Kevin+Le+and+Michael+Cho

The United States federal government should offer to fully support and pursue full member status in the Arctic Council for China if China agrees to participate in bilateral cooperative agreements regarding Arctic scientific research and environmental policy issues. Advantage One is co-op –

Brexit was just the “tip of the iceberg” – multilateralism is collapsing, but demonstrated political will can revive it  Wurf, 16  —Hannah, Research Associate working in the G20 Studies Centre at the Lowy Institute. Her research interests are global governance and multilateralism, June 9, Online: “http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2016/06/09/What-the-UK-needs-now-is-more-multilateralism-not-less.aspx”, Article: “What the UK needs now is more multilateralism, not less” Accessed on: 06-24-16//AWW// //China won’t back Arctic warming initiatives, __decking__ US-China warming cooperation – supporting __Beijing’s Arctic status__ is key// // Tiezzi, 15  —Shannon, Editor at The Diplomat, previously served as a research associate at the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, MA @ Harvard, also studied at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “Why Did China Opt Out of the Arctic Climate Change Statement?” The Diplomat, Sept 1, [] --br// //__Arctic cooperation__ is __vital__ – it’s the __epicenter__ of __glacier research__ and __shipping__ emission regulation//

// Slayton and Brigham, 15  —David Slayton is research fellow, co-chair and executive director of the Arctic Security Initiative at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Lawson W. Brigham is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a fellow at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s Center for Arctic Study & Policy, and a member of Hoover’s Arctic Security Initiative. “Strengthen Arctic cooperation between the US and China,” Aug 27, Alaska Dispatch News (ADN), [] --br // // Arctic environmental cooperation spills over to boost multilateral cooperation globally, but it’s on the brink – our impact is reverse causal – cooperation creates a paradigmatic governance shift that halts warfare and several other immediate existential risks //

// Heinenen, 16  —Lassi, Professor of Arctic Politics @ University of Lapland, Finland. author of more than 200 scientific publications and is the editor of // The Arctic Yearbook //. “High Arctic Stability as an Asset for Storms of International Politics,” __ Future Security of the Global Arctic: State Policy, Economic Security and Climate __, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 4-8 [] --br // // Acting now is key to reviving US-China Arctic cooperation – it’s try or die //

// Slayton and Brigham, 15  —David Slayton is research fellow, co-chair and executive director of the Arctic Security Initiative at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Lawson W. Brigham is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a fellow at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s Center for Arctic Study & Policy, and a member of Hoover’s Arctic Security Initiative. “Strengthen Arctic cooperation between the US and China,” Aug 27, Alaska Dispatch News (ADN), [] --br //

// Acting now is key to reviving US-China Arctic cooperation – it’s try or die // // Slayton and Brigham, 15  —David Slayton is research fellow, co-chair and executive director of the Arctic Security Initiative at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Lawson W. Brigham is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a fellow at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s Center for Arctic Study & Policy, and a member of Hoover’s Arctic Security Initiative. “Strengthen Arctic cooperation between the US and China,” Aug 27, Alaska Dispatch News (ADN), [] --br// // Acting now is key to reviving US-China Arctic cooperation – it’s try or die //

// Slayton and Brigham, 15  —David Slayton is research fellow, co-chair and executive director of the Arctic Security Initiative at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Lawson W. Brigham is distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a fellow at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s Center for Arctic Study & Policy, and a member of Hoover’s Arctic Security Initiative. “Strengthen Arctic cooperation between the US and China,” Aug 27, Alaska Dispatch News (ADN), [] --br // //__US-China cooperation__ is key – they’re the __two largest emitters__ and __drive multilateral action__//

// Hongzhou, 15  —Zhang, Associate Research Fellow with the China Programme @ S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). “China-US Climate Change Cooperation: Beyond Energy,” The Diplomat, Oct 13, [] --br // //US-China climate cooperation facilitates __mitigation and adaptation__ strategies globally – solves extinction// // Li 14  – MA in Global Studies @ U Denver, Int’l Affairs Coordinator @ UN//

