ABSTRACT
The human rights campaign launched by the Carter administration raised a very basic question about the nature of the relations among states in the modern world. That campaign seemed to challenge the norms that have governed the international state system as it has evolved since the seventeenth century. The enshrinement in international law and practice of the system of independent sovereign states came after a long series of religious wars and disturbances, events that had effectively demonstrated the dangers of an international system in which seemingly irreconcilable religious differences formed the basis for equally irreconcilable political differences. The Enlightenment opened up the vista of a world of self-confident and self-sufficient men rationally pursuing their own well-being. A more subtle attempt to overcome the ideological divide has been made by those who place great emphasis on "global" or "North-South" issues.
