International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

A dozen years have passed since the end of the Cold War, but the legacy remains in both Western and Eastern Europe. This workshop aims to bring together scholars and experts from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to discuss the ways in which the detrimental effects on social, political and economic structures of the legacy can be alleviated.

The workshop will develop two aspects of this issue: the external security structure represented by NATO and the emerging EU security policy; and the internal security structure including threats to civil society and problems of political and economic transition. Four papers would be delivered in each of two sessions. Participation would be balanced between US and European contributors.

Session One: The Legacy of the Cold War on Europe's External Security Structure

Paper 1:

NATO, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Common Foreign- and Security Policy of the European Union: Cooperation or Competition?

Paper 2:

The Transatlantic Imbalance: Why does the US still carry the burden of Europe's defense?

Paper 3:

NATO Expansion and the Russian Reaction

Paper 4:

The EU's CFSP and the Role of the Rapid Reaction Force

Session Two: The Legacy of the Cold War on Europe's Internal Security and Stability

Paper 5:

Nuclear Safety and the Problem of Nuclear and Other Radioactive Material

Paper 6:

Immigration and Asylum Issues in the Light of EU Enlargement

Paper 7:

Economic Stability and the Incorporation of the Transition Economies

Paper 8:

The Political Legacy of the Cold War and the Development of Democratic Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Workshops

Ever since international economic relations have been established law has been developed to shape them in a satisfactory manner. Conversely, changes in the law have sometimes preceded, and thus fostered, international economic intercourse. The spectacular growth of the international economy over the past decades has called for a more intensive role for the law. This has led to panoply of new legal instruments as well as a resuscitation of the traditional forms. Although there is a substantial amount of legal writings documenting the legal instruments created in different sectors of the economy, efforts to systematize such instruments seem to be largely absent. At the same time the question arises whether the traditional concepts of public and private law jurisdiction are still adequate. The objective of the seminar is twofold. First, we hope to achieve an overview of the legal developments in some selected sectors or areas which display particularly interesting features: international securities and banking, internet, tax, antitrust, maritime and air transport and address the question how the law has coped with globalization. A systematic overview of these developments may enable us to provide input for the second objective, a discussion of the general doctrines of public and private law jurisdiction. To what extent have they been able to accommodate the requirements of a global economy? To what extent have they been adapted and developed for this purpose?

Panelists

  • John Barton, Stanford University Law School
    "Antitrust and Intellectual Property Rights"
  • Boris Kozolchyk, University of Arizona Law School
    "International Contracts"
  • Kees van Raad, University of Leiden
    "International Tax Law"
  • Andrew Guzman, University of California, Berkeley
    "Securities"
  • Piet Jan Slot, University of Leiden/Stanford Law School and European Forum
    "Air and Maritime Transport, Standards, Mutual Acceptance"
  • Patrick Wautelet, University of Leuven/Harvard Law School
    "Law on International Private Law/Conflict of Laws"
  • Tom Heller, Stanford Law School
    "International Organizations/General Principles"
  • Andrew Guzman, University of California, Berkeley
    "General Principles for Choice of Law/Jurisdisction"

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Conferences

Conference Theme At the beginning of 1999, eleven (since 2001: twelve) EU member states abandoned their national currencies in favor of the common currency euro, which will be available as notes and coins from 2002 onwards. The conference discusses various aspects of monetary and fiscal policies resulting from the completion of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with special emphasis on its implications for the transatlantic economic relations and the global economy. Conference Speakers Fritz Breuss, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, breuss@fgr.wu-wien.ac.at Jakob de Haan, University of Groningen, j.de.haan@eco.rug Fabio Ghironi, Boston College, ghironi@bc.edu Gottfried Haber, University of Klagenfurt, gottfried.haber@uni-klu.ac.at Andrew Hughes Hallett, University of Strathclyde, a.hughes-hallett@strath.ac.uk Michael M. Hutchison, University of California, Santa Cruz, hutch@cats.ucsc.edu Tim Josling, Stanford University, josling@stanford.edu Markus Knell, Austrian National Bank, markus.knell@oenb.co.at Ronald McKinnon, Stanford University, mckinnon@leland.stanford.edu Reinhard Neck, University of Klagenfurt and Stanford University, rneck@stanford.edu Dominick Salvatore, Fordham University, Salvatore@fordham.edu Friedrich Schneider, University of Linz, friedrich.Schneider@jk.uni-linz.ac.at Rolf Strauch, European Central Bank, rolf.strauch@ecb.int Bas van Aarle, Catholic University of Leuven, bas.vanaarle@econ.kuleuven.ac.be

