Ethical traditions in international affairs / Terry Nardin -- The tradition of international law / Murray Forsyth -- The declaratory tradition in modern international law / Dorothy V. Jones -- Classical realism / Steven Forde -- Twentieth-century realism / Jack Donnelly -- Natural law and international ethics / Joseph Boyle -- Kant's global rationalism / Thomas Donaldson -- Utilitarianism and international ethics / Anthony Ellis -- The contractarian tradition and international ethics / David R. Mapel -- Liberalism and international reform / Michael Joseph Smith -- Marxism and international ethics / Chris Brown -- The idea of rights in international ethics / R.J. Vincent -- Biblical argument in international ethics / Michael G. Cartwright -- Convergence and divergence in international ethics / David P. Mapel and Terry Nardin.

This is the first comprehensive study of how different ethical traditions deal with the central moral problems of international affairs. Using the organising concept of a tradition, it shows that ethics offers many different languages for moral debate rather than a set of unified doctrines. Each chapter describes the central concepts, premises, vocabulary and history of a particular tradition and explains how that tradition has dealt with a set of recurring ethical issues in international relations. Such issues include national self-determination, the use of force in armed intervention or nuclear deterrence, and global distributive justice. Written by leading specialists in the US and UK, this book treats the subject of international ethics in an encyclopaedic way. It allows readers to identify internal tensions within, as well as points of agreement and disagreement between, a wide variety of traditions.