Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: While much of the international relations literature has focused on the conflictgenerating potential of river use disputes, we focus on the politics of cooperation. Our theoretical framework investigates the demand, catalytic, and inhibiting influences on whether the riparian countries will enter into general and water supply river-managing treaties. Empirical results for the 1900-93 time period reveal that economic development (a demand factor), democracy, and common IGO memberships (catalysts) increase the chances for a treaty, while the lack of common security interests and balanced power configurations act as inhibiting factors. The demand and catalyst variables exercise substantially more influence, giving support to the rarely examined argument that factors associated with Kantian peace not only help states avoid militarized confrontations but also help foster positive peace. In the water supply context, however, the power dynamics given by the up/downstream river pattern cripple the possibility for the treaty. Our findings indicate that optimistic predictions expecting a rise in Third World river cooperation are largely unwarranted.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: To a large extent the study of international cooperation has neglected the distributive aspect involved, i.e. who gets what in negotiations. This paper seeks to contribute to the study of distributive outcomes of international cooperation by examining how nations surrounding the North Atlantic have decided to divide shared ocean space since the creation of the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Theoretically, the paper is nested in the literature of domestic sources of international cooperation. While neorealism, neoliberalism and regime theory have contributed to our understanding of the emergence of cooperation, it is clear that in order to explain distributive outcomes one has to look to the domestic level. International negotiations often have significant distributive consequences for domestic actors, therefore creating an incentive for the parliament, interest groups and powerful companies, to seek to influence the outcome. Recent years have seen the proliferation of theories of how domestic politics influence international collaboration (Putnam and Bayne 1984; Putnam 1988; Evans, Jacobson and Putnam 1993; Simmons 1994; Mo 1994, 1995; Milner 1997, Milner et. al 2000, Martin 2000). But a generalizable theory has not emerged as to who and what helps or hinders constrains international cooperation. Scholars have pointed to an electoral connection (Putnam and Bayne 1984), ratification procedures (Milner 1997, Martin 2000) and role of veto players (Mo 1994, 1995, Tarar 2001) as influencing the outcome. Empirically, the paper seeks to explain the variance in outcomes of the division of overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) focusing on the North Atlantic. The creation of the 200-mile EEZ gave nations control over the resources found within these zones, and was thought to solve significant conflicts over control over common resources. But the 200-mile limit also created conflict where countries were less than 400-miles apart as that meant their EEZs overlapped. This was an especially significant problem in the North Atlantic, resulting in often difficult conflict as well as different decisions as how to divide the overlapping area. For example, the International Court of Justice in The Hague decided on the division between Greenland and the Norwegian possession of Jan Mayen, giving Greenland a larger share of the area, while Iceland and Norway used a third-party mediator to negotiate the division between Iceland and Jan Mayen, giving Iceland a full 200-mile EEZ. Finally, Iceland and Denmark (on behalf of Greenland) successfully negotiated a median-line solution between Greenland and Iceland. Domestic politics significantly influenced the outcome in each case, and thus helps explain these varying outcomes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Countries, which have implemented for the first time or reformulated their domestic water management policies after the 1970s-1980s, have had the opportunity to choose from a series of water management models around the world. Brasil is one of these countries. In 1997, the Brazilian Federal State defined (Law 9,433) the new water management model to be implemented throughout the country. The model is based on the integrated management of multiple water uses, defining the river basin as its unit of analysis and management. These principles reflect a trend towards decentralization and participation, which requires a close collaboration and negotiation among the different government levels – federal, state and municipal, as well as between these and water users and civil society organizations. This collaboration and negotiation is to be developed within River Basin Committees, where representatives from all the above mentioned sectors participate. Despite this legislative and implementation dynamics at the federal level, since the 1988 Federal Constitution, several Brazilian States had approved state legislation (re)organizing their water management systems. Most of them already encompassed the basic principles later adopted at the federal level. The result is a mosaic of water management institutions, which, in some river basins, arguably hold overlapping functions and responsibilities. Why have these overlapping water management models persisted? Why have not they been consolidated in one or just replaced one by another? The answers to these quesitons may shed some light