Ethics & International Affairs articles from December 2005

Ethics & International Affairs archives from December 2005

Just cause for war.
December 1, 2005... Perhaps it should be rather heartening that democratic leaders who wish to take their countries to war are now obliged to advertise the war as having a "just cause." Politicians now routinely invoke this rather quaint phrase drawn from the...

What's wrong with preventive war? The moral and legal basis for the preventive use of force.
December 1, 2005... We find ourselves, it is widely claimed, in a new and unprecedented age of terrorism. The rules of the game, we are told, must change in order for us to respond to a new kind of threat from shadowy terrorist organizations not affiliated with...

Killing naked soldiers: distinguishing between combatants and noncombatants.
December 1, 2005... In 1625 Hugo Grotius argued, "War must be carried on with not less scrupulousness than judicial processes are wont to be." (1) Grotius's views form the basis for both modern just war theory and contemporary international legal theory. In this...

"Saving Amina": global justice for women and intercultural dialogue.(international action to save Amina Lawal in Nigeria)
December 1, 2005... One of the innumerable electronic petitions flashing across the Internet in the early months of 2003 held special interest for feminists. Carrying the name and logo of Amnesty International in Spanish, the petition asked recipients to sign...

The irony of environmentalism: the ecological futility but political necessity of lifestyle change.
December 1, 2005... The bleak truth is that unless we totally withdraw from society we will be participating in morally questionable collective forms of life, forms that can be made moral only by political change. --Roger Gottlieb (1) Many...

Coming to terms with Iraq.(Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq)(Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco)(Book review)
December 1, 2005... Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, Larry Diamond (New York: Times Books/Henry Holt & Co., 2005), 384 pp., $25 cloth. Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, David L....

Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory.(Book review)
December 1, 2005... Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, Simon Caney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 319 pp., $55 cloth. Defending a cosmopolitan approach to global political theory against its three main rivals--realism, nationalism,...

Strong Medicine: Creating Incentives for Pharmaceutical Research on Neglected Diseases.(Book review)
December 1, 2005... Strong Medicine: Creating Incentives for Pharmaceutical Research on Neglected Diseases, Michael Kremer and Rachel Glennerster (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), x52 pp., $24.95 cloth. Each year, nearly six million people in the...

The Limits of International Law.(Book review)
December 1, 2005... The Limits of International Law, Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 272 pp., $29.95 cloth. During the last few years, many of the commonly accepted assumptions in mainstream international law in...

Putting Liberalism in its Place.(Book review)
December 1, 2005... Putting Liberalism in Its Place, Paul W. Kahn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 336 pp., $29.95 cloth. Many liberals in the United States have felt themselves to be living in a foreign country of late. Indeed, since September...

Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community.(Book review)
December 1, 2005... Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community, Hauke Brunkhorst, trans. Jeffrey Flynn (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), 336 pp., $42-50 cloth. Written by one of Germany's most impressive political theorists, this volume makes a...

Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects.(Book review)
December 1, 2005... Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects, Arun Agrawal (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), 344 pp., $79.95 cloth, $22.95 paper. Those who have grown tired of doomsday scenarios about the environment...