// (Xiaoyu, “China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future,” China Institute of International Studies, http://www.ciis.org.cn/english/2014-01/13/content_6606656.htm) // //Cooperation in the arctic empirically leads to increases in science diplomacy// // Numminen 10  (Lotta Numminen at the The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Environmental Programme, ¶ “Breaking the Ice: Can environmental and scientific cooperation be the way forward in the Arctic” [|Political Geography] ¶ [|Volume 29, Issue 2] , February 2010, Pages 85–87 http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/science/article/pii/S0962629810000363 // //Science Diplomacy increases multilateralism//

// Edwina Hollander , Researcher for Marine and Estuarine Ecology at the University Of Tasmania,  15  , Online: “http://www.e-ir.info/2015/08/30/how-does-science-diplomacy-cope-with-challenges-facing-diplomacy-more-broadly/", Article: “How Does Science Diplomacy Cope with Challenges Facing Diplomacy More Broadly?” Accessed on: 06-23-16 //AWW Science diplomacy solves climate change   Wolfe 13 – Audra J Wolfe is a writer, editor, and historian at The Guardian with a BS in chemistry from Purdue University and a historian of science (PhD from UPenn) and author of an award-winning Cold War science book, “Science diplomacy works, but only when it’s genuine”,  []  , The Guardian, Aug 23, dz   Expert consensus that warming is real and existential – melting glaciers ignite a cascade that exceeds cost-benefit analysis

Treich and Rheinberger, 15 —Christoph Rheinberger (Professor of Health Policy and Management @ Harvard) and Nicolas Treich (Professor at the Toulouse School of Economics). Citing Weitzman (economist @ Harvard) and Bostrom (prof @ Oxford). “On the economics of the end of the world as we know it,” The Economist, [] -- br Try or die – the Arctic will be ice free by 2100, driving 2/3 of all global trade through the Arctic without regulation Saul and Chestney, 16 —Jonathan and Nina, Reuters reporters citing Whit Sheard of the Circumpolar Conservation Union, Julie Gourley, senior Arctic official at the U.S. State Department and multiple studies. “Arctic thaw opens shipping waterways, risks to environment,” Feb 25, [] --br Independently, successful management of proxy conflicts through regional multilateral institutions prevents existential threats Graeme P. Herd 10 , Head of the International Security Programme, Co-Director of the International Training Course in Security Policy, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2010, “Great Powers: Towards a “cooperative competitive” future world order paradigm?,” in Great Powers and Strategic Stability in the 21st Century, p. 197-198 Multilateralism is try or die for preventing human extinction through WMDs and de-escalation of hotspots Masciulli 11 —Professor of Political Science @ St Thomas University [Joseph Masciulli, “The Governance Challenge for Global Political and Technoscientific Leaders in an Era of Globalization and Globalizing Technologies,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society February 2011 vol. 31 no. 1 pg. 3-5] Advantage 2 --- Framing Rejecting international legal frameworks and sovereignty leads to violence and power inequality Tara McCormack 10, Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester, PhD in IR from the University of Westminster, “Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Emancipatory Approaches”, pp. 136-139 International law is inevitable and part of the solution to violence even if it’s not a panacea --- the alt is impossible and allows the right to fill in Emmanuelle Jouannet 7, Professor, Universite Paris I - Pantheon Sorbonne, “ESSAY: WHAT IS THE USE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW? INTERNATIONAL LAW AS A 21ST CENTURY GUARDIAN OF WELFARE”, 28 Mich. J. Int'l L. 815, Michigan Journal of International Law, Lexis Our epistemology is sound—I-law reduces the __likelihood of conflict__---empirical longitudinal analysis Beth Simmons 10, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard, “Treaty Compliance and Violation,” Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci., vol. 13

NEG: T Critical Geopolitics Kritik Elections DA -- Standard Appeasement DA -- Standard Bataille Kritik

