Ethics & International Affairs is pleased to announce the publication of its winter 2012 issue. This issue features an essay by Oran Young on stewardship of the Arctic; a special section on “Safeguarding Fairness in Climate Governance” with articles by Jonathan Pickering, Steve Vanderheiden, Seumas Miller, and David Schlosberg; and book reviews by Patrick Hayden, Henry S. Richardson, Henry Radice, and Ayse Kaya.
ESSAY
Arctic Stewardship: Maintaining Regional Resilience in an Era of Global Change [Full Text]
Oran Young
What sorts of harms arising from changes now occurring in the Arctic are actionable, and who can and should take the actions required to respond to these harms?
SPECIAL SECTION: SAFEGUARDING FAIRNESS IN GLOBAL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE
Introductory Note
Jonathan Pickering and Steve Vanderheiden
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. 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.
“If Equity’s In, We’re Out”: Scope for Fairness in the Next Global Climate Agreement
Jonathan Pickering, Steve Vanderheiden, and Seumas Miller
This article sets out a conceptual framework for normative theorizing about fairness in international negotiations, with a particular emphasis on the role of feasibility considerations. We argue that a fair and feasible agreement will require reforming the current dichotomy between developed and developing countries’ commitments, coupled with a more principled approach to differentiating the level of national mitigation efforts.
Climate Justice and Capabilities: A Framework for Adaptation Policy
David Schlosberg
This article argues that most well-known approaches to climate justice have two important weaknesses, in that they fail to take advantage of two crucial developments: one, the identification of social and political misrecognition as the key underlying condition of the maldistribution of goods and risks; and two, the influential capabilities approach, which focuses on the specific range of basic needs and capabilities that human beings require to function.
Coaxing Climate Policy Leadership
Steve Vanderheiden
In this article, I identify several conditions for and obstacles to effective international policy leadership with a view toward creating the conditions for that leadership to emerge, and suggest how such an overtly strategic analysis might address some key unexplored territory in climate ethics.
REVIEWS
The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice by Rainer Forst
Review by Henry S. Richardson
In this book—a tour de force that exhibits both a compelling, unified vision and a wide range of concrete insights—Forst explains how his unified theory provides a universal and indubitable basis for “constructing” human rights, by which he means both justifying them and generating their content.
Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times by Seyla Benhabib
Review by Patrick Hayden
In this book, Benhabib makes a compelling case for a “cosmopolitanism without illusions” that may help show the way through an uncertain world transformed and scarred by globalization.
Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights in an Interdependent World edited by Hakan Altinay
Review by Ayse Kaya
Global Civics is an attempt to ignite a dialogue about responsibilities and rights in an increasingly interdependent world, and should be of interest to anyone who finds the ethical dimension in globalization neglected.
Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience edited by Claire Magone, Michaël Neuman, and Fabrice Weissman
Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present by Didier Fassin
Review by Henry Radice
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.”
