Ethical Issues In International Relations And Funding

International ethics is a branch of international relations theory concerned with the scope and extent of ethical obligations between states in the globalisation era. International ethics explains how nations and other entities treat other nations and their citizens. People with a good understanding of international ethics can assess the good and bad, the rights and wrongs, which can occur in the international space.

 

International ethics can be defined as the ability to actively participate in the shaping and building of a good international community. Building a fair and just international community is the goal of developing a strong set of ethical principles that can shape international relations.

•    Nations and multinational organisations were the first to trade or interact with other nations and organisations outside of their own domestic spheres. 

 

•    As countries adopted the production methods, technologies, political systems, and legal systems of other countries, similar problems began to emerge in almost every country.

 

•    These were not seen as shared problems that required coordinated action from all parties involved. Each country bore a large share of the blame for problems that arose within its borders. 

 

•    However, as people and nations become more interconnected, there is greater interdependence and shared responsibilities, which requires nations and other multinational organisations to work together. 

 

•    In many areas, international cooperation is required. International ethics could be viewed as a response to this need for global action.

 

•    During the Second World War, the Nazis committed atrocities against Jews, forcing humanity to broaden the scope of ethics to include the protection of human rights as a governance responsibility.

 

•    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has become a charter that all governments are required to uphold. An international Criminal Court has been established to try and punish government officials who violate the declaration's articles.

 

•    Governments' ethical behaviour is governed by international dimensions. Governments are expected to abide by international treaties and laws.

 

•    Any violation is considered unethical and is met with sanctions and, in some cases, international retaliation. International armed intervention is frequently used to intervene in fragile and rogue states.

•    The United Nations has taken military action against governments that have broken their commitments to the comity of nations in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Governments' unethical behaviour frequently causes large groups of people to suffer.

 

•    Even in extreme situations like war, international governance necessitates ethical behaviour. The laws of war are well-defined, and their violations almost always result in legal action being taken against those who break them. Several tribunals have been established since the Second World War to punish those who break the laws of war. 

 

•    Even the United States was forced to take action against its troops who had gone beyond the legal limits of force use. Most governments have established Human Rights Commissions as watchdog bodies in order to honour their commitment to protect their citizens' human rights. While some commissions are effective, the majority lack the authority to provide relief to the people and are merely a showpiece in front of the international community. Such initiatives are unethical in nature as well as in content.

 

•    International ethics serves as a guide for international relations and conflict resolution. 

 

•    International ethics guides the international environmental effort to combat environmental degradation, pandemics, terrorism, and other common shared problems that necessitate action from many countries that are major contributors to the forces that cause such problems.

 

•    Governmental and non-governmental organisations with ownership and/or control over issues and aspects that are central to life have flooded international spaces. 

 

•    There have been interactions and operations in that space between democratic and non-democratic government organisations. 

 

•    In the international space, there have been for-profit business corporations (MNCs, TNCs, etc.) as well as non-profit non-governmental organisations.

 

•    International spaces are brimming with goods and services that are global commons, global public goods and services, collaborative goods and services owned or controlled by multiple organisations, and that are essential to human life. Who is excluded from the international space and who is included in it, as well as the reasons for those exclusions or inclusions, have an impact on the international space's expanding nature and the quality of existing and future international relations.

 

•    Recognizing the power that human collectives wield over nature, as well as economic and social goods and services in international spaces, it becomes clearer how different organisations may be working against or competing with one another. It's also easy to see how and why harms can be perpetrated against one another without recourse to international justice.

 

•    Many issues with deep ethical implications exist in the international spaces that we create or participate in in a variety of ways. In a global system that is constantly renewed by greater levels of sensitivity to international ethics, international relations can easily thrive.

 

•    At different times, the world's attention is drawn to the most powerful nation, both domestically and internationally, a nation willing to impose its powerful will on the world, putting any nation that challenges its authority and interests to task. 

 

•    Many wars and conflicts are sparked by dominant nations' unilateral actions against countries that threaten their global interests. 

 

•    Various philosophies of international and national power, as well as how that power is exercised, have an impact on international ethics.

 

•    Some people believe that power does not follow any rules, and that this flawed reasoning can be applied to international spaces and relations. This belief in power, particularly power that does not follow any rules, tilts the global balance in favour of powerful nations and entities and is unfavourable to less powerful nations and entities due to its so-called "anarchy" nature. 

 

•    In contrast to "anarchy," that is, power that does not follow any rules, we can hold the alternative belief that, yes, international power exists, but that power is governed by specific rules that provide an international order that is qualitatively different from anarchy. 

 

•    Power that abides by the rules of international law is preferable to power that does not. Some philosophical questions remain: what is power, and why should one follow rules if they have it?