Nicolás Brando

Strengthening Labour Rights Provisions in Bilateral Trade Agreements: Making the Case for Voluntary Sustainability Standards

Since 2008, most bilateral and regional EU trade agreements contain so-called Trade and Sustainable Development chapters. Such sustainability chapters typically include commitments to core ILO labour rights and provide specific monitoring mechanisms to ensure compliance. Several observers however, have voiced concern about the enforcement potential of these provisions in practice, beyond legal and institutional reforms. As a means to overcome this compliance gap, this article explores how the inclusion of existing Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) in trade agreements could potentially enhance the monitoring and enforcement of labour provisions in EU trade agreements. Based on experiences captured in a case-study on the functioning of the 2013 EU-Colombia Trade Agreement, we argue that linking VSS to labour provisions in trade agreements could significantly contribute to rendering these provisions more effective. Linking labour provisions to the monitoring and auditing mechanisms of accredited but independent VSS, we argue, could help close a regulatory gap, add credibility to the provisions and help overcome capacity challenges in the implementing countries. In turn, the integration of VSS in trade agreements offers public regulators the opportunity to demand a strengthening of the quality of VSS in terms of their design and procedures.

The Right to Secession: Remedial or Primary?

Abstract The Scottish referendum, and the Kurdish and Catalan endeavours to organise unilateral independence referenda has made secession, once again, a prominent political issue. Understanding what entitles collectives to claim independence, and the conditions required for this claim to be justified are fundamental issues that must be answered for an assessment of legitimate secessionism. This article compares remedial and primary right approaches to a right to secession, looking at their meeting points and discrepancies. Although the literature emphasises their differences, this article explores their convergence points, arguing that certain core oppositions derive from an imprecise distinction between ‘self-determination’ and ‘secession.’

Book Review: Brian Milne, Rights of the Child: 25 Years After the Adoption of the UN ConventionRights of the Child: 25 Years After the Adoption of the UN Convention by MilneBrian. Heidelberg: Springer, 2015. 225pp., £90.00 (h/b), ISBN 9783319187839

responses to mass atrocities, namely, the responsibility to protect, prosecute and palliate. The fundamental arguments raised are that responses to mass atrocities are very different depending on time, space, actions, magnitude and key actors, which may require significant trade-offs in order to achieve their objectives. These responses may not always be equally supportive. The author adopts a historical, analytical and normative perspective. The choice of Africa as a region is based on the fact that the continent has been the recipient of substantial normative development and practical application of the responses and their norms, but such developments and applications have equally substantially failed in their objectives. The four countries analysed are Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda. They are selected for various geopolitical reasons but more importantly because they are characterised by internal conflict which has been internationalised. The book is aimed at scholars and practitioners of international criminal and human rights law as well as scholars of Comparative Politics and International Relations. Using the appropriate historical, normative and analytical perspectives, Kurt Mills succeeds in examining the strengths and weaknesses of the international community’s role in the responsibility to protect, prosecute and palliate in the context of mass atrocities in Africa. The author is very familiar with the relevant academic literature at both the theoretical and empirical case-study level, thus validating the arguments raised. He aptly demonstrates that the failures of the responses emanate from conceptual and institutional factors, including the lack of political will, thereby rendering the international community or global institutions and states functionally ineffective as key actors in achieving the desired outcomes. Mills emphasises that the responses to mass atrocities in Africa more often result in adverse undesired outcomes than the desired ones. This is a significant contribution of the book. The author concludes by making valuable recommendations based on labelling, institutions and authority aimed at realising the three responses. The recommendations largely focus on the capacity-building of key actors. The book demonstrates evidence of original work and significantly contributes to knowledge and insight into the subject of international responses to mass atrocities. A case study of a collapsed state, for example, Somalia, would have been appropriate to enhance the argument raised that responses to mass atrocities are largely determined by enabling political environments.

Book Review: Zygmunt Bauman and Stanislaw Obirek, Of God and Man and On the World and Ourselves

three editors. It is unusual because it is not a typical handbook comprising full texts of classics. Instead of offering a collection or an anthology of classics, what is to be found in this book are critical and insightful summaries and reviews of 41 classical articles or books in the field of public policy and administration. The book is interesting because leading contemporary scholars have written these reviews. So, as well as providing a brief summary of these classics, they also present their legacies and implications for the present day. The book puts all of these 41 classics into a context by outlining their legacies and connections and their impact on other research. Finally, it is an innovative work because it gives the reader a map for their own research. It is important for seeing a very broad picture and finding a way in the field of public policy and administration. For the editors, collaboration with 43 contributors is a very demanding task. But what is also challenging for them is to find, choose and identify 41 texts as classics. The challenge stems from the fact that ‘there is no objective standard for determining what constitutes a classic’ (p.3). Hence, the editors are aware of the fact that any attempt to find classics in any field is destined to be incomplete: ‘A different set of editors would certainly have come up with a different list’ (p.4). For example, the book comprises work by David Truman and CW Mills but not Robert Dahl; it includes Herbert Simon and Charles Lindblom but not Amitai Etzioni; it also includes Anthony Downs and Elinor Ostrom but not Patrick Dunleavy. Similarly, while there is work by Christopher Hood, there is nothing from Robert and Janet Denhardt or RAW Rhodes. The list goes on. All in all, this is a very useful book especially for postgraduate students who can easily get lost in the literature review when trying to find and develop a research problem and question. It is also handy for academics in the sense of using this book as a supplementary textbook in their courses.

Book Review: Jonathan Bowman, Cosmoipolitan Justice: The Axial Age, Multiple Modernities, and the Postsecular Turn

political obligation as the obligation to obey the law is relevant to his own thicker conception. Baron’s normative conclusion, while certainly not disagreeable, does not seem to rely on this theoretical discussion. More generally, the book could have benefited from more careful editing. While Baron’s prose is compelling, there are too many instances of repetition, unexplained acronyms and digressions that make the general thesis difficult to follow. That it is not to say that there are not many points in the book which would be of great interest to those interested in Jewish politics. As a more general theoretical contribution, however, it unfortunately falls short.

Book Review: Liberty and Education: A Civic Republican ApproachLiberty and Education: A Civic Republican Approach by HinchliffeGeoffrey. Abingdon: Routledge, 2015. 173pp., £90.00 (h/b), ISBN 9780415737913

Both of these books will be very useful to readers interested in the recent developments in normative political theory, especially in regard to the global justice debate. In addition, Forst’s theoretical synthesis of AngloAmerican political philosophy and Frankfurt School critical theory nicely bridges the gap between these related yet often mutually ignored traditions in political theory. As exemplified in the diversity of approaches employed by Forst’s critics in Justice, Democracy and the Right to Justification, this is a highly fruitful move.