Jennifer M. Welsh

The Other in European self-definition: an addendum to the literature on international society

The dominant role of the realist paradigm in international relations theory has left little room for the study of the role of cultural variables in world politics. The two central tenets of the realist theoretical game-plan—the primacy of the sovereign state system, and the autonomy of that system, from domestic political, social and moral considerations—focus our attention on the vertical division of the world into sovereign states, rather than on the horizontal forces and ties that cut across state frontiers. The result is the metaphor for the interaction of states as the mechanical one of the billiard table, with power politics as the primary dynamic.

Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect

Drawing on international relations theory, this article seeks to both account for and analyze the contestation that continues to surround the norm of R2P. It begins in Section I by arguing that while the 2005 Summit Outcome Document – as an example of ‘institutionalization’ – provided greater precision about the source, scope, and bearer of the responsibility to protect, there is continuing debate about when the international community’s remedial role in protection can and should be activated. In order to understand this reality – which is a challenge to positivist and linear accounts of normative change – we must embrace the intuitions of post-positivist constructivist scholars about the intersubjective nature of norms, and their emphasis on analyzing norms’ ‘meaning in use’. Section II demonstrates in more detail the two kinds of contestation surrounding R2P: procedural contestation concerning who (which body) should ‘own’ its development as a norm; and substantive contestation about its content. R2P is particularly susceptible to contestation, given its inherently indeterminate nature, and the erroneous tendency to measure its impact in terms of whether or not military intervention occurs in particular cases. To respond to these issues, it is argued that the norm of R2P is best conceived as a responsibility to consider a real or imminent crisis involving mass atrocity crimes - what in legal literature is sometimes called a ‘duty of conduct’. Whether or not international action actually occurs - particularly action involving military force - depends on a series of other factors. The final section addresses the challenge to constructivist scholars to be more transparent about the normative commitments that underpin their empirical studies of normative change. It argues that the contestation surrounding R2P can be better understood by giving greater attention to the normative underpinnings of contemporary critiques of the principle – most prominently those which stress the importance of sovereignty equality.

Civilian Protection in Libya: Putting Coercion and Controversy Back into RtoP

As noted by other contributors to this roundtable, the response of the international community to civilian deaths in Libya—and the threat of further mass atrocities—is unusual in two key respects. First, Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians without the consent of the “host” state. The Councils intentions, and actions, could not be interpreted as anything other than coercive. Second, in contrast to other crises involving alleged crimes against humanity (most notably Darfur), diplomacy produced a decisive response in a relatively short period of time. Both of these features suggest that many analysts of intervention (including myself) need to revise their previously pessimistic assessments of what is possible in contemporary international politics.

Canada in the 21st century: beyond dominion and middle power

Canadian foreign policy has often been described in terms of ‘middle power’ status. But this description has always been problematic, and changes in the international climate now make a new paradigm necessary. The author discusses other foreign policy vocations, including the ‘soft power’ approach, and a purely regional destiny. She concludes by emphasizing the strength of internationalism in Canada, and of factors compelling the country to stake out a distinctive role in international relations.

The responsibility to prevent: Assessing the gap between rhetoric and reality:

This article engages with the debate on the efficacy of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the wake of the Arab Spring by articulating a defence of its role in preventing the commission, escalation, or recurrence of atrocity crimes. Taking as its starting point the claim by UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon that prevention remains the most important aspect of the principle of R2P, the article illustrates the extent to which prevention is embedded in R2P, the means by which it can be leveraged, and the obstacles to its operationalisation. The first section outlines why and how the prevention of the four crimes identified in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document became so important to UN member states. The second section analyses efforts to implement the commitment to prevention within the UN, regional organisations, and individual states. The final section offers an explanation for why prevention is in fact a controversial practice – despite the universal rhetorical commitment to its prioritisation – and advances a series of steps which might be undertaken to advance it.

