Submitting to Justice?

Abstract

"In typically rhetorical tones, Tony Blair committed his government to the championing of the world’s poor and marginalised. The Labour government regularly uses morality as motivation and justification for its foreign policy.2 On election, the Department for International Development (DFID) was founded to oversee Britain’s part in the development of poorer countries and the Foreign Secretary announced an ‘ethical’ foreign policy, weighing the concerns of the poor and the environment. It seemed as if, under New Labour, foreign policy would be used not only to protect Britain’s interests but those of humanity. Although this ideal became tarnished, in 2000 Blair described eliminating poverty as, ‘the greatest moral challenge facing our generation’3 and his 2001 party conference speech restated a moral dimension to British foreign policy"