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6011. Precommitment Regimes for Intervention: Supplementing the Security Council

Author:
Robert O. Keohane and Allen Buchanan
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
As global governance institutions proliferate and become more powerful, their legitimacy is subject to ever sharper scrutiny. Yet what legitimacy means in this context and how it is to be ascertained are often unclear. In a previous paper in this journal, we offered a general account of the legitimacy of such institutions and a set of standards for determining when they are legitimate. In this paper we focus on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council as an institution for making decisions concerning the use of military force across state borders. The context for this topic has changed over the last decade as a result of the ongoing development of the responsibility to protect (RtoP) doctrine and extensive discussions about it in the United Nations. Yet the mostly widely accepted proposals for RtoP still require Security Council authorization for forceful intervention, and strictly limit the conditions under which such intervention may take place.
Topic:
United Nations

6012. Globalizing Responsibility for Climate Change

Author:
Steve Vanderheiden
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
How is the just assignment of climate change mitigation costs related to the fair allocation of burdens for climate change adaptation? In distributing the costs associated with climate change, most scholars have focused exclusively upon mitigation burdens, which reduce ongoing contributions to climate change, primarily through greenhouse gas abatement efforts. Few consider the distribution of adaptation costs, which concern projects that seek to minimize harm from human-induced climate change. This article explores both, grounding each in the justice framework appropriate to each activity, with mitigation efforts based in distributive justice and adaptation activities in corrective justice, and outlines an overarching account of responsibility that! links the two. From such an account, it suggests, a more coherent view of the tradeoffs between mitigation and adaptation is possible, enabling a more integrative policy framework for linking ongoing efforts in one category with required burdens in the other.
Topic:
Climate Change and Globalization

6013. "The Evolution of International Security Studies" by Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen

Author:
Ken Booth
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The book contains a recognizable mix of Copenhagen and English School viewpoints, which, according to Ken Booth, means that there is altogether too little about war, and altogether too much about the niceties within constructivist and poststructuralist discourses.

6014. "International Criminal Law and Philosophy," Larry May and Zachary Hoskins, eds.

Author:
Pablo Kalmanovitz
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
"International Criminal Law and Philosophy" raises fundamental questions and examines novel issues in the emerging field of international criminal law. May and Hoskins have provided a valuable contribution to current multidisciplinary debates on the subject.
Topic:
Security and Environment
Political Geography:
Yugoslavia

6016. "Protectors of Privacy: Regulating Personal Data in the Global Economy" by Abraham L. Newman

Author:
Judith Wagner DeCew
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Abraham Newman has written a thoughtful and provocative book about the protection of privacy and how it has evolved in two dramatically different ways in the European Union and the United States over the past 50 years.
Topic:
Intellectual Property/Copyright
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

6018. Briefly Noted

Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Political Geography:
China, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe

6019. Graceful Decline? The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment

Author:
Paul MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
How do great powers respond to acute decline? The erosion of the relative power of the United States has scholars and policymakers reexamining this question. The central issue is whether prompt retrenchment is desirable or probable. Some pessimists counsel that retrenchment is a dangerous policy, because it shows weakness and invites attack. Robert Kagan, for example, warns, “A reduction in defense spending . . . would unnerve American allies and undercut efforts to gain greater cooperation. There is already a sense around the world, fed by irresponsible pundits here at home, that the United States is in terminal decline. Many fear that the economic crisis will cause the United States to pull back from overseas commitments. The announcement of a defense cutback would be taken by the world as evidence that the American retreat has begun.” Robert Kaplan likewise argues, “Husbanding our power in an effort to slow America's decline in a post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan world would mean avoiding debilitating land entanglements and focusing instead on being more of an offshore balancer.... While this may be in America's interest, the very signaling of such an aloof intention may encourage regional bullies.... [L]essening our engagement with the world would have devastating consequences for humanity. The disruptions we witness today are but a taste of what is to come should our country flinch from its international responsibilties.” The consequences of these views are clear: retrenchment should be avoided and forward defenses maintained into the indefinite future.
Topic:
Disaster Relief
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and China

6020. Europe's Troubles: Power Politics and the State of the European Project

Author:
Sebastian Rosato
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
For a decade after the end of the Cold War, observers were profoundly optimistic about the state of the European Community (EC). Most endorsed Andrew Moravcsik's claim that the establishment of the single market and currency marked the EC as “the most ambitious and most successful example of peaceful international co - operation in world history.” Both arrangements, which went into effect in the 1990s, were widely regarded as the “finishing touches on the construction of a European economic zone.” Indeed, many people thought that economic integration would soon lead to political and military integration. Germany's minister for Europe, Günter Verheugen, declared, “[N]ormally a single currency is the final step in a process of political integration. This time the single currency isn't the final step but the beginning.” Meanwhile, U.S. defense planners feared that the Europeans might create “a separate 'EU' army.” In short, the common view was that the EC had been a great success and had a bright future.
Topic:
Disaster Relief
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Germany