Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order

Amitav Acharya

SAIS Review of International Affairs, Volume 39, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2019, pp. 5-20 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/sais.2019.0001

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/733455

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order

Amitav Acharya

Does Trumpism spell the end of ethics and morality in international affairs? This essay argues that it does not. One should not see the crisis of the Liberal International Order as the end of international ethics but rather as an opportunity to reaffirm, redefine, and broaden it. The system of universal morality associated with the liberal order (also known as liberal hegemony) was underpinned by the power and interest of the leading Western nations and gave scant recognition to the ethical and moral claims and contributions of other cultures and civilizations. This structure needs to change. While the discourse on the “clash of civilizations” persists and the leaders of some emerging powers are engaging in civilizational nationalism, the world should and can develop a more universal system of ethics, through dialogue among different civilizations and traditions. Without such an effort, merely lamenting the decline of US global hegemony and, more generally, of Western dominance and predicting disarray, chaos, and disorder in a post-liberal world can turn out to be self-defeating and self-fulfilling.

orld order refers to the broad interplay of power, ideas, institutions and Winteraction patterns that characterizes a significant portion of the world at a given time. Since World War II, one influential conception of world order in the West has been known as the Liberal International Order—a system of rules, institutions and managerial practices underpinned by the power and purpose of the United States and its Western military allies. That order is fraying now, rapidly and significantly. Although the crisis of the Liberal International Order predated the 2016 US presidential election and had been foretold, most Western pundits ignored the signs and woke up collectively to the possibility of its collapse with the victory of Donald Trump as the US President.1 However, forces contributing to the decline of the Liberal International Order were triggered by long-term structural factors such as the global redistribution of wealth and power, which also fed into a backlash against globalization and the rise of populism, mainly in the West. While Trump’s presidential campaign exploited these factors to win in 2016, he should be regarded as the consequence rather than the cause of the Liberal Order’s crisis. Much of the concern about the decline of the Liberal International Order has focused on the rise of conflicts and disorder. Terms like “world on fire” or “world in disarray” (to quote the Council on Foreign Relations President

Amitav Acharya is Distinguished Professor of International Relations and the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. His recent books include The End of American World Order (Polity, 2014, 2018), Constructing Global Order (Cambridge, 2018), and The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at Its Centenary (co-author with Barry Buzan, Cambridge, 2019).

Richard Haass) capture the typical refrain of Western liberal establishment, but a more serious implication has to do with the erosion of liberal ethics and values, especially the threat to liberal democracy and liberal internationalism.2 Does Trumpism spell the end of ethics and morality in international affairs? In this essay, I argue that it does not. One should not see the crisis of the Liberal International Order as the end of international ethics but rather as an opportunity to reaffirm, redefine, and broaden it. The system of universal morality associated with the liberal order (also known as liberal hegemony) was selective, exclusionary, and self-serving for the West. It was underpinned by the power and interests of the leading While the ethics of the West Western nations and gave scant recognition to the ethical and moral claims were spread through religious and contributions of other cultures proselytizing (often justifying and and civilizations. This structure needs accompanying imperial military to change. The world should develop a more universal system of ethics, re- conquests and use of coercion), quiring a pathway quite different from new global ethics can only be the global spread of the ethics of the achieved through dialogue and Liberal International Order. While the ethics of the West were spread through mutual construction. religious proselytizing (often justifying and accompanying imperial military conquests and use of coercion), new global ethics can only be achieved through dialogue and mutual construction. To undertake such a process of dialogue, one needs to reexamine the historical association between liberal political philosophy, Liberal International Order, and the system of international ethics prevailing to date. “Ethics are a system of moral principles…which defines what is good for individuals and society.”3 The definition of ethics is inherently broad and abstract. However, its key referent objects, insofar as the current international order is concerned, include human rights, humanitarian law, transitional justice, multilateralism (including the equity of representation and participation in international institutions), human security, and economic equality (including poverty elimination). I will return to some of these principles when I discuss how the crisis in the Liberal International Order might affect some of these principles later in this essay. First, let me briefly examine the two most widely discussed scenarios in the West about the future of world order. The first and most common of these is a return to “multipolarity,” similar to the system that existed before World War II. A multipolar order is viewed with apprehension by those who associate European rivalries with the period prior to the two world wars. Comparing Europe’s pre-World War II past with the world’s 21st century present is misleading. Zaki Laïdi, a political scientist from France, defines multipolarity as “a system in which power is distributed at least among three significant poles concentrating wealth and/or military capabilities” and in which each of these poles is “capable of producing order or generating disorder [to] influence…global outcomes beyond its own borders.”4 However, there are sev- Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 7

