As a preliminary issue, this chapter argues that the DSM regime embodies a dual-track regulatory system where national regulation by the sponsoring State plays a subordinate role complementary to international regulation of the ISA. Thereafter, it examines a network of international environmental obligations of the sponsoring State under the overarching principle of sustainable development, in accordance with both lex specialis of DSM and general international environmental law, drawing on the Seabed Disputes Chamber’s Advisory Opinion of 2011. That covers the sponsoring State’s obligation of prevention, obligation to apply the precautionary approach and obligation concerning environmental impact assessment (EIA). Then, it turns to the contractor, investigating its international environmental obligations to conduct EIAs and submit EISs, to prepare for and respond to environmental emergency, on environmental management and monitoring and to apply the highest environmental standards. The latter part refers frequently to the 2019 draft Exploitation Regulations and the still to be adopted Phase 1 Standards and Guidelines of the LTC.

Chapter 7 examines the detrimental effects that polarization between different groups can have on individuals, groups, communities, and societies. The book thereby contrasts itself with positive perspectives on polarization and conflict in society. One important aspect that may start important instances of group polarization is how to respond to dissenting opinions, and the affective and defensive responses dissenters may trigger. Fairness concerns come with an important dark side. For example, people may go to great lengths to protect their views that they live in fair and just societies and that their group and culture are involved in what is morally right. Indeed, desperately wanting to be involved in what is morally pure can strengthen important aspects of group polarization in our modern society. This is especially the case when groups have clear group boundaries, involve some form of (authoritative or moral) direct leadership, and when group members think their tribe is fighting for a worthy moral cause. Thinking of individuals as members of other groups in abstract terms facilitates enemy thinking between different groups. People tend to adhere more to fairness principles when they act out of their own individual responsibilities than when they feel responsible to defend their group interests.

Since the late 1990s, the EU has undertaken great efforts to stimulate and support China in going ‘green’. Begun as a form of development assistance, it quickly changed into multi-faceted cooperation in the form of dialogues, detailed (often joint) action programmes, knowledge transfer, technical cooperation, targeted subsidies and exchanges, over twenty-five years. Three research questions are asked. First, has there been a process of convergence, as captured by environmental and climate indicators, between the EU and China? The findings show that initially – for some one and a half decades – there was sharp divergence in indicators, in the presence of ever-intensifying EU–China cooperation. Only since around 2010 or so did this begin to change, and a slow process of convergence seems to have become firm by 2020. Second, can one observe a process of convergence of strategies and policies on climate and the environment between the EU and China? After a short period of paying lip service, policy convergence (and, later, credible enforcement) began to set in as soon as China and the EU concluded the Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership (2003), except for coal, where China remains at best hesitant. Third, has the sustained and wide-ranging EU effort to stimulate China to go ‘green’ actually worked? The broad answer is, given reasonable expectations (after all, there are many other influences on China’s policies than the EU alone), the EU stimulus has been well-received – occasionally even requested (e.g. carbon-trading, CDM, mine safety, sustainable forestry, etc). It shows that cooperative EU trade policy for purposes of value promotion can be effective.

This chapter sets out the challenges and controversies in public export financing in the EU. It puts forward a statement of the problem concerning the inadequacy of the international rule book in regulating Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) with a specific focus on non-transparency. The chapter then sets out what is known about the operation of ECAs internationally and in the EU, before highlighting what is unknown about both the market and the activities of ECAs. The chapter concludes with a call for greater data transparency to underpin international cooperation efforts to develop a more inclusive and sustainable legal framework to prevent a race to the bottom in the provision of subsidies in the form of public export finance and to promote the Sustainable Development Goals through the work of ECAs.

Interorganizational coordination is increasingly viewed as crucial to frontline crisis response. Contemporary crises often require the collective action of multiple organizations. Many researchers recommend integrating frontline responders of diverse organizations to make good use of scarce resources and synchronize their actions. In practice, frontline responders frequently choose fragmentation by dividing responsibilities and limiting interactions instead. This allows them to implement a fast response without being dependent on others. At the same time, it can lead to safety risks and suboptimal outcomes. Frontline responders face a dilemma, because they have an interest in pursuing both integration and fragmentation. It is useful to note that coordination may not always be the right course of action in a crisis. Even if it is, it does not necessarily need to be formal, as much coordination emerges in the operational field. For more structured ways of coordinating, the nature of the crisis and existing interorganizational relations are useful guides in how to organize the coordination. Generally, it must be conditional upon the situation at hand.

The ferocious US-China trade war, initiated by the United States, suggests that cooperation with China is under threat. Despite the consensus that foreign perceptions of China generally differ from those of other countries, no study tests this notion. We require a bilateral perspective that departs from the common approach, which examines trade preferences unilaterally without considering trading partner behavior and identity. Our survey experiments show that citizens generally strongly support reciprocal trade policy principles advanced by the WTO. At the same time, variations across countries prevail. Support for reciprocity in response to a free-trade initiative is significantly greater for traditional allies than for political adversaries like China. However, compared to Russia, protectionist attitudes towards China appear less severe. Overall, trade and foreign policy issues are more strongly intertwined than often assumed. As the growing anti-globalization sentiment is rooted in the identity of the other country, the threat to trade cooperation is more fundamental than existing studies suggest.

