Questões de Inglês

STATE-SPONSORED HAPPINESS
By Karen Greenspan

[1]     Last November [2015], citizens of the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan were in a frenzy preparing for the sixtieth birth anniversary of their previous
king, His Majesty the Fourth Druk Gyalpo (Dragon King) Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who had reigned from 1972–2006. This wise, benevolent, and
innovative leader brought Bhutan into the modern age by implementing such public policies as free public education, free healthcare services, well-planned
business development, internet connectivity, and vigorous environmental protections. In an unparalleled move, he launched the drafting of a constitution
and shifted the country to democracy. He then abdicated the throne to his eldest son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. According to many, the
Fourth Druk Gyalpo made this move because he did not want his son to be thrust unprepared into the role of leadership as he had been at age sixteen when
his father died suddenly and unexpectedly.
[2]     The Fourth Druk Gyalpo is probably most renowned, however, for introducing the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH)—the government policy
that measures the growth and development of the country by the happiness and contentment of its people. At the core of the policy are four priorities—
equitable and sustainable development, protection of the environment, preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s unique cultural heritage, and provision
of good and responsive governance.
[3]     In honor of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo’s birthday, the entire country observed three days of celebration from November 9-11. Because Bhutan is a Buddhist
country, prayers and rituals were woven into the festivities. The Je Khenpo, spiritual leader of the country, wrote a special zhabten—a prayer for the long
life of an individual composed by a senior spiritual figure whose power of speech is considered capable of turning word into reality. Other prayers and texts
were to be recited across the country in fortresses, monasteries, temples, and seminaries. At Changlimithang Stadium in the capital city of Thimphu, one
hundred monks rehearsed a sacred dance called Zheng Zhi Pem, which is a component of the Longevity Ritual. An elaborate ceremonial procession with
military, monastic, and government officials, as well as an honor guard of one thousand army personnel, was presented three times to His Majesty.
[4]     Because the people of Bhutan are so happy – more than ninety-one percent of the population were scored as happy in a 2015 GNH survey – many of
them wanted to participate in showing gratitude for His Majesty’s leadership. The currency [moeda] of gratitude in this land of happiness is dance. As a
result, practically all of Bhutan took part in commemorating – mostly through dance – the birthday of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. The release of thousands
of colorful, biodegradable balloons and three cake-cutting ceremonies capped the celebrations.
[5]     What I understood, after witnessing these events in November, is that a government’s focus on the happiness of a country’s people can be a powerful
transformative force, an instrument for positive social change.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2016.

STATE-SPONSORED HAPPINESS
By Karen Greenspan

[1]     Last November [2015], citizens of the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan were in a frenzy preparing for the sixtieth birth anniversary of their previous
king, His Majesty the Fourth Druk Gyalpo (Dragon King) Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who had reigned from 1972–2006. This wise, benevolent, and
innovative leader brought Bhutan into the modern age by implementing such public policies as free public education, free healthcare services, well-planned
business development, internet connectivity, and vigorous environmental protections. In an unparalleled move, he launched the drafting of a constitution
and shifted the country to democracy. He then abdicated the throne to his eldest son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. According to many, the
Fourth Druk Gyalpo made this move because he did not want his son to be thrust unprepared into the role of leadership as he had been at age sixteen when
his father died suddenly and unexpectedly.
[2]     The Fourth Druk Gyalpo is probably most renowned, however, for introducing the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH)—the government policy
that measures the growth and development of the country by the happiness and contentment of its people. At the core of the policy are four priorities—
equitable and sustainable development, protection of the environment, preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s unique cultural heritage, and provision
of good and responsive governance.
[3]     In honor of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo’s birthday, the entire country observed three days of celebration from November 9-11. Because Bhutan is a Buddhist
country, prayers and rituals were woven into the festivities. The Je Khenpo, spiritual leader of the country, wrote a special zhabten—a prayer for the long
life of an individual composed by a senior spiritual figure whose power of speech is considered capable of turning word into reality. Other prayers and texts
were to be recited across the country in fortresses, monasteries, temples, and seminaries. At Changlimithang Stadium in the capital city of Thimphu, one
hundred monks rehearsed a sacred dance called Zheng Zhi Pem, which is a component of the Longevity Ritual. An elaborate ceremonial procession with
military, monastic, and government officials, as well as an honor guard of one thousand army personnel, was presented three times to His Majesty.
[4]     Because the people of Bhutan are so happy – more than ninety-one percent of the population were scored as happy in a 2015 GNH survey – many of
them wanted to participate in showing gratitude for His Majesty’s leadership. The currency [moeda] of gratitude in this land of happiness is dance. As a
result, practically all of Bhutan took part in commemorating – mostly through dance – the birthday of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. The release of thousands
of colorful, biodegradable balloons and three cake-cutting ceremonies capped the celebrations.
[5]     What I understood, after witnessing these events in November, is that a government’s focus on the happiness of a country’s people can be a powerful
transformative force, an instrument for positive social change.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2016.

