Victor Allan and Mark Safranski have initiated an engaging discussion at The Bridge and Zenpundit about Responsibility
to Protect (R2P), the idea that states are responsible for protecting their
populations and when they cannot protect them, the international community is obligated
to assist them in an escalating manner until the desired result is achieved. It is an important discussion to have given
that the United States incorporated R2P in its 2010 National Security Strategy
and the doctrine is likely to appear in the 2014 document. Further, R2P has been consistently cited by
advocates for U.S. intervention in Uganda, Sudan, Libya, Syria, and so on and
thus continues to play a prominent role in U.S. foreign affairs.
First, a brief recap of the discussion:
Victor attempts to circumvent the pesky issues regarding R2P
and state sovereignty by simply redefining sovereignty. Mark
has pointed
out that “Academic theorists do not
have the authority to override sovereign powers (!) constituted as legitimized,
recognized states and write their theories into international law,” and
highlights that several members of the U.N. Security Council disagree with the
interpretation of sovereignty that Victor advocates. Mark also states that it is a straw man argument
to claim that nations ever had carte blanche within their borders, at least
concerning the security concerns of their neighbors, as Victor asserts. The latest response by Victor
emphasizes the lesser forms of intervention under the doctrine, focusing on an
escalating level of intervention and then points out that R2P is not the
product of academic theorists but was adopted by the U.N. Security Council. He then implies that neighbor state
involvement in a nation, as referenced by Mark, represents a stealth argument for R2P principles.
I will leave aside semantic difficulties in applying R2P, like determining when
violence becomes genocide, when civil war becomes ethnic cleansing or why
hundreds of chemical weapon deaths is a human rights violation but tens of thousands
killed by bullets or bombs is not. I
will simply point out that malleable criteria, such as those outlined in describing the doctrine, are typically chosen to allow a
wider and more expansive interpretation and should be viewed as a warning sign.
Before addressing the logic of the arguments, it is
important to examine the empirical evidence.
Results are what count when evaluating a policy, not its intent. Adoption of R2P has failed to make a
significant impact on recent violence across the globe; Sudan, Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Burma, and Syria all offer examples. Victor points out
that “most of the 118 states that mentioned Syria at the UN General Assembly in
2012 expressed concern about the population,” but few were willing (or capable)
of taking action. Rhetoric is cheap but
action requires effort and thus speaks better to true attitudes. Despite what is said, R2P has not proven to be a desirable policy to pursue for most nations and as such has not been frequently applied, however much it is mentioned. While R2P is certainly compassionate in its intent, it can be argued that unintended consequences from its application will cause more harm than
good. Rarely can a foreign power solve a
nation’s internal problems, and usually attempts to do so only temporarily
alleviate them, or make them worse. Contemporary evidence can be seen
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya where in each case current conditions are arguably
worse than before intervention. This is
ironic as R2P was part of the pitch for intervening, or at least extending
intervention, in all of these cases. The
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, has noted that the intervention in
Libya was conducted not to combat actual crimes against humanity, but as a preemptive measure, creating a precedent with the potential for considerable abuse. Not
only do legitimate attempts often end in failure, and at greater cost to all parties involved, but some nations have gone
even further and used R2P as justification for war, without the ‘legalizing’
power of U.N. approval, as in Russia’s conflict with Georgia. When viewed in this light, comparing the
dangers created and the failures of the policy to prevent mass violence with how many crises have been actually been averted, R2P has not proven to be a successful or
even a neutral doctrine, but a harmful one.
Despite claims that this is due to poor implementation or a lack thereof, the problem is not in application, it is inherent in the concept itself.
Although Victor accuses Mark and others of misrepresenting
R2P, his definition appears to be the one that is shifting. Calling one nation’s intervention in another
to secure its own interests R2P is a misnomer.
Mark cites actions that a neighbor state may take in relation to another
as driven by its own security concerns, not as a result of an idealistic duty imposed
to protect the citizens of its neighboring state. In Victor’s first article, this is the same
justification he uses for R2P imposing duties on the global community—the idea
that internal instability can cause effects outside a nation’s borders and so
justifies intervention. His second article continues with this line of logic. But this is
simply selling intervention on the basis of national interest, rather than
mandating a responsibility to intervene based on humanitarian concerns.
