James Pattison

The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention in Libya

Wars and interventions bring to the fore certain ethical issues. For instance, NATOs intervention in Kosovo in 1999 raised questions about the moral import of UN Security Council authorization (given that the Council did not authorize the action), and the means employed by interveners (given NATOs use of cluster bombs and its targeting of dual-use facilities). In what follows, I consider the moral permissibility of the NATO-led intervention in Libya and suggest that this particular intervention highlights three issues for the ethics of humanitarian intervention in general. The first issue is whether standard accounts of the ethics of humanitarian intervention, which draw heavily on just war theory, can capture the prospect of mission creep. The second issue is whether epistemic difficulties in assessing the interventions likely long-term success mean that we should reject consequentialist approaches to humanitarian intervention. The third issue concerns selectivity. I outline an often overlooked way that selectivity can be problematic for humanitarian intervention.

Outsourcing the responsibility to protect: humanitarian intervention and private military and security companies

States have recently agreed that there is a responsibility to protect populations threatened by genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. The international community, however, often lacks the resources and willingness to carry out a key part of this responsibility, that is, to undertake humanitarian intervention effectively when required. One potential solution to this problem is to outsource intervention to private military and security companies. In this article, I consider this option. In particular, I present a largely consequentialist argument which asserts that, when two conditions are met, using these companies to bolster the capacity to undertake humanitarian intervention might be morally justifiable overall.

Jus Post Bellum and the Responsibility to Rebuild

This article considers the issue of who should rebuild after war. Many leading advocates of the relevance of jus post bellum for Just War Theory adhere to the ‘Belligerents Rebuild Thesis’, which holds that those who have been involved with the fighting – such as the victor, just belligerent, unjust aggressor or humanitarian intervener – should be tasked with the responsibility to rebuild. By contrast, this article argues that there is a collective, international duty to rebuild that should be assigned primarily according to the agents ability to rebuild – and not necessarily to the belligerents. The article also claims that, in contrast to the prevailing view, considerations of jus post bellum do not play any moral role in the justifiability of a war. Accordingly, defending the Belligerents Rebuild Thesis by invoking the alleged moral relevance of jus post bellum for Just War Theory is mistaken.

Mapping the Responsibilities to Protect: A Typology of International Duties

The international responsibility to protect is the most important and value-added element of the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine. However, the existing accounts of the international responsibilities of R2P are often fairly ad hoc and not clearly systematised, largely focusing on particular responsibilities. Consequently, this article provides a typology of the various international responsibilities required by the R2P. In particular, it presents six types of international responsibility to protect: (1) the responsibility to undertake direct action; (2) the responsibility to support direct action; (3) the responsibility to authorise; (4) the responsibility not to act; (5) the responsibility to advance R2P; and (6) the responsibility to reform. In doing so, it will clarify how these responsibilities hang together and highlight underappreciated responsibilities.

The ethics of diplomatic criticism: The Responsibility to Protect, Just War Theory and Presumptive Last Resort

This article presents the ethical case for diplomatic criticism as a response to mass atrocities and serious external aggression. It argues, in short, that states have a moral duty to criticise the offending parties. More specifically, it argues that diplomatic criticism is often a plausible and preferable alternative to other means of addressing serious external aggression and mass atrocities (such as war, economic sanctions and other diplomatic measures). It also argues that diplomatic criticism is often preferable to doing nothing, and that even if other means are undertaken, states should engage in diplomatic criticism as well. There are two subsidiary aims of the article. The first is to reject some of the worries surrounding international hypocrisy — I aim to show that even hypocritical diplomatic criticism may be obligatory. The second is to highlight the impact on Just War Theory of considering in more detail the ethical issues raised by the alternatives to war, such as diplomatic criticism, and, more specifically, to present a new account of the last resort principle, which I call ‘Presumptive Last Resort’.

THE MORALITY OF SANCTIONS

Economic sanctions have been subject to extensive criticism. They are often seen as indiscriminate, intending the harms that they inflict, and using the suffering of the innocent as a means to enact policy change. Indeed, some reject outright the permissibility of economic sanctions. By contrast, in this essay, I defend the case for economic sanctions. I argue that sanctions are not necessarily morally problematic and, in doing so, argue that sanctions are less morally problematic than is often claimed. I go on to argue that sanctions may sometimes be morally preferable to the leading alternatives and, in particular, to wars and doing nothing. This is in part because sanctions are more likely to distribute fairly the currently inevitable harms to innocents of tackling aggression and mass atrocities. In the final part of the essay, I draw on this point to argue more generally that that we should often favor a “Harm-Distribution Approach” in the ethics of war and peace.

The Ethics of Arming Rebels

Despite the popularity of arming rebels as a foreign policy option, there is very little, if any, detailed engagement with the ethical issues surrounding the practice. There is a growing literature on the ethical issues surrounding civil wars and, more specifically, the conditions for engaging in just rebellion; but the focus of this literature is largely on the question of the justifiability of the rebels themselves in engaging in civil war and their conduct when doing so, rather than the permissibility of the arming of rebels by other agents. It is precisely this issue that I want to address here. Overall, I argue that the process should be generally eschewed. More specifically, this article seeks to establish that arming rebels is generally impermissible and only exceptionally morally permissible (even, as I will argue, when rebels are engaged in unjust wars). The former, far more restrictive claim will be established in the first part of the article. The latter, more permissive claim will be established in the second part of the article.

Justa piratica : the ethics of piracy

There has been widespread and vociferous condemnation of Somali piracy and several states have used force against the pirates. This reflects the prevailing view of pirates as belligerents and aggressors who act wrongly. In this article, I challenge this view by defending the conditional moral permissibility of piracy. More specifically, I first argue that piracy can be morally permissible when certain conditions are met. These are what I call the principles of ?justa piratica?, that is, the principles of just piracy. Second, I claim that these conditions are likely to apply to some Somali pirates. Third, as a corollary, I argue that the case of piracy shows that one of the shibboleths of Just War Theory ? that a war cannot be just on both sides ? is mistaken.

Humanitarian Intervention, the Responsibility to Protect and jus in bello

This article assesses the moral importance of a humanitarian intervener???s fidelity to the principles to international humanitarian law or jus in bello (principles of just conduct in war). I begin by outlining the particular principles of jus in bello that an intervener should follow when discharging the responsibility to protect, drawing on Jeff McMahan???s recent work. The second section considers more broadly the moral underpinnings of these principles. I claim that consequentialist justifications of these principles cannot fully grasp their moral significance and, in particular, the difference between doing and allowing. Overall, I argue that these principles are (i) more important and (ii) more stringent in the context of humanitarian intervention.

Perilous Noninterventions? The Counterfactual Assessment of Libya and the Need to be a Responsible Power

This article argues that Hardeep Singh Puri’s Perilous Interventions fails to fully grasp the risk of perilous nonintervention. It makes two central points. First, the fallacious critique of intervention reflects a worryingly narrow understanding of the R2P, particularly its third pillar, which overlooks the contributions that the R2P can make more generally. Second, Puri’s account highlights a clear lack of responsible leadership on behalf of India, in particular in relation to its failure to support fully the ‘Responsibly while Protecting’ proposal and lack of critique of the foreign policy of Russia.