Carnegie Council Audio Podcast

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, Georgetown’s Melanne Verveer discusses the connections between women’s issues, politics, human rights, and economics. In this excerpt Verveer tells journalist Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson about her role in the Obama administration.

How can you ensure that ethics are a core component, not only of an international affairs education, but of graduates' performance once they go out in the field? In this event for students and alumni of the Elliott School of International Affairs, the School's Dean Brigety and Professors Nolan and Kojm, along with Carnegie Council President Rosenthal, discuss the thorny issues of ethics, leadership, and practice in international relations.

Rome-based journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau tells the horrifying story of the thousands of Nigerian women and girls duped into being trafficked to Italy, where they are forced to become sex slaves, drug mules, or weapons smugglers. How can this be stopped? The Nigerian government turns a blind eye, Libya, the transit point, is a failed state, and Italy is overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of migrants--plus prostitution is legal there.

Muhammad Musa is executive director of BRAC, which is working with the one million Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh. He describes the problems there, including growing tensions with the host community and the threat of the coming monsoon season, which may bring floods and landslides. He looks forward to the day when the Rohingya can go home to Myanmar, but this can only occur with the help of the international community.

In this panel Adrian Basora makes a strong case for democracy as not only promoting American values but also serving U.S. interests, while Maia Otarashvili gives a frightening overview of the rise of "illiberal values" (Viktor Orbán's phrase) in the Eurasia region. Basora and Otarashvili are co-editors of "Does Democracy Matter? The United States and Global Democracy Support" and Nikolas Gvosdev is one of the contributors.

The popular memory of WWI today was basically engineered through propaganda and censorship during the war itself, says Charles Sorrie. Those involved in any war need convincing reasons why they are fighting. "There needs to be almost some sort of slogan. The one that was developed at that time, that America was fighting mostly for democracy or for freedom, is one that is still used today in popular history and in popular culture."

We are already living with climate change; and although countries have pledged to limit global warming to 2 °C, success seems highly unlikely. This panel explores how to advance ethical leadership on climate justice globally, nationally, and locally in the years ahead. Topics include the Paris Agreement and commitments going forward, geoengineering governance, the problems in California, and the creative ways the Seychelles are coping.

Every capitalist economy struggles with how to come to terms with greed, says John Paul Rollert, an expert on the intellectual history of capitalism. He describes how our perspective has changed from the Christian view of greed as an unalloyed sin, to the 18th century idea that it could bring positive benefits, to the unabashed "Greed is good" ethos in the movie "Wall Street." Where do we stand now? How can we rehabilitate capitalism?

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, University of Maryland Baltimore County's Professor Kate Brown details the ethical, social, and health costs of nuclear power since World War II. In this excerpt Brown, author of "Plutopia," and journalist Stephanie Sy discuss the little-known Cold War era nuclear production plants in the Soviet Union and Washington State.

"Unknown to the rest of America, we had one regiment of Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico which was totally integrated. The rest of the military was segregated, and the Puerto Rican regiment was integrated." Military historian Richard Millett discusses some surprising and neglected aspects of the Hispanic experience in World War I, along with the war's impact on the United States' relationship with its Latin American allies.

As Obama's adviser on Russian affairs, Michael McFaul helped craft the United States' policy known as "reset" that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. Then, as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. "It's tragic," he says. "How is it that we have come back to something close to the Cold War?"

"I'm not making an argument that Maoism is coming back; we're very far away from that. But the crucial thing to recognize is just what we had known as characterizing the reform era is going away, and China is shifting into a more personalized authoritarian regime and one which is more closed with respect to outside influence. For me, I think when you see those things happening it makes you worried about what's the next norm that starts to break."

Over six years, Julie Chernov Hwang conducted over 100 interviews with current and former leaders and followers of radical Islamist groups in Indonesia to find out why some terrorists finally quit. What did she learn? The key is life skills training, family and community support, and personal development, she says. "If you are going to focus on deradicalization, focus it narrowly on use of violence. Don't try to overhaul someone's worldview."

"What happens when a predator drone has as much as autonomy as a self-driving car, moving to something that is able to do all of the combat functions all by itself, that it can go out, find the enemy, and attack the enemy without asking for permission?" asks military and technology expert Paul Scharre. The technology's not there yet, but it will be very soon, raising a host of ethical, legal, military, and security challenges.

In the 1930s during the run-up to WWII, many argued that arms manufacturers and bankers--"merchants of death"--had conspired to manipulate the U.S. into entering WWI. What is or should be the role of the profit motive in preparing for war? "This is a debate that is no less important now," says MIT's Christopher Capozzola, "but we are not having it, and we are not including all the people in that debate who need to be participating in it."

Unlike Trump, Duterte came to the presidency with a history in public service and he knew how to run a government, says John Gershman. "I would relate him in some ways more to the anti-democratic populist movements of Eastern Europe: authoritarian, a very heavy morality dimension to his vision of nationalism, with a focus on things like drugs, and with a healthy dose of misogyny in his rhetoric."

Are we witnessing a new era of cosmopolitan justice or are the old principles of victors' justice still in play? Economic and political theorist Daniele Archibugi discusses his new book, "Crime and Global Justice," which examines the history of global criminal justice and presents five case studies: Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Saddam Hussein, and Omar al-Basheer.

Professor Qin Gao, director of Columbia's China Center for Social Policy, explains the workings of the Chinese "Dibao" (limited income guarantee) system. "Dibao is doing relatively better than many other similar programs in developing countries," says Gao, yet it has limitations and some negative aspects. She also discusses Xi Jinping's ambitious goal to eradicate poverty by 2020, and the benefits of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) system.

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, "Atlantic" contributing editor Gregg Easterbrook looks beyond the headlines and makes the case for optimism in an age of fear. In this excerpt, Easterbrook shares some positive statistics about the global food supply and economics in the United States.

Growing up in Apartheid-era South Africa, Robert Bank cared about social injustice from an early age. Today he travels the world for AJWS, working with local activists on a range of issues such as women's rights in India and LGBT rights in Uganda. "My job—very much like a conductor of an orchestra in some way—is to ensure that every instrument has its beautiful voice heard and that this melody is given the opportunity to really soar."