Global Challenge 15. How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

Increasing protests around the world show a growing unwillingness to tolerate unethical decisionmaking by power elites. An increasingly educated and Internet-connected generation is rising up against the abuse of power around the world and demanding accountability.

The proliferation of unethical decisions that led to the 2008 financial crisis clearly demonstrated the interdependence of economics and ethics. Quick fixes avoided a global financial collapse and pulled the world out of recession, but the underlying ethical questions have not been addressed sufficiently to prevent future crises. The moral will to act in collaboration across national, institutional, religious, and ideological boundaries that is necessary to address today's global challenges requires global ethics, while public morality based on religious metaphysics is challenged daily by growing secularism, leaving many unsure about the moral basis for decisionmaking. Many turn back to old traditions for guidance, giving rise to fundamentalist movements in many religions today. Unfortunately, religions and ideologies that claim moral superiority give rise to "we-they" splits that are being played out in conflicts around the world.

The acceleration of scientific and technological change seems to grow beyond conventional means of ethical evaluation. Is it ethical to clone ourselves or bring dinosaurs back to life or to invent thousands of new life forms through synthetic biology? Is it ethical to implement new S&T developments without proper safety testing, or develop new forms of weapons without human control over their use and safe disposal? Should basic scientific research be pursued without direct regard for social issues and the society that funds it? Might social considerations impair progress toward truthful understanding of reality? Since journalists have to "hype" to be read in such an information-noisy world, truth can be distorted, resulting in a cynical public.

With the acceleration of change, is it time to invent anticipatory ethical systems? Just as law has a body of previous judgments to draw on for guidance, will we also need bodies of ethical judgments about possible future events? Despite the extraordinary achievements of S&T, future risks from the continued acceleration and globalization remain (see the Science and Technologysection under Research in GFIS) and give rise to future ethical issues (see Future Ethical Issues, also under Research in GFIS). For example, it is possible that one day in the future a single individual could make and deploy a bioweapon of mass destruction. Society will naturally want to prevent this, requiring early detection and probably invasion of privacy and abridgment of other civil rights. To reduce the number of such potentially massively destructive people in the future, healthy psychological development of all children should be the concern of everyone. Such observations are not new, but the consequences of failure to nurture mentally healthy, moral people may be much more serious in the future than they were in the past. If individuals can be identified who are very likely to commit or who are preparing acts of mass terrorism, is it ethical to arrest them before the act? The Snowden-NSA revelations give rise to a global discussion of individual and sovereign rights versus collective security. The ethical grounds of using advanced surveillance technologies on the public and political protesters at the behest of governments or private companies are also questioned.

At the same time, new technologies also make it easier for more people to do more good at a faster pace than ever before. Single individuals initiate groups on the Internet, organizing actions worldwide around specific ethical issues. News media, blogs, mobile phone cameras, ethics commissions, and NGOs are increasingly exposing unethical decisions and corrupt practices.

It is quite likely that the vast majority of decisions every day around the world are perfectly honorable. Collective responsibility for global ethics in decisionmaking is embryonic but growing. Corporate social responsibility programs, ethical marketing, and social investing are increasing. Global ethics also are emerging around the world through the evolution of ISO standards and international treaties that are defining the norms of civilization. Richard Branson has created Plan B for businesses to make decisions for people, planet, and profit, but not just for profit. Bill Gates is recruiting billionaires to give half of their money to address global challenges.

Despite the progress made, corruption remains prevalent throughout the world. Each year, $1-1.6 trillion is paid in bribes. Transparency International's 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index found that of the 177 countries and territories assessed, 114 countries scored below 50 (on a scale from 0=highly corrupt to 100=very clean), revealing the serious worldwide spread of abuse of power and corruption. Its Global Corruption Barometer reports that 27% of those surveyed said they had paid a bribe in the past 12 months, 53% believe corruption has increased or increased a lot in the past two years, and 88% of respondents said they believe their government to be ineffective at tackling corruption. One of the most worrisome things to come out of the report was a description of the ways in which high bribery rates in poor countries can block development. This is further aggravated by the concentration of personal wealth (the richest 10% own 86% of global wealth), which brings into question the ethics of political decisions and of the present economic and social systems.

