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Putting the World to Rights: Britain's Ethical Foreign Policy
University of Kent
Department of Politics and International Relations
International Studies Association
March 1998
When New Labour took over the reigns of office Robin Cook the incoming Foreign Secretary introduced, with considerable fanfare, a Mission Statement which indicated that the government was committing itself to a foreign policy with an ethical dimension. In particular he said that Britian would go out into the world to support the "demand of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves." The government, he announced, would oppose autocracy, child labour, aggressive states, the sale of arms to repressive governments, it would publish an annual league table of repressive governments, and it would support international sanctions aimed at bringing about an end to human rights abuses. Underpinning the ethical inititive was the guiding idea that Britain would seek to advance the cause of human rights in international affairs. 1 The announcement of this policy echoed President Carter's human rights supporting foreign policy in the late seventies. Like Carter's policy the ethical dimension of Cook's policy raised considerable interest both at home and abroad. Several newspaper pundits greeted the news of this ethical turn with considerable scepticism. Simon Jenkins in the Times wrote "When foreign ministers turn to philosophy, decent citizens should run for cover." 2 Peter Riddel more recently had equally harsh things to say in a Times article headed "Wrestling with Demons:Moral Crusades Do Not Make the World a Safer Place". 3
I personally was delighted with Cook's announcement of the ethical dimension to British foreign policy. By stressing that his policy had an ethical dimension he was, I believe, merely making explicit what is implicit in all foreign policies. I have long argued that it is not possible to understand acts in the international arena or to act in it, without taking up an ethical position - a position about right and wrong in world politics. 4 The gist of my argument has been that analysts and actors who see themselves as being in the realist school might profess to be solely preoccupied with questions of power politics and the pursuit of national interests, but this stance merely conceals an undeclared ethical position which stresses the overriding importance of a state's obligations to its own citizens in contrast to what it owes those beyond its borders and which stresses that the value of order takes precedence over the value of individual human rights. 5 That these value commitments are undeclared does not alter the fact that the realist position is an ethical one for all that. Whenever a government minister draws up a foreign policy and pursues it he/she believes it to be ethically justified - this is as true of ministers in the UK and USA as it it is of ministers in Algeria or Iraq. Each would claim that in some measure their policy choices (and the actions which follow upon them) are ethically justifiable.
The above I take to be uncontentious. All international actors act on some concept of what is right and wrong in world affairs. What is contentious though is the content of their ethical positions. There are, as is well known, any number of ethical frameworks. The difficult question is to know which of these is worthy of our support? It seems remarkable to me that in the aftermath of New Labour's foreign policy Mission Statement there has been no serious debate about the content of the ethical code which is to inform the new policy. In order to bring bring out the oddity of this lacuna consider the following: If the foreign minister had announced that henceforth British foreign policy would have a religious dimension we would immediately ask about the content of the religious dimension, would it be Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or what. If the answer came that it was to be Christian we would presumably ask the further question whether it was to be Roman Catholic or Protestant. If Protestant, would it to be of the more secular kind or the charismatic "born again" variety? One would expect that if there is to be a foreign policy with an ethical content the question about which ethical code is to guide the policy would be hotly debated. But in the event it has not been. There have been no debates between utilitarians, rights based theorists, order based theorists, socialists, liberals, libertarians, or conservatives about what constitutes an international ethics. It would seem that the government and the public believe both of the following, first, that either Britain is to have an ethical foreign policy or it is'nt. Second, if it is to have one it is quite clear what the content of such a policy should be. I believe that it is not clear what the ethical position underpinning the government's current policy is. This paper seeks to uncover the underlying ethical framework and to evaluate it.
Before considering what the ethical theory underpinning New Labour's foreign policy might be, I need to indicate what an ethical theory would consist in. First, it is commonplace that an ethical theory is designed to guide conduct. It is designed to provide answers to the question "What from an ethical point of view ought I (we) to do given the circumstances?" Parents provide their children with ethical frameworks to enable their children to act appropriately when asked to keep a promise, when tempted to tell a lie, when faced with a person in need, and so on. Schools do the same, as do churches. Governments, too, promote policies aimed at inculcating in their members the appropriate ethical standards to be adhered to by members of parliament and by citizens.
