The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2013

22 JULY-AUGUST 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A code of ethics is essential to give diplo- matic practitioners guidance with respect to personal, as well as official, boundaries. Here are some components of such a code. BY EDWARD MARKS ETHICS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMAT D iplomats have suffered from bad press for a long time. Back in the 17th century, Sir Henry Wooton famously quipped that a diplo- mat is “an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country.” The profession of diplomacy can- not seem to shake Sir Henry’s witticism. Yet the remark also implied that there were layers of behavior involved, between states or governments with their raisons d’état on the surface, and individual agents or diplomats with their personal ethical concerns just underneath. Against that backdrop, practitioners of diplomacy have worked hard to make their profession more respectable. In 1716, French diplomat Francois de Callieres published De la manière de négocier avec les souverains (“On the Manner of Negotiating with Sovereigns,” often translated as “The Practice of Diplo- FOCUS PROFESSIONAL ETHICS