Suchergebnisse

The American conception of normative self-justification is traced to the long period of colonial existence under British domination to argue that disentangling the dual American legacy that is blind to its own faults & acts so mercilessly is necessary to understanding state terrorism. The pathological dualism of America's global role is asserted to be weakening the emergent framework of global cooperative arrangements, & eroding the framework of international law. The pattern of subordinating moral & legal guidelines in pursuit of strategic goals is asserted to represent a fundamental breakdown of rule-governed relationships among states, & is related to cases of nonreciprocity of American conduct in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the geopolitical frustrations of the Korean & Vietnamese War. The patterns of the self serving US & Japanese discourse are concluded require further study & challenge to the moralizing war myth that is coupled with dehumanization of the enemy. J. Harwell

Examines the causes & consequences of the UN's shift from adherence to the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states to its recent involvement in a series of humanitarian interventions. The evolution of human rights law & laws of war since 1945 are traced. Provisions related to the use of force in the UN Charter are described, along with UN doctrine & practice before & after the Cold War. Disputes over humanitarian intervention within the UN; Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call to take the issue seriously; the General Assembly's lukewarm response; & challenges posed by the Bush Doctrine of September 2002 are discussed. Troublesome developments arising from interventions since 1991 that have the potential to weaken the UN are explored. Although international law does not definitively state whether states have a right to intervene in other states for humanitarian reasons, it is contended that some of these questions can be settled within the UN if that body can strike a balance between implementing international law & maintaining a limited norm of non-intervention. J. Lindroth

Examines legal & ethical objections to humanitarian intervention that dominate the international relations debate. It is contended that the most compelling arguments are those that stress the consequences for international order. Special attention is given to the ethical position of pluralism & concerns about "neo-imperialism" articulated by non-Western states. It is suggested that humanitarian intervention can be legitimized in extreme cases if a limited notion of "sovereignty as responsibility" is retained & the temptation to combine the protection of human rights with the right to liberal democracy is avoided. However, there is a strong consensus in both Western & non-Western states that the state is still the best agent to promote & protect human rights. Emphasis is placed on the need to improve the representativeness & effectiveness of the UN Security Council in order to reduce growing concerns about who represents the international community. The situation in Kosovo showed that humanitarian intervention can have complicated & unforeseen consequences; therefore, more attention must be paid to non-military means of operationalizing sovereignty as responsibility. J. Lindroth

Explores challenges facing the international community in relation to human rights abuse & humanitarian intervention in Africa. Debates about humanitarian intervention that occurred between 1945 & 1990 are described. Although the UN Charter sanctions intervention only if the Security Council recognizes a threat to international security, the case for intervention rests on the belief that humanitarian catastrophes demand an exceptional response. It is argued that Africa fails to provide support for the proposition that there is a new norm of humanitarian intervention even though it has been the testing ground for post-Cold War interventions. An overview of the UN operation in Somalia shows that Somalia's political culture is unique & failure in Somalia was not an indication that other African interventions were bound to fail. Nonetheless, the Somalia experience led to the Western denial of genocide in Rwanda. Difficulties surrounding the issue of consent, proposals of pragmatic humanitarianism that focuses on what is politically possible, & contrasts between the international response to natural disasters & those caused by civil conflict are discussed. J. Lindroth

Discussion begins with a look at the factors underpinning a shift in the international debate on refugee protection to questioning its legal basis & how this shift has impacted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Immigration policies restricting unwanted inflows are reviewed before addressing refugee right connections to international human rights law & how the international human rights protection regime might usefully be wedded to the international refugee regime to address gaps. Highlighted are treaties targeting the development of international human rights standards & the human rights mechanisms of the UN. Some attention is then given to international criminal law developments have influenced the idea of individual accountability for serious human rights violations. Reparations & compensation schemes are addressed as other accountability measures to handle human rights violations. The convergence between international human rights law, refugee law, & criminal & humanitarian law is seen as bolstering the international refugee protection regime. J. Zendejas

