The editors of Ethics & International Affairs are pleased to present the Summer 2019 issue of the journal!
Access the issue with the compliments of Cambridge University Press until the end of July 2019.
The highlight of this issue is a roundtable on "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Global Affairs," with contributions from Heather M. Roff, Steven Livingston and Mathias Risse, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Amandeep Singh Gill, Sara E. Davies, and Patrick Lin and Fritz Allhoff. The contributions consider how artificial intelligence will affect human rights, economic development, international security, global health, and the Arctic frontier in the coming decades. The issue also contains an essay by Kimberly Hutchings on the idea of the "pluriverse" and what it means for global ethics, a peer-reviewed feature by Sarah-Vaughan Brakman scrutinizing the ethical underpinnings of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, a review essay by Inderjeet Parmar on diversity and hierarchy in international politics, and book reviews by Megan Blomfield, Ross Mittiga, Tom Pegram, and Clare Wenham.
ESSAY
Decolonizing Global Ethics: Thinking with the Pluriverse
Kimberly Hutchings
Recently there have been a number of calls to open up or "decolonize" normative thinking in international relations. This essay suggests that one way of doing so is to engage seriously with the idea of the pluriverse—or the idea that there are multiple ontological realities, each with distinct ethical and political implications.
ROUNDTABLE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS
Artificial Intelligence: Power to the People [Open Access]
Heather M. Roff
Before we can assess how AI will affect various domains of international relations over the coming decades, we must first have a clear understanding of what AI is and is not. This essay seeks to bring some conceptual clarity to the discussion and argues that much of the AI landscape revolves around epistemological questions that are not, in fact, particular to AI.
The Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Humans and Human Rights
Steven Livingston and Mathias Risse
How will AI affect human rights in the coming decades? After explaining how AI has already transformed human rights monitoring, this essay explores whether we are on the cusp of creating superintelligent machines. If so, what would humans owe such machines and, conversely, what would those machines owe us?
Some Brief Reflections on Digital Technologies and Economic Development
Jeffrey D. Sachs
AI and other digital technologies are disrupting the traditional development pathway for low-income developing countries. This essay offers some strategies for how these countries can manage this challenge, minimize the economic losses, and still reap the benefits of digital technologies.
Artificial Intelligence and International Security: The Long View
Amandeep Singh Gill
This essay explains how in the years ahead, AI will challenge traditional arms control thinking and require a new governance toolkit. While binding norms will eventually be necessary to manage AI’s international security implications, a good start can be made through a soft governance approach.
Artificial Intelligence in Global Health
Sara E. Davies
AI is reaching into every aspect of global health. This essay examines one example of AI's potential contributions and limitations in this area: the prediction, treatment, and containment of a global influenza outbreak.
Arctic 2.0: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Develop a Frontier
Patrick Lin and Fritz Allhoff
The role of emerging technologies is largely ignored when it comes to the Arctic frontier. As a lesson for other frontiers, this essay will broadly introduce the potential role of AI in the changing Arctic and some of the ethical concerns that deserve attention before the future arrives.
FEATURE
The Principle of Subsidiarity in the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption: A Philosophical Analysis
Sarah-Vaughan Brakman
The principles of the best interest of children and subsidiarity constitute the conceptual foundation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. This article argues that subsidiarity as it is understood in the convention is at odds with how it has been conceptualized in ethics and social philosophy, and that this misinterpretation runs contrary to the best interest of children.
REVIEW ESSAY
Global Power Shifts, Diversity, and Hierarchy in International Politics
Inderjeet Parmar
This review essay surveys two recent books on global order—Amitav Acharya's Constructing Global Order and Christian Reus-Smit's On Cultural Diversity—and argues that although diversity and hierarchy are important concepts in understanding ongoing global power shifts, IR scholars today would do well to make class and class inequalities more central to their analyses.
REVIEWS [All Open Access]
The Global Climate Regime and Transitional Justice
Sonja Klinsky and Jasmina Brankovic
Review by Megan Blomfield
In this book, Sonja Klinsky and Jasmina Brankovic have joined forces to provide a systematic exploration of how ideas from transitional justice could inform the global climate regime.
Trade Justice
James Christensen
Review by Ross Mittiga
In this book, James Christensen probes a wide array of issues related to international trade, many of which have been overlooked by political theorists, asking where justice and injustice lie in this nonideal landscape.
A Theory of Global Governance: Authority, Legitimacy, and Contestation
Michael Zürn
Review by Tom Pegram
In this book, Zürn's ambition is to demonstrate that a global-politics paradigm is now increasingly well established. Along the way, he mounts a spirited defense of the analytical value of global governance against its critics.
Global Health Governance in International Society
Jeremy Youde
Review by Clare Wenham
In this book, Jeremy Youde applies one of the grande dames of IR theory—the English School—to the setting of global health. The result is new insights for both English School theory and global health practice.
