Multilateral Action Research Articles

Human Rights in Global Health Diplomacy: A Critical Assessment

There is no question that health has risen higher in foreign policy, with health aid quadrupling in the past 20 years and most Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) directly (or indirectly via determinants) addressing critical health inequities. The idea that governments should consider health seriously within their foreign policy became an official UN General Assembly Resolution in early 2009. Several countries have already issued formal statements on health as a foreign policy issue while others are crafting thought pieces that are nudging health forward in foreign policy discussions. There is even a new movement combining academia and bureaucracy under the rubric of global health diplomacy; the process by which government, multilateral, and civil society actors attempt to position health higher in foreign policy arguments. But for global health diplomacy (the “how”) to have traction in foreign affairs, it needs a clear articulation of the “why.” In looking more closely at country statements, what is apparent is the confusing mix of interconnections between wildly differing motives and drivers for the integration of health into foreign policy, not all of which cohere with one another. What arguments exist for why health (and notably health equity, the reduction of preventable inequalities in health within and between nations) should be a prominent foreign policy concern? Within the polyphony of possible arguments, where is there reference to human rights and have invocations to human rights by governments with stated commitments to health in their foreign policy mattered in how they actually behave? This article begins to address these questions.

The European Union, multilateralism and the global governance of the Internet

Whilst the global governance architecture of the Internet has evolved at pace in the last 10 years, the European Union's (EU) role and influence in its development has been relatively understudied. This article contributes to closing this gap in the literature through an exposition of how the EU has sought to shape the emerging environment for Internet governance in the context of its quest for ‘effective multilateralism’. It identifies the type of multilateral governance that the EU has projected for the Internet globally and analyses how it has sought to do this through its interaction with key global Internet fora. It argues that the EU's own self-defined role as a leader with a clear, preferred model for Internet governance contrasts with several constraints and contradictions faced in becoming an effective multilateral actor in this area.

The Importance of Political Leadership in Achieving a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

The dramatic injection of energy into the debate over the importance of nuclear disarmament in recent years presents a historic opportunity to make the world safer from the unacceptable risks posed by its most powerful weapons. We cannot allow this moment to pass. The positive steps taken by President Obama have added crucial momentum to the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda, but we cannot rely on him alone. No one leader, regardless of their vision, can carry such a burden. After the years of nuclear atrophy since the end of the Cold War, a sustained effort is needed at the highest levels to reverse the damage done by successive failures of political leadership. This article outlines the key features of political leadership, explains its importance, examines historical instances of leadership and highlights instances of successful political leadership. In this multi-polar world, it is only through multilateral action that we can achieve a world free of nuclear weapons, and this requires proactive multilateral political leadership.

Distanciamento versus engajamento: alguns aportes conceituais para a análise da inserção do multilateralismo brasileiro (1945-1990)

Nos últimos anos, criaram-se diferentes marcos analíticos com o propósito de auxiliar analistas na compreensão das transições da política externa brasileira desde o fim da Guerra Fria, muitos trabalhando com pares conceituais dicotômicos, como distância/participação e distância/integração. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar quatro estudos de caso, no âmbito da atuação multilateral brasileira, nos quais a tese de distanciamento será examinada, confrontando-a com uma base empírica inédita ou ainda pouco utilizada. Em três casos há dissonância clara com a categorização sob exame. Em outro, será problematizada a utilização da Guerra Fria como marco central na periodização da política externa brasileira. Argumentar-se-á, com a apresentação desses casos, que não se pode englobar toda a ação multilateral brasileira no período da Guerra Fria dentro do marco conceitual de distância, mesmo considerando as diferenciações apresentadas pela literatura. Além disso, os casos também esclarecerão que o Brasil esteve longe de manter sistemática distância, ausência ou isolacionismo; e, mesmo quando foram a resultante da posição brasileira, muitas vezes ela não derivava de uma opção tática da diplomacia do país.