Second, an ethical theory needs to be more than list of do's and don'ts, although all ethical theories are likely to include such lists. A heading, followed by a list of core values (like the list which follows which is derived from the Mission Statement, the White Paper on Development and the Prime Minister's Speech "The Principles of a Modern British Foreign Policy") 6 quite clearly does not constitute an ethical theory:
The British Government Commits Itself to These Values:
This list is not a theory in that it fails to indicate whether the items are the list are all to be accorded equal weight or whether some values take precedence over others. For example, with regard to the list above, it does not indicate what is to be done when the value of development abroad may only be promoted at the cost of prosperity at home, or when what is required to protect human rights abroad seems to threaten security and prosperity at home.
Another way of indicating the ways in which a list is not a theory is this: a list fails to indicate how the items on the list cohere one with another. Indeed, several items on the list seem to conflict with one another rather than to cohere. A quick glance indicates an apparent tension between the value of prosperity for Britain and the value of promoting respect, understanding and goodwill amongst nations. For it may well be the case that what would promote the respect of nations would be a set of redistributive global development policies which might require of Britain that it accept a cut in her own prosperity. Alternatively it is easy to imagine circumstances in which a people's diplomacy might not dovetail neatly with the promotion of a community of nations. 7 There are other items on the list which do not cohere in any obvious way.
A final way in which a list, such as this one, may be said to fall short of being a fully fledged theory is that a mere list does not indicate how to deal with new circumstances which might arise in the future, in circumstances when it is not clear which value(s) on the list ought to be pursued. For example, as a result of instability in the global economy (arising from instability in the banking sector in Japan), it might seem as if Britain (and its European partners) ought to limit free trade, through protectionist policies, in order to secure the value of prosperity at home. The list fails to indicate whether equal weight ought to be given to each of these values, or whether under certain circumstances the one value trumps the other, and so on.
An ethical theory that is to avoid these shortcomings must be one which spells out a set of values, which indicates how the values cohere one with another, and which gives some general guidance with regard to how these values might be applied to new and unforeseen cases. In order to show a coherence between a list of values a theory must include a background theory which shows just how the listed values relate to one another in a coherent way. In the absence of such a background theory an actor seeking to implement the listed values would often have to implement the values in arbitrary ways. Consider an actor facing circumstances in which human rights were threatened abroad and the security of his/her state was threatened at home. Suppose that securing the one value would undermine the possibility of securing the other. In the absence of some background theory he/she would have to choose a course of action (either in support of rights or in support of state security) in a completely arbitrary manner. He/she might choose between the competing values by spinning a coin.
In our day to day lives we who follow ethical theories (that is, all of us) normally understand ourselves to be adhering to a theory which includes a lot more than a simple list of moral oughts and prohibitions. We believe that our value commitments do not contradict one another; that they are in some sense coherent. We believe that the background theory in terms of which we understand that coherence is able to provide us with guidance with regard to the ethical way to conduct ourselves in hitherto unforeseen circumstances which might arise in the future. Denying these assertions would amount to admitting that what we call "ethical conduct" is in the final instance nothing more than capricious conduct. These assertions about value coherence and the generative capacity of our ethical theories, apply equally to people who regard themselves as bound by Christian, Jewish, Islamic, socialist, conservative or rights based ethics (to mention but a few of the better known ethical theories).1What Ethical Code Underpins New Labour's Foreign Policy?
"What Ethical Code Underpins New Labour's Foreign Policy?"
I believe that a useful way to set about answering this question is to consider some of the significant words and phrases which were not in the Mission Statement. Looked at in the round this list is extremely interesting.
First, in the Mission Statement itself there is no mention of the words and phrases "sovereignty," "sovereign independence," "sovereign rights". "Sovereignty" is a word which politicians use to stress a clear and strong distinction between their political entity, their state, and other political entities. It is a word which accentuates difference, makes claims to autonomy and which stresses the importance of independence. Those who use the word wish to mark out the state as final authority subject to no higher law-maker. It is a word much used by the right wing of the Conservative Party. Although the Mission Statement does refer to the value of security which is a notion closely related to that of sovereignty, the context within which it is used does not accentuate difference or stress final authority. It quite clearly links security to international stability and world community.
