Suchergebnisse

The group of five articles forming this special section of Brill Open Law is a selection of the papers presented at the Workshop on "Global Public Goods, Global Commons, Fundamental Values: the Responses of International Economic Law," organized by the Interest Group (ig) on International Economic Law (iel) of the European Society of International Law (esil) in Naples on September 6th, 2017. The mission of the esil iel ig is to promote research in the field of International Economic Law, endorsing exchange of views among young and experienced scholars, as well as supporting debate and discussion with practitioners, lawyers and officials from international organizations and national administrations working in the fields of international trade and investments and International Financial Law. The articles appearing in this Section are all devoted to International Investment Law, the first work being the opening speech to the Naples Workshop by Professor Pavel Šturma on "Public Goods and International Investment Law: Do the New Generation of iias Better Protect Human Rights?", while the subsequent four essays are all dedicated to the recent case-law developed in international arbitration proceedings dealing with the right to water and the right to human health. Professor Šturma provides a synthetic effective reconstruction of the way in which International Investment Law now interacts with International Human Rights Law. Starting from the description of the situation in the first generation of Bilateral Investment Treaties (bits), establishing the rights of investors and the obligations of States, the author then goes on exposing the differences with human rights treaties, and analyzes the significant developments in relation to the new generation of investment treaties. The relevant clauses concerning the exceptions to investment protection, or the right to regulate of the host State, expressed by the new generation of International Investment Agreements (iias), such as the eu-Canada Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (ceta), the now-abandoned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (ttip), or the bit models of Norway, Canada, Austria, or the Czech Republic, are therefore considered, stressing their relevance to guide interpreters and arbitrators when having to combine investment protection with human rights. Due attention is then given to the role of private parties with reference to human rights, underlining the introduction of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (csr) in the new iias encouraging economic operators to conduct their business in compliance with the relevant international soft law codes inspired by the principle of sustainable development – requiring that economic development be constantly combined with environmental protection and social progress. The article also emphasizes the role that the principle of systemic integration in treaty interpretation, as codified in Article 31, para. 3(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, may play when arbitrators have to combine human rights, environmental protection and bits, illustrating the relevance of the case-law of international investment disputes in order to strike a fair balance between non-economic considerations and investors' rights. The analysis by Pavel Šturma opens the door to the subsequent four articles. Professor Ursula Kriebaum, in her work on "The Right to Water Before Investment Tribunals," provides a complete overview of the case-law developed in international investment arbitration proceedings with reference to the right to water. She presents the constantly rising relevance that the human right to water has been given by the Arbitral Tribunals while discussing the respect of the investors' prerogatives enshrined in the various bits invoked by the claimants. Professor Kriebaum thus emphasizes that the Arbitrators never denied that they have an obligation to take into consideration human rights while interpreting bits. On the contrary, international awards concluded that national measures introduced in order to protect the environment against the pollution of water resources, and the termination of concessions as a consequence of inadequate performance of an investment contract on the part of the investor involved in water distribution services cannot be automatically considered as infringements of bits by the States benefitting from the foreign investments. Furthermore, Ursula Kriebaum stressed the highly relevant developments reached by the Arbitral Tribunal in the Urbaser case, where it was held in an obiter that investors have to abstain from acts which may violate the human right to water by endangering access to water. The Urbaser case is at the center of the analysis by Dr Edward Guntrip and Dr Patrick Abel. In his work on "Private Actors, Public Goods and Responsibility for the Right to Water in International Investment Law: An Analysis of Urbaser v. Argentina," Dr Guntrip considers how the Arbitral Tribunal allocated responsibility for compliance with the right to water between the host State and the foreign investor while being asked to settle the dispute over privatized water services in Greater Buenos Aires. The author underlined that the Arbitrators chose to follow the scheme defined by the un Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (cescr). Pursuant to that, human rights obligations in relation to economic, social and cultural rights, which include the right to water, have to be broken down into obligations to respect, protect and fulfil. Edward Guntrip criticizes the Tribunal's decision to limit the duties of the investor to the obligation to respect only, i.e. not to interfere with the enjoyment of the right to water. In fact, such a limitation makes the human right to water vulnerable for the right holders trying to hold a foreign investor responsible. Dr Patrick Abel manifests further perplexities on the counterclaim raised by Argentina in relation to the existence of an international investor obligation under the human right to water, for the first time accepted as possible in international investment arbitration proceedings. While stressing the importance of the novelty of the Urbaser award -i.e. the possibility of holding investors accountable for a breach of an international human rights obligation- Patrick Abel highlights the flaws in the legal reasoning of the Tribunal, which he considers unclear in the way it perceives the integration of human rights obligations as a source of international law external to the relevant bit invoked in the investment arbitration. Last but not least, Professor Pei-Kan Yang, in his article on "The Margin of Appreciation Debate over Novel Cigarette Packaging Regulations in Philipp Morris v. Uruguay," explores the legal reasoning of the Arbitrators in the case brought by the famous tobacco multinational company against the Latin-American State. The majority of the Tribunal, applying the "margin of appreciation" doctrine as originally developed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), found that Uruguay's tobacco legislation did not violate the Switzerland – Uruguay bit as the Latin-American State enjoyed a substantial degree of discretion in choosing the regulatory means to achieve its public health objectives among various options of effective measures. Pei-Kan Yang analyzes both the majority conclusions and the dissenting opinion by Gary Born, and identifies lacunae in each of the two approaches, suggesting an adjustment of the concept of the margin of appreciation in order to better accommodate the right to regulate of the host State for public health purposes and balance it against the investor's private rights. We do hope that the proposed set of articles may represent a welcome perspective of analysis of some recent developments concerning treaties and case-law in the field of International Investment Law. Enjoy the reading!

