In soliciting these articles, the editors of Ethics & International Affairs asked authors to respond to several questions. First, preemptive and preventive uses of force are often justified by claiming either that there is substantial risk of a future attack or that it is difficult to ascertain how dangerous the target is. Under what conditions does the existence of risk and uncertainty about possible threats license the use of military force? Second, what consultative procedures should be required in order to legitimate the preventive or preemptive use of force? There exist both domestic and international institutions that constrain the use of military force, but which, if any, should be granted authority to block or authorize military actions of these kinds? Third, if preemptive or preventive military action is taken, what jus in bello criteria apply? Are there different and perhaps more stringent jus in bello criteria if states act preemptively?

If global economic justice is to be achieved, debt crises must be assessed within the broader context of the international financial system. This system, which has been largely imposed by a small group of powerful financial agents in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, has led to instability and recurrent financial crises that have severely harmed the interests of poor countries and their people. Responsibility for bearing the costs of debt crises and other negative effects of the prevailing international financial system should therefore be assumed by those who have contributed to bringing them about. At present, however, the burden of economic “adjustments” during debt crises has fallen disproportionately on poor debtor nations, and debates regarding debt management have been dominated by individual, corporate, and official creditors. This essay presents the case for institutional reforms that can better protect the human rights of citizens of sovereign debtor nations during debt crises.

In his address at West Point on June 1, 2002, President George W. Bush appeared to be signaling America's willingness to regard the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by potential enemies as grounds for an anticipatory war. Historically, however, a clear distinction has been drawn between preemptive and preventive, or anticipatory, war, with the latter regarded as illegitimate. The National Security Strategy announced by the president on September 20, 2002, was more conventional in its approach to preemption, but doubts remain as to whether the old distinction can be preserved. And this discussion is taking place in the context of a specific problem, namely the apparent desire of Iraq to obtain WMD and the determination of the United States, and, less clearly expressed, the UN Security Council, to prevent this from happening.

It is unlikely that George W. Bush feels constrained by international law when deciding whether to use military force abroad. Nevertheless, many of the United States' allies are reluctant to cooperate with and participate in military actions that cannot reasonably be justified under international law. And supportive allies, while perhaps not strictly necessary to the United States in its recent and foreseeable military campaigns, do make the military option easier to pursue. A war against Iraq would be difficult without access to bases and airspace in countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Canada. For this reason, at least, it would seem to be worth the president's while to adhere to international law where possible and, where this is not possible, to seek to change the rules.

International lawyers in the Department of State, together with lawyers in other parts of the U.S. government, have excelled in shaping the law to accommodate the interests of the United States. One example, though by no means the only one, concerns the response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

There would be few dissenters from the general proposition that we should try to deal justly with debt. We have all watched in horror the collapse that has taken place in Argentina and the enormous cost paid by so many people in that country—as well as by the creditors of Argentina—from the massive financial and economic dislocation and disruption. I do not believe that what has occurred was inevitable.

Unfortunately, some who address this issue of dealing with unmanageable debt situations have offered advice that, while emotionally appealing, is not operationally helpful. I will describe and justify the rationale and design of the proposal put forward by the International Monetary Fund for a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM). Its major goal is to help reduce the unacceptably large costs associated with disorderly defaults by sovereign governments whose debt burdens have become unsustainable. The SDRM aims to get the countries' debts to sustainable positions and deal with the broader needs of the countries through the full array of aid and other mechanisms that are available— and, indeed, to enlarge and enhance these initiatives. I will also explain my misgivings about some of the other proposals, including the ones coming from the NGO community.

It is unlikely that George W. Bush feels constrained by international law when deciding whether to use military force abroad. Nevertheless, many of the United States' allies are reluctant to cooperate with and participate in military actions that cannot reasonably be justified under international law. And supportive allies, while perhaps not strictly necessary to the United States in its recent and foreseeable military campaigns, do make the military option easier to pursue. A war against Iraq would be difficult without access to bases and airspace in countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Canada. For this reason, at least, it would seem to be worth the president's while to adhere to international law where possible and, where this is not possible, to seek to change the rules.

During the past couple of years, policy-makers in Washington and other capitals of G-7 countries have been flogging the idea that the functioning of the world's financial markets must be improved by making it easier for insolvent governments, especially in emerging markets, to obtain debt relief from their bondholders and bankers.

Most savvy investors, financial intermediaries, and emerging-market government officials, however, are at a loss to understand why the G-7 and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) believe the international financial system would function better if there were specific mechanisms to facilitate sovereign bankruptcies.

The debate over going to war in Iraq has in many quarters become a debate about the ethical implications of preemption and prevention rather than about the war itself. But neither prevention nor preemption can have any moral standing in the abstract, since it is the circumstances, not the concepts, that inform their qualities as strategies. The question, rather, is whether the decision to engage in a new war against the Iraqi regime is just.

