Ethics & International Affairs is pleased to announce the publication of its fall 2013 issue. This issue features an essay by Richard Schiffman on poverty, food security, and the land grab in Africa; a policy brief by Frances Moore Lappé, Jennifer Clapp, Molly Anderson, Robin Broad, Ellen Messer, Thomas Pogge, and Timothy Wise on why how we count poverty matters; a special centennial roundtable on nonproliferation in the 21st century, with contributions from J. Bryan Hehir, Jacques E. C. Hymans, Nina Tannenwald, and Ward Wilson; a feature article by Campbell Craig and Jan Ruzicka on the nuclear nonproliferation complex; and book reviews by Ralph Steinhardt, Joia S. Mukherjee, and Alyssa R. Bernstein.
ESSAY Hunger, Food Security, and the African Land Grab [Full Text] Richard Schiffman Land and water resources are under increasing strain worldwide, resulting in rising food prices and food shortages. This essay looks at the controversial practice of foreign countries' purchases of land for agricultural production in Africa.
POLICY BRIEF
How We Count Hunger Matters Frances Moore Lappé, Jennifer Clapp, Molly Anderson, Robin Broad, Ellen Messer, Thomas Pogge, and Timothy Wise In 2010, the FAO reported that the number of people experiencing hunger worldwide since 2005–2007 had increased by 150 million. However, in its State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012, the FAO presented new estimates, having revamped its methods and reinterpreted its hunger data back to 1990. The writers argue that FAO's primary measure does not capture the full extent of hunger and that SOFI 12's overriding messages may obscure important policy lessons.
CENTENNIAL ROUNDTABLE: NONPROLIFERATION IN THE 21st CENTURY ENTIRE ROUNDTABLE FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME!
Nonproliferation: A Global Issue for a Global Ethic [Full Text] J. Bryan HehirThis essay, focused on the continuing moral challenge of nuclear weapons, recalls the intellectual and moral lessons of the last century and identifies three leading issues in nuclear ethics today: post-cold war challenges to nonproliferation and deterrence, the new challenges posed by the terrorist threat, and recent proposals for Going to Zero.
The Threat of Nuclear Proliferation: Perception and Reality Jacques E. C. HymansThe United States is right to be vigilant against the threat of nuclear proliferation. But such vigilance can all too easily lend itself to exaggeration and overreaction, as the 2003 invasion of Iraq painfully demonstrates. In this essay, Hymans critiques two intellectual assumptions that have contributed mightily to Washington's puffed-up perceptions of the proliferation threat. He then spells out the policy implications of a more appropriate analysis of that threat.
Justice and Fairness in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime Nina TannenwaldThis essay focuses on two key questions: First, how do the issues of justice and fairness affect the stability, durability, and effectiveness of the nuclear nonproliferation regime? Second, what is the relationship of equity issues to conceptions of national security and "interests"?
The Gordian Knot: Moral Debate and Nuclear Weapons Ward Wilson Nuclear weapons are not awe-inspiring, epochal, or war-winning, nor are they certain instruments of doom. They are clumsy, muscle-bound, expensive, unhandy weapons with little use except as totems of status. They are very difficult to win a war with—even if you have a monopoly on their use. As a result, what we already know about nuclear weapons is sufficient. We simply have to ask ourselves if it is right to kill innocents unnecessarily. The answer to this question will provide all the guidance we need.
FEATURE The Nonproliferation Complex Campbell Craig and Jan Ruzicka In this essay, Craig and Ruzicka trace the history of the rise of the nuclear nonproliferation complex during and immediately after the Cold War. They show how nonproliferation and disarmament organizations and advocates turned toward ameliorative approaches in the face of great-power refusal to accept more substantial change, or indeed defended an international order favoring the status quo.
REVIEWS [Full Text]
Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights by John Gerard Ruggie Review by Ralph Steinhardt This book offers an insider's account of how the "Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights" came into being. Although readers may sometimes strain at its mix of heroic memoir and sober argument, Just Business contributes profoundly to the next iteration of an ethical lex mercatoria.
The Human Right to Health by Jonathan Wolff Review by Joia S. MukherjeeThis book will provoke the reader to think about how to bring the public sector, civil society, industry, patents, health financing, and human resources together in order to achieve the more rapid, progressive realization of the right to health in the decades to come.
Kant and the End of War: A Critique of Just War Theory by Howard Williams; and Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship by Pauline Kleingeld Review by Alyssa R. Bernstein These new books, by two of the foremost contemporary scholars of Kant's political philosophy, deal extensively with the theme of international peace.
