The Rise of Ethics in Foreign Policy: Reaching a Values Consensus

Abstract

In the space of a few weeks recently, here's what happened on the international morality and values front: Madeleine Albright testified at a Bosnian war crimes tribunal, the State Department's chief policy planner argued that promoting democracy was one of the most important reasons to go to war with Iraq, and a top Bush administration diplomat traveled to Xinjiang to examine China's treatment of its Muslim citizens. The news stories were routine and unremarkable-which is what was remarkable. A former secretary of state at a war crimes trial. Democracy for Iraq. Beijing allowing a U.S. human rights official to check out its domestic policies. Such events occur regularly now with little comment, no snickering from realists, indeed with little disagreement. Something quite important has hap pened in American foreign policymaking with little notice or digestion of its mean ing. Morality, values, ethics, universal principles-the whole panoply of ideals in international affairs that were once almost the exclusive domain of preachers and scholars-have taken root in the hearts, or at least the minds, of the American foreign policy community. A new vocab ulary has emerged in the rhetoric of senior government officials, Republicans and Democrats alike. It is laced with concepts dismissed for almost loo years as Wilson ian. The rhetoric comes in many forms, used to advocate regime change or human itarian intervention or promote democracy and human rights, but almost always the ethical agenda has at its core the rights of the individual. This development of morality cannot be seen simply as a postmodern version of the white man's burden, although it has that tenor in some hands. These values are now widely shared around the world by different religions and cultures. Move ments for democracy or justice for war crimes are no longer merely American or Western idiosyncrasies. And although some in America's foreign-policy com munity may still be using moral language to cloak a traditional national security agenda, one gets the sense that the trend