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This article explores the intricate dynamics of international water management, focusing on Kyrgyzstan's pivotal role in Central Asia's water resource distribution. It begins by highlighting global water scarcity issues and emphasizes the growing importance of international water law and liability for transboundary harm. Employing a range of scientific methodologies, the study delves into historical contexts, including Soviet-era water management initiatives and subsequent challenges post-dissolution. It elucidates the establishment of river basin organizations and the complexities of inter-state agreements and disagreements. The discussion section offers diverse perspectives on key issues such as equitable resource allocation and infrastructure maintenance costs, drawing from expert opinions and scholarly insights. Recent positive developments in interstate relations, particularly between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, regarding water resource management agreements are highlighted. In conclusion, the article advocates for bilateral agreements and regional cooperation to address water-related conflicts, proposing the potential creation of a supranational organization akin to the European Coal and Steel Community. Such initiatives aim to ensure equitable and sustainable water resource management while fostering economic cooperation in the region.

This article addresses the influence wielded by the formal leaders of international cooperation—those state or supranational representatives that chair and direct negotiations in the major decision bodies of multilateral organizations and conferences. This is a topic that so far has received limited systematic attention by IR theorists, who have tended to treat bargaining parties as functionally and formally equivalent, leaving little theoretical space for formal leadership. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, I introduce a theory that develops a coherent argument for the delegation of authority to the chairmanship, the power resources of negotiation chairs, and the influence of formal leaders over outcomes. I assess the explanatory power of this theory through evidence on formal leadership in three alternative organizational settings: the European Union, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations environmental conferences. I find in favor of the chairmanship as a source of independent influence in international cooperation. Formal leaders perform functions of agenda management, brokerage, and representation that make it more likely for negotiations to succeed, and possess privileged resources that may enable them to steer negotiations toward the agreements they most prefer.

This paper tests several hypotheses on mass-level Euroscepticism, including whether it is driven by: (a) feelings about national institutions, (b) distrust of supra-national institutions, (c) fears about the loss of national identity, and (d) personal interest-based utilitarianism. In contrast to prior research, I find that attitudes to European integration appear driven by feelings about EU institutions rather than attitudes to national institutions. Furthermore, a perceptual measure of utilitarianism appears to be a stronger predictor of support for European integration and European institutions than previous analyses have claimed. But I also find that, consistent with past research, exclusive national identity biases Europeans against European integration. Finally, the paper investigates the causal linkages across these key constructs. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

In this paper, we propose that economic sustainability is seen in terms of (inter-temporal and international) value creation. We claim that value appropriation (or capture), can become a constraint to economic sustainability. We propose that for sustainable value creation to be fostered, corporate governance needs to be aligned to public and supra-national governance. In order to achieve this, a hierarchically layered set of 'agencies', needs to be diagnosed and the issue of incentive alignment addressed. Enlightened self-interest, pluralism and diversity, as well as a representative supra-national organisation for worldwide economic sustainability can serve as a new, more 'ethically correct' governance for economic sustainability, but not a panacea.

A vibrant higher education sector is a cornerstone to the production and application of cutting-edge knowledge and human resources relevant to spearheading socioeconomic development. While this is true, Africa has a discouraging performance in research, as compared with other world regions. In raising its research performance, Africa is now receiving considerable attention to revitalize its higher education sector from both global and local forces. In a bid to enhance success of different local and global interventions that Africa is currently receiving, it is imperative to revisit the past to comprehend what has made Africa’s higher education research be where it is today. Informed by the postcolonial theory, this paper seeks to establish the historical antecedents that have undermined the development of research in Africa. Several antecedents are established including the role of colonial higher education policies, incompatible supranational donor policies, unstable political landscape, interrupted academic freedom and autonomy, and unfamiliar language of academic, research and scholarly communication. The paper argues that any initiative that aimed at revitalizing research in Africa should place the present higher education research doldrums in its wider sociohistorical context where Africa’s higher education sector had been hindered for decades by challenges, as discussed in this paper.

Since their inception, climate change negotiations have stalled because of the scope of parties’ mitigation responsibilities under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The concept of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) became a core principle of the framework to ensure consensus on a global climate policy in 1992 and to promote differentiation. By letting each country assess its current responsibilities and capacities for climate mitigation through their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), the Paris Agreement has built on the principle of CBDR-RC and promoted self-differentiation. As the concept evolved, the role of emerging economies has been a particular focus of discussions. Academia is still grappling with the revised meaning of CBDR-RC and the newly introduced NDCs. This article contributes to the discussion by analyzing the role of emerging economies in climate governance through the lens of regional responsibility. In particular, it discusses how cooperation can be a more effective way to ensure differentiation, especially by distinguishing emerging economies from other developing countries with fewer capacities. The article uses the Amazon rainforest as a case study, discussing Brazil’s role within the region. Building on lessons from regional schemes that have successfully promoted climate mitigation, the article looks at the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) as an avenue for enhanced cooperation at the regional level.

Supranational adjudication in Europe is a remarkable and surprising success. Europe's 2 supranational courts - the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) - issue dozens of judgments each year with which defending national governments habitually comply in essentially the same manner as they would with domestic court rulings. Drawing on the observations of scholars, practitioners, and judges, a study presents a checklist of factors that enhance the effectiveness of supranational adjudication. It distinguishes among those factors that are within the control of member states; those that are within the control of either states or judges. The checklist is used to analyze the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC).

This article, prepared for an issue devoted to the work of Judge Richard A. Posner, considers the implications of law and economics for the structure of supranational organizations, with particular attention to the application of collective action theory to the relationships among states in the EU. After discussing the connections between this approach and Judge Posner’s work, the article describes collective action theory and its implications for our understanding of the state and of relationships among states. From this perspective, supranational organizations such as the EU can be understood as institutional structures that facilitate collective action among states by reducing the transactions and enforcement costs of making and implementing collective decisions. At the same time, the delegation of authority to supranational institutions creates agency costs for states and their peoples because the interests of the state and its people diverge from the interests of the collective in some instances. Viewed in this perspective, the institutional structure of the EU—like that of other supranational organizations or federal nation states—reflects an effort to strike a balance between collective decision making and local control so as to maximize the collective gains and minimize the resulting agency costs. Understood in these terms, various features of the EU’s institutional design make sense. The ordinary legislative process permits the EU to act without the unanimous consent of member states, thus reducing transactions costs in those areas where collective action is necessary, particularly in relation to the creation and regulation of the internal market. The EU reduces enforcement costs through principles of direct applicability or effects and the supremacy of EU law, which are effective legal restraints in states governed by the rule of law. The institutional structure of the EU also incorporates a representative and deliberative process for collective action that helps control the resulting agency costs for member states and their peoples through supermajority and co-decisional requirements. The collective action perspective also illuminates the function of the subsidiarity principle and the enhanced role of national parliaments in its enforcement.