نشریه پژوهش های روابط بین الملل
سال چهارم شماره 2 (پیاپی 12، تابستان 1393)

With the establishment of the UNO in 1945 and consequently the Security Council, the functioning of the Organization has always been affected with the policies and stances of the permanent members enjoying the privilege of veto power. The states that are entitled with this privilege have acted on the basis of their national interests and their relations with other countries regarding the international issues and resorting to the veto power at the Security Council. Our principal question is on the basis of the detailed examination of cases of veto application in half a century, whether this right has been in accordance with the main function and duty of the SC which is maintaining international peace and security or its application has been used for protection of the interests of the permanent members and their allies? While explaining the problem, the article applies critical theory in International Relations for the theoretical framework of this research and later on goes to analyze the detailed data of the cases of application of veto. The conclusion proves that the veto right has been almost used for ensuring the interests of the great powers and their allies rather than keeping international peace and securities.

From the very beginning of establishment of the United Nations that America gave its support to the organization, it was this perception that this international institution would be the most effective and legitimate tool for imposing American values at the global level and protection of American interests. However, at the present, many experts believe that the UN has failed in its main function which is to protect and maintain international peace and security. Considering this point, this paper seeks to examine the functional crisis of the UN from the Neo-Idealist perspective during the Obama’s presidency. The logic of the Neo-Idealism requires the US foreign policy be based on the multilateralism and cooperation which would make the presence of US in the international organizations such as the UN necessary in order to ensure its national interests. Having considered the Neo-Idealist perspective as the most suitable perspective for examining the factors in functional crisis of the UN compared with other approaches in International Relations, it is tried to apply the advantages of this perspective in order to examine the UN at the functional level. With this approach, non-democratic action of the UN and weakening of the role of the UN by US such the case of the Iranian nuclear program as the factors of the UN functional crisis during the Obama’s presidency are recognized and studied. This article is based on the analytical and explanatory method.

This article aims to study great powers’ contribution to the management of Indo-Pakistani conflict after 1998. The main question here is as to how the great powers have engaged in the process of the conflict management during 1998-2010? It is assumed that the great powers have played their roles and been present in this conflict. The above question is addressed through using theory of “great powers management” and “dyadic/extra-dyadic” analysis. The main hypothesis here is that United States, Russia, and China as three great powers have contributed to the management of Indo-Pakistani conflict by exercising their local preponderance, respecting each other spheres of influence, and doing joint actions. The hypothesis is tested by post-event methods. As such, great powers’ role is tested during three case studies, i.e. Kargil War 1999, great stand-off 2001-2, and unfinished confrontation 2008. Lastly, these cases confirm that great powers have succeeded to manage Kargil war 1999 but they did not get any meaningful success in the other two.

With the transition from “Organization of African Unity" to "African Union", the "African Problems" should appeal the "African solution". The Libyan crisis was a serious test for this strategy on the ground. Since it aimed at not only one of the corrupt and enduring regimes of the continent but also was considered as a crisis which had endangered the peace and security at the regional and international level. In this context, the present research examines the role of the African Union as a rooted regional organization regarding the management of the mentioned crisis through a politico – legal approach. For this purpose, after a brief reference to the developments of the Union and the reasons for the Libyan Crisis, the reaction of the Organization on the crisis by the measures of the “Security and Peace Council” as well as the “ad hoc Committee” is followed in order to show that in spite of the fact that the African Union particularly distinguished itself from the OAU by creating the “Security and Peace Council” and emphasized on its special attention to the question of peace and security yet, due to the visional, political, financial and decision-taking weaknesses, the Organization could not use all its capacities in the process of the settlement of the Libyan Crisis. As a result, it couldn`t realize the strategy of “the African resolution for the African problems”.

The expansion of EU has been one of the most important issues in International Relations since 1990s up to now. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the candidates that has started its efforts for accession to EU from year 2000 and it still faces some problems in this way. While this demand is followed by Bosnian authorities, European leaders emphasize on accelerating reforms that have been required. Therefore, the question this paper seeks to address is that what are the reasons and consequences of the membership of Bosnia and Herzegovina in EU? The findings of the paper emphasize the return to the Europe Union and realization of peace and stability in the country as the main reasons and weakening the Islamic identity and political-economic reforms as the most important consequences of the accession. In this context, this research applies the constructive approach based on analytical method.

This paper examines the globalization’s indicators in three economic, social and political contexts. The most important indicators which have been developed to assess globalization are the Foreign Policy Index, the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute Indexes. Each of these indicators has evaluated the complex social relations between countries through a specific method. However, one of the most important indexes considered in this context is KOF Index which has been providing Globalization Index since 2002. Despite some of the shortcomings, this index is still considered as a valid reference to be applied for calculating the different aspects of social, economic and political degree of globalization in the world. In this research the effort will be focused on the changing trend of the globalization index in the Asian countries with emphasis on Iran and will attempt to analyze Iran as a country with a very important geo-political situation in the region. The results show that all the studied countries have been easily absorbed in the globalization flow by the West and there is a common alignment between the countries in this area. But Iran has independently resisted against the globalization trend by maintaining its political, social and economic identity while applying its positive aspects.

This article tries to offer a critical examination of the Waltzian tradition of International Relations based on the historical sociology perspective. The main question which we seek to address here is that what methodological weaknesses the historical sociology perspective exposes from the Waltzian theory of International Relations and what solution it can offer in order to save itself from these weaknesses. Due to its abstract theoretical discipline of understanding the international phenomena, the Waltzian tradition of international relations is envisaged with four cognitive illusions including reification illusion, naturalization illusion, immutability illusion and isomorphic illusion. These four illusions are obvious results of ahistoricality and asociality of Waltzian theory of international politics. In this regard, the historical sociology by stressing on time (historical) and social factors and forces is seeking to capture more precise methods of perceiving the international politics.

The rules of Private International Law have little religious and national roots compared to other rules of the domestic law and this advantage has facilitated natural progress of this branch of law in the context of historical developments. This article analytically examines the rules of conflict resolution and their objectives in the legal and economic framework while considering the political requirements and necessities derived from proximity with Public International Law in order to reveal the features of appropriate rule in International Private Law through assembling the different and yet contradictory needs. Dogmatic thinking and retelling of the past rules in this area do not have any religious and historical justification and caused losses to the private persons and eventually to the states.