Archive | Coronavirus Pandemic RSS feed for this section
Richard Falk
Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He initiated this blog partly in celebration of his 80th birthday.
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
Tags
AKP anti-Semitism apartheid Balfour Declaration Barack Obama Biden China citizen pilgrim civil society Climate change Cold War Democracy Democratic Party diplomacy Egypt Erdogan European Union Gaza genocide geopolitics George W. Bush Hamas Hilary Clinton Hiroshima Hosni Mubarak Human rights International Criminal Court international law intervention Iran Iraq Iraq War Israel Israel-Palestine Israel/Palestine Israeli apartheid Jerusalem Libya Middle East militarism NATO Netanyahu New York Times NPT Nuclear disarmament nuclearism nuclear weapons Obama Palestine Palestinian people Palestinian territories peace process racism Richard Falk Russia Saudi Arabia Snowden Soviet Union Syria Tel Aviv Terrorism Trump Turkey Ukraine UN United Nations United Nations Security Council United States Vietnam Vietnam War Washington West Bank world order World War II ZionismRecent Posts
Categories
- 'Abnormal' Japan
- 'Fortress World'
- 'Humaitarian Pause'
- 'New Anti-Semitism'
- 'New' Normal
- 'Normal' Japan
- 'Operation Protective Edge'
- 'Peace Process'
- 'Suspending' Annexation
- 'Voluntary' International Law
- (un)civility
- 13 Demands
- 1915 Genocide
- 1948 War of Independence
- 1967 War
- 1968-69
- 2016 Presidential Election
- 2019
- 2020 Election
- 2020 Presidential Election
- 2020 Presidential Elections
- 2020 Primary
- 2020 U.S. Elections
- 2024 Impperatives
- 9//12 war(s)
- 9/11 + 9/12
- 9/11 Attacks
- 9/11. 9/12
- A Quiet Heart
- A remebrance
- A Sputnik Moment
- aapartheid
- Abbas
- Abdullah Gul
- Abraham Accords
- Abraham Center for Middle East Peace
- academic freedom
- acadmic freedom
- accountability
- Activism
- Adala Urgent Appeal
- Administrative Detention
- Adorno
- Advisory Opinion
- Advocacy Jurisprudence
- Afghanistan
- Africa
- Age
- Ageing
- aggression
- Ahed Tamimi
- Ahmet Davutoglu
- Ahmet Davutoğlu
- AK Party
- AKP
- Al Aqsa Mosque
- al Awda Freedom Flotilla
- al-Shayat Airfield
- Alfred Nobel
- Algeria
- Ali Khamenei
- Ali Mazrui
- alliance
- Altamont Speedway Concert
- Alternative Facts
- Ambon
- America
- America as republic
- American Deep State
- American elections
- American Embassy Seuzure
- American Exceptionism
- American foreign policy
- American Heroes
- American presidential campaign
- American presidential election
- American racism
- American Sniper
- AMEXIT
- Amos Oz
- Anarchy
- and Opponents
- Andrew Ross
- Animal Rights
- Anit-BDS Summit
- anit-Semitism
- annexation
- Anthropocene
- Anti-colonialism
- anti-Israel bias
- anti-Semitism
- anti-Semitism
- Anti-Turkish Campaign
- Anti-Zionism UN Resolution
- Antisemitism
- Antonina Zabinski
- Antonio Guterres
- Antony Blinken
- apartheid
- Apartheid Convention
- Apartheid State
- Apology
- Aquino
- Arab Spring
- Armenia
- Armenian community
- Armenian Genocide
- arms control
- arms sales
- Article 9
- Asian Economic Growth
- aspirational democracy
- asymmetric warfare
- Ataturk
- atomic attacks
- atomic bomb
- Audre Lorde
- Auschwitz
- authoritarianism
- autobiography
- autocracy
- Autocratic Rule
- Ayatollah Khomeini
- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khpomeini
- Ayça Çubukçu
- Ayça Çubukçu
- Ayelet Shaked
- Azopt
- B'Tselem Report
- Balfour Declaration
- Ban KI-moon
- BAN Treaty
- Barack Obama
- Barbara Walters
- Bashar el-Assad
- Basher al Assad
- BBC
- BDS
- BDS Campaign
- BDS-Bashing
- beauty
- Belgium
- Ben Ali Saleh
- Benjiman Netanyahu
- Berlin Wall
- Bernie Sanders
- Berrigan Brothers
- Bibi Netanyahu
- Biden
- Biden Diplomaccy
- Biden diplomacy
- Biden's foreign policy
- Biden's Middle East Visit
- Big History
- Bil'in
- Bilin
- Bill Clinton
- Bill Cosby
- Binali Yildirim
- binary thinking
- Bio-Ethical Emergency
- Bio-Political Crisis
- Biopolitical Moment
- Bipartisan Consensus
- Blacklisting
- Blocking Comments
- blog boundaries
- blog civility
- blog comments
- Blog ethics
- Bob Kerrie
- Bolsonaro
- book burning
- Bret Stephens
- BREXIT
- BRICS
- British colonialism
- British Mandate
- Brzezinski
- Bush family
- C.J. Polychronious
- Caeser Group
- Cambodia
- campaign fundraising
- capital punishment
- Capitalism
- Capitalist Constraints
- Carl Schmitt
- Caterpillar
- Catholicism
- CATS
- ceasefire
- Ceylan Orhun
- Chaim Weizman
- charismatic resilience
- Charles Blow
- Charlie Hebdo
- Charlottesville
- Chas Freeman
- Chemical Weapons
- Chemical. Weapons
- Cherif Chouachi
- Chernobyl
- child prisoners
- China
- China Rivalry
- Chinese Marxism
- Chomsky
- CHP
- Christian Zionism
- Christmas
- Christopher Kennedy
- citizen pilgrim
- citizenship
- City of
- citzenship
- Ciultural Engagement
- civil disobedience
- civil society
- Civil Society Discourse
- civil society tribunals
- Civil War Scenario
- civility
- Clash of Civiizationss
- Claudia Rankine
- Clean Break
- Climate Change
- climate denial
- climate justice
- Clinton
- Clinton Defeat
- Clinton's belligerence
- Clinton's foreign policy
- CNN
- Coalition for Change
- Coercive Diplomacy
- Cold War
- Colin Kaepernick
- collective punishment
- collective security
- Collective Self-Defense
- Colombia Peace Process
- Colonial Legacies
- colonialism
- Comment Guidelines
- Commentary
- Complexity
- Complicity Crimes
- Compllicity Crimes
- Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
- Conservative Republicans
- Constitutional issues
- consumerism
- contextual and configurative analysis
- Copenhagen failure
- Cornel West
- Coronavirus Pandemic
- Corporate responsibility
- Corrupting. Democracy
- cosmic consciousness
- cosmopolitanism
- Council of Foreign Relations
- counter-terrorism
- Counterinsurgency Tactics
- counterinsurgency warfare
- Counterinsurgency Wars
- Counterrevolution
- counterterrorism
- Coup aftermath
- Coup attempt
- Cour failure
- COVID-19
- COVID-19 Pandemic
- COVIS-19
- Crackpot Optimism
- Craig Hicks