eral major differences between pre-war multipolarity and the emerging 21st century world order (which I term as multiplexity, as opposed to multipolarity). First, pre-war multipolarity was anchored within a world of empires and colonies.5 The major actors in world politics were the great powers, mainly European, with the United States and Japan joining the club in the latter part of the 19th century. By contrast, the contemporary world is marked by a mul- tiplicity of actors that matter. These are not only great powers, or even just states, but also international and regional institutions, multinational corporations, transnational non-governmental organizations and social movements, transnational criminal and terrorist groups, and so on. Second, the nature of economic interdependence today is denser, consisting of trade, finance, and global production networks and supply chains, whereas pre-war multipolarity was mainly trade-based. Third, contemporary economic interdependence is more global, compared to the 19th century, when it was mostly intra-European, with the rest of the world being in a situation of dependence with European empires. Fourth, there is a far greater density of relatively durable international and regional institutions today, whereas pre-World War I Europe had mainly the European Concert of Powers, and the inter-war period had the short-lived League of Nations. The second scenario foresees a revival of the US-led order, albeit in a somewhat modified form, but this may be somewhat wistful thinking. At least three significant differences between the Liberal International Order and the emerging world order may be noted. Whereas the Liberal International Order was a hegemonic order, the emerging world order is likely to be pluralistic, featuring a few great powers and other consequential actors. The reason for this has to do with the second major difference between the old and new orders: while the Liberal International Order was shaped by a world economy whose principal economic contributors were Western, the emerging world order will be shaped by the rise and role of non-Western economies. Consider the following. The US share of global GDP declined from a peak of 50 percent in 1945 to 32.1 percent in 2001 and 22.3 percent in 2014.6 China’s share of global GDP grew from 4 percent in 2001 to 13.4 percent in 2014.7 By 2050, according to one estimate, out of thirty- two leading economies in the world by purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, twenty-one (including Japan) will be from the non-Western world, including seven of the top ten economies of the world.8 While much can happen to upset these projections, the general trend toward a global economic shift toward Asia is hard to dismiss. It is likely to continue to an extent that would have profound consequences for world order. Third, while as the institutional architecture of the Liberal International Order was dominated by large multilateral institutions, especially the UN system, today’s multilateralism is more complex, varied, and fragmented, with the proliferation of regional and plurilateral arrangements, initiatives led by the private sector transnational social movements, and various forms of part- nership involving government, private, and civil society actors.9 Their effects are especially felt on the prominence, authority, and legitimacy of the global multilateral institutions that have been the bedrock of the post-war global 8 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019

governance system. This has produced confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety over the future of global governance among its traditional advocates. When it comes to the future of world order, neither multipolarity nor revived liberal hegemony seems plausible. Unlike past multipolarity, which was managed by European great powers through a balance of power and colonialism, with few multilateral institutions, the emerging world order will feature a greater variety of actors and wider bases of interdependence: trade, finance, production networks, transnational threats, albeit without colonialism. To be sure, the liberal order will not disappear entirely. Some elements will endure, especially Unlike the liberal order since the large multilateral institutions created 1945, the emerging order will at the onset of the US global hegemony be one without a hegemon, which have been joined by a wide variety of new actors and partnerships in global culturally and politically and regional governance. Unlike the lib- diverse, yet economically and eral order since 1945, the emerging order functionally interdependent. will be one without a hegemon, culturally and politically diverse, yet economically and functionally interdependent. Under the emerging world order, the ability of “producing order or generating disorder [to] influence global outcomes” (in Laïdi’s aforementioned words) lies not just with great powers, but also non-state actors such as institutions, corporations, extremists, and social movements using material and ideational resources.

Ethics and the Liberal International Order

A key question about the place of ethics in world politics is who decides which principles are important and why. In Western international relations theory, ethics is a legitimizing device for hegemonic and imperial power. As Joseph Hoover points out:

In part…ethical questions about international relations come to the fore during periods of imperial expansion. Just war theory has its roots in St. Augustine’s reflections on the duties of the Christian emperors of Rome to defend the empire. International law developed as a way of justly dividing the world between sovereign states and savage peoples in need of civilization during the era of European colonialism, and human rights have taken center stage since the end of the Cold War, as the global influence of the United States reached its peak.10

