The World System Since 1500 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The World System Since 1500 - Essay Example Military had consumed around a quarter of the Gross National Product's share and the focus from production of consumer goods and investment in the civilian sector declined more and more as the time progressed. In 1985 Soviet Union's growth rate had approached to almost zero, the currency experienced a major fall, adding more to the fact that the petroleum prices slide. To end the turmoil Mikhail Gorbachev reached concessions with the United States and started to back out by informing that they are no more interested in intervening the affairs of the allied states in Eastern Europe and also withdrew their forces from Afghanistan. And finally, in 1989, George H.W. Bush announced that the cold war era has finally reached an end. And later in that year USSR broke into fifteen different independent states. The problem or the so called sovereignty of the states is protected by the nations' acts of advancements and defense of their interests at the expense of all the other nations. And thus International Law has always been struggling to protect the world from this menace of war. But so far, it is bad to see that the International Law has failed to prevent the world from this injustice that has been the characteristic of each and every war that has taken place and the role of International law has also remain limited in influencing the actions of these independent states. In fact, the states themselves have negatively exploited the use of International Law for their own self purposes. International law has some problems not with its content or lack of awareness, but it lacks in the enforcement area; it is still unable to make sure all the time whether states are complying with their agreements that they have made and are not simply backing out or neglecting the terms as they see fit. Ho wever, its role is not at all dead but it still plays a role in the decision making of the states but so far influence is considerably less. International law contains the series of agreements that are meant to codify and enforce the code of conduct and ethics necessary for the interaction amongst the states, which has been approved by the varying members of the world community. From the statement it can be inferred that International Law itself is not imposed on different parties i.e. the nations, but they themselves voluntarily agree to be a part of it. It is important to evaluate whether over the years the International Law has remained successful and has been able to serve the purposes to the full extent or not. According to liberals, International Law has been serving well enough to strive towards the mutual benefit of all the involved parties. Constructivists argue that the interests and the identities of the states are mutually constitutive leading to the possibility that International Law achieves the mutual benefits for all simultaneously. However, liberals and constructivist still do not provide any solid reason for why states interact with one another well enough. These theories have so far undermined the individual nature of self interest and has let them open to pursue their self interest and thus states act in their best interest despite the fact that the International Law sees that the states should see the interests as one world wide common