For many students of global governance who explore the myriad institutions, rules, norms, and coordinating arrangements that transcend individual states and societies, what really marks the contemporary era is not the absence of such governance but its “astonishing diversity.” In addition to “long-standing universal-membership bodies,” such as the United Nations, writes Stewart Patrick, “there are various regional institutions, multilateral alliances and security groups, standing consultative mechanisms, self-selecting clubs, ad hoc coalitions, issue-specific arrangements, transnational professional networks, technical standard-setting bodies, global action networks, and more.” The proliferation and diversification of governance mechanisms—yielding a jumble of formal and informal arrangements—has supplanted the simpler image of state representatives gathering at official assemblies. Many scholars believe this pluralism opens important new avenues for tackling a growing array of complex transnational problems, particularly at a time when the responsiveness of traditional multilateral institutions is being called into question.

The collapse of the Eastern European communist regimes led to a re-evaluation of Hegel's philosophies as inspiration for shaping the post-communist governments. Concerned that the reappearance of literature on Hegel's ideas often expresses inaccurately and one-sidedly the philosopher's views, Brown attempts to clarify Hegelian ideas of absolute knowledge and self-knowledge that lead to the model of the modern state as “the vehicle for the self-expression of spirit…governed only by the requirements of reason” upon which Hegel grounds international ethics. The author links Hegel's work to some practical international concerns, such as internationalism, ethnocentrism, relativism, and the vision of the end of history. The author refers to Francis Fukuyama's essay “The End of History?” (1989) celebrating the triumph of political and economic history, and showing how it was based on an inaccurate interpretation of Hegel. When evaluating recent interpretations of Hegel's work, Brown shows that one must be cautious to review the accuracy of his explicit views.

Roth argues that much of the current discourse on the diffusion of democratic norms is misleading and that only a realistic assessment of the progress of societies in transition will focus attention on the problems that remain to be solved. Only in this way will normative evaluation contribute to progress in the achievement of democratic ends.

Much of Catherine Lu's response resonates in tone and substance with my article. Like me, Lu speaks in the language of moral psychology and relies heavily on the later work of that preeminent moral psychologist among liberal theorists, Judith Shklar. She agrees, moreover, with both Shklar and me that victimhood (and the fear it produces) is morally damaging more often than not, and that the recent literature on human rights, which focuses on the relation of victim and perpetrator, tends to let the beneficiaries of systemic injustice off the hook. Lu and I, thus, share much common ground that other respondents might have contested, and I am grateful that her perceptive criticisms focus on points within my argument that I am pleased to elaborate.

In this article I argue that the claims made about the efficacy of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) echo the pejorative conceptions of “utopianism” as advanced by E. H. Carr and Ken Booth in two ways: through the determination of RtoP supporters to claim “progress” in spite of countervailing empirical evidence; and through the exaggerated importance that supporters ascribe to institutionalization, which mistakenly conflates state support with a change in state behavior and interests. I argue that RtoP's impact on the behavior of states has been and will continue to be limited. Moreover, while RtoP has garnered widespread support among states, this is due to it having been rendered largely impotent through a process of norm cooptation. While both Carr and Booth criticized a particular form of utopianism, they both also defended the articulation of normative prescriptions that are not immediately feasible. To this end, I conclude by suggesting a potential reform of the existing international legal order that meets Carr's preference for normative thinking that is “utopian in the right sense.”

Thomas Weiss oversimplifies when he identifies the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with the classicist position of nonconfrontation. The ICRC defines humanitarian action to include advocacy through public and private channels to protect individuals and communities against violations of international humanitarian law. Weiss rightly points out the difficulty of making belligerents, or “unprincipled actors,” understand the value of nonpartisan and impartial action.

Still, the ICRC remains committed to finding new language for communicating the principles of humanitarian action and new techniques of negotiation. In this regard the ICRC is classicist. But this classicism places the ICRC on the side of the solidarists in defending the interests of individuals and communities in distress, and on the side of the maximalists in its advocacy of international humanitarian law.

