International Relations

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The term "international relations"—subsuming "international affairs" and "foreign affairs"—refers to interactions among nation states, and includes such diverse topics as international law, international trade, and the international monetary system. Although international corporations and non-governmental organizations influence these interactions, and international bodies such as the United Nations help manage them, the primary actors remain nation states. Insofar as nations carry and articulate values, and find their powers conditioned by changes in science and technology (from military effectiveness and productivity to means of communication and bureaucratic organization), international relations also function as an important site for science, technology, and ethics interactions.

Historical Transformations

Following the Peace of Wespthalia (1648) and acceptance of the nation state as the sovereign arbiter of values and power within its borders, questions arose about how to manage interstate relations. The assumption, shared more by theorists than political leaders, from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries was that all nations desired peace, which was to be achieved through international law, which laid out the rules of the game for managing the balance of power through international treaties. The failure of this system in World War I, in which technological destructiveness exceeded civilized control, and the subsequent rise of state actors empowered by new techniques of organization, driven by aggressive ideologies in Russia and especially in Germany committed to the marshaling of science and technology for violent conquest, challenged the classic consensus. As Hans J. Morgenthau (1948) observed, peace and security is the ideology of satisfied powers.

The study of international relations grew after World War II into a major focus of social science to encompass these new realities, new states, and new issues, and developed in two directions. In the first case, social scientific studies endeavor to understand why state actors behave as they do, including how technology helps to determine their capabilities. In the second case, advances in science and technology became integral aspects of the relations between and among states including, among others, their role in war and peace, in the management of conflict, in the promotion of economic development, and in the analysis of decision marking.

Other less spectacular but equally far-reaching changes have been the ability to reach any telephone instantaneously and inexpensively worldwide, increased dependence of weapons systems on competitive technological innovation, the relevance of scientific competence to national economies, and the immediacy and global reach of television. Advances in the technologies of transportation, communication, and information thus contributed measurably to such phenomena as the fall of Soviet Communism and the end of the Cold War (1990), public demands for international humanitarian action, the increased unification of Europe, and economic globalization. Still others underline causal connections between local actions and global consequences, such as destruction of stratospheric ozone as a result of the widespread use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the far-reaching consequences of a disruption in energy supplies or a failure of information systems, and the climatic effects of the accumulation in the atmosphere of waste gases. (International response to the CFC problem in the form of the Montreal Protocol for their elimination has become one of the success stories of multi-state cooperation in response to issues both engendered and identified by science and technology.) The transnational impacts of space exploration and environmental issues, plus the post-Cold War rise of non-state actors adapting technologies for terrorism are further examples of new science and technology-related issues altering international affairs.

Yet the international significance of science and technology goes beyond physical power. The intellectual currents of the Enlightenment, which was largely a product of the experimentation and rationality of the scientific revolution, have stimulated massive forces for change in the West—and have been interpreted as forces involved in a post-Cold War "clash of civilizations" (Huntington 1996).

Moreover, science and technology are not static. By 2003 worldwide investment in research and development (R&D) had risen to $750-800 billion per year, leading to rates of innovation that defy accurate forecasting, let alone estimation of their social effects. There is now in place a formidable and growing system for dedicating human ingenuity to the rapid expansion of knowledge and the production of new technologies to serve perceived or speculative needs. Not only do the results of this system have significant international implications, its very operation favors the creation of global markets. Science and technology may not cause changes in international affairs, but their interaction with a mosaic of social, economic, and political factors clearly does so.

The present and future implications for the international system may be summed up in a cliché: Advances in science and technology and their application have led to an unprecedented degree of interaction and mutual dependence among nations in their economies, social structures, and security relationships. The result has moved nations to a new level of interdependence. Nevertheless, the fundamental principles and organization of the international system have not been altered substantially. Although multilateral and transnational organizations have increasingly important roles to play across the spectrum of issues from security to economies, this does not imply the end of nation-states. The world is still organized as a system that retains the basic structure of states, each jealous of its independence, seeing itself in competition with others, attempting to maintain maximum freedom of action, and committed to enhancing national welfare and influence. At the same time the state capacity to act as an independent unit increasingly depends on the breadth and depth of its links to other states. Indeed, degrees to which states are intertwined with others may affect internal matters as well. And the frequency with which domestic and foreign policies related to science and technology are confronted with ethical issues concerning the effect of policies on other states and peoples is a product of such intensive linkages.

