Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats
The post-World War II fabric of global security, designed and maintained by the United States, has dangerously frayed. Built for a different age, current international institutions are ill-equipped to address today's most pressing global security challenges, ranging from climate change and nuclear proliferation to civil strife and terrorism.
Revitalizing the institutions of cooperation will require a new conceptual foundation for global security. The "national sovereignty" of the twentieth century must give way to "responsible sovereignty"-a principle requiring nations not only to protect their own people, but also to cooperate across borders to safeguard common resources and tackle common threats. Achieving this will require American leadership and commitment to a rule-based international order.
In Power and Responsibility Bruce Jones, Carlos Pascual, and Stephen Stedman provide the conceptual underpinnings for a new approach to sovereignty and cooperation. They present ideas for the new U.S. administration, working with other global powers, to promote together what they cannot produce apart-peace and stability. Recommendations follow more than a year of consultations with policymakers and experts all over the world. They reflect the guidance of the Managing Global Insecurity Project Advisory Group, composed of prominent figures from the United States and abroad. They call for the new president and key partners to launch a 2009 campaign to revitalize international cooperation and rejuvenate international institutions.
As Washington prepares for a presidential transition, the time has arrived for a serious rethinking of American policy. For the United States, this is no time to go it alone.
Book Launch: Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats
On March 17 the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies will host a book launch for a pathbreaking new book, Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats, co-authored by Stephen Stedman, Senior Fellow, FSI and Director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, Bruce Jones, Co-Director of the Center on International Cooperation, New York University, and Carlos Pascual, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, the Brookings Institution. Power and Responsibility has been produced by the Managing Global Insecurity Project, a multi-year, multi-continent collaboration between the Brookings Institution, NYU's Center on International Cooperation, and Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, seeking to coalesce the best thinking on international security affairs today.
As the authors note, the post-World War II fabric of global security, designed and maintained by the United States, has dangerously frayed. Built for a different age, current international institutions are ill-equipped to address today's pressing transnational security challenges-- such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, civil strife, and terrorism, which are beyond the power of any one state to address.
Revitalizing the institutions of cooperation will require a new conceptual foundation for global security. The "national sovereignty" of the twentieth century must give way to "responsible sovereignty" - a principle requiring nations not only to protect their own people, but also to cooperate across borders to safeguard common resources and tackle common threats. Achieving this will require American leadership and commitment to a rule-based international order.
With timely and hard-hitting recomendations, Power and Responsibility seeks to galvanize more effective global action against transnational threats and to build the political support networks needed to reform and revitalize international institutions.
Following an introduction by Coit D. Blacker, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies and Director, the Freeman Spogli Institute, all three authors will comment on key ways that revitalized institutions and commitments could address issues topping the foreign policy agendas of the U.S. and its global partners.
A book signing and reception will follow the authors' commentary.
Bechtel Conference Center
Stephen J. Stedman
CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.
In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.
In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.
In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.
His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).
Solving the Global Leadership and Talent Equation
Come hear four successful entrepreneurial leaders share insights about the crucial element of talent for start-ups in a global environment: how to build a team, recruit the best people, and manage across borders. Draw on their wealth of experiences: they have founded, funded and led many firms, pioneered technologies and business practices, led start-ups and Fortune 500 firms, and recruited and mentored scores of company leaders.
After the panel discussion there will be a question and answer period, followed by Chinese appetizers and networking.
This event is open to students, the Stanford community and the general public and is part of Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University. You can see the entire line-up of Entrepreneurship Week events at eweek.stanford.edu.
About the panelists
Eric Benhamou
David Chao
Kyung Yoon
Michael Zhao
Bechtel Conference Center
Divided Lenses: Film and War Memory in Asia
The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is currently in the midst of a three-year research project, “Divided Memories and Reconciliation.” Divided Memories is a comparative study of the formation of elite and popular historical consciousness of the Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War periods in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States with the aim of promoting understanding and reconciliation. The first phase, which has been completed, is a comparative study of high school history textbooks from all five nations, focusing on the way the textbooks treat the wars and their aftermath. The second phase focuses on the impact of popular culture, especially films, on the formation of public memory.
The main goal of this international conference is to examine the role of dramatic cinema in shaping popular and elite perceptions of the historical period from 1931-1951, ranging from the treatment of Japanese colonialism to the post-war settlement and the beginnings of the Korean War. Panelists will survey the cinemas of Japan, China, Korea and the United States, identifying important films made during the post-war period and their impact on war memory. The conference will then focus on key issues of the wartime period as they are represented in film, including the Nanjing Massacre, nationalism in Japan, the colonial experience in Korea and the Korean war. Finally, we will examine other forms of popular culture, including manga and anime.
This conference is aimed at promoting public discussion crossing national borders and disciplinary boundaries – and producing an edited volume for publication. It will be preceded by a film series, featuring significant films on this wartime period from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. The series will conclude on the evening of December 4, preceding the opening of the conference, with a showing and discussion of Letters from Iwo Jima with director Clint Eastwood.
