Detection and resolution of normative conflicts in multi-agent systems : a literature survey

Peer reviewedPostprin

The effects and the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court: a game-theoretic analysis

Traditional legal literature on the International Criminal Court (ICC) has generally sidestepped the question of enforcement. Approaches to questions of the Court’s effectiveness have also largely ignored the demand for credible, legitimate and relevant administration of international criminal justice. The said literature displays an obvious lack of concern for the impact of institutions such as the ICC on prospects of democratic transformations in post-conflict societies. This Thesis posits that the critical goals of the international criminal justice regime are best achieved by integrating concerns for democratic transitions in post-conflict societies in the debate about the effectiveness of the ICC. Building on a nascent game theoretic literature, the Thesis advances three theoretical models to show that: (i) because of a lack of distinction between crimes committed by government leaders on the one hand, and by opposition groups on the other, ICC prosecutions may incentivize leader crimes as opposed to deterring them; (ii) to enhance the effectiveness of the Court, leniency programs targeted towards lower-level perpetrators should be utilized (as is the case in anti-trust law enforcement and the fight against organized crime); and (iii) leniency programs may enhance deterrence (by making it costlier for leaders to commit crimes) and may also enable the ICC to gather convincing evidence of the commission of atrocities. This, in turn, is expected to lead to the collapse of political structures responsible for the commission of international crimes. The central insight of the Thesis is that the ICC could be both self-enforcing and relevant to questions of political transformation in post-conflict societies provided innovative approaches to law enforcement are used. The Thesis provides preliminary and counterintuitive theoretical pronouncements that need to be verified by further elaborations of the models and appropriate empirical investigations of the effects and the effectiveness of criminal prosecutions by the ICC

China and the Human Right to Health: Selective Adaptation and Treaty Compliance

The international community has devoted considerable energy to dialogue and exchanges with China on issues of treaty compliance in areas of trade and human rights, and while many improvements are evident in China’s legal regimes for trade and human rights, problems remain. Further, academic and policy discourses on China’s trade and human rights policy and practice are all too often conflicted by normative differences and illusions about them. The paradigm of “selective adaptation” offers a potential solution by examining compliance with international trade and human rights treaties by reference to the interplay between normative systems associated with international rule regimes and local socio-cultural norms that affect treaty interpretation and application.This paper will focus on China’s human rights discourse on human rights to subsistence and development, and China’s practices around the human right to health, as these provide useful examples of the selective adaptation paradigm. China’s official policies on the right to subsistence and development reveal the power and resiliency of official norms of governance and their capacity to temper international standards on human rights, while questions about China’s compliance with international standards pertaining to human rights in health warrant particular attention both because of the global implications of China’s handling of infectious diseases and the effects on the well-being of the Chinese people. The paradigm of selective adaptation suggests that questions about China’s compliance with international standards on human rights to health cannot be explained by reference to normative conflict or to the particularities of China’s socio-historical conditions. Rather, the problems seem primarily political and institutional. This, in turn, can help share local and international responses. Government commitments to greater transparency in reporting on infectious disease, increased government financial support for public access to health care, and a greater level of cooperation with international organizations charged with implementing human rights to health will be essential components of China’s effort to improve its record of compliance with international human rights standards concerning health

An interactive, generative Punch and Judy show using institutions, ASP and emotional agents

Using Punch and Judy as a story domain, we describe an interactive puppet show, where the flow and content of the story can be influenced by the actions of the audience. As the puppet show is acted out, the audience reacts to events by cheering or booing the characters. This affects the agents’ emotional state, potentially causing them to change their actions, altering the course of the narrative. An institutional normative model is used to constrain the narrative so that it remains consistent with the Punch and Judy canon. Through this vignette of a socio-technical system (STS), comprising human and software actors, an institutional model – derived from narrative theory – and (simplistic) technological interaction artifacts, we begin to be able to explore some of the issues that can arise in STS through the prism of the World-Institution-Technology (WIT) model

Finding Common Grounds: The Moral Machine Case

Master's Thesis in InformaticsINF399MAMN-PROGMAMN-IN

Endogenous networks and international cooperation

The rise of social network analyses in the social sciences has allowed empirical work to better account for interdependencies among actors and among their actions. However, this work has been, to a large extent, descriptive: it has treated these actions as exogenous and immutable. In many cases these networks describe actions like alliance formation or trade phenomena that are the outcome variables for programs of social scientific research. In this paper, I attempt to account for both interdependencies and the endogenous nature of networks by incorporating formal theory; helping answer the question of how these networks arise by looking at the incentives of actors to form links with each other. I discuss the appropriate solution concept for a network formation game, and present an algorithm for finding the equilibrium of these networks computationally as well as ways to compare the theoretical networks to observed ones in order to evaluate the fit of the theory. I apply these methods to the study of international cooperation a subject where both the interdependencies and purposive nature of actors must be accounted for. The theoretical network is able to reproduce a number of important observed characteristics. Still, there are more factors that must be accounted for if we want to understand how the network of international cooperation is formed

The role regime type plays with respect to intelligence cooperation: the case of South Africa and Israel

Magister Administrationis - MAdminThis thesis explores the intelligence cooperation exhibited between South Africa and Israel during the time periods of apartheid (1948-1994) and post-apartheid (1994-2015). Regime type is explored as a factor impacting on the intelligence relationship in both periods. Pertinent to the case study is the fact that South Africa and Israel’s regime type shared commonalities during the first period, but not the second. The thesis examines how these commonalities facilitated intelligence cooperation during apartheid, then turns to the question how the change in South Africa’s regime type after 1994 (whilst Israel’s remained the same) impacted on intelligence cooperation. In order to understand the significance of South Africa’s regime change on the intelligence relationship between the two states, a comprehensive theoretical framework is proposed in order to analyse how and why the internal policies of the two states redirected their intelligence relationship. Within this thesis, the concept of regime type is not used in a conventional way, it is framed through a constructivist notion that includes a focus on identity and how this shapes the two states’ intelligence bureaucratic behaviour. This constructivist framing is in turn juxtaposed to two other International Relations (IR) theories, namely: realism and liberalism. This thesis therefore explores how the system of apartheid in South Africa and a system that has been compared to apartheid in Israel brought the two states together on a national interest level. But, what constituted the perceived alignment of national interests and filtered down into a bureaucratic level is better understood through the constructivist notion of culture and identity that actually solidified the relationship. Culture and identity formed the basis of what made the relationship between the two states strong, and as per the focus of this thesis, manifested in intelligence cooperation between the two states that goes over and beyond what Realists would predict. Although liberalism can explain the apartheid relationship better, it cannot explain why the relationship was not severed after apartheid. Since the end of apartheid, the intelligence relationship has been deteriorating, but this has been a gradual process. This study investigates how regime type impact on intelligence cooperation. It applies the three main IR theories in order to explain and understand the post-apartheid South Africa-Israel relationship. It finds that although Realism and Liberalism are useful, interpreting regime type in a constructivist way adds significantly to explanations of the role regime type plays