Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Define international ethics.
• Explain its significance with the help of examples.
• Give conclusion.

Introduction

• Global ethics concerns ethical questions and dilemmas, whether for individuals or societies, that arise in view of economic, technological, legal, political, social, and cultural globalization.
• Global ethics expand upon personal and professional ethics to include a more extensive set of principles that may apply to groups of people or cultures. They can include such areas and debates as social justice, human rights, caring for the environment across national borders, social responsibility and accountability, and interdependence gained through encompassing a worldview.

Body

Significance of International Ethics

• International ethics offers insights into how nations and other entities treat other nations and its people. For example, the UN has been promoting various principles of friendly and cooperative and peace related humanitarian international actions by all the member countries.
• International ethics guides international relations and resolution of international conflicts such as terrorism, territorial disputes and refugee crisis.
• International ethics guides the international environmental efforts to fight against ozone depletion, global warming, etc which are common shared problems and which require actions from many nations who are major contributors to forces generating such problems.
  
  • Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) principle in Paris CLimate Deal towards fighting climate change is the result of ethics in international affairs.
• International Aids during natural disasters (eg: India’s support during Nepal Earthquake) and Development Aid via IMF and World Bank is also guided by ethical principles.

Ethical challenges in International Affairs

• Rising Inequality due to globalisation push by developed countries and international institutions.
• Neo-colonialism in the name of international Aid rather than aiming at uplifting poverty.
• International Diplomacy is guided by narrow national interests rather than common global agendas. For example, Terrorism is still not defined internationally. There is a “concept of Good Terrorist and Bad Terrorist” .
• Lack of responsibilities by the developed countries regarding Global Commons: Climate Change, Ozone layer depletion, Antarctic/Arctic ice melting.

Conclusion

With Globalisation, the world has become more interconnected, and unethical behaviour by one country affects the whole world, so ethical behaviour in international diplomacy is needed to address the common problems like terrorism, climate change and removal of poverty and inequality and estabish peace among world countries.