AECon 2020


Book Description

The 6th Asia Pasific Education and Science Conference (AECON ) 2020 was conducted on 19-20 December 2020, at Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto, Purwokerto, Indonesia. The Theme of AECON 2020 is Empowering Human Development Through Science and Education. The goals of AECON 2020 is to establish a paradigm that emphasizes on the development of integrated education and science though the integration of different life skills in order to improve the quality of human development in education and science around Asia Pacific nations, particularly Indonesia.







The Palgrave Handbook of Canada in International Affairs


Book Description

This book argues that Canada and its international policies are at a crossroads as US hegemony is increasingly challenged and a new international order is emerging. The contributors look at how Canada has been adjusting to this new environment and resetting priorities to meet its international policy objectives in a number of different fields: from the alignment of domestic politics along new foreign policies, to reshaping its international identity in a post-Anglo order, its relationship with international organizations such as the UN and NATO, place among middle powers, management of peace operations and defense, role in G7 and G20, climate change and Arctic policy, development, and relations with the Global South. Embracing multilateralism has been and will continue to be key to Canada’s repositioning and its ability to maintain its position in this new world order. This book takes a comprehensive look at Canada’s role in the world and the various political and policy variables that will impact Canada’s foreign policy decisions into the future. Chapter 22 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.




BICED 2020


Book Description

The Faculty of Education and Teaching Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Bukittinggi, West Sumatera Indonesia, organized the 2nd International Conference on Education (BICED 2020) on 14-15 September 2020 in Bukittinggi, West Sumatera, Indonesia. The number of participants who joined the zoom room was recorded at 736 participants. 224 participants attended the conference via the zoom application and 539 participants via YouTube Channel. Participants came from 5 countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei Darussalam, Thailand and Australia. BICED 2020 is implemented with the support of a stable internet network system and a zoom application. In the implementation there were several technical obstacles encountered by the participants, namely the difficulty of joining the zoom application due to the unstable internet signal. The holding of a virtual conference felt less meaningful, due to the lack of interaction between speakers and participants. The BICED 2020 committee 29 papers were presented and discussed. The papers were authored by researchers from Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Thailand, Malaysia, United Kingdom, and Indonesia. All papers have been scrutinized by a panel of reviewers who provide critical comments and corrections, and thereafter contributed to the improvement of the quality of the papers.




New Asian Disorder


Book Description

In New Asian Disorder: Rivalries Embroiling the Pacific Century, Lowell Dittmer and his team explore the recent political disorder in East Asia resulting from growing Sino-American polarization. The rise of China in recent years is widely regarded as a momentous shift in the global balance of power. China is now extending sovereignty into the East China Sea and the South China Sea, constructing a new set of global financial institutions and replacing “universal values” with technologically enhanced nationalism. The country’s “Belt and Road Initiative” is also tainted by the vast ambition to realize the “China Dream” within the foreseeable future. In response to China’s challenge, the United States has abandoned its “constructive engagement” policy towards the rising power and engaged in a trade war. Sino-American relations have been at a historical trough since the normalization of their relationship in the late 1970s. This book sheds new light on the current political disorder in the East Asian international arena. The new Asian disorder is analyzed from three perspectives: the first focuses on identity, the second on political economy, and the third on the triangular dynamic. This collection of essays concludes that, unless and until consensus can be reached on a coherent new framework for cooperation and rule enforcement among different stakeholders in East Asia, the current disorder may be expected to persist. “Focusing on the impact of Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, this book sees rivalries undermining the post–Cold War order but not leading to a full breakdown. Stress is on identities, strategies, and triangles related to the Sino-US rivalry. Dittmer argues that these factors will drive further changes. Readers will find a diversity of approaches on a most critical bilateral relationship.” —Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University; editor of The Asan Forum “A great read to better comprehend the ‘New Asian Disorder’ that the growing China-US rivalry has been contributing to, as well as its implications for the other actors of the region, be they big as Japan or smaller as Australia, Southeast Asian nations or Taiwan.” —Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Hong Kong Baptist University; senior research fellow of the French Research Institute on East Asia, Inalco, Paris







Proceedings of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering Annual Conference 2022


Book Description

This book comprises the proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering 2022. The contents of this volume focus on specialty conferences in construction, environmental, hydrotechnical, materials, structures, transportation engineering, etc. This volume will prove a valuable resource for those in academia and industry.




Regulation of State-Controlled Enterprises


Book Description

This book analyses actual and potential normative (whether legislative or contractual) conflicts and complex transnational disputes related to state-controlled enterprises (SCEs) operations and how they are interwoven with the problem of foreign direct investment. Moreover, SCEs also fall within the remit of international political economy, international economics and other SCE-related fields that go beyond purely legal or regulatory matters. In this connection, research on such economic and political determinants of SCE’s operations greatly informs and supplements the state of knowledge on how to best regulate cross-border aspects of SCE’s and is also be covered in this book. The book also aims to analyse the “SCE phenomenon” which includes a wide panoply of entities that have various structures with different degrees of control by states at the central or regional level, and that critically discuss the above-mentioned overlapping legal economic and political systems which can emerge under various shades of shadows casted by governmental umbrellas (i.e., the control can be exercised through ownership, right to appoint the management, and special-voting-rights). The chapters in this book are grouped, so as to address cross-border investment by and in SCE, into four coherent major parts, namely --- (i) the regulatory framework of state capitalism: laws, treaties, and contracts; (ii) economic and institutional expansion of state capitalism; (iii) the accountability of state capitalism: exploring the forms of liabilities; and (iv) regional and country perspectives. Contributions address the core theme from a broad range of SCE and international economic regulations, including but not limited to competition law, WTO law, investment law, and financial/monetary law. They also cover the new emerging generation of Free Trade Agreements (EU-Vietnam FTA, EU China investment treaty, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; and the coordination between treaty systems). The book is a valuable addition and companion for courses, such as international trade law, international law of foreign investment, transnational law, international and economic development, world politics, law of preferential trade agreements, international economics, and economics of development.




The Politics of Investment Treaties in Latin America


Book Description

International investment law is at a crossroads. Civil society groups, prominent think tanks, and international organisations are calling for widespread reform. At the centre of controversy are international investment agreements (IIAs) and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Over 1,000legal claims have been brought by foreign investors under IIAs since the mid-1990s, resulting in multi-million dollar fines imposed against governments for policies related to the environment, natural resource governance, and access to basic services among other areas of public concern. Governmentstargeted by investor claims are pursuing a variety of reforms that range from the incremental to paradigm-shifting. These different responses raise important questions about the politics of infringement and reform: Why do governments infringe on IIAs despite the costs of doing so? Why do somegovernments heavily targeted by investor claims pursue more substantive reforms than others? This book provides a timely examination of infringement and reform in Latin America, where governments felt the sting of investor claims sooner and with greater frequency than in other regions. It focuses onPeru, Argentina, and Ecuador, countries that responded very differently to waves of investor claims. Based on interviews with government officials, and international lawyers as well as an extensive analysis of legal transcripts, detailed case study chapters examine the conditions that promptedinvestor claims and the factors that inform country's reform agendas. In doing so, the book illustrates the conditions under which IIAs constrain state behaviour and how different belief systems produce different responses to external pressures for treaty compliance.