News
MEEN Co-sponsors Inaugural Conference of Euro
ISME
This year a new European based chapter of
the International Society for Military Ethics, the premier
organisation of academics and military practitioners engaged in the
study of military ethics, was inaugurated at a conference
co-sponsored by the French Military Academy at Saint-Cyr, King’s
College London at the UK Defence Academy at Shrivenham, and the
Military Ethics Education Network. The conference took place
at the Ecole Militaire, Paris, on 16 and 17 June 2011.
This was the final locus of MEEN
activity, as the three-year project formally finished at the
end of April 2011. The work of gathering and evaluating information
about military ethics education, building on earlier work based in
the University of Hull, has continued over the three years,
involving extensive first-hand observation, interviews, debate
consultation, and conferences such as ‘Military Training and
Education: who needs what, where and when?’ held at the Joint
Services Command and Staff College, UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham,
on 9 – 11 December 2009, and hosted by the Defence Ethics Network,
the International Association for Military Pedagogy and the
MEEN.
The conference in Paris covered a wide
range of topics, but the two main themes were: Military alliances
as rooted in an Ethical Consensus, and Military ethics education
for the 21st Century. It is anticipated that this
conference will provide an opportunity for further debate of issues
that, although the MEEN project has come to an end, will not mark
the end of engagement by its members in these matters. James
Connelly and Don Carrick will continue to maintain the MEEN email
links as they have proved to be a very valuable and much
appreciated means of exchange of views between MEEN members, who
now number over one hundred worldwide.