by Charli Carpenter | 12 Jun 2008 |
I have just finished the final chapter of my new sole-authored book manuscript, tentatively entitled Constructing Rights and Wrongs: How the Human Rights Movement Forgot Bosnia's Children Born of War. This is the culmination of nine years of research, writing and frequent but generally ineffective interactions with global policymakers. DANG!Tomorrow, in between jetting to Boston to attend the Harvard Networks in Political Science Conference, I...
by Dan Nexon | 11 Jun 2008 |
My offhand comment about Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's warnings to Russia over its increased activity in Abkhazia has, thanks to Rob Farley, produced some interesting commentary.Matthew Yglesias fails to sugar coat his take:It would be appallingly stupid for the United States or our other key allies to put anything whatsoever on the line for the sake of Georgia's efforts to reassert control over its rebellious province. The question of maintaining a...
by Charli Carpenter | 9 Jun 2008 |
Anthony Clark Arend at Georgetown University is blogging about Israel's threat to bomb Iranian nuclear reactors if they do not desist. He worries that this latest brinkmanship is more evidence of a decline in the non-aggression norm, since the situation would not meet the criteria for preemptive self-defense against an imminent attack laid out in the UN Charter as an exception to the non-aggression rule:If imminence is not the standard for...
by Peter | 9 Jun 2008 |
A little water, and $1.4 billion goes up in flames...via Rob at LGM
by Charli Carpenter | 7 Jun 2008 |
My month-long course on human rights has wrapped up, which means I'll be able to get back to blogging about other things, like global norm development and enforcement, the laws of war, and the US election. OK, I'll be able to get back to blogging, period. A few concluding insights I developed from reading this set of books with some smart students are below the fold. 1) The cultural relativism argument really doesn't hold water. Sally Engle...
by Peter | 6 Jun 2008 |
SecDef Gates fired both the military and civilian head of the Air Force yesterday. The official reason was the release of a report on the mis-handling of nuclear weapons, though Danger Room suggests that this was merely the culmination of a number of issues that left Gates rather upset with the Air Force. (blog link round up of additional good coverage: here, here, and here).This is a rather big deal. As a number of observers have pointed out,...
by Dan Nexon | 5 Jun 2008 |
Our US readers might be surprised to learn that there are, in fact, happenings not associated with the 2008 Presidential race. So I thought I would point out that:• Sudan is on the brink of renewed war between the north and south.• NATO has issued checks that it probably can't cash regarding the Georgia-Russia "cold" conflict over Abkhazia.• Zimbabwe's "free and fair" second-round elections continue to be, uh, not so free and fair.And in the...
by Peter | 2 Jun 2008 |
In the latest incarnation of the Iraq war issue in the general election, John McCain is criticizing Barak Obama because Obama hasn’t been to Iraq in some time, and therefore, he’s not qualified to comment on Iraq policy because he hasn’t “been there” to “see it for himself.”Rhetorically, it’s a slick move by McCain. Take a widely perceived negative, his support of the war, and turn it into a positive by emphasizing experience and criticizing...
by Charli Carpenter | 30 May 2008 |
John Knox has published a long and dense yet fascinating article, "Horizontal Human Rights Law" in January's issue of the American Journal of International Law. In it, he asks considers whether international human rights law, designed to prescribe how states may and must treat their citizens, also impose human responsibilities on citizens themselves?Thinking that it maybe should, the now-defunct Human Rights Commission took up the issue before...
by Dan Nexon | 29 May 2008 |
I have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for failing to recognize the Svalbard threat. Its policy of drowning the Polar Bear forces into submission might prove successful, but it also risks provoking an attack--whether via proxies, direct strikes, or bio-engineered sea reptiles--before it accomplishes its objectives.But now there's hope that the administration will take action before it leaves office.Oil and shipping interests are...
by Peter | 26 May 2008 |
Some of us here at the Duck would put ourselves into the "relational" camp when it comes to how we approach Social Science. Among other things, this approach looks at social and political actors based on their relations to other actors and position within a social network rather than as autonomous entities. Dan's work, for example, has made excellent use of social network theory to talk about empires and such.Today's Washington Post points out...
by Charli Carpenter | 25 May 2008 |
Anthony Arend at Georgetown University reports on a new campaign that many of us will want to support. Its promotional video, culled from the film Taxi to the Dark Side:Unlike many anti-torture activists who base their arguments on consequentialism (e.g., we shouldn't torture because it's ineffective, we shouldn't torture because it puts our troops at risk), this campaign reminds us that human rights law forbids torture even if - perhaps...