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Central Asia is a dynamic region with huge oil and gas resources. Instead of being a godforsaken part of the former USSR, as it was until recently, or a playground for the British-Russian Great Game of the nineteenth century, today there are five independent states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) with their own interests and problems. Instead of two players – Britain and Russia – now many outsiders have their fingers deep in the Central Asian pie. The region is not only energy rich, but being situated between Russia and China and close to Afghanistan and other potential trouble-spots, it has acquired also huge geostrategic importance.
The book is based, to a great extent, on the author's personal involvement in the region where he worked, when on Sabbatical from King’s College, London, as the Regional Adviser of the UN for Central Asia. Müllerson has visited Central Asia many times before and after his UN job and has been familiar with Central Asian issues since at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s when he worked as adviser to President Gorbachev of the USSR. The author's personal experience is reflected in the book. As Professor of International Law and Politics at King’s, Müllerson's analysis of Central Asian problems has been carried out in the wider context of world politics. Issues such as difficulties of democratization of Central Asian societies; the role and place of religion, especially Islam, in Central Asia; threats of religiously based or motivated terrorism; American-Russian, American-Chinese and Chinese-Russian rivalries and cooperation in the region are shown in the context of overall foreign policies of these states. In a way, Central Asia is shown as a microcosm of world affairs.
Concentrating on today’s problems, the book often looks back into history of Central Asian peoples. The main reason for such an approach is that not only is history seen and felt everywhere in the region; historic legacies, whether they go back to Genghis Khan or Tamerlane, or stem from the recent Soviet past, affect the resolution of contemporary issues and often these legacies are used (or abused) for the justification of current political choices. Considerable attention is also paid to specific characteristics of Central Asian Islam, human rights issues in the region, and Central Asian place in the ‘war against terrorism’.
The book should be of interest not only for specialists on Central Asia, on international law and politics generally, but also for the wider audience, for everybody who would like to know more on those ‘far-away countries’ of which most people in the West know too little.
Rein Müllerson is Professor and Chair of International Law at King’s College, London where he is also the Director of the MA Programme on International Peace & Security. In 2004, on Sabbatical from King’s, he worked as the UN Regional Adviser for Central Asia. In 1992-94 he was Visiting Centennial Professor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1991-92 Müllerson was First Deputy Foreign Minister of Estonia and in 1988-92 a Member of the UN Human Rights Committee. At the end of the 1980s-beginning of the 1990s he was the Head of the International Law Department of the Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the USR and Adviser to President Gorbachev on issues of international law. Since 1995 he is a Member of the Institut de Droit International. Professor Müllerson is the author of six books on international law and politics and more than 150 articles. His latest books are International Law: Rights and Politics (Routledge, 1994); Human Rights Diplomacy (Routledge, 1997) and Ordering Anarchy: International Law in International Society (Kluwer Law International, 2000).
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