Lund, Sweden – March 14, 2018
Professor emeritus at Princeton, Richard A. Falk (born 1930), visits Lund, Sweden, this week to discuss his latest book, edited by Stefan Andersson – “Revisiting the Vietnam War And International Law: Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk” (Cambridge University Press).
Falk is in a category of his own:
An incomprehensibly prolific writer of learned textbooks, analyses, reports and columns over a very long lifetime, critical analyses on virtually every aspect of U.S. foreign policy and world order issues, teaching at numerous universities, living in both the U.S. and Turkey, writing poetry and nominated over many years for the Nobel Peace Prize (however never awarded to a scholar).
Already 40 years ago he warned those who cared to listen about what we are witnessing today – “the end of world order” and the lawlessness, chaos and criminal brutality that was bound to follow – not predominantly because the U.S./West made “mistakes” about its wars but because it sought permanently to dominate the Rest, through militarist interventionism against international law and norms – i.e. criminal enterprises.
This Militarism-First policy is now a project causing decay on many fronts, but a very dangerous decay.
Richard Falk isn’t only critical, he’s a visionary on a “citizen pilgrimage” for peace and justice who has consistently and patiently explained to his own country and the world that there can be no peace without respect for international law, the UN Charter and human rights.
Falk has in a deeply personal and empathizing manner engaged on the side of the “damned of the earth”, from the Vietnamese in the 1960s to the Palestinian people today. And always emphasizing the role that civil society – citizens – must play in democratic change.
Thank you, Richard, for having been a dear friend, supporter, mentor and TFF Associate since 1985.
We are grateful and proud to have published most of Richard Falk’s articles over all these years – to be found at The Transnational.
Explore his multi-dimensional universe, and beautiful writing style, and Falk can be your pilgrim mentor out of darkness too.
Here a selection of the most recent – 12 in this year alone:
• Why the Experience of Ahed Tamimi Matters So Much
• Revisiting the Vietnam War and International Law
• The Gulf Crisis Reassessed From An International Law Perspective
• A Debate on Peacemaking: Ending Occupation or Apartheid
• America’s “Liberalism” and Other Inhumane Styles of Governance At Home and Internationally
• Can Israel be Jewish State and a Democratic State?
• Democracy, Development and Reputation: Vietnam and Turkey
• Let the Two-State Solution Die a Natural Death
• Parallel Universes: Vietnam and Palestine
• Taking Stock One Year After Trump
• Jerusalem Is (Is Not) the Capital of Israel
• “Ever Since My UN Appointment I Have Often Been Accused of Being an Anti-Semite and A Self-Hating Jew”
