The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States. By Robert Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 464p. $29.25.

American Political Science Review / Volume / Issue 04 / December 2002, pp 883-884 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/, Published online: 23 December 2002 Book Review INTERNATIONAL POLITICS The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States. By Robert Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 464p. $29.25. Cecelia Lynch a1 University of California, Irvine Robert Jackson's recent book The Global Covenant is a work in the tradition of the international society school that extends the perspective of that school to today's world events and theoretical debates. Jackson's argument has several important components: that we live in a society of states that operates according to particular norms having significant ethical implications for the conduct of world politics; that this society of states can be distinguished from both the amoral perspective of the (neo)realists and the universalism of cosmopolitans; that this world must be examined primarily through the words and actions of statespeople, its primary articulators; that this world is distinguished by values of antipaternalism, normative pluralism, and the observance of sovereign rights of nonintervention and self-determination; and that recent crises (e.g., the Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc.) demonstrate more the continued durability of this world (which has existed roughly since Westphalia) than its decline or demise. Taken together, the components of Jackson's thesis form a strong argument that draws on previous work, including primarily that of Hedley Bull, whose name is synonymous with the international society school, but also from Michael Oakeshott in theory and Terry Nardin in law. Jackson, however, employs the insights from these bodies of scholarship to develop his own thesis regarding the form, normative and ethical implications, and durability of the “global covenant.” This thesis also draws on his own previous work on Africa. It is certainly a thesis that holds considerable power and therefore must be treated seriously. It is also a thesis that remains problematic, and Jackson's assessment of its critics is generally inadequate. The global covenant, for Jackson, is both an empirical fact and something to be valued normatively. It is based on the concept of formal, de jure sovereignty in international law: that is, the notion that states respect each other's territorial integrity and political independence and thus refrain from any threat or use of force that violates another's sovereign boundaries. The global covenant, as such, also reduces “unnecessary political confrontation based on value conflict” (p. 182) over such issues as religion and ideology, and is therefore to be valued as contributing to international order and peace. The concept of the global covenant is based, for Jackson, on understanding international politics as a human activity and a type of human relations. Focusing on the human and rejecting the idea that international relations are determined by mechanical forces distinguishes his conception (and the international society school in general) from many forms of realism, particularly neorealism. On the other hand, Jackson insists that his conceptualization of world politics differs significantly from other powerful