International monetary arrangements–the practices and rules governing the creation, distribution, and management of money and credit in the world economy–have received little attention from philosophers concerned with international distributive justice. A convincing account of international distributive justice requires a description of how these arrangements should function. International monetary arrangements currently appear to have consequences that are incompatible with a global egalitarian conception of distributive justice.

There are at least three categories of questions– relating respectively to money supply, exchange rates, and debt–that can be raised in the international context. First, who should have control over key monetary decisions, such as how much, and on what terms, money and credit are being supplied within each monetary zone? Should this control belong to the citizens of a given monetary zone and their representatives alone? How should the benefits arising from the ability to create money be distributed internationally? Second, should the stability of exchange rates be a goal and, if so, how should the responsibility for maintaining stability be apportioned? When adjustment of exchange rates is required, who should bear the burdens associated with such adjustment? Third, what arrangements should govern the accumulation and discharge of debt in the international setting? In what respects should debt contracted by states be governed by different rules than debt contracted by private agents? What forms of conditionality may be imposed by creditors, such as international institutions, governments, or private lenders, as part of a just framework of international borrowing and repayment? These questions exemplify rather than exhaust the dilemmas that arise with regard to international monetary arrangements. Global egalitarians should imagine the alternative forms that such arrangements can take as elements of a realistic utopia.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been the subject of much discussion for its impact on the use of force outside of UN Security Council authorization. Less commented upon is the fact that the so-called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” resurrected a body of international law that had been dormant through the second half of the twentieth century: the law of military occupation. Developed at a time when war itself was not illegal, this doctrine became something of an embarrassment after the UN Charter established a broad prohibition on the use of force. Nevertheless, through the 1990s the United Nations itself had become involved in operations in Kosovo that looked distinctly like military occupation. Even the most liberal reading of the instruments governing occupation law, however, finds it hard to reconcile this law with military intervention and post-conflict occupation premised on regime change. This article first surveys the law of military occupation before briefly examining the role of the UN Security Council in post-conflict administration. It then turns to the ambiguous responsibilities accorded to the United States and Britain as occupying powers in Iraq in 2003–2004.

What type of ethics should guide our behavior in contemporary conflicts? Religious groups working in many parts of the world are deeply involved in providing practical and theological answers to that question. This article examines two types of Judeo-Christian perspectives that stress the imperative to act to relieve suffering and transcend violence: liberation theology and the “religious humanitarian perspective.” Both perspectives draw linkages between ethical guidelines and action, and both have influenced broader political debates. The essay poses the following questions:

What are the ethical bases of action for contemporary activists and theologians in these traditions, and have these changed with political circumstances?; and

Are there ethical and practical connections between contemporary religious humanitarianism and liberation theology, and can they provide us with a coherent ethic of action to relieve suffering and reduce violence in the world?

These questions are analyzed in light of current theological conceptions of evil, religious pluralism, and the uneasy boundaries between violence and nonviolence.

Nongovernmental development organizations in the global North have a mission-critical blind spot: collectively, they are unequipped to intentionally bring about the kind of long-term change in social norms, attitudes, and beliefs in their home countries that their missions and their standard rhetoric demand. They long ago lost control of the media and public narratives around global development, if indeed they ever had it, and have instead been locked in a toxic and inaccurate paradigm, described through an increasingly outmoded core “charity” story that is unrepresentative of the reality of global development and that restricts their appeal to the public. Of the many reasons for this, one is examined in detail here: a disconnect with the latest learning from a range of academic disciplines, which leads to overreliance on consumer marketing approaches to communication and campaigning that are unsuited to the long-term and transformative tasks the NGOs set themselves. This paper looks to explore one diagnosis on public attitudes that such a connection would likely highlight; outline some of the key beliefs and assumptions that sustain the status quo; and suggest how academics, through a group such as Academics Stand Against Poverty, can help to start remedying the situation.

The Sustainable Development Goals have attracted both defenders and critics. Composed of seventeen goals and 169 targets, the overly broad scope of the SDGs raises the question of whether there are priorities that need to be set within them. This essay considers the SDGs from the perspective of a “basic goods approach” to development policy, which takes a needs-based and basic-subsistence-rights view on policy priorities. It focuses on a subset of SDGs that directly address the provision of nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, health services, education services, and human security services. In doing so, it proposes a set of seven “basic development goals” and ten associated targets. It argues that this more focused approach can better protect basic rights, more effectively contribute to progress on human wellbeing, and make accountability more likely.

