Some say interests are enough: that nations can settle issues by power and money alone.

The Centre for Ethical Foreign Affairs, CEFA, exists so people can rise above transactional politics. CEFA believes that international issues will improve when they are guided by ethics and ethical concerns.

But ethics pulls decisions in several directions, and often they conflict. It is ethical to honour treaties, but it may also be ethical to break them on the occasions when lives are at stake. If a leader is elected to preserve the peace, when is it ethical for them to go to war?

It is not enough to say we value democracy, international security, prosperity, the rule of law, human rights, protecting the environment, and human flourishing. We must recognise there are trade-offs, and that choices often need to be made between them.

There are several ways to tell good from bad, and right from wrong. Rather than advocate for a single notion of ethics, CEFA welcomes people with views from across the political spectrum, and with different approaches to international relations theory.

Our guiding principle is that foreign affairs should be conducted with ethics in mind, and that practitioners should try to do what’s best. The challenge is determine what best is.

CEFA exists to help answer that challenge.