Syllabus—Spring 2009
University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW)
PLS 218: Ethics in International Affairs
"Boat People" fleeing Vietnam, 1978-79, Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History
Day and Time: Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00pm-3:15pm
Location: Leutze Hall 111
Homepage: http://people.uncw.edu/tanp/PLS218.html
Professor Paige Johnson Tan, Ph.D.
Phone: (o) 910-962-3221
E-mail: tanp@uncw.edu
Homepage: http://people.uncw.edu/tanp/
Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30pm to 1:45pm and by appointment
Office Location: Leutze Hall 257
Politics will, in the end of history, be an arena where conscience and power meet, where the ethical and coercive factors of human life will interpenetrate and work out their tentative and uneasy compromises.
–Reinhold Niebuhr
Introduction
Proponents of realism, or realpolitik, in international affairs often make the claim that there is no room for morality in state decision making. States do what they must because they are locked in a battle for survival against other states. In this way of thinking, ethics are a luxury for which leaders and states have no time. Further, thinking about doing “what is right” could be dangerous, distracting leaders from doing what is necessary. On the other side, some liberal thinkers argue that all our acts have moral implications, nowhere more stark than in the international realms of war and peace, intervention, human rights, globalization, and development. As humans, we cannot separate ourselves from the ethical repercussions of our actions.
This course will examine several international relations traditions and find that thinking about what one should do is an important part of our ability to analyze the way in which states and other actors interact. Understanding ethics also informs our ability to decide what our own nation should do; it is vital to our responsibilities as citizens.
Ethical choices involve a reasoning process. This course will guide students in developing their ethical reasoning skills without pushing them in the direction of particular ethical choices. Most of the course will be conducted through in-class discussion; this is a class about thinking, reasoning, arguing, and doing—not about lectures. We should expect disagreements, some profound, in every single class session. However, these should be handled maturely and in an atmosphere of respect for the views of others.
My Lai Massacre, Vietnam War (Wikipedia)
Course Requirements
Students will be evaluated on the basis of class participation, a map quiz, a series of papers, and a final examination. The purpose of these assignments is to improve students’ skills in knowledge of politics, critical reasoning, public speaking, writing, and geographical awareness. The distribution of the final course grade from the various assignments is:
Class participation: 15%
Op-ed piece: 10%
Map quiz: 5%
Term Paper: 20%
Tests: 2@ 15% =30%
Final Exam: 20%
Class participation. In the old days, students were seen to be an empty vessel into which the professor poured his or her knowledge (more than likely, it was “his”—since it was the old days!). However, this old-model of education has come under severe challenge in recent years. Rote memorization is now seen to offer little to students. How often have you “crammed” for a test and then forgotten everything you learned within a few weeks?
The philosophy behind this course is that students learn better when that learning is active. Students are expected to attend class (with a maximum of two absences for the semester). They are also expected to participate in class discussions, considering, manipulating, testing, and questioning the topics presented in class in order to develop their knowledge of the field of Ethics and International Affairs and their familiarity with the tools and concepts of Political Science more broadly. Readings should be done in advance of class to enable thoughtful and informed participation. Active participation by all students has the advantage of helping to foster tolerance for divergent viewpoints and developing students’ abilities to formulate arguments in a well-reasoned manner.
As part of their class participation, students should follow the news for various contemporary international ethical issues. The Iraq War and various war crimes trials promise to be in the news over the course of the semester. We will hope to incorporate these contemporary issues and others into our class discussions. Class participation counts for 15% of the final course grade.
Op-ed piece. In order to develop their skills in constructing concise arguments about international topics, students are asked to write an imaginary “op-ed piece” for a major media outlet on a topic of contemporary ETHICAL and INTERNATIONAL significance. Op-eds should be 800-1,000 words (three-to-four double-spaced pages). The op-ed assignment is worth 10% of the final course grade. Please refer to the Writing Well Handout as you produce all written work for this course. The handout can be found at: http://people.uncw.edu/tanp/WritingWell.html.
Map quiz. Americans in the 18-to-24 age group came next to last in a nine-nation survey of geographic literacy conducted by the National Geographic Society in 2002. In the 2006 survey, six in ten could not find Iraq on a map (a sad state of affairs given the US service members dying there at the time). This course aims to tackle this problem by encouraging students’ awareness of and familiarity with major world countries, territories, and regions. The map quiz is worth 5% of the final grade.