Defends the recent cosmopolitan turn in political & international relations theory, focusing on the concept of harm & the notion of cosmopolitan harm conventions (CHCs). Briefly, harm is defined as "evil as done or suffered by some person or thing" & is considered universal despite cross-cultural variations in what constitutes harm. Harm conventions provide harm its public meaning & establish what is permissible, obligatory, & officially proscribed. These too are universal; however, cosmopolitan forms are not. CHCs center on the idea that differences between insiders & outsiders are not always morally relevant. After addressing some criticisms of cosmopolitanism, three observations on why the harm principle has a place in international ethics are delineated. Various kinds of harm are identified, drawing on the English school to frame an analysis of CHC development in modern international society & to contemplate future developments. The English school's concern resides generally on an idea of concrete harm, which is intentional harm inflicted by one group on another on the basis of assumed cultural or racial superiority. The humanitarian law of war & international trusteeship are two measures for combating such harm. Various post-WWII reasons justifying the development of new CHCs are contemplated, eg, the rise in civil vs interstate war, economic globalization, global industrialization, structure of the world order, & environmental degradation. Most extant cosmopolitan law does not contend with vulnerability to the harm in global economic processes & environmental damage. Further, CHCs tend to mirror the values of the dominant powers & are geared toward protecting their interests. The meaning of world citizenship absent a world state & in a system where sovereign states view themselves as capable of promoting the ideal of national citizenship is explored, providing three main answers related to the project of transcending traditional international law interested in the rights & duties of states for a world law targeting the rights & duties of individuals. These are concerned with the realm of cosmopolitan duty, the sphere of cosmopolitan rights, & the project of building a global democratic public sphere & are linked to the project of creating CHCs. J. Zendejas

States' motivations for launching humanitarian military interventions are reconsidered. After contemplating circumstances that limit states' ability to intervene in humanitarian crises, it is stressed that conventional realist thought discourages states from dispatching military forces to deal with widespread human rights violations. Although most Western leaders, particularly the US president, possess considerable flexibility in ascertaining whether armed forces should be mobilized to confront humanitarian crises, it is asserted that national & international interests strongly influence states' willingness to become involved in ethnic conflicts & nations experiencing gross human rights violations; examples from the former Yugoslavia & the Kosovo War are cited to demonstrate the US government's culpability for allowing humanitarian crises to continue & for permitting revenge acts. Even though the international community has stressed the integration of human rights guidelines into nations' foreign policies, it is concluded that realist perspectives will continue to exert substantial influence over states' reasons for deploying military forces to address humanitarian crises. J. W. Parker

Defends the recent cosmopolitan turn in political & international relations theory, focusing on the concept of harm & the notion of cosmopolitan harm conventions (CHCs). Briefly, harm is defined as "evil as done or suffered by some person or thing" & is considered universal despite cross-cultural variations in what constitutes harm. Harm conventions provide harm its public meaning & establish what is permissible, obligatory, & officially proscribed. These too are universal; however, cosmopolitan forms are not. CHCs center on the idea that differences between insiders & outsiders are not always morally relevant. After addressing some criticisms of cosmopolitanism, three observations on why the harm principle has a place in international ethics are delineated. Various kinds of harm are identified, drawing on the English school to frame an analysis of CHC development in modern international society & to contemplate future developments. The English school's concern resides generally on an idea of concrete harm, which is intentional harm inflicted by one group on another on the basis of assumed cultural or racial superiority. The humanitarian law of war & international trusteeship are two measures for combating such harm. Various post-WWII reasons justifying the development of new CHCs are contemplated, eg, the rise in civil vs interstate war, economic globalization, global industrialization, structure of the world order, & environmental degradation. Most extant cosmopolitan law does not contend with vulnerability to the harm in global economic processes & environmental damage. Further, CHCs tend to mirror the values of the dominant powers & are geared toward protecting their interests. The meaning of world citizenship absent a world state & in a system where sovereign states view themselves as capable of promoting the ideal of national citizenship is explored, providing three main answers related to the project of transcending traditional international law interested in the rights & duties of states for a world law targeting the rights & duties of individuals. These are concerned with the realm of cosmopolitan duty, the sphere of cosmopolitan rights, & the project of building a global democratic public sphere & are linked to the project of creating CHCs. J. Zendejas

Examines the paradox inherent in international relations whereby international law & diplomacy favor state autonomy in domestic affairs while multilateral treaties & international institutions allow for collective action against governments violating generally accepted norms of behavior. It is contended that this paradox is based on the character of sovereignty, which specifies that "individual states are independent, but not autonomous, from the collectivity of states." At issue is establishing the conditions under which the international community has assumed the right & responsibility to intercede to protect individuals & groups in sovereign states. The manner in which the principle of sovereignty limits & empowers state collectivities to enforce international norms is explored, highlighting the dialectic of sovereignty arising from the Westphalian system in which sovereignty is both a constitutive principle & derivate. Attention turns to scrutinizing international communities as conceptually independent of the states that constitute them, arguing that only with general consensus can a broad-based community of states legitimately intervene in the affairs of a sovereign. Because international norms change over time, how & why some rules & practices emerge during certain historical periods must be considered to explain the conditions necessary for legitimate multilateral intervention without violating sovereignty. Three conditions are seen as prerequisite for the existence of the kind of pluralistic international communities necessary to account for the relative consensus needed to legitimate intervention: (1) There must be a least a modicum of consensus among major powers of the fundamentals of international politics. (2) The consensus principles must enjoy broad support from smaller states & their key domestic groups. (3) There must be a universal membership organization with the authority to create & enforce norms of behavior. Those specific norms & principles on which the community is based are looked at. The principles of legitimate post Cold War multilateral intervention are next assessed, delineating four generally accepted principles, eg, in cases where governments commit a consistent pattern of gross human rights violations deemed "shocking to the conscience of mankind." Some policy & theoretical implications are touched on in conclusion. J. Zendejas

