the pursuit of
unjust causes
iv. Prisoners of war
1) Soldiers who have given up the right to fight
and weapons to become prisoners of war to
earn rights of the citizens which are not to
be targeted
v. In irregular warfare, laws of war are more difficult
to uphold
vi. Laws of war are also undermined because states
rarely issue declaration of war
Evolution of world order
a. The most powerful statesthe hegemonshave great
influence on the rules and values of that are embedded
over time in the body of international law most of the
time throughout history