The Transformation of Multilateralism Mode 1.0 to Mode 2.0

AbstractThis article presents an analysis of the multilateral system, arguing that multilateralism is going through a profound set of changes as a result of: (1) the emergence of new multilateral actors; (2) the development of new multilateral playing fields; and (3) the rise of new concepts of multilateralism. This has consequences for world politics: the world is moving from unipolarity towards a networked form of multipolarity. This article proposes to grasp these changes through the ‘Web 2.0’ metaphor, as the existing multilateral system is contrasted with the emerging ‘Mode 2.0’ of which the main characteristics are: (1) the diversification of multilateral organisations; (2) the growing importance of nonstate actors such as substate regions and supranational regional organisations; (3) the increased interlinkages between policy domains; and (4) the growing space for citizen involvement. The main upshot is that the multilateral system is moving from a closed to an open system. Both states and international organisations will have to adapt to this new reality.Policy Implications Policy makers and scholars need to be aware that the multilateral system is undergoing radical changes that affect global policy making. These changes bring with them new potentials for an increased efficiency and legitimacy of multilateralism. Multilateral organisations, regional organisations and states will have to adapt to the new reality and join forces to further shape the ‘Mode 2.0’ of multilateralism.

Understanding the Sources of Friction in U.S.-China Trade Relations: The Exchange Rate Debate Diverts Attention Away from Optimum Adjustment

China has been accused exchange rate manipulation that has caused large U.S. trade deficits, which have reduced U.S. welfare by increasing unemployment and reducing wages. In addition, the strong claims by some observers that the trade imbalances are deeply deleterious to China's welfare almost make it a moral imperative for the United States to use tariffs to force an RMB appreciation for China’s own good. The truth, however, is that: - The claim that a 40 percent appreciation of the Renminbi (RMB) against the US$ would reduce the U.S. global trade deficit represents the triumph of hope over experience. When the average Yen-US$ exchange rate fell from 239 in 1985 to 128 in 1988, the U.S. global current account deficit only fell from 2.1 percent to 1.7 percent of GDP because Japanese companies started investing abroad and exported to the U.S. from there. For similar reasons, a large RMB appreciation would not reduce the U.S trade deficits significantly. - The claim that China’s swelling balance of payments surplus had caused the People’s Bank of China (PBC) to lose some control of credit growth is wrong. Chinese banks face credit quotas, and credit growth could not have stayed high in 2003-2007 without continual upward adjustments of the credit quotas by the PBC. The reason is not technical inability to control money growth but the political reality of factional politics. - The alleged negative effects on U.S. labor from the trade imbalances are greatly exaggerated. The average unemployment rate in 1999-06 was 5 percent compared to 6 percent in 1991-98; and the total compensation (including benefits) for blue-collar workers rose in the 1991-06 period. Beside accelerated globalization, accelerated technological innovation was another important trend in this period. The latter produced large productivity gains that enabled labor income to rise despite the greater competition from imports. These two trends caused more frequent job turnovers, which increased worker anxiety, and hence demand for protection. China’s current account surplus exists because its dysfunctional financial system cannot intermediate the growing savings into investments. The private savings rate is high because China does not have the variety of financial institutions that would, one, pool risks by providing medical insurance, pension insurance, and unemployment insurance; and, two, transform savings into education loans, housing loans, and other types of investment loans. The backward financial system in China has made the private savings rate in China 7.0 to 12.2 percentage points higher than in the U.S. The optimum solution to the present trade tensions is a policy package that emphasizes multilateral actions. It is bad economics and bad politics to focus on only one party (China alone must change), on only one instrument (RMB appreciation alone), and on only one policy objective (current account balance).

