Who has the authority to assign responsibility for international crimes? There is a simple answer: international tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet this obvious response obscures further questions... more
Who has the authority to assign responsibility for international crimes? There is a simple answer: international tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet this obvious response obscures further questions regarding where the political authority to create international tribunals comes from, as well as the vital moral question regarding how courts are constituted as actors with the capacity to assign blame. In modern international politics authority has traditionally rested with states, meaning that rightful legal institutions were created and justified by the consent of states. The ICC is granted authority in this way, as it was created through a treaty negotiated and signed by states. Such a procedural response, however, obscures as much as it reveals about the politics and morality of assigning responsibility for international crimes. Asking how a new international authority is constituted and justified as an actor with the political power to try state officials and other international criminals, and to embody and defend supposedly emergent norms of global justice, is a more contentious and difficult question that takes us beyond questions of positive law.
We study how different world views may influence how to develop sustainable development indicators. The comparison of weak sustainability and strong sustainability serves as a guide to estimate the share of objective versus normative... more
We study how different world views may influence how to develop sustainable development indicators. The comparison of weak sustainability and strong sustainability serves as a guide to estimate the share of objective versus normative choice of parameters and their method of aggregation. We then present a typology of actors and shared responsibilities, which may also introduce large discrepancies in the results published. Some case studies illustrate these different elements in contrasting contexts. It appears that it is possible to identify in each calculation of sustainable development indicator, a relatively objective component of sustainability and a negotiable component of shared rights and responsibilities.
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Différentes visions du monde peuvent influencer la manière de concevoir des indicateurs de développement durable. La typologie des acteurs ou « univers de mesure » en statistique et le choix des unités sont liées à une vision inévitablement politique du partage des responsabilités.
Je redéfinis la soutenabilité faible comme étant la réduction de la complexité à une dimension unique. Il y a dès lors autant d'indicateurs de soutenabilité faible que de choix possibles de cette dimension unique. J’illustre les limites des indicateurs en valeur monétaire de type "PIB" ou « PIB vert », des indicateurs de "dématérialisation de l'économie" et des permis négociables. L'empreinte écologique relève également de la soutenabilité faible, mais d’un point de vue « écologique ».
La soutenabilité forte se caractérise au contraire par la multiplicité de dimensions ou "capitaux critiques" dont le dépassement d'un seul suffit à déterminer la non soutenabilité. Ces limites peuvent être déterminées de manière relativement objective. Des indicateurs différents y sont nécessaires pour évaluer les responsabilités et les impacts pour divers problèmes environnementaux ou sociaux majeurs.
En conclusion, il est possible d'identifier, dans chaque calcul d'indicateur de développement durable, une composante relativement objective de soutenabilité et une composante négociable de partage des droits et responsabilités.
The new Sustainable Development Goals require higher education institutions to contribute to the universal task of making the Agenda 2030 successful. The article discusses the characteristics of global responsibility, dignity, development... more
The new Sustainable Development Goals require higher education institutions to contribute to the universal task of making the Agenda 2030 successful. The article discusses the characteristics of global responsibility, dignity, development policy and sustainable development especially in the context of higher education institutions. The political road towards the Agenda 2030 is explained, and the Planerary Boundaries and Doughnut Economics models are presented as feasible tools for universities of applied sciences. The author was project manager in the GLORE project (2014-2016) coordinated by Diaconia University of Applied Sciences in Finland.
В статье предпринимается попытка анализа аксиологических детерминант глобального экологического кризиса. Авторами представлен краткий обзор основных концепций, которые могут выступать теоретическим и методологическим основанием... more
В статье предпринимается попытка анализа аксиологических детерминант глобального экологического кризиса. Авторами представлен краткий обзор основных концепций, которые могут выступать теоретическим и методологическим основанием формирования этического отношения к биосфере. В то же время отмечена проблема разрыва между теоретическими по-строениями и реальной практикой хозяйственной деятельности, которая принципиально не фундирована этически.
The paper analyzes the axiological determinants of global ecological crisis. Authors present a brief overview of the main concepts that can act as the theoretical and methodological basis of ethical relation to the biosphere. At the same time the gap between theoretical constructions and the actual practice of economic activity which in principle is not ethically funded is noted.
Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice brings new voices and new approaches to under-developed areas in the philosophical literature on collectives and collective action. The essays in this volume introduce and explore a range... more
Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice brings new voices and new approaches to under-developed areas in the philosophical literature on collectives and collective action. The essays in this volume introduce and explore a range of topics that fall under the more general concept of collectivity, including collective ontology, collective action, collective obligation, and collective responsibility. A number of the chapters link collectivity directly to significant issues of social justice.
The volume addresses a variety of questions including the ontology and taxonomy of social groups and other collective entities, ethical frameworks for understanding the nature and extent of individual and collective moral obligations, and applications of these conceptual explorations to oppressive social practices like mass incarceration, climate change, and global poverty. The essays draw on a variety of approaches and disciplines, including feminist and continental approaches and work in legal theory and geography, as well as more traditional philosophical contributions.