Second, and related to the absence of the word "sovereignty" the word "state" is used but once in the document and on that occasion it is used in its plural form in the phrase "to make the United Kingdom a leading player in a Europe of independent nation states;" This, too, seems to me significant in that the document does not make much of the idea of Britain as a sovereign state in a system of sovereign states. Quite the contrary throughout this Mission Statement Britain is always situated within a context of international organizations; the European Union, Nato, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations.
Third, the principle of "non intervention" or, more fully, "non intervention in the domestic affairs of other sovereign states" is not used in the Mission Statement. This is another of the phrases often associated with "state" and "state sovereignty." Instead of focussing on sovereignty and non intervention the Mission Statement points to a possible policy direction which might fly in the face of a narrowly construed non-intervention principle where it says "We shall work through our international forums and bilateral relationships to spread the values of human rights, civil liberties and democracy which we demand for ourselves."
These three absences (or silences) suggest to me that those who drafted this statement did not adhere to a narrowly defined realist approach to international ethics. Had they done so they would have made it much clearer that the defence of national sovereignty was the primary goal which clearly took priority over the other goals mentioned in the statement. What the Mission Statement suggests is that the goal of national security cannot be delinked from all of the following: the notion of a strong world community, the pursuit of human rights, civil liberties and democracy.
Fourth, nowhere in the Mission Statement are the catch phrases "free market", "laissez faire", "global market," "liberal economic order," (and so on), used. Of course, it would be difficult for a Labour Party to use these phrases taken from the lexicon of liberal slogans. But in this document they are not even used in their descriptive senses. 8
Fifth, also omitted are the popular notions of "civil society," "global civil society," and "globalization." What precisely these phrases mean and just how far "global civil society" and "globalization" have been realized in practice are matters which are fiercely debated within academic circles. Those academics who claim that globalization is taking place and that a global civil society is emerging often argue that the state is, pari pasu, withering away. Those who wrote the Mission Statement, and the government which endorses it, obviously think no such thing. No such radical vision underlies this document. These two silences (about the free market and about civil society) suggest to me that the drafters of this Mission Statement are not liberals or libertarians. A Mission Statement drawn up by liberals or libertarians would have made much of the priority of individual rights and would have indicated that claims of right always take precedence over claims made in the name of sovereign states. A libertarian mission statement would have been fervently intervensionist; it would have urged crusader policies aimed at making the world safe for democracy.
Sixth, the Mission makes no reference to "class," "class struggle" or "socialism." There is nothing in it which would identify the writers (and endorsers of the document) as socialist. A socialist mission would have made much of Britain's role in advancing the global class struggle and helping history on its inexorable road to a post capitalist world within which the state would whither away.
The seventh and final noteworthy absence from the list is any reference to a "world of nations" or a "multi-cultural world." It contains none of the key words from the communitarian lexicon. From this absence we can glean that this is not a policy document drawn up by enthusiastic communitarians. There is nothing here to suggest that this government understands itself to be operating within a world of competing cultural communities. A mission statement drafted by communitarian thinkers would have described the world in multi-cultural terms; would have recommended tolerance in the face of diversity; would have made much of the rights of different nations to be self determining; and so on. It might also have spoken out against the "Western Bias" of much existing international law and expressed itself in favour of counter-acting this.
