ABSTRACT
The challenges that face the world in the new millennium are incredible. In this chapter we shall look at two central features of contemporary world affairs. We shall explore how developments in the use of military force and in economic and social development policy display a real tension in the way the world has reacted to processes associated with globalization. On the one hand, there is a clear political consensus on the need to develop global governance, international law and national policy to reflect a multilateral response to threats to what is commonly called human security. On the other is an equally clear resistance to the dilution of national sovereignty that this necessarily implies. To attempt a survey of the key developments in the way the ‘international community’ (or at least specific states within it) deploys its armed forces or creates economic development policy is too large an undertaking for an introduction to IR. The way that we have chosen to introduce you to the basics of these developments is to frame the issue by looking at two key issues in contemporary world politics. The first issue concerns the proper use of force in world politics. There have been rules concerning when it is right to resort to warfare for millennia and there have also been rules about how combatants should conduct themselves on the field of battle and when dealing with defeated enemies, their
surprise the new reader. Most of the changes to the rules concerning the use of force have been attempts to keep up with the practices of great powers or the ever advancing technology of warfare. However the rapid development of our political understanding of the place of military force in international relations and the similarly rapid development of public international law concerning the use of force since 1945 suggests a very considerable and continuing change in the attitude of the international community to what has often been considered the key policy instrument of international politics. The second issue we explore is the question of global economic justice. Calls to end poverty in the developing world have a high profile in contemporary international relations. It is a cause supported by celebrities (in contexts such as Live Aid, Live 8, Make Poverty History or Comic Relief) and one that is constantly discussed at the highest level in the UN and at G8 summits. Here we explore the progress that has been made towards meeting the demands of global economic justice and look at arguments that suggest that supporting poverty relief in the developing world is not a matter of giving charitable donations but a matter of justice and morality that is essential to the political stability of global politics.
