Michael Ignatieff

Making states work: State failure and the crisis of governance

This publication is the result of a joint interdisciplinary project of the International Peace Academy and the United Nations University. It focuses on situations when state structures begin to break down or collapse, encompassing a range of crises from states in which basic public services are neglected to the total collapse of governance. It looks at the roles and responsibilities of key actors in the situation in relation to their own populations and the international community, and considers the lessons that can be drawn from a range of countries to develop effective strategies to address such situations.

American Exceptionalism and Human Rights

Chapter 1. Introduction: American Exceptionalism and Human Rights by Michael Ignatieff 1 PART I. THE VARIETIES OF EXCEPTIONALISM 27 Chapter 2. The Exceptional First Amendment by Frederick Schauer29 Chapter 3. Capital Punishment and American Exceptionalism by Carol S. Steiker 57 Chapter 4. Why Does the American Constitution Lack Social and Economic Guarantees? By Cass R. Sunstein 90 Chapter 5. Americas Jekyll-and-Hyde Exceptionalism by Harold Hongju Koh 111 PART II. EXPLAINING EXCEPTIONALISM 145 Chapter 6. The Paradox of U.S.Human Rights Policy by Andrew Moravcsik 147 Chapter 7. American Exceptionalism, Popular Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law by Paul W. Kahn 198 PART III. EVALUATING EXCEPTIONALISM 223 Chapter 8. American Exceptionalism: The New Version by Stanley Hoffmann 225 Chapter 9. Integrity-Anxiety? by Frank I. Michelman 241 Chapter 10. A Brave New Judicial World by Anne-Marie Slaughter 277 Chapter 11. American Exceptionalism, Exemptionalism, and Global Governance by John Gerard Ruggie 304 Contributors 339 Index 341

Wealth and Virtue: Needs and justice in the Wealth of Nations : an introductory essay

Since … according to Smith, a society is not happy, of which the greater part suffers – yet even the wealthiest state of society leads to this suffering of the majority – and since the economic system (and in general a society based on private interest) leads to this wealthiest condition, it follows that the goal of the economic system is the unhappiness of society. Karl Marx, ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844’ No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable… Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the greater, [the labourers] accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy – and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Bk I, Chs. I and VIII) No clear definition of the identity of political economy in eighteenth-century Scotland can be given unless an account is offered of the central questions which Adam Smith was trying to answer when he wrote the Wealth of Nations . This in turn requires that we should be able to understand the relation between Smiths concerns as a moral philosopher, as a professor of jurisprudence and as a political economist.

Reimagining a Global Ethic

“Reimagining a global ethic” is a project worthy of Andrew Carnegie and of the Carnegie Councils upcoming commemoration of his founding gift in 1914. As a collaborative research project stretching forward over the next three years, it ought to be integrative and reconciliatory: that is, it must try to understand the globalization of ethics that has accompanied the globalization of commerce and communications and to figure out what ethical values human beings share across all our differences of race, religion, ethnicity, national identity, and material wealth. When human beings do disagree morally, the search for a global ethic becomes an attempt to elucidate by analysis what exactly people are disagreeing about, so that, after arguing out our differences, we can either agree to disagree or work together to find common ground. Finding common ground on large ethical matters and understanding more deeply why, in some instances, we remain at odds with each other is worthwhile in itself, but it might also further Andrew Carnegies original goal in founding the Council, which was to reduce the amount of conflict and violence in the world.

Human Rights, Global Ethics, and the Ordinary Virtues

In a 1958 speech at the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt took stock of the progress that human rights had made since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ten years before. Mrs. Roosevelt had chaired the UN committee that drafted the Universal Declaration and had hoped that, in time, it would become “the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.” Her answer to the question of how to measure human rights progress has become one of the most frequently quoted remarks of the former First Lady: Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

The Golden Section: Terror, Rights and Reason

INDEX WAS CREATED IN THE DAYS OF THE COLD WAR TO EXPOSE THE TERRORS OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM. TODAY THE CHALLENGE IS DIFFERENT BUT THE SAME MORAL AND RATIONAL CLEAR-SIGHTEDNESS IS ESSENTIAL IN THE CONFRONTATION WITH TERROR

Out of danger

Cast in the shadow of World War II and Nazi atrocities, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was shaped more by the fear of evil than the expectation of good. Fifty years on, it has become the individuals defence against the excesses of power and, even when challenged by dictators and demagogues, the universal language of human rights everywhere

The seductiveness of moral disgust

With the partial failure of almost all its post Cold-War interventions, the UN is confronted with the accusation that its efforts have merely delayed the inevitable or prolonged the agony of those it sought to assist