The deterioration of nuclear arms treaties, especially within the context of the war in Ukraine, presents worrying trends not seen in generations as Washington and Moscow are one step away from direct conflict. The Doomsday Clock "now stands at 90 seconds to midnight–the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been," according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.The Russian Duma has advanced plans to withdraw ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty, citing the need to restore parity with the U.S. which has yet to ratify the decades-old treaty. While the decision to withdraw ratification will not be as damaging as America's unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2002 and 2019, respectively, it serves as another reminder that attention must be directed towards addressing an increased nuclear threat, especially as war rages in Ukraine. The U.S. must lead by example — like ratifying the CTBT — when it comes to international treaties it expects other countries to abide by. Unsurprisingly, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments on the subject earlier this month at the Valdai International Discussion Club, the legislative process for de-ratification began at pace. Officials have clarified that, at present, Moscow does not see a need to resume nuclear tests even if Russia were to withdraw.The CTBT, adopted in 1996 by the United Nations General Assembly and ratified by 174 countries, prohibits nuclear weapon tests or explosions anywhere in the world. The treaty has never officially entered into force as several states have not yet signed on or completed the process of ratification, including China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Israel, and the U.S. Nevertheless, "the CTBT is one of the most successful agreements in the long history of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Without the option to conduct nuclear tests, it is more difficult, although not impossible, for states to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs," notes Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association.In part due to Russia's war in Ukraine, Moscow has increased reliance on its nuclear arsenal in an attempt to deter escalation as its conventional forces have encountered stiff resistance by Ukrainian fighters heavily backed by American and European financial and military support.Indeed, there have been several warnings (and even threats) from the Kremlin and the Russian security establishment, some more subtle than others, about Moscow's willingness to defend what it views as its existential interests in Ukraine, ultimately with nuclear force if necessary. Not to be outdone by their Russian colleagues, commentators in the U.S. and Europe appear comfortable calling Moscow's bluff and encouraging an array of options for the intensification of the conflict. The Biden administration, however, has generally approached the introduction of new weapon systems into the conflict with a healthy dose of moderation, so as to assess the reaction from the Kremlin. This deliberative process, even if opposed by many in the transatlantic community, is critical. Nevertheless, and as bitter as it is to accept, the uncertainty over "how much is too much" for Moscow does implicitly impose restraints on Kyiv's backers.While American and European commentators have proven right thus far, and no nuclear escalation has occurred, the greatest tragedy is that the day after they are proven wrong there will be nobody left to tell.Following the near apocalyptic episode remembered as the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders from the U.S. and the Soviet Union sought to establish mechanisms to prevent once again from being on the doorstep of nuclear annihilation. These began in 1963 with the Limited Test Ban Treaty and by 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan jointly stated that "a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought." The two leaders eventually went on to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which represented the first time the U.S. and the U.S.S.R agreed to reduce the actual number of nuclear arms. As strategic stability between the two most heavily equipped nuclear states on Earth continues to deteriorate and the deplorable state of diplomatic relations does not bode well for the return of nuclear treaties, China, Britain and others are seeking to modernize and enhance their nuclear capabilities. It's also possible that more states may resort to developing their own nuclear arsenals, viewing the possession of such weapons as the only real means of self-defense in an increasingly disorderly world.For its part, the U.S. is in the process of a $2 trillion, three decades-long initiative to upgrade its nuclear triad and accompanying infrastructure. A recently published report by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States paints an alarmist picture of the strategic threat the U.S. faces in the world today, and offers recommendations that will likely produce further instability. As the Quincy Institute's Bill Hartung recently wrote, "Astoundingly, the commission argues that these investments are not enough, and that the U.S. should consider building and deploying more nuclear weapons, even as it endorses dangerous and destabilizing steps like returning to the days of multi-warhead land-based missiles while placing nuclear-armed missiles in East Asia. These steps would only introduce more uncertainty into the calculations of China and Russia, making a nuclear confrontation more likely."The exorbitant expense that the maintenance and modernization of nuclear arsenals require, not to mention the otherworldly destruction that their usage entails, ought to be reason enough for the leading nuclear nations of the 21st century to work towards managing relations so as to eschew a new nuclear arms race.Unfortunately, a return of serious strategic stability discussions in the short-term appears to be more wishful thinking. Nevertheless, these conversations will prove essential once the acute phase of the war in Ukraine is over and amidst a changing international context where responsible statecraft will be foundational to collective humanity's survival. The environmental degradation that occurred when unrestricted nuclear testing was the norm following World War II is still visible in parts of the world today. While today a de facto ban on nuclear testing has long been followed by the vast majority of states, even those not ascribed to the test-ban treaty, a return to previous levels of testing — when the global climate is already suffering severe challenges — must be averted.

Henry Kissinger will be one hundred
years old in a few weeks and has published five books since he turned ninety.
Along with President Nixon, he futilely prolonged and escalated the Vietnam
War for four years when defeat was already inevitable. But he also received
the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for negotiating the ceasefire for that same
war.     His doctrine also has these two faces. On the one hand, he conceives international politics as the interaction between states seeking power. On the
other hand, he favors the balance of powers so that no one is able to fully
impose its dominance on the others.   In the academic literature, Kissinger's
approach is called "realism" and is widely accepted. The main alternative is
the so-called "liberal" approach, which trusts in the ability of institutions
to prevent wars and keep peace. From there arose the League of Nations, which
failed, and the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which have
had significant success on many issues, but are also currently showing their
insufficiency.    The most accurate postulate of the realists is that the world
is more peaceful when there are multiple powers than when there are only two,
as in the Cold War, or a single super-dominant one, as seemed to be the case with the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.   The success
of the formula requires that the multilateral equilibrium could only be overthrown by an effort of a magnitude too difficult to mount. As a historical example, Kissinger has
analyzed and praised the so-called Concert of Europe that was formed, after
the defeat of Napoleon's France, by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and also recovered France. According to his interpretation, the Concert
"came close to constituting the government of Europe" and achieved a long
period without European-wide wars. The balance was upset by the unification of
Germany at the end of the 19th century and its consequent aggressive
expansionism, which led to the absurd and catastrophic First World War. Taking
a similar approach, Kissinger continues to praise the construction of the
European Union, which has prevented new general wars on the continent.    During
his time in government, the biggest concern was that communism would end up
dominating the world according to the domino theory, whereby the fall of a
piece like Indochina would be followed by Burma and Thailand, as well as
Indonesia (which, in fact, was very close), and from there, India, Japan, the
Middle East... That's why the Vietnam war extended to Laos and Cambodia. But
this is also the reason for the diplomatic opening to China, to break the
Sino-Soviet bloc and achieve a certain multilateral balance.    The current
interest of the discussion is that the role of the United States as the only
superpower may be less exclusive and exclusionary than it seemed. A version of
political realism in academia tends to analyze international relations "after
hegemony" as a ground for "anarchy", that is, destructive conflicts
and wars. However, the changes around the Ukrainian war can be read
as a new opportunity for multilateral cooperation.    The United States has the
initiative and many economic and military resources, but, paradoxically, it
may have a good opportunity to expand pluralism. In the new situation of
divided government between the Presidency and Congress, the most ambitious
projects in domestic policy are paralyzed, so Joe Biden can focus on foreign
policy, where he has more power, and expand multilateral cooperation.    The
European Union is beginning to develop, for the first time, a spirited common
international policy, in contrast to the dissent during the Iraq war, when the
governments of Britain and Spain were on one side and those of France and
Germany on the other. The rulers of China and India, which are rivals to each
other, have told Russia that the world is not ready for war.    This
configuration with more than three major powers points to a balance of powers
capable of avoiding polarization, since, otherwise, a coalition of two-to-one preludes conflict.     Specifically, the Group of Seven, which is the nucleus
of a latent world government, needs to work more closely with some members of
the Group of Twenty, which includes India and China, so that its decisions are widely
accepted and effective.    Negotiations between the US and the EU for the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in which substantive
agreements had been reached, were paralyzed by Trump, and could now be
revived.    The Trans-Pacific Agreement for Economic Cooperation was also
abandoned by Trump, but the other eleven initial countries went ahead on their
own and ended up signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for
Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which China has presented its candidacy.
Many in the United States are clamoring for re-entry in what had been its own initiative.    And after the war in Ukraine, a new international structure
will have to be defined, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, in which,
as Kissinger said in a recent interview, "Russia should find a place."    Realism
shows that the seeking for power explains many things, and the balance of power
can prevent a general war. But when there is neither a single dominant power
nor a confrontation between two, "liberal" rules and institutions may be the
best mechanism for peace and multilateral cooperation.Also in Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia-click 

