Preventive use of force may be defined as the initiation of military action in anticipation of harmful actions that are neither presently occurring nor imminent. This essay explores the permissibility of preventive war from a cosmopolitan normative perspective, one that recognizes the basic human rights of all persons, not just citizens of a particular country or countries. It argues that preventive war can only be justified if it is undertaken within an appropriate rule-governed, institutional framework that is designed to help protect vulnerable countries against unjustified interventions while also avoiding unacceptable risks of the costs of inaction. The key to ensuring the fairness of rules governing the preventive use of force is accountability.

This essay proposes a scheme that would make those promoting and those rejecting the preventive use of force more accountable. The proposal contains the following crucial features:

States proposing preventive war are required to enter into a contract with a diverse body of states as a condition for authorization of their actions;

Prior to taking preventive action, states must make an evidence-based case to the UN Security Council, and agree in advance to submit themselves to an evaluation by an impartial body after the preventive action occurred;

Both proponents of action and those opposing it will be held accountable ex post for the accuracy of their prior statements and the proportionality of their actions;

Sanctions will be imposed against intervening states or states that opposed preventive action, respectively, depending on the findings of the ex post evaluation.

If preventive action were blocked in the Security Council, states seeking to engage in preventive action could then present their case in a different body–a coalition of democratic states–with its own ex post and ex ante accountability procedures.

This article focuses on the impact of globalization on international law and the discourse of sovereignty. It challenges the claim that we have entered into a new world order characterized by transnational governance and decentered global law, which have replaced “traditional” international law and rendered the concepts of state sovereignty and international society anachronistic. We are indeed in the presence of something new. But if we drop the concept of sovereignty and buy into the idea that transnational governance has upstaged international treaty organizations, we will misconstrue the nature of contemporary international society and the political choices facing us. In the contemporary context where there is a powerful imperial project afoot (on the part of the United States) that seeks to develop a useful version of global (cosmopolitan) right to justify its self-interested interventions, proposals to abandon the default position of sovereignty and its corollary, the principle of nonintervention in international law, are both premature and dangerous. Instead, we should rethink the normative dimensions of the concept of sovereignty in light of the new principle of sovereign equality articulated in the UN Charter, and show how it can complement cosmopolitan principles such as human rights and collective security. The task is to strengthen, not abandon, international law and supranational institutions, and to foster a global rule of law that protects both the sovereign equality of states, based on a revised conception of sovereignty, and human rights.

In recent years, there have been concerted efforts to ensure that the different components of the international response to crisis-affected countries, whether conducted under the banner of the United Nations or not, are integrated in pursuit of a stated goal of comprehensive, durable, and just resolution of conflict. This includes a drive to purposefully make humanitarian assistance to victims, one of the principal forms of outside involvement in crisis situations, supportive of the “international community's” political ambition. The implication of the coherence agenda is that meeting lifesaving needs is too limited in scope, and that the principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence that have typically characterized humanitarian action should be set aside in order to harness aid to the “higher” goals of peace, security, and development.

[MacArthur] said that he had issued no orders or directives, and that he had limited himself merely to suggestions…. He stated that it was his belief, that it was his conviction, that a constitution, no matter how good, no matter how well written, forced upon the Japanese by bayonet would last just as long as bayonets were present, and he was certain that the moment force was withdrawn and the Japanese were left to their own devices they would get rid of that constitution.

—Recorded on January 29,1946, by Nelson T. Johnson, Secretary-General of the Far East Commission

In spite of the storm surrounding its first appearance, the cumbersomely named “Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period” (TAL) has been surprisingly immune from criticism in the West since its initial signing on March 8, 2004. American officials, anxious to declare victories where they can, as well as journalists seeking newsworthiness have insisted on the more accurate and revealing term “interim constitution.” Its technocratic name, designed to neutralize (or hide) its constitutional significance, may partly explain why it has received little critical attention, but a more likely explanation is that many of its readers have rightly or wrongly viewed it as offering better protections for rights, including those of minorities and women, and more safeguards against newforms of authoritarian rule than other constitutions in Islamic countries, especially those in the Arab Middle East, including Iraq's own constitutional past. Commentators are apt to overlook the imposed character of the production of the document, perhaps because they suspect that a more genuinely negotiated and consensual product would very possibly have included fewer supposed protections for rights and safeguards against dictatorship, or at least the “tyranny of the majority.”