over governments' choices of water management models and the paths which the implementation of these models have followed (and are following). The Watermark Project – Projeto Marca D'Água – is a long-term study (5-10 years), which seeks to investigate the institutional and social aspects of the water management decentralization in diverse physical, social, and organizational contexts across Brasil. The project strives to better understand the decision making process used by emerging river basin organizations and how factors such as the type of water related problem and the level of social organization, influenced their creation and their management activities. The Watermark Project research team has currently over 30 collaborators from institutions in Brasil and the United States of America, representing a diverse group of universities, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organizations. During 2001-2002, baseline and follow-up studies were conducted in 27 basins throughout Brasil. The Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí River Basin (PCJ) is one of the case-studies researched and being followed within The Watermark Project. The paper will analyze the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí River Basin case, where a distinct water management model was implemented in the 1980s – PCJ Consortium. This water management model was subsequently followed by the implementation of a second model of water management as a result of the State of São Paulo Water Law (1991) – PCJ State Committee – and recently, by the implementation of yet a third water management model as a result of the Federal Water Law (1997) – PCJ Federal Committee. The reasons for choosing one water management model over another and for their overlapping existence and functioning will be discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Partition has been used to solve many ethnic civil wars. However, it should be noted that the practice of partition has failed almost every time it has been tried. It has led to further violence, legitimized intolerance, and has not eased ethnic hatred. Supporters of partition theory often argue that partition is a very useful solution to ethnic civil war; identifying the key mistake in each failed partition allows supporters to maintain the purity of the theory. I argue that excuses for failure of partition can always be found, and the problem is that mistakes are always made. Therefore, a power-sharing alternative to partition should be explored to the fullest extent. I propose that a power sharing approach would instill values of tolerance and democratic processes that would benefit all regional ethnicities for the present and future. Just as surely as critics will argue that there is no guaranteeing how long a power sharing approach can maintain peace, the history of partition can surely be used to predict its failure. I will illustrate my argument by juxtaposing the cases of multi-ethnic power sharing reconstruction in Rwanda with the pursuit of a partition agenda by ethnic forces in Bosnia following their respective civil wars of the 1990s.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Global sustainable development is hampered by technological divides between North and South. One such divide is a so-called ?genetic divide fueled by uneven access to transformative and powerful new technologies for use in agriculture and health, such as biotechnology or nanotechnology. Yet uneven access to new technologies is only one aspect of a technological divide, with its implications for sustainability. The safe and appropriate transfer and use of new technologies is equally critical to a global sustainability transition. As the debate over the elusive concept of sustainability has long revealed, however, concepts such as ?safety and ?appropriate use only acquire meaning in specific cultural and societal contexts and are deeply political and contested, especially between North and South. There are currently few transnationally shared understandings or norms to govern the safe and sustainable transboundary transfer and use of biotechnology in agriculture. While there is an emerging global governance architecture for trade in biotechnology and biosafety (including the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety under the Convention on Biological Diversity, and agreements of the World Trade Organization), this architecture contains potentially contradictory norms and obligations, with its ability to address the implications of a biotechnology divide for sustainability thus in question. This paper argues that for global biotechnology governance regimes to be effective, they must contribute, first and foremost, to development and institutionalization of shared norms. Much international relations literature has long assumed that mere existence of a global regime signals the presence of a set of shared norms. Yet, this assumption does not hold, particularly for new challenges such as safe use of biotechnology, where the most persistent and contentious debates turn on how to frame the problem and agree on normative bases for collective action, not only during regime negotiation, but also during its subsequent implementation in diverse settings. The paper argues that effective global biotechnology governance requires mediating between cross-cultural and North-South differences in conceptualizing safety and appropriate use of new technologies. The analysis combines a theoretical interest in effectiveness of global regimes in contested areas of technological change, with a practical interest in policy proposals to reform the existing governance architecture.