- crime of apartheid
- crime or war
- Crimea
- Crimes against Humanity
- Crimes of Complicity
- Crimes of State
- Criminal Accountability
- Criminal Law
- Criminality
- Crisis of Crises
- Cruelty
- Cruz
- Cuban Revolution
- cultural imagination
- cultural war of aggression
- culture of violence
- cyber attacks
- Dahiya Doctrine
- Damascus consular attack
- Dan Ellsberg
- Daniel Berrigan
- Daniel Ellsberg
- Daniel Falcone
- Daniel Pipes
- Dany Danon
- Dautoglu
- David Krieger
- Davutoglu
- Dayan Jayatilleka
- Deal of the Century
- Deal of. the Century
- debate
- Deborah Sills
- Declaration of Conscience
- Decline of
- decline of democracy
- Decline of International Law
- Deep State
- Deepak Nayyer
- Deepak Tripathi
- Defamation
- Defamatory Comments
- Demagogic Leaders
- demagogue
- Demagogues
- demilitarization
- democracy
- Democracy
- Democratic Candidates
- democratic elections
- Democratic Paarty
- Democratic Party
- Democratic Party foreign policy
- democratic pluralism
- Demographic Bomb
- denuclearization
- Depolarization
- Derrida
- deterrence
- dialogic humility
- dialogue
- Dieudonne
- digital age
- Digital Divide
- Digital Etiquette
- Digital Home
- Digital India
- Diploamacy
- diplomacy
- Diplomacy v. War
- diplomatic initiative
- Diplomatic Protocol
- dipomacy
- disarmament
- discourse
- dispossession
- Disproportionality
- Dombas
- Donald Trump
- Dortmund
- double jeopardy
- double standards
- Douma 2018 Attack
- Douma CW attack
- drone warfare
- drones
- drug prices
- Durban Conference 2001
- Durban Process
- Duterte
- dystopia
- early Christianity
- Earth Charter
- Ebrahim Yazdi
- eco-humanism
- eco-insurgency
- eco-politics
- ecological alienation
- Ecological Civilization
- ecological collapse
- Ecological Constraints
- Ecological Ethos
- Ecological Imperatives
- ecological jurisprudence
- ecology
- economic and social rights
- Economic embargo
- education
- educational reform
- Edward Said
- Edward Snowden
- Effective Control
- Egypt
- Egypt (2011) (2013)
- Ekrem Imamoglu
- electability
- Electoral Aftermath
- Electoral College
- electoral politics
- Elizabeth McAlister
- Elizabeth Warren
- Embassy Move
- ending apartheid
- ending occupation
- Enlightenment
- environmment
- Eqbal Ahmed
- Erdogan
- ESCWA
- ESCWA Report
- ESCWA Report (2017)
- espionage
- Ethical Relevance
- Ethics of Apology
- Ethno-nationalist Moment
- ethnocracy
- ethnographhic moment
- Euromed
- Europe
- European statecraft
- European Union
- European Unity
- Exclusionary Nationalism
- failed coup
- Failed Geopolitics
- failed state
- failing state
- Fakhrizadeh
- False Certainty
- False Consciousness
- fanaticism
- fascism
- Fascist Threat
- Fatah
- Father Miguel D'Escoto
- Fatou Bennssouda
- FDR
- feminism
- Fethullah Gulen
- FETO
- Fetullah extradition
- Fetullah Gulen
- Fidel
- Fidel Castro
- FIFA
- FIFA and Palestinian Football
- Fist Pump Statecraft
- food security
- Force-feedomg
- foreign military bases
- Foreign Policy Magazine
- forever wars
- Forgetting 2019
- forgiveness
- Fouad Ajami
- France
- France and the United States
- Francesca Albanese
- Francis Fukuyama
- Fred Skolnik
- Fredrik Heffermehl
- Freedom Flotilla
- freedom of expression
- friendship
- Fukashima Daiichi
- Fukushima
- Fulbright Vietnam University
- funding terrrorism
- future generations
- Future of Gaza
- G-20
- G-7
- G20 Meeting
- G5
- Gandhi
- Gaza
- Gaza
- Gaza Massacre
- Gaza occupation
- Gaza oppressi
- Gaza/Israel
- Gaza\/Israel Violence
- Gemeva Convention IV
- Gen. Yasem Soleimani
- General el-Burhan
- General Mark Milley
- General Yair Golan
- Geneva IV
- genocide
- Genocide Controversy
- Genocide Convention
- Genocide Convvention
- Genocide-duty to prevent
- Geoecomic Dimensionss
- Geoffrey Darnton
- Geopolitic bersus International Law
- Geopolitical Bribery
- geopolitical buffoonery
- Geopolitical Crime
- Geopolitical Fault Lines
- Geopolitical Futures
- geopolitical laws
- Geopolitical Militarism
- Geopolitical Realignments
- Geopolitical Veto
- Geopolitical War
- geopolitics
- geopolitics of decline
- George H.W. Bush
- George McGovern
- George Shultz
- George W. Bush
- Germany
- Gerry Spence
- Gideon Levy
- Giraffes
- glaucoma
- Global autocracy
- Global Battlefield
- Global Capital
- Global Challenges
- global citizen
- global cooperation
- Global Disorder
- global domination project
- global emergency
- Global Governance
- Global Imperial State
- Global Inequality
- global interest
- global justice
- global leadership
- Global Militarism
- Global Populism
- Global presidency
- global public order
- global reform
- global risks
- global security
- Global Solidarity
- Global State
- global warming
- Gloria Emerson
- Goodaall
- Governaability
- Grand Inquisitor
- Grand Strategy
- Great March of Return
- Great Return March
- Great Transition Network
- Great Transition Network (GTN)
- Greta Thunberg
- Guantanamo
- Guardian of the Walls
- Gujurat
- Gulf Cooperation Council
- Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
- Gulf Crisis
- Gulf Crisis of 2014
- Gulf Monarchies
- gun culture
- Gunnar Myrdal
- hacking
- Haider Eid
- haiku
- Haim Saban
- Hamas
- Hamas Charter
- Hamas Hezbollah
- Hanan Ashrawi
- Hannibal Directive
- Hans Morgenthau
- harmony with nature
- Harrisburg 7
- Harvard University
- hasbara
- Hassan Rouhani
- hate speech
- HDP
- Health
- Heffermehl
- Henry David Thoreau
- Henry Kissinger
- Henry L. Stimson
- Henry Paulson
- Hersch Lauterpacht
- Hewlett Packard
- hibakusha
- Hilary Clinton
- Hilary Clinton's foreign policy
- Hillary Clinton
- Hiroshima
- Hirosshima
- Hirpshima/Nagasaki
- History
- Hizmet
- Hizmet movement
- Ho Chi Minh
- Holocaust
- HOME FIRE
- Hormuz Peace Endeavor
- House of Commons vote
- Houthis
- Huawei
- human interest
- human interests
- Human Rights
- Human Rights
- Human Rights Council
- Human Rights Watch
- human security
- Human Survival
- humanism
- Humanitarian Pause
- humanitarianism
- Humanities
- Hunger Strike
- hunger strikes
- ICC
- ICC Decision
- identity
- ideology
