Peter Sutch - Ethics, Justice and International Relations: Constructing an International Community

This topical and timely book critically explores contemporary liberal international relations theory. In the fifty years since the declaration of human rights, the language of international relations has come to incorporate the language of justice and injustice. The book argues that if justice is to become the governing principle of international politics, then liberals must recognise that their political preferences cannot be the preconditions of global ethics. The hierarchy of international political ethics must be constructed afresh so that the first principles of justice are accessible to all agents as political and ethical equals.

Ethics, Justice and International Relations systematically examines the current empirical and theoretical debates surrounding globalisation, interdependence and the philosophical justification of international relations theory, and argues that constructivist reasoning provides the only secure grounding for a political theory of international relations. This book offers the only full treatment available of the most recent contributions of some of the major thinkers in the contemporary canon including Mervyn Frost, Onora O'Neill, Michael Walzer and John Rawls. In seeking to establish a genuinely constructivist liberal theory, this book reveals that the universalist aspirations of the communitarian tradition offers the only way forward for a just liberal solution to the problems of contemporary international politics. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars in politics, international relations, political theory and ethics.

Peter Sutch is Lecturer in the School of European Studies at the University of Wales, Cardiff.

Constructing an international community

Peter Sutch

London and New York

First published 2001

by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.

2001 Peter Sutch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Sutch, Peter

Ethics, justice, and international relations: constructing an

international community / Peter Sutch.

p. cm. (Routledge advances in international relations and politics; 13)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. International relations-Moral and ethical aspects. 2.

Internationalism. 3. Justice. 4. Communitarianism. 5. Liberalism.

I. Title. II. Series.

JZ1306.S88 2001

172.4dc21

00051820

ISBN 0415325315 (pbk)

ISBN 0203185986 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0203187210 (Glassbook Format)

This book is the product of several years work. During that time I have received support and encouragement from many people. I would like to thank all those in the department of Political Theory and Government at the University of Wales, Swansea where this project was conceived and developed and to those in the European School, Cardiff, University of Wales where it was completed. I owe particular debts to David Boucher who guided me through every stage of this project, and to Bruce Haddock and Rex Martin for their unfailing enthusiasm and shining example. I have been fortunate enough to have been able to test aspects of this argument in many forums. My thanks go to the editors and reviewers at the Review of International Studies where I first published my thoughts on the work of Mervyn Frost, to Howard Williams and the UK Kant Society who helped me refine my views on the nature of contemporary cosmopolitanism and the work of Onora O'Neill, and to Mark Evans, editor of The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Liberalism where I first explored the idea of a constructivist and communitarian liberal international relations theory. I also owe much to the less formal, but valuable, encouragement of friends and colleagues, in particular to Peri Roberts for countless hours of discussions. Any shortcomings that remain are entirely my own.