Jeremy Moses

Sovereignty as irresponsibility? A Realist critique of the Responsibility to Protect

This article aims to cast a critical light on the concept of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’, which lies at the heart of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). It argues that there are two distinct strands of theorising about sovereignty, de facto and de jure , which are not often clearly distinguished in the literature. After establishing the concept of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ as a de jure theory of sovereignty, the article goes on to contrast the de facto theory, based upon the sovereignty theories of Hobbes, Schmitt, and Morgenthau. I argue that the de facto theories of sovereignty, concerned as they are with unlimited power and decision as the essence of sovereign authority, can be used to highlight the lack of appreciation of power in the literature surrounding the Responsibility to Protect. This is particularly the case in relation to the just war principles of ‘right authority’ and ‘reasonable prospects of success’, both of which lie at the heart of the RtoP criteria for assessing when military interventions for human protection purposes may take place. In conclusion, it is argued that any attempt to advance the RtoP norm must engage with the problem of unlimited power in a more sustained manner.

The Iraq War and the Responsibility to Protect: Uses, Abuses and Consequences for the Future of Humanitarian Intervention

Before the 2003 Iraq war, the political leadership of the United States and United Kingdom had to sell the case for war to their people and the world. This was attempted through a number of speeches that employed rhetorical justifications for the war. Two prominent justifications used during this period involved the employment of security and humanitarian narratives. The security narrative focused on claims regarding Iraqs undermining of international law, possession of weapons of mass destruction and threat to the world. The humanitarian narrative revolved around claims about human suffering in Iraq and the need to liberate its people. While it is widely assumed that security is the dominant casus belli in the post-9/11 world, there is much evidence to suggest that the humanitarian justifications that played a critical role in the military interventions of the 1990s were still important after 9/11. The use of humanitarian justifications for the Iraq war clearly has implications for the ‘responsibility to protect (R2P)’ movement, which has gained prominence since the December 2001 publication of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report. Based on an extensive content analysis of speeches by the US and UK political leadership before the war, this article will quantify the relative importance of each narrative and analyse what the findings mean for the ongoing debates within the ‘responsibility to protect (R2P)’ movement.

Anarchy, pacifism and realism: building a path to a non-violent international law

ABSTRACT In anarcho-pacifist thought it is argued that a consistent pacifism could only accord with anarchism, as the establishment and enforcement of any sovereign legal order necessitates the use of violence that is anathema to pacifist ethics. Yet little work has been done to think about how this relation between pacifism and anarchism might be of value in thinking about international relations and international law, where anarchical conditions are broadly recognised as prevailing. I will suggest that a more realistic proposal for promoting peace in international relations may be found in the normative propositions of Gerhart Niemeyer’s Law Without Force and the ‘weak pacifism’ offered by Danilo Zolo, both of which depict anarchy as a condition in which a non-violent international law might be realised. The tentative argument will be advanced that perhaps it is the anarchical condition of international politics that might allow the development of a pacifist international law in the future. While such a transformation of international law cannot be instituted through a concrete programme for reform it provides a point of reference for the imagination of new forms of international justice that avoid the provision of legal/moral justifications for war.

From pacifism to militarisation: liberal-democratic discourse and Japan's global role

The pacifist commitment contained in Article 9 of the Japanese constitution has long been a source of scholarly interest and debate. While the insertion of the clause in the post-Second World War constitution was originally justified by General MacArthur (amongst others) as an expression of the ‘high ideals’ of liberalism and democracy that Japan was now embracing, it has since been derided as an impediment to effective Japanese participation in wars fought by the United States that are claimed to be in defence of freedom and democracy. This reversal of liberal logic became evident in the early years of the Cold War as Japan was encouraged to support the US in the Korean War and has strengthened in the years since. From the first Gulf War of 1991, up to the current War on Terror, much has been made of the constraints that Japan faces in supporting the ‘defence of freedom’ on a global scale. This paper aims to show the place of liberal discourses in relation to the pacifist clause in order to highlight the great ambiguity and inconsistency that exists in liberal claims concerning the promotion of peace in international affairs. In the context of tensions over Taiwan and North Korea, as well as the potential for controversial ‘humanitarian’ roles for the Japanese military in the South Pacific, these normative questions aim to shed light on the potential dangers of Japanese remilitarisation on liberal-internationalist grounds.

Peace without perfection: The intersections of realist and pacifist thought:

It is common in international relations thought to view realism and pacifism as lying at opposite ends of a spectrum on the permissibility of war. Pacifism, from this point of view, is necessarily antithetically opposed to and incompatible with realist thinking on the use of force. This article aims to counter this view and raise some critical questions concerning the incompatibilities of realism and pacifism through an examination of some points at which they may be seen to intersect. In pursuing these intersections, the first part of the article sets out the foundations of classical realist thought, focusing on the inherently conflictual depiction of human nature as the basis for a theory that insists upon the inescapable possibility of political violence. It then departs from the conventional narrative by setting out the intersections of pacifist and realist thought concerning the illogical and dangerous attempts to moralise war-fighting through the application of just war theory. Finally, it is proposed that a synthesis of some elements of pacifist and realist thought could lead to the development of new theories and strategies attuned to the promotion of non-violence in an inherently unstable and conflict-prone world.