- IHRA Definition of New Anti-Semitism
- III
- Ilhan Omar
- Illiberal State
- Illiberalism
- imagination
- Imelda Marcos
- Imperialism
- Implementation
- impunity
- Incitement to Genocide
- inclusiveness
- indefinite detention
- India
- Indian Wells Tennis Tournament
- Indonesia
- Inner Peace
- Insiders v. Outsiders
- Insurrection
- Interational Law
- internal displacement
- Internation Law
- International & Global Law
- International Chaos
- International Court of Justice
- International Court of Justice (ICJ)
- International Crimes
- International Criminal Court
- International criminal law
- International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People
- International Human Rights
- international humanitarian law
- international law
- international law
- international lawyers
- International Liberal Order
- International reputation
- intervention
- interview
- Iran
- Iran & 2020 US Elections
- Iran (1979)
- Iran Counter-Measures
- Iran Dimension
- Iran diplomacy
- Iran Nuclear Agreement
- Iran nuclear diplomacy
- Iran Nuclear Program
- Iran Sanctions
- Iran's nuclear program
- Iran/United States
- Iran/US Confrontation
- Iranian democracy
- Iraq occupation
- Iraq War
- Iraq War Tribunal
- Ireland
- Iron Dome
- ISIS
- Islamic Community
- Islamic Republic
- Islamic Response
- Islamic Revolution
- Islamophobia
- Israel
- Israel elections
- Israel Palestine
- Israel prisons
- Israel's Arms Industry
- Israel's Obligations under IHL
- Israel-Palestine
- Israel/Iran
- Israel/Palestine
- Israel/Palestine
- Israel/United States
- Israel/US
- Israeli 'Democracy'
- Israeli apartheid
- Israeli Apologists
- Israeli assassinations
- Israeli Belligerence
- Israeli Entitlements
- Israeli impunity
- Israeli jurisprudence
- Israeli Law
- Israeli Lobby
- Israeli one-state
- Israeli One-State Solution
- Israeli one-state unilateralism
- Israeli Prisons
- Israeli Security Establishment
- Israeli soul searching
- Israeli war crimes
- Istanbul
- Italy
- Jacob Mchangama
- Jacques Derrida
- Jakarta
- James Douglass
- James Zogby
- January 6th
- Japan
- Japanese poetry
- Jared Kushner
- JCPOA
- Jean Bricmont
- Jeff Halper
- Jeremy Corbyn
- Jeremy Hammond
- Jerusalem
- Jerusalem Resolution
- Jerusalem UN Resolution
- Jerusalem US Embassy Move
- Jewish exceptionalism
- Jewish identity
- Jewish Voices for Peace
- jihadism
- Jill Stein
- Joan Mellen
- Joe Biden
- John Bolton
- John Ikenberry
- John Kasich
- John Kerry
- John Pilger
- Joint Declaration on International Law
- Joint Statement of Opposition
- Jokowi Wadido
- Jonathan Pollard
- Joseph Nye
- Joshua Angrist
- Joshua Oppenheimer
- journalistic ethics
- Juan Manuel Santos
- Julian Assange
- July 15th
- July 15th Coup Attempt
- justice
- Justice & Development Party (AKP)
- Kader Asmal
- Kamila Shameis
- Kamila Shamsie
- Kashmir
- Kashmir
- Kellyanne Conway
- Kenneth Roth
- Kerry Diplomacy
- Khan Sheikhoun
- Khomeini
- Kim Jung-un
- Kissinger
- Kneeling
- knowledge
- Kosovo
- Kurdish conflict
- Kurdish Issues
- Kurdish movement
- Kurdish struggle
- Kurdish victory
- Kurds
- Kyoto
- Laos
- Law and Politics
- Law Enforcement
- Lawfare
- Lawfare Project
- leadership
- leadership crisis
- League of Nations
- Legacies of racism
- Legal Sophistication
- Legitimacy
- Legitimacy War
- Legitimacy War
- Legitimacy Wars
- Legitimating Apartheid Israel
- Leila De Lima
- liberal
- Liberal Democrats
- Liberal Economic Order
- Liberal Zionism
- liberalism
- Libya
- Lidia Yuknavitch
- lockdown sanctuary
- logic of reciprocity
- lost causes
- luxury
- Macro-corruption
- Macron
- Madrid train bombings
- Mahmoud Abbas
- Majoritarian Democracy
- Makarim Wibisono
- Managerial Approach
- Marc Lamont Hill
- Marc Nerfin
- Marco Rubio
- Marcos
- Mario Savio
- Marjorie Cohn
- Marsahll Islands nuclear zero litigation
- Martin Luther King
- Martin Niemoller
- Marwan Barghouti
- Mattes Letter
- Max Blumenthal
- Max Havelaar
- Mazin Qumsiyeh
- McCain
- ME Disengagement
- ME Nuclearism
- media
- meditative intelligence
- Mega-Terorism
- megaterrorism
- Melvin L. Oliver
- memoir
- Memories
- Mendlovitz
- Mental Health
- Mexico
- Michael Moore
- Michael Oren
- Michael Walzer
- Michelle Bachelet
- Michelle Obama
- Micro-Corruption
- Middle East
- Middle East Forum
- Middle East geopolitics
- Middle Easy
- Miguel d'Escoto
- Mika Brzezinski
- Mike Pompeo
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- militarism
- Military Council
- military intervention
- military technology
- Mira Regev
- Mission for Growth
- Modernity
- Modi
- Mohamed Mahathir
- Mohammed Omer
- Money
- Moral Revolution
- Morning 'Joe'
- Moscow Pro-Trump
- Mossadegh
- Motorola Solutioons
- Muharram Ince
- Multipolarity
- Multituli
- Muslim Brotherhood
- Muslim Response
- My Lai Massacre
- Myanmar genocide
- Nadia Murad
- Nagasaki
- Nakba
- Nakba as Process
- Naomi Klein
- Naomi Osaka
- NAPF
- Naphtali Bennett
- Narendra Modi
- Nasser
- Natanz Facility
- national interest
- national liberation
- National Review
- National Security
- national security legislation
- nationalism
- NATO
- NATO Membership
- Nazi Past
- Nazi period
- Nazism
- Nebraska
- Necessary Utopianism
- needs based development
- Nelly Sachs Prize
- Neoliberal Capitalism
- neoliberalism
- Netanyahu
- netizenship
- New Anti-Semitism
- New Cold War
- new geopolitics
- New New Anti-Semitism
- New Wars
- new world order
- New York Times
- NGOs
- Nicaragua
- Niger
- Nikki Haley
- no first use
- No Fly Zone (NFZ)
- Nobel Peace Forum
- Nobel Peace Prize
- Nobel Prize
- Nobel Prize in Economic
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Non-intervention
- Non-violent Struggle
- nonproliferation
- nonproliferation
- nonproliferation treaty
- Nonviolence
- Nonviolent Global Solidarity
- Nonviolent Resistance
- Nora Erakat
- Normalization Agreements
- normative democracy
- North Carolina murders
- North Korea
- north/south divide
- Noura Erakat
- NPT
- NPT Article IV
- NPT Geopolitics
- NPT Regime
- NPT Review Conference
- NPT Review Conference. TPNW, Ukraine Geopolitics, China, Russia, U,S.
