This chapter focuses on international law and morality in the conduct of world politics as an alternative to the power-based diplomatic pursuit of self-interest. It world be naive to ignore the reality that most global actors emphasize their own interests. However, this is also true in domestic systems. What is different between global and domestic system is not so much the motives of the actors as the fact that domestic systems place greater restraints on the pursuit of self-interest than the international system does.
Legal systems are one thing that restrains the power-based pursuit of self-interest in a domestic system. Certainly, powerful individuals and groups have advantages in every domestic system. Rules are broken and the guilty, especially if they can afford a high-priced attorney, sometimes escape punishment. Still, laws in the United States cannot overtly discriminate under the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution; for example, an attorney is provided to indigent defendants in criminal cases. Thus, the law somewhat evens the playing field.
Morality is a second thing that restrains the role of power in domestic systems. We are discussing what is “right” here, not just what is legal. Whether the world is moral, ethical, fair, or just, there is a greater sense in domestic systems than there is in the international system that appropriate code of conduct exist, that the ends do not always justify the means, and that those who violate the norms should suffer penalties. Surely, there is no domestic system in which everyone acts morally. Yet the sense of morality and justice that citizens in stable domestic systems have does influence their behavior.
What this means is that since it is possible to restrain power politics in the domestic system by the creation of legal systems and through a greater emphasis on what is moral and fair, then it is theoretically possible to use the same standards to curb the unbridled pursuit of interests in the international system. Accomplishing that will require major changes in attitudes and practices, but it can be done.