STATE-SPONSORED HAPPINESS
By Karen Greenspan

[1]     Last November [2015], citizens of the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan were in a frenzy preparing for the sixtieth birth anniversary of their previous
king, His Majesty the Fourth Druk Gyalpo (Dragon King) Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who had reigned from 1972–2006. This wise, benevolent, and
innovative leader brought Bhutan into the modern age by implementing such public policies as free public education, free healthcare services, well-planned
business development, internet connectivity, and vigorous environmental protections. In an unparalleled move, he launched the drafting of a constitution
and shifted the country to democracy. He then abdicated the throne to his eldest son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. According to many, the
Fourth Druk Gyalpo made this move because he did not want his son to be thrust unprepared into the role of leadership as he had been at age sixteen when
his father died suddenly and unexpectedly.
[2]     The Fourth Druk Gyalpo is probably most renowned, however, for introducing the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH)—the government policy
that measures the growth and development of the country by the happiness and contentment of its people. At the core of the policy are four priorities—
equitable and sustainable development, protection of the environment, preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s unique cultural heritage, and provision
of good and responsive governance.
[3]     In honor of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo’s birthday, the entire country observed three days of celebration from November 9-11. Because Bhutan is a Buddhist
country, prayers and rituals were woven into the festivities. The Je Khenpo, spiritual leader of the country, wrote a special zhabten—a prayer for the long
life of an individual composed by a senior spiritual figure whose power of speech is considered capable of turning word into reality. Other prayers and texts
were to be recited across the country in fortresses, monasteries, temples, and seminaries. At Changlimithang Stadium in the capital city of Thimphu, one
hundred monks rehearsed a sacred dance called Zheng Zhi Pem, which is a component of the Longevity Ritual. An elaborate ceremonial procession with
military, monastic, and government officials, as well as an honor guard of one thousand army personnel, was presented three times to His Majesty.
[4]     Because the people of Bhutan are so happy – more than ninety-one percent of the population were scored as happy in a 2015 GNH survey – many of
them wanted to participate in showing gratitude for His Majesty’s leadership. The currency [moeda] of gratitude in this land of happiness is dance. As a
result, practically all of Bhutan took part in commemorating – mostly through dance – the birthday of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. The release of thousands
of colorful, biodegradable balloons and three cake-cutting ceremonies capped the celebrations.
[5]     What I understood, after witnessing these events in November, is that a government’s focus on the happiness of a country’s people can be a powerful
transformative force, an instrument for positive social change.

Adapted from Natural History, March 2016.

