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Chapter 7: International Organization, Law and Human Rights

This activity contains 5 questions.

Suppose you were asked to recommend changes in the structure of the UN Security Council (especially in permanent membership and the veto). What changes would you recommend, if any? Based on what logic?

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The former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali proposed (without success) the creation of a standby army of peacemaking forces loaned by member states (see p. 268). This would reduce state sovereignty a bit and increase supranational authority. Discuss this plan's merits and drawbacks.

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Collective security against aggression depends on states' willingness to bear the costs of fighting wars to repel and punish aggressors. Sometimes great powers have been willing to bear such costs; at other times they have not. What considerations do you think should guide such decisions? Give examples of situations (actual or potential) that would and would not merit the intervention of great powers to reverse aggression.

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Given the difficulty of enforcing international law, how might the role of the World Court be strengthened in future years? What obstacles might such plans encounter? How would they change the Court's role if they succeeded?

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Although international norms concerning human rights are becoming stronger, China and many other states continue to consider human rights an internal affair over which the state has sovereignty within its territory. Do you think human rights are a legitimate subject for one state to raise with another? If so, how do you reconcile the tensions between state autonomy and universal rights? What practical steps could be taken to get sovereign states to acknowledge universal human rights?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

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