[.ca] Democratic Governance and International Law (ISBN 0521667968)

The Implications of International Law Revealed:
Suppose you were living in a village of thirteen people. You and your neighbors elected one person to be the mayor of your village, and made virtually all public decisions by referendums allowing your mayor to put your decisions into action. You would invariably manage few resources, and exert little power on the communities around you; however, you would have a substantial degree of control in your affairs. Now suppose you moved to a village of approximately 63 billion. You now have a village council, a mayor, a local representative, a governor, a national representative, a president or prime minister, and an international representative. There are thousands of issues decided each day, some of these are legislative issues bound to become laws, some judicial decisions that will have legal bearing - all will effect you and your life. Consequently, the degree of control you can exert over your own affairs has virtually evaporated. What happened to the spread of liberal democracy? This much needed text answers these questions with lucid professionalism and keen insight. In a world where the theory of a "global village" is increasingly and increasingly convincingly being advanced, international law theoretically also becomes increasingly necessary - this global village is interdependent, and thus there must be universality to the laws. Messrs. Fox and Roth provide a practical response to theory with this excellent text, which is divided up into five parts: (1) the normative foundations of a right to political participation; (2) democracy and inter-state relations; (3) democracy and the use of force; (4) democratization and conflicting imperatives; and, (5) critical approaches. There are several chapters within each of these larger parts, each chapter is an essay contributed by a significant legal or international studies scholars. For students of any international interest this text is indispensable to forming cogent arguments and/or proposals.