In 2001, 178 of the world's nations reached agreement on a treaty to combat global climate change brought on by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Despite the notable omission of the United States, representatives of the participants, and many newspapers around the world, expressed elation. Margot Wallström, the environment commissioner of the European Union, went so far as to declare, “Now we can go home and look our children in the eye and be proud of what we have done.”

In this article, I argue for two theses. First, the rhetoric and euphoria surrounding the 2001 deal is misplaced. This is not, as is often said, because the Kyoto agreement is too demanding but rather because it is much too weak. In particular, the Kyoto agreement does little to protect future generations. On the contrary, (at best) it seems to be a prudent wait-and-see policy for the present generation, narrowly defined. Hence, even those countries who have endorsed the Kyoto agreement should be wary of looking their children in the eye, and none should relish facing their children's children.

Second, the failure of the Kyoto agreement can be explained in terms of the underlying structure of the problem. Climate change involves the intersection of a complex set of intergenerational and intragenerational collective action problems. This structure, and in particular its intergenerational aspect, has not been adequately appreciated. Yet until it is, we are doomed to an ineffectual environmental policy.

The integration of political, military, and humanitarian action in responding to complex emergencies offers a compelling promise of resolving long-term problems and thereby providing peace and stability to an entire population. Significant changes are needed, however, to realize this promise fully. The most critical improvements relate to strengthening the humanitarian leadership within the UN system and so refocusing the collective effort on the protection of vulnerable civilians. A movement of independent, complementary agencies working together to realize protection will strengthen the humanitarian component of integrated missions and make a difference in people's lives.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been the subject of much discussion for its impact on the use of force outside of UN Security Council authorization. Less commented upon is the fact that the so-called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” resurrected a body of international law that had been dormant through the second half of the twentieth century: the law of military occupation. Developed at a time when war itself was not illegal, this doctrine became something of an embarrassment after the UN Charter established a broad prohibition on the use of force. Nevertheless, through the 1990s the United Nations itself had become involved in operations in Kosovo that looked distinctly like military occupation. Even the most liberal reading of the instruments governing occupation law, however, finds it hard to reconcile this law with military intervention and post-conflict occupation premised on regime change. This article first surveys the law of military occupation before briefly examining the role of the UN Security Council in post-conflict administration. It then turns to the ambiguous responsibilities accorded to the United States and Britain as occupying powers in Iraq in 2003–2004.

Global warming is indeed a difficult international environmental problem to address: it has tragedy of the commons characteristics, and problems of time horizons and uncertainty. But previous efforts at international cooperation on other environmental issues such as ozone depletion suggest that international cooperation should be possible–though difficult–on climate change. Cooperation on issues that involve long time horizons suggests that the present generation is not calculating utility quite so narrowly as game theorists posit. Experience also suggests that successful cooperation on climate change will start with measures so small as to seem inconsequential, but will set in place an institutional and scientific process that will ultimately result in much more significant cooperative efforts. Rather than representing a tragedy, the Kyoto Protocol (or something much like it) could represent the beginnings of a process in which current generations take the first steps at collective action that dramatically improve the lives of future generations. Those who are concerned about the weakness of the Kyoto Protocol should first focus on persuading the United States to join-since this is the best way to let the process work and avoid a tragedy of the commons.

The UN humanitarian response in Afghanistan spans fifteen years during which humanitarianism has waxed and waned. A retrospective look at this period provides insights on an interesting range of approaches and respect/disrespect for basic humanitarian principles. Afghanistan shows, for example, that definitions of what was “humanitarian” have expanded and contracted to suit particular political contexts. During the Taliban period the definition of humanitarian action was extremely wide and covered rehabilitation and even development activities; post-September 11 we see a dangerous level of contraction that compromises the application of its basic principles for the sake of pursuing nation-building activities in the service of political agendas.

Vast improvements in human health have been made during the past century. Indeed, gains in increased life expectancy and reduced physical impediments for much of the population were greater than in any previous century. Yet the gains were not uniform across the world or even within individual countries. The variations in health status among people cannot for the most part be explained through genetic differences. Instead, in most instances the variations in the last century and at the turn of the current century correspond to the variations in the distribution of control over material resources.