Ethical and Political Issues

Changes in international relations resulting from interactions with science and technology have raised ethical and political issues that range in scale and consequence from minor inconveniences in travel or communication to decisions that may dictate the immediate violent deaths of thousands of people or choices that have long-term, potentially large, but uncertain effects.

WEAPONS SYSTEMS. Perhaps the most obvious instance arises from the development of weapons systems that directly or inadvertently target civilian populations as well as military forces. The most dramatic are the nuclear weapons used by the United States against Japan to end World War II but not used since. In 1945 there was some debate in government circles and the scientific community about using a weapon with such destructive power and unleashing a means of warfare that would have a profound effect on international relations.

That decision remains controversial, but at the time the imperative to end the war and avoid large losses of American lives in an invasion of Japan was irresistible to the U.S. president. Moreover, a different technological weapon—incendiary bombs—had already been used against both Germany and Japan with equivalent loss of life; the atomic bomb did not appear radically different in terms of the number of lives at risk. There are other arguments about the moral use of this weapon, but these were decisive at the time (Alperovitz 1996).

The decision to proceed with development of the hydrogen (fusion) bomb in 1950 was likewise fraught with moral and political consequences because of the extent of the destruction it could unleash (Bundy 1988).

The policy of nuclear deterrence that is based on the destructive power of nuclear weapons—that is, the paradoxical threat of use in order to avoid use—has been highly controversial. Conventional weapons systems that cause considerable "collateral" damage—the death and destruction of noncombatants—raise moral issues as well, though on a smaller scale.

Other weapons-related programs and policies that have been proposed and questioned on ethical grounds include nuclear test ban treaties and ballistic missile defense. The Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) and subsequent proposals to limit testing in space and underground have necessarily involved politicians working closely with scientists and engineers on programs that had wide moral support. In the case of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars" program to create a shield against nuclear armed ballistics missiles, a program revived by President George W. Bush as the National Missile Defense, there have been important questions about feasibility and functionality in which science, technology, and ethics are intimately intertwined.

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE. A major environment-related ethical issue of international significance is the threat of global climate change or warming, which (like CFC emissions) became an issue only as a result of theoretical calculations made by scientists, not evidence of actual damage. Based on computer models and solid evidence of the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric greenhouse gases, scientists have warned that more solar radiation will lead to a growing heat burden for the planet. Depending on the timing and magnitude of the effects, the impact could be very large, with a major effect on low-lying nations (because of sea-level rise) and on agricultural production, especially in developing countries. The calculations of the scientists are controversial, but the relevant scientific community has accepted the validity of the threat. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international panel of scientists from many countries charged by governments to assess the danger, increasingly accepts the existence of the phenomenon and in its last assessment predicted a temperature rise between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Centigrade by the end of the twenty-first century (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001).

International negotiations have been proceeding since the "Earth Summit" in Rio in 1992, itself a major science and technology related international event, with a Framework Convention on Climate Change that was negotiated that same year and entered into force in 1994; in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was accepted for ratification (Skolnikoff 1999, O'Riordan and Jager 1996). The United States under President Clinton signed the protocol, but President George W. Bush withdrew the signature and has refused to consider ratification. The U.S. Administration argument is that the science is not proven, the developing countries that eventually will be major producers of carbon dioxide have no obligations under the protocol, and the costs to the American economy would be too great. Modest alternative policies, largely voluntary, have been pursued instead by the Administration. Regardless of the merits of the general arguments, the ethical issue is stark: Does the United States, which is by far the major producer of greenhouse gases (25 percent or more of global emissions), have the right to ignore an issue that could have a catastrophic effect on other countries and peoples? The United States will suffer from global warming, but its wealth will make it relatively easy to adapt to the effects of changes in climate. That is not true for other countries, especially the poorer ones.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) raise significant ethical questions. These organisms, which so far have been used largely in the agriculture domain, are familiar crop strains (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton) modified by biotechnological techniques to have valuable new characteristics, such as reduced sensitivity to herbicides and better cold-weather stamina (Thompson 2002). The new strains have been introduced widely in the United States but have been resisted in some other countries, particularly in Europe.

