This chapter systematically teases out and reflects on the antinomies and aporias that characterize each of two broad sets of international human rights solidarity argumentation. These are the broadly shared discourses on the issue that emanate in each case from the Global North and Global South. Why do Global North States tend to accept and focus on binding international human rights obligations in the civil and political (CP) rights area, while demurring regarding similarly mandatory legal duties to express international solidarity in regard to economic and social (ES) rights? And why do Global South countries tend to argue in favor of such binding obligations with regard to ES rights but not nearly as much regarding CP rights? The chapter is mainly concerned with the rather ironic circulation and eclipsing of relevant antinomies and aporias in plain sight; their relationships to state sovereignty argumentation; and their connections to global power relations as ideationally constitutive forces. In the last respect, the key question is what the relative roles of values/norms in international human rights solidarity argumentation are, vis-à-vis global power relations. And these questions should highlight for scholars the imperative to track internationalist praxis over the longue durée.

In this chapter, I contrast the account of fictionality presented in the previous chapter with Walton’s, whose work was decisive in shaping it. In recent work, he gives up his account of the fictionality of p in a fictional work in terms of prescriptions to imagine emanating from it. He offers examples that allegedly show that a prescription to imagine p in a given work of fiction is not sufficient for the fictionality of p in that work. Both in support and in further elaboration of the constitutive-norms speech-act variation on Walton’s account that was presented in the previous chapter, I critically discuss his objections here. In addition to answering his concerns and developing the account further, this chapter provides additional abductive support for its explanatory virtues vis-à-vis both Walton’s account and Gricean speech-act proposals.

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s key findings, methodology and structure. It also introduces the principal questions the book seeks to address. How have agents, operating at national, international and transnational levels, attempted to institutionalise the norm of corporate accountability for human rights violations linked to transnational corporate activity? What do these initiatives reveal about the nature of transnational legalisation, and how legalisation should be framed or conceptualised in the twenty-first century? Finally, could a revised framework of legalisation help explain when transnational litigation and soft law initiatives are more likely to succeed in the future?

This is a book focusing on a comparative analysis of business systems primarily involving and surrounding the firms/enterprises across three leading economies in the world, that is, the United States, China, and Japan. The book will discuss one basic question: how does law matter to business practice, together with the markets and social norms of each jurisdiction? The book’s framework is as follows: the firm acts as a forum for incentive bargaining among four major participants: management and employees as human capital providers, creditors, and shareholders as monetary capital providers. Each participant will bargain with each other to maximize its own payoff based on exogenous factors: the situation of various markets (products, labor, intellectual property rights, and capital), social norms (e.g., shareholder value maximization model and stakeholder model), and enterprise law. This book will include the government as the fifth player of this game in the sense that the government provides indispensable resources (physical, social, and legal infrastructures) to the firm, shares the pie via tax revenue, and bargains with the other four players.

Chapter 8 departs slightly from the focus on translation activity by shining a light on the translator, in an effort to highlight their role in the translation process itself, often minimized for the benefit of the text. The chapter serves as a reminder that the translator also has an impact on the text. It addresses what is meant by the translator’s (in)visibility and how practicing or aspiring translators can incorporate this notion into their practice and knowledge base. Also addressed are related topics such as norms, codes of ethics, agency, positionality and ideology. Additionally, the chapter helps inform aspiring translators and those who work with translators about the role and professional expectations for translators, including their role as agents of social justice, the translator’s workplace, recent changes in the field, translator profiles, and the qualifications and skills needed to work as a translator. This chapter guides readers to an understanding of the translator’s possible role/s and assists them with the creation of their own professional identity.

The two crises in this chapter share three main characteristics. They involve territorial (border) conflict that relates to the independence of Ukraine (or, relatedly, the breakup of the Soviet Union), feature an East–West tension, and (as of this writing) do not escalate to a war among the major states. In 2014, after Ukraine attempted to move closer to Europe (i.e., it contemplated an EU agreement and the pro-Russian government fell), Putin annexed Crimea to secure the long-held naval base there. Although done forcefully, there were no military fatalities. In 2022, amidst a fear that Ukraine was again moving closer to Europe (i.e., it looked to be closer to joining NATO and its government became less pro-Russian), Russia invaded Ukraine. It failed to take Kyiv, even though it heavily bombed Ukraine. Russia then withdrew to the east, where a majority of Russian speakers had sought to separate from Ukraine. The United States and the European Union gave weapons and aid that expanded as the war continued. Deaths mounted on both sides. The Russians successfully created a land bridge from the Donbas to Crimea. After his election, Trump attempted to negotiate a settlement that would end the war.

