ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part examines the ways in which vulnerability is perceived and experienced based on constructions of vulnerability around markers of race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic class, age, and geopolitical space. It investigates the ethics of vulnerability as a framework for understanding a range of global issues, including migration, global health, the environment, and climate change, that have fundamental implications for the longevity and quality of human life and for the health of the planet. Notions of vulnerability are at the center of conversations about ethics in international relations (IR). The discipline's focus on issues of war, peace, and security, the global economy and poverty, and international law and human rights inevitably involve ethical considerations. Ethical inquiry in the field of IR is grounded in constitutive assumptions about the groups in particular need of protection and the actors with the capacity and obligation to protect.