The text is an attempt to analyze the international political situation in the security sector in the context of the crisis which has arisen as a result of the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation in relation to Ukraine: in particular the forcible annexation of the sovereign territory of Ukraine in violation of all the principles and norms of international law and the inspiration of the armed conflict in the eastern regions of Ukraine. For the first time after the end of the World War II aggression has become a fact of reality in European politics. Pan-European and transatlantic security institution – the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – was not sufficiently effective mechanism for crisis management. In two years, the conflict in eastern Ukraine killed about 10 thousand men. The conflict in Eastern Ukraine has radically changed the perception of security in Europe. The problem is that Ukraine, like most of the "new democracies" of Eastern Europe as a result of the transformation processes of the early 90th appeared in a "gray zone" of security. Most of the Eastern European countries overcame the security gap by joining NATO/EU. At the same time, Ukraine remained in the buffer zone and became an object of intense economic, political, informational and military pressure from the Russian Federation. As a result, Ukraine is forced to rely primarily on their own capabilities and the military-industrial potential (not being part of the European collective defense/security), on the other – the international political, economic, informational support from the international community plays a key role in the possibility of Ukraine resist aggression. However, the crisis has led to a certain re-evaluation of existing regional security system: 1) The failure of attempts to build a pan-European security system became obvious; 2) The OSCE in Ukrainian crisis has created a platform for the negotiations and the peace process, but did not provide, at least until now, the mechanism of a real resolution to the crisis; 3) The question of inefficiency, lack of prospects and obsolescence of NATO as a collective security organization may be withdrawn from the agenda; 4) There is an activization of existing and search for new formats of cooperation between European countries in the development and improvement of the international security system in Europe. ; W artykule podjęto próbę analizy bezpieczeństwa w wymiarze polityczno-międzynarodowym w kontekście kryzysu wywołanego agresywnymi działaniami Federacji Rosyjskiej wobec Ukrainy – w szczególności aneksji części terytorium Ukrainy przy użyciu siły z pogwałceniem wszelkich norm prawa międzynarodowego oraz "instalacji" konfliktu zbrojnego we wschodnich obwodach państwa ukraińskiego. Po raz pierwszy od zakończenia II wojny światowej agresja stała się rzeczywistością polityki europejskiej. Ponadto ogólnoeuropejskie i transatlantyckie struktury bezpieczeństwa – Organizacja Bezpieczeństwa i Współpracy w Europie – nie jest zbyt efektywnym mechanizmem zarządzania kryzysowego. W ciągu dwóch lat konfliktu zginęło ok. 10 tys. osób. Konflikt na wschodzie Ukrainy radykalnie zmienił postrzeganie bezpieczeństwa na kontynencie europejskim. Problemem jest to, że Ukraina jak większość "nowych demokracji" Europy Wschodniej w wyniku procesów transformacyjnych znalazła się w szarej strefie bezpieczeństwa. Większość wschodnioeuropejskich państw rozwiązało problem security gap, wstępując do NATO i UE, podczas gdy Ukraina pozostała w szarej strefie, stając się celem ekonomicznych, politycznych, informacyjnych i wojskowych nacisków ze strony Federacji Rosyjskiej. Po pierwsze, w wyniku rozwoju kryzysu Ukraina jest zmuszona w pierwszej kolejności liczyć na własne możliwości i potencjał wojskowo-przemysłowy (nie będąc częścią europejskiego systemu bezpieczeństwa kolektywnego/obronnego). Po drugie, wsparcie polityczne, ekonomiczne i informacyjne ze strony społeczności międzynarodowej odgrywa kluczowe znaczenie w kontekście przeciwstawienia się Ukrainy rosyjskiej agresji. Razem z tym kryzys doprowadził do przewartościowań w zakresie istniejących w regionie systemów bezpieczeństwa: 1) możemy konstatować nieudane próby wybudowania ogólnoeuropejskich mechanizmów zagwarantowania bezpieczeństwa; 2) OBWE stworzyło platformę rozmów w ramach pokojowego rozwiązania konfliktu, ale nie wybudowała do tej pory realnego mechanizmu rozwiązania konfliktu; 3) NATO jako system bezpieczeństwa kolektywnego nie powinno być traktowane w kategoriach nieefektywności, archaiczności i braku perspektyw; 4) pojawiły się formy aktywizacji istniejących i poszukiwanie nowych form współpracy pomiędzy państwami europejskimi w celu rozwoju i doskonalenia systemów bezpieczeństwa międzynarodowego w Europie. ; Текст является попыткой анализа международно-политической ситуации в секторе безопасности в контексте кризиса, возникшего в результате агрессивных действий Российской Федерации по отношению к Украине: в частности насильственная аннексия части суверенной территории Украины в нарушение всех принципов и норм международного права и инспирирования вооруженного конфликта в восточных областях украинского государства. Впервые после завершения Второй мировой войны агрессия стала фактом действительности европейской политики. При этом общеевропейская и трансатлантическая структура безопасности – Организация по безопасности и сотрудничеству в Европе – оказалась не достаточно эффективным механизмом кризисного урегулирования. За два года конфликта погибло около 10 тыс. человек. Конфликт на востоке Украины радикально изменил восприятие безопасности на европейском континенте. Проблемой стало то, что Украина, как и большинство «новых демократий» Восточной Европы в результате трансформационных процессов начала 90-х гг. оказались в «серой зоне» безопасности». Большинство восточно-европейских государств решило проблему security gap путем присоединения к НАТО/ЕС. В то же время Украина остались в этой «зоне» и стала объектом интенсивного экономического, политического, информационного и военного давления со стороны Российской Федерации. В результате развития кризиса с одной стороны Украина вынуждена полагаться в первую очередь на свои собственные возможности и военно-промышленный потенциал (не будучи частью европейской системы коллективной обороны/безопасности), с другой – международно-политическая, экономическая, информационная поддержка со стороны международного сообщества играет ключевую роль в возможности Украины противостоять агрессии. Вместе с тем, кризис привел к определенной переоценке существующих в регионе систем безопасности: 1) Можно засвидетельствовать провал попыток выстроить общеевропейские механиз- мы обеспечения безопасности; 2) ОБСЕ создала платформу для переговоров и мирного процесса, но не обеспечила, по крайней мере, до сих пор, механизма реального урегулирования кризиса; 3) Вопрос о неэффективности, бесперспективности и устарелости НАТО как организации коллективной безопасности может быть снят с повестки дня; 4) Происходить активизация существующих и поиск новых форматов сотрудничества между европейскими государствами в целях развития и усовершенствования системы международной безопасности в Европе.

