Can Institutions Have Responsibilities?

Can institutions (in the sense of formal organizations) bear duties and be ascribed blame in the same way that we understand individual human beings to be morally responsible for actions? The idea of the "institutional moral agent" is critically examined in the guise of states, transnational corporations, the UN, NATO and international society in the context of some of the most critical and debated issues and events in international relations, including the Kosovo Campaign, development aid, and genocide in Rwanda.

'Introduction: Why the Moral Agency of Institutions Matters to International Relation--T. Erskine * Part I: Identifying Moral Agents: States, Governments and 'International Society' * Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and Quasistates--T. Erskine * Moral Responsibility and the Problem of Representing the State--D. Runciman * Moral Agency and International Society: Reflections on Norms, the UN, the Gulf War, and the Kosovo Campaign--C. Brown * Part II: Obstacles and Alternative Questions * Collective Moral Agency and the Political Process--F. Harbour * Constitutive Theory and Moral Accountability: Individuals, Institutions, and Dispersed Practices--M. Frost * When Agents Cannot Act: International Institutions as 'Moral Patients'--C. Navari * Part III: Hard Cases: Assigning Duties * NATO and the Individual Soldier as Moral Agents with Reciprocal Duties: Imbalance in the Kosovo Campaign--P. Cornish & F. Harbour * The Anti-Sweatshop Movement: Constructing Corporate Moral Agency in the Global Apparel Industry--R. DeWinter * Part IV: Hard Cases: Apportioning Blame * The Responsibility of Collective External Bystanders in Cases of Genocide: The French in Rwanda--D. Kroslak * The United Nations and the Fall of Srebrenica: Meaningful Responsibility and International Society--A. Lang, Jr. * Part V: Conclusions * On 'Good Global Governance', Institutional Design an the Practices of Moral Agency--N. Rengger * Institutions of Global Justice? Aims, Capacities and Responsibilities--C. Barry * Selected Bibliography