Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T17:04:39.367Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The duty to oppose violence: humanitarian intervention as a question for political philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2010

BJORN GOMES
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the non-intervention rule is often defended as a guarantee of international order, rigid adherence to it cannot be morally justified when governments commit or permit atrocities within their territory. In such cases, intervention is permissible and may even be obligatory. Drawing on the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, and to a lesser extent Hegel, this article examines the grounds of the argument for humanitarian intervention, demonstrating that intervention is in principle not only permissible but obligatory when considered philosophically. The right to intervene can be grounded on common morality, the protection of sovereignty and the coerciveness of justice. The duty to intervene rests on a respect for humanity and the conceptual relationship between rights and duties. Considering these two lines of argument shows that humanitarian intervention can be conceived as a duty that states can be reasonably required to perform.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 1045 - 1067
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Holzgrefe, J. L., ‘The Humanitarian Intervention Debate’, in Holzgrefe, J. L. and Keohane, Robert (eds), Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

2 See, for example, Bull, Hedley, ‘Introduction’, in Bull, Hedley (ed.), Intervention in World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 2–3Google Scholar ; Vincent, R. J, Nonintervention and International Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 14Google Scholar .

3 Hinsley, F. H., Sovereignty (London: Watts, 1986), p. 26Google Scholar quoted from Vincent, R. J, Nonintervention and International Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 14Google Scholar .

4 Nardin, Terry, ‘The Moral Basis of Humanitarian Intervention’, Ethics & International Affairs, 16:1 (2002), p. 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

5 Grotius, Hugo, The Rights of War and Peace (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), Book II, Chapter XXV, p. 1161Google Scholar . See also Forde, Steven, ‘Hugo Grotius on Ethics and War’, The American Political Science Review, 92:3 (1998), pp. 642–643CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

6 von Pufendorf, Samuel, The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature, trans. Tooke, Andrew, eds. Hunter, Ian and Saunders, David (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003), p. 242Google Scholar .

7 Forde, Steven, ‘Classical Realism’, in Nardin, Terry and Mapel, David R. (eds), Traditions in International Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 62–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

8 Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.106Google Scholar ; See also Smith, Michael J., ‘Ethics and Intervention’, Ethics & International Affairs, 3:1 (1989), pp. 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Smith discusses realism's disapproval of intervention, demonstrating the realists' belief in the hypocrisy involved in any appeal to ethical considerations. See also Mason, A. and Wheeler, N. J., ‘Realist Objections to Humanitarian Intervention’, in Holden, B. (ed.), The Ethical Dimensions of Global Change (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 101–102Google Scholar .

9 Goodman, Ryan. ‘Humanitarian Intervention and Pretexts for War’, The American Journal of International Law, 100:1 (2006), p. 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

10 Bellamy, Alex J., ‘Whither the Responsibility to Protect? Humanitarian Intervention and the 2005 World Summit’, Ethics & International Affairs, 20:2 (2006), p. 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

11 Bellamy, Alex J., ‘Ethics and Intervention: The “Humanitarian Exception” and the Problem of Abuse in the Case of Iraq’, Journal of Peace Research, 41:2 (2004), pp. 131–147CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Some authors claim that the war in Iraq can be classified as humanitarian intervention. Fernando Tesón, for example, defends the war in Iraq as an instance of humanitarian intervention. Tesón, Fernando R., ‘Ending Tyranny in Iraq’, Ethics & International Affairs, 19:2 (2005), pp. 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Nardin disagrees, arguing that applying the label of humanitarian intervention to the case of Iraq ‘strains’, ‘broadens’ and ‘in effect rewrites’ the traditional understanding of what rightly constitutes humanitarian intervention. Nardin, Terry, ‘Humanitarian Imperialism’, Ethics & International Affairs, 19:2 (2005), pp. 21–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar . See also Bellamy, Alex J., ‘Responsibility to Protect or Trojan Horse? The Crisis in Darfur and Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq’, Ethics & International Affairs, 19:2 (2005), pp. 31–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar . In my view, any proper conceptual understanding of humanitarian intervention immediately disqualifies the war in Iraq as an example.

12 Kochler, Hans, Global Justice or Global Revenge? : International Criminal Justice at the Crossroads (Austria: Springer, 2003), p. 313CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; see also Karoubi, Mohammad Taghi, Just or Unjust War? International Law and Unilateral Use of Armed Force by States at the Turn of the 20th Century (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), pp. 226–230Google Scholar .

13 Nardin, , Law, Morality, and the Relations of States, pp. 299–300Google Scholar ; see also Nardin, Terry, ‘Justice and Coercion’, in Bellamy, Alex J. (ed.), International Society and its Critics (New York, Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 249–251Google Scholar .

14 Cicero, , De Officiis, trans. Atkins, E. M., eds. Griffin, M. T. and Atkins, E. M. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 10Google Scholar .