This chapter summarizes the main lessons for diplomacy that we derive from our study. These eight lessons are: 1. A major factor separates the crises that escalate to war from those that do not; in the latter, a strong leader reins in any hard-liners who advocate going to war. 2. Individuals make a difference. 3. Contingency plays a more important role than system structure in determining whether or not a crisis escalates to war. 4. Someone must stand for peace. 5. The secret to preventing war structurally is to find a functional equivalent to war. 6. Norms and rules are important for avoiding war – and, therefore, maintaining peace. 7. War can be avoided; it is not inevitable. 8. The realist concepts of the national interest and balance of power do not always accurately describe the behavior of states.

The Munich conference notoriously symbolizes appeasement and its failure. The issue under dispute concerns territory – specifically, the Sudetenland. This territorial dispute was initially internal to Czechoslovakia, a disagreement between the Sudetenland Germans and the central government of Czechoslovakia. Eventually, however, the nationalistic element to the dispute brought in the German government. The major powers avoided war because the French and British prime ministers – Daladier and Chamberlain, respectively – forced the Czechoslovakian president, Benes, to accept the peaceful transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany, based on the norm of nationalism (or self-determination). As this case shows, when actors widely agree on the norms through which territory can change hands, the probability of war declines. Nevertheless, this peace was short-lived. Indeed, the afterword to the chapter describes how Hitler invaded Prague shortly thereafter. The Danzig–Poland crises then followed. By that point, Britain and France had abandoned appeasement and shifted to balancing against Hitler; they allied with Poland and gave Hitler an ultimatum to try to stop his invasion. This conventional deterrence failed, and the Second World War began in Europe.

Italian unification ultimately emerges through four wars. This chapter covers the second of these wars (1859–1860). Austria holds sovereignty over territory in northern Italy. Cavour, the prime minister of Piedmont, learns from the first war (1848) that Piedmont cannot defeat Austria – and therefore wrest Italian lands from it – without a powerful ally. He secures an alliance with Napoleon III of France, and at a secret meeting in Plombières, Piedmont and France plot a war. The Italian nationalists argue that the “people” of a nation have a legitimate right to self-rule. The Concert plays no role in this crisis because it does not see the norm of nationalism as a legitimate justification for owning territory. In its view, the norm of dynastic succession (i.e., a king or queen coming to the throne) serves that purpose. The Concert system is therefore biased against the nationalists. The resulting clash of norms increases the probability of war. Nevertheless, territorial issues are generally more war-prone than non-territorial issues, and infusing territorial disagreements with nationalism and identity (or ethnic) claims raises the probability of war further. In the end, the case illustrates well why and how territorial issues lead to war.

Neither the First nor the Second Moroccan Crisis escalates to a war between the major states. In the First Moroccan Crisis, Kaiser Wilhelm II did not believe it was worth fighting a war over Morocco. In the Second Moroccan Crisis, the actors had recourse to the norm of compensation, which provided a focal point and procedure that guided the negotiations. It ultimately made a bargain possible and facilitated a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Nevertheless, despite the use of the norm of compensation and accommodationists at the highest levels of German decision-making, the case shows that coercive bargaining could have led to war.

Constructivism emphasizes the role of ideas, identities, and norms in shaping state behavior and international politics, as well as the intersubjective and relational nature of these ideational factors. Social relations “make or construct people – ourselves – into the kinds of beings that we are. Conversely, we make the world what it is, by doing what we do with each other and saying what we say to each other” (Onuf, 1998, 59). Constructivism therefore highlights the intangible yet relational aspects of our reality: a world in which the meaning of objects and actions is not fixed but socially constructed through our interactions; states are held together by collective belief and actively participate in the social construction of anarchy. Norms play a significant role by defining appropriate behavior and enabling action by providing a framework for actors to understand and interact with the world.