The “standard of civilization” doctrine did have a place in the ethical code of a rising United States, especially at the turn of the 19th century when it ac- quired the colonial possession of Haiti, Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippines (See Figure 1). While defenders of the post-war Liberal International Order reject comparisons with empire, they do accept that it was a form of hegemony, which nonetheless provided global public goods by promoting free trade, rule of law, and multilateral institutions. Challenging this overly benign view, I have argued that the Liberal International Order functioned more as a club of Western na- Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 9

tions rather than as a universal, inclusive global order.11 It provided its major economic and security benefits selectively, stressed capitalism and free market ideology over equity and justice, and applied double standards in upholding ethical principles, including human rights, democracy, and economic justice. When it suited the purpose of the West, these values and principles were often imposed through violence and coercion. At the same time, while professing it to be an open international system, the Liberal International Order’s proponents overlooked the contribution of materially weaker actors to ethics and morality in world politics. Another issue with the idea of the Liberal International Order concerns the distinction between liberalism as a political ideology and the Order as an economic and political framework developed by the United States and its Western allies. The former may seem more open, tolerant of diversity, and inclusive, or less beholden to propagation through power and coercion. Lib- eral ideology and liberal domestic politics claim to allow greater individual representation and participation than authoritarian systems and may create greater space for weaker or marginalized countries and peoples. However, in reality, liberal domestic ideology and politics are closely linked with the Liberal International Order as a governing framework for states and societies. Neither fully respects cultural diversity, both internationally and domestically. The values underpinning the liberal order claim to have a timeless universal validity, but scantly recognize some of the most widely-applicable ethical claims about international relations that could be found in other civilizations, such as that

Figure 1. “The White Man’s Burden (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling),” Judge Magazine, April 1, 1899, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45187881. 10 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019

of India, China, and Islam. Its exclusions were equally striking domestically. As African-American writer and activist James Baldwin put it in 1964:

It was very hard for me to accept Western European values because they didn’t accept me. Any Negro born in this country spends a great deal of time trying to be accepted, trying to find a way to operate within the culture and not to be made to suffer so much by it, but nothing you do works. No matter how many showers you take, no matter what you do. These Western values absolutely resist and reject you.12

Indeed, one might argue that the exclusionary nature of the liberal order was partly due to the influence of liberalism as a political philosophy. Liber- alism relies heavily on the European philosophical tradition, especially the Enlightenment. In international relations theory, Enlightenment liberalism took the early lead in defining ethics. In his presidential address to the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in 1988, Robert Keohane told his audience,

The ways in which members of this Association study international relations are profoundly affected by their values. Most of us are children of the Enlighten- ment, insofar as we believe that human life can be improved through human action guided by knowledge. We therefore seek knowledge in order to improve the quality of human action. Many of us, myself included, begin with a com- mitment to promote human progress, defined in terms of the welfare, liberty, and security of individuals, with special attention to principles of justice (Rawls, 1971; Haas, 1986).13

However, one should also keep in mind that Enlightenment universalism and rationalism formed an implicit rationale for European imperialism and assertion of racial superiority. It is a monistic or particularistic type of universalism in which one set of ideas derived from European texts or practices were claimed to have universal relevance and applicability. As such, it dismissed or marginalized the ethical and moral principles and practices of other cultures. Even today, liberalism hardly makes a serious effort to incorporate the moral and ethical ideas and practices of non-Western civilizations into its founda- tional narrative. At best, these ideas are supplemental, rather than integral, to liberal cosmopolitan ethics. Thus, human rights principles and democratic governance are Western in origin, yet applicable to all of humankind, while those principles that support human rights and democracy from other civilizations, as discussed below, are dismissed as cultural relativism.14 Constructivism came to replace liberalism in the 1990s as the central repository of ethical claims in international relations by focusing heavily on the impact of norms or moral principles in world politics. However, a good deal of the early literature on norms, such as those related to human rights, the anti-apartheid movement, ban on land mines, and humanitarian intervention, privileged Western ideas and “norm entrepreneurs,” while neglecting the ideas and initiatives from the non-Western world.15 Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 11

Belatedly, there is a growing recognition that ethical principles need not be singular but can represent the full spectrum of cultural diversity in the world and reflect principles from both classical and “modern” periods. This is yet to be reflected in both academic literature and policies. A case in point is the current debate over the crisis in the Liberal International Order, to which I turn now.

