Resolving or Exacerbating Disputes? The WTO's New Dispute Resolution System

In 1995 the dispute resolution system of the WTO was transformed to make it more effective in enforcing WTO rules. Ironically, the improvements in the system have contributed directly to greater conflict in the WTO. How can improving a system to resolve disputes actually exacerbate conflict? This article identifies a number of conflict‐enhancing consequences of the change in the dispute resolution mechanism. Conflict is not bad per se. Indeed, if the outcome of this conflict is that governments must better justify participation in the WTO, then conflict is good. But there is a danger that international courts are more likely than not to generate conflict, while the international legal and political system is less adept at weathering controversy and addressing valid public concerns. Left unaddressed, conflicts generated by international legal bodies can erode support for the international legal system and multilateral strategies in general. This article suggests solutions designed to build into internationally legalized processes political safety valves, greater political sensitivity, and improved accountability, as well as legitimacy enhancing devices. Demonstrated here in the case of the WTO, the analysis described applies to international legal systems generally.     

"Must not their languages be savage and barbarous like them?" Philology, Indian removal, and race science

This article highlights the federal government's role as a collector and arbiter of scientific knowledge of "the Indian," in projects directed by Lewis Cass, Albert Gallatin, and Henry R. Schoolcraft; examines the linguistic precursor to biological essentialism; demonstrates white philologists' reliance on Native tutors, some of whom also entered scientific and policy debates; and suggests why the federal government began moving toward English-only instruction even as biological notions of race gained ascendance. During the removal debates, Indian languages focused the attention of men of letters, statesmen, and the broader public. Peter S. Du Ponceau and Cass argued over the grammatical character of the "American languages," with the former praising them and the latter attacking those tongues and the "philanthropic" philology. At stake was the future of Indian affairs and inquirers explored Native languages for evidence of Indians' intellectual and moral capacity to be assimilated into U.S. society. In denying that language corresponded to social condition, Du Ponceau suggested that all Indians spoke according to a uniform, unchanging, and unique "plan of ideas." He and other participants in the debate, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Schoolcraft, began to define, linguistically, a distinct and fixed "Indian mind." Scholars of the early republic and antebellum era who wish to study scientific definitions of race must come to terms with linguistic ideas, which requires confronting the intercultural encounters, intellectual exchanges, and institutions through which they emerged.     

Three geographers in an archive: positions, predilections and passing comment on transient lives

Despite the existence of research conducted by geographers eschewing or professing religious faith, the influence of researchers and their methods have yet to receive critical attention within the study of religion. The experience of three geographers working on a three-year research project suggests that it is vital to reflect upon the inter-subjective relationships and methodologies used to reconstruct the religious past. How do different subject positions influence our selections from historical records? We also consider whether the spatialities of putatively 'religious' archives, whether formally or informally constituted, make a difference to the construction of historiographical knowledge. In attempting to answer these questions, the paper argues that developing an awareness of different types of positionality, vis-à-vis religious faith and practice, combined with reflexivity, vis-à-vis methodology, can enrich the interpretative reconstruction of the religious past.     

Large game, agricultural land, and settlement pattern change in the eastern Mimbres area, southwest New Mexico

The 12th-century depopulation of large villages in the Mimbres region of the US Southwest has been attributed to a number of causes, including resource stress. This study combines archaeological evidence and models of environmental conditions in the eastern Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico to assess the magnitude and timing of food stress from a combination of a period of reduced precipitation and the effects of prolonged hunting and farming activities on the landscape. Results indicate that large game in the area was quite sensitive to hunting pressure, and was locally depleted long before settlement reorganization occurred. Access to arable land was somewhat reduced around the time of settlement reorganization, but productive land remained locally plentiful. Although the settlement reorganization did not improve access to large game or arable land, farmers’ perceptions of below-average conditions for agriculture relative to their expectations and past experience would have contributed to decisions to move.