This topical and timely book critically explores contemporary liberal international relations theory. In the fifty years since the declaration of human rights, the language of international relations has come to incorporate the language of justice and injustice. The book argues that if justice is to become the governing principle of international politics, then liberals must recognise that their political preferences cannot be the preconditions of global ethics. The hierarchy of international political ethics must be constructed afresh so that the first principles of justice are accessible to all agents as political and ethical equals. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars in politics, international relations, political theory and ethics.

Peter Sutch is Lecturer in the School of European Studies at the University of Wales, Cardiff.

Introduction 1. Setting the Scene; International Relations as Political Theory 2. Cosmopolitanism and Critical Cosmopolitanism 3. Developmental communitarianism: liberal Ambitions, Secular Approaches 4. Critical Constructivism: Onora O'Neill on Moral and Institutional Cosmopolitanism 5. Secular Hegelianism: Frost and the Limits of Developmental communitarianism 6. Michael Walzer: Moral Creativity and the Minimalist Universalism of Reiteration 7. John Rawls, Developmental Communitarianism and International Ethics Conclusion