After Liberal Hegemony: Toward a Global Ethics

One of the most troubling challenges to international ethics today is the rise of populist regimes in the West, including in the United States (represented by the Trump administration, which also has shown admiration for populist autocratic rulers) and elsewhere. Indeed, regime populism in the West is as pronounced today and perhaps more consequential, given the West’s still important place in international order-building, as it is in non-Western societies like Turkey or Eastern European nations like Hungary and Poland. Against this backdrop, it is significant for students of global ethics to note how in recent months many of the leaders of the Western and non-Western world have stressed civilizational identity in framing their foreign policy vision. In April 2019, Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US State Department, characterized the Trump administration’s relationship with China as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology and the United States hasn’t had that before.”16 Shortly thereafter, on May 14, 2019, Chi- nese President Xi Jinping, in a speech to the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, indirectly responded to the US formulation and described claims about racial superiority and “insisting on transforming or even replacing other civilizations” as “stupid in its understanding and disastrous in practice.” While Xi focused on promoting cross-cultural understanding and collaboration in a global context, the meeting he addressed was limited to Asian civilizations. Xi called upon Asian civilizations to “strengthen cultural confidence” and use “the foundation of the brilliant achievements obtained by our ancestors” in order to reach a “new glory of Asian civilizations.”17 Like Xi, India’s newly re-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has ancient India’s civilizational achievements, dating back to the Indus Valley Civilization and the subsequent Vedic period in his foreign policy speeches.18 Turkey’s President Erdoğan responded to the manifesto of the perpetrator of the Christchurch, New Zealand terrorist attacks in March 2019 by asserting that the “Remnants of the Crusaders cannot prevent Turkey’s rise” and “will not be able to make Istanbul Constan- tinople.”19 Trump himself has spoken of civilizational identity; in a speech in Poland in July 2017, he asked, “Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”20 The statements by leaders from these countries on their respective civilizational achievements may be dismissed as efforts to shore up their domestic positions.21 But they need not overshadow the more profound and broader values of their societies that actually exist. In other words, while the leaders of China, India, and Turkey have been accused of using civilization to bolster their hold on power and international appeal, this has to be seen in the context 12 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019

of their current domestic political systems and regime characteristics. Just as some of the policies adopted by the Trump administration on immigration, human rights, and equity (in health care, for example) are a violation of the ethical principles of the Western European civilization, parading civilization- based concepts (such as the harmony or Tianxia (“all under heaven”) by leaders in China, Hindutva by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in India, or the historical achievements of Islam vis-à-vis the West by the leaders of Islamic countries such as Erdoğan in Turkey) may seem politically motivated and geared to their own regime security goals. But this should not obscure that there is plenty in Chinese, Indian, and Islamic civilizations that do genuinely uphold universal ethical principles of justice, benevolence, openness, humane governance, and representation of people’s voices. To elaborate, while Western conceptions of modernity often ignore or dismiss ethical principles derived from classical civilizations of non-Western nations, this does not mean the latter do not offer genuine humanist principles and practices that can benefit Western While civilizational ethics can be nations. While civilizational ethics can be particularly toxic in the hands of particularly toxic in the hands of populist regimes, civilizational ethics populist regimes, civilizational can also be a positive force in world ethics can also be a positive force politics. A careful and unbiased read- ing of the history of civilizations will in world politics. reveal that each of these civilizations combines elements of universalism and particularism, tolerance and hatred, compassion and coercion. Unfortunately, the current fears about the rise of the “civilizational state” further undermin- ing the Liberal International Order stress mainly the unsavory and repressive aspects of non-Western civilizations, thereby feeding into a revival of Hun- tington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, despite the fact that these civilizations provide plenty of ideas and practices that speak to a high regard for domestic and international ethics. Some Western scholars insist that non-Western societies and civilizations were incapable of developing human rights norms, which are thus presented as a peculiar contribution of Western civilization.22 Amartya Sen offers a more nuanced view: “The idea of human rights as an entitlement of every human being, with an unqualified universal scope and highly articulated structure, is really a recent development; in this demanding form it is not an ancient idea either in the West or elsewhere. However, there are limited and qualified defenses of freedom and tolerance, and general arguments against censorship, that can be found both in ancient traditions in the West and in cultures of non-Western societies.”23 Examples of such defenses abound. Maurya King Ashoka of India, who ruled during the 3rd century BC, presented injunctions against cruel and inhu- man punishment, dating to around 250 BC, which read: Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 13

While being completely law-abiding, some people are imprisoned, treated harsh- ly and even killed without cause so that many people suffer. Therefore, your aim should be to act with impartiality…See that you do your duty properly… [that] the judicial officers of the city may strive to do their duty and that the people under them might not suffer unjust imprisonment or harsh treatment.24

Another statement concerned relations with neighboring states:

The people of the unconquered territories beyond the borders might think: “What is [sic] the king’s intentions towards us?” My only intention is that they live without fear of me, that they may trust me and that I may give them hap- piness, not sorrow.25