Companies that market GMO products in the United States assert that the resultant food is indistinguishable at the consumer level from unmodified food; Europeans respond that the evidence is inconclusive. Moreover, consumers in Europe insist that food should be labeled so that they have a choice about whether to buy modified food. The United States takes the position that labeling would destroy the market for the American-produced food, that there is no scientific evidence of danger, and that the European position is a ploy to protect European agriculture from less expensive imports. Some African countries, desperately in need of food aid such as Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Angola have refused U.S. food on the grounds that their crops would become "contaminated" and thus unable to be exported to Europe (Bohannon 2002). The United States is taking the issue to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the grounds that the E.U. policy is a form of protectionism. Yet Europeans argue that the United States is attempting to impose its values in an area that will be irreversible once the modified crop strains are in widespread use. Does one nation have the right to make such a decision regardless of the validity of the political and economic arguments?

FOREIGN WORKERS. An issue that is a perennial focus of criticism of multinational corporations is variance in the standards of treatment of workers in different countries. Is it ethically appropriate for corporations to follow identical standards regardless of local wages or living and employment conditions, or should there be differences that take account of variations in income or environment? U.S. corporations often have been the focus of protest, especially when they pay workers in developing countries wages much below American scales or do not provide equivalent working conditions.

The subcommission for protecting and promoting human rights of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has been drafting a code on norms of responsibility for multinational corporations, the draft of which was approved in August 2003 (Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights 2003). If the draft ultimately is approved by the full commission and accepted by the member states, it will for the first time create a standard for the ethical behavior of multinational corporations. Final approval will not create an enforcement mechanism but should have considerable influence, particularly on larger corporations that are vulnerable to public pressure and protest.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS. An issue with similar characteristics is the general subject of intellectual property rights (IPR). Patents, including those in the pharmaceutical industry, copyrights, and trademarks are issued to provide a protected monetary return for an inventor or artist and thus to encourage innovation and performance. Ethical issues arise when intellectual property is pirated or when royalties or fees are too high for developing countries.

Often new technologies are not available in developing countries because of the cost. When copying of intellectual property is easy and low-cost, as in the case of copying videos or music records without paying the copyright fee, the result has been wholesale reproduction and sale at a fraction of the original price. This would seem to be clearly unethical. Many argue, however, that it is the IPR regime that is unethical and that intellectual property should be considered a public good, freely available or available at a low cost, to anyone. That position is not likely to be accepted in countries that produce most of the intellectual property, which argue that without a chance to recoup costs, innovation and artistry would dry up. It is particularly important for the United States, which is increasingly dependent on high-technology and innovation-intensive goods. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) of the WTO represents an attempt to reach international agreement on this issue, so far with limited success.

Another IPR debate focuses on the patenting of genetically engineered organisms and of products found in the wild for use in pharmaceutical research and development. In the case of genetically engineered organisms, the European Union is much more restrictive on this practice than the United States, thus raising an IPR issue that requires international harmonization. The patenting of biological discoveries in what are sometimes called "gene-rich" poor countries by corporations based in so-called "gene-poor" rich countries has been criticized as a form of "biopiracy" that fails adequately to compensate the country from which these new resources are derived.

TERRORISM. A more recent issue has arisen from the fear of terrorists' use of scientific data. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has sought to limit the publication of the results of research that might benefit terrorists. This has revived issues of the proper boundaries of government imposed scientific secrecy that were prominent during the Cold War but had abated since, and is particularly relevant in the case of fast-moving biological research but also affects other areas with weapons potential, particularly in the nuclear and chemical fields. Scientists are resisting such regulations on the grounds that they would degrade the scientific enterprise and make it difficult to counter possible weapons development or acquisition by terrorists. Should it be possible to publish in a journal or on the Internet any information, such as the methodology for producing biological agents or the design of a nuclear weapon, that could be misused even though the information is otherwise available and is not classified? What is the ethical (and political) judgment? The issue has not been settled (Skolnikoff 2002), although a number of biology journals have agreed to institute a review process to flag potentially dangerous articles and consider how the suspect material might be reduced or eliminated. No recent cases of "prior" censorship outside classified areas have reached the courts.

