Implicit Ethics: Normative Claims to Culture in Multilateral Negotiations

Abstract

Multilateral negotiations are often critiqued for not sufficiently addressing issues of justice and for rendering contentious issues ‘technical.’ Such a view is problematic as it limits the voicing of justice claims to explicit utterances and neglects implicit claims. This paper shows that the communicative modalities of multilateral negotiations can lead to situations in which a shift to implicit justice claims is advantageous. The seeming absence of such claims does not necessarily preclude a mostly technical discourse or the absence of issues of justice but can also signify a shift towards a strategically favorable diplomatic register in which normative stances are implied but not made explicit.