For more than three decades, Mervyn Frost has been one of the quiet architects reshaping how scholars and policymakers think about right and wrong on the world stage. From his post at King’s College London, Frost has challenged the dominance of hard-nosed realism in international relations, arguing that questions of ethics are not a luxury to be added after the fact, but are built into every diplomatic move, military intervention and trade deal.
At a time when global politics is defined by drone warfare, climate crisis and mass migration, Frost’s work has taken on renewed urgency. As professor of international relations in the Department of War Studies at King’s, he has developed a distinctive “constitutive theory” of ethics in international politics-contending that our global institutions, laws and practices don’t simply regulate behavior, they shape what states and citizens can do and be.This article explores Frost’s intellectual trajectory, the core ideas behind his ethical framework, and the influence of his thinking within and beyond King’s College London. In doing so, it poses a stark question: if ethics are already embedded in international politics, what responsibilities do decision-makers bear when they choose one set of rules-and one vision of global order-over another?
Tracing Mervyn Frosts ethical turn in international relations at Kings College London
When Frost arrived at King’s, he quietly but decisively unsettled the prevailing orthodoxy that treated power, interests, and security as ethically neutral. Through his work on constitutive theory, he argued that global politics is not merely a stage on which actors pursue pre-given goals, but a space where shared rules and norms shape who those actors are in the first place. In seminar rooms overlooking the Strand, he pushed students and colleagues alike to confront uncomfortable questions: What obligations do states owe strangers? How do human rights commitments reshape sovereignty? Can military alliances be morally justified beyond strategic convenience? His influence seeped into research agendas, PhD projects, and public debates, positioning King’s as a hub where ethical reflection and strategic analysis are no longer kept in separate silos.
Instead of treating ethics as an afterthought, Frost insisted that moral reasoning belongs at the center of how we study and practice international politics. This shift became visible in the everyday life of the department through:
- Curriculum design – core modules integrating normative theory with case studies on war, intervention, and diplomacy.
- Research culture – workshops where scholars tested claims about justice, legitimacy, and obligation alongside empirical findings.
- Policy engagement – briefings to officials that foregrounded moral dilemmas, not just strategic trade-offs.
| Theme | Key Question |
|---|---|
| Humanitarian Intervention | When does saving lives justify breaking borders? |
| Global Justice | What do rich states owe the global poor? |
| Civil Society | How do activists reshape state responsibilities? |
How normative theory reshapes foreign policy practice in Frosts scholarship
In Frost’s work, ethical argument is not an afterthought to statecraft but the ground on which decisions are made, contested, and legitimised. He exposes how diplomats and policymakers already rely on shared assumptions about rights, responsibilities and membership when they talk about intervention, sanctions or asylum. By surfacing these often-hidden assumptions, his normative approach invites practitioners to ask different questions: not only “What is in our national interest?” but also “What kind of international community do our choices help to build?” This shift doesn’t replace strategy; it reframes it, making explicit the moral narratives that underpin everyday diplomatic routines and crisis responses alike.
- Citizenship vs. humanity in refugee protection
- Sovereignty vs. responsibility in military intervention
- Security vs. liberty in counter‑terrorism
| Policy Arena | Conventional Lens | Frost’s Ethical Lens |
|---|---|---|
| Humanitarian intervention | Risk, cost, alliances | Duties to strangers, justifiability |
| Sanctions | Pressure on regimes | Impact on the vulnerable |
| Migration control | Border management | Fairness of inclusion rules |
By foregrounding these contrasts, Frost encourages officials to treat policy debates as contests over the kind of moral community international society should become. His scholarship suggests that when diplomats invoke terms like “responsibility,” “solidarity,” or “security,” they are not using neutral descriptors but advancing rival ethical projects. That insight reorients practice: policy memos, legal opinions and negotiating briefs are read as normative performances that can either entrench exclusion and hierarchy or expand recognition and justice across borders.