Chapter 3 elaborates on the linkages between technology and international institutions. It also introduces the guiding questions at the core of the book: how do international institutions respond to the promises and perils associated with transformative novel technologies? When do international institutions respond, when do they not respond, and why do their responses differ? Finally, how could institutional responses be designed in order to better facilitate the realization of technological promise and the avoidance of perils? The chapter contextualizes these questions within broader theoretical discussions in international regime theory and cooperation theory. A key point is that international institutions play a limited, albeit indispensable role in the regulation of transformative novel technologies. International institutions are no substitute for regulation at other scales, including at national levels, but are vital for managing the various transboundary aspects of transformative novel technologies.

America and Iran weathered together two centuries of thorny international politics. Often allies in a troubled Middle East, their cooperation enabled some social progress despite glaring missteps. Whatever surprises the region’s capricious politics brings, history has shown that US–Iranian collaboration offers more benefits than harm. “Iran” and “America” want to live on as beacons of humanism – neither as heroes nor hostages. Haunted by history, they each fight for their legacies. America tackles anew the vestiges of its racist institutions, while Iran pushes back on authoritarianism and intolerance. Their peoples hope for a free and tolerant future.

Evolutionary psychologists have long maintained that humans’ moral sense is essential to their success as a species and part of what makes humans unique among animals. Moral systems have functional roots, helping individual organisms survive, thrive, and pass on their genetic material. It is not despite anarchy but because of anarchy that humans have an ethical sense. Evolutionary theorists identify moral condemnation and binding morality as crucial for the emergence of other-regarding, altruistic behavior that makes liberal morality possible in the first place. When others harm us, or even third parties, we condemn, passing moral judgments and sometimes retaliating; we do not speak evil but speak of evil. Moral condemnation encouraged the development of moral conscience to avoid the outrage of, and often violent group punishment by, those who were wronged. This internalized sense of right and wrong in turn acted as a credible signal of cooperativeness that unwittingly and unconsciously paid material dividends. Group favoritism, also thought to have evolutionary origins, is moral in nature as well. Those early humans who felt obligated to contribute to the collective defense against common threats in an extremely dangerous environment could prosper enough to offset the competing incentives to free-ride within the group.

Chapter 3 opens by asking readers to recall a problematic conversation like an argument. It reviews what the language sciences have learned about what people expect when going into conversations, what makes conversations go horribly wrong, and what makes them run beautifully. The chapter emphasizes four principles of a successful conversation: The Maxim of Quality is described as a rule to tell the truth. This rule relates to people’s conversational expectations, as well as to our credibility as experts. The Maxim of Quantity is described as a rule to say as much as you need to but not more. This rule relates to respect because adjusting how much we share to what our listeners already know requires finding out about them. The Maxim of Relevance is described as a rule to stick to the point. This also relates to respect because adjusting what we share to what our listeners want to know also requires finding out about them. The Maxim of Manner is described as a rule to be clear. This relates to both style and substance, again emphasizing adjustments for our audiences. This chapter’s Worked Example shows how an airport staff morale problem stemmed from violated maxims.

Chapter 9 explores the overall risk of cybersecurity and cybersecurity resilience on the African continent. Africa ranks low on the 2018 International Telecommunication Union’s Global Cybersecurity Insecurity and the continent scores lowest of all regions in the five pillars: legal, technical, organizational, capacity building, and cooperation. With the rise of 4IR technologies, the importance of a national infrastructure is critical in evading cyber-attacks. This chapter goes on to explain how cyber disruptions impact different sectors and civil society.

This chapter provides an overview of the similarities and differences in the development of prosociality across cultural contexts and examines the role of social cognitive and motivational factors in shaping cultural diversity. We focus on helping and sharing, examined most extensively across cultures. Low-cost helping and sharing show similar developmental trajectories and levels across cultures. Development of costly helping diverges across cultures in the second year. Costly sharing diverges around middle childhood, coinciding with children’s adherence to cooperative norms of their society. Social cognitive foundations of prosociality develop along similar trajectories, suggesting that diversity in costly prosocial behaviors is best explained by motivational processes. New research suggests that collaboration influences motivational processes, producing similar levels of costly prosociality across diverse societies. To identify the psychological and sociocultural mechanisms underlying human development, it is critical to merge deep understanding of the everyday lives of children with theoretically guided experiments.

This chapter focuses on questions related to human cooperation, focussing in particular on punishment as a means of enforcing cooperation. We take child development processes as a means to investigate this, drawing on fieldwork material from China and Taiwan. As anthropologists would expect, we find that: (a) cooperation is not only a cultural phenomenon but also a historical and political one; (b) reciprocity is a key feature of human cooperation, but the manifestations of this in particular fieldsites are highly variable and sometimes surprising; and (c) cooperation in one domain of life tends to spill over into other domains of life. As noted, however, we go beyond standard anthropological accounts of cooperation by adding a set of questions regarding punishment and child development – questions that, in turn, may help bring the anthropological study of cooperation into closer dialogue with work being done by scholars in other disciplines on this important topic. The goal is to develop comparative questions about ethical life: ones anchored in species-level understandings of what it is to be human and to engage in human cooperation.