Another example of civilizational ethics in ancient India comes from the Code of Manu, a classical and influential legal text, which provides clear injunctions against cruel treatment of combatants and civilians that have close parallels with the modern principles of the Geneva Conventions concerning humanitarian treatment in war. The following compares relevant texts of the two: Like India, Chinese civilization offers numerous principles of ethics and morality in domestic and international conduct of states. Some of these urge a ruler to avoid high taxes and cruelty, and exercise benevolence. Moreover, Chinese tradition contains powerful elements of just war ethics. One test of whether a war is just or unjust lies in the welcome that a conquering army gets from the lib- To quote Confucian sage Mencius, erated people. A just ruler that “If you killed the old, bind the young, defeats tyrants and liberates its destroy the ancestral temples, and oppressed people, and is therefore welcomed by the liberated, appropriate the ancestral vessels, how must not abuse the welcome by can you expect the people’s approval?” committing offenses. To quote Confucian sage Mencius, “If you

The Geneva Conventions and Manusmriti (the Code of Manu)26

Geneva Conventions: “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ‘hors de combat’ by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.” (Com- mon Article 3 relating to Non-International Armed Conflict, Geneva Convention 1949, https:// www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions). Manusmriti: “When he (the ruler) fights with his foes in battle, let him not strike”: “who joins the palms of his hands (in supplication),” “who (flees)” “who sits down, who says ‘I am thine’” “who sleeps” “who is disarmed, who looks on without taking part in the fight” “whose weapons are broken” “one afflicted (with sorrow)” “who has been grievously wounded, who is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight” 14 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019

killed the old, bind the young, destroy the ancestral temples, and appropriate the ancestral vessels, how can you expect the people’s approval?”27 Analyzing the Confucian principles on defensive and offensive wars, Daniel Bell observes,

[A] defensive war is justified only if an actually or potentially virtuous and capable ruler (one who aims to provide peace and benevolent government), with the support of his people, must resort to violence to protect his territory against would-be conquering hegemons. An offensive war is justified only if it is led by an actually or potentially virtuous ruler who aims to punish oppressive rulers and bring about global peace.28

The Islamic civilization also has much to contribute to international ethics. Sources of Islamic thought, such as the Quran and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), are subject to interpretation. Much recent attention has been given to Islam’s concept of jihad, which to many suggests the inevitability of conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, but the idea of jihad as “holy war” is now being challenged by non-traditionalist Islamic intellectuals.29 The latter do not take the division of the world into Dar al-Harb (territory of war) and Dar al-Islam (territory of Islam) as absolute, nor do they accept its applicability to contemporary times.30 Instead, they see a third way, Dar al-Ahd (the realm of treaties), which suggests peace and coexistence with the non-Muslim world.31 Moreover, Islamic texts contain many ethical prohibitions on combat, as exemplified in the first Caliph Abu Bakr’s instructions to soldiers sent to fight the Byzantine Empire over the control of Syria:

Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy’s flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone.32

The above reference to the protection of trees underscores the broad nature of Islamic ethics, which can be the basis for developing and supporting principles of climate justice, especially since modern wars have been a horrific source of damage to the environment (e.g., the use of chemical defoliants in the Vietnam War). It recalls Maurya King Ashok’s prohibitions against the killing of animals and his government’s provision of medical treatment for animals, which can inspire and inform ethics To be sure, one should not selectively of biodiversity protection.33 To be sure, one emphasize only the greatness or benign should not selectively em- features of non-Western civilizations, phasize only the greatness while disparaging those of the West. No or benign features of non- Western civilizations, while civilization is entirely peaceful or virtuous. disparaging those of the West. No civilization is entirely peaceful or virtuous. Every civilization possesses both attraction and ugliness. While the leaders of both Western and non-Western civilizations focus Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 15

almost exclusively on their greatness, past and present, both civilizations have practiced and continue to practice racism, violence, repression, and genocide. There is no question that the Indian, Chinese, and Islamic civilizations were as capable of cruelty as benevolence, just like their Western counterparts, from classical Greece and Rome to contemporary Britain and the United States. But the West should not reject the ethical principles emerging from non-Western civilizations—good neighborliness, communitarianism, and humane authority from ancient China; religious tolerance, protection of people, and renunciation of violence from ancient India; and Islamic notions of peace and just war— just because they are often mouthed by ruling regimes, while accepting those principles, such as individual rights and democratic governance, presented by Western leaders, as universal standards that everyone should emulate.34 Invoking the civilizational ethics of non-Western societies to challenge liberal hegemony and point toward a broader conception of global ethics is bound to raise objections and controversies, which must not be overlooked. First, skeptics may dismiss such principles as “cultural relativism.” Given the fact that these principles concerning just war are drawn from different civilizations, they have much in common, attesting to their broader, if not universal, scope. Moreover, Western universalism concerning human rights also represents a certain type of relativism, drawn from the particular historical and political context of Europe, but presented as applicable to all human society.35 The idea accords with the West’s “monistic” or “particularistic” universalism, which emerged from the Enlightenment. Monistic universalism is a deeply homogeniz- ing system that articulates and imposes a set of Western values on the rest of the world. However, looking at these diverse yet shared ethical principles from different regions about just war points to a different notion of universalism, which I have called “pluralistic universalism.”36 Pluralistic universalism rejects the imposition of one set of ethical principles on all societies. It recognizes and respects diversity, yet seeks to find common ground among societies, which, as the above discussion shows, undoubtedly exists. In this sense, the opposite of universalism is not relativism, but pluralism. A second objection to the idea of post-liberal global ethics that accommo- dates the values of non-Western societies is the gap between ideas and practice. The ethical doctrines such as those of the just war are subject to interpretation and are not always upheld in practice. However, this is not a problem just of non-Western civilizations. The West has been there, too, from the Cold War to the unipolar moment, having violated principles of just war such as “right intention,” “proportional means,” “last resort,” and “right authority” (legitimate authority sanctioning the use of force and “reasonable prospects”), especially in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.37 The contribution of non-Western societies to global ethics is not just a historical one. It also extends to the formative period of the post-war international order. While the creation of that order is almost exclusively credited to the West and particularly to the United States, the West was hardly alone. Latin American countries were forceful advocates of universal human rights that preceded the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, having signed the American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man in Bogota, Colombia in 16 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019