15 Nardin, , Law, Morality, and the Relations of States, p. 299Google Scholar .

16 For commentaries showing Rousseau's ‘realism’, see, for example, Doyle, Michael W., Ways of War and Peace (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), pp. 137–159Google Scholar ; Clark, Ian, Reform and Resistance in the International Order (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 55–75Google Scholar ; Waltz, Kenneth N., Man, the State and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), pp. 180–186Google Scholar ; Forde, ‘Classical Realism’, pp. 78–80; Hinsley, F. H., Power and the Pursuit of Peace (London: Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 46–61Google Scholar ; Hoffmann, Stanley, The State of War (London: Pall Mall Press, 1965), pp. 54–87Google Scholar . For commentaries that disagree with this ‘realist’ labelling of Rousseau, see, among others, Williams, Michael C., ‘Rousseau, Realism and Realpolitik’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 18:2 (1989), pp. 185–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Aiko, Yuichi, ‘Rousseau and Saint-Pierre's Peace Project: A Critique of “History of International Relations Theory”’, in Beate, Jahn (ed.), Classical Theory in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 96–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Knutsen, Torbjørn L., ‘Re-Reading Rousseau in the Post-Cold War World’, Journal of Peace Research, 31:3 (1994), pp. 247–262CrossRefGoogle Scholar . For an interesting account of Rousseau's Hobbesianism, see Tuck, Richard, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 197–207Google Scholar .

17 Matthew, Richard A., Dichotomy of Power: Nation vs State in World Politics (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002), p. 156Google Scholar ; Clark, , Reform and Resistance in the International Order, pp. 63, 67Google Scholar ; Hoffmann, , The State of War, pp. 73–74Google Scholar ; Tuck, , The Rights of War and Peace, pp. 205–207Google Scholar .

18 Hoffmann, , The State of War, p. 86Google Scholar .

19 Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 52Google Scholar .

20 Hoffmann, , The State of War, p. 58Google Scholar .

21 Ibid., p. 73.

22 Clark, , Reform and Resistance in the International Order, p. 62Google Scholar .

23 Doyle, , Ways of War and Peace, p. 147Google Scholar .

24 Hoffmann, , The State of War, pp. 73, 55Google Scholar .

25 Clark, , Reform and Resistance in the International Order, p. 63Google Scholar .

26 Ibid., p. 67.

27 Knutsen, ‘Re-Reading Rousseau’, p. 250. Emphasis added.

28 Ibid., p. 251.

29 Williams, ‘Rousseau, Realism and Realpolitik’, p. 198.

30 Ibid., p. 197.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., pp. 197, 198.

33 As Williams describes, ‘the process of embodying such a principle must be worked out in an enormously complex and contradictory world.’ See p. 199.

34 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Emile, trans. Bloom, Allan (New York: Basic Books, 1979), Book IV, p. 235Google Scholar .

35 Ibid.

36 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘The State of War’, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau Vol.11, trans. Kelly, Christopher and Bush, Judith, ed. Kelly, Christopher (London: University Press of New England, 2005), p. 65Google Scholar .

37 Rousseau, , Emile, p. 235Google Scholar .

38 Ibid., p. 382.

39 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘Moral Letters’, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau Vol.12, trans. and ed. Kelly, Christopher (London: University Press of New England, 2006), pp. 194–195Google Scholar .

40 I have borrowed the term ‘common morality’ from Alan Donagan. See Donagan, Alan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977)Google Scholar .

41 Shafer-Landau, Russ, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 62–63Google Scholar .

42 Rousseau, ‘Moral Letters’, p. 195.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Walzer, , Just and Unjust Wars, p. 107Google Scholar .

46 Rousseau, ‘Moral Letters’, pp. 196, 194.

47 Ibid., p. 194. Rousseau initially writes with the original in parentheses, ‘One of the torments (of the greatest tortures) that the civil state imposes on well-born people (private individuals) is always to see evil, and not to dare either to oppose it or to pity it (and to leave the wicked all-powerful) but a more powerful duty holds us back and it is a crime in the social order to make opposition to the evil one sees being done’. See p. 308.

48 Rousseau, ‘Moral Letters’, p. 198.

49 Ibid.

50 See Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar ; and Hashmi, Sohail H., ‘9/11 and the Jihad Tradition’, in Sherman, Daniel J. and Nardin, Terry (eds), Terror, Culture, Politics: Rethinking 9/11 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), pp. 149–164Google Scholar for some good examples of this reliance on common moral principles by diverse groups.

51 Rousseau, ‘The State of War’, p. 73.

52 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘The Social Contract’, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau Vol.4, trans. Masters, Roger, Kelly, Christopher and Bush, Judith, ed. Masters, Roger and Kelly, Christopher (London: University Press of New England, 1994), Book I Chapter VII, pp. 139–141Google Scholar ; Book II Chapters I & II, pp. 145–7; Book II Chapter VI, pp. 152–4; Book III, Chapter I, p. 166.

53 Rousseau, ‘The State of War’, p. 73. Emphasis added.

54 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘Political Economy’, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau Vol.3, trans. Masters, Roger, Kelly, Christopher, Bush, Judith and Marshall, Terence, ed. Masters, Roger and Kelly, Christopher (London: University Press of New England, 1992), p. 152Google Scholar .