What, then, is the theory which brings the values listed in the Mission Statement into coherence? Let me start answering this by pointing out that what is striking about the values listed, is how many of them refer to goods which may only be achieved through Britain co-operating with other countries. 9 Let me briefly illustrate this. The preamble says that the mission is to "promote the national interests of the United Kingdom and to contribute to a strong world community." There is no suggestion that these are incompatible aims. Indeed, a reading of the document as a whole suggests that they are understood as interdependent goals - realizing one requires the realization of the other. About "security" the document says that it is to be promoted by pursuing "international stability" "defence alliances" and "arms control." None of these may be pursued unilaterally. If we turn now to the stated goal of "prosperity" this is to be achieved by "trade abroad" (and according to the Prime Minster's latest speech by pursuing "free trade") both of these can only be achieved collectively. The next goal "quality of life" is to be pursued and can only be pursued "with others." "Mutual respect" which includes "human rights, civil liberties and democracy" is to be sought "through our international forums and bilateral relationships." Elsewhere in the document reference is made to the importance of the European Union, the Commonwealth, NATO and the United Nations. A reading of the document as a whole shows that there is a complete absence of any sense of Britian seeking to advance its ethical values against the competing value systems of others. There is no indication of Britain adopting a defensive posture in an hostile anarchic world. There is no indication that what Britain's ethical goals are, are to be achieved at the cost of the ethical positions of others. 10 Finally there is no suggestion that Britain is defending the values of one civilization against the values of some rival "civilization" or "civilizations." The only "enemies" explicitly mentioned are those connected with "drugs, terrorism and crime." What the Mission Statement strongly suggests is that the values it promotes are values which are likely to find approval across the world.
My contention that the Mission Statement assumes something approaching a global value consensus seems plausible given that the majority of states are signed up members of the United Nations with its inbuilt human rights commitment and that all of them participate in the global economic system which itself is premised on a set of common values to do with the rights of individuals to own property, to buy and sell it, to form assocations for profit, to travel the world seeking business opportunities, and so on. 11
My claim, then, is that the Mission Statement is not based on a strictly realist ethic, a liberal (or libertarian) ethic, or a socialist one. Instead it seems to me that it dovetails rather nicely with neo Hegelian ethical theory a version of which I have called the constitutive theory of individuality. The main tenets of which I outlined in my Ethics in International Relations. The main features of this neo Hegelian theory are that it does not stress either state sovereignty at the expense of individual human rights (as does classical realism), nor does it prioritize individual human rights at the cost of states' rights (as does classical liberal theory). Instead it shows how a commitment to both states rights and individual rights may be accommodated within a single ethical theory. It does this by showing how our current conception of ourselves as fully fledged ethical beings depends on our being concurrently members of civil society within which we recognize one another as holders of first generation rights (also known as negative liberties) and members of democratic or democratizing states within which we recognize one another (or hope to be recognized thus at some future date) as equal citizens within a functioning democracy. The people of Chad, Iraq, Britain, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Japan, Lesotho, Belize, Chile, Australia, India, Fyrom, Georgia, Lithunia, Bulgaria, Albania, Luxumbourg, Turkey, Benin, Austria, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal and in the rest of the 200 plus states of the world all claim a right not to be murdered or tortured, a right to speak their mind, to worship their God(s), to form political associations, to own property, to make contracts, and so on, through the list of first generation rights. I do not know of any from these countries who deny that they have such rights. Denying them would involve making claims for oneself such as the following: "I have no right not to be murdered or tortured, no right to speak, to associate, to own property, to make contracts. I have no rights because I am a mere chattel of my master." In like manner the people in all these places claim for themselves the rights of citizens in democracies. In places where democracy is not functioning well (as in Albania) the people still claim democratic rights for themselves and seek to find ways in which they can realize these rights in practice. Here once again I know of no one in all these countries who says "I claim no citizenship rights for myself because I am a serf, a slave, a subject, a minion, I am the lackey of one who is my master, king, emperor, tzar, chief. 12 I may be wrong here, there may well be people who classify themselves as the mere subjects of some king or ruler, as people who have no rights except for what is granted them by such a king, but this group (if it exists) is hidden from view and does not feature prominently as a lobby for the serfs in world politics. Most men and women in the world today claim rights for themselves and aspire to be citizens in democracies if they are not already so. Those of us who are already citizens in functioning democracies would regard it as an ethically retrograde step were we to be deprived of this standing. Taking a narrower focus it is certainly the case in Britain that there is no significant lobby of people striving to return to subject status - to a status without rights.