- nuclear age
- Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
- Nuclear Apartheid
- Nuclear Ban Treaty
- nuclear civil disobeidence
- Nuclear Complacency
- Nuclear Disarmament
- Nuclear disarmament
- nuclear education
- Nuclear Famine
- nuclear power
- nuclear securitization
- nuclear war
- Nuclear War Danger
- Nuclear Weapons
- Nuclear Weapons Policy
- nuclearism
- Nuremberg
- Nuremberg Human Rights Award 2017
- Nuremberg Judegment
- Nuremberg Judgment
- Nuremberg Laws
- Nuremberg Obligation
- Nuremberg Principles
- Nuremburg
- NY Times
- Obama
- Obama on nuclear policy
- Obama's foreign policy
- Obama's Irvine Commencement Address
- Obstacle to Peace
- occupation
- Occupied Palestine
- Ohio State memories
- oil
- Okinawa
- Old City of Jerusalem
- old geopolitics
- Omar Barghouti
- Omar el-Bashir
- One-Israel-State-Solution
- One-state
- one-state solution
- One-State Solutions
- One=state Solution
- ONUMAsan
- OPCW-CWC
- OPEC
- OPEc+
- Open Letter to Trump
- Operation Spring Peace
- Oppenheimer
- oppression
- Oppressive Occupation
- Oren Ben-Dor
- Orientalism
- Oslo Approach
- Oslo diplomacy
- Oslo Peace Process
- Oslo Process
- Outlaw State
- P-5
- P5
- P5 +1 Agreement
- Pacification
- Palestine
- Palestine
- Palestine Authority
- Palestine Prisoners
- Palestine statehood
- Palestine/Ireland
- Palestine/Israel
- Palestinian Authority
- Palestinian children prisoners
- Palestinian people
- Palestinian Rights
- Palestinian Self-determination
- Palestinian solidarity
- Palestinian statehood
- Palestinian stone quarries
- Palestinian struggle
- Palestinians
- pandemic
- Paris 2015
- Paris Agreement
- Paris Attacks
- Paris Climate Change Agreement
- Paris Preamble
- partition
- Partition Resolution
- Partition War
- Patriotism
- Patriotism of the Earth
- Paul Findley
- Paul Raskin
- peace
- Peace and Justice
- Peace Diplomacy
- peace journalism
- Peace process
- Peace Scenario
- Peace Talks
- Peace Through Diplomacy
- Peaceful World
- Pearl Harbor
- PEN Ameriica
- Pentagon
- Peres Funeral
- Permanent Occupation
- Persian Gulf
- Personal Background
- Pete Buitigeig
- Peter Handke
- petropolitics
- Philip
- Philip Berrigan
- Philippines
- Phyllis Bennis
- Pitzer College
- Pivot away from Middle East
- Pivot to Asia
- PKK
- Plan B: Colonial Retreat
- Plan C: A Just Peace
- planetary movement
- Planetary Realism
- PLO
- Plowshares 8
- Poems
- POEMS of others
- Poetic Wisdom
- Poetry
- poetry & war
- Poetry as Knowledge
- polarization
- Police Brutality
- Police State
- political assassinations
- political community
- Political Community?