ANYTHING CAN BE RESCINDED

By Isabel Hull

[1]     The Paris Peace Pact of 1928 is a treaty few remember and which is ridiculed by many of those who do. Otherwise known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact –
after its authors, the US secretary of state, Frank Kellogg, and his French counterpart, Aristide Briand – its signatories agreed specifically to ‘condemn
recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another’.
Lacking any means of enforcement, and seemingly swept aside by the Second World War only 11 years later, Kellogg-Briand has been seen as hopelessly
utopian, as evanescent and dated as the Charleston (a popular dance of that period). But Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, in their book The
Internationalists and Their Plan to Outlaw War, argue that it was revolutionary. By outlawing war, it laid the legal foundations for a ‘New World Order’
which still prevails, but which we fail to appreciate.
[2]     The book begins with a bleak description of the ‘Old World Order’, which rested on the right of states, in the absence of a world court, to resort to war
to redress grievances or solve disputes. War was a legal mechanism. Hathaway and Shapiro’s study of more than four hundred declarations of war from
the late 16th century to 1939 reveals that self-defence and the enforcement of treaty, international or succession laws were the reasons cited most often
by states. In addition to permitting frequent armed conflict, the lawful status of war had other consequences for international relations. Since force could
be used to resolve conflicts, the system rewarded the powerful, sanctifying the principle of ‘might is right’. It also legitimated conquest, both as
compensation for injury and as the outcome of a contest of force in which the weaker side lost. It permitted the threat of force (gunboat diplomacy). It
protected the decision makers who waged war and the soldiers who fought it, because both were engaged in a legal activity. Killing in war wasn’t murder.
And, finally, lawful war required absolute impartiality from neutrals (for example, in their trade or commerce with belligerents), since they were not parties
to the dispute. Economic sanctions were therefore illegal. This state of affairs lasted into the 20th century, and Hathaway and Shapiro see the First World
War as its ‘terrible culmination’. Even the League of Nations ‘did not herald’ [anunciar] its end because its covenant still permitted member states to resort
to war over serious, non-judiciable disputes after a three-month cooling-off period.
[3]     Hathaway and Shapiro’s premise is that since states seemed incapable of weaning themselves off [se desacostumar de] warfare, civil society had to
intervene.
[4]     Among the ‘internationalists’ who helped broker, institutionalize and interpret the Kellogg-Briand Pact, one of the most significant was Hersch
Lauterpacht, the Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge University. In the late 1930s, he rigorously and successfully argued that the Kellogg-

Briand Pact had overturned the basic structures of the international order. Neutrals were no longer bound [amarrados, obrigados] to impartiality,
permitting policies that helped victims of aggression. And because it resulted from a criminal act, conquest was now illegal. Individual leaders could be
held responsible for waging [fazer, proseguir] illegal wars (the principle behind the Nuremberg Trials). And treaties extorted by coercion were invalid.
Lauterpacht’s briefs [pareceres] to the US and British governments in the 1940s helped establish these principles, making him ‘the father of the New World
Order’, which since 1945 has been characterized by remarkably few inter-state wars or annexations.
[5]     Hathaway and Shapiro’s point, then, is that ‘for all its problems, the New World Order is better than the Old.’

Adapted from the London Review of Books, 26 April 2018. 

ANYTHING CAN BE RESCINDED

By Isabel Hull

[1]     The Paris Peace Pact of 1928 is a treaty few remember and which is ridiculed by many of those who do. Otherwise known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact –
after its authors, the US secretary of state, Frank Kellogg, and his French counterpart, Aristide Briand – its signatories agreed specifically to ‘condemn
recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another’.
Lacking any means of enforcement, and seemingly swept aside by the Second World War only 11 years later, Kellogg-Briand has been seen as hopelessly
utopian, as evanescent and dated as the Charleston (a popular dance of that period). But Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, in their book The
Internationalists and Their Plan to Outlaw War, argue that it was revolutionary. By outlawing war, it laid the legal foundations for a ‘New World Order’
which still prevails, but which we fail to appreciate.
[2]     The book begins with a bleak description of the ‘Old World Order’, which rested on the right of states, in the absence of a world court, to resort to war
to redress grievances or solve disputes. War was a legal mechanism. Hathaway and Shapiro’s study of more than four hundred declarations of war from
the late 16th century to 1939 reveals that self-defence and the enforcement of treaty, international or succession laws were the reasons cited most often
by states. In addition to permitting frequent armed conflict, the lawful status of war had other consequences for international relations. Since force could
be used to resolve conflicts, the system rewarded the powerful, sanctifying the principle of ‘might is right’. It also legitimated conquest, both as
compensation for injury and as the outcome of a contest of force in which the weaker side lost. It permitted the threat of force (gunboat diplomacy). It
protected the decision makers who waged war and the soldiers who fought it, because both were engaged in a legal activity. Killing in war wasn’t murder.
And, finally, lawful war required absolute impartiality from neutrals (for example, in their trade or commerce with belligerents), since they were not parties
to the dispute. Economic sanctions were therefore illegal. This state of affairs lasted into the 20th century, and Hathaway and Shapiro see the First World
War as its ‘terrible culmination’. Even the League of Nations ‘did not herald’ [anunciar] its end because its covenant still permitted member states to resort
to war over serious, non-judiciable disputes after a three-month cooling-off period.
[3]     Hathaway and Shapiro’s premise is that since states seemed incapable of weaning themselves off [se desacostumar de] warfare, civil society had to
intervene.
[4]     Among the ‘internationalists’ who helped broker, institutionalize and interpret the Kellogg-Briand Pact, one of the most significant was Hersch
Lauterpacht, the Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge University. In the late 1930s, he rigorously and successfully argued that the Kellogg-

