Introduction
The concept of international society means a multinational unity of nations and their cooperation in economic, political, cultural, and social spheres. In so far as national or racial groups have settled in compact areas, they have almost invariably developed certain national characteristics, tending to express themselves in social group habits or even a political attitude (Alderson and Hurrell, 2000). Thesis Despite cultural and social differences between national states, the international society exists shaped by the unified international laws and economic relations, political cooperation, and mutual support policies.
Main body
International society exists shaped by legal and political principles of unity and global peace. Despite cultural differences, the international community is based on economic relations and cooperation in social and political spheres based on universal principles of mutual support and global peace. Today, “the idea of an international society is most often associated with Hedley’s Bull’s statement: “a society of states exists when group pf states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another and share in the working of common institutions” (Bull 1977, p. 13 cited Bellamy 2004, p. 8). The concept of international society is closely connected with the formation of the European Union and integration processes. The openness of the European Union to new members is clearly expressed in the Treaty of Rome (Article 237), the events of the 1960s may seem to indicate otherwise (Scholte, 2000).
Enlargement is a protracted and variable process, entailing five stages: application, application, negotiation, ratification, and implementation. The length of each stage differs from case to case, depending on the applicant country’s particular economic, political, and administrative circumstances, and on general circumstances within the EU itself. The Commission is formally and/or informally involved in each stage of the enlargement process, to a greater or lesser extent. The Commission’s informal involvement may not necessarily begin at the same stage of each enlargement, but it continues through some successive stages. There was some evidence to suggest that in the mid-1990s the idea of the unified area was already weakening (Bially 2003). There were pressures for exceptions, derogations, and opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty, all deriving from the claims of states which had acceded after the European Community had been set up (Luard, 1990). The Danes demanded and obtained at the Edinburgh summit of late 1992 opt-outs on aspects of the citizen’s Europe, on defense, and monetary integration; the British had earlier obtained opt-outs on the Social Charter, monetary integration, and so on. As numbers increased further, if such exceptions were demanded and allowed, as seemed likely on past performance, the Union would begin to look more and more like a traditional form of international society, rather than the unique form which it had become. The process of harmonizing interests would be slowed, the diversity of interactions externally increased, and the EU as an international actor made harder to sustain (Coates, 2000). Enlargement, therefore, created greater problems in maintaining the integrity,–the collective legal and political inheritance of the Union–even though in 1995 this was still defended by the member governments as something which new members must accept in total (Kymlicka, 2001). The complaint of the Eurosceptics in Britain that too much had been left open in the accession negotiations reinforced that argument: their implied accusation was that if an attempt had been made to reach a more comprehensive agreement it would have failed. The context of integration, which had encouraged a bandwagon effect in support of the ideology of Europe, and focusing upon cooperation, could be swapped for a context in which the search for exceptions would be sanctioned, and new hostilities encouraged (Acharya, 2001).
The international society can be defined as: “a society of states which includes commonly agreed values, rules, and institutions” (Bellamy 2004, p. 10). Article B of the Maastricht Treaty, for example, refers to the aim of ensuring the effectiveness of the TEU’s new measures through the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC). Heads of state and government, at the 1994 Corfu European Council, established a Reflection Group on the 1996 IGC and called on it to consider further enlargement as part of the context for that conference (Crawford, 2002). Moreover, effective decision-making, in the sense of legislation uniformly decided and implemented so that outcomes match objectives, also remains just an aspiration. As the Court of Auditors regularly discovers, member states may pay lip service to effective implementation but do not always have the capacity or the inclination to ensure it (and then they tend to use the Commission as a scapegoat for their failings). In the circumstances, a determination to avoid too much transparency and accountability might have been expected, and results so far suggest that despite pressure from several governments, the majority remain convinced of the practicality and desirability of only limited steps toward greater openness in EU governance (Booth, 2004). The attempt to balance efficiency in decision-making with the protection of national prerogatives, whether real or symbolic, necessarily focuses attention not only on the institutional balance in Europe but specifically on the Council. Whatever one’s theoretical (or even ideological) approach to integration, the Council is at the heart of decision-making in the EU Given the UK’s political culture of bureaucratic efficiency and political effectiveness (actual political practice being a different matter), such values have been given a particularly high priority by the British. This has been clear, for example, in the UK’s approach to its council presidencies (Keane, 2003).
The complexity of European governance could be increased still further if, in the interest of greater effectiveness rather than transparency, some other proposals are adopted. These would include the establishment of executive agencies to improve implementation over a range of policy areas, whether on the lines of the Court of Auditors or in new areas such as competition policy. Such agencies are perhaps most beloved of UK Conservative governments, whose deregulatory and privatization policies have encompassed the creation of a growing number of them. For the UK, in a European context, agencies might have the added advantage of taking away responsibilities from the Commission (Keane, 2003). The issue then becomes the extent to which the agency reports only to the Council or is accountable to the EP. It is the international aspect that, at a time of growing State power and increasing suppression of individual freedom, has led to the recent revival of this ideal. Today the supporters of the idea of “rights of man” are, throughout, supporters of international order as well as of individual liberty against the all-pervading power of the national State, which recognizes no “self-limitation” (Jellinek) in its relation towards its citizens or towards other States and peoples. They assail the sovereignty of the national State from within and without. Some recent draft Declarations of Rights of Man, such as that initiated by H. G. Wells and Lord Sankey or the Polish Declaration of Rights of Man, proceed on a similar pattern. The right to life and personal liberty, freedom of thought, and property rights is the inheritance of liberalism. But modern thought, and the influence of Soviet Russia in particular, is responsible for the addition of the right to work, the right to education, etc., while the citizen’s duty of service to the community is recognized as the necessary corollary (Kymlicka, 2001). Such rights and group rights, as the protection of minorities, are to be obligations imposed upon the States, and enforceable by the international community on behalf of the individual or the group concerned (Lawson, 2002). Such declarations thus form part of the constitution of a sovereign international community whose law is superior to that of the national State. They presuppose the power of the international community (whatever its size and constitution may be) to enforce its law against the States. “Governmental agencies, much more than corporate philanthropy, also currently play a major, positive-sum role in protecting, funding and nurturing non-profit organizations in every part of the earth where there is a lively civil society” (Cambridge 2003, p. 93).
Conclusion
In sum, an international community exists based on the common interests of the states and their mutual benefits. In this situation, enlargement increases the EU’s regional and global political clout, extends the EU’s reach into other countries, regions, and issues, and catalyzes internal decision-making reforms. Overall, though, the benefits have outweighed the costs in terms of the overall growth and development of the EU’s foreign relations and policies. The technical and constitutional form of this protection is a matter of comparatively secondary importance, as long as there is an uncompromising transfer of the resources of military and economic power to the international community, under whose protection the diversity of national life can survive and, indeed, unfold more freely than under the perpetual conflicts of rival national States. Modern economic conditions point to a particular development in global cooperation. Where a liberal economic system allowed capitalist, financial, industrial, and trade interests to develop autonomously, the result has been widespread internationalization, in the form of international investments, and monopolistic control of international markets.
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