CIAO DATE: 08/2012
Volume: 26, Issue: 1
Spring 2012
Editors' Note (PDF)
The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs will turn one hundred years old in February 2014. Andrew Carnegie founded the Council in 1914 with a specific purpose in mind: he thought it was possible to avoid the Great War that he and many others believed was on the horizon. In fact, he approached the project with considerable optimism, confident that the barbarity of industrial war would become a thing of the past. Humanity was evolving, becoming more civilized with each passing decade. Common interests and common sense would surely make large-scale war a relic of bygone days, similar to other uncivilized practices, such as slavery and dueling. Sadly, it was not to be.
Reimagining a Global Ethic (PDF)
Michael Ignatieff
"Reimagining a global ethic" is a project worthy of Andrew Carnegie and of the Carnegie Council's upcoming commemoration of his founding gift in 1914. As a collaborative research project stretching forward over the next three years, it ought to be integrative and reconciliatory: that is, it must try to understand the globalization of ethics that has accompanied the globalization of commerce and communications and to figure out what ethical values human beings share across all our differences of race, religion, ethnicity, national identity, and material wealth. When human beings do disagree morally, the search for a global ethic becomes an attempt to elucidate by analysis what exactly people are disagreeing about, so that, after arguing out our differences, we can either agree to disagree or work together to find common ground. Finding common ground on large ethical matters and understanding more deeply why, in some instances, we remain at odds with each other is worthwhile in itself, but it might also further Andrew Carnegie's original goal in founding the Council, which was to reduce the amount of conflict and violence in the world.
Local Priorities, Universal Priorities, and Enabling Harm (PDF)
Christian Barry
"National communities," Michael Ignatieff writes in his thoughtful essay on the prospects for a global ethic, "have some good reasons, as well as some not so good ones, to privilege local ahead of universal priorities and interests." And he goes on to explain the clash of local and universal priorities as rooted in a conflict between the values of "justice and democracy." I would rather suggest that the conflict is an internal one-a conflict inherent in our thinking about what justice requires. But in any case, he is surely right that providing a compelling account of how to distinguish good from bad reasons for privileging local priorities, and identifying how weighty the good reasons for local priorities are, is fundamental to developing a plausible global ethic.
A Global Ethic and the Hybrid Character of the Moral World (PDF)
Nicholas Rengger
In the lead essay of this symposium, Michael Ignatieff offers a characteristic blend of philosophical acuteness and political good sense on a topic that, we can all agree, is central to many of the most important questions on the contemporary political and international agenda. His analysis is prescient, challenging, and deserves pondering at some length; thus, in this short response I cannot deal with it in anything like the detail it deserves. But the enforced brevity is perhaps an advantage as well, in that it forces me to concentrate on where I differ from Ignatieff and on my own sense of what we might imply when we use such a term as "a global ethic."
Toward a Global Ethic (PDF)
David Rodin
We are one humanity, but seven billion humans. This is the essential challenge of global ethics: how to accommodate the tension between our universal and particular natures. This tension is, of course, age-old and runs through all moral and political philosophy. But in the world of the early twenty-first century it plays out in distinctive new ways. Ethics has always engaged twin capacities inherent in every human: the capacity to harm and the capacity to help. But the profound set of transformations commonly referred to as globalization-the increasing mobility of goods, labor, and capital; the increasing interconnectedness of political, economic, and financial systems; and the radical empowerment of groups and individuals through technology-have enabled us to harm and to help others in ways that our forebears could not have imagined. What we require from a global ethic is shaped by these transformative forces; and global ethics-the success or failure of that project-will substantially shape the course of the twenty-first century.
The Dialogue of Global Ethics (PDF)
Cheyney Ryan
The message of Michael Ignatieff's reflections on reimagining a global ethic is a comforting one for political philosophers. It is vital, he writes, for philosophers to keep doing what they have been doing: addressing the injustices of globalization from a perspective of strict impartiality that treats every human being as the object of equal moral concern. Philosophers should continue to elaborate this "one world" perspective against those partial perspectives arising from the claims of one's particular country or particular religious faith. But their aim should not be to replace the one with the other, but to prompt an ongoing critical dialogue in which more particularistic doctrines of country or faith are called to justify themselves before the one-world ethic's impartial standards-thus prompting the kind of critical self-reflection that is essential to moral change. And in so doing, the one-world ethic cannot be uncritical of itself, for there are different ways of conceiving a global ethic, each of which must answer to the others.