2NR: Critical Geopolitics Kritik Elections DA -- Standard Bataille Kritik  Rejecting international legal frameworks and sovereignty leads to violence and power inequality Tara McCormack 10 , Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester, PhD in IR from the University of Westminster, “Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Emancipatory Approaches”, pp. 136-139 In chapter 7 I engaged with the human security framework and some of the problematic implications of 'emancipatory' security policy frameworks. In this chapter I argued that the shift away from the pluralist security framework and the elevation of cosmopolitan and emancipatory goals has served to enforce international power inequalities rather than lessen them. Weak or unstable states are subjected to greater international scrutiny and international institutions and other states have greater freedom to intervene, but the citizens of these states have no way of controlling or influencing these international institutions or powerful states .¶ This shift away from the pluralist security framework has not challenged the status quo, which may help to explain why major international institutions and states can easily adopt a more cosmopolitan rhetoric in their security policies. As we have seen, the shift away from the pluralist security framework has entailed a shift towards a more openly hierarchical international system, in which states are differentiated according to, for example, their ability to provide human security for their citizens or their supposed democratic commitments. In this shift, the old pluralist international norms of (formal) international  sovereign equality, non-intervention  and 'blindness' to the content of a state  are overturned. Instead, international institutions and states have more freedom to intervene  in weak or unstable states in order to 'protect' and emancipate individuals globally. ¶ Critical and emancipatory security theorists argue that the goal of the emancipation of the individual means that security must be reconceptualised away from the state. As the domestic sphere is understood to be the sphere of insecurity and disorder, the international sphere represents greater emancipatory possibilities, as Tickner argues, "if security is to start with the individual, its ties to state sovereignty must be severed ' (1995: 189). For critical and emancipatory theorists there must be a shift towards a 'cosmopolitan' legal framework, for example Mary Kaldor (2001: 10), Martin Shaw (2003: 104) and Andrew Linklater (2005).¶ For critical theorists, one of the fundamental problems with Realism is that it is unrealistic. Because it prioritises order and the existing status quo. Realism attempts to impose a particular security framework onto a complex world, ignoring the myriad threats to people emerging from their own governments and societies. Moreover, traditional international theory serves to obscure power relations and omits a study of why the system is as it is: [0]mitting myriad strands of power amounts to exaggerating the simplicity of the entire political system. Today's conventional portrait of international politics thus too often ends up looking like a Superman comic strip, whereas it probably should resemble a Jackson Pollock. (Enloe, 2002 [1996]: 189)¶ Yet as I have argued, contemporary critical security theorists seem to show a marked lack of engagement with their problematic (whether the international security context, or the Yugoslav break-up and wars). Without concrete engagement and analysis, however, the critical project is undermined and critical theory becomes nothing more than a request that people behave in a nicer way to each other. Furthermore, whilst contemporary critical security theorists argue that they present a more realistic image of the world, through exposing power relations, for example, their lack of concrete analysis of the problematic considered renders them  actually  unable to engage with existing power structures and the way in which power is being exercised in the contemporary international system. For critical and emancipatory theorists the central place of the values of the theorist mean that it cannot fulfil its promise to critically engage with contemporary power relations and emancipatory possibilities. Values must be joined with engagement with the material circumstances of the time.¶ It seems clear that since the 1990s and the shift away from formal framework for international affairs in terms of formal sovereign equality and non intervention, weak and troubled states have become increasingly opened up to interference and intervention by great powers. There is no global political constituency in existence and the world order as it currently is one in which power is unevenly distributed. Shifting away from even formal prohibitions against intervention and formal sovereign equality simply gives more powerful states greater power. This cannot represent a step towards greater emancipation for the citizens of those states, in fact it represents an increasing lack of freedom. For contemporary critical theorists, there is a failure to understand that rights are not things in themselves that can create freedom. In certain concrete situations human rights can easily become their opposite, a system in which external powers become sovereign. For this reason, a critical approach must entail an engagement with the here and now and the exercise of con- temporary power relations, but this is exactly what contemporary critical and emancipatory  theorists are not doing  .¶ An example of this trend can be found in Booth's arguments that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other declarations of rights have challenged the sovereign state (2007: 166—167). In the first place, as we have seen in chapter 1, despite such declarations the pluralist security framework remained in place during the Cold War, but perhaps more importantly a concrete engagement with the exercise of post-Cold War power relations would show that the UN was an institution set up by the new hegemonic power, America, as a way of cementing its authority. In this context the various declarations of human rights were not a challenge to power but a fundamental part of the exercise of power (Sellars, 2002).¶ Critical and emancipatory theorists have an abstract and idealised view of the international system, excluding broader questions about international organisation and power inequalities. Critical security theorists wish the complicated world, and complex conflicts, to conform to an abstract moral framework. Yet, as 'traditional' theorists E H Carr and Hedley Bull warned, this is simply an evasion of engagement with the actually existing international order and a substitution of the moral preferences of the theorist. As Carr argued about contemporary idealists: The Utopian is necessarily voluntarist: he believes in the possibility of more or less radically rejecting reality, and substituting his Utopia for it by an act of will ... the Utopian makes political theory a norm to which political practice ought to conform. (1964 [1939]: 11, 12)¶ Of course, this is not to say that a real cosmopolitan order cannot exist, but this would entail a genuine transformation of the international and national order. The international order as it exists is still one that is divided into states and one which is marked by major power inequalities. In this context, the prescriptions of critical security theorists which aim to achieve a more 'cosmopolitan' international order becomes one in which power inequalities are entrenched even further. Moreover, there seems to be a step backwards in terms of a re-division between those members of the international community entitled to be full members and those which are there under sufferance and may be punished for their failings. This is quite clear in the human security framework, as discussed in chapter 7.