Other major ethical issues faced by the world include the fact that between 12 million and 29.8 million people are slaves today, more than at the height of the nineteenth-century slave trade; organized crime takes in over $3 trillion annually; and rich countries send some 50 million tons of waste to developing countries each year. There are approximately 10.5 million children ages 5-14 working in hazardous and oftentimes slavery-like conditions, with 71% of those being young girls. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, backed by the World Bank, was launched in 2002 to obligate companies and countries to make public the terms of oil, gas, and mineral deals with developing countries; it now has 25 compliant countries and 16 candidate countries, and 35 members have produced EITI reports.

By the beginning of 2014, a total of 170 countries and the European Union had ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption. This agreement established definitions and rules of behavior and is the only legally binding universal anti-corruption instrument. The UN Global Compact was created to reinforce ethics in business decisionmaking. As of 2014 it has 7,978 companies and 4,140 civil society organizations from 145 countries registered, while some 4,290 businesses have been expelled for failing to report progress on meeting the Compact's goals. It has improved business-NGO collaboration, raised the profile of corporate responsibility programs, increased businesses' non-financial reporting mandates in many countries, and created a 2014-16 strategy to further businesses' ethical roles in peace and development. The International Criminal Court is successfully trying political leaders, and the proceedings are Web-cast. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights continues to shape discussions about global ethics and decisions across religious and ideological divides.

We need to create better incentives for ethics in global decisions, promote parental guidance to establish a sense of values, teach ethics and solidarity principles in schools, encourage respect for legitimate authority while demanding accountability, support the identification and success of the influence of role models, implement cost-effective strategies for global education for a more enlightened world, and make behavior match the values people say they believe in. Entertainment media could promote memes like "make decisions that are good for me, you, and the world." Ethical and spiritual education should grow in balance with the new powers given to humanity by technological progress.

Challenge 15 will be addressed seriously when corruption decreases by 50% from the World Bank estimates of 2006, when ethical business standards are internationally practiced and regularly audited, when essentially all students receive education in ethics and responsible citizenship, and when there is a general acknowledgment that global ethics transcends religion and nationality.

Regional Considerations

Africa: Since African citizens do not always share in the benefits of their natural resources, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is working to let the public know how their national natural resources are being used-and by whom and at what price. Special attention will have to be given to millions of AIDS orphans in Africa who have had little choice about growing up in unethical environments. The North African uprisings were calls for ethics in decisionmaking. Corruption in the region is estimated at $150 billion (more than the entire amount of ODA); this remains a serious impediment to democracy and economic development in many African countries. The Global Corruption Index rates 90% of sub-Saharan African countries below 50, with Somalia being the lowest rated country in the world. Most African governments' anti-corruption units are not considered successful. In the African countries surveyed in the 2013 report, an average of 49% of respondents had paid a bribe; individually, the country with lowest percentage was Rwanda, where only 13% of people reported having paid a bribe. The country with the highest percentage was Sierra Leone, where it was found that 84% of individuals had paid a bribe. Transparency International chapters in sub-Saharan Africa were established to help build capacity to counter corruption. The Business Ethics Network of Africa continues to grow, with conferences, research, and publications. The proportion of children engaged in child labor in sub-Saharan Africa is currently the highest of any region, at around 25.3%. This means that in this region, approximately one child in every four can be classified as a child laborer.

Asia and Oceania: The millions of dollars that flooded the Philippines to help it recover from Typhoon Haiyan led to corruption, reminding us to include financial accountability and transparency in natural disaster resilience planning. As China's global decisionmaking role increases, it will face traditional versus Western value conflicts. Some believe the rate of urbanization and economic growth is so fast in Asia that it is difficult to consider global ethics, while some Asians do not believe there are common global ethics and maintain that the pursuit to create them is a Western notion. Some 12% of Papua New Guinea's land has been leased to foreign companies, with allegations of corruption. New Zealand and Australia are rated by the Corruption Perceptions Index as the top and the fifth best countries respectively.