Indeed, it is surprising to find that so much less has been said about basic principles of just war—that is, a just cause, a right intention, proportionality, and so on—than about the largely legal questions of preemption and prevention. But concepts like preemption and prevention are really about the timing and method of war; they say nothing about the moral content of the conflict itself, and in the end an emphasis on them obscures the fundamental question of justice. Put another way, if a particular military action, including launching war, is just and proper, then the means and scheduling are subject, like anything else, to scrutiny under the guidance of the principles of just war. But they are not separate questions in and of themselves.

A range of different solutions, as the contributions to this roundtable show, has been proposed regarding the problem of sovereign borrower insolvency. Two prominent factors need to be taken into account in assessing the merits of each proposal: its impact on economic efficiency, in particular on the supply and price of credit for developing countries, and its regard for considerations of justice and procedural fairness.

The Bush administration's arguments in favor of a preemptive doctrine rest on the view that warfare has been transformed. As Colin Powell argues, “It's a different world … it's a new kind of threat.” And in several important respects, war has changed along the lines the administration suggests, although that transformation has been under way for at least the last ten to fifteen years. Unconventional adversaries prepared to wage unconventional war can conceal their movements, weapons, and immediate intentions and conduct devastating surprise attacks. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, though not widely dispersed, are more readily available than they were in the recent past. And the everyday infrastructure of the United States can be turned against it as were the planes the terrorists hijacked on September 11, 2001. Further, the administration argues that we face enemies who “reject basic human values and hate the United States and everything for which it stands.” Although vulnerability could certainly be reduced in many ways, it is impossible to achieve complete invulnerability.

This essay is an attempt to take the idea of empire seriously as an element in normative political theory. The sudden reappearance of “empire” as a doctrine to be taken seriously had some of the thrill of the forbidden. Who would dare to endorse imperial ambitions as good for their country or, more heretical still, good for the world? Iconoclasm, though, is a short-lived pleasure. Now that the concept of empire has shed its pariah status, the time has come for some rigor in characterizing and assessing the arguments for empire.

Contemporary debates over the appropriate balance of unilateralism and multilateralism in U.S. foreign policy reflect disagreements not simply about the practical effectiveness of these alternative options but also about their legitimacy. Advocates of multilateral and unilateral action alike tend to bundle prudential calculations with normative claims, making assessments about costs and benefits difficult to disentangle from ethical arguments about fairness, justice, morality and obligation. Greater clarity may be possible by classifying U.S. foreign policy into six analytical categories, based on whether the aims pursued are nationalist, internationalist, or cosmopolitan and the strategies adopted to realize them are unilateral or multilateral. Each set of aims has different ethical justifications that generate and help to explain divergent attitudes and judgments about the role of multilateral cooperation in U.S. foreign policy. The article sheds new light on alleged U.S. unilateralism, showing that the U.S. decision to go it alone–or to act with others–can be motivated by the desire to advance the narrow interests of the United States, to advance the interests of all states, or to advance the interests of humanity at large. The article suggests that purely nationalist policies, whether pursued through unilateral or multilateral means, will become increasingly untenable and illegitimate as world politics becomes institutionalized and as humanity becomes integrated, albeit slowly, into a single cosmopolitan community.

International organizations and bilateral donors often tie financial assistance to the undertaking of political and economic reforms–a practice known as conditionality. In recent years, the use of good governance conditionality has provoked controversy in the academic and policy worlds. So far, the issue of whether conditionality is effective in achieving compliance with good governance norms has occupied center stage in the debate. However, whether it is morally defensible to attach political conditions to financial assistance has largely been taken for granted.

This article explores the extent to which it is morally defensible to attach good governance conditions to aid and loans in international society. It argues that the use of conditionality should be limited for two reasons. First, there is an unavoidable tension between conditionality and rights to self-determination. Second, focusing on conditionality can obscure the fact that the rules of the international economy are no less contestable than the governance of individual states, and, in turn, are in just as great a need of reform. This leads to two main conclusions. First, the use of conditionality should now be rooted in a conception of basic rights and complemented by more equitable rules in the global economy. Second, the attempt to make good governance within states an issue of global concern must be accompanied by greater democratization of the international financial institutions.

Justifications and criticisms of empire have often focused on the effects of empire on imperial “subjects.” But an older criticism of empire equally focuses upon the way the possession of empire transforms the identity of the imperial state itself by altering its constitution, implicating its people in projects that happen elsewhere, and forcing them to define their relationship to applications of power in a radically new way. On this view the real danger of empire often is the effect it has on the state possessing the empire. In our times in particular, empire is thought to have a profound impact on the functioning of democracy in the imperial state itself. This article seeks to recover the moral sensibility that lies behind this form of moral criticism. It also seeks to examine, briefly, whether America is vulnerable to the “corruptions” of empire and the weight we should place on this moral consideration.