April 1948, seven months before the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December of that year.38 As Joseph Nye concedes “[W]hile US support has been important to human rights, the US was not always very liberal during the Cold War, and the origins of the regime in the 1940s owed much to Latin Americans and others.”39 A stark binary between Northern universalism and Southern relativism over international ethics is uncalled for. While the United States and its Western allies focused mainly on human rights and democracy as the core of international ethics, the postcolonial countries stressed justice and equity, which are no less important where global ethics are concerned. Nevertheless, the postcolonial states championed not just economic and cultural rights, or the “right to development,” as is commonly presented in the human rights literature, but also political rights and civil liberties. In negotiating human rights covenants, the postcolonial states resisted attempts by the West to preserve their dwindling colonial possessions, such as those of the UK. As Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland Christian Reus-Smit observes

The standard account of the development of international human rights norms identifies three phases: the first addressing civil and political rights, the second economic and social rights, and the third collective rights. The West is credited with the first, the Soviet bloc with the second, and the developing world with the third. In reality, however, during the negotiation of the two Covenants newly independent states consistently stressed the primacy of civil and political rights, and they were the strongest advocates of robust enforcement mechanisms.40

Many non-Western states have supported and continue to support relatively new or emergent ethical principles such as Responsibility to Protect (R2P), multilateralism, human security, and transitional justice. The origins of R2P, which outlined a number of principles to guide decisions about humanitarian intervention against genocide or conflicts leading to large-scale loss of life, has had strong African champions in Kofi Annan, Francis Deng, and Mohamed Sahnoun, just as the idea of human security (as opposed to national A critical challenge for security) was first prosed by South Asian developing global ethics today economists like Mahbub ul Haq and is finding common ground Amartya Sen. China, India, South Africa, and Brazil oppose the political abuse of among the civilizational ethics R2P, not the norm itself. of different states, cultures, and A critical challenge for develop- especially rising powers which ing global ethics today is finding common ground among the civilizational are set to play an increasingly ethics of different states, cultures and important role in world affairs. especially rising powers which are set to play an increasingly important role in world affairs. The idea of global ethics or global justice may seem daunting and elusive, but as Amartya Sen argues, cultural diversity will not necessarily doom efforts to create common standards. As Sen notes in the context of justice, “the dominant theories of justice in con- Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 17

temporary political philosophy typically have a narrowly national character, and they have tended to be defined only for a collectivity of people ruled by a sovereign state, with a state-based institutional structure.”41 However, Sen believes a conception of global justice can emerge out various national belief systems by developing “a public framework of thought” that could produce “reasonable and mutually recognizable” elements of justice.42

Public reasoning can go across borders in many cases (as it did in questioning the justice of the intervention in Iraq by an American-led coalition in 2003, or in attributing injustice to the inaction of the global community in dealing with particular pandemics in Africa). Those who take a severely isolated view of different cultures (or of “different civilizations”) may be skeptical of the possibility of such international discussion, but it can be argued that this would be a peculiarly limited view of the ability of human beings to listen, understand, and reason.43

Such dialogues can facilitate a more comprehensive framework of global ethics that covers a broad range of issues such as human rights, climate protection, a humane approach to refugees and migration, and humanitarian intervention.

