Letter from the Editor (PDF)

Lindsey E. Walters

Editor-in-Chief (2013-2014)

ARTICLES

Emerging Donors and Knowledge Sharing for Development: The Case of Korea (PDF)

By Moctar Aboubacar

The field of international development cooperation is being increasingly influenced by “emerging donors,” countries like South Korea which are capitalizing on their own development history to engage developing countries with innovative policy experiences. These newly formulated development cooperation initiatives face significant challenges, however, especially when negotiating what role the state should play in interpreting a country’s past development. South Korea’s case shows that if emerging donors can address key issues inherent to knowledge sharing in their new programs, they could mobilize a wealth of policy know-how to augment development initiatives in other countries.

Alternating Current: Developing Transformative Leaders in a Multi-Polar World (PDF)

By Pia Rebello Britto, PhD and Briance Mascarenhas, PhD

Globalization is creating the need for international transformative leaders who can envision and realize opportunities for expansion and collaboration. The specific skill set needed by these leaders and how to develop them have not been clear. This paper clarifies the skill set needed by transformative global leaders. It suggests that alternating exposures in the home and host countries can broaden mindsets on important dimensions, scaffolding the development of leaders. These alternating, complementary exposures help to develop a multi-polar view and an appreciation of theory-practice, vision-execution, sustainability, formal-informal savvy, and lifelong learning. This approach is illustrated for developing students into leaders in the international policy and business fields.

A Wolf By the Ears: U.S. Policy Failures, Reform, and the Necessity of Private Military Security Contractors, 2003–2013 (PDF)

By Dr. Michael D. Gambone and John J. McGarry

Despite their well-documented and unsavory reputation, private military security companies (PMSCs) remain critical to U.S. foreign policy. Hard-won reform has emerged concurrently with greater U.S. dependence on private military security contractors. Current American policy reflects accumulating experience but is hampered by uneven application. Iterative reform has not produced a strategic vision for PMSCs within American policy. Moreover, what satisfies the rule of law in Washington is distinct from the operational reality in conflict zones scattered around the world. Despite these obstacles, contractors and policy makers will continue to integrate a growing body of policy into the PMSC industry. The stakes involved are neither theoretical nor rhetorical, but grounded in the simple need for practicality and survival.

The United Nations Security Council and the Emerging Crisis of Legitimacy (PDF)

By Joy Gordon

For many years, the Security Council of the United Nations was seen as paralyzed and ineffectual. But in the aftermath of the Cold War, the Council became much more active, and in some cases, was accused of overreaching. Some have argued that this puts the Council’s legitimacy into question. A series of recent European court rulings have provided support for this view, in that they find that some of the Security Council’s enforcement actions are inconsistent with international law.

Arrested Institutional Development: Resource Dependence and Legal Institutions (PDF)

By Kari Lipschutz

Literature on the resource curse has attempted to explain all manner of failure in the political and economic institutions of resource rich countries. Much of the literature, however, ignores the failings of legal institutions. While some developments occur out of government interest in natural resource sectors such as investor protection frameworks, others, like redress mechanisms for pollution, suffer from arrested development. This paper uses the Nigerian case to illustrate the serious effect this type of institutional crisis can have on the ability to mitigate the negative externalities of resource development. It considers how failure in one institutional context directly affects other jurisdictions by examining the increased use of extra-territorial jurisdiction to try multi-national extractive companies for pollution committed abroad.

Crossing the Red Line: International Legal Limits on Policy Options (PDF)

By Todd Robinson, Paul F. Diehl, and Tyler Pack

The apparent use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria and the potential development of nuclear weapons by Iran have brought “red lines” to the forefront of public discourse and policy-making. In the former, U.S. President Obama threatened retaliatory measures were Syria ever to use chemical weapons against rebels in its civil war. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu literally drew a red line on a chart during his speech at the United Nations, indicating that Iran would not be permitted to move beyond a given stage of uranium enrichment with an implied threat of military action should that line be crossed.

Augmenting State Secrets: Obama’s Information War (PDF)

By Aiden Warren and Alexander Dirksen

This article will argue that while the Obama administration promised considerable change in the areas of transparency, intelligence gathering, and national security, it has differed very little from the Bush administration. In fact, it will contend that in many instances, the administration has actually augmented and increased its activities in its “secret war” on information and those actors deemed to be adversaries and threats to “states secrets.” Instead of a dramatic break from the policies of his predecessor, Obama’s approach to the balance of national security objectives and privacy concerns, has deeply contravened the administration’s initial pronouncements of a new “openness” and “transparency.” It will be shown that these actions have also extended to the global stage, particularly those that have impacted the U.S.-Russian “re-set” and bilateral relations with Germany. Indeed, from the treatment of whistleblowers to the assertive expansion of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, it has been an amplified “business as usual” approach that could significantly mar the Obama administration’s legacy.

INTERVIEWS

Seeing Atrocity Crimes as Processes, Not Single Events (PDF)

By Adama Dieng, UN Special Advisor

Adama Dieng is the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. He has served as Registrar for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as well as the Supreme Court of Senegal, and was Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists.

A World in Need of a Grand Strategy (PDF)

By Luis Moreno-Ocampo

Luis Moreno-Ocampo was the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Previously, he was the Deputy Prosecutor in Argentina during the “junta trial” in 1985 and the Prosecutor in the trial against a military rebellion in 1991. This year he’s joining the Jackson Institute at Yale as a Senior Fellow. 

Transparency as Professionalism (PDF)

By Xingzui Wang

Xingzui Wang is currently a World Fellow at Yale and the Vice President of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation. He has over twenty years experience working on issues of rural poverty and development in China. Under his watch the Foundation grew to serve over 1.5 million people each year.

OP-EDS

The Age of Democracy and Reason—Can South Asia Find Lasting Peace? (PDF)

By Probal DasGupta

The Transparency of the Quotidian: Whither Japan? (PDF)

By Nathan Hopson

No Longer the Status Quo? Changes in China’s Approach to Territorial Conflict (PDF)

By Andrew Taffer

Two Americas: Resurgent and Dysfunctional (PDF)

By Ali Wyne