Other Issues

Weapons systems, global climate change, genetically modified organisms, foreign workers, intellectual property rights, and terrorism constitute six representative international relations issues intimately engaged with science and technology. Many others might be mentioned, from population growth, economic development (the rich/poor divide and the proper parameters of foreign aid), and world health, to biodiversity loss, the allocation of resources in international waters (as provided for in the Law of the Sea Treaty, 1982) and space (including communication satellite orbits), and remote sensing of countries and individuals from space without their permission.

Issues of these kinds arise ubiquitously and are a natural product of advances in science and technology and the use of those advances in national and international policies. In recognition of this fact, the U.S. National Research Council (1999) argued strongly for major innovations in the department of state to more effectively deal with these issues. Improved education and personnel policies for regular foreign service officers, creation of a new post of science adviser to the Secretary, and recruitment of more scientists and engineers to the department's ranks were advocated and most of the recommendations approved by the then Secretary. Additionally, all sciences and technologies are "dual use" in the sense that they can be used for benign or malevolent purposes. Inevitably, they will often pose choices that raise ethical as well as social, political, and economic considerations. Some of those choices will be minor and insignificant, but others will require careful thought and almost surely will be controversial.

EUGENE B. SKOLNIKOFF

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alperovitz, Gar. (1996). The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. New York: Vintage. A controversial analysis of the decision to drop the a-bomb that argues the primary purpose was to influence future negotiations with the Soviet Union.

Bohannon, John. (2002). "Zambia Rejects GM Corn on Scientists' Advice." Science 298(8): 1153–1154.

Bundy, McGeorge. (1988). Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years. New York: Random House. Superb account of the policy process and decisions surrounding nuclear weapons by the special assistant for national security affairs to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2001). Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Cambridge, UK: Author. The third assessment report to the international community from scientists appointed by some fifty governments. The most authoritative single voice, though controversial among a minority of scientists.

Keatley, Anne G., ed. (1985). Technological Frontiers and Foreign Relations. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Of special interest are Simon Ramo's "The Foreign Dimensions of National Technology Policy," Richard N. Cooper and Ann L. Hollick's "International Relations in a Technologically Advanced Future," and C. W. Robinson's "Technological Advances—Their Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy Relative to the Developing Nations."

Lee, Thomas H., and Proctor P. Reid. (1991). National Interests in an Age of Global Technology. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. The emerging global technical enterprise is altering relations among nations.

Morgenthau, Hans J. (1948). Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Knopf.

O'Riordan, Tim, and Jill Jager. (1996). Politics of Climate Change: A European Perspective. London: Routledge. An analysis of European views by two knowledgeable environmentalists.

Skolnikoff, Eugene B. (1993). The Elusive Transformation: Science, Technology and the Evolution of International Politics. A Council of Foreign Relations Book. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. On how international politics has been changed by science and technology advance since World War II. For an earlier, more restricted overview: Science, Technology, and American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967).

Skolnikoff, Eugene B. (1999). "The Role of Science in Policy: The Climate Change Debate in the United States." Environment 41(5): 42–44. A political analysis of the climate change debate in the U.S. that shows how and why the scientific evidence plays a much lesser role than would be expected in this quintessential science-related subject.

Skolnikoff, Eugene B. (2002). "Research Universities and National Security: Can Traditional Values Survive?" In Science and Technology in a Vulnerable World, ed. Albert H. Teich, Stephen D. Nelson, and Stephen J. Lita. Washington, DC: Association for the Advancement of Science. On threats to American research universities posed by the attempts to keep potentially dangerous scientific information out of the hands of terrorists.

Thomson, Jennifer A. (2002). Genes for Africa: Genetically Modified Crops in the Developing World. Landsdowne, South Africa: University of Capetown Press.

United Nations Commission on Human Rights. (2003). Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12 Minneapolis: Human Rights Library, University of Minnesota.

U.S. National Research Council. (1999). The Pervasive Role of Science, Technology, and Health in Foreign Policy: Imperatives for the Department of State. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Wines, Michael. (2004). "Angola's Plan To Turn Away Altered Food Imperils Aid." New York Times: March 30, p. A3.

Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics