Issue 23.3
Briefly Noted
This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.
National Responsibility and Global Justice by David Miller
Miller builds on his seminal work on national identity and special duties to co-nationals to carve out a position on such issues as global poverty and immigration that is distinct from both the recent stream of cosmopolitan theories and a narrow “citizens-only” account of obligations.
The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror by Manfred B. Steger
Faced with the political, economic, and social challenges of a globalized planet, are we bereft of any coherent political guideposts or do we still possess realistic and robust idea-systems? Steger, a prolific scholar of globalization, adopts a cautiously optimistic version of the second position.
What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It by Thomas G. Weiss
Drawing on his own UN experience and studying it from outside, Weiss clears away a lot of the debris of superficial critiques to uncover the deeper explanations for why the more world problems become interconnected and global in scope the less the UN seems able to cope with them.
On Torture Edited by Thomas C. Hilde
This edited collection is an excellent addition to the literature on the torture policy of the Bush administration during its war on terror. The contributors explore the history and practice of torture beyond the U.S. and what these non-American examples say about the U.S role in this area.
The Right to Relocation: Disappearing Island Nations and Common Ownership of the Earth
Risse is concerned with humanity’s common ownership of the earth, which has implications for a range of global problems. In particular, it helps illuminate the moral claims to international aid of small island nations whose existence is threatened by global climate change–such as Kiribati.
Justice and the Convention on Biological Diversity
By legislating for a system of justice-in-exchange covering nonhuman biological resources in preference to a free-for-all situation, the Convention on Biological Diversity provides a small step forward in redressing the distributive justice balance.
Treaty Norms and Climate Change Mitigation
UNFCCC norms tightly constrain the range of acceptable agreements for the distribution of burdens to mitigate climate change, restricting us to two viable guiding principles: the equitable distribution of responsibilities and the right to development. Both principles place much heavier mitigation burdens on industrialized countries.
