Campaign '04: Candidates take different approaches to unilateralism

Published: 2004-09-14

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The words "unilateralism" and "multilateralism" won't make it into either presidential campaign's ads or sound bites, but Catholic peace experts say they represent an important difference between the two main candidates on questions of war and peace. Republican President George W. Bush has a tendency toward unilateralism, while Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry espouses a more multilateral approach, according to the experts. Catholic social teaching on international justice and peace promotes greater use of international law and international institutions as a means of protecting human rights and the common good. The differences between the two candidates on questions of unilateralism and multilateralism are not black and white, however. "There is a different emphasis, but not much of a fundamental difference," said Gerard Powers, director of policy studies at the University of Notre Dame's Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, associate editor of the national Catholic magazine America, said the issue is important, however. He told Catholic News Service, "I think the Bush administration, as it's articulated its foreign policy ... , would be the polar opposite of the Catholic position because it rejects multilateralism for aggressive, muscular unilateralism, even with respect to our closest allies, saying no one else will determine what our interests are or what we will do. And that includes preventive war."

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