Western International Law by Yang Zewei

Western International Law and Chinese Confucianism in the Nineteenth Century by Yang Zewei Collision and Integration discusses how the Confucian worldview was built on the notion of China’s Celestial Empire, which existed in the Tributary System. Despite the fact that it was based on the Chinese Tributary System, the Chinese had an understanding that could not compete with the similar global relationship that existed among European countries. The war that followed resulted in a ferocious confrontation with Chinese orthodox Confucianism, forcing the Qing government to make a deal with Western powers. The Celestial Empire of China fell making the Chinese officials as well as scholars learn, embrace and use international law.

Zewei argues that China had no diplomatic system that followed the principles of sovereign equality since the country had a unique history and culture. Confucianism made the idea of Celestial Empire of China to be enriched with some of the features of both anti-war and anti-violence. For instance, before the mid-19th century, East of Asia was dominated by the Chinese, yet it was less prone to war compared to after the mid-19th century. The collision and the integration of international law and the Confucianism was marked by an end to Chinese compromise and retreat, the integration of the traditional and the modern international law taking place through coercion and finally, becoming a benefit to China’s modernization.

Question Two

Gerald Steinberg’s article The Politics of NGOs, Human Rights and the Arab-Israel Conflict talks about how terms such as “non-governmental organization” are used to refer to many groups with different structures and funding among other aspects. The influence of such organization leads to use of what is referred to as soft power to get what they need through attraction instead of coercion. Most of the time the groups are influential in matters to do with humanitarian aid and human rights.

European governments, as well as the European Union, offer a lot of money yearly to NGO’s to promote particular policy goals. It is such funding that plays a crucial role in European policy within the Southern Mediterranean region and also with regards to the Israeli-Arab peace efforts. The funding has massively promoted the budgets for the NGO’s, their power and influence too. Within the Arab-Israeli region, most of the NGO projects focus so much on the conflict and encourage and advance the Palestinian narrative. Political NGOs often target smaller groups which have funding and their impact is made much more significant. It has made Israel a key target for such NGOs even though it is parallel to Organization of the Islamic Conference agenda which is central to the United Nations human rights frameworks. For instance, the UN has picked Israel for more in-depth scrutiny and is placed at much higher standards compared to any other nation in the world.

Question Three

Cragg, Arnold and Muchlinski’s article Human Rights and Business talks about the unique historical perspective of business and human rights. According to the authors, before the last final of the previous century business and human rights was rarely discussed. One of the things that the article addresses is ”business and human rights” becoming an international topic. ”Business and human rights” became an international topic in the 1980s in the draft of the UN Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations (Cragg, Arnold and Muchlinski 2012). However, despite the UN initiative, a significant academic attention to the topic only started around early to mid-1990s. The delay was brought about by the fact that up to the late last century it was traditionally known that it was the government’s role to protect, advance and even enhance the respect for human rights. It is just the private business sector human rights responsibilities that were considered as indirect legal responsibilities. It is in the 1990s that doubts started arising on the value of the allocation of the obligations which received much attention as most people accepted the globalization phenomenon. People started to question both the ability and the readiness of the national governments to play their role with regards to human rights effectively.

Bibliography

Cragg, Wesley, Denis G Arnold, and Peter Muchlinski. 2012. ”Guest Editors’ Introduction: Human Rights and Business.“ Business Ethics Quarterly 1 - 7.

Steinberg, Gerald M. 2011. ”The Politics of NGOs, Human Rights and the Arab-Israel Conflict.“ Israel Studies 24 - 54.

Zewei, Yang. 2011. ”Western International Law and China’s Confucianism in the 19th Century. Collision and Integration.“ Journal of the History of International Law 285 - 306.