Tuesday 21 April 2009

the difference between security, trade and environmental diplomacy

The distinction between security, trade and environmental diplomacy is evident. Security diplomacy is part of the traditional diplomatic process, it is a measure that involves the old principles of diplomacy in that it is undertaken mainly in bilateral bases and has secrecy at the top of its agenda. It is a process mainly concerned with state centric needs, such as the maintenance of international or state security through ensuring the balance of power, maintaining the strategy of nuclear deterrence as in the Cold War and most recently, curbing the threat of global terrorism. That notwithstanding, security is important, however, with intense interdependence and globalization as well as global issues, increasingly makes trade and environmental diplomacy as important as security.
Trade which is more globalize than ever before draws to the international agenda negotiations in order to maintain a more if you like liberal peaceful environment for trade. This type of diplomacy is often done in multilateral bases, and thus opens up barrier that are against world trade and known as the western free-market. The idea of free market stands to maintain non-intervention by states or government in international market. What can be said here is that trade diplomacy is more flexible in that it can be carried out in multilateral or still at bilateral bases to maintain the rules of trade.
Lastly, with environmental problems increasingly being pushed up to the top of the ladder in international relations thus, made diplomacy in this field more relevant. Issues like climatic change, ozone depletion, deforestation, extinctions and lot more; needed rules and negotiations to contain more environmental degradation.
To conclude, what can be gainfully said is that security, trade and environmental diplomacy all have different roles they play. From the realist view, security is more important and as a result is more carried out by states. On the other hand, trade diplomacy mostly includes the liberal values of maintaining a free and stable environment for trade to exist, while environmental diplomacy incorporates both the liberal-realist values, for while the realist stresses that states are the only effective actor in diplomatic process the liberals focus more on corporations both governmental and non-governmental level.

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