Subject
Politics and International Relations
Research interests
Henry Shue, Senior Research Fellow at Merton and Professor of Politics and International Relations, is best-known for his book on international distributive justice, Basic Rights, and for pioneering the sub-field of International Normative Theory, which he has been teaching as an optional subject in the M.Phil. in International Relations since 2002.
He was a co-founder, in 1976, of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (U.S.), and the inaugural Wyn and William Y. Hutchinson Professor of Ethics & Public Life at Cornell University. His research has focused on the role of human rights, especially economic rights, in international affairs and, more generally, on institutions to protect the vulnerable.
After work on strategies regarding nuclear weapons in the 1980s, his writing during the 1990s mainly concerned the issues of justice arising in international negotiations over climate change. His current writing concentrates on the two primary aspects of war: the resort to war, especially preventive military attacks ["preemption"], and the conduct of war, especially the bombing of "dual-use" infrastructure like electricity-generating facilities. Unfortunately he also finds renewed interest in his 1978 article, "Torture".
Publications on Climate Change
Philosophical Articles
- "Human Rights, Climate Change, and the Trillionth Ton", in Denis G. Arnold (ed.), The Ethics of Global Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 292-314 .
- "Deadly Delays, Saving Opportunities: Creating a More Dangerous World?" in Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, ed. by Stephen M. Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue (Oxford University Press, 2010), 146-62.
- "Responsibility to Future Generations and the Technological Transition," in Perspectives on Climate Change: Science, Economics, Politics, Ethics, ed. by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Richard B. Howarth (Amsterdam and San Diego: Elsevier, 2005), pp. 265-83.
- "A Legacy of Danger: The Kyoto Protocol and Future Generations," in Globalisation and Equality, ed. by Keith Horton and Haig Patapan (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 164-78.
- "Climate," in A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, ed. by Dale Jamieson (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pubs., 2001), pp. 449-59.
- "Global Environment and International Inequality", International Affairs, vol. 75, no. 3 (1999), pp. 531-45. Reprinted in Climate Ethics, ed. by Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue.
- "Bequeathing Hazards: Security Rights and Property Rights of Future Humans," in Global Environmental Economics: Equity and the Limits to Markets, ed. by Mohammed Dore and Timothy Mount (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pubs., 1998), pp. 38-53.
- "Environmental Change and the Varieties of Justice," in Earthly Goods: Environmental Change and Social Justice, edited by Fen Osler Hampson and Judith Reppy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 9-29.
- "Avoidable Necessity: Global Warming, International Fairness, and Alternative Energy," in Theory and Practice, NOMOS XXXVII, edited by Ian Shapiro and Judith Wagner DeCew (New York: NYU Press, 1995), pp. 239-64.
- "After You: May Action by the Rich Be Contingent Upon Action by the Poor?" Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 1:2 (1994), pp. 343-66.
- "Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions," Law & Policy, 15:1 (January 1993), pp. 39-59. Reprinted in Climate Ethics, ed. by Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue.
- "The Unavoidability of Justice," in The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions, edited by Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 373-97.
Accessible Presentations
- "Keynote Presentation," ECOSOC Special Event on "The right to development and global partnership for development," Palais des Nations, Geneva, 12 July 2011 [carbon budget and sustainable development]
PDF link - "Face Reality? After You! A Call for Leadership on Climate Change", Ethics & International Affairs, 25:1 (2011), 17-26. [U.S. duty to lead]
- "Historical Responsibility", Technical Briefing for Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention [AWG-LCA], SBSTA, UNFCC, Bonn, 4 June 2009
PDF Link - "Equity," in Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change, vol. 5: Social and Economic Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2002), pp. 279-83.
- "Equity in International Agreements on Climate Change," in Proceedings of IPCC Workshop: Nairobi, July 1994 (Nairobi: ICIPE Science Press, 1995), pp. 385-92.