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Please see PDF for more details. Speaker
Conferences

This project discusses visions of democracy, and analyzes and determines criteria for the evaluation of the democratic character of political systems. It studies the EU's principal legislative procedures, and examines how they perform according to the selected criteria. For example, it studies to what extent EU policies can depart from the median voter's preferences. It analyzes the evolution of the democratic deficit over time, studies the impact of potential reforms and enlargement, and compares the EU institutions and procedures to the political system of the United States (US).

Professor Joshua Lederberg, a research geneticist, is Sackler Foundation Scholar, President-emeritus at The Rockefeller University in New York, and a consulting professor of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Lederberg was educated at Columbia and Yale University, where he pioneered in the field of bacterial genetics with the discovery of genetic recombination in bacteria. In 1958, at the age of 33, Dr. Lederberg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine for this work. Dr. Lederberg has been a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin and then at Stanford University School of Medicine, until he came to The Rockefeller University in 1978. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1957, and a charter member of its Institute of Medicine, Dr. Lederberg has been active in many government advisory roles, including the Defense Science Board and the Chair of the President's Cancer Panel. He has long had a keen interest in international health, and has served two terms on WHO's Advisory Health Research Council and on the boards of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington) and the Council on Foreign Relations (New York). He co-chaired the IOM's study on Emerging Infections, and recently edited "Biological Weapons: Containing the Threat", published by the MIT Press.

Bechtel Center, Encina Hall

Joshua Lederberg President Emeritus, Rockefeller University and Consulting Professor at CISAC Keynote Speaker Stanford University
Conferences
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Encina Hall, CISAC Central Conference Room, 2nd Floor

Workshops
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For more than twenty years, labor-intensive industrialization in developing countries has generated controversy about "sweatshop" conditions in the factories of multinational companies and their regional subcontractors. In recent years, U.S. university students have vigorously opposed such factories as sites of abuse and exploitation. Others reply that such places offer their mainly young and female workers much-needed income and independence. Much of this controversy has focused on Southeast Asia as a prime location of facilities for the manufacturing of apparel, footwear, toys, and other labor-intensive exports. Why do sweatshops exist in these countries? Why are they tolerated? Why are they assailed? Are the objections justified? What should be done? University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Business School Professor Linda Lim has helped pioneer empirical research on young women factory workers in Southeast Asia. She has published extensively on this and other labor-related subjects. She has also served as a frequent consultant to the International Labor Organization, most recently on the globalization debate. She was a member of the University of Michigan's Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights in 1999-2000.

Okimoto Conference Room Encina Hall, East Wing, Third Floor

Linda Lim Professor of Corporate Strategy and International Business Speaker University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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In Southeast Asia, partial recovery from financial crisis has been accompanied by signs of the start of a local version of America's internet business boom. E-businesses and dotcom start-ups have emerged. Political and business leaders have touted the virtues of the so-called "new economy" and its potential for resolving the post-crisis malaise that still affects parts of the region. But is the e-business revolution in Southeast Asia real? Are technologies and business practices being transformed? Or is the "new economy" mainly hype and wishful thinking? Does e-business spell the death of monopolies and conglomerates at the hands of agile new entrants? Or is it popular because it provides an alternative to fundamental business restructuring? And what do the answers to these questions imply for economic recovery and political reform? Linda Lim is the associate director of the International Institute and Director of the Southeast Asia Business Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has written and lectured extensively on political economy, economic development, and business practices in Southeast Asia, where she recently completed preliminary field research on the appearance and growth of electronic business.

Okimoto Conference Room Encina Hall, East Wing, Third Floor

Linda Lim Professor of Corporate Strategy and International Business Speaker University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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