Ethics & International Affairs Volume 25.1 (Spring 2011)

Date: April 6, 2011

Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 25.1

This issue, the first in EIA's 25th anniversary year, features Allen Buchanan and Robert O. Keohane on supplementing the Security Council; Steve Vanderheiden on globalizing responsibility for climate change; Terry Nardin on middle-ground ethics; Henry Shue on climate change and the leadership vacuum; Leif Wenar on clean trade and natural resources; and book reviews.

From the Editor

From the Editor [Full Text] | 04/06/11
Twenty-five years ago the Carnegie Council published the first issue of "Ethics and International Affairs" with the aim of addressing head-on the intersection of these two disciplines.

Essays

Middle-Ground Ethics: Can One Be Politically Realistic Without Being a Political Realist? [Full Text]
Thinking about international affairs has oscillated between idealism and realism throughout the modern period. Moralists continue to search for a way to combine what is reasonable in each in an ethically defensible middle between those extremes. Author(s): Terry Nardin

Face Reality? After You!--A Call for Leadership on Climate Change [Abstract] | 04/06/11
Humanity's so far leaderless approach to dealing with rapidly accelerating climate change embodies a profoundly tragic catch-22 that has, among other twists and contradictions, transmuted justice into paralysis. Author(s): Henry Shue

Clean Trade in Natural Resources [Abstract] | 04/06/11
The resource curse impedes core interests of importing states, while the policies of these states drive the resource curse. These policies violate importing states' existing international commitments. Author(s): Leif Wenar

Features

Precommitment Regimes for Intervention: Supplementing the Security Council [Abstract]
We consider two different types of alternatives to the Security Council for authorizing military action across borders: a democratic coalition and a precommitment regime, by which a state could authorize intervention within its territory in advance and designate the intervenors. Author(s): Allen Buchanan, Robert O. Keohane

Globalizing Responsibility for Climate Change [Abstract] | 04/06/11
In distributing the costs associated with climate change, most scholars have focused exclusively upon mitigation burdens. Few consider the distribution of adaptation costs, which concern projects that seek to minimize harm from human-induced climate change. Author(s): Steve Vanderheiden

Online Exclusive

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: A Response to "Precommitment Regimes for Intervention"
Buchanan and Keohane argue that institutional reform is required to reverse the inertia that has too often constituted the international response to intra-state crises. Their proposal, however, does not constitute a viable solution to the problem they so convincingly identify. Author(s): Aidan Hehir

Book Reviews

"The Evolution of International Security Studies" by Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen [Full Text] | 04/06/11
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.

"International Criminal Law and Philosophy," Larry May and Zachary Hoskins, eds. [Full Text] | 04/06/11
"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.

"Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict" by Michael L. Gross [Full Text] | 04/06/11
Michael Gross believes that much contemporary warfare is so different from past armed conflicts that many of the old moral and legal prohibitions should no longer apply.

"Protectors of Privacy: Regulating Personal Data in the Global Economy" by Abraham L. Newman [Full Text] | 04/06/11
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.

"Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities," Harry Brighouse and Ingrid Robeyns, eds. [Full Text] | 04/06/11
In this rich collection, Harry Brighouse and Ingrid Robeyns bring together distinguished philosophers and political theorists to debate the virtues and vices of competing metrics of justice.

Briefly Noted [Full Text]

Briefly Noted | 04/06/11
This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.