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This is the story of the Cominform: the Information Bureau of Communist and Workers' Parties, presented as a case history in Communist policy and propaganda. The writer considers the creation and functions of the Cominf'orm as symptoms of an attempt to use ideological discipline as a cohesive force within the Soviet empire. Chapter One deals with the general situation in which the Cominfon was called into existence. Chapter Two is the history of its birth. Chapters Three and Four are devoted to the origins and the outbreak of the Soviet-Yugoslav dispute. Chapters Five and Six contain an analytical description of the propaganda war against Yugoslavia. Events leading to the formal dissolution of the Comixiform - notably the detente with Yugoslavia and the surrender by the Soviet Union of ideological monopoly - are analysed in Chapter Seven. The periods under review are (i) the active lifetime of the Cominform between September 1947 and the end of 1949 and. (ii) the phase preceeding its dissolution in April 1956. The study is partly based. on the writer's M.Sc.(Econ.) thesis entitled "The Content of Propaganda in the Controversy between Yugoslavia and the Cominforin". It is, however, not merely a further elaboration of the theme. while certain parts have been taken, with some modifications, from the old thesis, the new study offer's a view from a new angle. Both the approach and the focus are different. Some of the old sketches have been incorporated in a new, comprehensive, picture of a phase in Communist policy and propaganda. In a similar way, the description of the detente with Yugoslavia in Chapter Seven is partly based on the writer's article entitled "The Detente between Yugoslavia and her Neighbours" published in the Apr11 1956 issue of "International Relations".

The Security Council [Council] must be reformed. This is the mantra of some tireless proponents for whom the Council in its current form is untenable. Freed from the stasis imposed by the Cold War, increased activity was initially welcomed. However, it also highlighted inadequacies so much so that calls for reform became ever more demanding. And few issues engage as passionate an advocacy as the scramble for Council seats, resulting in a deadlock of a different kind. Post-Cold War effectiveness may have borne proof that collective action can be successful; but it made calls for reform more urgent to incorporate states that desire greater recognition as major players. The failure to reflect the changing power realities directly affects the perception of legitimacy of Council decisions and actions. Increasingly, the Council is seen as run by, and for the benefit of, a handful of states. This perception can be traced back to the Council's origins. At the outset it was seen as a basic requirement that responsibility to oversee the maintenance of international peace and security would have to be assumed by a core group of major powers. The incentive for the great powers of the time to participate consisted of a special permanent status with added voting powers. As a trade-off, and to ensure some balance, the remainder of the membership would have the opportunity to be elected onto the Council for a limited period of time. At the time it was accepted that this would be the price for peace, especially since it was hoped that the so anointed powers would realise that their exalted position also carried added responsibilities 10 act beyond reproach. If, however, the Council's restrictive set-up was seen as necessary at the time, it is now seen as out of step with current perceptions. A particular bias is perceived towards the industrialised North, which alienates those counted towards the developing world and there is an expectation that reform will, if not eliminate, then at least alleviate existing imbalances. With it being ever less representative of the increased UN membership, calls for changes to Council size and composition have become louder. Although expansion generally meets with favourable comments, discussions soon begin to revolve around maximum numbers and equity and whether enlargement should affect both non-permanent and permanent seats. Discussions also get caught up in determining appropriate membership ratios and acceptable action thresholds. Cautious voices question whether enlargement to attain better representation would affect the Council's effectiveness and efficiency. Consequently, arguments are put forward that either support enlargement as beneficial or reject enlargement as potentially debilitating. It appears that any change, whatever its scope, will have to show some benefit to all concerned. The most controversial point, unsurprisingly, revolves around the permanent member status and whether these seats should be retained, added to or disbanded. Less controversially, but nonetheless hotly debated, is the enlargement of non-permanent membership. The questions again revolve around extent of enlorgement and equitable representation. Finding the right candidates is fraught with difficulties, not least when considering criteria for qualification. The first port of call is commonly Article 23( 1) of the UN Charter, although some see the opportunity to amend, and maybe extend, the criteria. But even theoiteria as contained in the Article are subject to controversial, and often conflicting, interpretations. Besides, should Article 23( 1), which currently only applies to the election of non-permanent members, also encompass permanent members; or would other, status specific criteria, have to be introduced? Again, despite a great number of submissions, common ground is hard to find. An additional hurdle, finally, present the prerogatives commonly associated with the permanent member position, most notably the veto. Is it to be extended to any new permanent members? Various proposals outline alternative approaches from complete abolition to a qualification of the right and a limitation of its use to specific circumstances. The scale of the effort is decisive and requires an assessment of its necessity, practicality and the overall benefit that the change will bring. Proponents of reform take their cue from the 1960s reform precedent, where the pressures of an increased membership led to change - however limited. Since reform proponents seek mainly formal changes to the Council's setup, which is constitutionally fixed, it may necessitate constitutional amendment. However, change to the constitutional document of the UN is difficult, not least because of the relative inflexibility of the process enshrined in the UN Charter itself. Therefore, the success of a constitutional amendment process is highly questionable, which opens the possibility for more informal alternatives. Everyone involved should be aware of the repercussions that reform may have. This is particularly true when the focus is directed at the collective security task of the organ that was endowed with primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security. It is generally acknowledged that the Council needs to extricate itself from its past and concentrate on its primary task. This, however, presents a major challenge as its past still determines its present

