Seminar: Professor Joy Gordon, "Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions"

Past Event

Date
02 November 2010, 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Location
Lecture Theatre, Oxford Martin School
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were arguably the most comprehensive and devastating of any established in the name of international governance. The sanctions, coupled with the bombing campaign of 1991, brought about the near collapse of Iraq’s infrastructure and profoundly compromised basic conditions necessary to sustain life. In a sharp indictment of U.S. policy, Joy Gordon will discuss the key role the nation played in shaping the sanctions, whose harsh strictures resulted in part from U.S. defnitions of “dual use” and “weapons of mass destruction,” and claims that everything from water pipes to laundry detergent to child vaccines could produce weapons.

Joy Gordon is Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Global Justice Program, in the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. She teaches courses in political philosophy, human rights, philosophy of law, international law, and ethics of war and peace.

This event is free and open to all.