Search results

In this insightful analysis of human rights diplomacy Rein Mullerson examines the way foreign policy instruments are used to promote human rights abroad as well as how human rights issues are used for the sake of other foreign policy aims.The book explores the relationship between human rights and international stability, the role of non-governmental organisations, the business community and mass media in formulating human rights agendas for governments and inter-governmental organisations. Also addressed are issues such as the universality of human rights in a multi-cultural world and the imp

Rein Mullerson was Deputy Foreign Minister of Estonia during the country's independence struggles and is a distinguished professor of international relations. His book is concerned with the interplay of international law and politics in the changing international system.He analyses events in Eastern Europe and the former USSR to throw light on broad and controversial issues including non-use of force, non-interference in internal affairs, self-determination of peoples, minorities and nationalism in inter-ethnic conflicts and human rights in post-totalitarian societies. Controversial questions

The end of the Cold War brought about a new wave of proliferation of market economy and democracy. Both are spreading through purposeful efforts of Western exporters and Eastern importers as well as by way of example. These generally positive processes are not, however, without considerable negative side effects and setbacks. The article considers three pairs of dialectical contradictions: parallel democratization and introduction of free markets, democratization and liberalism, and democratization and nationalism. Naive, hypocritical, and pragmatic approaches to democracy promotion, as well as factors facilitating or hindering democratization (sometimes making it impossible) of specific societies, are analyzed. One of the central problems is the question of absolute or relative (contingent on time, space, and other factors) universality of democracy. The article concludes that democracy has to be mainly demand-driven, not supply-induced. It also considers to what extent external efforts can compensate for the weaknesses of domestic facilitators and what happens when there are attempts to export democracy to societies that are not ready for that. Adapted from the source document.