The study of international law has, in some ways, undergone dramatic changes over the past centuries, but it has also stayed remarkably the same. The subject matter with international legal components has expanded dramatically and the depth of international law’s reach has also increased. Froman early reliance on theological writings and natural law, international law has evolved substantially to include a variety of sources for rules, most notably custom and treaties. Early international law focused extensively on the territory of states and the regulation of the use of armed force.

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been increasing interest in the global dimensions of a host of public policy issues - issues involving war and peace, terrorism, international law, regulation of commerce, environmental protection, and disparities of wealth, income, and access to medical care. Especially pressing is the question of whether it is possible to formulate principles of justice that are valid not merely within a single society but across national borders. The thirteen essays in this volume explore a range of issues that are central to contemporary discussions of global politics. Written by prominent philosophers, political scientists, economists, and legal theorists, they offer valuable contributions to current debates over the nature of justice and its implications for the development of international law and international institutions.

In this collection, thirteen prominent philosophers and political scientists address the nature of liberalism, its origins, and its meaning and proper interpretation. Some essays examine the writings of liberalism's earliest defenders or the influence of classical liberalism on the American founders. Some focus on the Progressive movement and the rise of the administrative state, while others defend particular conceptions of liberalism or examine liberal theories of justice. Several essays discuss the U.S. Constitution. Other essays address the limits of economic freedom or focus on the nature and extent of property rights and the government's power of eminent domain.

Divisions abound about whether politics should be held to a higher moral standard or whether pragmatic considerations or realpolitik should prevail. The two poles are represented most conspicuously by Aristotle, for whom the proper aim of politics is moral virtue, and Machiavelli, whose prince in contrast exalted political pragmatism over morality. The fourteen contributors to this volume are predominantly arrayed on the Aristotelian end of the continuum, although several moral skeptics and pragmatists do enter the fray. These essays address perennial concerns in political and moral theory and underscore the rekindled yearning of many to hold the political realm to a higher standard despite the skepticism of dissenters who question the likelihood or even the desirability of success.

Recent and ongoing developments in science and technology--such as the prevention and treatment of disease through genetics and the development of increasingly sophisticated computer systems with wide-ranging applications--hold out the promise of vastly improving the quality of human life, but they can also raise serious ethical, legal, and public policy questions. The thirteen essays in this volume address these questions and related issues from a variety of perspectives.

What constitutes a just tax system, and what are its moral foundations? Should a society's tax regime be designed to achieve a just distribution of wealth among its citizens, or should such a regime be designed to promote economic growth, rising standards of living, and increasing levels of employment? Are these two goals compatible or incompatible? Why should justice not require, or at least lead to, an increase in general prosperity? The essays in this volume examine the history of tax policies and the normative principles that have informed the selection of various types of taxes and tax regimes; economic data to discover which tax policies lead to economic growth; particular theories of justice or property rights regarding the design of tax systems; and other essays propose specific tax reforms. Still others challenge traditional theories of taxation, offering new ways of understanding the fiscal relationship between governments and their citizens.

Fifteen philosophers, social scientists, and academic lawyers assess various aspects of bioethics. Some detail its development and challenge the field's basic assumptions. Others consider bioethics's role in contemporary society and examine it in policy administration as well as in its interaction with other branches of philosophical inquiry. Chapters also focus on specific issues, including the responsibilities of researchers to subjects in clinical trials; the proper criteria for determining when a living organism has died; the allocation of scarce, life-saving medical resources; and the subsidization of pharmaceutical products for those who may be deprived of the benefits of modern medicine.