In recent years philosophical debates on human rights have focused upon the contrast between humanist and political conceptions of human rights. Defenders of the humanist conception take human rights to be those rights that we have solely in virtue of being human. By contrast, defenders of the political conception aim to offer an account of human rights practice without any recourse to notions such as human dignity, personhood, etc. They take human rights to be those rights that we have in virtue of being subject to political authority. In this essay, I show some of the problematic implications of endorsing this aspect of the political conception. After analyzing some key functions that the concept of human dignity plays in human rights practice, I focus on the gradual extension of legal human rights to corporations. I analyze the negative effects that the distinctive functions of human rights norms can have upon the human rights of natural persons once corporations are recognized as legal persons bearing human rights. Turning to human rights jurisprudence I then explore the normative resources that the concept of human dignity has to offer in order to prevent such negative effects and which are unavailable to a conception of human rights that disregards the humanist core of human rights practice.

In this article I propose to explore two issues. The first concerns what kinds of contributions academics can make to reducing poverty. I argue that academics can contribute in a number of ways, and I seek to spell out the diversity of the options available. I concentrate on four ways in which these contributions might differ.

My second aim is to outline some norms that should inform any academic involvement in activities that seek to reduce poverty. I set out six proposals. These concern: (1) the need to construct coalitions among people with different ethical frameworks; (2) the value of constructing nonideal theory on the basis of our best understanding of an ideal world; (3) the need for integrated analysis that connects antipoverty initiatives to other areas of moral concern; (4) the vital importance of interdisciplinarity; (5) the need for epistemic modesty and revisability; and (6) the need for accountability.

“My argument in this essay is that the fairness principle can be justified on the basis of an ethical perspective that stresses the importance of consequences in judging human action, and that it has far-reaching implications not just for evaluating state policy but for the design of international institutions.” Keohane's utilitarian perspective seeks to establish generalizable principles of morality for a framework of normative moral rules by which to construct a foreign policy for international cooperation. The author argues that all governments are morally obliged to support international institutions that advocate crosscultural and global public goods to advance the fairness principle. The international community is bound by Western understandings of distributive justice, universal human rights, and indisputable national sovereignty.

At the end of World War II, the phrase “human rights” was virtually unknown, whether in the media, in standard textbooks, or as a guideline for state conduct in the emerging international community. It was nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that made the phrase a core element of the United Nations Charter in 1944, even as they pressed for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted three years later. This was but the beginning of a historic effort to make the Declaration a fundamental standard for measuring progress in civilized society. If the principal motivation was the prevention of another Holocaust, NGOs would fulfill the indispensable function, projected by Eleanor Roosevelt, of serving as the “curious grapevine” that would enlighten everyone about their rights and channel information about human rights violations to the world community.

This essay is about the “curious grapevine,” an extraordinary tale of how NGOs, through their persuasion, have made human rights a major item in international discourse in the media, state chancellories, and international institutions. NGOs have played the leading role in the creation of international standards and in establishing legally binding treaties incorporating these standards. They are central to the process of adopting implementing organs to these treaties and in providing the essential documentation and briefings to make these organs work.

Despite a recent explosion of interest in the ethics of armed conflict, the traditional just war criterion that war be waged by a “legitimate authority” has received relatively little attention. Moreover, of those theorists who have addressed the criterion, many are deeply skeptical about its moral significance. This article aims to add some clarity and precision to the authority criterion and the debates surrounding it, and to suggest that this skepticism may be too quick. The first section analyzes the authority criterion and reveals that there are at least two distinct moral claims associated with it, each requiring separate evaluation. The second section outlines an increasingly influential “reductivist” approach to just war theory, explaining how this approach grounds powerful objections to the authority criterion. The third section sketches the most promising strategies for providing a qualified defense of authority, while acknowledging the further questions and complications these strategies raise. Importantly, the article aims to rehabilitate the authority criterion from within a broadly reductivist view.