Bechtel Conference Center
Chiho Sawada
Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Chiho Sawada holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Harvard University (specialty in East Asian history; secondary field in Western intellectual history) and a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego (major in economics; minor in visual arts). In addition, he has attended the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (concentration in International Politics and Development), conducted research at numerous other institutions in Asia and the United States, and served stints in U.S. Embassies in Beijing and Seoul.
Dr. Sawada is currently working on several collaborative and individual research projects: (1) Historical Injustice, Redress, and Reconciliation: Global Perspectives, (2) Public Diplomacy and Counter-publics: Asia and Beyond, 1945 to the present, and (3) Student and Urban Cultures in Colonial Contexts. He recently contributed a chapter entitled "Pop Culture, Public Memory, and Korean-Japanese Relations" to the first volume of project one, Rethinking Historical Injustice in East Asia (Routledge, forthcoming). For project two, he is lead organizer of a Stanford workshop and conference, and editing the conference book. Project three is a book project that expands his dissertation to consider colonial context not just in Northeast Asia, but also India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Daniel C. Sneider
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Daniel C. Sneider is a lecturer in international policy at Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy and a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford. His own research is focused on current U.S. foreign and national security policy in Asia and on the foreign policy of Japan and Korea. Since 2017, he has been based partly in Tokyo as a Visiting Researcher at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, where he is working on a diplomatic history of the creation and management of the U.S. security alliances with Japan and South Korea during the Cold War. Sneider contributes regularly to the leading Japanese publication Toyo Keizai as well as to the Nelson Report on Asia policy issues.
Sneider is the former Associate Director for Research at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. At Shorenstein APARC, Sneider directed the center’s Divided Memories and Reconciliation project, a comparative study of the formation of wartime historical memory in East Asia. He is the co-author of a book on wartime memory and elite opinion, Divergent Memories, from Stanford University Press. He is the co-editor, with Dr. Gi-Wook Shin, of Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia, from Routledge and of Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies, from University of Washington Press.
Sneider was named a National Asia Research Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Bureau of Asian Research in 2010. He is the co-editor of Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia, Shorenstein APARC, distributed by Brookings Institution Press, 2007; of First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier, 2009; as well as of Does South Asia Exist?: Prospects for Regional Integration, 2010. Sneider’s path-breaking study “The New Asianism: Japanese Foreign Policy under the Democratic Party of Japan” appeared in the July 2011 issue of Asia Policy. He has also contributed to other volumes, including “Strategic Abandonment: Alliance Relations in Northeast Asia in the Post-Iraq Era” in Towards Sustainable Economic and Security Relations in East Asia: U.S. and ROK Policy Options, Korea Economic Institute, 2008; “The History and Meaning of Denuclearization,” in William H. Overholt, editor, North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War?, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 2019; and “Evolution or new Doctrine? Japanese security policy in the era of collective self-defense,” in James D.J. Brown and Jeff Kingston, eds, Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia, Routledge, December 2017.
Sneider’s writings have appeared in many publications, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Slate, Foreign Policy, the New Republic, National Review, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Oriental Economist, Newsweek, Time, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and Yale Global. He is frequently cited in such publications.
Prior to coming to Stanford, Sneider was a long-time foreign correspondent. His twice-weekly column for the San Jose Mercury News looking at international issues and national security from a West Coast perspective was syndicated nationally on the Knight Ridder Tribune wire service. Previously, Sneider served as national/foreign editor of the Mercury News. From 1990 to 1994, he was the Moscow bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, covering the end of Soviet Communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. From 1985 to 1990, he was Tokyo correspondent for the Monitor, covering Japan and Korea. Prior to that he was a correspondent in India, covering South and Southeast Asia. He also wrote widely on defense issues, including as a contributor and correspondent for Defense News, the national defense weekly.
Sneider has a BA in East Asian history from Columbia University and an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
U.S.-Russia Relations in the Aftermath of the Georgia Crisis
Russia's invasion of Georgia last month seriously undermined peace and security in Europe for the first time in years. Russia's military actions and subsequent decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states also represent a fundamental challenge to the norms and rules that help to promote order in the international system.
The initial skirmishes between Ossetian and Georgian forces that first sparked this conflict in early August 2008 should have been contained. Had the international community – led by an attentive and proactive American government – engaged both the Russian and Georgian governments in an effort to first stop the violence immediately, and then more ambitiously, to mediate a permanent solution to Georgia’s border disputes, this war might have been avoided. It still remains unclear what sequence of events turned skirmishes into war -- an international investigation should be conducted to shed light on this question. Irrespective of who moved first to escalate, the Georgian government’s decision to use military force to reassert its sovereignty over South Ossetia, which included sending its forces into the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, was short-sighted and ill-considered. Nonetheless, Georgian military action within its borders can in no way be equated with or cited as an excuse for Russia’s invasion and then dismemberment of a sovereign country. Russia’s actions were disproportionate and illegal. The tragic loss of life – soldiers and civilians alike – on all sides was regrettable, unnecessary and avoidable.