A Brief Response to Michael Ignatieff (PDF)
Michael Joseph Smith
In his elegant essay on the tension between a singular global ethic and global ethics in the plural, Michael Ignatieff invites us to "think harder about the conflicts of principle between them." He is certainly right that harder thinking is needed: advocates of both versions of a global ethic sometimes seem locked into mutual self-righteousness. What we might call singular, or universal, ethicists often accuse pluralists of parochial atavism, while the partisans of plural, usually national, ethics think that the universalists are naive at best, arrogant at worst. Both are utterly convinced that they are right.
Introduction (PDF)
Antonio Franceschet
Within a short period the International Criminal Court (ICC) has become central to world politics. The dramatic diplomatic process that produced the Rome Statute in 1998 was followed by an unexpectedly rapid succession of state ratifications and the establishment of the court in 2002. As of late 2011 the ICC has indicted twenty-six individuals related to seven official investigations, all in Africa. Proceedings against one of these individuals were dismissed. Two other indictments, including one for Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, became moot because the individuals were killed before arrest or trial. The remaining list includes a sitting head of state, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, as well as Kenya's sitting deputy prime minister, Uhuru Kenyatta. The United Nations Security Council referred both the Sudan and Libya situations to the court; three African states requested investigations of their own situations. The ICC prosecutor independently started an investigation in Kenya. Despite efforts by Kenyan state officials to halt ICC proceedings related to the widespread violence and killings following the 2007 national elections, opinion polls suggest that 73 percent of Kenyans want the ICC to remain involved.
Why the ICC Should Operate Within Peace Processes (PDF)
Kenneth A. Rodman
Is it ethical for the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider political factors, such as peace processes, in selecting situations to investigate or cases to prosecute? During the early years of the court, a number of documents and statements from the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) suggested that there were occasions when it was. Two OTP policy papers issued in 2003 recommended that the prosecutor assess "all circumstances prevailing in the country or region concerned, including the nature and stage of the conflict and any intervention by the international community," and whether prosecution might "exacerbate or otherwise destabilize a conflict situation." In the same spirit, the ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, referred to his decision-making as a "dialogue between many actors" with a "strategic dimension . . . [that] involves all stakeholders." This language suggested a process of consultation and coordination with local and international actors involved in conflict resolution to adapt international criminal justice to on-the-ground political realities.
The ICC's Potential for Doing Bad When Pursuing Good (PDF)
Benjamin Schiff
The International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks to end impunity for the atrocity crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and, eventually, crimes of aggression. My contribution to this discussion takes a consequentialist view to outline ethical hazards confronting the court. Since the ICC has only recently begun to operate, with its first suspect, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, arriving in The Hague in 2006 and his trial completed only in the fall of 2011 (and awaiting a verdict in 2012), it is too early to reach a general appraisal of the court's effects.
Why the International Criminal Court Must Pretend to Ignore Politics (PDF)
Michael J. Struett
Since the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutes crimes of mass violence that are inherently political in nature, its actions will inevitably have political consequences about which the prosecutor and judges should be as well informed as possible. As some of the other contributors to this roundtable note, the ICC's actions and inactions may even have life-and-death consequences in the real world. It is ethically irresponsible for the ICC's officers to ignore those concerns. At the same time, the court's moral and legal authority derives entirely from its claim that it applies universal rules wherever it has jurisdiction. In order for the International Criminal Court to build legitimacy over time, it must both act and be seen to act in a neutral way that transcends political pressures. Rule-of-law courts do not derive their authority from their ability to command the use of force. Nor do they have the legitimacy of elected political officials who act as the representatives of a political community. The legitimacy of courts is a function of their claim to uphold universal rules of law that the community has chosen to adopt, regardless of whether doing so is popular or even prudent in a particular case with particular constituencies. Consequently, court officers in their formal actions-including prosecutorial requests for investigations, issuing arrest warrants, and filing charges, as well as in the judges' decisions on those questions-should always ground the rationale for their decisions in the pretense that they act only to uphold the law and without regard for political considerations.
The International Criminal Court's Provisional Authority to Coerce (PDF)
Antonio Franceschet
The United Nations ad hoc tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda had primacy over national judicial agents for crimes committed in these countries during the most notorious civil wars and genocide of the 1990s. The UN Charter granted the Security Council the right to establish a tribunal for Yugoslavia in the context of ongoing civil war and against the will of recalcitrant national agents. The Council used that same right to punish individuals responsible for a genocide that it failed earlier to prevent in Rwanda. In both cases the Council delegated a portion of its coercive title to independent tribunal agents, thereby overriding the default locus of punishment in the world order: sovereign states.