Currently there are approximately 25 million people displaced by environmental conditions, including resource scarcity, natural hazards and ecosystem degradation. By 2050, as many as 200 million people are predicted to be forced from their homes by changing environmental conditions brought about or exacerbated by climate change. Yet despite the scale of this problem, there is no international policy on their status. This thesis aims, first, to investigate some of the challenges to devising international political solutions to the problem and second, investigate these challenges empirically by undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the United Nations' current approach to the problem. Drawing on political ecology, the thesis analyses debates and approaches to the problem of environmental displacement. Part 1 of the thesis investigates academic debates, particularly within International Relations. Part 2 provides a critical evaluation of how the United Nations approaches environmental displacement. Although its main agency responsible for refugees does not recognise environmentally displaced people as refugees there are nevertheless a number of United Nations' bodies concerned with this growing problem. The study argues that the United Nations' main approach, namely sustainable development, has serious limitations because it does not recognise the underlying socio-political causes of environmental displacement, including how the distribution of resources and the socio-environmental costs and benefits of development drive this phenomenon. The thesis concludes that as environmental displacement is likely to increase in the near future, a supplemental category of environmental refugee that recognises these socio-political causes is an important step to establishing coherent international responsesto the problem. In this regard,a nd despitet he political difficulties of states accepting a new refugee category, the United Nations can nevertheless play a constructive role in promoting dialogue and establishing a formal operational framework for action on environmental displacement in the international system

This thesis attempts to resolve the existing impasse between neorealist and idealist constructivist approaches to the study of human rights. While neorealists claim that human rights are inconsequential given the primacy of rationalist-materialist notions of the national interest, idealist constructivists argue that human rights have an important constitutive effect on the identities and international norms that shape state behaviour. Thus, this thesis asks as its central research question: are human rights a function of states' material interests or social identities? This thesis juxtaposes neorealism and idealist constructivism theoretically as well as empirically through a study of human rights in Canadian foreign policy since 1945. Its central claim is that realist and constructivist accounts should be regarded as complementary rather than competing and mutually exclusive. Although statist pursuits of material interests remain an enduring part of international relations that inevitably limit the substance and reach of international human rights policies, human rights play an important role in the socialisation and expression of collective identities. In particular, the Canadian case reveals that human rights in both domestic and foreign policy played a crucial part in providing the foundation for national unity. The case also highlights that a multiplicity of theoretical approaches may prove more useful for understanding human rights in foreign policy than any singular line of analysis.

This thesis reconstructs and critically appraises the historical evolution, power relationships, discursive and distributional outcomes of the United Nations (UN) Global Compact (Compact) -a high profile public-private partnership which aims to embed global markets with ten universal principles in the areas of labour rights, human rights, the environment and corruption. In 1999, the Compact's intellectual architects and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan justified the creation of the initiative on two grounds: the Compact's potential ability to foster more inclusive supranational and local spaces of governance, and to effectively buttress responsible corporate conduct. These two assumptions are interrogated theoretically and empirically. Conceptually, the thesis appraises Robert W. Cox's notion of international organisations as 'mechanisms of hegemony'. Drawing from Cox's critical theory and the insights of scholars who have employed Cox's framework within studies on global governance and new forms of complex multilateralism, the thesis proposes a critical framework to discern the reasons for public-private partnerships creation, their punctuated and contested evolution, structures, and the ideas and practices they produce. Empirically, the thesis provides a much richer empirical narrative than academic accounts which have examined the UN Global Compact to date. Relying on primary documentation and qualitative research techniques the thesis appraises, in turn, the Compact's history, inception, evolution, executive leadership, bureaucracy, local structures in both the developed and developing world, and scrutinises the way in which its four main engagement mechanism operate. It moves beyond analyses which have solely scrutinised the Compact's ethos, and demarcates the disjuncture between the official claims emanating from the Compact's Office and the Compact's actual practices within its structures, deliberation forums and decentralised initiatives. The thesis finds that the Compact has not engendered inclusive spaces of governance. Furthermore, despite a series of internal reforms it continues to lack the capacity to harness corporate behaviour. The overarching argument transpiring from the thesis is that the Compact can be conceived as a hegemonic public-private partnership -a product of the Post-Washington Consensus - that continues to be contested from within the United Nations and by counter-hegemonic social forces