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International law is generally considered to be a good thing. With important exceptions, such as Critical Legal Studies, scholarship in both International Relations (IR) and International Law (IL) reinforces this 'nice law' assumption and therefore overlooks or underestimates the law's negative aspects. In contrast, this article assumes the power of international law to examine how international law can have effects that are unintended, unhelpful, or even perverse. In particular, I argue that international law distorts policy- and decision-making processes in liberal democracies by eroding personal responsibility and decreasing accountability; legal expertise and legal virtues crowd out important virtues of statecraft and prudence while shrinking our capacity for sophisticated moral and political thought; and an excessive focus on law can lead to suboptimal foreign policy outcomes. Rather than law being a bad thing per se, I examine the significant strategic and moral limits of international law. This raises the need to lower our expectations of international law, carefully examine the relationship between power and international law, and political responsibility and legal ethics, and more fully embrace our own personal responsibility. The article closes by suggesting a research programme on the dark sides of international law from various theoretical perspectives.

If international politics is about "power," then what do governments do once they have it? In Economic Interdependence and War, Dale Copeland suggests that they often use it to gain control of resources on favorable terms, then use that control to leverage additional gains in control and wealth.

What responsibilities do individuals have for global injustices, such as sweatshop labour? Iris Marion Young sought to answer this question with her "social connection model" of responsibility. She argues that all individuals "connected" to structural injustice share political responsibility (as opposed to moral or legal responsibility) to collectively struggle against it. The theory was inspired by the anti-sweatshop movement, which recognised that consumers felt responsible for the working conditions of distant garment workers, even though they do nothing morally wrong when purchasing clothes. The social connection model is intuitively appealing and popular because it can explain why there is a responsibility for structural injustices like sweatshop labour, which falls short of guilt and blame, and takes structure seriously. However, Young left several gaps in the theory. One such gap is that she does not explain what she means by "connection" to structural injustice. She does not explicitly tell us what kind of connection to structural injustice generates political responsibility for it. Three potential definitions of connection arise in Young's work – what I call existential, dependent and causal connection – but Young does not unpack or defend any version in detail. In this paper, I aim to clarify these different meanings of connection and assess their plausibility within Young's own framework. I argue that existential connection, while serving as inspiration for the "social connection model," does not fit the framework in which social connections give rise to responsibility for injustice and individuals reproduce structural injustice through their actions. I claim that dependent connection is problematic because if all agents bear responsibility for structural injustice, including the victims, then it is not only those who are dependent on structural injustice that bear political responsibility for it. I argue that causal connection is problematic because individuals cannot be said to cause structural ...

The recent result of the Irish referendum and the decision of the United States Supreme Court in favour of same- sex marriage has given the Australian campaign for marriage equality new momentum. The most recent same- sex marriage bill was introduced in early June 2015 and is now one of four bills on the subject before the federal Parliament. To date, approximately 21 countries allow same-sex marriage (including the United States but excluding Ireland where legislation is still to be enacted). Since the 2004 amendment to the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth) which inserted the current definition of marriage, 16 bills dealing with marriage equality or the recognition of overseas same-sex marriages have been introduced into the federal Parliament. Not all bills have come to a vote and no bill has progressed past the second reading stage. Consequently no bill has been debated by the second chamber. To date, the bills have been introduced by members of parliament representing the Australian Democrats, the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party. This Quick Guide provides a chronological list of bills relating to marriage equality introduced into the federal parliament.

Standard conceptions of the relationship between international law and war in International Relations (IR) mostly oscillate between the sceptical view that law is mostly irrelevant in times of conflict, and the optimistic view that law is a meaningful moral standard that effectively constrains violence. Modern asymmetric conflicts between liberal democratic states and non-state actors such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or Hamas challenge these conceptions, however, as they are at once increasingly legal and extremely violent. Drawing inspiration from IR and International Law (IL) scholarship from multiple theoretical paradigms, this article examines the legal asymmetries before, during, and after asymmetric conflict. Noting that law is at once a useful tool and a strong normative force, it argues that a good understanding of legal asymmetries can supplement existing theories of asymmetric war, continue the dissolution of false dichotomies and open up interesting avenues of research in IR, and help both scholars and policymakers understand how international law influences modern asymmetric conflict against non-state actors. Adapted from the source document.

This thesis examines the role of small states in conflict mediation along two axes. First, it seeks to explain and explore the role and the capacity of small states in international peace mediation by using the case of Ghana. Second, the study turns the centre of attention to how Ghana can contribute meaningfully to conflict mediation by comparing it with the examples from the Nordic countries of Finland, Norway and Sweden and more specifically the insights they bring and challenges they pose. The study relies on a qualitative research approach to obtain and scrutinize the data. The study uses existing literature on the subject matter as well as interviews. This study suggests that, in spite of the increasing popularity of the role of small states in peace mediation globally in recent years, at the very least, has not received the needed attention from the extant literature. The study further suggests that Ghana's role with regards to conflict mediation can move from being overlooked to being an internationally acclaimed success story if a systematic investment is made in strengthening the country's mediation competences. This thesis concludes by arguing that the insights obtained from the mediation infrastructure of the Nordic countries can be retained, and some of the potential challenges overcome by providing a conceptual apparatus to engage these issues frontally for future policy research.

AbstractStandard conceptions of the relationship between international law and war in International Relations (IR) mostly oscillate between the sceptical view that law is mostly irrelevant in times of conflict, and the optimistic view that law is a meaningful moral standard that effectively constrains violence. Modern asymmetric conflicts between liberal democratic states and non-state actors such as the Taliban,al-Qaeda, orHamaschallenge these conceptions, however, as they are at once increasingly legal and extremely violent. Drawing inspiration from IR and International Law (IL) scholarship from multiple theoretical paradigms, this article examines the legal asymmetries before, during, and after asymmetric conflict. Noting that law is at once a useful tool and a strong normative force, it argues that a good understanding of legal asymmetries can supplement existing theories of asymmetric war, continue the dissolution of false dichotomies and open up interesting avenues of research in IR, and help both scholars and policymakers understand how international law influences modern asymmetric conflict against non-state actors.