Also, an appeal to authority such as the U.N. is a misplaced
justification. The U.N. is not a
governing body, nor is the Security Council the highest authority “on
interventions, peacemaking, and peacekeeping….” as Victor asserts. The Security Council has no authority except
that which is derived from the power of its member states. Further, what is referred to as “international
law” is in reality handshake deals and custom rather than “law”. The legality of NATO intervention in Kosovo
would have been the same with or without U.N. Security Council approval, as it
is not a supra-governmental organization with powers that supersede state
sovereignty. An action taken by several
nations under a U.N. mandate is legally and morally no different than an action
taken by several nations without such a mandate, or by one nation acting unilaterally.
Multilateral approaches have been generally preferred over unilateral
ones for practical purposes and not reasons of moral justification. When multilateralism has been the chosen
course of action, it has largely been window dressing for action that is
primarily in the national interests of certain member states. Further, state sovereignty is the check on
the tyranny of the majority in the international system but the U.N. operates
on the assumption that consent of its members justifies violations of state
sovereignty. In this way, the U.N. derives its “authority” from mob
rule. Favoring international
intimidation over national sovereignty is a precarious way to justify action.
Additionally, when advocating for R2P, there seems to be a
habit of cherry-picking which definitions to apply, rather
than applying the principle universally.
According to Victor, "The question then becomes one of how best to
balance the sovereignty of the state with the need to protect its
populations." Again, this seems
only an issue when defining sovereignty in a Westphalian
sense. In the Deng,
et al. interpretation of sovereignty cited by Victor, sovereignty is derived from the
ability to protect the population hence, when there is no ability, there is no
sovereignty with which to be concerned. A practical example of the advocacy for a new
interpretation of sovereignty being undermined by an attempt to honor its old
definition can be seen in the arbitrary distinction between natural disaster
and human-caused action. If it is a state's responsibility to protect its
people, and it cannot do so in a natural disaster, then why does this not
warrant intervention? What if people are dying from starvation and the
state is unable to help? Why does the
state only bear responsibility to protect people from certain kinds of harm if
sovereignty is responsibility? Did not
al-Shabaab’s inability to deal with drought that lead to the 2011 famines
warrant intervention? If not, then what
about when the group prevented refugees from leaving the country, forcing them
to stay and starve? From a people-based
sovereignty point of view, there is no logical distinction between death caused
by a lack of ability to distribute food, an earthquake or violence by another
group. In either case, if the state
cannot protect its citizenry and does not consent to help, there should be no
distinction unless one was concerned
about violating the sovereignty of the state in the Westphalian sense of the
word. This distinction is arbitrarily made to limit the
type of open-ended commitments asked of the global community, rather than
mandating what would, in reality, never be agreed to. Another example is the emphasis on a spectrum
of responses, which imply that it is wrong to violate sovereignty, unless it is
done a little bit at a time. It seems
as though as much as there is an assertion of a new interpretation of sovereignty, even its proponents are acting as if this is interpretation is not the reality.
My main observation, however, is that the discussion thus
far has been focused more on a "right" to protect than a "responsibility"
to do so. The arguments indicate that a state has a responsibility to
protect its people but takes for granted that third parties somehow inherit
this responsibility when the state cannot fulfill it. There is a missing
explanation here. The need to justify
such efforts may seem callous, but a nation’s highest moral order is to serve
its own citizens first. Such an explanation
would certainly be a legitimate demand for a mother that loses a son who
volunteered to defend his nation, or
for a government entrusted by its people to use their resources to their own benefit. While it is often stated that the
international community "should" intervene, explanation of where this
imperative comes from is not addressed other than by vague references to modern
states being interconnected. But this implies,
as previously stated, a right based on the self-interest of states, firmly
grounded in realistic security concerns, rather than any inherent humanitarian responsibility
to intervene.
Instability and potential spillover may very well make it within a nation’s vital interests to intervene in another country and pursuing humanitarian and human rights goals within the borders of another state may well be in a nation’s secondary interests. But if this is the case, the calculus of the political leadership will determine if pursuing this goal is worth the cost/potential costs – as has been done in such cases as North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Tibet and Syria. In either case, the decision is determined by what is in the nation’s interests, a reality that makes R2P not a mandate, but a merely a post hoc justification for intervention.
*Title inspired by Thomas Sowell's book, "Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality"
Instability and potential spillover may very well make it within a nation’s vital interests to intervene in another country and pursuing humanitarian and human rights goals within the borders of another state may well be in a nation’s secondary interests. But if this is the case, the calculus of the political leadership will determine if pursuing this goal is worth the cost/potential costs – as has been done in such cases as North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Tibet and Syria. In either case, the decision is determined by what is in the nation’s interests, a reality that makes R2P not a mandate, but a merely a post hoc justification for intervention.
*Title inspired by Thomas Sowell's book, "Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality"
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