International law is inevitable and part of the solution to violence even if it’s not a panacea --- the alt is impossible and allows the right to fill in Emmanuelle Jouannet 7 , Professor, Universite Paris I - Pantheon Sorbonne, “ESSAY: WHAT IS THE USE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW? INTERNATIONAL LAW AS A 21ST CENTURY GUARDIAN OF WELFARE”, 28 Mich. J. Int'l L. 815, Michigan Journal of International Law, Lexis // It now seems impossible to turn back from the present course//. To deny the new aims of contemporary law and to press for a return to minimalist liberal law would be to // allow the neo-liberal powers that be to exploit the downfall of the international system for their own advantage //. n94 Under no circumstance should we succumb to the ultraliberal refusal to tackle mutual problems in the way welfare-inducing law does, as the latter would thus become a regrettable avatar of classical liberal law. It is not, however, surprising that there is currently a resurgence, in [*850] international law, of the old debate between ultraliberals, who express discontentment with too much law and bureaucracy, and moderate liberals, whose sole intent is to reform the system. Yet restoring the image of a classical but incentive-creating system would be inconsistent with the profound socio-cultural changes the contemporary international system has undergone, and with the legitimate aspirations held by millions of individuals, is therefore not an option either. ¶ The shift toward ethical and functionalist welfare-inducing law is the product of a redefinition of politics and of the fabric of international society itself, and is accompanying the evolution of this society and structuring it accordingly. Classical society and liberal international law were based on international politics as defined solely by States. Contemporary welfare-inducing society presupposes that political power must aim at fostering communal wellbeing around the planet. But the 1945 consensus deteriorated long ago, as it was borne out of exceptional circumstances. It now needs to be reconstituted in the context of the new society. The legal values and objectives contemporary international law aspires to correspond to political priorities and certainly do not flow from a universal consciousness. They are the result of choices that were quite understandable in 1945, but that now need to be reformulated or revoked outright, as even if the same objectives undoubtedly still remain, the modalities have changed and the circle of addressees has become considerably larger. n95 Some have represented current phenomena in the international system as the result of a "crisis of authority" related to a double crisis of State sovereignty and of territoriality. n96 This is deemed to explain the inability of international law to regulate the current disorder and to create a stable order. However, just as one refers to a "global inversion" to describe the diminishing of sovereignties faced with emancipated groups and individuals, one could equally refer to an "inversion of international law" since //this law is increasingly restraining States and empowering individuals, minorities, and peoples through the recognition of rights //. This approach is said to be based on "the actor getting his own back on the system." n97 States are no longer the sole members, actors, and subjects of international society, and individuals and NGOs are now seeking recognition under international law. Today, there are hundreds of international organizations, thousands of NGOs - including 2,719 with ECOSOC status - and hundreds of multinationals [*851] thriving in the 208 States and territories. These are the entities with which States, international organizations, and international politicians interact , n98 //which is why political cohesion and the legitimacy of the existing system require that all actors adhere to shared values //. n99 All could be different if there were greater consciousness of the fact that a legal system can be used beneficially and not simply endured passively. That being said, one should not minimize the role played by States, and should acknowledge the amicable concurrence of interstatists and cosmopolitans, voluntarists, and communitarians. ¶ This is not to put in question the principle of interventionist welfare-inducing law, but rather to question its functioning and the limits to which it should be subject. This may appear surprising and perhaps even shocking considering the sociological state of the planet with all its inequalities and injustices, where collective and individual suffering has never been as dramatic and devastating. The neo-Marxist economists Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein have illustrated how major conflicts of interest, monopolist and exclusionary phenomena, and the unequal development of powers have persisted due to an excess of unequal resistance from the periphery. n100 But this is precisely what has prompted the present essay, since the solution might actually lie in subjecting law to certain limits. I nternational law may be "part of the problem," but it is also , as has been emphasised by Philippe Sands, n101 " // part of the solution // ," so