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Economics & Trade
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Jaanika Erne | 1:13, 19 February 2010
Cluster bombs have been used in Cambodia, Lebanon and Kosovo. Source: BBC News.
When I attended the course “United Nations and International Law”, read by Lauri Mälksoo at the University of Tartu, we were shown a film about international conflict resolution, the UN, and the global politics. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the film, although I believe that it is quite a well-known one. Though cluster bombs were not shown, land mines were - the kind you step on and after stepping off they (and you) blow up. The film we watched ended up with the scene, where a Serbian was lying on one of such mines (made in the EU as good(s)) that could not have been neutralized by the highest human might (the heads of the UN). The Serbian knew that if he moved, he would blow up – So he just remained lying there, all alone under the sky full of stars, on a bomb made by humans for other humans, unable to cope with the human wrong.
In this context, it is good to know that at least an international treaty banning other type of military devices – the cluster bombs has been ratified by 30 countries and will enter into force in August 2010, writes BBC. Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8519360.stm
Have you ever thought that peace costs? – Because, earlier I always used to think that only the military techniques and operations cost.
F.: Though watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOn3wkehluk&feature=related , I do not consider man-made threats the biggest in the world.
Recent Posts in 'Economics & Trade'
European Geostrategy | 0:11, 20 October 2009
Latin America is often seen as the forgotten continent in many parts of the European Union. This is neither in the interests of Europeans, or the South American countries. How can the European Union capitalise on the upcoming Latin American and Caribbean Summit, to be held in Madrid in May 2010? This article offers a number of ideas.
Pietro De Matteis | 11:09, 23 September 2009
European News, source: asianews.it
Announced in the past, the decision to switch is now official, following a decree signed by President Ahmadinejad. It will be particularly important for oil sales. With four million barrels a day, Iran is the world’s fourth largest “black gold” producer.
Tehran (AsiaNews) – Iran, the fourth largest oil producer in the world, [...]
Aukje van Loon | 16:00, 18 September 2009
Introduction:
The European Union (EU), as the most integrated and sophisticated regional actor in global governance (Telò 2009), also constitutes the largest trading actor in the world. It is the
world’s leading exporter and second-leading importer of goods and it is the leader in both exporting and importing trade in services.
A key feature of EU trade strategy is the combination of multilateral, interregional and bilateral approaches to international trade negotiations (Elsig, 2007a). While on the one hand, it has been one of the strongest advocates of a multilateral approach to trade liberalisation, the EU has paradoxically also developed an
extensive network of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Hence, the EU is “not only a formidable power in trade [i]t is also becoming a power through trade” (Meunier and Nicolaidis, 2006: 907).
One can distinguish between two types of discriminatory EU international trade strategies, i.e. between those of an interregional and of a bilateral nature. In the case of the
former, the EU currently maintains either “strategic partnership relations”, “equal basis relations” or other types of trade relationships with most regions in the world (Hänggi 2006:
35). On the other hand, for a long time, the EU’s bilateral trade strategy (concluding bilateral trade agreements with specific countries), played second fiddle to the EU’s rhetorical
commitments to multilateralism and interregionalism. However, in October 2006 this policy was abandoned in the “Global Europe” communication, which stressed the importance of
strengthening bilateral trade relations with a set of carefully targeted emerging markets (Heydon and Woolcock, 2009). This trend towards discriminatory trade agreements appears
to be increasingly relevant as a new round of regionalism is widely expected to take off among WTO members, and “will further fuel the trend toward preferential agreements”(Dieter 2008: 2) following the renewed failure to conclude the multilateral Doha Development Round (DDR).
