With a new secretary-general now in charge and the memories of the bitter final years of his predecessor still vivid, a timely procession of books on the UN has been appearing to offer some fresh appraisals and insights into how things got this way and what, if anything, can be done.
Between 2002-2005, the UN University and the City University of Hong Kong organized a series of "dialogues" about the ethical challenges facing international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs). The result is this fascinating and timely volume, which addresses not only human rights narrowly construed, but also humanitarian aid and development.
"Economic Justice in an Unfair World" is a stimulating, well-researched book combining economic analysis, political philosophy, and contemporary policy, all focused on one key question: What does one mean by economic justice in a world cut through by inequalities of income, bargaining power, and human poverty?
This passionate book is a powerful conceptual, empirical, and normative critique of Rational Choice theory by a former practitioner. Rational Choice, Taylor argues, is more than a simple style of analysis and approach to problem solving: it is a hegemonic orthodoxy that has subverted psyches, societies, and cultures.
Sadly, discussions of the pricklier issues of law, terrorism, and security rarely follow a cool, pragmatic approach. Richard Posner provides just such a perspective on the relationship of the Constitution to the terrorist threat. Undaunted by controversy, he forthrightly addresses detention, harsh interrogation methods, limits of free speech, ethnic profiling, and the boundaries of privacy rights, among other hot-button topics.
"Much of the disagreement and controversy over Ramadan's significance arguably stems not from a disagreement over what he is on record as having asserted or done but from unexamined or unarticulated assumptions about liberal principles and what they demand of Muslims."
The possible future EU membership of Turkey has become one of the most hotly debated topics both in the EU and within Turkey itself. Underlying this debate are competing principles of international ethics.
Despite North Korea's antipathy to outside religious influence, it is primarily American NGOs with financial backing from religious organizations that have maintained development and exchange programs with the regime.
Arguing that issues of both emissions and subsistence should be comprehended within a single framework of justice, the proposal here is that this broader framework be developed by reference to the idea of "ecological space."
This article claims that it is not mutual benefit but mutual risk that grounds compatriot preference. Exposure to risks such as state abuse provide us with a reason to take our compatriots' interests seriously. The same argument, however, displays the limits of this reasoning, and also grounds a demanding obligation to aid other societies.