Reflections on the Sanctions Decade and beyond

Faced with unwelcome external situations that threaten national or international interests, governments must decide whether to respond and, if so, what form their response should take. This decision-making process is more complex and likely to be more protracted when multilateral action is contemplated. Although no two situations are ever identical and it is important not to draw false analogies, there are often common, or comparable, features from which useful lessons may be learned, and a review of relevant past experience should be a component of intelligent statecraft.When diplomatic, political, and/or economic sanctions are under consideration as an alternative or prequel to use of force, there is now a wealth of experience to draw on. In second half of 20th century, continuing into 2 ist, unilateral, regional and, in post-Cold War period, United Nations sanctions have been extensively used. Indeed, 19905 have been described as the sanctions decade.1 There were earlier cases of unilateral and group sanctions, for instance United States' sanctions on Cuba, imposed in i960 and still in place, and in 1979 western response to Iran hostage crisis and to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But in years 1945-1990, sanctions were mainly a hot topic in relation to white minority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and apartheid in South Africa. The Rhodesian government's unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 resulted in comprehensive sanctions ordered by security council. In contrast, mandatory UN sanctions against South Africa were limited to an arms embargo, but significant boycotts were imposed by nongovernmental organizations as well as intergovernmental bodies and individual governments, contributing to South Africa's isolation and financial difficulties. There were lessons to be learned from Rhodesian case. Sanctions were by no means a quick fix as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson had forecast: Rhodesian economy showed surprising resilience and support of South Africa as friend and neighbour assisted Smith regime to survive for more than a decade.With end of Cold War, however, a new consensus developed among five permanent members of UN security council (Britain, China, France, Russia, and United States), and a spate of mandatory sanctions began with response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The Iraq sanctions remained in place until ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and there were also high-profile sanctioning episodes involving Libya, Haiti, and former Yugoslavia. Other cases were prompted by conflict within and between African states and by conduct of Taliban regime in Afghanistan.2As is well known, article 39 of UN charter provides that nonviolent measures may be ordered by security council to deal with a threat to or breach of peace or an act of aggression. AU members are then required to implement them. However, many potential cases of sanctions fall by wayside because one or more of veto-wielding permanent members protects its own or its client's interests. It is also important to note that among 10 non-permanent members of council there may be divided opinions: need to be onside with allies may be a factor in supporting a sanctions resolution, but if there is no veto only nine affirmative votes are needed. Some members therefore may have opposed resolutions that have been adopted. Nor can support for sanctions be taken for granted in UN membership at large. Secondary penalties for noncompliance are unlikely to find favour; inducements are problematic. Three basic facts about security council sanctions are that they may or may not be achievable, that terms of any resolution will inevitably reflect compromise, and that there will be varying degrees of enthusiasm for implementation. Political will among all those involved is a crucial factor. …

Responses to Financial Crises: An Evolutionary Perspective

As the world currently faces the ever-deepening sub-prime crisis, we are reminded that the process of globalisation can cause significant disruptions in global markets and political systems. This article focuses on the evolution of financial crisis responses to gain a better understanding of the dynamics affecting current responses. By using a focused comparison of case studies it argues that the development of crisis response and the dominance of the current multilateral actors is a result of an evolutionary process. This process privileges learning and innovation within a complex political economic system. The crises of each era, born of many of the same problems, generate a variety of responding actors, a few of which are adopted. These actors help to address the immediate problems and even work well for a while. Eventually, they are overwhelmed by the tendency of financial interactions to grow. Another set of crises generates another round of actors and mechanisms. As time goes on, crisis response requires more formal institutions that can deal with more complex systems. The article concludes that response actors are becoming more public, multilateral and global in scope. Understanding this pattern of response should help to shed light on the potential for reform of the financial architecture and help to explain the dominance of multilateralism as a crisis response.