Term Paper. Students are expected to produce a 2,500-word paper (@10 double-spaced pages) on one of the following topics. Performance on intermediate due dates of topic selection and outlines will impact the final paper grade. The term paper is worth 20% of the final course grade. Please refer to the Writing Well Handout as you produce all written work for this course. The writing handout can be found at: http://people.uncw.edu/tanp/WritingWell.html.
Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Smithsonian Institution)
Topics include (but are not limited to):
1) Evaluate the morality of an existing international institution. This might include the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank or International Monetary Fund, or another organization of the student’s choosing.
2) Develop a set of criteria, like jus ad bellum and jus in bello, for jus post bellum. What are the moral requirements of the post-war? Should a nation that goes to war have moral requirements to meet in the post-war setting? (Please note that this topic requires research into what serious scholars are doing on this issue. Use scholarly journal articles and ILL books and build your ideas from these bases. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.)
3) Do/should ethical norms be shelved in cases of supreme national emergency?
4) Watch the movie The Trials of Henry Kissinger at the library. Balancing the information presented in the video with other historical analyses of Kissinger’s stewardship of American foreign policy as well as primary documents from the period, evaluate whether Kissinger should be held to moral (and legal?) account for the activities of his time in office.
5) Evaluate the morality of the Reagan-era policy of US aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Students might consider the intervention in Afghanistan’s affairs, the role of the struggle in the Cold War, the tactics used by the mujahedeen, and the perceived blowback from the policy (Would there have been an Osama bin Laden without Afghanistan?).
6) Was the US war in Vietnam a just war? Consider both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. A note for those who choose this option: You must go beyond a popular culture understanding of the war to do well answering this question. You must go out and learn new things about how the war was justified and how it was fought. Ignore this advice at your peril.
7) Throughout the Cold War, nuclear deterrence, particularly Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), played a role in the maintenance of peace between the superpowers. Is nuclear deterrence a moral strategy?
8) Was the use of the atomic bomb by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War II an ethical choice?
9) Should Iran have the right to develop nuclear capabilities?
10) Do we have an ethical responsibility to work to prevent global warming?
11) In addition to the topics above, students are free to develop their own question for the paper (however, they should consult with the instructor on an on-going basis to ensure that they are moving in a productive and workable direction).
Tests/Final Exam. There will be two tests in addition to the final examination. Tests are each worth 15% of the final grade. The final exam is worth 20%.
Course Policies
Academic Honesty
This instructor believes academic honesty is the foundation of the entire enterprise of a university. Only in an environment of honesty can genuine learning occur and good citizenship be fostered. For further information, students should consult the online UNCW Code of Student Life at http://www.uncw.edu/stuaff/odos/documents/0910CodeofStudentLife_FINAL.pdf (The Honor Code begins on page 6 in the 2010 version). Students should also feel free to ask the instructor any questions they may have about academic honesty. Because academic honesty is treated as a serious matter, the course policy is one of zero tolerance for academic DIShonesty.
The core principle of the Academic Honor Code is that student work represents the original work of the student. For this reason, plagiarism, using the work of another without proper citation, and cheating, the unauthorized use of information during an examination, are prohibited.
The Academic Honor Code works for both students and teachers. Students can expect that the instructor will treat them in a fair, honest, and impartial manner. The instructor also expects students to deal with her and with one another honestly. Plagiarism and cheating are violations of academic honesty because they steal from the original creator of the work. In addition, they violate the relationship of honesty between student and teacher as the student attempts to pass off work as his or her own which was produced by another. Further, plagiarism and cheating violate the bond of honesty among students themselves. Students who produce their assignments through long, hard work are being violated by those taking a shortcut through the misappropriation of another’s work or knowledge. Most sadly, students who violate academic honesty cheat themselves of the chance to learn.
Please note two particular policies the instructor follows:
1) Work for this course must be yours, and it must be original. If you wish to work on a project you have previously worked on for another class, you must add at least as much content as the assignment requires that is new and original for this class.
2) You may receive help on your written assignments (not tests) from your roommate, significant other, parents, the University Learning Center, or a passerby on the street. The process of reading and revising your work based on the comments of others is an important part of how we learn and improve.