Europe: Most euro-area countries are ranked among the world's best, with less-corrupt public sectors, and only 23% of the countries (most of them in Eastern and Central Europe) score below 50. The EU Anti-Corruption Report, to be published every two years, has been set to assess and help member states' efforts to address corruption. The first report, published in February 2014, shows that 76% of the Europeans participating in the Eurobarometer survey think that corruption is widespread in their own country, with rates ranging from 20% in Denmark to 99% in Greece and 97% in Italy. Global outrage at the manipulation of the Libor rate by Barclays bank continues the pressure for more ethical management of the global financial system. The financial crisis involving Greece and other Southern European countries raises moral issues about the interdependent ethical responsibilities among citizens, the state, and members of the eurozone. The European Ethics Network is linking efforts to improve ethical decisionmaking, while Ethics Enterprise is working to mobilize an international network of ethicists and to organize innovative actions to attract attention for ethics in business. Spain and France have the greatest number of businesses in the UN Global Compact, and Spain is also the leading country in ISO 50001 energy management compliance. The growing immigrant population in Europe will challenge European integration processes, ethical standards, and future immigration policies, all spurring increasing discussions of ethics and identity for Europe. Eastern Europe and Central Asia is perceived as the most corrupt region in the world, with 95% of the countries scoring below 50; Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan rank among the world's 10 worst. Turkey's corruption scandals undermine domestic and international confidence in its leadership and its ambitions to EU accession.

Latin America: The Mexican government has recently enacted an Anti-corruption Federal Law on public procurement to punish individuals and companies for unethical behavior. The Walmart Mexican subsidiary's $24 million bribery of government officials and cover-up throughout the country is being investigated for criminal prosecution by both the U.S. and Mexico. Problems such as lack of personal security, limited access to education and health services, lack of faith in politics, badly damaged institutions that do not fulfill their role (such as the justice system and police), and the accelerated environmental degradation in some countries are aspects of a serious lack of ethical values. The prevalence of legal formality in other countries does not guarantee equal rights, as large sections of the population remain excluded from the promised protections. It also manifests as a serious lack of ethical standards in the mass media. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States pledges to address corruption and unethical practices by a cross-Latin-American integrated strategy and application of the rule of law.

North America: Because technologies of national security intelligence and their applications could evolve faster than public understanding and political oversight, the US and others have begun to fundamentally rethink security and privacy requirements after the NSA exposures by Edward Snowden. What are the ethical ways to identify individuals who are planning to make and deploy weapons of mass destruction? How far can business go to counter cyber espionage? Will a continually advancing "Internet of Things" make privacy an illusion and hence replace covert methods? Although the U.S. has provided some leadership in bringing ethical considerations into many international organizations and forums, its ethical leadership is compromised by lobbying interests; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that new systems can allow anyone (including organized crime and foreign political sources) to donate any amount of money anonymously to political media campaigns. There is still no generally accepted way to get corrupting money out of politics and elections or to stop "cozy relationships" between regulators and those they regulate. Federal ethics rules are not very efficient in limiting the "revolving doors" practice of former senior government officials; since the 2007 revision, more than 1,650 congressional aides have registered to lobby within a year of leaving Capitol Hill. Unethical financial practices from 2008 are slowly being prosecuted-for example, JPMorgan Chase was fined $13 billion for improper practices by the U.S. government. The U.S. plans to adopt legislation to make it compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Although ranked among the top best countries by the Corruption Perceptions Index, Canada has been shaken by a Senate expenses scandal and several incidents of corruption and abuse of public office, which undermined citizens' trust in government officials.

Levels of Corruption, global (from 1=highly corrupt; 10=very clean)

Graph using Trend Impact Analysis; it is part of the 2012 SOFI computation (See SOFI 2012)