International

Organization

 

 

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Scholars of international relations use the end of the Thirty Year’s War in Europe as an important benchmark event. That Peace of Westphalia treaty, signed on Prague’s famous Karlov Most in what is now the Czech Republic, marked a new era in world politics.  It demonstrated a transfer of power from the Vatican to the modern nation-state.  Over 350 years later, the nation-state still remains central to understanding world politics.  But today, the nation-state no longer dominates world politics alone.  There are other actors on the international stage, from multinational or transnational corporations to terrorist networks to environmental and human rights NGOs.  And there are groups that states assemble themselves, international organizations. This class examines all of these categories, which together are traditionally known as international organization.  That is, we will examine inter-state groups such as the United Nations, WTO, OPEC, and EU as well as international treaties such as the Kyoto Convention, Montreal Protocol and the UN Convention on Human Rights.  We will also examine non-state entities such as large corporations like Dupont Chemical or British Petroleum, NGOs like the Sea Shepherd Society or Médecins Sans Frontières, and terrorist networks like Al Qaeda.  Our objective throughout is to better understand the emerging forms of global governance.