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IGCC remains highly committed to its
original field of study, and security policy implications
cross-cut all of IGCC's programs. Beyond preventive diplomacy and "track-two" initiatives,
for many years IGCC conducted teaching seminars for the academic and policy
communities on nonproliferation issues. IGCC training programs
such as "Public Policy and Nuclear
Threats" and "Public
Policy and Biological Threats" continue the IGCC tradition of
informing and instructing potential future decisionmakers.
As understanding of global environmental degradation and the transboundary
effects of environmental pollution grew throughout the 1990s, IGCC initiated
a research program in international environmental policy to respond to the
need for greater scholarly and policy attention to these issues.
The IGCC research program on the environment generally falls into four main
categories:
- Global environment issues such as biodiversity, ozone depletion, and
protection of rainforests. IGCC helped create a UC-systemwide program on
global climate change to bring objective scientific and technical expertise
to the United Nations climate change negotiations.
- Transboundary environmental issues such as pollution control, water
allocation, control of straddling oil fields, wildlife conservation, and
restoration of basic agricultural, environmental, and health services after
a military conflict.
- International fisheries and the Pacific Commons issues such as overfishing,
cooperative management of fish stocks, sharing of scientific information,
and prevention of foreign species introduction.
- Issues involving the interplay between environmental/health concerns
and trade agreements and the role of these concerns in determining international
lending practices.
Current projects focus on coastal water quality management
in Southeast Asia, conservation of biological diversity through forest
management in Malaysia, illegal harvest and trade in tropical timber,
and the effects of atmospheric brown clouds on agriculture in SE Asia.
After the end of the Cold War, international politics became more regionalized: conflict and cooperation still engage major powers,
but regions must be
treated on their own terms. To remedy the ad hoc nature of most regional
analysis and to strengthen its own projects, IGCC initiated "Reconceptualizing
Regional
Relations."
The project, directed by Profs. David Lake (IGCC) and Patrick Morgan
(UC Irvine), published its results in Regional Orders: Building Security
in a
New
World (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). This work complements and
advances IGCC's research
agenda on the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.
Past Programs
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