- Political correctness
- political extremism
- political fundraising
- political leadership
- Political Parties
- political prisoners
- political style
- political violence
- Political Will
- Politics of Apology
- Politics of Impossibility
- Politics of Language
- Pompeo
- Pope Francis
- Popular Mobilization
- Popular Vote
- populism
- Populist Representation
- Port Huron Statement
- Portfolio Democrats
- post-colonial colonialism
- post-COVID
- Post-Pandemic
- Post-Pandemic World Order
- Power
- Power as Crime
- Pragmatic Authoritarianism
- Pramoedya
- prayer
- Pre-Facsism
- Pre-Fascism
- Precautionary Principle
- Predatory Capitalism
- Presbyterian Divestment
- President Erdogan
- Presidential Campaign
- Presidential System
- Primary Campaign
- Princeton
- Princeton memories
- Princeton Senior Thesis
- Princeton Thesis
- Princeton University
- procedural democracy
- progressive
- Progressive Lawfare
- Progressive politics
- Progressive Populism
- Progressiveness
- Protection of Holy Sites
- Protective Edge
- public intellectual
- Punitive Peace
- Putin
- Qaddafi
- Qassim Soleimani
- Qatar
- QGOs
- Quran Desecration
- R2P
- R2P Diplomacy
- racialized language
- racism
- Radical Humanism
- Rafael Lemkin
- Rainforests
- Ralph Nader
- Ralph Schoenman
- Ramsey Clark
- ran
- Rashida Tlaib
- Razan al-Najjar
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
- reconciliation
- red lines
- Reflections
- Reform
- refugee law
- refugees/migrantss
- regime change
- regional conflict
- Regional Disengagement
- regional governance
- Regressive Lawfare
- Religion
- religious counterrevolution
- Religious Zionism
- Remembering Mueller
- reparations
- representation
- republican democracy
- Republican Party
- republicanism
- Resistance
- Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
- Restorative Diplomacy
- Retaliation and Law
- Retreat from Globalization
- Reuven Rivlin
- Revolution
- Richard Fa;lk
- Richard Falk
- Richard Goldstone
- Richard Haass
- Richard Kemp
- Right to Food
- Rima Khalaf
- risk management
- Risky Business
- Robert Faurisson
- Robert Kaplan
- Robert Mueller
- Robert O Paxton
- Robin Nisblett
- Roger Cohen
- Roger Federer
- rogue states
- Rome
- Ronald Reagan
- Rosemary Tylka
- Rouhani
- rule of law
- rules of the game
- Rules-Based-International-Order
- Russell Tribunal
- Russia
- Russian hacking
- Ryōkan
- Sakamoto
- Salmon Rushdie
- Samer Issawi
- Samuel Huntington
- Sanctions
- Sanders
- Sanders and Warren
- Sanders' Revolution
- Santa Barbara Fires
- Sarin Gas
- Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Royal Family
- SC Res. 242
- Schoenman's Legacy
- Science of Peace
- Scientific Consensus
- Sean MacBride
- Second Axial Age
- Second Cold War
- Secretary General
- sectarian warfare
- Sectarianism
- Secular one-state
- secular Zionism
- secularism
- security
- Security Council
- Security Council veto
- Security Councull veto
- Selection Process
- Self-defense
- self-determination
- Self-Immolaation
- Self-reflections
- Selma
- semantics
- Separation Wall
- Sepp Blatter
- Serbia
- Serena Williams
- Settlement Outposts
- Settlements
- settler colonialism
- sexism
- Shaman Peres
- SHAPE
- Sharpevile
- SHEEL-SHOCKED
- Shimon Peres
- Shinzo Abe
- Shireen Abu Akleh
- Shireen Issawi
- Shlomo Sand
- Shooting the Messenger
- Silicon Valley
- Sisi
- Smearing BDS
- Social & Economic Rights
- social welfare
- Socialism
- Soft Power Balances
- South Africa
- South Africa: ICJ
- South African apartheid
- Sovereignty
- Special Counsel
- Special Rapporteur
- Special Rapporteur on Palestine
- Special Relationship
- Special Relationship (Israel)
- Special Relationship (Saudi Arabia)
- Special Relationships
- Special Relationships-Israel/Saudi Arabia
- Species Idenity
- species survival
- Spirituality
- sportsmanship
- Spyware
- state building
- State of the Union
- State of the Union Address
- state system
- state terrorism
- State-Building
- state-centric versus earth-centric
- State-centric world
- State-Centricism
- State-Centriism
- Statism
- Stefan Andersson
- Stephen Rappp
- Stephen Zunes
- Steven Salaita
- Stockholm Agreement
- Stuart Rees
- Student Activism
- Study Abroad Program
- Sub-Species Identity
- Subsiding Iron Dome
- substantive democracy
- Sudan
- Suharto
- Sukarno
- superdelegates
- suppression
- Supreme Grace
- Surveillance
- sustainability
- sustainable peace
- Sweden
- Swedish initiative
- Swedish recognition pledge
- Sykes-Picot
- Sykes-Picot Agreement
- Symbolic Politics
- Syria
- Syria Withdrawal
- Syrian ceasefire
- Syrian Dilemma
- Syrian Visits
- Syrian war crimes
- Syrian Withdrawal
- T.S. ELIOT
- Tahrir Square
- Taiwan
- Taliban
- Targeted Killing
- Technological Competition
- Ted Cruz
- Tedros Adhanan Grebreyerus
- Temple Mount and Western Wall
- Temple University
- tennis
- TEPCO
- Terrorism
- terrorism
- terrorist
- Thanksgiving
- The Deal of the Century
- The Economist
- The Orwellian State
- Third Parties
- Thomas Friedman
- Thomas Jefferson
- Threats of Force
- Three Pillars
- Three Pillars of American foreign policy
- Timothy Brennan
- Timothy Snyder
- Titanic
- Tom Friedman
- Toni Morrison
- torture
- TPNW
- traitor
- Transcivilizational Approach
- Transformational Approach
- Transformational Horizons
- Transhuman
- Transnational Activism
- travel ban
- treason
- Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- tribalism
- Trumism
- Trump
- Trump Criminal Accountability
- Trump Diplomacy
- Trump Era
- Trump Foreign Policy
- Trump nationalism
- Trump obsession
- Trump Presidency
- Trump's 'Maximum Pressure'
- Trump's Deal
- Trump's Deal of the Century
- Trump's demonic worldview
- Trump's foreign policy
- Trump's geopolitics
- Trump's Inaugural Address
- Trump's worldview
- Trumpism
- Trumpt
- Tsitsipas Generation
- Tsutomu Yamaguchi
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkey
- Turkey-Yemen
- Turkish Coup Attempt
- Turkish domestic politics
- Turkish Elections
- Turkish Electiuons
- Turkish foreign policy
- Turkish leadership
- Turkish Municipoal Elections
- Turkish November elections
- Twitter tweets
- two-state consensus
- Two-State Solution
- Two-State-Solution
- Two-states
- U.S. Congress
- U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Constitutionalism
- U.S. Foreign Policy
- U.S. Global State
- U.S. Government role
- U.S. Presidential Election in 2024
- U.S. Sanctions
- U.S. State Department
- U.S./Israel Alliance
- U.S./Russia Relations
- UAE
- UDHR
- Ukraine
- Ukraine War
- Ukraine War Geopolics
- Ukraine Wars
- ultra-nationalism
- UN
- UN 'shame list'
- UN Anti-Racism
- UN Balance Sheet
- UN Charter
- UN Commission of Inquiry
- UN funding
- UN Human Rights Council
- UN Multilateralism
- UN Reform
- UN Responsibility
- UN Secretary General
- UN Security Council
- UN Security Council Veto
- UN Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- UN veto
- UN Watch
- Uncategorized
- Uncertainty
- underground homes
- UNESCO
- Unipolarity
- United Nat
- United Nations
- United States
- United States
- United States alliance
- United States Congress
- United States foreign policy
- United States response
- Uniting for Peace Resolution
- Unity Government
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- universal jurisdiction
- University of Illinois
- Unjust World
- UNSC 2334
- Updating ESCWA Report
- US 'Special Relationships'
- US Congress
- US interference
- US-Israel Special Relationship
- US/Iran Relations
- US/Saudi Relations
