Existential threats, shared responsibility, and Australia’s role in ‘coalitions of the obligated’

ABSTRACT

In the face of the current proliferation of existential threats-the risk of nuclear war, anthropogenic climate change, COVID-19, and (arguably) disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence-it is imperative that Australia embrace the notion of shared responsibility in international politics. Individual states have limited capacities to effectively tackle such large-scale, complex emergencies on their own. Highlighting the moral implications of the philosophical notion of joint action, this commentary makes the case for a particular type of responsibility, which can only be discharged when states deliberate and coordinate their actions. Moreover, it explores what this notion of shared responsibility means for Australia-and its international relationships-with respect to responding to climate chaos and COVID-19. Even though Australia, acting on its own, can neither significantly mitigate climate change nor halt the current global pandemic, it nevertheless has demanding moral responsibilities to respond to both. This is because the capacities necessary to affect meaningful change can be created through collaboration with other institutional agents. In the absence of intergovernmental organizations able to respond effectively to such crises, Australia has shared responsibilities to contribute to establishing, and then acting as part of, informal, purpose-driven, climate change and COVID-19 ‘coalitions of the obligated’.

KEYWORDS:

• Existential threats
• climate change
• COVID-19
• moral responsibilities
• joint action
• international cooperation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I first coined this term in the context of states’ shared responsibilities to respond to mass atrocity crimes. See, for example, Erskine (2016, 180).

2 Notably, both initiatives involve consultation with other organisations, including COVAX, to coordinate assistance.

3 I am extremely grateful to Adam Kamradt-Scott for valuable discussions and pushing me to defend my position.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Toni Erskine

Toni Erskine is Professor of International Politics and Director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University (ANU). She is also Editor of International Theory: A Journal of International Politics, Law, and Philosophy and Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include: the moral agency and responsibilities of formal organisations in international politics; joint action with respect to informal associations of institutional agents; the ethics of war; the responsibility to protect (‘R2P’); cosmopolitan theories and their critics; and the impact of new technologies (particularly AI) on the exercise of restraint in war. She is currently writing a book titled: Locating Responsibility: Institutional Moral Agency and International Relations.