Back to top

"Globalization and Sovereignty: Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism."

 Restricted

Sovereignty and the sovereign state are often seen as anachronisms; Globalization and Sovereignty challenges this view. Jean L. Cohen analyses the new sovereignty regime emergent since the 1990s evidenced by the discourses and practice of human rights, humanitarian intervention, transformative occupation and the UN targeted sanctions regime that blacklists alleged terrorists. Presenting a systematic theory of sovereignty and its transformation in international law and politics, Cohen argues for the continued importance of sovereign equality.

“The State’s Imperial Shadows.”

 Restricted

This essay seeks to consider Anna Stilz's Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration in light of settler and nonsettler colonialism and their contemporary legacies. In particular, it examines the intergenerational claims of Indigenous communities and the extraterritorial claims of colonial and neocolonial subjects. The broad aim of this effort is to consider how centering the imperial roots of our contemporary nation-state system transforms our understanding and justifications of territorial sovereignty.

"The Recent History of Human Rights."

 Restricted

Few political agendas have seen such a rapid and dramatic growth as that of "human rights." Prior to the 1940s, the term was rarely used. There was no sustained international movement in its name. There were no non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with a global reach to defend its principles. There was no international law crafted to protect our human rights. By the 1990s, however, you couldn't escape it. The better-known Western organizations-the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch-roamed the globe looking for infractions.

"'Globalization Theory': Yesterday's Fad or More Lively than Ever?".

 Restricted

This article argues that while globalization theory is far from being past its most productive phase, as some of its critics claim, it does exhibit a number of shortcomings, particularly when it comes to identifying a clear point of reference for what is taken to be globalized and applying theoretical concepts developed in the analysis of national societies to a global level.

"A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality: As Ideals of English Political Philosophy from the Time of Hobbes to the Time of Coleridge."

 Open

A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality is a window to one of the most important historians of all time. The exclusive Liberty Fund edition of F.W. Maitland's classic includes a note on Maitland by Charles Haskins and a general account of Maitland's life and work, "The Historical Spirit Incarnate: Frederic William Maitland," by Robert Schuyler. A historian's historian, F.W. Maitland was never to be caught indulging in fanciful speculation about times long past.

"Human Nature and Human Rights."

 Restricted

The closing months of his presidency, Bill Clinton and some of his entourage have taken to using the buzzphrase "human and political rights" to replace the simpler "human rights. Despite attempts to base the rights on "nature", in most cases they—by their very design—either run counter to nature or, at best, concern things about which nature is strictly neutral. There is nothing wrong with defining rights in terms of high human aspirations, but they will then require a very different justification from rights based on human needs.