Conclusion

I argue in this essay that ethics and morality will remain relevant in the emerging world order, but they will undergo redefinition and expansion in keeping with the global shift in the distribution of power and ideas. A debate about recrafting and revitalizing global ethics is now urgent. The close association between the US-led Liberal International Order and international ethics and between liberalism and morality has led to the unfortunate tendency in the West to ignore the contribution of other cultures and civilizations to international ethics. While one should be wary of the civilizational rhetoric coming from political leaders and pundits from both Western and non-Western countries, a more serious comparative study of civilizations and political systems of different nations is urgent in highlighting elements of convergence and divergence and thereby setting the stage for dialogue and cooperation toward a system of global ethics. Such an effort may be undertaken not only at the global (UN) level but also at the regional ones, since regional groupings such as the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the African Union are important actors in world politics today. Without such an effort, merely lamenting the decline of US global hegemony and more general of Western dominance and predicting disarray, chaos, and disorder in a post-liberal world can turn out to be self-defeating and self-fulfilling. The crisis of liberal hegemony presents a valuable opportunity to seek common ground and develop a broader and more inclusive system of global ethics. 18 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019

Notes

1 Amitav Acharya, The End of American World Order (Polity 2014). The book argued, as stated on the back cover “Whether or not America itself is declining, the post-war liberal world order underpinned by US military, economic and ideological primacy and supported by global institutions serving its power and purpose, is coming to an end.” 2 Richard N. Haass, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order (New York: Penguin Press, 2017). 3 “Ethics: a general introduction,” BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/intro_1.shtml. 4 Zaki Laïdi, “What multipolarity really means…,” http://www.laidi.com/sitedp/sites/default/ files/Week%201.pdf. 5 Amitav Acharya, The End of American World Order, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2018); Amitav Acharya, “After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World,” Ethics and International Affairs 31, no. 3 (Fall 2017): 271–85, https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2017/multiplex-world-order/. 6 Jim Manzi, “A Post-American World?” The National Review, May 7, 2008, www.nationalreview. com/corner/162810/post-american-world-jim-manzi; Christopher Chase-Dunn, et al., “The Trajectory of the United States in the World-System: A Quantitative Reflection (IROWS Working Paper #8),” University of California, Riverside: Department of Sociology and Institute for Research on World-Systems, http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows8/irows8.htm; William Wohlforth and Ste- phen G. Brooks, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 31. 7 Malcolm Scott and Cedric Sam, “China and the United States: Tale of Two Giant Economies,” Bloomberg, May 12, 2016, www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-us-vs-china-economy. 8 PricewaterhouseCoopers, The World in 2050: Will the Shift in Global Economic Power Continue?, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/the-economy/assets/world-in-2050-february-2015.pdf. 9 Frank Biermann, Philipp Pattberg, Harro van Asselt, and Fariborz Zelli, “The Fragmentation of Global Governance Architectures: A Framework for Analysis,” Global Environmental Politics 9, no. 4 (November 2009): 16. 10 Joseph Hoover, “Ethics and Morality in International Relations,” September 29, 2015, http:// www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0119. xml. 11 Amitav Acharya, The End of American World Order, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 12 Robert Pen Warren, Interview with James Baldwin, April 27, 1964, text available at Literary Hub, https://lithub.com/james-baldwin-i-cant-accept-western-values-because-they-dont-accept- me/. 13 Robert O. Keohane, “International Institutions: Two Approaches,” International Studies Quar- terly 32, no. 4 (December 1988): 380. 14 For a discussion of the universalism versus cultural relativism debate, see: Jack Donnelly, “The Relative Universality of Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 29, no. 2 (2007): 281–306. Donnelly thus associates human rights with capitalism, rather than culture. 15 For a discussion the Western agency bias in early norm literature, see Amitav Acharya, Con- structing Global Order: Agency and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), chapter 2. 16 Joel Gehrke, “State Department preparing for clash of civilizations with China,” Washington Examiner, April 30, 2019, https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonexaminer.com/ policy/defense-national-security/state-department-preparing-for-clash-of-civilizations-with- china%3f_amp=true. 17 “Chinese President Xi Jinping says ‘no clash’ of civilisations amid US trade war,” Channel News Asia, May 15, 2019, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/china-xi-jinping-speech-us- trade-war-11535130. 18 See, for example, “Prime Minister’s Keynote Address at Shangri La Dialogue (June 01, 2018),” June 1, 2018, (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India), https://mea.gov. in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/29943/Prime_Ministers_Keynote_Address_at_Shangri_La_Dia- Why International Ethics Will Survive the Crisis of the Liberal International Order 19

