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The European security strategy offers a clear picture of all the external actions of the EU. The potential in terms of efficiency, coherence, & credibility is evident. The implementation of the choices expressed in the strategy, across all domains of external action, is an essential project for the EU's global role. Adapted from the source document.

What explains the effect of external intervention on the duration of civil war? The literature on intervention has made some progress in addressing this question, but it has been hindered by an assumption that states intervene in civil wars either to help one side win or to facilitate negotiations. Often, however, external states become involved in civil war to pursue an agenda which is separate from the goals of the internal combatants. When states intervene in this fashion, they make wars more difficult to resolve for two reasons. First, doing so introduces another actor that must approve any settlement to end the war. Second, external states generally have less incentive to negotiate than internal actors because they bear lower costs of fighting and they can anticipate gaining less benefit from negotiation than domestic insurgents. Through Cox regressions using data on the goals of all interventions in civil wars since World War II, this article shows that when states intervene with an independent agenda, they make wars substantially longer. The effect of independent interventions is much larger than that of external interventions generally, suggesting that the established finding that external interventions prolong civil war is driven by a subset of cases where states have intervened in conflicts to pursue independent goals.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are undergoing an alleged crisis of trustworthiness. The past decades have seen an increase in both academic and practitioner scepticism, particularly given the transformations many NGOs have undergone in size, professionalism, and political importance. The accountability agenda, which stresses transparency and external oversight, has gained a significant amount of traction as a means to solve this crisis. But the causal link between the implementation of these recommendations and increased trustworthiness among donors has never been considered. This article bridges this gap by drawing on theoretical innovations in trust research to put forward three arguments. First, the proponents of the accountability agenda are implicitly working with a rational model of trust. Second, this model does not reflect important social characteristics of trust between donors and NGOs. Third, this mismatch means that the accountability agenda might do more to harm trust in NGOs than to help it.

The most important issue of this paper is contained mostly, though vaguely, in the title. What is agenda-setting and how it is related with freedom of speech domain? In further part I will try to present those, theoretically distant problems. I will also try to present how political and business organizations can affect on daily agenda, so in fact how thy can create access to free speech. There are some situations in mass media world, when those practices can be considered as internal or external censorship. In this paper I specific cases, all selected from American political and media systems. I think that US system is full of contradictions, from law confl icts (state vs federal law, First Amendment), owners of mass media competition (corporations, FCC) and finally state controlled media on the contrary to free speech (censorship).

Within the context of Community law, the negotiation, conclusion and implementation of international agreements is often fraught with legal problems about competence. There are various reasons for this: the EC Treaty set out asui generislegal order based on the principle of limited powers pursuant to Article 5 EC. On the other hand, international trade relations deal with a wide range of distinct, albeit interdependent, areas not necessarily falling within the Community's competence. This substantive discrepancy entails the simultaneous involvement of both Member States and Community institutions, whose often differing agenda may give rise to disputes of a procedural and practical nature. This process has been seen as a threat to the uniformity of the Community's external relations. The Commission, for instance, has often argued that, in order for the Community to maintain a unified position on the international trade scene, to preserve the coherence of its policies and protect the credibility of its negotiating stance, the exclusive nature of its competence should be interpreted broadly.

This opening chapter provides some background to the domestic reform agenda, along with its drivers and motivations. From 1988 to 2011, the military built up institutions that guaranteed the military's dominant position in the political arena. The second phase, since 2011, has seen a guided relaxation of the military's coercive controls and the liberalisation of political spaces for the opposition and civil society. In order to contextualise Myanmar's external relations, this article will first describe the military's strategy and then outline the key changes that have been implemented in the country's foreign policy. (JCSA/GIGA)

This article addresses nongovernment organizations (NGOs) accountability, relationship with stakeholders, and what kind of mechanisms - tools or processes have NGOs put in place to ensure all types of accountabilities. The assumption in this study is that Palestinian NGOs, individually and collectively, are more accountable to their donors and to the Palestinian Authority to a lesser extent as NGOs need these two which are the only stakeholders with a real power to exercise on the NGOs and enforce their accountability requirements. The research argues that stakeholders' power is therefore determining NGO accountability. The findings highlighted the failure of NGOs in meeting the most pressing needs of the public and the poor in particular. The upward-accountability also signals of the sector's inability to consolidate its legitimacy or define an agenda or develop down-ward accountability. On top of that, political parties' involvement in the non-profit organizations is another factor that has compounded the sector's lack of public accountability, negative competitiveness, fragmentation, self-serving leadership, and exploitation as a substitute of political arena. In NGOs' opinion, the relationships to various stakeholders range from satisfactory to good especially where the PA, foreign donors, and political factions are concerned. The PA's hostility towards NGOs stems from suspicion of their political or donor affiliations and NGOs critique of PA policies and performance. However, NGOs accountability flows towards two powerful external stakeholders, the donors and the PA. Consequently, the NGOs are more concerned with upward accountability than with down-ward ones such as to the general public and the non-profit sector as a whole. Finally, NGOs accountability dilemma is both a cause and a result of low level of public participation in NGOs affairs due to public's lack of trust and the general feeling that NGOs are distant, self-absorbed, and wasting foreign funds on activities lacking sufficient relevance to ...

