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81. Drones, Risk, and Perpetual Force

Author:
Christian Enemark
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
How should we conceptualize the use of missile-equipped uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones") in the U.S. "war on terror"? If violence of this kind is to be effectively restrained it is necessary first to establish an understanding of its nature. To this end, it is useful to focus on those theatres of the war where drones are the dominant platform for violence (such as in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia), rather than where they support primarily ground-based efforts (such as in Afghanistan and Iraq). The analysis in this article is presented in two parts. The first part considers whether drone strikes are better conceptualized as acts of war or of law enforcement. If it is difficult to conceptualize drone-based violence as acts of war, then such violence may not be captured by the traditional jus ad bellum (just resort to war) framework within just war theory. And if drone strikes do not constitute a law enforcement practice, the peacetime ethics of criminal justice may not apply either. One possible solution is to develop and apply a legitimization framework of jus ad vim (just resort to force) in which vim is "force short of war," although this depends upon the sustainability of a vim/bellum distinction.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia

82. Arctic Stewardship: Maintaining Regional Resilience in an Era of Global Change

Author:
Oran R. Young
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
That the Arctic is undergoing transformative changes driven in large part by external forces is no longer news. The high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, which are not themselves significant sources of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) or short-lived climate pollutants (such as black carbon soot), are experiencing effects attributable to climate change that are equal to or greater than those occurring in any of the planet's other large regions. Prominent among these effects are rising surface temperatures, a deepening of the active layer of the permafrost, the collapse of sea ice, increases in the intensity of coastal storm surges made possible by the retreat of sea ice, the accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and the acidification of marine systems. The deposition of black carbon in the high north alone - almost 60 percent of which is thought to originate in Europe - appears to account for half or more of the increase in temperature occurring in the Arctic. Positive feedback processes, such as lowered albedo (that is, the capacity of Earth's surface to reflect incoming solar radiation back into space) following the melting of ice at sea and snow on land, have the effect of magnifying the impact of these external forces. Nowhere is the challenge of adapting to the impacts of climate change more urgent than in Arctic coastal communities confronted with the need to relocate to avoid physical destruction. And nowhere are the threats to individual species (for example, the polar bear) and whole ecosystems more severe than they are in the Arctic, where biophysical changes are outstripping the capacity of plants and animals to adapt to altered conditions.

83. Introductory Note

Author:
Steve Vanderheiden and Jonathan Pickering
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Recent developments in climate policy have done little to suggest that the world is acting quickly enough to avoid a dangerous rise in global temperatures. Despite some important steps in national policy-making-including the commencement of Australia ' s carbon pricing mechanism and the piloting of subnational emissions trading in China - the polarized nature of the climate debate in the United States continues to obstruct progress. Moreover, a substantial gap remains between the current policies of various countries and the level of mitigation needed to stay within the internationally agreed limit of a degrees Celsius rise in global temperature. To some observers, the United Nations climate change conference in Durban in 2011 offered hope for a long-term agreement that would be more inclusive than the Kyoto Protocol by securing the participation of major developing countries, such as India and China (which do not having binding mitigation commitments under the protocol), as well as developed countries, such as the United States (which failed to ratify the protocol). Yet, as it becomes increasingly clear that global emissions will need to peak within the next few years if we are to stem global warming, a dramatic change in short-term policies is also required.
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Australia

84. "If Equity's In, We're Out": Scope for Fairness in the Next Global Climate Agreement

Author:
Steve Vanderheiden, Jonathan Pickering, and Seumas Miller
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
In the final hours of the United Nations climate change conference held in Durban, South Africa, in late 2011, senior negotiators from wealthy and developing countries clustered in a widely reported "huddle" to resolve out- standing points of discord on how to launch negotiations for a long-term global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Among the statements voiced in the huddle, one of the most intriguing was attributed to the lead United States negotiator, Todd Stern: "If equity's in, we're out." In other words, if the resulting decision contained any references to the term "equity," the United States would refuse to participate. As it transpired, the United States and like-minded countries succeeded on this point. The agreed upon Durban Platform for Enhanced Action contained no references either to equity or to the "common but differentiated responsibilities" of all parties for protecting the climate system. These omissions were notable since both are core principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, Article), under whose auspices the negotiations took place.
Political Geography:
United States, South Africa, and Durban

85. Climate Justice and Capabilities: A Framework for Adaptation Policy

Author:
David Schlosberg
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
We are already living with climate change. While the political arguments about causes and responses drag on, the people who are directly affected by its very real and increasing effects are beginning to face the urgent new reality of adaptation. As has been well documented, actual trends for a number of indicators - warming, rising sea levels, and extreme weather, for example - have far exceeded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ' s (IPCC) predictions of just a few years ago. At the same time, one of the major political discourses surrounding climate change policy, at both the global and local level, has been that of climate justice. Climate justice theorists, governments of the most vulnerable nations, and activists and organizations in both local and global civil society have articulated a range of frameworks for understanding the relationship between the effects of climate change and conceptions of justice and fairness. These approaches include fairly straightforward polluter pays models (based on historical responsibility), fair share models (based on the equal allocation of emissions), and various rights-based models (such as development rights, human rights, and environmental rights). The strong assumption behind these models is that normative theories of climate justice can ground global climate policies. The question here is how those can be applied to the reality and necessity of adaptation.

86. Coaxing Climate Policy Leadership

Author:
Steve Vanderheiden
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
With the failure of the international community to negotiate a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol in late 2011, and with little prospect of U.S. ratification of any treaty framework that includes binding green¬house emission targets, hope for a sustainable and effective international climate policy appears dim. As of 2012, only Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union continue to endorse binding post-Kyoto greenhouse emissions targets, with countries representing half the emissions controlled under Kyoto rejecting any further binding mitigation commitments in the absence of a treaty framework that includes the United States. Further, the remaining commitments are likely to be tested by political and economic turmoil that strains the ability of the governments to maintain them. While the "roadmap" that emerged from the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-17)of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)-held in Durban, South Africa-calls for a post-Kyoto treaty to be negotiated by 2015 and to take effect by 2020,ongoing reluctance by China, India, and the United States to accept binding emissions caps threatens to frustrate progress toward any such future agreement. Given the rapidly closing window of opportunity to begin reversing current trends of increasing global emissions and to eventually stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at levels that would prevent the dire consequences predicted by "business as usual" trajectories, significant mitigation action remains urgently needed, with climate change adaptation programs becoming increasingly important.
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand

87. The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice by Rainer Forst

Author:
Henry S. Richardson
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The Right to Justification, a thoughtfully selected, tightly knit, and wide-ranging collection of Rainer Forst’s essays in moral and political theory, provides a useful introduction to the thought of one of the most exciting political philosophers working today. By lineage and position, Forst is heir to the Critical Theory school of Horkheimer and Adorno, and more recently of Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. A highly systematic philosopher who has a unified moral and political theory, he is more firmly neo-Kantian than are most others of the Critical Theory school and more thoroughly engaged with work in the Anglo-American tradition.

88. Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times

Author:
Patrick Hayden
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
It seems fair to say that the global support for human rights has reached the point where many scholars, activists, and citizens find it impossible to envisage a just world without them. Nevertheless, controversy still persists about what humans have a right to, how these rights should be implemented and enforced, and even whether human rights ought to be recognized at all. Despite their current popularity, then, human rights face a number of challenges, ranging fromdeep cultural differences, to nationalist and religious extremism, to suspicions of Western neoimperialism. Against critics who question the scope of human rights, their origin, and ultimately their aim or purpose, Seyla Benhabib's engaging book places much hope in the exceptional promise of human rights to deliver justice and dignity. Benhabib believes human rights are central to a "cosmopolitanism without illusions", a critical theoretical position informed by cosmopolitanism's ambiguous legacy and a sober assessment of political realities in today's complex world. She brings acuity and depth to the cosmopolitan project, and takes it as a valuable example for understanding how human rights are to be justified and realized in selfgoverning polities.

89. Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights in an Interdependent World

Author:
Ayse Kaya
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Edited and written in part by Hakan Altinay, this book examines the concept of "global civics," which Altinay defines as "a system of conscious responsibilities that we are ready to assume after due deliberation and corresponding rights that we are ready to claim". What are our ethical responsibilities toward not just our fellow citizens but also distant strangers? What kind of rules, rights, and responsibilities are necessary for fair interdependence? How can universities be utilized to engender global civics? The answers to these questions, Altinay suggests, can only be reached through global dialogue, and Global Civics aims to start that deliberative process.

90. Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience

Author:
Henry Radice
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
These two recent works make a complementary and refreshing contribution to the burgeoning field of humanitarian studies. Both books shed new light on the authority that humanitarians wield as mediators of suffering, the relationship between humanitarianism and politics, and the nature of "humanitarian space." The first, an edited volume of case studies and essays by practitioners from or closely linked to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), focuses on the negotiations and compromises humanitarians are forced to make in their encounters with political interests on the ground. The second, by the sociologist and anthropologist Didier Fassin, sets out an account of humanitarianism as a mode of politics in and of itself.