Review of Michael W. Doyle’s <i>Striking First</i>

Review of Michael W. Doyle’s Striking First Rabih Helou (bio) Preemptive war existed long before the Bush doctrine and the “War on Terror.” The notion of jus ad bellum, or just war, allows under international convention the right to strike when an opponent is verging on an attack so overwhelming and imminent that no time is left for deliberation. If this principle is not new, what has motivated the controversy surrounding the Bush doctrine of preemption? Michael W. Doyle, renowned scholar of international relations and international law, and former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, sheds light on the debate surrounding the Bush security doctrine and preemptive strikes. While critical of the Bush doctrine for its dangerous subjectivity, Doyle makes the somewhat surprising case not for the total prohibition on preemptive strikes, but for the expansion of guidelines and conventions allowing them. Refining the terms of the debate, Doyle declares the Bush doctrine one of prevention rather than preemption; a distinction highlighting the doctrine’s proactive defensive strategy unburdened by the demand to prove an imminence of threat to justify an attack. Does this explain Doyle’s opposition to the Bush doctrine; is he for preemption, but against prevention? Not quite: Doyle defends both as necessary elements of international security. Preemption is permitted in international convention, yet, Doyle believes, the customary standards allowing for it are “unrealistic and excessively constraining”1 and must be updated given current international conditions, including allowing what may be referred to as preventive attacks. This argument may seem confusing—how can Doyle reject the Bush policies yet advocate an expansion of the current doctrine of preemption and even prevention? He believes we cannot ignore the changing threat profile in the international system, including technological developments around weapons of mass destruction and those posed by non-state actors functioning outside international conventions on war. The unpredictable nature of radical non-state groups coupled with unprecedented access to destructive technologies forces states to preempt, and even prevent, future catastrophe. Still wondering where Doyle splits from the Bush policy? His critique of the Bush doctrine is that it lacks specific guidelines for action—an omission that can lead to dangerous subjectivity and threaten the legitimacy of the doctrine. Another distinction is his insistence on strengthening international institutions rather than promoting unilateralism. Despite these apparent doctrinal differences, Doyle’s recommendations surprisingly end up looking very much like a doctrine that tolerates unilateral and subjective evaluation of terms allowing preventive strikes. Doyle states that the criteria of prevention list a priori the exceptions permitting unilateral action by states or multilateral action without Security Council sanction. It is this openness to exceptions that weakens the basis of the guidelines he intends to promote. Doyle begins his argument by outlining why current customary international law surrounding preemption is insufficient. Present day conventions are traced back to an 1837 incident where British forces attacked and destroyed a US ship docked in American waters. The British argued that they acted out of necessity as the Caroline had been poised to attack British forces in Canadian territory. High-level diplomatic discussions following the conflict provided the standards of international law still used to evaluate acts of preemption. First written by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster, the standards insist that justified acts of preemption: 1) be ‘overwhelming’ in necessity; 2) be the only reasonable choice for the target; 3) are only in response to so imminent a threat that there is no moment for deliberation; and 4) are proportional. While these conventions have been applied in a few cases throughout the 20th century, Doyle argues that because they rarely apply, they must be replaced by more widely applicable standards. He uses the example of Israel’s 1967 attack on Egypt to illustrate his point. While the war may not necessarily have met the Caroline standards, it was necessary for Israel’s survival and thus deemed legitimate. It is upon this somewhat tenuous premise (since some still argue that Egypt was, based on the evidence of Nasser’s military mobilization, fully intent on attacking, thereby legitimating Israel’s preemption under Caroline standards), and the emerging risks from non-state actors and advanced...

The Mediterranean Dimension of EU Counter‐terrorism

Key to the Mediterranean dimension of the European Union’s internal security is the fight against terrorism, which has captivated most of European policy making in recent years. Counter‐terrorism initiatives aimed at the Mediterranean region have multiplied, taking the form of technical assistance, funding and training. One striking feature of this recent evolution is the use of first pillar and second pillar instruments to achieve objectives of the EU’s internal security. The development of a foreign policy dimension to the EU’s counter‐terrorism policy towards neighbouring countries, in particular, is one of the aspects through which the external dimension of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) has materialized. This article proposes to investigate the input and output dimensions of the EU’s counter‐terrorism policy in the Mediterranean. For that purpose, an institutionalist approach casts some light on the weight of history, critical junctures, the role of cultural frame and of the persisting differences between the member states, to build up a common counter‐terrorism policy. Then, turning to the second level of analysis, which investigates the ‘external’ actors that are the Mediterranean partners, an overview of counter‐terrorism cooperation reveals that, whereas multilateral actions have blossomed, the thrust of the cooperation occurs at a bilateral level, mainly between some EU member states and some of their ex‐colonial powers.