- USS Liberty
- utopianism
- Vanunu
- Venus Williams
- Versailles Peace Treaty
- Veto Power
- Victors' Justice
- Victory Caucus
- Victory Scenario
- Vienna Talks
- Vietnam
- Vietnam and Palestine
- Vietnam Lessons
- Vietnam Syndrome
- Vietnam War
- Virginia Tilley
- Vision of Prague
- Voluntary Agreement
- Wahabbism
- Wahabism
- Walden Bello
- Wall Street
- war crimes
- War Dangers
- war journalism
- war making
- War on Terror
- war prevention
- Warsaw Ghetto
- Warsaw Zoo
- Weaponizing Lawfare
- Weinberger Doctrine
- Wesphalian Model
- West
- West Bank
- West Point
- Westphalia
- Westphalian Representation
- whistleblowing
- WHO
- Wider War Option
- William Barr
- William Schabas
- William Sullivan
- wisdom
- Women's March
- WOMP
- Woodrow Wilson
- world citizen
- World Court
- World Economy
- world government
- World Government Research Network
- world order
- World Order Models Project
- World Parliament
- World Politics
- World War I
- World War I diplomacy
- worldview
- Xi Jinping
- Yazidi people
- Yeats
- Yemen
- Yemen Intervention
- Yenkapi Rally
- Youth
- YPG
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Zelensky
- Zionism
- Zionisrt Regimes of Thought Control
- Zionist Pressure
- Zionist Project
- Zombie Solution
- zoo animals
Join 7,913 other subscribers
The Right to Food During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Time of Bio-Ethical-Ecological Crisis
14 JunEcological Imperatives and the Right to Food During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Time of Bio-Ethical-Ecological Crisis[1]
A Perspective
Even before the Coronavirus Pandemic, humanity faced an unprecedented challenge in the coming decades that threatened the foundations of life itself, and yet, up to this time societal reactions have been disappointingly weak and evasive, aside from a few voices in the wilderness. Despite expertly documented studies from the most qualified climate scientists, the overall behavior of supposedly responsible political and economic elites has been tepid, escapist, and even denialist. The United State Government has been leading the way toward a dismal future by its anti-internationalism during the Trump presidency, above all, withdrawing from the 2015 UN Paris Climate Change Agreement. Although this international agreement that did not go as far as necessary to meet the challenges of climate change, it was rightfully praised as demonstrating the importance of global cooperative efforts to combat global warming. It was also encouraging that this initiative was supported by virtually every government on the face of the earth.
With nihilistic audacity the American president, Donald Trump, formally withdrew American participation from this international framework that mandates national reductions in carbon emissions. The proclaimed objective of the agreement was to keep global warming from increases in the earth’s average temperature above 2 degrees centigrade. This is higher than the 1.5 degrees that the scientific consensus puts forth as necessary. At the same time the Paris results in far lower carbon emissions than will occur if present emissions trends continue without significant international cutbacks and sufficient regulatory oversight. The withdrawal of the U.S., the largest and richest per capita emitter, sends the worse possible signal to the world at this time of growing threat.
The COVID-19 experience, with its planetary scope and concrete daily tales of morbidity confirms, the precariousness of human existence and its unforeseen vulnerabilities to a variety of threats to the wellbeing of the human species. What is more, it is evident that the harm done by these events could be mitigated if not almost altogether avoided if the warnings of experts been prudently heeded, and acted upon, in a timely anticipatory manner. Even before this global health crisis of great severity shocked people around the world, the deficiencies of global governance became vividly evident for all who took the trouble to see. The reaction to the pandemic has been most disappointing at the governmental level in most, but not all countries. In contrast, many instances of bravery and empathy have been exhilarating and redemptive at the level of people. Instead of an ethos of ‘we are all in this together’ several of the most influential governments led by the United States have adhered to a zero/sum ethos of ‘going it alone.’ The U.S. also refused humanitarian appeals to suspend sanctions for the duration of the crisis on countries such as Iran and Venezuela, which were already suffering from severe food insecurities and shortages of medical supplies partly brought about by the sanctions.
Worse still, the United States at the Security Council blocked a formal endorsement of the UN Secretary General’s inspirational call for a global ceasefire during the health crisis. Trump withdrew U.S. support because the draft resolution contained an indirect favorable reference to the work of the World Health Organization (WHO). This was a sad development as this dramatic expression of global unity had achieved the approval of the other 14 members of the Security Council after weeks of negotiating political compromises on the appropriate message to send the world. Its passage would have signaled a commitment to world peace by leading governments, as well as showing all of us that the UN’s voice can serve as an uplifting alternative in such a crisis to the bickering and rivalry of sovereign states. This kind of initiative also might have renewed faith in the UN, demonstrating to the public and politicians how the UN might serve in the future to strengthen global governance on behalf of peace, justice, and food/water security for all. We might come to understand that the UN if properly used can be much more than a talk shop for clashing national interests or an exhibition hall displaying the rival strategic ambitions of the Permanent Members of the Security Council.
The onset of the pandemic added a sense of urgent immediacy to what was already an extremely disturbing evolving awareness by informed persons. To identify this as ‘the first bio-ethical crisis to confront humanity’ is to employ unfamiliar and strong language. This underlying crisis was bio-ethical in the primary sense that its challenges are fundamentally directed at the collective wellbeing of humanity taken as a whole, as well as a challenge to the sustainability of modern civilization, and the ecosystem stability governing the fundamentals of human/nature interactions, and of life itself. Widespread recognition of the gravity of these threats would amount to a revolutionary change in the self-awareness of the human species, and lead the way to profound shifts in behavior.
This crisis also possesses an ethical character because knowledge and resources exist to meet the challenges facing humanity, and yet responsible, precautionary action is not taken. We need to ask ‘why?’ so as to understand what action should be taken. In essence, these challenges to our human future could be addressed within the broad framework of a feasible reconfiguring of the industrial foundations and ethical outlook of modernity, and yet it is not happening, nor likely to do so without further shocks. By having the knowledge of such a menacing future and yet choosing not to act sensibly is to make a fundamental ethical and biological choice, with possibly awful consequences. My point is this.