A False Dichotomy"
I am proposing that the ethical philosophy underlying the values specified in Labour's foreign policy with an ethical dimension is one which gives equal weight to the security of the state on one hand and to individual human rights on the other. I now need to confront the perception (which is held by many who have commented on the new policy) that evenhandedness between these two values is not possible; the belief that policy makers face a stark choice between following policies which aim to advance the cause of human rights world wide and following those which focus more narrowly on the actor's national interest. William Gladstone, Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter are often portrayed as men who chose the former, whereas, Disraeli, Castlereagh, Bismarck, Nixon, and Kissinger are cited as advocates of the latter. 13 Those who present us as facing such a dichotomy suggest that the choice which the government has to make (and which also faces us as individuals) is that between defending the national interests or seeking to uphold human rights through crusading campaigns abroad.
It may have been the case that in that practice of global politics as it existed in earlier centuries this was the stark ethical choice confronting players on the stage of world politics. I do not have time to explore this question now. But this is no longer a feature of the international practice of 1997. The rules of the game have changed. Those acting in the name of a state may no longer choose between upholding human rights and upholding national interests. In support of this consider the following:
First, the standing of that very entity which is said to be entitled to pursue the national interest, the state, is itself nowadays closely linked to ideas about the advancement and protection of human rights. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that new claims to sovereign statehood are nowadays only countenanced where the entity making such a claim can show that it is committed to upholding and respecting human rights - both negative liberties and the rights of democratic citizenship. The international community of states would not have approved the creation of new states in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union if the new states had sought to establish absolutist monarchies. The new states professed themselves democratic. 14
Second existing sovereign states which abuse human rights come in for severe criticism from the community of states (witness the Tianaman Square incident and the international opprobrium which it pulled down upon China, the global condemnation of South African under apartheid, the ongoing criticism of Turkey, Iraq, Algeria, Israel and North Korea to mention but a few from a long list of possible examples). There are many cases to which I can aver which show that a failure to take human rights seriously at home and abroad may well have the effect of undermining the ethical standing and eventually the political power of the state in question. This clearly is what happened in South Africa. In Spain and Portugal improving their human rights record allowed them entry into the EU. A similar improvement is currently a precondition for the entry of Turkey and other applicant states into the EU. China will find that its human rights abuses at home and abroad will impede its prosperity within the global community. It will find little international support for the claim that it is entitled to pursue the national interest even if this involves abusing individual rights. 15
Third, both entering into and maintaining standing within international organizations nowadays depends on the human rights records of state actors. Trade, finance, credit and aid are now all made dependent to some extent on the humn rights records of states.
In the light of the above it seems to me that I can safely put forward the proposition that any attempt by a government to pursue the national interest in a way which positively over-rode human rights would be met with severe censure. Even a neutral policy towards human rights abroad (a "this government does not care one way or the other") would be censured. In the practice of world politics as it is conducted nowadays individuals and states are ethically required to support the establishment and maintenance of both a human rights protecting practice (global civil society) and the practice of democratic and democratizing states.
My claim is that the critics of the Labour government who argue that it has taken the wrong fork in the road have made a mistake. The fork the critics describe does not exist in current practice. The government has quite rightly opted to pursue both the national interest of Britain and the advancement of human rights.
I suggest that much of the resistance to policies requiring the advancement of human rights in a global context arise through a misunderstanding of what precisely is involved in supporting such rights. It is often assumed that such policies require of states that they act as international sheriffs riding to the aid of the down trodden with guns blazing. This is an heroic picture and in most cases a wrong one. The first and most important requirement of a rights supporting policy is the bringing to light of abuses of human rights and the public acknowledgement of the validity of such rights claims once they have been brought to light. Those individuals and governments who profess a commitment to human rights must actively seek out, publicly acknowledge, point out, highlight, bring to people's attention, announce, proclaim (and so on) the truth of the claims made by those (or by others on their behalf) whose rights are being abused whether they be Blacks under apartheid in South Africa, Palestinian's on the West Bank, Zairians under Mobutu, the victims of massacres in Algeria, the victims of genocide in Bosnia, the victims of the sex trade in Thailand, the victims of oppression in Sudan, and so on through the (very) long list of human rights abuses world wide. In order to do this a primary commitment of rights supporting governments must be to support and encourage the acts of a free press world wide, to encourage fact findings missions by MP's, to encourage research on such matters by academics, to encourage the reporting of such acts by private citizens, and so on. The mere act of acknowledging the rights of the oppressed has profound political consequences. It allows the downtrodden to organize politically to oppose the abuse of rights. It opens the way for citizens from around the world to organize movements to oppose such rights abusing actions. 16 It also denies any legitimacy to any attempt by the rights abusing authority to mobilize against the rights holders. It discredits the rights abusing governments. The processes which are required to recitify the circumstances in which rights are being abused may take a brief moment, months or even years. But the initial setting of the ethical stage which happens when democracies actively highlight rights abuses wherever they occur and then roundly condemn them, is the key moment which creates the spaces within which rights respecting oppositional politics can occur.