logue_June_01_2018; Rupam Jain and Tom Lasseter, “By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists aim to assert their dominance over India,” Reuters, March 6, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/ investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/. 19 Borzou Daragahi, “How the New Zealand terror attack has become a key factor in Turkey’s upcoming elections” The Independent, March 19, 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/middle-east/new-zealand-terror-attack-turkey-elections-erdogan-christchurch-mosques- islam-crusades-a8828396.html. 20 Glenn Thrush and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Trump, in Poland, Asks if West Has the ‘Will to Survive’,” New York Times, July 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/world/europe/ donald-trump-poland-speech.html. 21 James M. Dorsey, “The Rise of the Civilizational State” March 24, 2019, https://mideastsoccer. blogspot.com/2019/03/civilizationism-vs-nation-state.html; Gideon Rachman, “China, India and the rise of the ‘civilisation state’,” Financial Times, March 4, 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/ b6bc9ac2-3e5b-11e9-9bee-efab61506f44. 22 Donnelly, “The Relative Universality of Human Rights.” Donnelly thus associates human rights with capitalism, rather than culture. 23 Amartya Sen, “Universal Truths: Human Rights and the Westernizing Illusion,” Harvard In- ternational Review 20, no.3 (Summer 1998): 42. 24 Venerable. S. Dhammika, The Edicts of King Asoka: An English Rendering (Kandy: The Buddhist Publication Society, 1993), http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/edicts-asoka6.pdf, 12. 25 The Edicts of King Asoka, 13. 26 Max Müller, ed., Sacred Books of the East: The Laws of Manus, Vol. XXV, trans. by G. Bühler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1886). 27 Daniel A. Bell, “Just War and Confucianism: Implications for the Contemporary World,” in Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 39. 28 Ibid., 40. 29 Jihad involves employing a variety of means, including “by the heart, the tongue, the hand, and the sword.” It includes pacific, spiritual, and political campaigns to support what is rights and wrong rather than only resorting to war.“Jihad,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www. britannica.com/topic/jihad. 30 Dar al-Islam refers to the “territory of Islam.” It is the “region of Muslim sovereignty where Islamic law prevails.” “Dar al-Islam,” Oxford Dictionary of Islam, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e491. Dar al-Harb refers to “the territories bordering on dar al-Islam (territory of Islam), whose leaders are called upon to convert to Islam.” Although interpreta- tions of these concepts vary, there is “no connection between the status of dar al-harb and an obligation [by Muslims] to wage jihad [holy war]” against that dar al-harb. “Dar al-Harb,”Oxford Dictionary of Islam, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e490. 31 John Turner, “Islam as a Theory of International Relations,” August 3, 2009, https://www.e-ir. info/2009/08/03/islam-as-a-theory-of-international-relations. See also, Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, “International Relations Theory and the Islamic Worldview,” in Amitav Acharya and Barry Bu- zan, ed., Non-Western International Relattons Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia (London: Routledge, 2010). 32 H. Yousuf Aboul-Enein and Sherifa Zuhur, Islamic Rulings on Warfare (Darby: Diane Publish- ing Co., 2004), 22. 33 The 3rd major rock edict of Ashoka stipulates “abstention from killing animals is meritorious.” Cited in V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, The Mauryan Polity (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), 158. “Wherever medical herbs suitable for humans and animals are not available, I had them imported and grown…Along roads I have had wells dug and trees planted for the benefit of humans and animals,” The Edicts of King Asoka,1 2. 34 Consider, for example, Xi Jinping’s statement at the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civi- lizations: “For Chinese civilization, amity and good neighbourliness is the principle guiding our iteractions with other countries…” “Key quotes from Xi Jinping’s speech at Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations”, China Global Television Network, May 15, 2019, https:// news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d306b6a4e34457a6333566d54/index.html. Similar statements 20 SAIS Review Winter–Spring 2019 by political leaders of India and Muslim nations have attracted Western skepticism that these are propagandistic. 35 Donnelly, “The Relative Universality of Human Rights.” 36 Amitav Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no.4 (2014): 649–50. 37 For a discussion of these principles, see Amitav Acharya, “Redefining the Dilemmas of Hu- manitarian Intervention,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 56, no.3 (November 2002), 373–82. 38 Kathryn Sikkink, “Human Rights,” in Why Govern, ed. Amitav Acharya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 125–33. 39 Joseph S. Nye, “Human Rights and the Fate of the Liberal Order”, China-US Focus, May 10, 2018, https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/human-rights-and-the-fate-of-the-liberal- order. 40 Christian Reus-Smit, “Building the Liberal International Order: Locating American Agency,” Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washing- ton, DC, August 28-31, 2014, 12–3. See also his book, Individual Rights and the Making of the International System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). The covenants referred to are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both adopted in 1966. 41 Amartya Sen, “Ethics and the Foundation of Global Justice”, Ethics and International Affairs 31, no. 3 (2017): 261–2. 42 Ibid., 264. 43 Ibid., 265.