             Previously posted on May 10/22 and Jan 30/23            Kissinger in Washington, May 7, 2022Henry Kissinger will be one hundred years old in a few weeks and has published five books since he turned ninety. Along with President Nixon, he futilely prolonged and escalated the Vietnam War for four years when defeat was already inevitable. But he also received the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for negotiating the ceasefire for that same war.     His doctrine also has these two faces. On the one hand, he conceives international politics as the interaction between states seeking power. On the other hand, he favors the balance of powers so that no one is able to fully impose its dominance on the others.   In the academic literature, Kissinger's approach is called "realism" and is widely accepted. The main alternative is the so-called "liberal" approach, which trusts in the ability of institutions to prevent wars and keep peace. From there arose the League of Nations, which failed, and the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which have had significant success on many issues, but are also currently showing their insufficiency.    The most accurate postulate of the realists is that the world is more peaceful when there are multiple powers than when there are only two, as in the Cold War, or a single super-dominant one, as seemed to be the case with the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.   The success of the formula requires that the multilateral equilibrium could only be overthrown by an effort of a magnitude too difficult to mount. As a historical example, Kissinger has analyzed and praised the so-called Concert of Europe that was formed, after the defeat of Napoleon's France, by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and also recovered France. According to his interpretation, the Concert "came close to constituting the government of Europe" and achieved a long period without European-wide wars. The balance was upset by the unification of Germany at the end of the 19th century and its consequent aggressive expansionism, which led to the absurd and catastrophic First World War. Taking a similar approach, Kissinger continues to praise the construction of the European Union, which has prevented new general wars on the continent.    During his time in government, the biggest concern was that communism would end up dominating the world according to the domino theory, whereby the fall of a piece like Indochina would be followed by Burma and Thailand, as well as Indonesia (which, in fact, was very close), and from there, India, Japan, the Middle East... That's why the Vietnam war extended to Laos and Cambodia. But this is also the reason for the diplomatic opening to China, to break the Sino-Soviet bloc and achieve a certain multilateral balance.    The current interest of the discussion is that the role of the United States as the only superpower may be less exclusive and exclusionary than it seemed. A version of political realism in academia tends to analyze international relations "after hegemony" as a ground for "anarchy", that is, destructive conflicts and wars. However, the changes around the Ukrainian war can be read as a new opportunity for multilateral cooperation.    The United States has the initiative and many economic and military resources, but, paradoxically, it may have a good opportunity to expand pluralism. In the new situation of divided government between the Presidency and Congress, the most ambitious projects in domestic policy are paralyzed, so Joe Biden can focus on foreign policy, where he has more power, and expand multilateral cooperation.    The European Union is beginning to develop, for the first time, a spirited common international policy, in contrast to the dissent during the Iraq war, when the governments of Britain and Spain were on one side and those of France and Germany on the other. The rulers of China and India, which are rivals to each other, have told Russia that the world is not ready for war.    This configuration with more than three major powers points to a balance of powers capable of avoiding polarization, since, otherwise, a coalition of two-to-one preludes conflict.     Specifically, the Group of Seven, which is the nucleus of a latent world government, needs to work more closely with some members of the Group of Twenty, which includes India and China, so that its decisions are widely accepted and effective.    Negotiations between the US and the EU for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in which substantive agreements had been reached, were paralyzed by Trump, and could now be revived.    The Trans-Pacific Agreement for Economic Cooperation was also abandoned by Trump, but the other eleven initial countries went ahead on their own and ended up signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which China has presented its candidacy. Many in the United States are clamoring for re-entry in what had been its own initiative.    And after the war in Ukraine, a new international structure will have to be defined, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, in which, as Kissinger said in a recent interview, "Russia should find a place."    Realism shows that the seeking for power explains many things, and the balance of power can prevent a general war. But when there is neither a single dominant power nor a confrontation between two, "liberal" rules and institutions may be the best mechanism for peace and multilateral cooperation.Also in Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia-click       While President Biden is not clear, and sometimes he is confusing about how the war in Ukraine could end, some other voices in Washington can speak and suggest more clearly. Several of them did it a few days ago at the Financial Times Weekend Festival, which was held, for the first time outside England, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.The first surprisingly constructive intervention was from William J. Burns, the current CIA Director. Just a year ago, he came from retirement after a long career as a diplomat, and as such, in his presentation, the conversation with an FT journalist, and the dialogue with the audience, he showed a broader vision than the usual spies. When he was Ambassador in Boris Yeltsin's Moscow in the mid-1990s, Burns already felt that the NATO expansion until the borders of Russia was "premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst." More specifically, to push for NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia was "a serious strategic mistake that did indelible damage" –an opinion that at the time was shared by the governments of France and Germany. In an official encounter, Putin had told him that Ukraine in NATO "would be a hostile act toward Russia."Burns emphasized, of course, that there is "absolutely no justification for the invasion of Ukraine." Yet, he resumed that kind of strategic explanation while dismissing the ideological elaborations that pretend either justify or condemn the attack. In short: Russia has "pushed back" after Ukraine moved westward away from Russian influence.In his view, nevertheless, Putin miscalculated regarding the power of the Russian Army (which was sent to a "special operation" not planned by its generals), about Ukrainian resistance, and with the supposition that the West would be distracted by elections in Germany and France. He tried to explain the recent candidacies of Sweden and Finland to NATO as a deterrent against Putin's other potential attacks in the future. But the Director of the CIA did not utter a word that could be interpreted as supporting Ukraine's NATO membership.Even more thrilling was the participation of Henry Kissinger on "the new world disorder." The former Secretary of State is 99 years old this month, announced a new book of immediate publication, and for nearly one hour was focused, clear, and insightful, also in a dialogue with the audience. Kissinger started by using his academic background and remarking that the foreign policy's main priority of Russia, which is the largest country in the world, has always been to protect its huge territory from invasions. From this perspective, after the Cold War, the country's leadership was "offended" by NATO's absorption of Eastern Europe.Now –he noted— public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation, but by reflecting on the previous failures of the several governments he advised, he lamented that, again, nobody knows where we are going. Kissinger had already opposed Ukraine's candidacy to NATO when President Bush and Vice-president Cheney launched it in 2008. Six years later, at the Russian occupation of Crimea, he warned that Ukraine should not join either the East or the West, but it should function as "a bridge" between the two. He had predicted that otherwise, "the drift toward confrontation would accelerate."Most striking was his warning about the use of nuclear weapons. "I would not make Ukraine's membership to NATO a key issue," he remarked at the Kennedy Center. It would be "unwise to take an adversarial position," mainly because of the horrible danger of a nuclear war. His approach was certainly in contrast with that in the 1970s, of which he was reminded, when the gibberish theory of the "domino" was used to attack one country after another. Bush and Cheney still used that approach in the early 2000s to justify "preventive wars." I got the impression that with aging, intelligent people like Kissinger may feel that it is not worth trying to deceive himself again, and despite his physical frailness (or perhaps because of that), his more mature brain moves in the direction of more honest and clear thinking. His main argument was that in the past, although confrontation was addressed to "preserve the balance of power" between the US and the Soviet Union, at the same time, he also promoted agreements for nuclear arms reduction and control. Nowadays, modern technology would produce much worse destruction, so he claimed for a "new era" in which the governments should take more care about the consequences of nuclear arms and favor diplomacy above all. Kissinger reminded the audience that, in the past, nuclear countries such as the Soviet Union and the United States accepted military defeats from non-nuclear countries, such as in Vietnam and (both) in Afghanistan. Even more now, "we have to deescalate to conventional arms and learn to live with adversarial relations." Kissinger has met Putin more than twenty times and asserted that "there is still room for negotiation" with him. In Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia

Dirk Messner on the dynamics
of global change and the significance of international science and technology
cooperation in the post-Western world



This is the fifth in a series of Talks dedicated to the technopolitics of International Relations, linked to the forthcoming double volume 'The Global Politics of Science and Technology' edited by Maximilian Mayer, Mariana Carpes, and Ruth Knoblich 





In recent years, the analysis of new emerging powers and shifting global order has become central to the study of international relations. While International Relations, aiming to evolve into a truly global discipline, is only just about to start opening up towards Non-Western perspectives, global power shifts have already led to a restructuring of global governance architecture in large fields of political reality and practice. Dirk Messner illustrates how far global power shifts have to lead to new patterns of international cooperation using international science and technology cooperation as a case in point. He argues that investment in joint knowledge creation and knowledge exchange is vital for managing the earth system. Messner also points to the multitude of tasks related to socio-technical systems which the political sphere is currently facing, particularly with regard to the challenge of managing the climate system. 




Print version of this Talk (pdf)




What is the most important challenge facing global politics that should be the central debate in the discipline of International Relations?



The biggest challenge of the next decades which we have to come to terms with is governing the big global commons. When I say global commons I do have in mind the atmosphere, the climate system, and other parts of the earth system, but also international financial markets and global infrastructures, such as the Internet – stability of these and other global commons is a public good much required. We need to stabilize the global commons and then manage them in a cooperative manner.



Three dynamics of global change make it specifically challenging to manage these global commons. The first wave of global change is the globalization wave; the economic globalization, cross-border dynamics, global value chains. It becomes evident that in many areas and especially when it comes to the global commons, regulation exceeds the capacity of individual nation states. The international community is required to institutionalize multilateralism and efficient global governance mechanisms in order to properly address issues arising from global dynamics. The second big global change is the shift from a Western to a post-Western world order. Global power shifts remaking the international system impede governing global commons. The third wave of global change is related to climate change, which adds a new dimension of global dynamics; human beings now have to learn how to steer, to stabilize, and how to govern the earth system as such. We are not only a species living on this planet, depending from resources and ecosystems of the earth systems. With the acceleration of economic globalization during the 1990s and the emergence of new, non-Western economic drivers of change, like China, humankind now significantly impacts the physical structures of the earth system. This trend is new. For the first 4,6 billion years of the existence of the earth system it was driven by the laws of physics, the dynamics of biology and bio-chemical processes. Homo sapiens appeared 220.000 years ago, and the impact of our species on the earth system has been marginal until the industrial revolution started 250 years ago. During the last decades human mankind became a major driver of change at a planetary scale.





How did you arrive in your current thinking about these issues?