Both responsibility and care have much to offer in thinking through the relationalities that make up a postcolonial world. Although contemporary political systems often posit responsibility and care within the context of individuated and... more
Both responsibility and care have much to offer in thinking through the relationalities that make up a postcolonial world. Although contemporary political systems often posit responsibility and care within the context of individuated and autonomous selves, geographers have done much to relocate responsibility and care within narratives of interdependency – spatially and temporally. They have argued that both terms offer a route for thinking about ethical geographical relations between myriad places. In this article we take this project further, by looking at how the nature and shape of these relationships might be construed in a postcolonial world. We suggest that, through a more critical engagement with postcolonial thinking, any exploration of existing practices of responsibility and care will not only reveal the enormous potential of imagining these geographies as forms of existing and evolving relationalities, but will also lead us to interrogate the deployments of these terms in the context of past and present inequalities. We show that routing care and responsibility through postcolonial geographies moves us towards a more pragmatic responsiveness, one that involves a ‘care-full’ recognition of postcolonial interaction.
Global inequality has become the defining characteristic of the twentieth century and is looking likely to remain so in the twenty-first century. It is my belief that this is the case due to the lack of political motivation for change. I... more
Global inequality has become the defining characteristic of the twentieth century and is looking likely to remain so in the twenty-first century. It is my belief that this is the case due to the lack of political motivation for change. I do not believe it has been disproven that the reason for global inequality results from the exploitation of the developing countries by the global North, despite the racket of those who try to convince the public that it results from some type of local inferiority, isolated almost exclusively to the global South. It is my contention, rather, that these inequalities exist due to the neoliberal theory that currently dominates the political, and indeed moral, culture. In this article I will make an argument against the accepted wisdom of Adam Smith's "invisible hand", that markets should be free from regulation or government interference.
Assigning responsibility is increasingly common in world politics, from the United Nation’s assertion that sovereignty entails a “responsibility to protect” to the International Criminal Court’s attempts to hold individuals responsible... more
Assigning responsibility is increasingly common in world politics, from the United Nation’s assertion that sovereignty entails a “responsibility to protect” to the International Criminal Court’s attempts to hold individuals responsible for international crimes. This development is welcome but problematic as the model of moral agency that our contemporary practices of responsibility are based on leads to a number of problematic consequences that impede efforts to make world politics more just. In particular, our contemporary practices of responsibility are excessively focused on the obligations of individual and collective actors, at the expense of enabling conditions, and on holding specific perpetrators accountable, neglecting the need for wider social transformations in response to mass violence and suffering. Alternative understandings of moral agency, which better serve international/global practices of responsibility, are possible and here I defend an understanding of moral agency based on the philosophy of John Dewey. The critical insights and practical possibilities of this alternative understanding of moral agency are explored with reference to international interventions in Sierra Leone and Uganda.
It is widely recognized that Climate Change (CC) is a multidimensional, spatiotemporal and multi scale problem. These features raise an issue of framing: this means that it is difficult to conceptualize such a problem. Hence we shall... more
It is widely recognized that Climate Change (CC) is a multidimensional, spatiotemporal and multi scale problem. These features raise an issue of framing: this means that it is difficult to conceptualize such a problem. Hence we shall discuss whether to approach it as a global or an international issue and whether or not it encompasses features of global justice. In order to do so we shall define a typical issue of Global Justice to see if CC falls into such a definition. The argument of this paper is that even though these two issues share some characteristics, the latter is a wicked problem that entails issues related to collective action and future generations. If the old paradigms have failed in recognizing such an aspect, then CC must be addressed through a new perspective into the larger framework of Sustainable Development (SD). Still a constructive debate on which actors should be involved is needed. The thesis of this paper is that if Global Governance has failed a new agent must be selected and this agent must be the community of people who is more efficient when pushing governments in acting against CC. At the end the problems related to our theory will be set forth.
David Miller raises a number of interesting concerns with both weak and strong variants of cosmopolitanism. As an alternative, he defends a connection theory to address remedial responsibilities amongst states. This connection theory is... more
David Miller raises a number of interesting concerns with both weak and strong variants of cosmopolitanism. As an alternative, he defends a connection theory to address remedial responsibilities amongst states. This connection theory is problematic as it endorses a position where states that are causally and morally responsible for deprivation and suffering in other states may not be held remedially responsible for their actions. In addition, there is no international mechanism to ensure either that remedially responsible states offer assistance to particular states nor some level of accountability for causally and/or morally responsible states. I suggest that an intermediary theory of cosmopolitanism offers one way of overcoming these difficulties.
This piece appeared in a symposium with David Miller and Thomas Pogge on cosmopolitanism.