The unprecedented crisis facing humanity is not similar to a gigantic meteor hurtling toward the earth with no known way of diverting its path or cushioning its impact. We know mostly what needs be done and yet we lack the fortitude to act for the sake of persons currently alive, and even more for the sake of future generations. It is likely that the unborn will suffer the most acute adverse consequences of the irresponsibility of this current refusal to heed the warnings of the experts. As the divisiveness and global governance deficiencies of the response to COVID-19 have revealed, many of the most technologically sophisticated societies have turned out to be the most incompetent when it came to safeguarding the lives and livelihoods of even their own society, failing to adopt or unreasonably delaying the adoption of practical measures to protect the health and security of their own citizens, while neglecting neighbors in need near and far living in other countries throughout the world. We also learned the grim consequence of pronounced economic and social inequality. The poorest and socially disfavored, especially in cities, turned out to be the demographic sectors most at risk of infection and death during the pandemic. Any student of modern society should not have been surprised by this information, but the mainstream media acted as if it had just discovered the plight of the poor, including their massive dependence on public food distributions, acting as if this was a startling revelation of the class impacts of the pandemic.
The effects of the pandemic on food security are being felt, and there seems worse ahead. The 2020 Report on World Food Crises warns that the risk of famine has been greatly increased by disruptions of harvests and food supply chains due to the greatly reduced availability of migrant farm workers and the disease-prone sites of animal slaughterhouses. Already in such affluent countries as the UK, U.S., and Switzerland poorer people are waiting for hours on long lines to obtain food for their families from overstretched food banks, and are fortunate if the food remains available when their turn finally comes.
Putting these broader eco-ethical concerns in the context of the right to food and food security generally, we are keenly aware that food and water are the most indispensable aspects to the right to life itself. We also are beginning to realize that rights to material necessities are drained of meaning if extreme poverty means that the poorest among us lack the purchasing power to buy food that is affordable, sufficient, and nutritious. In other words, even if food supplies are sufficient to meet human needs, it will not prevent starvation, malnutrition, and food riots if people lack the means to buy what is being sold in markets. In this sense, the loss of tens of millions of jobs around the world means the disappearance of purchasing power for people with the least capacity to cope with unemployment, including very little savings.
Although some governments are more protective of the vulnerable segments of their population than others, experience teaches us that social protection cannot be left to the good will or charitable impulses of governments. Rights must be reinforced by practical remedies that are accessible to ordinary people, and can be successfully implemented. In many countries of the West where capitalism and fiscal austerity prevail, there is an ethically deficient ideological insistence on allowing the market to decide on the wellbeing of members of society. This sends a perverse ethical message: the rich deserve their bounty of plenitude, while the poor deserve their hardships. From such an austere capitalist standpoint, pleading for the intervention of the state even in an emergency is alleged by the staunchest guardians of capital to undermine public morality based on individual accountability and incentive structures.
To overcome this failure to respond effectively to the bio-ethical crisis, it is necessary to identify and understand the obstacles to rational and humane action, while suggesting how these might be overcome. To summarize the argument, we know what is wrong, we mostly know what should be done, yet it still is not happening, and to have any hope of doing something about this deplorable situation, we must try our best to know why. Furthermore, the longer that we defer prudent action, the more burdensome and painful will be a future adjustment. There are also unknowable risks present. By not acting responsibly in the present, tipping points of irreversibility seem likely to be soon crossed making societal adjustments if not impossible, almost so.
Illustratively, if diets were now to limit meat consumption by decreeing one or two meatless days a week, there would be good prospects of achieving ecological balance by gradual measures, but if diets are unregulated for the next two decades, an adjustment to avert catastrophe would likely require a mandatory vegetarian planetary survival diet. The COVID-19 experience is one more chance to unddertake comprehensive transformational processes of adapting global governance to the dual demands of ecological balance and social justice, and ending the false security of managerial approaches that avoid fundamental change. Managers generally do nothing more than keep operations going, collapse or recovering from a severe crisis that disrupted the established order. This might temporarily calm anxieties, but this would be deceptive dynamic in this instance, a disastrous contentment with ‘business as usual,’ with the false assumption that all was well before the pandemic.
Confronting the Obstacles: These obstacles overlap and reinforce one another, and should not be regarded as entirely distinct. My assessment is grounded on the advocacy of an integrated and transformational approach. To move forward in such a direction, I find it helpful to identify four clusters of obstacles.
Ideological (1)
Our social relationship to food and agriculture deeply reflect the interplay of capitalism—maximizing profits and inflating consumerism—which includes constantly increasing consumer choice, identified misleadingly as a kind of freedom. Interferences by governing authorities occur if overwhelming demonstrations of adverse health effects can be demonstrated, but usually only after costly delays resulting from ‘expert’ reassurances on food safety that are obtained from corporate high paid consultants. Such profit-driven patterns, fueled by advertising and addictive products produce unhealthy dietary habits throughout society, causing epidemics of obesity and many serious health issues.
Social concerns on an international level are understandably focused on avoiding humanitarian catastrophes in the form of mass starvation or famine. This kind of preoccupation places an emphasis on disaster relief and responses to emergencies while ignoring the underlying ideological problem arising from distorted priorities of profits, destructive competition, agro-business, and unregulated markets as favored over human health and ecological stability. The same forces that suppress and distort information pertaining to health are irresponsible abusers of environment, disrespectful of culturally sanctified food traditions, and disrupters of ecological balance. A vivid recent example is the burning of the Brazilian rainforest to satisfy corporate greed taking the form of high-yield logging and deforestation to clear land for livestock farming, while eroding, and possibly dooming, the viability of the rainforest as a major carbon capture resource and a precious storehouse of biodiversity. The world’s major rainforests should be treated as falling within the ‘global commons’ and not be regarded as totally subject to Brazil’s priorities. It is a matter of finding the proper formula for ‘responsible sovereignty’ or, more accurately, how to reconcile sovereign rights with upholding the viability of the global commons.
Structural (2)
Seeking to balance food security and health against these ecological concerns is often at odds with human and global interests. The structures of authority that shape global policy and practices are overwhelmingly responsive to national interests as themselves distorted by corrupted elites and corporate influences on governance. This includes the UN System, which has been increasingly configured to serve the interests of states and mega-corporations. Again, the example of Brazil is instructive. Giving priority to development over planetary equilibrium with respect to the Amazon rainforest privileges irresponsible claims of territorial sovereignty. This overrides objections about the dangerous impacts of Brazilian behavior on global warming, ecological stability, and the quality of biodiversity. Despite the global scale of agriculture, particularly agro-business, there exist presently no effective international mechanisms to achieve responsible behavior on national and transnational levels of behavior.
