CIAO DATE: 11/2008
Volume: 22, Issue: 3
Fall 2008
This issue features an exchange in response to Mathias Risse's article, "The Morality of Immigration,"with Ryan Pevnick, Philip Cafaro, and a response from Risse; Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal on The Oxford Handbook of International Relations; Olga Martin-Ortega on business and human rights in conflict; Alexandru Grigorescu on horizontal accountability in interngovernmental organizations; and Paul D. Williams on keeping the peace in Africa. It also includes book reviews and and a "Briefly Noted" section, which covers recent books in the field of international relations.
An Exchange: The Morality of Immigration (PDF)
Mathias Risse, Ryan Pevnick, Philip J. Cafaro
Writing in EIA 22, no. 1, Mathias Risse presented a novel way to think about the problem of immigration in the context of global justice, adopting the standpoint of the common ownership of the earth. The following Exchange is in response to that essay.
Reuniting Ethics and Social Science: "The Oxford Handbook of International Relations" (PDF)
Christian Reus-Smit, Duncan Snidal
The quality of our theoretical argumentation, the diversity and insights of our methods, and our general level of understanding are markedly better than a generation ago. However, this progress has been driven by a division of labor with increased specialization that has led each part of the field to become narrower.
Business and Human Rights in Conflict
Olga Martin-Ortega
With respect to the social role of business, companies were traditionally held to be responsible only to their shareholders. Their duty was to generate profit while complying with the laws of the countries in which they operate. A given company may contribute to the well-being of individuals or groups, or even prevent harm, but such deeds were generally interpreted as acts of charity. Under the maxim that a good business minimizes costs and maximizes profits, inevitably businesses have been portrayed as being "in conflict" with human rights. The challenge of how to balance the pursuit of profit and the protection of human rights is particularly formidable in the context of wars and other armed conflicts.
Over the last couple of decades the question of the responsibilities of businesses operating in conflict environments has risen to greater prominence, both in academic and policy circles and in the wider public discussion. On the one hand, the political economy of internal armed conflicts has become central to analyses of the causes of conflict and to the design of prevention and resolution policies. On the other, the impact of business activities and working methods on human rights has become a new focus of widespread discussion—not only within companies, but also within and among NGOs, states, and international bodies—following a series of highly publicized campaigns and lawsuits against companies, such as Unocal and Freeport McMoRan. These two developments have encouraged a broad examination of the ways in which businesses can aggravate or even perpetuate armed conflict and thereby contribute to human suffering, as well as of what businesses might do to contribute to conflict resolution and thus of mitigate that suffering. Can current policy and legal responses make businesses part of the solution rather than part of the problem? And can companies be held accountable—socially, legally, or by some other means—for whatever negative actions they might have taken in situations of armed conflict? whatever negative actions they might have taken in situations of armed conflict?
Horizontal Accountability in Intergovernmental Organizations
Alexandru Grigorescu
Many intergovernmental organizations (IOs) have recently established offices of internal oversight. Yet scandals such as the one surrounding the Oil-for-Food Program in the United Nations have revealed serious flaws in the design of these institutions, especially their lack of independence from top administrators of the bureaucracies that they are supposed to oversee. This study argues that this is due, in great part, to the initial use of an imperfect domestic model. It shows that, in addition to using a flawed model as a starting point for negotiations, states and IO officials intentionally weakened oversight offices even more. The study argues that member-states need to quickly give such offices increased independence in order to make them more effective and to avoid the continued erosion of the legitimacy of IOs.
Keeping the Peace in Africa: Why "African" Solutions Are Not Enough
Paul D. Williams
Since the early 1990s, a variety of African and Western governments alike have often suggested that finding "African solutions to African problems" represents the best approach to keeping the peace in Africa. Not only does the empirical evidence from post-Cold War Africa suggest that there are some fundamental problems with this approach, it also rests upon some problematic normative commitments. Specifically in relation to the problem of armed conflict, the "African solutions" logic would have at least three negative consequences: it would undermine the UN; it would provide a convenient excuse for powerful Western states that wished to avoid sending their own soldiers to peace operations in Africa; and it would help African autocrats fend off international, especially Western, criticism of their policies. After providing an overview of the constituent elements of the "African solutions" approach, this article sets out in general terms the central problems with it before turning to a specific illustration of how these problems affected the international responses to the ongoing war in Darfur, Sudan. Instead of searching for "African solutions", policymakers should focus on developing effective solutions for the complex challenges raised by the issue of armed conflict in Africa. To this end, Western states in general and the P-3 in particular should give greater support to conflict management activities undertaken by the United Nations, develop clearer guidelines for how these should relate to regional initiatives, and facilitate the efforts of civic associations to build the foundations for stable peace in the continent's war zones.
Takashi Inoguchi
An important insight, with consequences for foreign policy and the practice of world politics, is that in the "global village" changing technology invites and even compels the notion of political organization and "union" at the global level.
John M. Hobson
Aydin challenges popular assumptions that non-Western ideological movements are always hostile to Western values, on the one hand, and that such movements emerge as a function of either anticolonial struggles or conservative and religious reactions to global modernity, on the other.
Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature - by David Schlosberg (PDF)
Peter F. Cannavó
This volume is political theory at its best, providing an invaluable review of the contemporary literature, subverting traditional political categories and distinctions, and suggesting new directions for politics and policy.
Joel L. Fleishman
William Korey has done a great service for both those who champion and follow the realization of human rights internationally and those who wish to understand the potential and limitations of foundation strategies to bring about real change.
Jonathan Cristol
This timely book takes a critical look at the history of scholarship on Morgenthau's formulation of political realism, with an eye toward synthesizing his theories with contemporary topics and theoretical debates.
This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.