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Most Emailed Pages
1. AN ENGAGING OUTLOOK: A New Foundation for U.S. Foreign Policy
2. World Poverty and Human Rights [Full Text]
3. The Successes and Failures of UN Intervention in East Timor
4. Russia and Georgia: A Collision Waiting to Happen
5. Rape and Gender Violence: From Impunity to Accountability in International Law
 
   
     
 

Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture Series

 
     
 
Transcripts

Ethical Considerations: Law, Foreign Policy, and The War on Terror  
Alberto J. Mora, Dan Rather, Joel H. Rosenthal 11/02/06
Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora fought to stop policies that authorized cruelty toward terror suspects. "Cruelty harms our nation's legal, foreign policy, and national security interests," says Mora. "I can't put it any plainer than that."

The Future of Humanitarianism  
Bernard Kouchner, Joel H. Rosenthal, Mary-Lea Cox 03/02/04
Kouchner argues that the globalization of compassion and human rights is a sign of substantial moral progress that can count some successes--most notably, in Kosovo and East Timor.

Universalism and Jewish Values  
Michael Walzer 05/15/01
Though they lacked any state or territory of their own, Jews nevertheless created a distinctive political philosophy, one that deserves systematic scholarly attention.

Audios

Ethical Considerations: Law, Foreign Policy, and the War on Terror  
Alberto J. Mora, Dan Rather, Joel H. Rosenthal 11/02/06
Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora fought to stop policies that authorized cruelty toward terror suspects. "Cruelty harms our nation's legal, foreign policy, and national security interests," says Mora. "I can't put it any plainer than that."

Videos

Ethical Considerations: Law, Foreign Policy, and the War on Terror  
Alberto J. Mora, Dan Rather, Joel H. Rosenthal 11/02/06
Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora fought to stop policies that authorized cruelty toward terror suspects. "Cruelty harms our nation's legal, foreign policy, and national security interests," says Mora. "I can't put it any plainer than that."




Morgenthau Lectures (1981-Present)

Ethical Considerations: Law, Foreign Policy, and the War on Terror  
Alberto J. Mora, Dan Rather, Joel H. Rosenthal 11/02/06
Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora fought to stop policies that authorized cruelty toward terror suspects. "Cruelty harms our nation's legal, foreign policy, and national security interests," says Mora. "I can't put it any plainer than that."

The $100 Laptop: The Next Two Billion People to Go Digital  
Nicholas Negroponte, Joel H. Rosenthal 11/03/05
Negroponte's latest venture, One Laptop per Child, is a non-profit organization that manufactures and distributes inexpensive laptops to children worldwide.

Waging Modern War  
General Wesley K. Clark (ret.), Joel H. Rosenthal 05/28/03
Describing the experience of leading NATO to victory in Kosovo, General Wesley K. Clark (ret.) notes that, when he returned to the United States the following summer, "many people didn't even know there had been a fight."

The Mystery of Capital  
Hernando de Soto 05/08/02
Developing countries stand to realize $10 trillion in "dead capital" if they transform their political and legal practices into systems compatible with Western norms. AVAILABLE IN SPANISH.

Universalism and Jewish Values  
Michael Walzer 05/15/01
Though they lacked any state or territory of their own, Jews nevertheless created a distinctive political philosophy, one that deserves systematic scholarly attention.

Kosovo: An Assessment in the Context of International Law  
Richard Goldstone 05/12/00
South African jurist Richard J. Goldstone, co-chairman of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo, traces the troubled history of the Albanian province of Kosovo after it was incorporated into the new Yugoslavia in 1945.

National Interest in the Information Age  
Joseph S. Nye 05/12/99
Nye provides several reasons why the information age is likely to enhance rather than diminish American power.

Directions in U.S. Foreign Policy: Interests and Ideals  
Anthony Lake 05/12/98
On the one hand, more people (in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere) are living in democracies, thanks in large part to globalization. On the other, there has been an erosion of national sovereignty, with governments ceding power to international forces.

Human Rights and Asian Values  
Amartya Sen 05/25/97
Human rights are neither a uniquely Western phenomenon nor a hindrance to economic development, the charges usually leveled against those who seek to implement human rights in Asia. Sen points to intellectual strands within Asian thought that value human rights.

The Future of the United States as a Great Power  
William Pfaff 05/26/96
Renowned International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff points to the danger the United States will face if it continues to hark back to a mythical, isolationist past. He urges American leaders to take up the moral and political responsibility demanded of a great power, which includes encouraging the nation's citizens to remain informed about the wider world.

The New Dimensions of Human Rights  
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Joel H. Rosenthal 05/26/95
As part of the Carter administration, which trumpeted human rights as its foreign policy, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski candidly admits that this approach was a tactical attempt to defeat the Soviets. Nevertheless, he sees human rights as the inevitable offshoot of democracy, while warning that this could change if we neglect to address the potential misuses of biotechnology.

