Most questions commonly asked about international politics are ethical ones. Should the international community intervene in Bosnia? What do we owe the starving in Somalia? What should be done about the genocide in Rwanda? Yet, Mervyn Frost argues, ethics is accorded a marginal position within the academic study of international relations. In this book he examines the reasons given for this, and evaluates those ethical theories that do exist within the discipline. Finally, he elaborates his own ethical theory, which he derives from Hegel, and applies it to central ethical problems in international politics today.