I have always been interested in international relations, international policy dimensions, and the global economy. I started at the Free University of Berlin at the beginning of the 80's towards the mid-80's, studying Political Science and Economics. One among those professors who have been particularly important to me is Elmar Altvater. He was the supervisor of my diploma as well as of my Ph.D., and he sent me abroad. This resulted being a pivotal experience to me. I studied the last year of my first degree in Seoul, in South Korea. It was the period, the 80's, when the four Asian Tiger states emerged following Japan's example: South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, and Singapur. I had the chance to visit these countries, study there and learn a lot about Asia. I was fascinated by the dynamics of emerging economies and what this implied for the international arena. Somewhat later, the Latin American continent became the center of my interest. I did research in Nicaragua, Uruguay, Chile and some other Latin American countries, trying to understand liberalization-movements, how weaker actors come under pressure in Western-dominated global settings, but also how some countries managed it to become dynamic parts of the global economy (like the "Asian tigers" or Chile) and why others failed. I learnt that it is crucial to understand dynamics of global change in order to being able to build solid and inclusive economic structures and legitimate political systems at national levels. There has always been a political impulse that pulled me into certain fields I decided to work in.





What is your advice for students who would like to get into the field of global change research or international cooperation?



My first advice is: visit and work in different countries and different cultural and political settings. It is one thing to learn from scholars or books, but having studied and having lived in different contexts and countries is absolutely a key experience. This is the way to understand global dynamics, to get a feeling for differences and similarities. My second advice stems from my experience and conviction that we need much more interdisciplinary research than we currently have. We talk a lot about interdisciplinarity, however, we do not have career paths that systematically build interdisciplinary teams.



Looking particularly at global environmental changes and the future of the earth system, at the end of the day, social scientists and natural scientists need to learn how to work together and to understand each other. The future of the oceans, for example, is not a question that can be understood by ocean biologists only. They are the people studying how these elements of the earth system are actually working, the dynamics and drivers - focusing on physical, chemical, and biochemical processes. But when we look at the oceans towards 2100 from the perspective of global change, the most important drivers are now us human beings, our economies, our consumption patterns, our greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts on the oceans. And this implies that to understand dynamics of global change, we need to analyze the interactions, interdependences and feedback loops between three systems: the ecological system(s); social systems (our economies and societies) driven by humans; the technical systems and infrastructures. Therefore natural scientists, social scientists, and engineers need to interact very closely.  In the German Advisory Council on Global Change we call this approach: Transformation Research. Currently, we do not possess the appropriate university structures to adequately address this sort of problems. This is an immense institutional challenge. If I were a young scholar I would move into this direction, crossing disciplinary boundaries as much as possible.





What is the role of science and technologies in the dynamics of global change?



There are multiple important dimensions, but I would like to focus on some of them by moving through the aforementioned waves of global change. Technology is driving economic globalization, the first wave of global change. So we need to understand the dynamics of new technologies, especially the impact of ICTs, in order to understand the dynamics of economic globalization. The World Wide Web and social communication media are restructuring industrialization processes and global value chains. ICT infrastructure is also displaying a big potential for less developed regions. In Africa, for example, we saw many African countries jumping from the old telephone technologies to smartphones within less than a decade, because the old, maintenance and capital intensive communications infrastructure was no longer needed. Many African people now have access to smartphones, thus to communication- and information networks, and begin to reshape prize constellations and the global economy. Because of its restructuring effects, the impact of ICTs is relevant in all areas of the global economy. The global trend towards urbanization is similarly related to ICTs. Currently, we approach the global economy via data on national economies. But this might be about to change, as global mega-cities develop into global knowledge and financial hubs, building their own networks. In 2040, 80 percent of the global production, global GDP, global consumption, global exchange might be concentrated in 70 to 80 global cities or city regions.



Technology is also linked to the second wave of global change – the tectonic global power shift – in the way that investment in technology and knowledge in emerging economies are growing rapidly. We are not only facing economic and political power shifts, but also a remaking of the global science and research system itself. From my perspective, international cooperation in the field of science and technology research between "old powers" and "new powers", between Western countries and non-Western countries is extremely important for two reasons: First, we need to pool know-how in order to solve core global challenges and to develop patterns for managing the global commons. Interaction and cooperation in the field of science and technology is especially important for the creation of knowledge that is "better" in any way. For instance, in the field of adaptation policies to the impacts of climate change, most of the knowledge on how societies and local communities actually work or respond under these conditions exists in non-Western societies. The generation of knowledge is context dependent. We need to interact with colleagues from the respective countries for mutual learning and common knowledge improvement. My second argument is that, as an effect of the global power shift, traditional development cooperation is losing legitimacy. Many of these societies, from China to Peru, from Kenya to Vietnam, are no longer interested in our usual business, in our "aid-packages", our money, our experts or our concepts. What they are more interested in is true and reciprocal knowledge exchange and joint knowledge creation. Therefore, investments in respective forms and institutions of knowledge exchange and creation will be a central pillar of/for future oriented development cooperation or international cooperation and beneficial for all partners involved. Joint knowledge creation is a precondition for joint action and legitimate global governance initiatives.



The role of technologies with regard to the implications of climate change is crucial and multifaceted. In the German Advisory Council on Global Change we put forth suggestions concerning the transformation towards a low-carbon global economy. We are relatively optimistic in a technological sense. This statement is partly based on the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) research, which has been driven by Nebojsa Nakicenovic, one of our colleagues, who is working on energy modeling. The perspective there is that we know which kind of technologies we need for the transformation into a low-carbon or even zero-carbon economy. We can even calculate the investment costs and structures of different countries and regions. But we do know relatively little about the transformation processes of entire societies, economies and, eventually, the international system towards low-carbon systems. The transformation towards a low-carbon society is a "great transformation". In the entire history of mankind there might be only two examples for such a profound change: the industrial revolution 250 years ago and the Neolithic revolution 10.000 years ago, which induced the practices of agriculture. Today, we thus witness the third great transformation: the decoupling from fossil resources, from high-carbon to zero-carbon. To achieve the 2° Celsius goal, a complete decarbonization of the basic infrastructures of the global economy (the energy systems, the urban infrastructures and systems, the land use systems) is required – within a very limited period of time, until 2070. Comprehensive knowledge is key to achieve this. Let me emphasize once more the significance of international cooperation in the field of science and technology research, particularly in the IPCC context. I am sure that politicians from China, India, or Brazil only accept what the IPCC is presenting as objective knowledge, as the stand of the art knowledge, because their national scientists are deeply involved. If this were a classical western-based knowledge project it would have resulted in a lack of legitimacy. In the case of global climate policy, it is obvious that investment in joint knowledge creation is also about creating legitimacy for joint action.





What are the main obstacles of the low-carbon transformation?



The first two great transformations have been evolutionary processes. No one "planned" the industrial revolution, not to mention the Neolithic revolution.  These have been evolutionary dynamics. The sustainability transformation instead needs to be a governed process right from the beginning. In our institute, we looked at different transformation dynamics, not only the really big ones, the Neolithic, industrial, and the current sustainability transformation. We also examined structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa, the collapse of communism at the end of the 80s, the abolition of slavery, and similar other key transformations of human societies. Based on this historical perspective, we have identified four main drivers of transformation: The first one is crisis, this is the most important one. Confronted with strong crises, society and probably also individuals react and change direction. The second important driver is very often technology and scientific (r)evolution. The third driver is vision: If you are confronted with a problem but you do not know where to go to, transformation becomes very difficult. The European Union is the product of a fresh vision among elites after World War II; the United Nations is a result of the disasters of the first half of the 20th century. Advancing a vision is an essential means to move or to transform in a goal-oriented manner. Sustainability, of course, is also a vision. The fourth and last driver of transformation is "knowledge": you know that you have a certain problem constellation, and though the crisis is still not there, you react based on your knowledge in a preventive way.



For the low-carbon transformation, the fourth driver currently is absolutely key. We are able to address problems which would otherwise become much worse in the future, although the climate crisis is latent still – in contrast to, for example, the financial crisis, which is more visible in its effects. The impacts of a global warming of 4 or 5 degrees are still not visible. This makes for a huge difference. In fact, humans are not very good at acting and transforming significantly based on knowledge only. In combination with visible, tangible crises, knowledge is a strong driver of change, but without crisis, it is merely sufficient. Transformations based on knowledge and preventive action only are rare. The ozone hole is one positive example; solving the problem was possible because it required less complex technological change, affecting few industries only. Human beings are risk-averse in a sense, we are conservative, we do not like to change rapidly; we are path-dependent. John Maynard Keynes once said: "It is easy to develop new concepts and ideas. The difficult thing is to forget the old ones". Therefore, scientific tools are needed in order to sketch out future scenarios. Based on scientific knowledge, we need to convince our societies, our political decision-makers that it is necessary and possible to transform societies and economies towards sustainability – in order to avoid disruptive change in the earth system. Pushing towards sustainability at a point where the crisis has not yet materialized implies a specific and new role for science in managing global dynamics. Organizing a deep transformation towards sustainability avoiding significant crises driven by Earth system changes would be a cultural learning process – a civilizational shift.





What are the effects of growing multipolarity for global governance processes?



To start optimistically, I would argue that in contrast to historical situations in which this kind of tectonic power shifts led to conflicts or even wars, the current situation is different. The world is highly interconnected and economic interdependencies are stronger than ever. Charles Kupchan is differentiating between "war", "cold peace" and "warm peace". I think that a big "war" is not very probable, and "cold peace" is what we are in actually. "Warm peace" would be cooperative global governance: we identify our problems, have a joint problem analysis, and subsequently start acting cooperatively on them. But this does not describe the contemporary situation. While there are no severe global conflicts, we do not solve many of the global interdependency problems.



There are many barriers to global cooperation and I would like to mention two or three of those. The first one consists of power conflicts and power struggles. Hopefully realists such as John Mearsheimer are not right in claiming that "a peaceful rise of China is not possible". But the fundamental point remains that the re-organization and shuffling of power resources is rendering cooperation extremely difficult. The second point is that all the important global actors currently have severe domestic challenges to manage. The European countries are coping with the European dept crisis. Similarly, the United States is concerned with financial turbulences and rising social inequalities. China has to keep its annual growth rate of about 8 to 12 per cent and meanwhile stabilize its rapid modernization process. In India, there is still a large group of people suffering from poverty. So, managing that and trying to be a responsible global actor at the same time is not easy at all. In brief, all actors that we would like to see taking on a more responsible role on the global level are overcommitted domestically.



There is consensus among different disciplines on what cooperation is actually about. At the Centre for Global Cooperation Research we did a study on The Behavioural Dimensions of International Cooperation (2013) based on insights of very different disciplines – evolutionary biology, social anthropology, cognitive sciences, psychology, political sciences, behavioral economics – to find out what the basic mechanisms are which help human beings to cooperate at any scale towards global corporation in a world of nine billion people. Finally, we identified seven factors promoting cooperation: trust, communication, joint we-identities, reputation, fairness, enforcement – and reciprocity, which is the most fundamental prerequisite. These factors form an enable environment for cooperation and they are manmade. In contexts, actor constellations, systems, in which these basic mechanisms of cooperation are strong, they help to embed power dynamics, to solve social dilemma problems and to manage interdependencies. In contrast, contexts, actor constellations, and systems in which theses basic mechanisms of cooperation are weak, will be driven mainly by power dynamics and struggles. By looking at these factors one immediately understands why the G20 context is so difficult. We have been able to create and to well establish these factors in our old settings; in the European Union, the Western world, the transatlantic community. But now we are sitting together with new actors rather unknown. The G7/G8 world – the OECD driven and the western driven global economy and global politics – has moved towards G20 since it was acknowledged that one cannot manage any global turbulence without emerging economies. The G20 was created or rather called to meet in 2008, a few days after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers when many feared the collapse of the world's financial markets. Most western economies were highly indebted, whereas the emerging economies, especially China, were holding large currency reserves. From a behavioral perspective we have to invest in these basic factors of cooperation in the G 20 context in order to create the essential preconditions of joint action to solve the big global problems. This represents a long-term project, and unfortunately many of these global problems are highly challenging from the time perspective: a tension derives from the gap between time pressure in many of these areas and the time it probably needs to build up these basic mechanisms of cooperation. In fact, the major feeling is that international cooperation is even weaker now than a decade ago. I usually visualize the current situation of the G20 as a round table with 20 seats but no one is sitting there. Charles Kupchan's "No one's world" or Ian Bremmer's "The G0 world" deal with the same problem: international cooperation, global governance is currently so difficult, although all these interdependency problems rendered the problem of managing the global commons fully obvious. If you talk to our Foreign Ministers or Finance Ministers or Chancellors and Presidents, they of course all know exactly what is out there in terms of globalization impacts. But organizing the necessary global consensus and the governance and cooperation structures is tremendously difficult.





How far is the discipline of development research affected by global change?



