prac 1 Flashcards
Do international laws matter?
Do:
- Laws are a tool to facilitate cooperation and resolve disputes
- States don’t have to comply but do anyway
- When states don’t comply, it’s usually because
a) the laws are imprecise and violations are unclear
b) the states do not have the ability to comply with the regulations
Don’t:
- states follow rules that align with their interests and don’t follow ones that don’t
- laws are malleable and can be interpreted in different ways to justify actions that states want to take
Truth:
- Somewhere in the middle; states have to set aside short term interests in favor of long-term benefits. They realize this through repetitions of the prisoner’s dilemma.
What is a human right?
Rights that are possessed by all individuals by virtue of being human
Why do states violate human rights?
- lack of state capacity:
- Some states have the desire to follow human rights but do not have the capacity to do so - Defense of national security:
- When under attack or under perceived attack, states may violate the human rights of those that are thought to be the aggressor group(s) - Preserve hold on power:
- Leaders may violate human rights to eliminate all domestic competition
- State not under attack, but uses abuse of human rights to suppress national dissent
Why would states care about how other states treat their citizens?
Moral motivations:
- Belief that all individuals should have basic human rights
- Empathy for those whose human rights are being violated or abused
- Belief that human rights are secure only when humans everywhere are protected
Self-interested motivations:
- Belief that protecting human rights will promote peace
- Fear of neighboring countries’ human rights issues leading to political unrest that directly or indirectly spill over into their own state
- States with better human rights records may be more peaceful (eg; Democratic Peace Hypothesis)
How can other states punish human rights violations?
Naming and shaming: consists of publicizing that a state has done something wrong
- low-cost strategy
- states can just ignore it, ineffective
Economic sanctions: consists of restricting trade, loans, and travel to the target country to pressure them into improving political and civil rights
- effective due to the aggressor being subjected to material costs and not just reputational costs
- Sending states also suffer costs
- Is it ethical to subject the whole population to these costs?
Humanitarian aid: the use of military force from another state to stop or prevent major violations of human rights
- bolstered by R2P (responsibility to protect)
- may be effective at ending human rights violations
- violation of sovereignty with no clear end
- very costly
Why do states trade?
Absolute advantage:
- the ability to produce more of a certain good than other countries
Comparative advantage:
- gains from specializing in creating a specific good more efficiently than other states
*efficiently: produce the highest output with the lowest cost
*states have finite resources, and so, must choose to allocate these resources to make goods (opportunity cost)
What’s the Heckscher-Ohlin Theory?
It posits that states will export goods that use resources that are abundant to them and import goods that use resources that are scarce to them
Who supports trade protections?
Stolper-Samuelson Theory:
- based on the HO model of factors of production
- Scarce factors cannot export and need help from protections to compete domestically
Ricardo-Viner Theory:
- Industries are main actors, not factors
- Factors of production are immobile
- Industries may favor protections to help them compete with imported competition
Who supports free trade?
Heckscher-Ohlin Theory:
- States produce whatever goods they can with a comparative advantage
- States then trade those goods for ones that they cannot efficiently produce domestically
- Outcome: high volume of goods with low prices
Firm-based theory:
- Firms are the main actors
- A few firms contribute to most exports
- Most productive firms in the export industry may favor free trade (to maximize exports and profit)
What is protectionism?
restrictions on imports into a country with the goal of protecting domestic producers from cheaper goods brought in from abroad
What are tariffs?
taxes imposed on imported goods that are levied at the border that are paid for by the importing company/firm
what are nontariff barriers?
barriers to imports that aren’t tariffs (eg: quotas)
who gains from free trade?
- customers (cheap goods)
- domestic industries with comparative advantages (no protections in other countries)
who loses from free trade?
- Domestic industries who do not have a comparative advantage (no protections from imported competition)
Why are regional agreements beneficial?
- Cooperation is easier with fewer actors
- Geographically proximate countries trade more and interact more often
- May be beneficial to link trade with cooperation in other issues