Justice_and_Morality_in_Global_Politics

Justice and Morality in Global Politics: A perceptual lacuna in a realist global environment Water and oil do not mix. Scientific experiments demonstrate that water settles beneath the oil and that oil always floats to the top, suffocating the environment below. In nature, oil spills present enormous potential for harm and occur when humans make mistakes, are careless or enact deliberate acts of sabotage. This description of oil and water is a useful metaphor for mixing justice and morality with global politics. It is most disappointing to note, however, that this analogy is particularly apt – water and oil separate themselves when mixed; just as global politics is currently separated from global justice and morality. However, it is in today’s complex political environment that the voices of morality and justice need to be heard more than ever. After the end of the Cold War and prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, there was an era of idealism in global politics during which the global society launched anti-capitalist movements, emphasised demilitarisation and focussed on humanitarian ethical concerns (Haque, 2004). Global politics today, in contrast, is an era of realism in which a complex interplay of ethical dilemmas, competing moralities and differing perceptions of justice dominate. In this complex global environment, there are numerous dilemmas facing the global community – who should pay, and how much, for realising human rights; how do we ethically balance the desire for an ethos of world citizenship in a globalised environment versus the ethics of individual and national responsibility; how do we most appropriately deal with the world’s colonial past so as to forgive and justly reconstruct international relations; how do we deal with the revival of realism in international politics after the September 11 attacks (Haque, 2004). These difficult ethical dilemmas confront policy makers and challenge societal, institutional and global understandings of morality and justice. It is in this complex global environment that global politics is suffocating justice and morality and the chronic ignorance of seemingly small ethical dilemmas by individuals and nation states that is the greatest polluter of our global society. It is in this complex global environment that water (justice and morality) and oil (global politics) do not mix. Justice and morality on a global scale are explicably entwined, unable to separate themselves. Despite this deep interrelatedness, there is great variance in how they are defined. Whilst global morality is based upon deontological ethics (moral rules and obligations) (Evans, 2004; Van der Anker, 2008), concepts and theories of global justice are still in formation (Nagel, 2005). Nagel (2005) defines global justice as the standards governing international interactions and basic human rights. Similarly, Van Hooft (2009) proposes that global justice is based upon a conceptual framework in which all are of equal moral value and that the construction of social identities is the responsibility of the individual and of the nation. Whilst it is frequently proposed that the true principles of justice can be discovered by moral reasoning, some theorists also argue that justice can only be achieved within a nation state (Hobbes, 1998). Furthermore, it is argued that global justice and morality will only be achieved by a global government. Hence, global justice and morality can not be achieved within current global political arrangements. This fear has become all the more real since the September 11 2001 attacks on America and the rise of global terrorism. Terrorism, regardless of whom the attacker, presents a new threat to global justice and morality and has profoundly affected interstate relations, transformed security perceptions and redefined the international order of global politics (Haque, 2004). This rise of global terrorism is a significant oil spill that has caused enormous harm ranging from its immediate effect of mass mortality to its long term societal and ethical effects of poisoning international social structures and disrupting global chains of communication and business. Global terrorism has certainly introduced a new sense of vulnerability to our global interactions (Gould, 2008; Haque, 2004). It is in this ambiguous political environment that we have witnessed the rise of realism and the constraint of previously emerging international networks and movements dealing with ethical issues. Realism, as a political theory, is characterised by a sense of international vulnerability, instability, conflict and hostility in which nation states revert to pursuing their own interests (Van der Anker, 2008). In this realist environment, nation states argue that it is their right, even duty, to first protect their own citizens. It is in this realist environment that global justice and morality is being suffocated. It is also in this ambiguous political environment that our social and institutional preoccupation with the acute and the traumatic may have left the global community passive and unresponsive to festering problems (Beamish, 2002: 2). By allowing ourselves, as individuals and as nation states, to develop perceptual lacunas – blank spots in our attention – we have enabled the routinisation of ethical horrors and diminished events’ salience. The development of such perceptual lacunas has occurred through the global rush to adopt new security legislation thereby subverting individual human rights in order to significantly increase the power of the state. Interestingly enough, Beamish’s (2002) research pre-empts the outcome of these perceptual lacunas. This research found that whilst legislation to stop dramatic oil spills has halved the incidence of such spills, less dramatic spills continue unrestrained and unaddressed at significantly higher rates. Since the rise of terrorism and the revival of realism in global politics, moral parochialism has arisen and global injustices have been ignored. Issues of global justice and morality have not mixed with global politics just like oil and water do not mix. The issue we now face is that if we are to become a truly global community then we must become acutely aware of our individual and collective perceptual lacunas. If we are to become a global community, heat (public pressure from individuals and NGOs) needs to be applied so that the oil (global politics) dissolves into the water (global justice and morality). There needs to be a concerted effort by members of the global community, at an individual and a collective level, to replace the realist norms currently dominating our global politics with values like cooperation, equality and justice. It is only then that nation states will be able to live up to the vision – human rights, global justice, pursuit of lasting peace and pluralistic values – already embedded in international charters and declarations. Reference List Beamish, T.D. 2002 Silent Spill: The Organisation of an Industrial Crisis. The MIT Press: Cambridge. Evans, M. (ed) 2004 Ethical Theory in the Study of International Politics. Nova Science Publishers Inc.: New York. Gould, C.C. 2008 The New Global Ethics and its Three Faces in Commers, M.S.R, Vandekerckhove, W. and Verlinden, A. (eds) 2008 Ethics in an Era of Globalisation. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Aldershot. Haque, M.S. 2004 The Revival of Realism in International Politics after September 11 and its Ethical Impact in Evans, M. (ed) 2004 Ethical Theory in the Study of International Politics. Nova Science Publishers Inc.: New York. Hobbes, T. 1998 Leviathan. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Nagel, T. 2005 The problem of global justice in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 33 No. 2. p.114 – 146. Van der Anker, C. 2008 Bridging the Gaps in Global Ethics: Grounded Cosmopolitan Praxis in Commers, M.S.R, Vandekerckhove, W. and Verlinden, A. (eds) 2008 Ethics in an Era of Globalisation. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Aldershot. Van Hooft, S. 2009 Cosmopolitanism: A Philosophy for Global Ethics. Acumen: Stockfield. Water Encyclopedia: Science & Issues 2009 http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Oil -Spills-Impact-on-the- Ocean.html Accessed 26 January 2010.