This is a complex question, to which I do not have a definite answer. The whole field of development research is currently about to get redefined. In the past, the concept of development was clear: On the one side, there was the developed world, the OECD-world, consisting of 35-40 countries and on the other side, the "underdeveloped" part of the world, all other countries. Understanding the differences between developed and developing, along with thinking about the basic drivers of modernization and wealth creation in less developed countries was at the core of development research for a long period. How can poor countries become rich and as developed as OECD countries already are?



Today, it is highly questionable if even the broader categories of "development research" still serve to analyze the new realities. Do we currently still need "development economists", and how would they differ from classical "economists" doing research in those European countries suffering most from the debt crisis, high unemployment and weak institutions? Situations in many OECD countries nowadays look like what one would expect from a still developing or emerging economy, and the other way around. So, what distinguishes development research? This is an important question. Studying non-OECD countries, do we still need development research based governance theories or democratization theories – thus, theories that are systematically different from those we apply in our research on OECD countries? The discipline of development research is under immense pressure. This debate is linked to the second wave of global change we talked about: the post-western world order, emerging economies catching up, convergence trends in the global economy.



If you look at the role of international technology transfer, the same scenario arises: the North-South, donor-recipient categories have dissolved. Technology transfer has lost its distinct direction, and it is much more reciprocal and diffuse than it used to be. There are several studies currently pointing to the fact that investment rates in R&D and in technology creation are growing fast in several regions around the globe, whereas in many OECD-countries, investment is stagnating, or even decreasing. The whole map of knowledge, if you like to say so, is about to undergo deep changes. This implies that the common assumption that knowledge is based in OECD countries and transferred to the South via development cooperation is just not working any longer. We need new patterns of cooperation between different countries in this area. And we need research on global development dynamics which will be different from classical development research which has been based on the assumption of a systemic North-South divide for a long time.







How do institutions such as the World Bank react to the emerging and redefined agenda of development?



The current reorientation of the World Bank as a Knowledge Bank originates from the assumption that knowledge is just as important as money for global development. The second point is that more and more of their partners in non-OECD countries, classical developing and emerging economies, are more and more interested in the knowledge pools of the World Bank and less in their experts. And: dynamic developing countries and emerging economies are even more interested in investments in their own knowledge systems and joint knowledge creation with the World Bank. The old North-South knowledge transfer model is eroding. You might say that there currently are two contradictory global trends: on the one hand via social media and the Internet, knowledge is being widely distributed – broader than ever before and actually, theoretically accessible at any point in the world –, on the other hand the proliferation of knowledge is accompanied with access restriction and control, and the growing privatization of knowledge. Aiming to play a constructive role in collaborative knowledge generation, the World Bank invests a lot in building up freely accessible data bases and open research tools, including the provision of governance or development indicators of any kind. However, this is a difficult process that is developing slowly.



The World Bank is currently undergoing several basic re-orientations. The structures inside of the World Bank are about to become less hierarchical and more horizontal. Originally, the World Bank has been a much more western dominated organization as the Bretton Woods institutions were formed by the United States and its allies. If you look into the governance structures of the World Bank today, it is still largely dominated by OECD countries, but you can notice that this is changing. It is a global organization but 90 % of people working there have been studying at Anglo-Saxon universities. Actors especially from emerging economies have been criticizing that for long, claiming that the World Bank as a global organization should have to be represented by a global citizenship. Although this had slowly started to change already, all the knowledge and all the qualification procedures still remained very western dominated. So they asked the World Bank to diversify its partner structures, to reach out and cooperate with research institutions from around the world. This is what the World Bank is trying to do at the moment, which is really a break with its culture. Because even though the World Bank is a global organization, it has always been a very inward-looking organization. The World Bank was strong, with fantastic professionals and researchers inside, but without cooperating tools. Now they are trying to broaden their cooperation structures and to learn from and together with other institutions.





What are the opportunities and difficulties of big data analysis for global development?



Access to any kind of data is important for any kind of knowledge creation. It has been very limited for many developing countries over a very long time. So, thinking about how to assure access to serious data is significant. This would be my first point. My second point is that, when it comes to big data and the question of managing large amounts of indicators on, for example, cross-country or cross-sector modeling, I think the new technologies are opening up new research possibilities and opportunities. Big data provides the opportunity to identify patterns. Looking for similar dynamics in very different systems is a very interesting exercise, because you get deeper insights into the basic dynamics of systems. This is what I have learned from my colleague Nakicenovic, whom I have mentioned before, and who is working on the Global Energy Assessment, or from Juergen Kurths, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is studying basic structures and dynamics of very different complex systems like air traffic networks, global infrastructures and social media networks. Managing big data allows you to see patterns which cannot be seen if you only work with case studies. However, to understand the dynamics of countries and sectors, new actor constellations or communities, you need to go into detail and in this specific moment, big data is only the starting point, the background: you also need qualified, serious, very often qualitative data on the ground. Big data and qualified, specific data: they complement each other.



For sure, an important aspect of big data is that for the most part, it is gathered and stored by private businesses. We started this interview talking about global commons and we actually just defined a global commons: data on development should be a global commons, and we need standards and rules of managing those. Private actors could play a role, but within a set of rules defined by societies and policies, and not the private business sector.









Dirk Messner is the Director of the "German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)" since 2003 and teaches at the Institute of Political Science, University of Duisburg-Essen. He is Co-Director of the "Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR)", University Duisburg-Essen, which was established in 2012. He furthermore is Co-Chair of the "German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)", member of the "China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development", member of the "Global Knowledge Advisory Commission" of the World Bank and member of the "European Commission's Scientific Advisory Board for EU development policy". Dirk Messner's research interests and work areas include globalisation and global governance, climate change, transformation towards low carbon economies, and development policy. He directed many international research programs and thus created a close international research network.



related links:


Profile at German Development Institute
Messner, Dirk / Guarín, Alejandro / Haun, Daniel (eds.) (2013): The Behavioural Dimensions of International Cooperation, Global Cooperation Research Papers 1, Centre for Global Cooperation Research (pdf)


Read Jing Gu, John Humphrey, and Dirk Messner's (2007) Global Governance and Developing Countries: The Implications of the Rise of China here (pdf)


Messner, Dirk (2007): The European Union: Protagonist in a
Multilateral World Order or Peripheral Power
in the »Asia-Pacific« Century? (pdf)


Print version of this Talk (pdf)