Stopping the Killing: The International Criminal Court and Juridical Determination of the Responsibility to Protect

AbstractThis paper argues that an enhanced role for the International Criminal Court in determining when a government has failed in its Responsibility to Protect (R2P) could help develop a faster, more effective, more predictable, and more impartial R2P enforcement mechanism. We outline how a juridical R2P determination process by the ICC could be actualised, and we argue that such juridical R2P determination could facilitate timely and legal multilateral actions to stop violence. We also argue that juridical R2P determination by the ICC could dissuade opportunistic and unilateral violations of national sovereignty made in the name of R2P enforcement, and reduce the concerns of R2P critics that the principle may be misused. Finally, we maintain that an enhanced R2P role for the ICC could strengthen the credibility of the United Nations Security Council, and could be politically appealing to its five permanent member states.

China’s Military Spending: Soft Rise or Hard Threat?

Interpreting China's military expenditure has been a complicated issue with important regional implications. This article will first look at the various estimates of China's military budget and the discrepancies in the numbers as well as the geopolitical rationale driving Chinese military planning. Although China publishes its official defense budget and provides justifications for increases in its military spending, most observers remain skeptical of the accuracy of the official figures and wary of the military modernization efforts. This skepticism has shaped the responses of other Asia-Pacific nations toward China's military modernization. Ultimately, even if the Chinese leadership views the military buildup as a natural part of the country's ascension to great power status, the uncertainties surrounding its military expenditures actually undermine the contention that China's will be peaceful. Key words: East Asian security, China, military spending, arms race Introduction The rapid growth of China's economy and its increasingly vigorous diplomatic engagement with regional and international institutions have given to much discussion of China's peace- ful rise to great-power status.1 At the same time, the Pentagon has identified China as the only potential hegemon on the horizon that stands a chance of challenging the unipolar power of the United States. These two views of China-as a largely benign global partner or as a military superpower-to-be-rely on different understandings of a critical factor: the Chinese military budget. According to the Chinese government, the country's rising military budget reflects general economic growth, is devoted to non-threatening expenditures like better pay for soldiers, and remains only a small percentage of what the United States spends every year on the military. Critics, however, argue that China vastly underreports its military expenditures and that the country is acquiring new power-projection capabilities that change the regional balance of power. Determining which of these pictures of China's military spending is correct is not an easy task. In recent years, the Chinese government has published its official annual defense budget figures and provided justifications for the announced increases in military spending as part of its efforts to alleviate the fears outsiders might have about a rapidly rising China. But these published figures, since they don't match the estimates of outside observers, raise more questions than they answer. Why has there been a large discrepancy between China's official defense budget and other estimates? What are China's ultimate geopolitical goals and rationales behind its military planning? How have other nations in the Asia-Pacific region responded to the more robust Chinese military spending? Finally, what implications do the uncertainties in China's military have for its own national goals? A clear picture of China's military spending is essential for an understanding of the country's unfolding conception of itself, for any analysis of Northeast Asian regional politics, and, ultimately, the future trajectory of global geopolitics. How China resolves the seeming contradiction between its insistence on a peaceful to great power status and its considerable annual military budget increases will have an enormous impact on the shape of international institutions and the ends of multilateral action. Estimates of China's Military Expenditure The Official Chinese Case Calculating China's exact military expenditures is complicated by the Chinese government's relative lack of transparency. Although the Chinese government announces its military budget publicly, usually through the published annual report of the Ministry of Defense, its figures are vastly different from the estimates of outside analysts. Nor is there consensus among outside observers on the exact amount of Chinese military spending. …

The economic effects of PTAs

This paper gives a short history of the development of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), followed by a summary of the economics of PTAs. The paper then examines the typical coverage of recent PTAs, and assesses their likely economic effects. Political economy considerations mean that PTAs have tended to be selective in two important ways—they have tended to be preferential, even in the provisions that go beyond goods trade, and they have tended to target only those provisions that explicitly discriminate against foreigners. This selectivity means that PTAs are an inferior path to deeper economic integration. For most of the Asian region, comprehensive domestic regulatory reform dominates as an integration strategy, while PTAs deliver relatively trivial gains. Multilateral action is an intermediate strategy, and is important for delivering trade liberalisation in sensitive sectors or in highly protected economies. These results appear to be relatively robust to the size of the PTA grouping.