Many developing countries are attempting to use their natural resource endowments – notably oil, natural gas, and minerals such as gold – as the basis for economic growth and development. Recent history, however, indicates that countries that depend heavily on resource extraction do more poorly on a variety of economic indicators, including growth rates, education levels, and income inequality. This is due in significant part to the way in which wealth derived from resource extraction is concentrated in the hands of a small elite, which often misuses these revenues through corruption, poorly planned investments, and other means. This contrasts with other kinds of economic activity, such as agriculture, in which benefits are distributed more widely. Thus, a key to increasing the development and poverty reduction benefit value of resource extraction is breaking elite control of these revenues and increasing public involvement in decision-making related to their use. Doing so would enhance the likelihood that these funds would be employed with greater concern for the needs of the populace. The experiences of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia highlight the importance of increasing distributive justice and public participation in resource revenue distribution and provide insights into how this could be implemented in resource-dependent economies.

The past decade has seen profound changes in the relationship between humanitarian and political action. The political determinants of humanitarian crises are now acknowledged, so too is their chronicity, and the limits of relief aid as a form of intervention are thus more fully understood. In 1994, in the refugee camps of Goma, Zaire, there was widespread manipulation of aid resources by armed groups implicated in the genocide in Rwanda. This experience highlighted a wider concern that, rather than doing good, emergency aid can fuel violence. The apparent consensus that humanitarian assistance can somehow stand outside politics gave way to calls for tighter linkage between aid and political responses to crises.

When the Bush and Blair administrations justified the 2003 war on Iraq as an act of preemptive self-defense, this was greeted in many quarters with understandable skepticism. How can the right of self-defense be legitimately invoked when no prior aggressive attack has occurred and there is no evidence that one is imminent? This question, much debated in the months leading up to the war, invites us to reflect critically on the content of the right of self-defense. Yet there is a deeper question to be asked about the idea of a war of self-defense; namely, how is it that war can be considered an act of self-defense at all? How exactly is it that the concept of self-defense can provide a justification for war? It is this question that I ask in War and Self-Defense and the answer I arrive at is a surprising one.

New democracies pose a particular challenge for journalists. They are vulnerable and sometimes shaky. One wants them to work and, therefore, one is seeking to define not just what constitutes high-quality and interesting journalism but also how one can best contribute to helping democracy take root. In South Africa, journalists by and large emerged from many years of fighting against state, corporate, and political pressures under apartheid in the 1990s with a fierce commitment to independence. This sentiment was often strongest, predictably, in those institutions that had suffered the most political interference, such as the state broadcaster and the Afrikaans press, both of which had served largely as mouthpieces for the apartheid government.

David Rodin's book, War and Self Defense, is a subtle and provocative analysis of the claim of self-defense and its relation to modern war. Building on his analysis, I raise some further issues about self-defense as a justification of modern nation state war. Principal among these is what I call the conscription paradox: if the state's right to make war is grounded in the right of its citizens to self-defense, how do we explain the right of modern states to conscript its citizens into the military – and order them to die, if need be? This problem has been acknowledged by liberal individual thinkers over the years, but not solved. It raises questions of whether a coherent account of current nation state military practice can be grounded in individual self-defense.

The integration of humanitarian action into intervention operations, and particularly the inclusion of a military component, carries risks—but none so great as to be worth sacrificing integration on the altar of humanitarian purity. As in the case of Iraq in the first, emergency phase of an operation, humanitarian teams working closely with the combat troops can greatly reduce civilian suffering caused by shock, displacement, and lack of access to necessities of daily life. In the transition phase, as the military begins to turn over power to an independent political authority, integration of development teams is likewise important. Integration in the interest of humanity is no vice. Humanitarian exclusivity in the interest of purity is no virtue.

First imagine a case in which a person uses violence in self-defense; then imagine a case in which two people engage in self-defense against a threat they jointly face. Continue to imagine further cases in which increasing numbers of people act with increasing coordination to defend both themselves and each other against a common threat, or a range of threats they face together. What you are imagining is a spectrum of cases that begins with acts of individual self-defense and, as the threats become more complex and extensive, the threatened individuals more numerous, and their defensive action more integrated, eventually reaches cases involving a scale of violence that is constitutive of war. But if war, at least in some instances, lies on a continuum with individual self- and other-defense, and if acts of individual self- and other-defense can sometimes be morally justified, then war can in principle be morally justified as well. It follows that the only coherent forms of pacifism are those that reject the permissibility of individual self- or other-defense—for example, those based on an absolute prohibition of violence or killing.

The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) was created in 1964 to provide emergency nonfood humanitarian assistance in response to international crises and disasters, in order to save lives and alleviate human suffering and to reduce the economic impact of those disasters. The office operates under the overall mandate of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is to provide “economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States.”1 OFDA coordinates relief efforts for the U.S. government, and funds relief efforts by UN humanitarian agencies, private nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other international organizations.