Almost Saving Whales: The Ambiguity of Success at the International Whaling Commission (PDF)
Ian Hurd
The international regulation of whaling has been a tremendous success. It has reduced whale hunting dramatically from its peak in the 1960s and brought almost all species of whales out of danger of extinction. Today, whaling conservation stands as a-or perhaps the-paradigm of a successful international regime. Yet the international organization responsible for this success is itself in such crisis that it may not survive.
After the MDGs: Citizen Deliberation and the Post-2015 Development Framework (PDF)
Scott Wisor
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an unprecedented set of global commitments to reduce various forms of human deprivation and promote human development, are set to expire in 2015. Despite their promise, the MDGs are flawed in a variety of ways. The development community is already discussing what improved development framework should replace the MDGs. I argue that global justice advocates should focus first on the procedure for developing the post-2015 development framework. Specifically, they should create spaces for citizens, especially the most marginalized and oppressed, to actively deliberate about the form and content of a future global development framework, and ensure that this deliberation receives political uptake in formal intergovernmental processes for deciding the post-2015 framework.
In Defense of Smart Sanctions: A Response to Joy Gordon (PDF)
George A. Lopez
In her recent article in this journal, Joy Gordon provides an astute history and critique of the evolution and application of smart sanctions within the United Nations system since the mid-1990s. Her analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the discrete types of smart sanctions is part of a growing discussion among both academics and practitioners about the future and the utility of these measures. As always, her continued skepticism about the effectiveness and ethical dimensions of economic sanctions deserves serious consideration and evaluation. In particular, Gordon raises three central concerns: (1) smart sanctions are no more successful than traditional trade sanctions; (2) each type of targeted mechanism has serious flaws; and (3) targeted sanctions did not end the humanitarian damage or the related ethical dilemmas that are embedded into sanctions design and implementation.
Morality and War: Can War Be Just in the Twenty-First Century? by David Fisher (PDF)
Michael L. Gross
Morality and War is a timely addition to contemporary just war literature. While advocating the use of just war principles to evaluate modern armed conflict, Fisher takes the innovative step of introducing virtue theory into these debates. Largely neglected by just war theorists, virtue theory has, for example, invigorated bioethics by providing an antidote to the rigidity of principled moral thinking while also offering a useful and versatile educational tool. Fisher uses it to do both as he combines virtue ethics with consequentialism into what he terms "virtuous consequentialism."
Terror, Religion, and Liberal Thought by Richard B. Miller (PDF)
Andrew F. March
Addressing a set of normative questions surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Richard B. Miller takes as his starting point the claim that “9/11 raises moral questions about human rights, respect for persons, and the limits of toleration with vivid clarity . . . [and] puts in stark relief questions about the moral challenges of coexistence in an increasingly pluralistic public culture, questions concerning religious authorizations of violence, human rights, and the basis and limits of tolerating the intolerant” (pp. 2–3). Further, he tells us that “at stake are two related concerns: first, whether we may evaluate actions justified on terms that invoke religious warrants; second, how and on what terms those aggrieved by Islamic and other forms of terrorism may justifiably feel indignation” (p. 12).
The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy, and Reputation Edited by Saul Levmore and Martha Nussbaum (PDF)
Anita L. Allen
In this new volume, two distinguished University of Chicago law professors have joined forces to edit a provocatively titled collection of essays about the Internet. As they observe in their coauthored introduction, the Internet “has succeeded in remaking us as inhabitants of a small village” (p. 1). However, there is little romance in this cozy trope that Levmore and Nussbaum deploy to frame their project. We are indeed close-knit now. The Internet has stitched together geographically, politically, and culturally distant men, women, and children into an intensively interactive community. But it is a Hobbesean village, bereft of decorum and solidarity. Moreover, when one calls to mind the extraordinary stories of Amy Boyer and Tyler Clementi, whose murder and suicide, respectively, were closely tied to commercial and social abuses of the Internet, one quickly understands that Internet communication can be not only offensive but also flat-out dangerous.
Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays by Charles Taylor (PDF)
William Schweiker
The publication of these essays by the philosopher Charles Taylor in a single volume gives readers access to his understanding of late-modern societies. Like his Gifford Lectures, collected in A Secular Age, these essays—addressing social, political, and ethical questions—challenge various theories of modernity made famous by Max Weber and others. In Taylor’s terms, the “subtraction theory”—that is, the theory that defines modernity as a form of life with the religious subtracted from it—is a misunderstanding of the current situation. Taylor here provides a compelling response to that account of modernity grouped under three headings: “Allies and Interlocutors,” “Social Theory,” and “Themes from A Secular Age.” Given the range of topics, thinkers, and problems that the book engages, it is impossible to review it as a single argument. That said, the book does present interlocking sub-arguments that are the focus of this review.