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Begin New Search Content Type Journal Article Publishing Institution Carnegie Council

41. NSA Management Directive #424: Secrecy and Privacy in the Aftermath of Edward Snowden

Author:
George R. Lucas, Jr.
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Whatever else one might say concerning the legality, morality, and prudence of his actions, Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, is right about the notion of publicity and informed consent, which together constitute the hallmark of democratic public policy. In order to be morally justifiable, any strategy or policy involving the body politic must be one to which it would voluntarily assent when fully informed about it. This, in essence, was Snowden's argument for leaking, in June 2013, the documents that revealed the massive NSA surveillance program: So long as there's broad support amongst a people, it can be argued there's a level of legitimacy even to the most invasive and morally wrong program, as it was an informed and willing decision. . . . However, programs that are implemented in secret, out of public oversight, lack that legitimacy, and that's a problem. It also represents a dangerous normalization of "governing in the dark," where decisions with enormous public impact occur without any public input.
Political Geography:
United States

42. The International Rule of Law: Law and the Limit of Politics

Author:
Ian Hurd
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The international rule of law is often seen as a centerpiece of the modern international order. It is routinely reaffirmed by governments, international organizations, scholars, and activists, who credit it with reducing the recourse to war, preserving human rights, and constraining (albeit imperfectly) the pursuit of state self-interests. It is commonly seen as supplanting coercion and power politics with a framework of mutual interests that is cemented by state consent.

43. Hobbes on the International Rule of Law

Author:
David Dyzenhaus
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Perhaps the most influential passage on the rule of law in international law comes from chapter 13 of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. In the course of describing the miserable condition of mankind in the state of nature, Hobbes remarks to readers who might be skeptical that such a state ever existed that they need only look to international relations—the relations between independent states—to observe one: But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condition of warre one against another; yet in all times, Kings, and Persons of Soveraigne authority, because of their Independency, are in continuall jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.

44. International Law and the Mediation of Culture

Author:
Christian Reus-Smit
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
When international relations scholars think about international law they either ignore culture or offer highly deterministic accounts of its role. For the majority of scholars, international law is a rational construction, an institutional solution to the problem of order in an anarchical system, a body of rules and practices that reflect the contending interests and capabilities of major states. Issues of culture barely rate a mention. For others, culture is the deep foundation of international law, the structuring "mentality" that gives law its form and content. International law, from this perspective, is a Western cultural artifact, globalized through centuries of imperialism and hegemony. These contrasting views lead to different expectations about the future of international law in today's culturally diverse international order. For rationalists, law's fate will be determined by the shifting configuration of interests that accompany new functional challenges and great power transitions. For the more culturally attuned, there are two possibilities. One is that functional utility will replace culture as law's foundation. International law may well be a Western cultural artifact, but "rational buy-in" will sustain it in a multicultural world. The other, more pessimistic, expectation is that the rule of international law will be fundamentally undermined by cultural diversity, particularly as rising non-Western powers articulate and promote markedly different cultural norms and values.

45. Drones and the International Rule of Law

Author:
Rosa Brooks
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The international rule of law hinges on the existence of a shared lexicon accepted by states and other actors in the international system. With no independent judicial system capable of determining (and enforcing) the meaning of words and concepts, states must develop shared interpretations of the law and the concepts and terms it relies on, and be willing (mostly) to abide by those shared interpretations. When such shared interpretations exist, key aspects of the rule of law can be present even in the absence of an international judicial system; state behavior can be reasonably predictable, nonarbitrary, and transparent; and accountability can also be possible, albeit mainly through nonjudicial mechanisms.