Contacting the Instructor
Students are encouraged to call or e-mail with questions, or stop by office hours (listed above). I endeavor to be available to assist you with your course work. It’s my job. As a hint, e-mails are likely to guarantee a quicker response than phone messages. I am most happy to set up an appointment for a meeting in addition to those times listed as office hours. However, because I have a young child at home, students must understand that there are limits on my time. A note on courtesy: When students receive assistance through any one of these extra-class channels, they should be sure to thank the instructor for her time, thought, and effort. This little trick will serve you well in the future. It is an expected part of social etiquette.
Late Papers
PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS POLICY!
Students are encouraged to plan in advance to make time to complete assignments. Things come up during the semester; relatives require our attention, cars break down, and students get sick. Students should begin their assignments early enough to allow for these foreseeable and unforeseeable eventualities. The instructor does not wish to receive any late assignments during the semester.
Papers are due at the start of class on the date listed on the syllabus. Each twenty-four hours that a paper is late may result in a penalty of one letter grade. Late papers must be submitted by e-mail (pasted into your message and attached in Word format) and must receive confirmation of receipt from the instructor to be considered "turned in." For your protection, submit your paper from an e-mail account which will keep a record of your outgoing e-mail. With this, you could demonstrate a true attempt to submit the paper that somehow disappears into the electronic ether. Do not submit papers to the instructor’s faculty snail mailbox, the department secretary, or under the instructor’s office door. After submitting papers electronically, students should bring a print-out of the late assignment to the next class meeting. Late assignments will not be graded on the same schedule as assignments submitted on time. Under no circumstances should students miss class to complete an assignment.
Extra Credit
Students are invited to attend lectures, panels, and movies on campus that deal with international affairs. Just check with the instructor beforehand as to whether you've picked a good event. After the event, submit a one- to two-page single-space write-up that deals with your reactions to the presentation. How does it relate to what we are doing in class? How does it relate to other things you've studied? Did you agree or disagree with the speaker/s argument? What did the presentation make you think about? This extra credit will be used toward class participation or in the calculation of final grades in borderline cases.
Tardiness
Students are strongly encouraged to show respect for fellow students and the instructor by arriving for class on time. Late arrivals disturb fellow students and disrupt the learning process. It is better to come in late than not to come at all, but try to be respectful of classmates by making arrangements to be in class and in your seat at the start of class.
Excused Absences
An excused absence is one that is discussed with the professor IN ADVANCE and for which documentation can be provided. Only for excused absences will the professor allow work to be made up. All make-up work will be done at the instructor’s convenience.
Disabilities
The instructor understands that some students may have need of accommodation (for example, extended testing time or a quiet testing locale) due to a disability. If you feel that you are in need of an accommodation, please contact Disability Services in Westside Hall to make the appropriate arrangements. The phone number is 910-962-7555.
Electronic Devices
Students are permitted to use laptop computers during class to access PowerPoints, online notes, or to type their own course notes. Laptops are not to be used for surfing the internet or checking e-mail. Students with computers are encouraged to sit in the back of the classroom to avoid disturbing fellow students. During periods of class discussion, computers should be closed to ensure adequate attention and participation. Obviously, when tests and quizzes are being administered, laptops are not permitted. Use of cellphones, including texting, is never permitted. PLEASE NOTE: If students are found to be using electronic devices in a manner inconsistent with the professor’s assessment of the best environment for group learning, they may be penalized with a one-letter grade reduction in their final course grade.
Market, Jaipur, India (2004)
Required Reading
Mark R. Amstutz. International Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and Cases in Global Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. (This is our textbook for the course.)
Alberto Coll. “The Problems of Doing Good: Somalia as a Case Study in Humanitarian Intervention.” Washington: Carnegie Council, 1997.
Bronwen Manby. “Shell in Nigeria: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Ogoni Crisis.” Washington, Carnegie Council, 2000.
Dinshaw Mistry. “India’s Nuclear Tests: The Consequences for International Security.” Washington, Carnegie Council, 2000. http://www.cceia.org/resources/publications/case_studies_series/19/index.html/_res/id=sa_File1/CS19%20-%20Dinshaw%20Mistry.pdf.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CASE STUDIES ABOVE ARE CURRENTLY FREE. PLEASE GO TODAY TO THE WEBSITES AND PRINT THEM OUT OR SAVE THEM TO YOUR COMPUTER. THESE ARE REQUIRED, NOT OPTIONAL.