Even when governments do cooperate for the public common good, as was the case with the Paris Climate Change Agreement (2015), their commitments are framed in an unenforceable manner that allows national sovereignty to prevail over longer run global interests. This meant that even if the pledges of reductions in carbon emissions were made in good faith and somehow fulfilled, they would still fall inexcusably short of what the respected IPCC Panel and other expert bodies prescribed as the essential benchmark to avoid dangerous, possibly catastrophic effects of further global warming. Similar considerations bear on meat consumption undertaken without any effort at achieving a global regulatory perspective that takes due account of the future. This voluntaristic approach dependent on the good faith and responsible behavior of states, is further weakened by the current crop of irresponsible leaders in many key states. This irresponsibility was epitomized in 2019 by its show of support for Brazil’s sovereignty claims with respect to the management of the Amazon rainforest and by the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement, creating dreadful precedents that will certainly affect poorer, more economically stressed countries, and eventually the rest of us. Why should a country confronted by a food and agriculture crisis, for instance, Zimbabwe, place limits on its developmental aand growth opportunities by acting in a more ecologically responsible manner when the world’s largest per capita carbon emitter is behaving so irresponsibly?
(3) Temporal
The most influential sources and structures of influence and authority have evolved in the modern period by being excessively attentive to short-term results. Such short-termism is associated with holding political leaders and corporate executives accountable to citizens and shareholders. Democracy rests on this proposition that voters get the chance every four years to heed the call that “it is time for a change,” or more crudely, ‘to throw the bastards out.’ This pattern can be observed in the preoccupation of political leaders with the electoral cycles, which are treated as decisive when it comes to assessing their performance. Even non-democratic forms of governance give priority to short-term results, which either builds or undermines confidence in the political leadership of a country regardless of its form of government.
It is no different for the economy, which exhibits an even more pronounced tendency toward short-termism. Most corporate and financial executives are judged by quarterly balance sheets when it comes to performance, and given little or no credit by shareholders and hedge fund managers for normative achievements relating to health, safety, and environment or for responsiveness to long-term crisis prevention.
The importance of longer horizons of accountability is a consequence of the character of current world order challenges, with preservation of environment, avoidance of human-generated climate change, and maintenance of ecosystem stability being illustrative of the growing importance of thinking further ahead than in the past, especially when it comes to government and private sector behavior. Yet to propose such an adjustment is far easier than it is to envision how such temporal adjustments to human and ecological wellbeing could be brought about. These clusters of concerns bear directly on all dimensions of food and agricultural policy. In earlier periods adverse developments attributable to mismanagement and shortsightedness led to relatively local and national, or at most regional, harm, but the threats in the world today are more systemic, totalistic, and often difficult to reverse or correct. Such issues as land use, pesticides, herbicides, soil preservation, genetically modified foods, and agricultural productivity suggest how crucial it has become to plan in a time frame that is as sensitive as possible to the precautionary principle as it applies to risk taking, and thus relates to all aspects of food policy. Adverse health conditions, facilitating zoonotic transfers of a deadly virus from animals to humans also reflects disregard of natural surroundings, which are depriving wild animals of their normal habitats, bringing them into ever closer contact with people and city food markets, facilitating disease vectors.
(4) Normative
In considering these broad issues of risk and choice in a food context we encounter a distinctive array of normative concerns of an ethical, legal, and even spiritual character. At issue most basically is the way humanity interacts with nature. Modernity, with its vision of progress resting on science and technology, regarded the natural surrounding as a series of venues useful for exploitation to enrich human society materially. That path brought segments of humanity many interim benefits and pleasures, but it also set in motion trends that over time have produced the current bio-ethical crisis that challenges, as never before, the future wellbeing and even survival of the human species. It is relevant especially in this circumstance of bio-ethical crisis to alter our way of seeing so that it encompasses ecological wellbeing and social justice in addition to human comfort and longevity. It is my belief that this kind of ecological/ethical consciousness as an alternative to anthropocentric orientations will provide human society with benefits of a spiritual nature that go significantly beyond meeting the materialist challenges of human existence. If this is so, it would reenchant the human experience with meaning and purpose in ways that the great religions did in the past, and not link human happiness so closely, and now dangerously, with materialist satisfactions.
Food, health, and agriculture provide the vital linkages between this search for more harmonious forms of coexistence between nature and human experience, as well as respect for the carrying capacity of the earth. Pre-modern societies often achieved this equilibrium either by design or automatically, but lost this capability with the advent of modernity. Translating such a vision of humane equilibrium into practical policies is the proper work of specialists and those who are attuned both to ethical and ecological imperatives. Enlightened guidance will fail unless leaders in all spheres of collective existence become themselves more receptive to such knowledge, and begin to be held accountable by popular will, reinforced by activism and education. The proper attunement to the balance of material, ethical, ecological, and spiritual concerns is always subject to this complex interplay of human activity with limits on the carrying capacity of the earth. Equitable burden-sharing is also essential in awakening public consciousness to the changing priorities of our historical moment.
Preliminary data collected during COVID-19 reveals a disturbing correlation between susceptibility to the disease and those segments of society that are impoverished or members of communities disfavored because of race, ethnicity, and religion. This pattern was especially evident in the slums of large cities, which experienced a disproportionately much higher number of fatalities. Such findings raised issues of social justice and human rights, bearing on equal protection of the rights to health and the right to life.
A Concluding Plea
Pointing toward a desired reconciliation between ecological imperatives, world health, and the fulfillment of the right to food requires attention, commitment, and resources, as well as the exertions of moral and political imagination. From such a perspective I offer these suggestions:
–applying the precautionary principle in all policymaking arenas with an awareness of the need to reconcile food and agricultural policy with ecological imperatives, as well as to emphasize preventive responses and discontinue excessive reliance on reactive approaches and crisis management;
–identifying the obstacles to such a reconciliation with a stress on the human as distinct from the national, on the ecological as distinct from the anthropocentric, on the intermediate and long-term as distinct from the short-term, all the while giving due attention given to climate justice and universal health coverage for everyone;
–without minimizing the magnitude of the challenges or the resistance of the obstacles, I find hope in ‘a politics of impossibility’; many historical developments, including the collapse of colonialism, the dissmantling of apartheid in South Africa and the sudden implosion of repressive communism in Soviet Russia demonstrate that ‘the impossible happens’ in real life even when unanticipated. As a result, the fact that the future is uncertain creates opportunities as well as responsibilities. As to what seems impossible, yet desirable and necessary, can still be made more likely to happen through concerted struggle, undoubtedly mostly as responsive to movements from below, from peoples not elites or governments. Such is our situation, such is our hope.
[1] Remarks as substantially modified, first presented at “The 2nd International Agricultural & Food Congress,”
25 October 2019, Izmir, Turkey.
Tags: bio-ethics-ecological crisis, COVID-19, ecological balance, food security, pandemic, short-termism