The Regulatory Dance in Tax Competition - A Case Study in Multi-Lateral Governance

As the pace and intensity of globalisation gathers pace and national economies become more inter-dependent, so there grows a greater emphasis on the structures and processes of multi-lateral governance. This paper shows these processes at work by examining the efforts in recent years by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to shape what should be prevailing international standards in the area of tax competition through its various initiatives regarding what the OECD terms Harmful Tax Practices. The analysis highlights the strategic importance of: accountability and governance; relative strengths/weaknesses of international protocols, eg treaties, conventions, frameworks of understanding; the appropriate roles of regulatory actors - national, regional and international; the inevitable effects of self-interest on both regulated and regulating actors; and regulatory capacity, especially in less developed economies. The paper's case study illustrates the regulatory reality that political contexts, allied with issues of power and legitimacy are crucial in determining how much impact in reality a multi-lateral regulatory actor such as the OECD can have.

The history of international police cooperation: a 150-year evolution in trends and approaches

This paper traces the history of international police cooperation through the development of collaborative initiatives that various police actors have introduced since the mid-nineteenth century to address transnational crime on a multilateral basis. The beginnings of international police cooperation efforts were largely rooted in anti-anarchist policies pursued by European governments in order to protect the status quo. Police collaboration largely halted during the world wars, but the second half of the twentieth century witnessed an explosion of international cooperation mechanisms in policing as most states came to recognise the importance of multilateral action against transnational crime. International policing now encompasses sophisticated, official and far-reaching channels of information exchange and joint policing strategies and operations. Police cooperation has gone through cycles, however: the political motivation that originally encouraged foreign police agencies to share information on alleged perpetrators and their activities in due course took second place to specifically criminal investigations, but in today's security-driven policy environment the political dimension is once again on the rise, as police strategies are aimed at terrorist groups.

The Post-Tiananmen Human Rights Issue in China–Australia Relations

The Tiananmen events of June 1989 shattered the dream of a special relationship between China and Australia, making human rights one of the major issues to be addressed in their bilateral relations. Though differences emerged, they still needed manageable and constructive linkages because both of them were fully aware that confrontation could damage their common interests in economic prosperity and regional peace and stability. Consequently, the engagement in human rights was the mutual demand and pursuit between Beijing and Canberra. By means of engagement, Canberra expected that with the growth of China's economy and reform this moderate approach would bring about to China better conditions for more progress in human rights, though it might be at a slow speed. In the process of China's post-Tiananmen evolutionary human rights diplomacy changes, Australia was one of the countries to be won over by China in facilitating its policy implementation. Admittedly, China's bilateral dialogue approach and technical cooperation with Australia and some other Western countries contributed to the successive failure of the American attempt to take multilateral actions to pass an anti-China resolution in the UN Human Rights Commission (replaced by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2006). Meanwhile, China had to take such steps as responding to concerns on rights issues raised by its dialogue partners and accepting and implementing UN human rights instruments to maintain the engagement approach. Resultantly, the process of China's engagement with Australia and other Western states in human rights is also a process of its learning how to deal with Western pressure constructively and how to improve human rights at home.

Creating a More `Just' Order

This article analyses the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in light of its potential for creating and institutionalizing justice norms in international society. The theoretical and analytical framework is based on the English School of International Relations and its central conflict between order and justice. The framework integrates a constructivist approach and the `norm life-cycle' to explain the dynamic process of norm emergence and institutionalization in international society. I argue that establishing the ICTY, despite a number of problems resulting from the way it was set up, constituted an important precedent for multilateral action towards institutionalizing respect for the rule of law and principles of individual justice. This suggests that these norms are being taken increasingly seriously and are being given priority over other fundamental principles of order, such as sovereignty and non-intervention. The ICTY's establishment constitutes a significant development in international politics and law and is evidence of the international society's move towards increased norm internationalization. The ICTY also contributed to the establishment of the International Criminal Court and the further institutionalization of human rights norms in creating a more just order.

