A collective monograph, The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Exploring New Horizons from the series “Routledge Studies on Asia in the World” is an example of a timely, comprehensive, and unbiased analysis of the largest Eurasian interstate association—the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (hereinafter the SCO, the Organization).Footnote 1
The book was written by an international team of authors from Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, and Uzbekistan. Interdisciplinary in content, the project has brought together researchers in law, political science, international relations, history, economics, etc. It is carried out in line with contemporary international studies of international organizations’ law and amply mirrors the current state and potential of the SCO. It is of necessity to endorse the editors’ idea to avoid unilateral assessments of the SCO Member States’ authors therefore the chapters are written by two or three researchers from different countries; and to evaluate the Organization’s activity primarily in light of regional security. As well as the importance of the SCO, its global outreach may have been accentuated, especially after Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 and the US government’s anti-Chinese sentiments, including recent sanctions against China.
The subject of the analysis is both the nature and activities of the Organization and the specifics of its Member States, which have much in common: strong influence of traditions, religion, and Soviet law, etc. The monograph reveals the reasons for the unification of states within the SCO, their relations, and how well the SCO responds to challenges related to labour and migration, energy, environmental protection, transport, and logistics links. The approach reflects the conditions for the national legal implementation of international obligations by the SCO members.
Complemented by diagrams, graphs, and tables, the monograph presents valuable material on the evolutionary perspectives of the international organization and rethinking of the SCO’s essence itself.
The monograph expounds essential features of the Eurasian concept of human rights aimed to balance the traditional values of the Asian world and generally accepted legal norms. The authors believe that the universal concept of human rights should be modified and supplemented with a regional one—the Eurasian, in particular, as it is characterized by tolerance, peacefulness, co-operation, Eurasian geopolitical balance, etc. Alongside this, the authors have deficiently focused on the Eurasian concept of human rights and rather have brought up the issue and called for its further solution.
In any event, the concept prepares the ground for the search for opportunities and expedient justifications to establish the Eurasian Body of Human Rights within the SCO. This idea has become the subject matter of the Russian researchers’ special project.
The book consists of three parts: “Building a Basis: Roots and Grounds,” “Moving Through the Levels of Cooperation,” and “Looking Ahead: To New Prospects and Horizons.”
The monograph states that the SCO is expanding and deepening the formats and co-operation priority areas. The trend complies with the Charter of Organization proclaiming human rights’ protection, the raising of the population’s living standards, the sovereignty protection, and combating the three evils: terrorism, separatism, and extremism. However, there are barriers to implementation: bureaucratization in decision-making, Russia and China’s discrepancies on the future of the SCO, and co-operation mechanisms. Additionally, there is the lack of a lucid mechanism to implement the goals and objectives of the SCO, the international acts of which are often non-binding.
Obviously, joint activity is of paramount importance for the growth of wellbeing and reconciliation of current contradictions. The greatest success has been achieved in cultural exchange and education (e.g. the SCO University was established in 2008). However, the co-ordination of other activities between the countries remains weak.
The study identifies the circumstances hindering the contacts in the humanitarian sphere, namely civilizational diversity, the lack of common values, and the absence of a universal language for communication. Presumably, the Eurasian concept of human rights, declared by the authors, could become a unifying idea. Evidently there is a contradiction between the Eurasian approach to human rights and the statements on the absence of common values. According to Olga Bogatyreva and Aida Orozobekova:
[t]he SCO countries have not managed to fully use their cultural, historical and spiritual potential in their foreign policy, unlike Western European countries, which are united by common values and are successfully using collective “soft power” resources in the international arena. (p. 89)
The SCO’s interaction with international organizations within the environmental protection agenda (in particular, with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)) is the most promising among the perspectives of SCO’s operation. Rich natural resources, transboundary rivers, common environmental problems, and the interest of the SCO members in their collective solution create necessary prerequisites for greater emphases on environmental issues.
The absence of international legal obligations in the SCO is compensated for by the elaboration and adoption of recommendatory acts, and the conducting of regular meetings. The list of measures implemented in recent years acknowledges the growth of joint efforts to combat climate change, protection, and rational use of water resources, etc. Much has been done to resolve water problems, though the authors conclude that there is still a significant potential to resolve the interstate water collisions.
The Organization envisages and performs various economic projects, shifting away from regional security issues. Trade relations between the countries is intensifying and revolves primarily around the energy sector.
Unfortunately, there is a significant obstacle to face, namely that “each country prioritizes its own national economic interests over regional cooperation” (O. Arkhipova and A. Chukreyev, p. 151). China, Russia, and Kazakhstan form the mainstream of the Organization’s economic agenda, but the trade volume in some of the SCO countries is small, and not all of them are able to expand mutual trade within the SCO. The legal framework is just being developed, thus the soft law acts dominate. The regulation is based on domestic law, bilateral agreements made between the states outside the SCO, and within the frame of other international organizations.
The monograph tackles some other vital issues, in particular the efforts of the SCO states to integrate the labour market. Despite the common past and the current problems, labour legislation of the SCO Member States varies greatly. There is an urgent necessity for its unification by the means of International Labour Organization (ILO) standards. However, the degree of their influence hinges on the place of international law in the national legal systems. Political differences and the lack of an economic integration strategy hamper the common labour agreements’ conclusion. It happens against the background of the increase in labour migration flows and unfavourable working conditions.
Active trade and economic activities stipulate collaboration in the logistics sector. It is in high demand and the SCO Charter declares the encouragement of transport policy. Alongside this, there are factors hindering the policy. They are non-consensual regulations, poor road infrastructures, customs barriers, and others. Once again, we face the case that is characteristic for the operation of the Organization, namely the necessity for joint efforts. Some results have been achieved, but tangible results are yet to come. Obviously, as the new SCO members have remarked, a lot will depend on successful joint projects in economy.
The authors of the reviewed monograph managed to reveal the essence of the current state and prospects of the SCO. In total, the idea of the international organization’s high potential is expressed. Simultaneously, one feature of the SCO runs as a common thread throughout the book. It is the contradiction between the SCO’s capacities, high expectations, and moderate results; between pressing needs and the lack of political will to correct the situation; between the need to harmonize the Member States’ legal space, to join efforts, and to conduct individual countries’ own policies, which are contrary to common interests.
However, the Organization is an important means of interaction between a number of large states with shared views on many issues. Undoubtedly, some progress has been made and thus there are the grounds to proceed with the work and to strengthen the SCO.
The monograph that came out in the reputed international publishing house and is indexed in the Scopus database is a vivid example of a keen interest in regionalization, particularly spotted against the background of slowing down the processes of legal regulation at the universal level and the importance of regional and multi-polar global geopolitics and alliance-making activities.