long as possible options do not go to the detriment of social or political processes or the will of the State. Without returning to classical minimalist law, we need to fight the preconception that reducing law is equivalent to regression, and that any limitation on sovereignty is a victory. How far should international law go in accomplishing its aims? Is it the miracle solution to all of the world's problems? ¶ The answer is obviously no. // Law is not a universal panacea //. Politics determine international law, even if sometimes they appear to ignore it. Any discourse that glorifies international law and its virtues is usually [*852] accompanied by criticism of its weaknesses and perverse effects. This anthropomorphic vision of international law has the aim of turning it into a being in its own right that can be conveniently accused of defaults that are in fact those of the entities that created it, i.e. principally States, politicians, international experts such as us international jurists, but also those who would like to appropriate international law, such as NGOs, lobbies, individuals/associations, think tanks, and multinational corporations, which undoubtedly exercise political power despite hesitating to acknowledge it openly. This anthropomorphic vision needs to be rejected so that everyone can be allocated their proper role and usefulness. In fact, the present situation is interesting in that it reveals the functioning of western political modernity and its tendency to isolate the legal dimension in order to attribute an exclusive and exorbitant role to it. Yet the difficulties and tensions that have resulted illustrate the necessity of re-evaluating the two other dimensions to which international law is fundamentally connected: the political and the social. No doubt it is therefore necessary to search for a better balance, or more precisely, to be more conscious of the political and social dimensions that are concealed behind the law, and which are masked by the heightened role of all that is legal. They no longer have the same mobilizing effect they used to have, at least less than is the case of, say, legal discourse on human rights. Law does not actually provide a response to all problems, even if law is now omnipresent. In fact, the merit of contemporary deconstructivist critique is to have deconstructed the illusion of complete legal emancipation and to have attempted to rehabilitate all that is purely political in the elaboration, interpretation, and application of rules; and it is undoubtedly this critique that will enable us to accept that international law can regain strength as a political means of regulating conduct. n102 ¶ What thus takes place behind the smokescreen of welfare-inducing law is a political game of inclusion and exclusion. Why has poverty not been eliminated as proclaimed? Is it because law has remained ineffective and impotent when faced with international reality? Or is it merely a tree concealing a forest of international renouncement? Reducing world poverty is a commensurable challenge and therefore a realizable objective, but it will not be possible as long as States and other actors have not set themselves truly fundamental and overriding aims for the benefit of the planet, as well as for their own domestic systems. "Poverty is an invention of civilisation," n103 and it is on the latter that its eradication will depend. Studies on the phenomenon of poverty are very interesting in [*853] this respect, because they show that at a given moment in the development of a society, poverty always calls for collective action (and not individual acts of charity). No sooner are substantial amounts of property constituted that give rise to inequalities and merciless confrontation between the rich and the poor, do "asymmetrical dependencies" appear as the most frequent result. n104 The possible defaults and dysfunctions of welfare-inducing law should not mask political deferral and inaction at the domestic and international levels, or the fact that international law has always been used in a profoundly ambiguous way: as a positive model of inclusion and simultaneously as a negative model of exclusion, as a positive model of cooperation yet also as a negative model of domination. The somewhat paradoxical yet inescapable fact is that welfare-inducing law is, as we have seen, easier to instrumentalize than strictly liberal law aimed at regulating conduct, and is thus, ironically, less social and more unjust. It can be used to accelerate necessary corrections to gaping inequalities between nations or between individuals, but can also enable superpowers and economic operators to increase their revenue and importance. Furthermore, it can be conveniently denounced by the most virulent dictatorships in underdeveloped countries on the basis that it is inefficient. It can also be used as a means of obtaining international aid, despite the fact that the sharp rise in poverty and famine over recent years has actually been due to negligence, blind collectivism, terror, or civil war. n105 ¶ Here, legal interventionist and welfare-orientated discourse can be a vector of domestic or international domination, much like a powerful lever of