Intervention: From Theories to Cases  
J. Bryan Hehir 05/26/94
J. Bryan Hehir of the Harvard Divinity School argues that the legal norm against intervention in other nations' affairs is eroded once it becomes impossible to ignore the moral imperatives to rescue those in need and/or end violations of human rights. That said, he favors a prudent approach toward intervention, with non-intervention remaining the norm. NOTE: This lecture was also published in Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 9 (1995).

Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points after 75 Years  
Gaddis Smith 05/12/92
Although much of Wilson’s thinking is still relevant, he in no way anticipated "such horrors as the Holocaust, or the famine in Somalia, or the swirl of hatreds within countries and the refugees stumbling across borders"; nor did he have any "inkling of global issues such as climate change, overpopulation, and the poisoning of our environment."

Speaking Truth to Power: The Quest for Equality in Freedom  
Robert J. Myers 05/12/91
Former Council president Robert J. Myers discusses the legacy of Hans J. Morgenthau: his realist doctrine and its influence on American foreign policy; some enduring dilemmas of American democracy; and the the mass destruction of humanity through nuclear weapons.

Is the Cold War Over?  
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. 05/12/89
Pulitzer prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger analyzes the failure of the Soviet experiment, something no historian had predicted. “The internal contradictions of communism proved far more destructive than those internal contradictions that Marx predicted would infallibly overthrow capitalism.” Notably, Schlesinger delivered these remarks just before the Cold War was officially declared at an end.

The Nuclear Dilemma: The Greatest Moral Problem of All Time  
Theodore J. Hesburgh 05/12/88
Because nuclear weapons negate the key just-war principles of discrimination (not killing innocent civilians) and proportionality (not using force of greater magnitude than the good to be achieved in justifiable defense), they remain “the greatest moral challenge of all time.”

The Political Ethics of International Relations  
Stanley Hoffmann 05/22/87
Leading international relations theorist Stanley Hoffmann argues that the greatest danger to ethical thinking in international affairs is "disembodied idealism," i.e., posing ethical solutions to political problems without first coming to grips with states and their interests. Like Hans Morgenthau, he links ethics with political realism.

Is Democratic Theory for Export?  
Jacques Barzun 05/26/86
Barzun argues that democracy is not an ideology that can be exported but a historical development and mode of life peculiar to the political context in which it developed. Attempts to base a foreign policy on the idea of exporting democracy, as sought by both the Reagan and Clinton administrations, will fail.

Words and Deeds in Foreign Policy  
Kenneth W. Thompson 05/12/85
Moral principles become disconnected from political actions in three ways: contextualizing ethics for time and place as well as man, politics, and the nation-state; subjugating morals in the name of a utopian end; and viewing power alone as a moral principle.

Interest & Conscience in Modern Diplomacy  
Abba Eban 05/26/84
Famed Israeli diplomat Abba Eban examines modern developments that are said to have vitiated the power of modern-day diplomacy, refuting each in turn. He says that the challenges facing today's diplomats lie in finding a middle ground between conscience and interest, as Hans Morgenthau argued in his conclusion to Politics Among Nations.

FDR's Good Neighbor Policy Revisited  
Francis Cuevas-Cancino 05/12/83
Mexican diplomat Francisco Cuevas-Cancino pays tribute to President Roosevelt for pursuing a Latin American policy that was based on moral principles while at the same time serving the interests of the American nation. He regrets the loss of the Good Neighbor approach in more recent U.S. dealings with Latin America, citing the invasion of Grenada as a prime example.

Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life  
Admiral Hyman George Rickover 05/12/82
"I do not claim to have a magic answer, but I believe there are some basic principles of existence, propounded by thinkers through the ages, which can guide us toward the goal of finding a purpose in life." Admiral Rickover considers our human need to find this purpose and meaning in our lives.

Power and Morality in Global Transformation  
Soedjatmoko 12/12/81
Famed Indonesian intellectual Soedjatmoko says that the time has come for man to “develop the international legal infrastructure that will enable us to manage our globe peacefully, equitably, and effectively at a time when in many countries internal contradictions are eroding the moral consensus on which respect for law is based."

Study Guide to Ethical Considerations: Law, Foreign Policy, and the War on Terror

Ethical Considerations: Law, Foreign Policy, and the War on Terror  
Alberto J. Mora, Dan Rather, Joel H. Rosenthal
This booklet contains a speech by Alberto Mora, who fought to halt policies that authorized cruel and illegal interrogations of detainees; a torture debate timeline; discussion questions; and recommended resources.





 
 

About Our Programs

We offer resources from our programs in a variety of formats: audio, print and video.

 
 

Resource Highlights

The Future of the Automobile
Chevy Volt
  GM's Larry Burns discusses the Chevy Volt and the possibilities of electric cars.
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A Billion Lives
Jan Egeland
  Jan Egeland reports from the front lines of humanity.
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New from Policy Innovations Online Magazine
Policy Innovations
  "Northeast Puts on the Carbon Cap," by Warren Wilczewski: For the first time, a carbon market is opening for business in the U.S.
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Ethics & International Affairs
Ethics & International Affairs
  Go to the Journal for articles on ethics and foreign policy.
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