Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies
- Email: henry.shue@politics.ox.ac.uk
- Telephone: 01865 285965
Henry Shue 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 is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies and was a Professor of International Relations with the Department of Politics and International Relations until his retirement at the end of 2007.
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.”
Recent Presentations
“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
Recent Publications
Just and Unjust Warriors (co-ed. with David Rodin), Oxford University Press, 2008
'Do We Need A "Morality of War"?' in Just and Unjust Warriors (Rodin & Shue), 87-111.
Preemption: Military Action and Moral Justification, (with David Rodin, Eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press (2007)
'What Would A Justified Preventive Military Attack Look Like?' in Preemption (Shue & Rodin), 222-46
Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb, in Journal of International Law, Case Western Reserve, Vol. 37, No's 2 & 3 (2006).
'Preemption, Prevention, and Predation: Why the Bush Strategy is Dangerous', in Philosophic Exchange, no. 35 (2004-05), pp. 5-17.
, in Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations, Jennifer M. Welsh (Ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 11-28.
, in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Sohail Hoshemi & Steven Lee (Eds.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 139-62.
, in The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics, Hugh LaFollette (Ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 734-61; reprinted in Peace Studies: Critical Concepts in Political Science, Matthew Evangelista (Ed.), (London and New York: Routledge, 2005).
, in Ethics and Foreign Intervention, Deen K. Chatterjee & Don E. Scheid (Eds.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 97-117.
, in Dissent (Summer
2003), pp. 90-1.
[1978], reprinted in Torture: A Collection,
Sanford Levinson (Ed.), (Oxford University Press, 2004).