Since the end of the cold war a growing number of moral entrepreneurs have been repeatedly targeting states, international organizations and multinationals and have asked them to render account of their past or present wrongdoings. This paper shows why the post-cold war world has favored transnational moral critique. These accusations innovate in the realm of international ethics traditionally grounded in interstate relations. They are based on a global consequentialist framework, which plays an increasing role in the process of justification of political and economic decisions at the domestic as well as at the international level. This paper focuses on one of its most significant dimensions, its counterfactual rationale. It discusses the moral uses of counterfactuals and their function in the construction of international ethics.