Seeking Justice: Ethics and International Affairs

In just the past few years, both the theoretical importance and the practical necessity of ethical analyses in international affairs have become well established. In order to more closely examine particular ethical dilemmas, Rachel McCleary has put together a collection of carefully selected case studies illustrating the variety of ethical concerns that arise in international affairs. As in every volume in the Case Studies in International Affairs series, this volume opens with an introduction that gives students the philosophical background and theoretical framework they need to understand the cases that follow. Individual introductions to each case place the study in context relative to the other studies and to the overall theme of the volume. Discussion questions round out the treatment of the issues, prompting explorations beyond the cases themselves. The cases in Seeking Justice range from questions about the U.S. invasion of Panama to the withdrawal from Vietnam, from the uneven application of the Law of the Sea to the equally uneven distribution of trade favors emerging from the integration of the European Community. Considerations of economic justice are also the focus of a case on the IMF and Nigeria. A Brazilian case study brings together several issues implicit in the earlier cases–the nature of state sovereignty, the status of moral obligations and rights in the international arena, and the structural inequality of international regimes. This study shows how the issues of debt, development, and environment are integrally linked and pinpoints the kinds of ethical problems policymakers, experts, and theorists will be wrestling with in the near future. The cases have been selected and presented to help students identify the issues and make connections between disparate sets of circumstances without spoonfeeding interpretation or analysis. Rachel McCleary skillfully presents the spectrum of ethical questions posed by international events and reveals the dialectical interplay among them.