European anti-terrorism policy : a trans-atlantic perspective

European Anti-Terrorism Policy: A Trans-Atlantic Perspective European counter-terrorism policy since 2001, unlike that of the United States, has centered on the reinforcement of existing domestic law enforcement instruments and on multilateral action internationally creating at least the outlines of a distinctive ‘European model.’ Structural models, either realist or culturalist, provide at best partial explanations for this. A more complete analysis should take into account the role of political leaders and partisan politics, the perceived effectiveness and subjective status of available policy instruments, and the role of multiple and competing programmatic elites within the state.

Dealing sensibly with the threat of disruption in trade with China: the analytics of increased economic interdependence and accelerated technological innovation

There is now widespread concern in Washington over the large and growing U.S.-China trade deficit. This concern is premised on the view that the large trade deficit has reduced U.S. welfare by increasing unemployment and reducing wages. But these alleged negative effects cannot be seen. The average unemployment rate in 1999–2006 was 5 percent compared to 6 percent in 1991–1998; and the total compensation (in 2005 prices) of a full-time worker rose from $46,614 in 1991 to $50,523 in 1998 to $55,703 in 2005. The rise in average labor compensation (measured to include benefits) was not caused by a large income increase for high-skilled workers and a moderate income decline for low-skilled workers. The level of compensation for blue-collar workers also rose in the 1991–2006 period. The continued rise in US labor income in 1991–2006 might appear surprising because the post-1990 integration of the Soviet bloc, India and China into the international division of labor has doubled the number of workers participating in the world economy. Accelerated globalization was, however, not the only significant economic development during this period; accelerated technological innovations were perhaps even more significant in their economic effects. The latter development produced large productivity gains that enabled the US labor income to rise despite the greater competition from imports, continued relocation of production facilities to foreign countries, and increased immigration into the United States. The outcome from the accelerated pace of globalization and the increased pace of technological innovation is a more frequent turnover in jobs in the US, which translates into increased worker anxiety, and hence increased demand for protection. The optimum solution to the present trade tensions is a policy package that emphasizes multilateral actions. It is bad economics and bad politics to dwell only on just one region (China alone must change), and/or dwell on just one instrument (RMB appreciation alone). China should, in the short run, expand state expenditure to soak up excess savings with an emphasis on import-intensive investments; in the short run, accelerate import liberalisation beyond the commitments made in the negotiations for WTO membership; increase the rate of yuan appreciation to reduce the large depreciation against the Euro in 2006–2007, and speed up the appreciation if inflation rises; lower precautionary savings by providing public social insurance; and improve financial intermediation by replacing the monopoly state banking system with a predominantly domestic private banking system. The United States should quicken the reduction in fiscal imbalance; introduce tax incentives to raise the savings rate; and expand and improve trade adjustment programs and social safety nets, especially those that upgrade the skill of the younger workers. Most important in the face of rising protectionist sentiments around the world, the United States and China must work together to bring the Doha Round trade negotiations to a successful conclusion in order to prevent the WTO system from being eroded.

The Credible Executive

Legal and constitutional theory has focused chiefly on the risk that voters and legislators will trust an ill-motivated executive. This paper addresses the risk that voters and legislators will fail to trust a well-motivated executive. Absent some credible signal of benign motivations, voters will be unable to distinguish good from bad executives and will thus withhold discretion that they would have preferred to grant, making all concerned worse off. We suggest several mechanisms with which a well-motivated executive can credibly signal his type, including independent commissions within the executive branch; bipartisanship in appointments to the executive branch, or more broadly the creation of domestic coalitions of the willing; the related tactic of counter-partisanship, or choosing policies that run against the preferences of the president's own party; commitments to multilateral action in foreign policy; increasing the transparency of the executive's decisionmaking processes; and a regime of strict liability for executive abuses. We explain the conditions under which these mechanisms succeed or fail, with historical examples.