The British approach to the study of international relations has always been eclectic and interdisciplinary. This has been reflected in the twenty-six years of the British International Studies Association's activities, including particularly its influential Journal, the Review of International Studies. The Review has accordingly never taken refuge in the safe or the scholastic, and the recent innovation of a Special Issue has permitted attention to be concentrated on the big issues of our time. The first two of these dealt with the state of our discipline and the condition of the contemporary international system respectively. The third, presented to you here in the book form which has become customary so as to reach a wider audience, treats the largest theme imaginable: how human beings can and should live at the start of the third millennium.

The starting-point is that of international relations, yet the ensuing discussion has no limits. This is not a book of moral philosophy, but nor is it a book showing what moral philosophy has to bring to our own profession. Rather, it is a demonstration of how any consideration of ethical issues in our time has to take account of the international dimension. International Studies woke up over twenty years ago to the fact that the normative flame, kept alight by a few determined characters, not least in the United Kingdom, needed carrying to every corner of the subject.