Once expected to guarantee the ‘salvation of mankind’, by ensuring a peaceful, healthy and prosperous global order, international organisations such as the UN, NATO, the EU have increasingly lost trust and legitimacy over recent decades. They are often accused of corruption, embezzlement, sexual scandals, poor and immoral performance, and their ability to take on pressing global challenges is compromised.

Alongside this, a wave of populism, nationalism, and isolationism threatens the stability of the international legal order and the capacity of international organisations to address policy dilemmas.

But as we have painfully witnessed with Covid-19, global cooperation and leadership is needed now more than ever, with ever mounting and more serious global policy dilemmas, including the influx of refugees, climate change, global health issues, cyber wars, and growing inequality.

So, how do we rehabilitate International organisations to ensure the fulfilment of their missions while respecting integrity and ethical values?

In this episode, Dr Maria Varaki, Lecturer in International Law at the Department of War Studies, and Dr Guilherme Vasconcelos, Associate Professor of Law at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, discuss a new volume they’ve edited - ‘Ethical leadership in international organizations'. It offers an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to looking at the importance of virtue ethics to help better understand the role of leadership in international organisations, and how this can transform approaches to tackling pressing global challenges.