ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses what are often referred to as ethical issues in international relations. It focuses on the problem of 'humanitarian intervention', and how it has been—and might continue to be—explored in the context of international ethics. The chapter discusses the dominant views on the central 'issues' in international ethics, analyzing critically the ways in which these issues have been explored. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which questions regarding the moral authority of state sovereignty and the problem of intervention have been privileged within international ethics. The chapter also explores the continuous, ever-widening gap between rich and poor, particularly in the context of North-South relations, and the processes of exclusion and breakdown of social relations which lead to human suffering and, particularly, to poverty. It then examines the dominant approaches to poverty on a global scale—the rights-based approach and the Kantian, obligations-centred approach.
