The Obama Years: War, Peace, and Environmental Sustainability
“The Obama Years: War, Peace, and Environmental Sustainability”
« Les années Obama: Guerre, Paix, et Développement environnemental »
McGill University/Université de Montréal
October 29-31, 2010
sponsored by
Centre de Recherche en Éthique de l’Université de Montréal (CRÉUM),
the Philosophy Department of McGill University,
and the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill
LOCATION
Conference sessions will take place at Thomson House, the conference venue run by McGill University graduate students. Thomson House is located at 3650, rue McTavish (cross street: rue Dr Penfield)
REGISTRATION
Conference registration fee: $100.00 (USD or CAD)
Saturday night banquet is an additional $25, payable on site.
Checks/cheques should be made payable to: CONCERNED PHILOSOPHERS FOR PEACE
Registration details (name, affiliation, and confirmed title of your presentation) should be mailed, with payment, to:
Tracey Nicholls
Centre de Recherche en Éthique de l’Université de Montréal (CRÉUM),
C.P. 6128 succursale Centre-ville
Montréal QC H3C 3J7
CANADA
(Please note that the registration fee will be waived for students, but you are still asked to register and declare your student status at that point.)
NEAREST AIRPORT
Pierre Elliot Trudeau International (YUL)
LOCAL TRANSPORTATION
Travel from the airport (Pierre Trudeau International Airport, code: YUL) is fairly straightforward. You can take a taxi to the downtown area (centre-ville) for about $38 plus tip, or you can take the shuttle that the municipal transit service has just introduced, the 747 Express, for $7.
Taxi
As you exit the arrivals area with your luggage, signs directing you to the taxi stand should be clearly marked. Please note that the fare between the airport and centre-ville is a fixed rate. It will be clearly posted on the windows of the taxicabs and you should not pay more than that posted rate (unless you opt to stay at an address that falls outside the centre-ville zone indicated on the signs).
Bus
As with taxis, you should find signs to the bus fairly clearly marked. The bus runs every 15 minutes between 8am and 8pm; every 30 minutes at non-peak times. Passes for the 747 Express bus can be purchased at a kiosk at the Currency Exchange desk, which is located in the public area of the airport that you pass through after collecting your luggage. You can pay by credit card, and you have the option of a $7 one-day pass that will give you access to the entire transit system (metro and buses) for 24 hours or a 3-day carte ocasionelle (about $13).
ACCOMMODATION
I have made block bookings at two different hotels in the downtown area, and confirmed availability at a third. The block-booked hotels are both located on Sherbrooke Street, which is the main east-west artery of the downtown area, one to the east of the main entrance to the McGill campus and the other to the west. Both hotels offer easy access to McGill via the 24 Sherbrooke bus route.
Chateau Versailles
There is a block of 25 rooms here under the name “Concerned Philosophers for Peace” (group booking code CPJ19S). This hotel is located at 1659 Sherbrooke Street West, so you will need to travel east on Sherbrooke to reach the McGill campus (about 8 blocks). It is a beautiful, old-world style hotel offering all standard hotel amenities and continental breakfast for the rate of $144/night (Canadian) plus applicable taxes. You can make reservations at 1-888-933-8111 or http://www.chateauversaillesmontreal.com. Please note that any unreserved rooms left in this block will be released on September 29, 2010, so you need to book with them before then.
Holiday Inn Midtown
There is a block of 15 rooms here under the name “2010 Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference.” This hotel is located at 420 Sherbrooke Street West, so you will need to travel west on Sherbrooke to reach the McGill campus (about 4 blocks). It also offers all standard hotel amenities and continental breakfast for the rate of $131/night (Canadian) plus applicable taxes. You can make reservations at 1-800-387-3042. Please note that any unreserved rooms left in this block will be released on September 24, 2010, so you need to book with them before then.
L’Abri du Voyageur
This is your low-budget option. They have a web special of $62/night plus applicable taxes, available if you book online at http://www.abri-voyageur.ca. Alternatively you can make reservations by phone at 1-866-302-2922. L’Abri du Voyageur is located at 9 St-Catherine West (corner of St-Catherine and St-Laurent, which is the major north-south artery of centre-ville). It is, as you will immediately notice if you book there, right smack in the heart of the “red-light” district. The area is perfectly safe, if a little seedy, and I have personal testimony from friends who have stayed there that the hotel is clean, safe, and remarkably well-appointed for the price. You can reach McGill quite easily by walking a block north on St-Laurent to metro St-Laurent and taking the subway west (direction: Angrignon) three stops to metro Peel. From the Peel subway stop, it is about a four block walk north to our conference location. I have not booked a block of rooms here, but I have confirmed that they have rooms available.