Because Georgia is a democracy, Georgian voters will someday judge the decisions of their government last month. But let’s not confuse that discussion with a clear-headed understanding of Russian motivations. Russia’s military actions last month and continued illegal occupation of Georgian territory today were not a mere defensive reaction to Georgian military actions in South Ossetia. On the contrary, the Kremlin’s moves represent the latest and boldest moves in a long-term strategy to undermine Georgian sovereignty, cripple the Georgian economy, and ultimately overthrow the democratically-elected government of Georgia. Moreover, Russia’s government actions in Georgia constitute just one front of a comprehensive campaign to reassert Russian dominance in the region through both coercive and cooperative instruments.
Managing Global Insecurity: A Plan for Action
The 21st century will be defined by security threats unconstrained by borders--from climate change, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism to conflict, poverty, disease, and economic instability. The greatest test of global leadership will be building partnerships and institutions for cooperation that can meet the challenge. Although all states have a stake in solutions, responsibility for a peaceful and prosperous world will fall disproportionately on the traditional and rising powers. The United States, most of all, must provide leadership for a global era.
U.S. domestic and international opinions are converging around the urgent need to build an international security system for the 21st century. Global leaders increasingly recognize that alone they are unable to protect their interests and their citizens-national security has become interdependent with global security.
Just as the founders of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions after World War II began with a vision for international cooperation based on a shared assessment of threat and a shared notion of sovereignty, today's global powers must chart a new course for today's greatest challenges and opportunities. International cooperation today must be built on the principle of responsible sovereignty, or the notion that sovereignty entails obligations and duties toward other states as well as to one's own citizens.
The US Presidential election provides a moment of opportunity to renew American leadership, galvanize action against major threats, and refashion key institutions to reflect the need for partnership and legitimacy. Delays will be tempting in the face of complex threats. The siren song of unilateral action will remain—both for the United States and the other major powers.
To build a cooperative international order based on responsible sovereignty, global leaders must act across four different tracks.
- U.S. Engagement: Restoring Credible American Leadership
- Power and Legitimacy: Revitalizing International Institutions
- Strategy and Capacity: Tackling Shared Threats
- Internationalizing Crisis Response: Focus on the Broader Middle East
Transatlantic Information Law Symposium
In the twelve years since the publication of the paper “Law
and Borders – The Rise of Law in Cyberspace” by David G. Post and David
Johnson, law makers and courts in the US and EU have had to address
numerous new questions arising from new information technologies and online
activities. What have we learned applying existing legal principles to new
Internet phenomena? What new principles have been established and what new
concepts underlie these principles? What role will new regulatory models and
regimes play in the future.
The Transatlantic Technology Law Forum (TTLF)
[http://ttlf.stanford.edu] and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International
Studies (FSI) [http://fsi.stanford.edu] will host the first Transatlantic
Information Law Symposium on June 14, 2008 at Stanford Law School. The goal of
the symposium is to bring together the leading experts from the US and EU to
discuss current issues in information law and to promote mutual understanding of
the different approaches.
The symposium will address the following topics:
Constitutional Rights and IT in the EU
The Right to Privacy in IT Systems in EU Law
The Right to Privacy in IT Systems in US Law
Freedom of Speech and the Internet in US Law
Network Neutrality in US Law
Property vs. Contract to Govern Online Behavior under US Law
Property vs. Contract to Govern Online Behavior under EU Law
The Future of Regulating Cyberspace - Open Discussion
This event is free and open to the public. For more
information and registration, please click here.
Stanford Law School
Andreas Wiebe
Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
Department of Information Technology Law and Intellectual Property Law
Althanstrasse 39-45
1090 Wien
Andreas Wiebe, LL.M., is Head of the Deparment of Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. From January through June 2008, Professor Wiebe served as Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor at the Forum on Contemporary Europe, during which time he taught courses in e-commerce law and intellectual property law at the Stanford Law School. Professor Wiebe co-organized the June 14 "Transatlantic Information Law Symposium," held at the Stanford Law School and presented by the Transatlantic Technology Law Forum and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Perverse Prosperos and Cruel Calibans: The (Con)text of Portuguese Postcolonial Positionality
Dr. Rothwell is the author and editor of numerous books, reviews, translations, and articles, including “A Postmodern Nationalist: Truth, Orality, and Gender in the Work of Mia Couto”. Bucknell & U.P. (2004); “Fuzzy Frontiers - Mozambique: False Borders, Mia Cuoto: False Margins” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies. Fall (1998); “A Tale of Two Tensions: Synthesis and Separation in Portuguese National Identity” Forum for Modern Language Studies. April (2000); “Shit, Shrimps, and Shifting Soubriquets: Iracema and the Lesson in Lost Authority” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies. May (2001); “The Phylomorphic Linguistic Tradition: Or, The Siege of (the) Portuguese in Mozambique” Hispanic Research Journal. June (2001). His most recent book is A Canon of Empty Fathers: Paternity in Portuguese Narrative (Bucknell University Press, 2007).
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room