Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article takes up Louise Arbour's claim that the doctrine of the 'Responsibility to Protect' is grounded in existing obligations of international law, specifically those pertaining to the prevention and punishment of genocide. In doing so, it argues that the aspirations of the R2P project cannot be sustained by the idea of 'responsibility' alone. The article proceeds in arguing that the coherence of R2P depends on an unacknowledged and unarticulated theory of obligation that connects notions of culpability, blame, and accountability with the kind of preventive, punitive, and restorative action that Arbour and others advocate. Two theories of obligation are then offered, one natural the other conventional, which make this connection explicit. But the ensuing clarity comes at a cost: the naturalist account escapes the 'real' world to redeem the intrinsic dignity of all men and women, while the conventionalist account remains firmly tethered to the 'real' world in redeeming whatever dignity can be had by way of an agreement. The article concludes by arguing that the advocate of the responsibility to protect can have one or the other, but not both.

"The Pluralist–Solidarist Debate in the English School" published on by Oxford University Press.

AbstractThis article takes as its starting point the failure of the so-called normative
wing of the English School to theorise the foundational determinants of value
from which international society derives its normative character. In other
words, they have not adequately thought through 'the law behind the
law'; that is, the underlying basis of obligation in international
life. Thus, English School theorists are able to describe and to explain various
norms but they cannot make sense of the reasons why any of these norms should be
regarded as obligatory. Failure in this regard is attributable in large part to
the way in which pluralist and solidarist conceptions of international life are
typically understood as representing conflicting moral claims. This article
seeks to move beyond these seemingly incommensurable claims, and the debate to
which they give their names, by putting forward an account of obligation that
reconciles the unity of human community and the freedom of international society
in a single, intellectually coherent argument. The article concludes by arguing
that a normative version of English School theory formulated in this way opens
space for thinking through much of what still confounds the English School,
including the normative character of political economy, the existence of a
rational order of values, and the ever elusive meaning of world society.