Additional readings are occasionally assigned in the course schedule. These readings are to be accessed from the internet or from the library's e-Reserves system. Instructions for using e-Reserves are as follows: go to the library homepage (http://library.uncwil.edu/), choose Reserves in the left column, choose the green reserves button, choose Electronic Reserves and Reserves Pages, choose "Instructor" and type in "Tan," choose "PLS 218." Click on Accept. Look for the title of the reading and access.
World Wide Web Resources
Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com /
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/
Clausewitz, On War, http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/On_War/ONWARTOC.html /
Council on Foreign Relations http://www.cfr.org/
Crimes of War http://www.crimesofwar.org/
Foreign Ministries on the Internet http://www.usip.org/library/formin.html
Foreign Policy in Focus http://www.fpif.org/
Global Issues http://www.globalissues.org/
Global Policy Forum http://www.globalpolicy.org/
Group of 77 http://www.g77.org/indexswf.htm
International Affairs Resources: WWWVL http://www2.etown.edu/vl/
International Monetary Fund http://www.imf.org
National Security Archive http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
Prevent Genocide http://www.preventgenocide.org/
Rules of Warfare http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/warfare.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/
Terrorism from the Council on Foreign Relations http://cfrterrorism.org/terrorism/introduction.html
Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, and Homeland Security http://www.comw.org/tct/
United Nations http://www.un.org
US Department of Defense, News on the War on Terror http://www.defendamerica.mil/
US Department of State http://www.state.gov
US House, Committee on International Relations http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/
US Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations http://foreign.senate.gov/
Watching America http://www.watchingamerica.com/index.shtml
White House http://www.whitehouse.gov
Whirled Bank http://www.whirledbank.org/
World Bank http://www.worldbank.org
Periodicals, Scholarly Journals, and US Government Publications
As wonderful as the web is for finding information, periodicals and scholarly journals still form the backbone of our academic work. Some periodicals and journals helpful for the study of international affairs are listed below:
American Political Science Review
Asian Survey
Ethics in International Affairs
European Journal of International Relations
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Policy
Human Rights Quarterly
International Organization
International Security
International Studies Quarterly
International Studies Review
Journal of Conflict Resolution
PS Political Science
Pacific Review
Policy Review
Survival
Washington Quarterly
World Politics
Anti-poverty crusader Bono and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil (undated Wikipedia photo)
Schedule
Introduction
JAN 8 Introduction
Reading: Amstutz, 7-19.
In-class reading: Thucydides, “The Melian Dialogue,” The Peloponnesian War.
Topic: Introduction to the course.
Case: Athenian-Melian Encounter, Peloponnesian War (5th c. BC).
Theoretical Underpinnings and How-To
JAN 13 Realist Ethics: An Oxymoron?
Reading: Amstutz, 43-52 (on realism).
Activity: Student poll on attitudes toward ethics and international affairs.
Recommended: George F. Kennan, “Morality and Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Winter 1985/86 [ONLINE]. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19851201faessay8456/george-f-kennan/morality-and-foreign-policy.html [accessed July 14, 2006].
Case: The First Bush Administration and US-China Relations after Tiananmen Square (1989). Please note that you do not have a reading on this case. I will fill you in on the details, and you will apply the realist worldview to understand the choices made by the first President Bush in dealing with China after the suppression of demonstrators at Tiananmen in 1989.
JAN 15 Liberalism and Ethics
Reading: Amstutz, 52 to end Ch. 3.
Recommended: Thomas Donaldson, “Kant’s Global Rationalism,” Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel, eds. Traditions of International Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 136-157 (e-Reserve). Immanuel Kant, “On the Relationship of Theory to Practice in Morality in General,” Hans Reiss, ed. Kant: Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 64-72 (e-Reserve).
Case: President Carter’s Human Rights Policy (1977-1981), Bush Doctrine (2001-2009).
Looking ahead: Pass out map quiz preparation materials.
JAN 20 Liberalism: The Morality of State Sovereignty?
Also, Sources of Ethical Traditions, Utilitarianism
Reading: Amstutz, 161-163. Stephen D. Krasner, “Sovereignty,” Richard W. Mansbach and Edward Rhodes, eds. Global Politics in a Changing World, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, 13-20 (e-Reserve).
Case: Repeated Interventions in Haiti (20th c., emphasis on the 1990s).
