The West's disregard for global norms is endangering the world

In the summer of the year 416 BCE, an Athenian naval fleet turned up on the island of Melos and demanded that its population submit to slavery. The Melians argued that since they had refused to side with Sparta—Athens' main adversary in the ongoing conflict —and instead wished to remain neutral, it would only be right for the big powers to leave them alone. The Athenian response, one of the famous lines in world history, was "You understand as well as we do that in the human sphere judgements about justice are relevant only between those with an equal power…