International Law term paper

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“There are no rules of public international law governing the organization of multinational enterprises (MNE). In general, MNEs conduct significant operations in two or more states through legally distinct business units that are related by common, non-governmental ownership. These operating units are, in one measure or another, co-ordinated and controlled in accordance with a common strategy. The MNE, thus defined, chooses among a variety of legal forms to establish the relationships most suitable to its particular business activities at a particular time. Typically, the MNE develops through an evolutionary process which may include agency and intellectual property licensing agreements, joint ventures, branch offices, and local subsidiaries. The popularity of locally incorporated subsidiaries is attributable to three factors: tax considerations; the ability to limit liability to the subsidiary's capital; and the political and public relations advantages of operating under a local name and employing local nationals while maintaining a considerable degree of parental control. The structure of the MNE varies considerably in different legal systems, depending upon the vehicles that are available. Consequently, the legal structure of the MNE often does not accurately reflect the true distribution of management and control functions. Although the power and control relationships among the subsidiaries and the parent are continuously evolving, local subsidiaries often retain a considerable amount of discretion and autonomy for routine, short-term operations. On the other hand, the parent often retains power over strategic and policy issues. The parent may operate a subsidiary at arm's length or centralize control and manage day-to-day operations.”
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“The Soviet government's approach to international law and to the principle of non-use or threat of force varied considerably between the October Revolution of 1917 and the August Revolution of 1991. The Bolsheviks proclaimed peace when they seized power in 1917. The first legislative act of the victorious socialist revolution in Russia was a decree of peace that declared predatory and aggressive wars to be "the greatest crime against humanity." Nonetheless,' among government leaders and Soviet international lawyers there were different opinions about the legality of use of force by a socialist government. The Bolsheviks regarded the socialist revolution in Russia as the first link in the chain of a global socialist revolution. Many of the revolution's leaders openly contemplated the use of force to spread the socialist revolution in other countries. In practice, the Red Army brought socialism to the Central Asian and Caucasian realms of the Russian empire. E.B. Pashukanis expressed the most common Soviet view when he wrote that the norms of international law are those that advance the foreign policy objectives of the state. Josef Stalin was more preoccupied with consolidating his own personal power than with the problems of a global socialist revolution. Soviet foreign policy under Stalin, however, was marked by a particular dualism. Before World War II, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with capitalist countries. Through its other foreign policy arm - the Comintern - the Kremlin attempted to undermine the same countries from within by assisting local communists. Through them the Comintern endorsed this policy of interference by the Soviet state in the internal affairs of other countries.”
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“Although recognition of governments is traditionally included as a category of international law doctrine, meriting at least a cursory mention in international law casebooks, the topic has commanded remarkably little systematic attention. The nearly half-century-old treatises of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht and Ti-Chiang Chen remain the most oft-cited sources on the law of recognition of both states and governments, with more recent work tending merely to integrate some more contemporary examples into old conceptual frameworks. Even where recognition has been revisited as an international law concept, recognition of governments has been slighted. It is telling that when John Dugard sought to revive systematic treatment of recognition in 1987, he expressly limited his inquiry to recognition of states and territorial claims, on the ground that recognition of governments "is a topic on which national practice, not community practice, is predominant"; for Dugard, recognition of states is "eminently a question of international law", whereas "anything more than a pro forma inquiry into a change of government" might be viewed as improper interference in the domestic jurisdiction. This neglect of the legal dimensions of recognition of governments merely demonstrates that renewed consideration of the matter is overdue, for the legal issues involved cannot be side-stepped. Once an entity is determined to be a state, possessed of all of the rights and responsibilities that membership in the international community entails, it remains to be determined who can speak and act in that state's name. Insofar as the international community rises to the level of a coherent system of legal relationships, it inevitably takes a position on the legitimacy vel non of putative governments, even if only by default.”
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