ABSTRACT
Diplomats have long occupied multiple worlds and answered to contradictory ideals. Their duties to individual princes and states have competed with their more idealistic commitments to peace and international justice. Today this conflict intersects with debates about the nature of the international system. Is it a Hobbesian space in which diplomats maximise states’ strategic advantages? Or do diplomats answer a higher purpose, such as the expansion of international law as a significant regulatory force?
