Ethical dilemmas of back-channel diplomacy: Necessary secrecy or a secret foreign policy?

Abstract

Back-channel diplomacy allows participants to hold dialogues with actors with whom they are not prepared to talk openly. The secrecy of back channels can, however, permit a small elite to escape oversight and scrutiny to achieve unaccountable aims. This article examines the ethical dilemmas raised by the secrecy of back channels. It seeks to develop some practical 'tests' that can be used to ask whether a back channel is straying, or has strayed, into dangerous ethical territory. The article advances three such tests for further development, but also concludes that they cannot be 'absolute'; the context in which a back channel operates is the key variable.