Russia’s idea of the multipolar world order: origins and main dimensions

Contemporary international relations are rife with the ideological struggle over the potential nature of the rapidly changing world order. Two distinct paradigmatic positions have surfaced. One champions economic, cultural, and political globalization conducted under the leadership of the Western world. The other advocates a more particularistic approach that fends for a balance of interests, multiplicity of politico-cultural forms and multiple centers of international influence. The latter doctrine, often referred to as the multipolar world theory, is the subject of this paper. The discussion argues that the idea of a multipolar world order has emerged as Russia’s main ethical and ideological position advanced in the international arena. Its philosophical tenets buttress Russian society intellectually at home, providing the expedients to pursue the country’s foreign policy goals abroad. The paper examines a substantial value package with roots in both Russian and Western philosophy that sustains the multipolar world order theory.     

An illuminating case on the law of registered designs

This case involving registered design rights has clarified theapproach that courts will take in determining, inter alia, thevalidity of a registered design right when the purported proprietoris not entitled to that right and the characteristics of the‘informed user’ when determining infringement.     

Coercion,Information, and the Success of Sanction Threats

This article explores when and why sanction threats succeed in extracting concessions from the targeted country. We focus on two different, albeit not mutually exclusive, mechanisms that can explain the success of sanction threats. The first mechanism relates to incomplete information regarding the sanctioner's determination to impose sanctions and suggests that threats help to extract concessions by revealing the sanctioner's resolve. The second mechanism underscores the direct impact of common interest between the two countries and explains the success of sanction threats by the targeted country's greater dependence on this link between the two countries and the sanctioner's ability to exploit this dependence. We test the hypotheses using a new strategic structural estimator. Our results provide no evidence in favor of the informational hypothesis, while lending robust support for the coercive hypothesis.