CIAO DATE: 02/2008
Volume: 21, Issue: 2
Summer 2007
Editors' Note
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.
The Human Rights Council: A New Era in UN Human Rights Work? (PDF)
Yvonne Terlingen
Kofi Annan.Uganda's Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention (PDF)
Adam Branch
The International Criminal Court's intervention into the ongoing civil war in northern Uganda evoked a chorus of confident predictions as to its capacity to bring peace and justice to the war-torn region. However, this optimism is unwarranted. The article analyzes the consequences for peace and justice of the ICC's intervention, dividing them into two categories: first, those resulting from the political instrumentalization of the ICC by the Ugandan government; second, those resulting from the discourse and practice of the ICC as an institution of global law enforcement.
Liability and Just Cause
Thomas Hurka
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.
The Inconveniences of Transnational Democracy
Luis Cabrera
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.
Crime and Punishment: Holding States Accountable
Anthony F. Lang, Jr.
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.
Book Review: Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
Blake Michael
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah
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.
Book Review: Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues by Catharine A. MacKinnon
Clare Chambers
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?
Book Review: Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights by Carol C. Gould
Fiona Robinson
Carol Gould's Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights is an impressive, sweeping analysis of some of the most pressing questions in contemporary political philosophy and international ethics. While the book's focus is practical—how to "globalize" democracy, and how to make globalization more democratic—Gould does not shy away from hard theoretical questions, such as the relentless debate over cultural relativism, as well as less-often tackled issues of "embodied politics" and women's rights, and the relationship between terrorism and democracy. The result is a book that is almost overwhelming in scope, yet is saved by a rich, balanced, convincing, and unhectoring analysis.
Book Review: A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France
Jennifer Pitts
A Turn to Empire contributes to a project among liberals in recent years to dust off liberalism's historical complexities. In an elegant, impressively documented, and rigorously argued narrative, Jennifer Pitts asserts that imperialism was not essential to the liberal project, as is so often alleged by its critics, most recently and systematically by Uday Singh Mehta in his important study Liberalism and Empire (University of Chicago Press, 1999).
Book Review: Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism by Michael Walzer
Stuart A. Cohen
This volume of collected essays, most of which have been published in earlier volumes in the Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics, seeks to bring a more concentrated focus on specifically Jewish outlooks regarding three key themes: "Political Order and Civil Society"; "Territory, Sovereignty, and International Society"; and "War and Peace." According to Michael Walzer, "The point is to display a range of Jewish responses to some of the hardest questions posed by modern democratic politics"
Book Review: The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals--Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again by Peter Beinart
Marcus A. Roberts
Peter Beinart's new book offers the Democratic Party a "new liberalism," a vision he bases on the party's history of moral leadership and success in combating totalitarianism in the post–World War II era. Opposing those who demonize the "liberal" label, Beinart holds up liberalism as the theme by which America achieved national greatness in the past and the means by which it might do so once again—if only the Democratic Party would embrace it fully once more.