Inside the Ethics in International Politics programme teaching methods case studies and classroom debates
Step into Frost’s classroom and the first thing you notice is how quickly abstract principles are pushed into the realm of lived experience. Students do not just read about sovereignty, human rights or global justice-they test these ideas against real-world dilemmas, from targeted sanctions to climate migration. Short, tightly framed case studies drawn from current affairs anchor each session, with small groups dissecting who is accountable, who benefits, and who is silenced. The emphasis is on rigorous argument, but also on listening: competing moral claims are laid out, challenged and refined in an atmosphere more akin to an editorial meeting than a traditional lecture.
Classroom debates are structured as carefully as any diplomatic negotiation. Students are assigned roles, briefed with minimalist but revealing dossiers, and asked to defend positions they may personally disagree with. This purposeful dislocation pushes them to recognise the ethical logics at work in differing national and institutional standpoints. Typical activities include:
- Rapid-response panels on breaking international crises
- Ethical “red-teaming” of UN resolutions or peace agreements
- Mini-simulations of Security Council or regional bloc negotiations
- Short position papers defending contested moral choices
| Activity | Main Skill | Ethical Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Case briefing | Analytical clarity | Responsibility & harm |
| Role-play debate | Outlook-taking | Justice & legitimacy |
| Resolution drafting | Practical reasoning | Compromise & norm-setting |
Recommendations for policymakers integrating Frosts ethical framework into real world diplomatic decisions
Translating Frost’s insights into diplomatic practice begins with reorienting policy design around the ethical texture of international society, rather than treating norms as afterthoughts. Ministers and negotiators can institutionalise this shift by building cross-departmental ethics reviews into treaty drafting, peace talks and sanctions regimes, ensuring that questions of legitimacy and moral responsibility are addressed alongside security and economic interests. Embedding trained ethicists within foreign ministries,mandating public justification of major foreign policy decisions,and using deliberative forums with civil society are concrete ways to surface the “practices and values” Frost argues actually constitute international order. In this way,diplomats move from asking only “Will this work?” to also asking “What kind of international society does this decision help to create?”
- Codify normative benchmarks (human rights,accountability,reciprocity) in strategy documents
- Audit existing agreements for hidden ethical assumptions and power asymmetries
- Scenario-test policies for their impact on trust and recognition between states
- Report publicly on ethical trade-offs,not just material costs and benefits
| Policy Arena | Frost-Inspired Focus | Practical Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Sanctions | Responsibility & fairness | Ethical impact checklist |
| Climate diplomacy | Global justice | Intergenerational equity test |
| Security alliances | Solidarity | Shared values charter |
| Migration deals | Human dignity | Rights-compliance review |
Frost’s work also invites policymakers to treat diplomacy as a publicly accountable practice,not an insulated realm of “reason of state”. This means revising training curricula so that future diplomats study competing ethical traditions,including critical perspectives on how power and exclusion operate within “rules-based orders”. Governments can pilot ethics-focused evaluation of embassies and special envoys, assessing not only outcomes but the quality of dialogue, transparency and respect shown to weaker partners.By setting up independent advisory panels that include scholars, NGOs and voices from the Global South, states can expose their foreign policy to principled contestation-precisely the kind of normative argument Frost sees as vital to a more just international politics.
The Way Forward
In an era marked by shifting power balances, technological disruption and resurgent nationalism, Frost’s work stands as a reminder that international politics is never just a contest of interests, but always also a struggle over values. From his base at King’s College London, he has helped to recast debates on intervention, human rights and global responsibility in explicitly ethical terms, challenging both policymakers and scholars to justify not only what they do, but why they do it.Whether or not one accepts his particular brand of normative theory, the questions he insists on asking have become harder to ignore.As crises multiply and the costs of action and inaction grow, Frost’s enduring contribution may be this: he has made it more tough for states to hide behind the language of necessity, and more urgent for global actors to confront the moral stakes of their decisions. In the world he describes, ethics is not an optional extra in international politics. It is indeed the argument at the heart of it.
