Nations should follow a foreign policy that balances national security interests and the promotion of the global good, said British ambassador to the United Nations Jeremy Greenstock in a speech Wednesday afternoon.
In the keynote talk of this year's Ethics and Integrity series, the diplomat reiterated that an ethical foreign policy, which he said was first touted in his native Britain by former foreign minister Robin Cook, must look beyond national politics--something he said the United States has fallen short of by refusing to commit to an international criminal court.
"Long gone are the days that we can say, as Neville Chamberlain did of Czechoslovakia..., OThere is a quarrel in a far away country of whom we know nothing,'" Greenstock said. "The ethics and justice system have gone global and resides within the United Nations."
He added that the United States should rise above national politics and understand that a global court would not infringe on its sovereignty, explaining that the court would only take up a case if a country's own system was unable or unwilling to take action against an abuse.
"The international criminal court is being established with this very important proviso," he said. "There is therefore no reason for the United States not to ratify its decision to participate in the criminal court."
All in all, Greenstock said the United States was unreasonably afraid of global institutions. He drew a hearty chuckle from the audience of about 100 students and faculty when he jibed that the concept of global government "makes most Americans run to the National Rifle Association."
He argued that not even the most powerful nations can isolate themselves from global trends and that the United Nations, which he said must be inherently chaotic, was necessary to avoid isolationist appeasement policies, such as those taken by Chamberlain.
Greenstock said that thus far, the United States has done a good job balancing absolute moral principles and relative political concerns in responding to terrorist attacks on its shores, although he said it may be unwise for the Bush administration to expand military activities to other countries where there may be less proof of terrorist involvement.
"What is going on in Afghanistan is not reprisal but prevention. The proportionality as to what has been done has to be related to the threat of something happening again," he said. "If the United States goes on somewhere else and attacks another country under the same basic policy pretext, then you have a wider question."
Even so, Greenstock said President George W. Bush's recent statement that Iran, Iraq and North Korea form an "axis of evil," was an effective one, calculated to not only draw attention but to serve as a warning.
"It was a deliberate lever being pulled to underline a policy being advanced--they knew there would be a blowback about the actual words," he said. "If you say, OThese three countries form an axis of evil,' you not only make the world sit up, but you make the three countries sit up and say, OWe think the United States is evil, but they are bigger than we are and we better behave.'"
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