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312. Briefly Noted
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- New York
313. Editors' Note
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- Change can occur in different ways. Sometimes it is revolutionary, as in France in 1789 or the "British Invasion" in 1963. More often, however, change tends to be evolutionary—proceeding subtly, discreetly, even, at times, imperceptibly. That is why many readers might not even notice that there are a number of changes, both visual and substantive, that distinguish this issue of EIA from those that have come before it. Look carefully at the front and back covers and you will notice that colors and fonts have been altered ever so slightly, that the front cover offers more information about what is actually in the issue, and that overall the appearance is neater and more accessible. The same can be said for the Contents page as well. You will also note that we are now employing the terms Essays and Features—the former to indicate shorter, non-peer-reviewed articles, the latter to indicate longer works that have undergone the extensive peer-review process. (For more on this, we refer you to "Guidelines for Submission" at the back of this issue.) In fact, the Contents page introduces a third new term, "Resources," which for the first time directs readers to a special page on the Carnegie Council website designed to provide a comprehensive list of related materials drawn from the Council's vast trove of publications and other products, including podcasts, videos, and transcripts. Whether you are pursuing research or simply curious, we are confident our new Resources page will be of great value, and we invite your feedback as to its format and utility. As important as the covers may be, what is of course far more important is what appears between them. And in this area, too, we have implemented some changes, specifically related to article length. In recent years a number of our readers have let us know that, as much as they have enjoyed and benefited from the unique ethical perspective of EIA, they had concerns regarding the length of some articles. Upon revisiting our submission guidelines we discovered that we had indeed violated Our own stated word prescriptions, and realized that we did not so much need to revise the guidelines as simply to enforce them. Consequently, you will find the following articles to be somewhat shorter (but no less valuable!) than before. Finally, an astute eye will no doubt notice that several new names appear on the masthead. As with any publication, editorial members come and go, and no doubt these names will change yet again in the future. That, after all, is as it should be.
314. The Human Rights Council: A New Era in UN Human Rights Work?
- Author:
- Yvonne Terlingen
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- Kofi Annan did more than any UN Secretary-General before him to stress the close link between human rights and peace and security. In his inaugural address to the newly created Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 19, 2006, he said: ''. . . lack of respect for human rights and dignity is the fundamental reason why the peace of the world today is so precarious, and why prosperity is so unequally shared.'' With the creation of the Human Rights Council, ''a new era in the human rights work of the United Nations has been proclaimed.''
- Topic:
- Security, Human Rights, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Geneva
315. Uganda's Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention
- Author:
- Adam Branch
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- With its 2003 ''Referral of the Situation Concerning the Lord's Resistance Army'' to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Ugandan government launched a legal process that, it claimed, would bring peace and justice to war-torn northern Uganda. The ICC prosecutor officially opened an investigation in response to the referral in July 2004, and in October 2005 the ICC unsealed arrest warrants, its historic first warrants in its historic first case, charging five of the top commanders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) with war crimes and crimes against humanity. For two decades, Uganda north of the Nile has been ravaged by a brutal civil war between the LRA and the Ugandan government, so any possibility of productive change is to be warmly welcomed. The sanguine predictions proffered by the Ugandan government and by the ICC's supporters, however, are called into question by doubts about the court's ability to achieve peace or justice in Uganda, doubts stemming from the specific way the ICC has pursued the Ugandan case, and because of more inherent problems with the ICC as a legal institution.
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- Uganda
316. Liability and Just Cause
- Author:
- Thomas Hurka
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- This paper is a response to Jeff McMahan's "Just Cause for War" (Ethics International Affairs, 19.3, 2005). McMahan holds, as many have, that there is a just cause for war against group X only if X have made themselves liable to military force by being responsible for some serious wrong. But he interprets this liability requirement in a very strict way. He insists (i) that one may use force against X for purpose Y only if they are responsible for a wrong specifically connected to Y; and (ii) that one may use force against an individual member of X only if he himself shares in the responsibility for the wrong. This paper defends a more permissive, and more traditional, view of just war liability against McMahan's claims. Against (i) it argues that certain 'conditional just causes' such as disarming an aggressor, deterring future aggression, and preventing lesser humanitarian crimes can be legitimate goals of war against X even if X have no specific liability connected to them. Against (ii) it argues that soldiers who have no responsibility for X's wrong may nonetheless be legitimately attacked because in becoming soldiers they freely surrendered their right not to be killed by enemy combatants in a war between their and another state, so killing them in such a war is not unjust. Though initially a criticism of McMahan, the paper makes positive proposals about conditional just causes and the moral justification for directing force at soldiers.
- Topic:
- War
317. The Inconveniences of Transnational Democracy
- Author:
- Luis Cabrera
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- Despite some limited moves toward openness and accountability, suprastate policy formation in such bodies as the World Trade Organization remains fundamentally exclusive of individuals within states. This article critiques the "don't kill the goose" arguments commonly offered in defense of such exclusions. It highlights similarities between those arguments and past arguments for elitist forms of democracy, where strict limitations are advocated on the participation of non-elites in the name of allowing leaders to act most effectively in the broad public interest. Advocated here is movement toward a strongly empowered WTO parliamentary body that would be guided in practice by a principle of democratic symmetry, attempting to match input to the increasing impacts of WTO governance. A parliament with co-decision powers broadly similar to those of the European Parliament is offered as a long-term institutional ideal.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
318. Crime and Punishment: Holding States Accountable
- Author:
- Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- Should states be held responsible and punished for violations of international law? The recent ruling by the International Court of Justice that Serbia cannot be held responsible for genocide in Bosnia reflects the predominant international legal position. But, such a position leaves open the possibility that states or non-state agents can never be held responsible for international crimes. This article argues that they can and should be. While most international ethicists and legal theorists reject the punishment of corporate entities such as states, this article argues that certain types of international violations can only be undertaken by states, and, as a result, states must be bear the responsibility for them. Drawing on some neglected strands in international law and political theory, the article sketches a potential institutional framework for the punishment of state crimes, particularly genocide and aggression.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- Bosnia and Serbia
319. Book Review: Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
- Author:
- Blake Michael
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- These two books are the inaugural releases in Norton's Issues of Our Time series, but they are linked by much more than this fact. Each is a measured attack on the cultural separatism prevalent in many academic and policy circles. According to the cultural separatism thesis, cultures or nations are morally central groups in the world; membership in such groups is both ethically significant and explanatorily powerful; and the borders of cultural and national groups must be preserved against outside influence. This thesis is rejected by both Appiah and Sen, in subtly different ways. Each book, moreover, is extraordinarily personal. Appiah and Sen illustrate their theoretical points with reference to their own experiences and the experiences of their families. The books represent excellence in philosophical reasoning, but only philosophers whose relationship to these issues is more than simply academic could have produced these works.
320. Book Review: Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues
- Author:
- Clare Chambers
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- In April 2006, Catharine MacKinnon was interviewed about her new book, Are Women Human?, for BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour." The presenter, Jenni Murray, had one main question that she repeated throughout the short interview to the exclusion of any discussion of MacKinnon's arguments: Wasn't the book's title simply too controversial to be taken seriously?