Briand Pact had overturned the basic structures of the international order. Neutrals were no longer bound [amarrados, obrigados] to impartiality,
permitting policies that helped victims of aggression. And because it resulted from a criminal act, conquest was now illegal. Individual leaders could be
held responsible for waging [fazer, proseguir] illegal wars (the principle behind the Nuremberg Trials). And treaties extorted by coercion were invalid.
Lauterpacht’s briefs [pareceres] to the US and British governments in the 1940s helped establish these principles, making him ‘the father of the New World
Order’, which since 1945 has been characterized by remarkably few inter-state wars or annexations.
[5]     Hathaway and Shapiro’s point, then, is that ‘for all its problems, the New World Order is better than the Old.’

Adapted from the London Review of Books, 26 April 2018. 

ANYTHING CAN BE RESCINDED

By Isabel Hull

[1]     The Paris Peace Pact of 1928 is a treaty few remember and which is ridiculed by many of those who do. Otherwise known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact –
after its authors, the US secretary of state, Frank Kellogg, and his French counterpart, Aristide Briand – its signatories agreed specifically to ‘condemn
recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another’.
Lacking any means of enforcement, and seemingly swept aside by the Second World War only 11 years later, Kellogg-Briand has been seen as hopelessly
utopian, as evanescent and dated as the Charleston (a popular dance of that period). But Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, in their book The
Internationalists and Their Plan to Outlaw War, argue that it was revolutionary. By outlawing war, it laid the legal foundations for a ‘New World Order’
which still prevails, but which we fail to appreciate.
[2]     The book begins with a bleak description of the ‘Old World Order’, which rested on the right of states, in the absence of a world court, to resort to war
to redress grievances or solve disputes. War was a legal mechanism. Hathaway and Shapiro’s study of more than four hundred declarations of war from
the late 16th century to 1939 reveals that self-defence and the enforcement of treaty, international or succession laws were the reasons cited most often
by states. In addition to permitting frequent armed conflict, the lawful status of war had other consequences for international relations. Since force could
be used to resolve conflicts, the system rewarded the powerful, sanctifying the principle of ‘might is right’. It also legitimated conquest, both as
compensation for injury and as the outcome of a contest of force in which the weaker side lost. It permitted the threat of force (gunboat diplomacy). It
protected the decision makers who waged war and the soldiers who fought it, because both were engaged in a legal activity. Killing in war wasn’t murder.
And, finally, lawful war required absolute impartiality from neutrals (for example, in their trade or commerce with belligerents), since they were not parties
to the dispute. Economic sanctions were therefore illegal. This state of affairs lasted into the 20th century, and Hathaway and Shapiro see the First World
War as its ‘terrible culmination’. Even the League of Nations ‘did not herald’ [anunciar] its end because its covenant still permitted member states to resort
to war over serious, non-judiciable disputes after a three-month cooling-off period.
[3]     Hathaway and Shapiro’s premise is that since states seemed incapable of weaning themselves off [se desacostumar de] warfare, civil society had to
intervene.
[4]     Among the ‘internationalists’ who helped broker, institutionalize and interpret the Kellogg-Briand Pact, one of the most significant was Hersch
Lauterpacht, the Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge University. In the late 1930s, he rigorously and successfully argued that the Kellogg-

Briand Pact had overturned the basic structures of the international order. Neutrals were no longer bound [amarrados, obrigados] to impartiality,
permitting policies that helped victims of aggression. And because it resulted from a criminal act, conquest was now illegal. Individual leaders could be
held responsible for waging [fazer, proseguir] illegal wars (the principle behind the Nuremberg Trials). And treaties extorted by coercion were invalid.
Lauterpacht’s briefs [pareceres] to the US and British governments in the 1940s helped establish these principles, making him ‘the father of the New World
Order’, which since 1945 has been characterized by remarkably few inter-state wars or annexations.
[5]     Hathaway and Shapiro’s point, then, is that ‘for all its problems, the New World Order is better than the Old.’

Adapted from the London Review of Books, 26 April 2018.