by Laura Sjoberg | 31 May 2011 |
Controversial feminist lawyer Catherine MacKinnon titled her latest book Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues. MacKinnon was, of course, referring to a feminist campaign to have women's rights recognized as human rights (see, e.g., the work of Charlotte Bunch) ...but what struck me about this title is the normalcy it implies - like, questioning women's humanity (and thus their eligibility for human rights) is as commonplace as any...
by Alana Tiemessen | 30 May 2011 |
The capture of Ratko Mladic and his pending transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has become another boon for international justice in a year where war criminals seem to be dropping like flies. But there's an interesting debate to be had over whether this arrest signals a stronger commitment to end impunity on principle or its combined success with political and pragmatic imperatives. Of course, it's...
by Kate Weaver | 29 May 2011 |
I find myself impressed with the obvious talents of Christine Lagarde, the current French Finance Minister and lead candidate for Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s replacement at the IMF (just endorsed by the G8 today ). I am admittedly drawn to the idea of appointing the first women to ever head the Fund, a testosterone-driven organization if there ever was one. Yet the fawning news coverage of the stylish Lagarde (see Maureen Dowd’s op-ed in the New...
by Charli Carpenter | 28 May 2011 |
On the basis of what empirical studies I could find about the effectiveness of international tribunals versus execution of mass-murderers, I debunk the following in my latest Current Intelligence essay, responding to effects-based claims on both sides of the debate about whether Osama bin Laden should have been tried instead of summarily executed:MYTH #1: OBL Could Never Have Received a Fair Trial. MYTH #2: OBL Would Simply Have Used the Court...
by Brian Rathbun | 28 May 2011 | Featured
Politics is always somewhat gross, but there seems to be an abundance of stories lately that make me queasy. In the tradition of saying to your friends, "You have got to try this; it's so disgusting" or to your wife, "I think this milk is going bad; taste it," I share them with you, my online friends (or if you like, wives).Budweiser wrapping itself in the flag: This ad shows a split screen of an American soldier coming home and a family...
by Megan MacKenzie | 28 May 2011 |
Do the responses to the plight of Dorothy Parvaz, a journalist for Al Jazeera English who was detained in Syria and Iran for nearly 3 weeks, show continued resistance to female journalists pursuing particular types of stories?Parvaz flew to Syria to gather information that could add to what little is known about local protests and government violence. She was arrested at the airport in Damascus and taken to a detention center- Parvaz likened it...
by Laura Sjoberg | 28 May 2011 |
Why is it that women represent 70% of the world’s people living in poverty? What does it mean to have economic stability? How do international structures interact with local structures to produce or disturb that stability? Is economic stability something people (or states) only gain at the expense of others? Are sex trafficking, migration patterns, home-based work, and base economies, related? If so, what does gender have to do with it? These...
by Charli Carpenter | 27 May 2011 |
I am pleased to introduce a new crop of guest bloggers for the 2011-2012 academic year.Catherine Weaver hails from the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs at UT Austin where she teaches international political economy, specializing (among other things) the culture, behavior and reform of international financial organizations - a smoking hot IR topic if there ever was one. She is the author of The Hypocrisy Trap and the co-editor of Review...
by Steve Saideman | 26 May 2011 |
With Serbia arresting the last big PIFWC (person indicted for war crime--my favorite NATO acronym)--Ratko Mladic (see my post about the previous arrest, of Karadzic), does this mean that I was wrong about the power of conditionality? That is, the Steve and Bill book argues that we ought not overestimate the threats organizations like the European Union or NATO make about conditions for membership. We argue there and elsewhere that the...
by PM | 26 May 2011 | Featured
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn has released a new report criticizing the National Science Foundation, in no small part because he is offended that the NSF funds political science.This new, lengthy-for-Congress report is a slick and well-produced piece of agit-prop. In it, Coburn claims to have found billions (!) in mismanagement at the NSF, including plenty of made-for-journalists "scandals" like jello wrestling at the McMurdo Research Station in...
by Charli Carpenter | 26 May 2011 |
It's hard to overstate the significance of Ratko Mladic's arrest last night. Moreso that Slobodon Milsoevic, Serbia's president during the 1991-1995 war of ex-Yugoslavia, and moreso that Radovan Karadzic the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the war, Mladic is reviled by Bosnian survivors of the conflict as the former leader of the Bosnian Serb Army. Though best known for his his calculated role in the war's most infamous massacre of...
by Cliff Bob | 26 May 2011 |
It’s great to see a few of our elected representatives fighting back against the Democratic and Republican leadership’s attempt to renew the Patriot Act for another four years without amendment or even debate. I highly recommend reading a few of the statements and speeches by the handful of Congress people brave enough to stand up against the leadership of both parties. Here is one of Republican Senator Rand Paul’s speeches from a few days...