JAN 22 Ethics in Other Traditions
Reading: Amstutz, 87-98. John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam, Cambridge: Harvard, 0207, 125-154. Osama Bin Laden, "Letter to America," available from the Guardian online http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver.
Consider “Asian values” and Islam as alternative sources of ethics.
Case: Caning of Michael Fay, Singapore (1994), September 11th attacks on America (2001).
JAN 27 Justice
Reading: Amstutz, 74-86, 195-202.
Consider distributive and restorative justice.
Case: The Veil of Ignorance in PLS 222: A Fair Distribution of Wealth (contemporary). South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Bitburg, if time permits.
Comment/Question cards. How is class going so far?
JAN 29 Ethical Reasoning
Reading: Amstutz, Ch. 2.
Consider: Ends-based (consequentialist), rule-based (deontological), and tri-dimensional approaches to reasoning.
Case: Famine Relief for Russia (1920s).
Issues and Cases
Force and Coercion
FEB 3 Just War Tradition: Jus ad Bellum
Reading: Amstutz, Ch. 6.
Recommended: Also, take a look at the BBC’s presentation on the Ethics of War at http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/war/. Michael Walzer, a famous thinker on the topic of just war, has some recent comments on the subject at http://www.cceia.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/8/prmID/5326.
Case: Persian Gulf War (Gulf War I, 1991)
FEB 5 Just War Tradition: Jus in Bello
Reading: Scott Shane, Mark Mazetti, and Robert F. Worth. "Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents." New York Times, August 14, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/world/asia/07japan.html?_r=1&hpw.
Cases: Battle against Al Qaeda (2001-present).
Looking ahead: Test 1 next week.
FEB 10 Just War: Kosovo Case Study
Reading: Amstutz, 20-26.
Recommended: CNN, “Focus on Kosovo,” Undated [ONLINE] http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/10/kosovo/ [accessed July 14, 2006].
Case: Evaluate the justness ad bellum and in bello of the Kosovo war (1999).
Looking ahead: What makes a good response to an essay question?
Please remember to bring some notebook paper next time for your answer to the essay question.
FEB 12 Test 1
You need your own paper to answer the essay question!
Goddess of Democracy ,Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China (1989)
FEB 17 Terrorism
Reading: Andrew Valls, Ethics in International Affairs, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, Ch. 5 (on e-Reserve as "Can Terrorism be Justified?").
Video: Frontline, Battle for the Holy Land, 60 minutes.
Case: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict (1948-present).
Looking ahead: Discuss op-ed assignment and term paper.
FEB 19 Terrorism, continued
Reading: Amstutz, Ch. 139-148.
Case: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict (1948-present), torture and targeted killing.
Looking ahead: Writing well handout.
FEB 24 Humanitarian Intervention
Reading: Alberto Coll. “The Problems of Doing Good: Somalia as a Case Study in Humanitarian Intervention.” Washington: Carnegie Council, 1997.
http://www.cceia.org/resources/publications/case_studies/18/index.html
Recommended: Amstutz, Ch. 8.
Case: Somalia (1993).
Due Today: Term paper topic. Further deadlines on the paper: Outline due March 24. Paper due April 14.
FEB 26 Class Cancelled for Instructor Travel
MAR 3 Battle of Algiers, Part I
Reading: None assigned for today.
Case: The Front Liberation Nationale (FLN) Battle for Independence in Algeria and the French Response (1954-1962).
MAR 5 Battle of Algiers, Part II
Reading: None assigned for today.
Case: The FLN Battle for Independence in Algeria and the French Response (1954-1962).
Looking ahead: Op-ed due the 19th.
MAR 10, 12 SPRING BREAK. No Class.
MAR 17 Nuclear Proliferation
Reading: Dinshaw Mistry. “India’s Nuclear Tests: The Consequences for International Security.” Washington, Carnegie Council, 2000. http://www.cceia.org/resources/publications/case_studies/19/index.html.
Recommended: Bill Keller, “The Thinkable,” Richard W. Mansbach and Edward Rhodes, eds. Global Politics in a Changing World, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, 82-91 (on e-Reserve as "Proliferation").
Case: India Tests the Bomb (1998).
International Obligations?
MAR 19 Genocide: Cambodia
Reading: None for today.
Video: Pol Pot: Inside Evil (50 minutes)
Case: Vietnam’s Intervention to Overthrow the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (1978-1979).