After nearly 20 years of 'reformist' measures, the police in Mexico continues to be an ineffective, unreliable, and 'far from citizen' institution. The efforts made so far have faded amongst political interests and agendas; multidimensional frameworks out-dated at both conceptual and interagency levels; short-sighted competition for resources; evaluation and performance monitors that are handicapped by bureaucratic inaction; and weak transparency and accountability that perpetuate the opacity in which the police operate. In this context, the agenda of external police oversight is still at a rudimentary stage. However, there are several initiatives that have managed to push the issue to the frontier of new knowledge and promising practices. This paper outlines the experiences and challenges of—as well as the lessons learned by—the Institute for Security and Democracy (Insyde) A.C., one of the most recognised think tanks in Mexico.

The highly favorable geographic location and rich natural resources are the main attractions of post-Soviet Central Asia. After the disintegration of the U.S.S.R, it became clear that different actors operated differently in this strategically important region. This area occupied different places in their strategies, and their goals were realized using different instruments. Regional disunity (Central Asian states then failed to tune up multilateral cooperation) brought grist to the mill of extra-regional players. Mutual political claims and personal ambitions of the regional leaders made it hard or even impossible to initiate common regional projects. Local contradictions in the water and energy sphere became a serious obstacle on the road towards political interaction when dealing with regional problems, environmental protection being one of them. In short, at that time, Central Asian countries did not yet master the art of pushing aside disagreements and problems for the sake of positive actions. Extra-regional actors capitalized on this fact without reservations. The U.S., the EU, Russia, China, India, Japan, and Turkey proceeded from their long-term interests when they tried to impose their political agenda on the local states and draw them into the sphere of their economic interests. Apparently, they preferred bilateral agreements with each of the Central Asian states, since their importance for each of the external players depended on their economic development, geopolitical significance and natural resources that they possessed. In recent years, the extra-regional states have revised and readjusted their Central Asian politics. Today, they prefer multilateral relations; in some cases, this format has been used for a long time, while other extra-regional countries have only recently employed the "5 + an extra-regional actor" format. Turkey and Japan are two leaders in this respect: they were the first to suggest this format, and others followed suit. Many countries limit their multilateral formats to the foreign minister level and, therefore, to declarations and joint statements. Regional states prefer this format, which allows them to balance out external players and address their own problems. Predictably, Central Asian countries are ready to be involved in multilateral formats.

Introduction / Marise Cremona and Hans-W. Micklitz -- The internal versus the external dimension of european private law : a conceptual design and a research agenda / Hans-W. Micklitz -- A triple braid : Interactions between international law, EU law, and private law / Marise Cremona -- The specificiy of private law in EU external relations : the area of freedom, security and justice / Christiaan TImmermans -- The externa dimension of Rome I and Rome II : neutrality or schizophrenia? / Stephanie Francq -- The external dimension of private international family law / Etienne Pataut -- The external reach of EU private law in the light of L'Oreal versus eBay and Google and Google Spain / Nilo Jaaskinen and Angela Ward -- Do EU contract and company law have global reach? / Stefan Grundmann -- International banking standards, private law, and the European Union / Jan Wouters and Jed Odermatt -- The EU in the transnational financial regulatory arena : the case of IOSCO / Antonio Marcacci -- The external dimension of EU consumer law / Jules Stuyck and Mateja Durovic -- EU regulatory private law in the energy community : the synergy between the CEER and the ECRB in facilitating customer protection / Anna-Alexandra Marhold -- Non-measurable negotiations : the EU between transnational regulation of pharmaceuticals and private law / Marco Rizzi

Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Although firms increasingly publish sustainability reports, assuring such reports is relatively new. This study reviews the literature of sustainability assurance to evaluate the intellectual development of the field and provide recommendations for future studies. It also demonstrates the role of assurance to enhance the credibility of sustainability reports and corporate reputation. This paper systematically reviews 94 papers obtained from the Scopus database between 1993 and August 2021. Our study shows that there is an increase in the number of studies published in recent years. We also found that some countries have received limited attention, such as the USA. The scant literature examining sustainability assurance in private institutions and non-profit organisations should be reinforced. Likewise, the sustainability research also provides limited evidence on the governance debate. The vast majority of research is not based on theoretical grounds. The need for assurance of sustainability reports not only enhances the reputation but also adds more value to the organisation's planning, monitoring, and accountability. We highlight several new research suggestions that may enhance the understanding of sustainability assurance practices.

Although it is acknowledged that NGOs play an important role in the EU's policymaking, their role in external action is less studied due to the often closed-off character of foreign policymaking. This study helps to fill this gap by analysing the role of NGOs in the EU's external human rights policy towards China regarding the Xinjiang crisis. It is based on a content analysis of EU and NGO documents, as well as interviews with EU and NGO representatives. We find that NGOs act not just as policy entrepreneurs, but as moral policy entrepreneurs: they combine expertise with moral arguments about the EU's responsibility as a human rights leader to push the Xinjiang crisis higher on the EU's agenda and guide its response.

Ergebnisse eines Treffens der ESCAP-Minister für Industrie im Septemer 1984 in Bangkok. Industrialisierung kann eine Schlüsselrolle im Prozeß der ökonomischen und sozialen Entwicklung spielen und sollte weiterentwickelt werden. Dabei darf jedoch der soziale Aspekt des wirtschaftlichen Wachstums nicht vernachlässigt werden. (DÜI-Xyl)