55 Ibid.

56 For a thoughtful consideration of this issue, see Luban, David, ‘Just War and Human Rights’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 9:2 (1980), pp. 160–181Google Scholar . Some of the other articles within that volume also contribute to this discussion.

57 Donagan, Alan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 6Google Scholar .

58 Ibid. See Chapter 1 and Chapter 7.

59 Kant, Immanuel, ‘Perpetual Peace’, in Kant: Political Writings trans. Nisbet, H. B., ed. Reiss, H. S. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 96Google Scholar .

60 Ibid.

61 Wilkins, Burleigh T., ‘Kant on International Relations’, The Journal of Ethics, 11:2 (2007), p. 151CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

62 Cavallar, Georg, ‘Kantian perspectives on democratic Peace: alternatives to Doyle’, Review of International Studies, 27:2 (2001), p. 241CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

63 Wilkins, ‘Kant on International Relations’, p. 152.

64 Ibid.

65 Cavallar, ‘Kantian Perspectives’, pp. 243, 242.

66 Ibid., p. 242.

67 Ibid., p. 240.

68 Doyle, Michael W., ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12:4 (1983), p. 344Google Scholar . For a similar reading, see Jahn, Beate, ‘Kant, Mill, and Illiberal Legacies in International Affairs’, International Organization, 59:1 (2005), p. 182CrossRefGoogle Scholar . I am not suggesting that Doyle does not take a wider approach to occasions that justify intervention than traditionally understood.

69 For a brief discussion of this, see Devetak, Richard, ‘Between Kant and Pufendorf: humanitarian intervention, statist anti-cosmopolitanism and critical international theory’, Review of International Studies, 33:2 (2007), pp. 156–159, at 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

70 Tesón, ‘Ending Tyranny in Iraq’, pp. 1–20.

71 As with Rousseau, I am not recruiting Kant to the cause of humanitarian intervention.

72 I will treat the words ‘justice’ and ‘right’ as equivalent in Kant. Doing so makes sense since both words have been used to translate Recht.

73 Kant, Immanuel, ‘The Metaphysics of Morals’, in Kant: Political Writings trans. Nisbet, H. B., ed. Reiss, H. S. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 132–133Google Scholar .

74 Ibid., p. 133.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid., p. 134.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Smith, Michael J., ‘Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues’, Ethics & International Affairs, 12:1 (1998), p. 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

80 Kant, ‘The Metaphysics of Morals’, p. 134.

81 Ibid.

82 For the purposes of this article, all three terms will be taken to be interchangeable.

83 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect (Canada: International Development Research Centre, 2001), p. viiiGoogle ScholarPubMed .

84 Tan, Kok-Chor, ‘The Duty to Protect’, in Nardin, Terry and Williams, Melissa S. (eds), Humanitarian Intervention (New York: New York University Press, 2006), p. 88Google Scholar .

84 Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Gregor, Mary (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 49Google Scholar .

85 Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Gregor, Mary (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 31Google Scholar .

86 Ibid., p. 33.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

90 Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1967), p. 9Google Scholar . Although this quote comes from Morgenthau, I believe his position on the relationship between politics and morality in international politics is more complex than commonly stated.

91 Tan, ‘The Duty to Protect’, p. 103.

92 Ibid., p. 104.

93 Bagnoli, ‘Humanitarian Intervention as a Perfect Duty: A Kantian Argument’, p. 133.

94 For an excellent discussion on the moral agency of institutions see Erskine, Toni, ‘Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and Quasi-States’, Ethics & International Affairs, 15:2 (2001), pp. 67–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

95 Kant, , The Metaphysics of Morals, p. 194Google Scholar .

96 Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. xiiiGoogle Scholar quoted from Bagnoli, ‘Humanitarian Intervention as a Perfect Duty: A Kantian Argument’, p. 122.

97 Bagnoli, ‘Humanitarian Intervention as a Perfect Duty: A Kantian Argument’, p. 125.

98 Ibid., pp. 125–6.

99 Kant, , The Metaphysics of Morals, §6, p. 488Google Scholar .

100 Bagnoli, ‘Humanitarian Intervention as a Perfect Duty: A Kantian Argument’, p. 126.

101 Kant, , The Metaphysics of Morals, §6, p. 239Google Scholar .

102 Ibid., §6, p. 239.

103 Ibid., §6, p. 435. Emphasis added.

104 Ibid. §6, p. 462.

105 Ibid., §6, p. 465. Emphasis added.

106 Hegel, G. W. F., Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. Nisbet, H. B., ed. Wood, Allen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), §36, p. 69Google Scholar .

107 Ibid., §135A, p. 163.

108 Ibid., §155, p. 197.

109 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘Abstract of Monsieur the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Plan for Perpetual Peace’, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau Vol. 11, trans. Kelly, Christopher and Bush, Judith, ed. Kelly, Christopher (London: University Press of New England, 2005), p. 42Google Scholar .

110 Terentius Afer, The Self-Tormentor quoted from Cicero, , De Officiis, pp. 12–13Google Scholar .