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goal for Palestinians, for example. In terms of international law, furthermore, thestate is the only unit recognised to act in the name of a nation, and therefore hasnoted powers of representation, whatever its shortcomings. Hence, it may be arguedthat the state retains its significance as a vehicle of international solidarity.Realism in foreign policy, placing a premium on the jealousy with which statesguard their sovereignty in the anarchical international system, remains thecounterside of traditional internationalism for developing countries. This has beenevident in recent years in the opposition to humanitarian interventions voiced bycertain developing countries, such as South Africa, India and China, who alldisapproved vocally of NATO’s attacks on Serbia in 1999; and, most recently,BRICS opposition to military action by NATO in Libya.Thus, internationalism may be considered a set of instruments of diplomacy at thedisposal of states, while it also plays a role in defining the goals of foreign policy. Ithas ideational components, such as South-South solidarity, and multilateralism,along with instrumental components, such as commitment to the non-use of force,and to non-interventionism. While these two elements may be difficult to separatein practice, there are times when the instrumental use of internationalism is evidentat the expense of its strong moral content. This has been the basis of the strongestcritiques of Southern internationalism.2.5 Critiques of Southern InternationalismThe classical challenges to these defences of Third World, or Southern,internationalism retain some of their force, however. The realist challenge ispresented in the form of state interests, such that states can never seen to be actingaltruistically, but always governed by some commitment to the national interest.Southern governments have repeatedly vindicated these challenges in recent years,whether by the African Union’s sheltering of Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir,after his indictment on war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), or bylack of censure of illiberal governments by Southern-dominated institutions of theUN. EH Carr’s ‘realist critique of internationalism’, while he did not have largedeveloping states in mind, made the case that calls for solidarity “come from those74