Understanding Chapter 5: Navigating Legal and Ethical Responsibilities in Today’s World

The term “legal and ethical responsibilities” may seem like a heavy topic for the casual reader, yet it is becoming an increasingly dominant lens through which current events unfold. This concept and the accompanying duties are essential to the governance of states and international actors as a whole. It is also the essential lens through which various controversial political and economic developments over the past several months have been viewed. In Chapter 5 In Context: Legal and Ethical Responsibilities [pdf], Alison MacDonald writes: When viewing or deciding upon issues of legal responsibility, the question should always be pondered: If I were the ruler of the world, would I still consider this behavior that comes within the purview of legal responsibility to be an acceptable actor behavior? This begs the question with regard to current events: What would a “ruler” of the world consider excusable or inexcusable behavior? And how does this impact how we, the observers of these events, internalize current events and respond to them? Furthermore, how does this shape them? Legal responsibility is the rudimentary pathway by which individuals can take ownership for their actions; ethical guidelines and responsibilities, however, run parallel to – but are not interchangeable with – the legal system. Legal guidelines are the benchmarks by which society can measure itself; ethical guidelines are the standards that society can create for itself. As society evolves, these guidelines evolve with it. What was once acceptable may no longer be so, and what was once unacceptable may become acceptable.

The Arab revolutions have presented themselves as opening a new chapter in world history. In the Arab world, longstanding norms of authority have reached a breaking point, and the Arab Spring brought forth protests that listened to the age-old cry of the people, demanding freedom. Switzerland-based Global Commission of International Law concludes that the socio-political upheaval in the Arab world has created unprecedented opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa to build a more just twenty-first-century system of international norms. Another example of how the cries for democracy have been heard is the case of Syrian exile’s letting go of the dream of return to power in Iraq. The crux of the Arab Spring’s evolution is that the revolutions that included both might and right have become convoluted battles over political power and governance. Legal mechanisms are being circumvented, and ethical responsibilities are bent. While many revolutions ended with strong voices, such as Libya, there were still some seams that came undone, as seen recently with the decision to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi put an emphatic ending on a sore chapter of Libyan history. Here, the issue of ethics was not in the success of the mission that captured and killed the violent dictator; rather, the ethical problem came in what was a mirrored event of an execution without due process of law that came off as brutal and reminiscent of cruelty of Gaddafi and that of his predecessor.

Even the Supreme Court’s ruling that Guantanamo Bay detention facility violates international law points to ethical responsibilities of a legal governing body, in this case the United States, to adhere to said law and to the ethics contained within. The concept of ethical responsibility stems from many of the issues that the Arab revolutions created; issues that are not necessarily legal questions, yet present ethical issues. As the Arab world continues to see uprisings, debates remain in context of ethical responsibilities to your people. For example, how is the decision made to weigh the value of your people’s lives against that of your particular political regime? One case in point is the crisis in Syria. The nation’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, remains blind to the cries of the millions of his people who oppose him. Despite ongoing violence that has claimed thousands of lives, all the while spurring humanitarian cries from the world community, al-Assad remains stably in control of the nation. Voting contests such as this one here create a disconnect whereby appraisals of the recent Arab revolutions are misaligned with those that evaluate the conflict in Syria.

The sole redeeming factor is the refocus of international law and how it can integrate ethical guidelines with legal responsibilities. In the case of Syria, its repeated legal violations by the state have now built the momentum for a reform in how the international community can respond to such violations inside sovereign walls. As the struggles in the Arab world continue, so too will legal and ethical responsibilities be challenged – as they should be.

The opinions expressed in the article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Clarke Canfield LLC.