46. Kosovo to Kadi: Legality and Legitimacy in the Contemporary International Order

Author:
Ruti Teitel
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Whence does international law derive its normative force as law in a world that remains, in many respects, one where legitimate politics is practiced primarily at the national level? As with domestically focused legal theories, one standard answer is positivistic: the law's authority is based on its origin in agreed procedures of consent. This is certainly plausible with respect to treaty obligations and commitments that derive from the United Nations Charter, but it leaves customary international law vulnerable to legitimacy critiques-of which there is no shortage among international law skeptics. Even with respect to conventional international norms, such as treaty provisions, there is often a sense that such consent is democratically thinner than the public consent to domestic law, particularly fundamental domestic law, constitutional norms, and derivative principles of legitimate governance. State consent in international law, in this view, is often a very imperfect proxy for democratic consent to international legal norms. While it is obvious to international lawyers why (as a matter of positive law doctrine) state consent should make international norms prevail over domestic norms to which there is arguably deeper democratic consent, persistent critics of international law have questioned whether this should be so as a matter of legitimacy.
Political Geography:
United Nations

47. Sovereign Wealth Funds and Global Justice

Author:
Chris Armstrong
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Dozens of countries have established sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in the last decade or so, in the majority of cases employing those funds to manage the large revenues gained from selling resources such as oil and gas on a tide of rapidly rising commodity prices. Rather than using those revenues for day-to-day government expenditure, sovereign wealth funds ring-fence them for longer-term investments or to smooth expenditure over time in the light of impending pension crises. In building diverse portfolios on international stock and real estate markets, states also reduce their vulnerability to fluctuating exchange rates, volatile commodity prices, or the likely exhaustion of natural resource supplies in the decades to come.

48. On Rights to Land, Expulsions, and Corrective Justice

Author:
Margaret Moore
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
This article examines the nature of the wrongs that are inflicted on individuals and groups who have been expelled from the land that they previously occupied, and asks what they might consequently be owed as a matter of corrective justice. Such cases-in which individuals and groups are expelled, their property is expropriated, and their land is subsequently settled by other people-are not unusual. They include the expulsion of Germans from the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1947; the expulsion of (mainly) Greek Cypriots from the north of Cyprus following the Turkish invasion there in 1974; and the expulsion of Muslim Bosniaks from what is now called the Republic of Srpska, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, between 1991 and 1995. Historically, there are numerous other cases of "ethnic cleansing" and border redrawing. The injustice with which this article is concerned is also foundational to the current dominant societies in the Americas and Australasia.
Political Geography:
America, Australia, and AustralAsia

49. Coalitions of the Willing and Responsibilities to Protect: Informal Associations, Enhanced Capacities, and Shared Moral Burdens

Author:
Toni Erskine
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
"Coalition of the willing" is a phrase that we hear invoked with frequency-and often urgency-in world politics. Significantly, it is generally accompanied by claims to moral responsibility. (Such appeals recently bolstered calls to establish a coalition of the willing to intervene in Syria.) Yet the label commonly used to connote a temporary, purpose-driven, self-selected collection of states (and sometimes nonstate and intergovernmental actors) sits uneasily alongside these assertions of moral responsibility. This unease might be attributed to its association with a particular case. For some, the label was tainted when the United States led a "coalition of the willing" into Iraq in ostensible response to the threat of weapons of mass destruction: the actual willingness of all of those states initially announced as members is as contested as the legitimacy of the 2003 offensive, the ensuing protracted conflict, and the subsequent occupation. Nevertheless, the idea-and ideal-of a coalition of the willing has persisted beyond the infamy of that one iteration. The problem is, rather, that it is unclear how to speak coherently about assigning moral responsibilities-and apportioning blame-in relation to such ad hoc associations. Can coalitions of the willing be considered bearers of duties? Alternatively, should our calls to action-and our cries of condemnation in the wake of action that is stalled, ineffective, or deemed unjust-be directed toward their constituents? Or should our attention be redirected altogether, toward more formal, enduring and, arguably, legitimate organizations?
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

50. The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves by Richard Ned Lebow

Author:
Alan Wolfe
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves, Richard Ned Lebow (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 431 pp., $103 cloth, $34.99 paper. The Politics and Ethics of Identity dazzles the reader with its ambition and erudition. Its theme is grand: nearly all the claims made by social theorists emphasizing the importance of identity are wrong because human beings and the associations they create, including nation-states, can do without it. Its breadth is startling, and includes brilliant textual analyses of, among other things, Greek epic poetry, the operas of Mozart, Germany's search for a classical past, the contemporary conservative Christian book series Left Behind, and science fiction. If all this is not enough, it also contains important theoretical discussions of the nature of narrative and the question of whether modernity implies a sharp break with the past.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Germany and Cuba