Where rights are being abused the first step must be the ascertaining and acknowledgement of this fact. The subsequent question about what ought to be done and by whom in order to put a stop to such abuses are subsequent questions which are often very difficult to answer for both states and individuals. If people's rights are being abused in a context close to me in circumstances in which it is easy for me to do something about it then it may be easy to make a case for intervention, but if the abuse takes place in a distant place where it would be very difficult for me to intervene and where the consequences of my intervention are not easily foreseen, where my intervention might have the opposite effect of what I intend, then the question "What should I do?" might have quite a different answer. The question as to what means might legitimately be used in reaction to rights abusing behaviour in distant places is a complicated one and one that I cannot tackle here.
Let me end then with the briefest of summaries. The foreign policy with an ethical dimension which is being pursued by the Labour government is one which gives equal weight to questions about the security of the state and the advancement of human rights. This policy fits well with the neo Hegelian analysis of the current ethical practice in world politics which I outlined in my Ethics in International Relations. This theory shows that there is no incoherence in a state advocating a policy which both commits it to the pursuit of the national interest and to the upholding of human rights claims internationally. With regard to individual rights the primary ethical act of a government must be to discover and publicize rights abuses. What is to be done after that is an important but subordinate problem.
Notes
Note 1: It is important to notice that the human rights goal was not the whole of the foreign policy Mission. It included several other more conventional foreign policy aims such as the defence of British interests, the seeking of good relations both with Europe and the USA, and the advancement of British trade. Back.
Note 2: Times 14 May 1997 Back.
Note 3: The Times, 24 November 1997 Back.
Note 4: See my Towards a Normative Theory of International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1986) expanded and republished as Ethics in Interntional Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Back.
Note 5: For recent examples of realist approaches see Douglas Hurd The Search for Peace and Henry Kissinger Diplomacy (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1994). Back.
Note 6: Prime Minister's speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at the Guildhall, London, 10 November 1997. Back.
Note 7: This might happen if the people proved themselves to be jingoistic. This could well promote conflict between nations. Back.
Note 8: Note that the Prime Minister has subsequently expressed the government's commitment to free trade. Back.
Note 9: Sometimes the word "countries" is used, but at other times reference is also made to "states," "nations," "peoples," and "members." Back.
Note 10: Contrast the background assumptions which are operating here with those which underpinned Ronald Reagan's foreign policy in the mid eighties when he portrayed the USA pitting its ethical position against the forces of the "evil empire." Back.
Note 11: This is not to deny that there are very significant differences between the way different people and different states interpret and implement the rules of the UN Charter and the rules of the global economy. Back.
Note 12: I am not here interested in the people who claim concurrent membership of a democracy and of some non democratic order like the tribespeople in South Africa who are citizens in a democracy and the subjects of their chief. Back.
Note 13: The dichotomy is nicely presented in an article in The Economist, 12 April, 1997, pp.23-25. Back.
Note 14: Here again I am not claiming that they all turned out to be model democracies. In many cases they did not. What is important is the criteria to which they appealed and which in turn were recognized by the international community. Back.
Note 15: In those cases where it does abuse human rights it will present its action as aimed at terrorists or rebels who are bent upon undermining the rights protecting and democracy advancing state. Back.
Note 16: Amnesty International is a good example of this kind of movement. Back.
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