This document outlines the course schedule and chapters for an International Relations course. It discusses 4 key problems and challenges in international relations: 1) global warming, 2) nuclear weapons, 3) chemical and biological weapons, and 4) preventing genocide and other human rights violations. For each challenge, it describes the issue and some potential solutions that have been attempted through international agreements and organizations.

1. INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS

2. COURSE SCHEDULE
 CHAPTER 1: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
INTRODUCTION AND STATES
 CHAPTER 2: NON-STATES
 CHAPTER 3: INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
(IGOs)
 CHAPTER 4: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES

3. PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The whole international community or large parts of it
confront some key problems and challenges.
Some of these problems and challenges will be
discussed in this chapter, and whether they were a
result of design, human activity or accidental events.

4. 1. GLOBAL WARMING
Scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), an IGO, have concluded that an increase
in the ‘greenhouse gases’ like CO2 is leading to too
much heat being trapped near the Earth’s surface.
They have termed this phenomenon ‘global warming’.

5. The major cause of global warming is the enormous
increase in carbon emissions which have resulted
from human activity such as the burning of fossil
fuels by heavy industry and emissions from aircraft
and motor vehicles.
Scientists have predicted that within 50 years the
Arctic ice cap will disappear entirely.

6. The Search for Solutions:
Governments could act to regulate deforestation,
and plant more trees.
We can save scarce energy resources by
introducing greater efficiency in our homes and
vehicles.

7. We could switch from fossil fuels to renewables
and be given incentives to do so.
Measures are needed to reduce the number of
flights and to improve the fuel efficiency of
aircrafts.

8. We live in a world where nuclear weapon states
still possess thousands of nuclear warheads.
The nuclear weapons are not simply bigger
equivalents of conventional bombs. The possible
effects of an attack using a nuclear warhead of
two megaton can scarcely be imagined.
2. NUCLEAR WEAPONS

9. Two megaton is roughly equivalent to the explosive
force of the total number of bombs exploded in
WWII, that is two million tons of TNT.
But in addition to the effect of the initial blast and
the shock wave caused, there are also impacts of the
fireball, electromagnetic pulse, and radioactive
fallout.

10. There are two major types of proliferation:
Vertical: in which nuclear weapon states
develop more powerful nuclear weapons.
Horizontal: in which more and more states
acquire nuclear weapons.

11. The Search for Solutions:
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation on Nuclear
Weapons was opened for signature in July 1968
and brought into force in March 1970.
The key objectives of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty were:
To stop the horizontal proliferation,
To limit the process of vertical proliferation.

12. In the summer of 2006, Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commision (WMDC), chaired by Dr.Hans Blix,
published its report.
They called urgently upon all parties to the Non-
Proliferation Treaty to rededicate themselves to the
principles and objectives of the Treaty and the
pledges they made in the original agreement.

13. 3.CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL
WEAPONS
• Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) weapons
are more accessible and low-cost than nuclear
weapons and yet also have the capacity to kill
thousands of people.
• Biological weapons consists of bacteria and
viruses, and include the Plague, Ebola, Lassa
fever, botulism and inhaled anthrax.

14. The Search for Solutions
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), signed in
1993, is the most comprehensive and intrusive
international chemical weapons agreement ever.
It prohibits not just the first use of chemical weapons
but all use of chemical weapons.

15. It also bans the production, development and
transfer of chemical weapons.
It enables the newly established Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to
monitor chemical plants around the world.
The CWC inspection regime began work in 1996.

16. 4. PREVENTING GENOCIDE AND
OTHER VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN
RIGHTS
The term genocide originated in the 20th century.
The UN Genocide Convention approved by the
General Assembly in 1948 defines genocide as an
act of ‘destroying, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group’, including killing,
seriously injuring or causing mental harm to
members of a group’.

17. Clearly, the Convention was passed in
response to the Holocaust, the attempt
by the Nazis in Germany to exterminate
the Jews, in which 6 million Jews were
murdered at death camps.
However, the intentions of the
Convention have not been translated
into effective action. The genocides in
Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia
could not be prevented by international
community.

18. The Search for Solutions
Although it is hard to find examples of significant
improvement in the prevention of genocidal violence,
there has been some modest progress.
An ambitious project, the International Criminal Court
(ICC), is now at work. It was established in April 2002.
The Court has a global remit to investigate war crimes
and crimes against humanity.

19. The North-South Divide
A big problem in international relations is the
polarization between the Advanced Industrial
Countries (AICs) of the Global North and the poverty-
stricken Global South Less Developed Countries
(LDCs).

20. The typical developed Global North state is one
where there is self-sustained economic growth in
all industrial sectors.
LDCs are, in contrast, characterized by low per
capita GDP, low per capita growth and low life
expectancy combined with high population
growth rates.

21. The Search for Solutions
In 1980, former West German Chancellor Willy
Brandt published a report in which the economic
liberalism modified to fit the needs of the Global
South.
It argued that the world trade system should adjust
its rules to enable the LDCs to gain a fair return on
their exports.