US International Relations and The Law of Peoples

Over the past few years, the US has been focusing much of it’s foreign policy on a few specific areas, the most obvious being Iraq and Afghanistan. It is hard to quantify the amount of effort we put into relations with any individual country, but I think it’s fair to point out those countries that we clearly expend little effort on.

The distribution of foreign policy, and the actions we take, run contrary to the principles proposed in Rawl’s Law of Peoples. Rawls argues that well-ordered nations (and I assume the US as a well-ordered nation for this post) should aim “to bring all societies eventually to honor the Law of Peoples”(Rawls Law of Peoples 1999: 93). This is a Duty to Assist. If I am to postulate that US foreign policy should adhere to Rawl’s liberal doctrines, then I believe we should focus more on certain burdened societies.

While Rawls would have the US take action, or help, the structure of such unordered nations, we can use certain indicators to determine which nations are unordered. The first is part of the structure itself, namely which nations have the worst corruption in their government. Studies by Transparency International found 10 countries to have at least 32% of it’s citizens to have been forced into bribery over the course of a single year. These are Albania, Cambodia, Cameroon, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, and Senegal.

Another indicator could be humans rights records. The Congo, Rwanda, Burundi Algeria, Sierra Leone, Egypt, North Korea, Sudan, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, and Pakistan were found to have the worst records, in decreasing order, by Amnesty International. (The Guardian).

Health is also a good indicator of the level of order in society. Angola, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe are all reported as having an average life span of less than 40 years, as discerned by the World Health Organization’s World Health Report 2002 (Dwyer).

These low standards, Rawls argues, are the fault of the structure, the government and it’s related economic, political, and social institutions. Indeed, in many of these cases, it has been reported that a nations government has actively worked against the good of part of it’s own demographic. The genocide in Darfur is particularly prominent in today’s media.

How is the US doing in addressing these foreign policy concerns, then? I cannot of course provide an exhaustive examination of US-Congo relations, and US-Algeria relations, and US-Kosovo relations, et cetera, but it is obvious that we are not putting as much effort into helping many of the nations listed above, publicly at least, as compared to the many strong ties we have with well-ordered nations or to the concentrated military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

First of all, it is worth mentioning that all the effort we have put into the War of Terror is at least partially supported by the Law of Peoples. The confusion comes from 9/11 being a terrorist act. Rawls grants all well-order societies “the right to war in self -defense”(Rawls Law of Peoples 1999: 91), but never to instigate war unprovoked. One could argue that these wars are self-defense, or that we started them. I personally found this distinction interesting, as I was expecting to find no Rawlsian backing whatsoever for our current actions.

To return to my argument, consider Darfur. The situation can be briefly summed up by a Washington Post article. In April 2006, “Bush insisted there must be consequences for rape and murder, and he called for international troops on the ground to protect innocent Darfuris…yet a year and a half later, the situation on the ground in Darfur is little changed: More than 2 million displaced Darfuris, including hundreds of thousands in camps, have been unable to return to their homes.”(US Promises on Darfur Don’t Match Actions). As in the Congo, Burma, Indonesia, Albania, Cambodia, to name a few, we should at least be focusing some part of our significant power and influence on positively affecting change.

A side-argument may be proving that we interfere in countries where it also happens to serve our own interests. I don’t want to try and argue that here, but I’m sure someone will post on it. As for Rawls, he asks a level of consideration based on the level of disorder in a particular nation. The Duty of Assistance should not be self-serving. Even if the Ideal Theory Rawls proposes cannot be fully used in real life, it is still a strong political argument for justice that can appeal to our more intuitive moral feelings. It is my hope that the coming administration will focus more on these areas of the world.


Transparency international, http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/gcb/2007

"Amnesty reports worst human rights records", The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/rightsindex

Rawls, John. The Law of Peoples. New York: Harvard UP, 2001.

"US Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions", Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801704.html

Dwyer, James. “Global Health and Justice” Bioethics 19.5/6 (2005): 460-475.

POLITICS: EVEN DEMOCRACIES NEED 'SUNSHINE' AGAINST CORRUPTION
Emad Mekay. Global Information Network. New York: Apr 30, 2004. pg. 1
(Copyright 2004 by Inter Press Service/Global Information Network)
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