Sovereignty, (Ir)responsibility and Intervention

Who is responsible to whom and for what under the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP)? And on what is this responsibility based? Can we meaningfully speak of responsibilities in the context of civil crises, revolutions or wars? In Chapter 1, I sought to clarify the primary differences between the de jure and de facto definitions of sovereignty. From that starting point, I have advanced the claim that the discussion of the RtoP has tended to revolve around a purely normative (de jure) understanding of sovereignty and that considerations of de facto power have largely been absent. The question that must now be considered is whether a critique of the RtoP from a de facto sovereignty perspective can extend the preceding critique of the attempt to institutionalize the RtoP norm. In particular, the question must be asked whether a de facto sovereign, deciding upon the exception, can be understood to have ‘responsibilities’ in any meaningful sense. Even more to the point, the question lies in whether the decisive sovereign can be held to account by another for irresponsible action in a crisis situation. If such a sense of responsibility lays the groundwork for intervention for human protection purposes, how is the force that carries out the intervention to be held to account?

Beyond Sovereignty? Cosmopolitanism and Realist Thought on the World State

The past decade has seen a dramatic burgeoning of literature addressing the legacy of classical Realist thought in International Relations. While much of this has been inspired by the calamities induced by the ‘imperialistic’ overtones of US foreign policy under the presidency of George W. Bush and by a concern over the intensification of normative strategies designed to enhance the possibilities of humanitarian intervention, questions have also been raised concerning the potential transformation of existing state institutions as a path toward a more peaceful world. While it is generally assumed that Realist thought is hostile to ‘poststatist’ or ‘post-national’ thought, there are multiple resources for those who seek to demonstrate that classical Realists, in particular, were prepared to think beyond the modern state system and envisage future institutional orders that might be more conducive to peace. Of particular note in this regard are Hans Morgenthau’s musings on the world state, set out at some length in Politics Among Nations. As this chapter aims to show, Morgenthau’s arguments surrounding the world state are torn between the insistence that, on the one hand, change was necessary for the survival of humanity and the recognition, on the other, that such change was fraught with difficulties and dangers and might, in fact, prove to be more destructive and violent than the existing order.

Sovereignty, Intervention and Contemporary International Law

Many advocates of the responsibility to protect have openly expressed an aspiration to have RtoP principles enshrined in international law as the highest manifestation of norm internalization. While this has so far proved elusive (debates over the legal status of the 2005 World Summit Outcome notwithstanding), it is still clear that many theorists and practitioners in the field of International Relations vest much of their hope for future progress in the area of international law and the ‘domestication of the international’. The aim of this chapter, in this context, is to explore the contemporary relation between state sovereignty and international law.

The Politics of Sovereignty as Responsibility: The Case of Libya

In the final days of the Libyan civil war in late 2011, the town of Sirte became the central battleground. This town, with a population of around 100,000, faced an incessant barrage of artillery and street-to-street fighting on the ground and bombardment from the air as a combination of Libyan rebels and NATO air power attempted to wipe out any remaining resistance to the rebellion. The impact on the population of this city was massive. Tens of thousands fled as the siege intensified between August and October, with shortages of food, water and medical supplies affecting the entire population of the city. Most recent estimates suggest that one third of the population has still not returned. The numbers of civilians that were killed or wounded during the siege appear to be unknown and the fate of Sirte (and to a certain extent Libya as a whole) and its residents no longer figures in global news stories.

Normative Theory and Political Theology

In a recent interview on the progress of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) norm, the director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect (GCRtoP), Simon Adams, claimed that ‘[w]e have won the battle of ideas’ and that the RtoP ‘is here to stay’ (Konigs et al. 2013). A key indicator of this victory was the fact that today not ‘even the boldest dictator would stand up in the United Nations and state that it is simply their sovereign right to kill their own people if they so desire’. Yet, for Adams, work remains to be done as ‘any international norm is only as strong as the will and ability of UN member states to uphold it’. Such claims prompt a series of questions that lie at the heart of this chapter: Where was the ‘battle of ideas’ over the RtoP fought and won? Who participated in the battle and on what terms did they come into conflict? Was there ever really a time when state leaders would have stood up at the United Nations (UN) and proclaimed a sovereign right to kill their own people? And can it really be maintained that the RtoP norm is indeed ‘here to stay’ while at the same time asking ‘whether RtoP can act as a political framework for mobilising action’?