transformation. It should also be noted that strictly legal discourse will not tell us why things are as they are and which might be the best way to change them. That is not its role, and it is therefore not a problem if law does not trump other types of discourse. //Law has//, however, //become so entrenched in international society that the latter can no longer be conceptualized independently of it//. Although it has undoubtedly always been an instrument of international social and political action, //law has never played as important a role as it does today. International legal problems are no longer external problems one can simply resolve by calling international State conferences ; they have become internalized by all societies, and we are gradually losing our ability to distance ourselves from them, and indeed from law itself//. Yet distinguishing roles and finalities is all the more difficult when law is not in [*854] itself capable of effectuating change and remains dependent on politics and adaptation. ¶ The debate on the ability of politics to bring about change on an international level is as old as international society itself, and its current prevalence indicates its re-emergence. Although many analysts have taken neo-realist, neo-institutionalist, neo-functionalist, globalizationist, or transnationalist positions on this issue, n106 the present trend emphasises that the scope for manoeuvre of "real international politics" is limited due to the rise in bureaucracy, corporate interest groups, legalism in international relations, transnational networks of private actors, the incapacities of fragile States, etc., as if there existed within a decentralized society (which, however, has never been centralized and thus cannot be decentralized) a sort of political center-point providing a measure of the effectiveness or legitimacy of international political action, n107 when in reality the concepts most often evoked - namely collective State action, "international regimes," or global governance n108 - actually only recentralize politics in different manners. n109 Should we perhaps nuance the idea of an international political "center" or "system," either pessimistically by reference to a new Middle Age, n110 or more optimistically by emphasizing the importance of the individual's new role as an international actor, n111 the emergence of networks, or of orderly pluralism, n112 in order to enlarge our perspective on politics and better understand it? In fact, the increasing relevance of international law is not putting limitations on power, but bringing about a reorganization of power. The impression of reduced political leeway is thus deceptive, since in fact, new political powers are emerging that involve decisions affecting people and their environment. The sensation of political powerlessness or of simulacrum derives from [*855] the fact that politics are reduced to the activities carried out within the official international political system. n113 ¶ However, whatever is the actual scale of these illusions and developments, they have instilled a sense of unease in internationalist culture, which is necessarily political as well as legal given the indissoluble links between the two. This is the result of the latent but visible state of disequilibrium between the official appearance of the classical center-points of political power - States, international organizations, etc. - where official activities appear efficient and regulatory, but often fall short of attaining the fixed objectives, and an international society that is inexorably straying from official political decisions and introducing new actors with new objectives, decision-making competencies, and political dimensions. That is not to say that States and international organizations are not the prime institutional actors on the international scene, but simply that behind the unchanged facade of the politics they engage in, new political centre-points are taking shape. Consequently, the boundary between the political and the non-political is becoming ever more indeterminate, just as the boundary between the legal and the non-legal. To paraphrase Prosper Weil, one can say that politics, much as the law, have become "diluted." The categories of the political and the non-political, as well as those of the legal and non-legal, must be re-conceptualized with a view to redefining political priorities and redefining them collectively, to the extent that this is possible. How can welfare-inducing law prevail without a strong and interventionist political center-point to ensure its application as the European States did in the post-war period from the fifties to seventies? How can one reconcile the changes in the law and international politics? Is not what initially seemed paradoxical but explicable becoming completely contradictory? ¶ In any case, there is little point in pinning all our hopes on politics. Welfare does not seem to be induced by politics, by the law or by the State, although we have not altogether reached a dead point. n114 International politics does not define man's happiness, but rather //it// regulates the conduct of domestic and international actors, // combats misery, and prevents risks. //