Looking ahead: Test 2 next week.
MAR 24 Genocide: the Genocide Convention, Rwanda, and Darfur
Reading: Amstutz, 65-74, 98-104. Samantha Power, “Bystanders to Genocide,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2001 (on e-Reserve). Also, Genocide Convention at http://193.194.138.190/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm [ONLINE].
Case: Rwanda (1994).
Looking ahead: Term paper outline due today.
MAR 26 TEST 2 (Instructor Travel to Chicago for a Conference. TA will be here to administer exam.)
Falling Berlin Wall, Germany (1989)
MAR 31 The Ethics of Globalization
Reading: Thomas Friedman and Ignacio Ramonet, “Dueling Globalizations: A Debate between Thomas L. Friedman and Ignacio Ramonet,” Richard W. Mansbach and Edward Rhodes, eds. Global Politics in a Changing World, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, 449-458 (on e-Reserve).
Recommended: Peter Singer, “One World: The Ethics of Globalization,” Public Address at the Carnegie Council of Ethics and International Affairs, October 29, 2003 [ONLINE] http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/20031029.htm [accessed April 1, 2008].
Case: Free Trade.
APR 2 Poverty Relief and Foreign Aid: The Magic 0.7%
Reading: Amstutz, 202-206. Center for Global Development and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Ranking the Rich,” Foreign Policy, September/October 2005, 76-83 (on e-Reserve). Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, London: Penguin, 2005, 288-308 (on e-Reserve as "Can the Rich Afford to Help the Poor?"). "The Eight Commandments," Economist, July 7, 2007 (on e-Reserve).
Case: Understanding the Basics of US Foreign Aid.
Looking ahead: Term paper due soon.
APR 7 The Moral Duties of Multinationals
Reading: Bronwen Manby. “Shell in Nigeria: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Ogoni Crisis.” Washington, Carnegie Council, 2000.
http://www.cceia.org/resources/publications/case_studies/20/index.html .
Recommended if you are interested in learning more: Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ken Saro Wiwa's Closing Statement to the Nigerian Military Appointed Tribunal, Undated [ONLINE] http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/ken/state.html [accessed November 9, 2007].
For updates, see Tom O'Neill, "Curse of the Black Gold: Hope and Betrayal in the Niger Delta," National Geographic, February 2007, [ONLINE] http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0702/feature3/ [accessed November 19, 2007]. Also, International Crisis Group, Ending Unrest in the Niger Delta, Africa Report No 135, December 5, 2007 [ONLINE] http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5186&l=1 [accessed December 7, 2007]. Klaus Schwab writes on corporate duties in "Global Corporate Citizenship," Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008. See Starbucks' corporate social responsibility site at http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/csr.asp.
Note: If you're interested in these issues, maybe a career in Corporate Social Responsibility is for you. Check out CSRNewswire http://www.csrwire.com/ or The Economist magazine's special report "Just Good Business" (1/17/08) at http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10491077.
Case: Shell in Nigeria (1995).
APR 9 Class Cancelled due to Good Friday State Holiday
APR 14 The Environment, Indigenous People, and Development
Reading: None for today.
Video: Blowpipes and Bulldozers (60 minutes)
Case: Malaysia’s Penan, the Environment, and Development in Borneo (1980s).
TERM PAPER DUE.
APR 16 The Ethics of Sanctions
Reading: Amstutz, Ch. 9.
Case: Burma/Myanmar (post-1988).
APR 21 The Role of NGOs
Reading: Tony Vaux, The Selfish Altruist: Relief Work in Famine and War, London: Earthscan, 2001, 43-68 (on e-Reserve as "Ethiopia: A Golden Age").
Case: Oxfam and the Famine in Ethiopia (1980s)
US Foreign Policy
APR 23 What Role does Morality Play in US Foreign Policy? What Role Should it Play?
Reading:
Discuss: Is there a difference in ethical approach between the Bush and Obama administrations? Is democracy promotion ethical?
Cases: War on Terror and Iraq War (2000’s).
APR 30 3:00-4:15pm FINAL EXAM
UN Peacekeeper (Wikipedia)
You have finished the course (hopefully!).
Congratulations and enjoy a great summer.
Updated: December 29, 2008
Author: Paige Tan tanp@uncw.edu
Return to Dr. Tan's homepage: http://people.uncw.edu/tanp/