"Vanessa Holzers contribution is set in the context of the arguably most tangible global risk, namely armed conflict. It is obvious that armed conflict per se as well as any proliferation of armed conflict poses risks for the respective state or region and the international community as a whole. This is mirrored for instance by UN Security Council resolutions defining mass movement of refugees as threat to international peace and security. Moreover, also the consequences for individuals affected by armed conflict must be dealt with adequately. Holzer argues that the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees remains the crucial international legal framework for the protection of persons fleeing from persecution. Although persecution has frequently occurred during armed conflict, as the example of "ethnic cleansing" highlights, the Refugee Convention has only to a limited extent been applied to persons escaping from armed conflict. As Holzer's analysis shows, the Refugee Convention's refugee definition must be interpreted in light of international human rights law and international humanitarian law with regard to claims for refugee status based on experiences during armed conflict. In doing so, certain persons fleeing from armed conflict will fall under the refugee definition. This definition requires a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. Holzer shows that the argument that such an interpretation of the refugee definition would mean to 'open the floodgates' to large numbers of displaced persons is unfounded from a political and legal perspective. By extending the scope of application to certain victims of armed conflict, the legal regime for the protection of refugees mitigates the risk for the protected individual. It provides protection which is not available through the country of origin in these situations." (extract

Draws upon philosophical & historical writings to argue for placing limits on the notion of sovereignty based on accepted ideas about individual rights. It is argued that if limits are placed on how states may treat their residents, then limits must also be placed on states in regard to which ill-treatment of residents within other states they are allowed to ignore. Although rights imply duties, certain duties place constraints on the activity of sovereign states as members of international society. The issue of default duties is explored, along with difficulties involved in determining which concrete limits should be placed on a particular state; limits on state sovereignty determined by fundamental individual rights; & whether basic rights can be secured for everyone without imposing unfair levels of duties. The "argument from insufficient motive" proposed by David Miller (1995) is explored in relation to genocidal massacres of people by their own state & limiting the right of powerful states to idly stand by while such monstrous evils are being committed. J. Lindroth

Contemplates the notion of "refugee protection." Discussion opens with a consideration of the terms "refugee" & "protection," assessing connotations from a legal standpoint & acknowledging ambiguities in their definitions. Some attention is also given to the idea of "asylum" & "non-refoulement." Attention then turns to the protection responsibilities of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), offering suggestions with respect to refining its mandate, operating in an incremental national-regional-international fashion to promote protection, clarifying the content of protection as a humanitarian concept, & better integration of protection sensibilities into its program work. Principles from law & international politics must underpin the UNHCR's shift into the humanitarian arm of the UN. In reviewing key humanitarian crises during the 1990s, a call is made for a more proactive approach to refugee protection. J. Zendejas

In light of the kind of armed interventions concomitant with post-Cold War conflicts, a call is made for a redefinition of the individual soldier & the character, role, & structure of the armed forces. The present contradictory image of the soldier, particularly as involved in peacekeeping missions, is articulated. It is argued that certain archetypal warrior characteristics might sustain while the soldier shifts toward assuming a position as an element of law & order. Thus, the future soldier's motivation is deemed important as it derives from his dual commitment to participate in the defense of basic values & to act on behalf of new regional or global security structures that foster security, peaceful development, & prosperity. Noting the advances in military technology that have automated the battlefield, it is asserted that a trend toward tallying how many people were protected or rescued will be the measure of victory alongside the number of kills & amount of territory taken. In this, the emergence of the guardian soldier (as opposed to some kind of battlefield technician) is seen. Further, this changing role at the soldier level is viewed as part of a paradigmatic shift in the global security environment, wherein the adversarial approach to security is being superceded by cooperation & accompanied by a strategic shift that has implications for the armed forces. In this light, seven new guiding principles are delineated. To engage in humanitarian intervention & low-intensity conflicts, armed forces will have to eschew classical war fighting for untraditional forms of combat; the new guardian soldier can accomplish this. J. Zendejas