Elshtain presents a case for the primacy of politics if one would argue persuasively about international justice. Without political stability, all attempts to assist developing states, or to sustain persons caught in the chaos of “failed states,” must fail. A concept of justice lies at the heart of this discussion and revolves around the fundamental questions of to whom justice is owed and in what justice consists.

Have we any obligations beyond our own borders? If so, what form do these take? These questions are addressed by developing a concept of comparative justice indebted to the just war tradition and tying it to the equal moral regard of persons. This leads, in turn, to two further difficulties. First, what does it mean to make a claim under the equal regard norm? Just war criteria posit certain universal claims in a political universe in which particular bodies politic either respond, or do not, to such claims in light of their own principles and interests. The article develops a citizenship model for cases of humanitarian intervention, rejecting any and all approaches that involve an asymmetrical valuing of human life.

Second, who can be called upon to use coercive force in behalf of justice? Elshtain argues that all states have a stake in creating and sustaining an international system of equal regard. But, at present, there is no universal body that can be turned to with any confidence in situations of catastrophic violence, like ethnic cleansing. UN Peacekeepers are effective only after a measure of order is restored. As a result the state, or states, with the greatest capability to project power bears the lion's sharer of responsibility for enforcing an equal regard norm. Elshtain acknowledges the difficulties of articulating a strong universal justice claim while assigning a particular state, or states, and their people a disproportionate enforcement burden. But that best describes the present moment and it is better by far that those with power deploy that power within a framework of principles and constraints rather than solely along the lines of classic realpolitik.

How can governments and peoples better hold to account international economic institutions, such as the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF? This article proposes an approach based on public accountability, advocating improvements in four areas: constitutional, political, financial, and internal accountability.

The argument for more accountability is made with two caveats: more accountability is not always good–it can be distorting and costly; and, enhancing the accountability of international institutions should not justify increasing their jurisdiction for the sake of reducing the role of national governments. Constitutional accountability poses limits on how the institutions expand their activities, requiring the active consent of all members and particularly those most affected by their activities. Political accountability requires that those who make decisions in the organizations are directly answerable to all member governments and not just to the most powerful ones. The institutions' uneven record and structure of financial accountability is addressed through a model of mutual restraint. Finally, the internal accountability should ensure that technical decisions are distinguishable from political decisions. A better matching of the right kinds of accountability to the activities of the organizations would improve both their effectiveness and legitimacy.

International monetary arrangements–the practices and rules governing the creation, distribution, and management of money and credit in the world economy–have received little attention from philosophers concerned with international distributive justice. A convincing account of international distributive justice requires a description of how these arrangements should function. International monetary arrangements currently appear to have consequences that are incompatible with a global egalitarian conception of distributive justice.

There are at least three categories of questions– relating respectively to money supply, exchange rates, and debt–that can be raised in the international context. First, who should have control over key monetary decisions, such as how much, and on what terms, money and credit are being supplied within each monetary zone? Should this control belong to the citizens of a given monetary zone and their representatives alone? How should the benefits arising from the ability to create money be distributed internationally? Second, should the stability of exchange rates be a goal and, if so, how should the responsibility for maintaining stability be apportioned? When adjustment of exchange rates is required, who should bear the burdens associated with such adjustment? Third, what arrangements should govern the accumulation and discharge of debt in the international setting? In what respects should debt contracted by states be governed by different rules than debt contracted by private agents? What forms of conditionality may be imposed by creditors, such as international institutions, governments, or private lenders, as part of a just framework of international borrowing and repayment? These questions exemplify rather than exhaust the dilemmas that arise with regard to international monetary arrangements. Global egalitarians should imagine the alternative forms that such arrangements can take as elements of a realistic utopia.

In the field of interstate military affairs it makes sense to talk of an American empire; but not in interstate economic affairs where the world remains thoroughly multipolar. So says Joseph Nye. This essay disagrees with the second part. It proceeds by way of a thought experiment. Imagine you are an aspiring modern-day emperor in a world of sovereign capitalist states. What sort of framework do you create such that (a) it sets the context in which all states and firms have to operate if they are not to exclude themselves from the world economy; (b) it channels normal market competition so as to benefit your firms and citizens disproportionately; and (c) it allows your economic statescraft to operate with fewer constraints than it imposes on everyone else's? The essay argues that the United States has indeed created such a framework since the 1970s, based on dollar dominance and American-centered private (not public) international financial relations. The framework allows the United States to keep spending far more abroad than it earns there–to have more butter and more guns (including military bases)–to a degree that other states cannot; and allows the United States to make the dollar swing high or low in accordance with American conditions, regardless of the costs inflicted on others. This is the paradox of economic globalization: it looks like the “powerless” expansion of communications and markets, but works to enhance the ability of the United States to harness the rest of the world to its rhythms and fortify its empire-like power. Concerted action between Europe and China and the East Asia countries is a vent for hope.