Search Results

Argues that we are witnessing the development of a new norm of military intervention for humanitarian purposes in contemporary international society. Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations Security Council has been more active in the realm of intervention, extending its Chapter VII powers into matters that had previously belonged to the domestic jurisdiction of states. Without the material power of Western states, this activism would not have been possible. However, a purely materialist explanation for this development fails to consider the changed normative context within Western states that permitted, and in some cases encouraged, intervention. While normative evolution has occurred, it is also limited in its scope, specifically over the question of whether military intervention must have Security Council authorization.

Outlines and evaluates the political, legal, and ethical objections to humanitarian intervention. In so doing, it questions not only whether the doctrine of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ has taken hold in international society, but also whether it should – particularly in the form suggested by Western states. The author argues that the ethical position of pluralism – as articulated by non-Western states – represents the most compelling case against humanitarian intervention, by emphasizing the impact on international society of relaxing the norm of non-intervention. Despite these pluralist objections, military intervention in cases of supreme humanitarian emergency can be defended on moral grounds, provided the intervention meets certain tests of legitimacy. Given the unintended consequences of military action, the author also suggests that more attention should be paid to the non-military means of operationalizing ‘sovereignty as responsibility’.

Three main themes emerge from this edited collection. First, there has been an increased incidence of intervention for humanitarian purposes since the end of the Cold War. In these cases, the alleged conflict between sovereignty and human rights has been addressed in one of two ways: through an evolution in the notion of sovereignty, from ‘sovereignty as authority’ to ‘sovereignty as responsibility’; and through an expanded definition of what constitutes a threat to international peace and security under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Second, despite this new climate of permissiveness, humanitarian intervention remains a controversial norm in international relations – largely because of continued opposition from certain members of international society, and concerns about its potentially negative consequences. Third, while the post Cold War period has seen some successful cases of intervention to address humanitarian catastrophes, the current capability of international organizations to undertake humanitarian interventions remains limited. Indeed, as the book demonstrates, the issue of humanitarian intervention has the potential to divide international institutions such as the UN and damage their credibility.

This chapter examines the emergence since the end of the Cold War of the principle that sovereignty entails a responsibility to protect populations from mass atrocities in the light of the historical story which the previous chapters have told. It considers developments in international consensus on the rights and responsibilities of sovereignty in the 1990s and it examines the intellectual foundations for a redefinition of sovereignty laid in this decade by Francis Deng who articulated a concept termed “sovereignty as responsibility,” and also Kofi Annan. It then turns to the emergence of the “responsibility to protect” concept in the early twenty-first century. While the ideas underpinning the “responsibility to protect” were by no means new, they had never before been so clearly endorsed by the society of states as they were at the UN World Summit in 2005. The chapter traces developments in international consensus on the accountability of sovereigns to the point that in 2011 the UN Security Council only for the first time authorised the use of force against a functioning sovereign state, Libya, without its consent, for the purpose of protecting civilians from mass atrocities.

This chapter argues that military intervention to support the goals of global justice can be defensible in the extreme cases in which people's abilities to meet their most basic needs and protect their basic freedoms are not adequately attended to by the governments of those citizens. Reconceptualizing sovereignty as responsibility allows us to circumvent problems thought to attend such proposals, for instance, that intervention would interfere unjustly with the sovereignty of nations. Protections against abuse provide the assurances we need and constitute an important part of the justification for legitimate interventions. The findings of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty discussed in this chapter provide reason for optimism about future possibilities for acting decisively as humanitarian crises unfold, especially as the core idea of a responsibility to protect now enjoys widespread endorsement.

This chapter traces the origins and elaboration of the R2P norm. It places the accent on the process of norm development during which a variety of states, including China, were able to shape the norm’s characteristics. It begins with a discussion of the norm’s origins in 1990s debates, initial reception in 2001, formalization in documentary form in 2005, and then its implementation structure as elaborated in 2009. Next, it turns to the Libyan intervention in 2011 under the R2P banner and the impact of that usage on R2P’s status. The tracing of the R2P’s pathway shows that for a state, such as China, that is concerned about international image and does not wish to appear obstructive or irresponsible, it can find welcome and bedrock support for its conservative attitude towards R2P among several other states concerned about the norm’s implications. The discussion also shows how the complex layering of the norm has presented China with the ability to shape the norm discursively and to insert its own normative preferences into the process of R2P elaboration.

International tax theory should follow the lead of other domains of international law in replacing the antiquated notion of Westphalian sovereignty with a concept of sovereignty that acknowledges both obligations and rights of states in their conduct towards other countries. The author proposes such an account called sovereignty as responsibility. Whereas the traditional view regards tax cooperation of the kind defended in this book as a constraint on sovereignty, the position put forward here holds that certain forms of tax cooperation are required by, and conducive to, the protection of sovereignty. The final section of the chapter extends the principles of tax justice defended in chapter 2 to the case of non-democratic regimes, where the internal conditions of fiscal sovereignty are not met.

This chapter questions the assumptions underlying Hedley Bull’s ‘revolt against the West’ by examining how—contra a system defined by the rise of radical pluralism—the evolution of human rights and humanitarian norms over the past four decades has redefined sovereignty according to domestic and international responsibilities. Drawing lessons from Chinese diplomacy, the first half of the chapter argues that the ‘compromising’ of sovereignty by human rights was not simply a Western-driven, liberal response to the worst excesses of the post-1945 ‘negative’ sovereignty game. The second half of the chapter examines three key normative developments in the 1990s—the democratic entitlement, right to humanitarian assistance, and protection of civilians in armed conflict—which linked states’ international legitimacy to the will and well-being of their people, and established a field of practice that led to the consolidation of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ and ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) norms in the 2000s.