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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.
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