Please feel free to contact me directly (at this email address, or at 312-218-6834) if you have any questions that I have not answered here. And, just by way of helpful reminder for those of you who may not have travelled to Canada recently, let me give you a heads-up that you will need to make sure your passport is up-to-date in order to get across the border!
Regards,
Tracey Nicholls
Local (Montréal) Organizer, 23rd Annual CONCERNED PHILOSOPHERS FOR PEACE Conference
CPP 2010 Montreal: The Obama Years
Call for Papers
The Obama Years: War, Peace, and Environmental Sustainability
The Centre de Recherche en Éthique de l’Université de Montréal and the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill University are pleased to sponsor the 2010 annual meeting of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace. The conference will take place October 29-31, 2010, at McGill University, in the heart of downtown Montreal, Canada.
Because of the location and the notable reorientation towards internationalism that Barack Obama’s presidency has fostered, we are especially interested in encouraging submissions that present questions of war, peace, and environmentalism in a cosmopolitan or multinational context. You may want to, but need not, consider these questions from the point of view of what domestic and/or international expectations Obama needs to address (concerning, for example, the prison at Guantánamo, the Afghanistan-Pakistan war, the Copenhagen agreement on climate change).
Possible paper topics include:
• the extent to which we see a change that warrants speaking of ‘the Obama Years’
• reconciling a Nobel Peace Prize with the responsibilities of a commander-in-chief
• the role of environmental problems in causes of war
• connections between environmental sustainability and peace-making (or peacebuilding)
• human rights and environmental catastrophes
• responses to the problem of ‘environmental refugees’
• collective action for environmental sustainability in an international context the global war on terror
• the role of the Geneva Conventions in non-state asymmetrical conflicts
• the ethical challenges of humanitarianism in conflict zones
• whether the United Nations’ Responsibility to Protect doctrine is progressive or regressive
• whether, and to what extent, nationalism is a root cause of war/environmental degradation
• whether, and to what extent, cosmopolitanism is a necessary element of peacebuilding/climate change accords
Anyone interested in presenting a paper should submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by August 1, 2010 to tracey.j.nicholls@gmail.com. In recognition of Montreal’s status as a bilingual city, we encourage papers in English and French.
Appel de communications
Les années Obama : Guerre, Paix et Développement environnemental
Le Centre de recherche en éthique de l’Université de Montréal et le Centre sur les droits de la personne et le pluralisme juridique de l’Université McGill sont heureux de commanditer l’édition 2010 du colloque annuel de Philosophes engagés pour la paix / Concerned Philosophers for Peace. Le colloque aura lieu à l’Université McGill, au cœur de Montréal, du 29 au 31 octobre 2010.
En raison du fait que le colloque aura lieu à l’extérieur des Etats-Unis, et que l’administration de Barack Obama semble s’orienter vers une politique extérieure plus internationaliste, nous encourageons plus particulièrement les contributions qui traitent des questions de guerre, paix et environnement dans une perspective plus cosmopolitique ou dans un contexte multinational. Vous êtes invités, mais sans y être contraints, à envisager ces questions du point de vue des enjeux domestiques et/ou internationaux que l’administration Obama doit relever (concernant, par exemple, les conditions de détention à Guantanamo, le conflit Afghanistan-Pakistan, le traité de Copenhague sur le climat).
Les sujets possibles des contributions peuvent porter sur :
• dans quelle mesure peut-on parler d’un ‘changement’ en parlant du régime Obama ?
• comment peut-on réconcilier le prix Nobel de la Paix avec les responsabilités d’un ‘commandant-en-chef’ ?
• le rôle des problèmes environnementaux dans les causes de guerre
• les relations entre les développements durables de l’environnement et de la consolidation de la paix ?
• les droits humains et les catastrophes environnementales
• les réponses au problème des réfugiés environnementaux
• l’action collective pour un environnement durable dans le contexte international
• la guerre globale contre le terrorisme
• le rôle des Conventions de Genève dans les conflits asymétriques non-étatiques
• les enjeux éthiques de l’humanitaire dans les zones de conflit
• doit-on juger la doctrine onusienne de la ‘responsabilité de protéger’ comme progressiste ou régressive ?
• dans quelle mesure le nationalisme est-il une cause fondamentale de guerre / de dégradation environnementale ?
• dans quelle mesure le cosmopolitisme représente-t-il une condition nécessaire de la consolidation de la paix / accords internationaux sur les changements climatiques ?
Tout projet de contribution doit se limiter à un résumé de 250 mots (maximum) et être soumis avant le 1er août 2010 à tracey.j.nicholls@gmail.com.
En reconnaissance du statut distinct de Montréal en tant que ville bilingue, nous encourageons les communications présentées en anglais et/ou en français.