Erik Cornell provides a compelling comparative account of the rise of law, democracy, and human rights across the world, providing a broad and readable historical perspective on the origins of our institutions. Cornell¹s long experience in the diplomatic world including North Korea, Turkey and West Africa allows him to reflect on the evolution of societies command the attention of practitioners and theoreticians alike. This concise study offers a stimulating and ultimately optimistic rumination on the possibility of broadly accepted legal norms in modern national and international relations.
Here is the seed from which the pluralism and division of power grew that is regarded to be the fundamental element in the democratic state governed by the rule of law. This study underlines not only the technology and economics but also the ideas that offer important clues to the understanding of the world in which we live. It also offers alternative solutions to the problems of coexistence of peoples and nations belonging to different civilizations. There exists a road to political pluralism and the milestones of that road are rule of law, democracy and human rights. Viewed from a Northern European perspective, although all participants on that road may not become alike, tolerance and decency may lead us all forwards.
"A compelling comparative account of the rise of law, democracy, and human rights across the world, one that provides a broad and readable historical perspective on the origins of our institutions."
Francis Fukuyama, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University
"Revered for his skills as a diplomat, Cornell is much more than that: a representative of that elite of the diplomatic world whose deeper
reflections on the evolution of societies command the attention of
practitioners and theoreticians alike. This concise book offers a
stimulating and ultimately optimistic rumination on the possibility of
broadly accepted legal norms in modern national and international
relations."
S. Frederick Starr, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
"Here is the seed from which the pluralism and division of power grew that is regarded to be the fundamental element in the democratic state governed by the rule of law... A book well worth reading which, in a meritorious way, underlines not only the technology and economics but also the ideas that offer important clues to the understanding of the world in which we live."
Per Bauhn (writing in Svenska Dagbladet), Carolus Linnaeus University, Kalmar & Växiö
"A work that offers alternative solutions to the problems of coexistence of peoples and nations belonging to different civilizations. There exists a road to political pluralism and the milestones of that road are rule of law, democracy and human rights. Although all participants on that road may not become alike, tolerance and decency may lead us all forwards."
Torsten Örn (writing in Jönköpingsposten), Former Ambassador of Sweden to Russia and Germany, Former Director of the Political Department, Foreign Ministry of Sweden
248 pages
Published
by Bennett & Bloom, January 2013
About the author
ERIK CORNELL was commissioned into the Royal Svea Lifeguards of Sweden in 1953 before entering the University of Stockholm, from which he gained a BA in History and a Masters in Political Science. He joined the Swedish Royal Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1958 and served in Bonn, Geneva, Warsaw, Addis Ababa, and as Permanent Representative to the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. He was appointed Chargé d¹Affaires in Pyongyang, North Korea in 1975 thus opening the first and only Western embassy in the country. In 1977 he became Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission in Geneva, Ambassador to West Africa in 1983, and Ambassador to Turkey in 1990. After retiring he served as Chargé d¹Affaires in Sarajevo in 1996. Works include Turkey in the Twenty-first Century (2001), North Korea under Communism, Report of an Envoy to Paradise (2002 & 2005), and Revolutionärernas förräderi (The Treason of the Revolutionaries: Africa after the Cold War 2004).
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