Authorizing Humanitarian Intervention

This chapter focuses on the debate over who can authorize humanitarian intervention in contemporary international society. The first section examines the Security Council’s role in authorizing the use of force and how in the post—Cold War period it has expanded its definition of threats to international peace and security to encompass humanitarian crises. In the next section, I analyze the legal and philosophical positions on “proper authority” and make two central claims: (1) that international law on the use of force suggests that interventions for humanitarian purposes currently require Security Council authorization; and (2) that the Council should be considered not as the “proper authority” for international society in matters of peace and security but rather as an entity whose pronouncements are “authoritative.” In the process, I suggest how the authoritativeness of the Council has been weakened by questions about representation and decision making, as well as by problems of capacity and delegation. The third section focuses on the politics of authorization and identifies the actors in contemporary world politics who hold various positions on the value of and need for Council authorization. I conclude with an analysis of the implications of the debate on authorizing humanitarian intervention for our understanding of the role of the United Nations (UN) in global security and the state of global multilateralism, more generally.

I'' is for Ideology: Conservatism in International Affairs

In his 1984 essay on liberalism, Stanley Hoffmann astutely observed the way in which Realist thinkers, such as Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan, ‘‘smuggled in’’ values when presenting their theoretical or empirical accounts of international relations (IR). This article supports and builds upon Hoffmann’s observation by probing more deeply into the role of conservative values in international affairs. The underlying premise is that there are merits to reviving the older, more ideological concepts of conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism when analysing different approaches to thinking about IR. In other words, locating the ‘‘I’’ in IR means paying greater attention to the influence of ideology on the discipline. IR theory during the last two decades (particularly in the United States) has concentrated primarily on the merits and weaknesses of Realism. In pursuing their aims, promoters and critics of Realism have either denied or downplayed the deeper philosophical orientations that guide their scholarly inquiries. Indeed, a key rationale for the shift from ‘‘first image’’ to ‘‘third image’’ 5 Realism after World War II was the professed desire to rescue power politics from the realm of the subjective and to place it, in Richard Ashley’s words, ‘‘in the scientifically defensible terrain of objective necessity’’. By shifting the attention to methodology, these theoretical debates have

Edmund Burke and the Commonwealth of Europe: The Cultural Bases of International Order

John Vincent was the first to note the neglect of Edmund Burke’s mind by scholars of international relations, compared with the considerable attention that has been heaped on his ideas by biographers, historians, literary theorists, and political philosophers.1 I will not try to replicate his overview of Burke’s international theory. Instead, I propose to deal more specifically with two aspects of Burke’s thought which most interested Vincent in his own scholarly work: the question of intervention2 and the role of culture in world politics.3 In the writings and speeches of Burke, these two areas of international relations theory can be examined most usefully through his unique conception of European international society, which he refers to as the ‘Commonwealth of Europe’. Accordingly, this chapter will first outline the features of this Commonwealth of Europe, and its substantive cultural underpinnings. It will then move on to discuss Burke’s theory of intervention, which emerges directly from the French Revolutionary challenge to that Commonwealth. It will conclude with some thoughts about Burke’s relationship to Wight’s three traditions, and the relevance of his ideas on culture and international order to the present theory and practice of international relations.

Displacement, Protection and Responsibility: A Case for Safe Areas

This article makes the normative case for safe areas as a strategy of civilian protection in forced displacement crises. We start from the idea that the displaced—especially those who remain within the borders of their home state—are in a particularly precarious situation which can, in some circumstances, activate a remedial responsibility to provide protection on the part of the international community. We then argue that this responsibility extends beyond the provision of asylum to include efforts both to prevent displacement and to facilitate the return of displaced persons, and that safe areas may be an important tool to achieve these goals. However, we also note two major risks associated with safe areas which must be considered and mitigated: that they increase rather than decrease overall displacement, and that they diminish rather than enhance protection. We conclude by suggesting why and how the shared responsibility to protect through safe areas should be fairly distributed within the international community.

Intervention: Shaping the Global Order and Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas

Intervention: Shaping the Global Order. By Karen A. Feste. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003. 304p.