Humanitarian Intervention: Transforming the discourse

Abstract This article contends that methodologically the discourse of Humanitarian Intervention (hereafter HI) has not been able to move beyond its own conventions. These conventions focus on the decision-making process, concerning whether or not to intervene. This creates a situation in which the underlying reasons for so-called ‘supreme humanitarian emergencies’ are not addressed. Consequently, opportunities for preventing humanitarian emergencies are missed. Only when the wider context in which supreme humanitarian emergencies occur, here identified as the liberal international order, becomes an integral part of theorizing about HI can international society attempt to implement the principles of humanity. Acknowledgements This article is based on a paper presented to the British International Studies Association annual conference, University of Warwick, 21–23 December 2004. I thank the Barrow Cadbury Trust without whom this work would not have been possible, the anonymous reviewers for their informative comments and Paul Williams for his comments and continuous support. Notes 1. The term ‘discourse’ signifies the hesitant, yet extensive, body of work encompassing ideas and practices for and against HI. It is extensive, going back to the nineteenth century. It is hesitant, because as Nicholas Wheeler observes, there is no established theory of HI. The principal authors associated with the debates about HI include Adam Roberts, Robert Jackson, Hedley Bull, R.J. Vincent, Nicholas Wheeler, Fernando Teson, Simon Chesterman, and contributors to J.L Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. In referring to the practice of HI, I consider the years immediately before and after the intervention in Kosovo. The ICISS Report and speeches made by political leaders and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reflect the contours of the discourse: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, 2000, Canada; Tony Blair, ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, 22 April 1999; Robin Cook, ‘Guiding Humanitarian Intervention’, speech to the American Bar Association, London, 19 July 2000; Lloyd Axworthy, ‘Human Security and Global Governance: Putting People First’, Global Governance, Vol.7, No.1, Jan.–Mar. 2001, pp.19–23; Francis Kofi Abiew, The Evolution of the Doctrine and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 1998; Amnesty International, ‘“Collateral Damage” or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force’, Doc. EUR 70/025/2000 7 June 2000 (available at: www.amnesty. org/ailib/intcam/kosovo/index.html; Kofi Annan, ‘“We the Peoples”: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century’, Millennium Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 2000. 2. Adam Roberts, ‘The So-Called “Right” of Humanitarian Intervention’, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, Vol.3, Summer 2001, p.5. 3. A ‘supreme humanitarian emergency exists when the only hope of saving lives depends on outsiders coming to the rescue.’ Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.13. 4. The interveners claimed after intervention in Kosovo that it was humanitarian and thereby had a moral legitimacy that reflected the rise of new international norms. For further details see Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 5. An example in the literature that includes the wider international context is Oliver P. Ramsbotham, ‘Islam, Christianity, and Forcible Humanitarian Intervention,’ Ethics and International Affairs, Vol.12, 1998, pp.81–103. Ramsbotham cites Chandra Muzzaffar who argues: ‘For justified humanitarian intervention to be viable, there will have to be fundamental changes in international politics and in international authority structures… As long as global political decisions are shaped primarily by the interest of a handful of powerful elites… intervention will almost certainly reflect their dominant foreign policy preoccupations,’ p.102. Such observations do not appear to influence the mainstream logic of the HI discourse, however, and the principal argument of the article is essentially about finding common ground for Christian and Muslim to agree on decisions about intervention. 6. As inherent in Wheeler's understanding of international society, viz: ‘states accept not only a moral responsibility to protect the security of their own citizens’, but also ‘the wider one of guardianship of human rights everywhere.’ Wheeler (n.3 above), pp.12, 21. 7. Roberts (see n.2 above), p.5. 8. The categories used here were first introduced by Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict: A Reconceptualization, London: Polity Press, 1996. 9. Ian Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp.338–42. 10. Ramsbotham and Woodhouse categorize the debate in a similar way (see n.8 above), p.61. 11. Michael J. Smith frames the debate as being between realists and liberals, while Ramsbotham and Woodhouse identify four ethical schools in international relations theory. Michael J. Smith, ‘Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues’, in Joel H. Rosenthal (ed.), Ethics and International Affairs: A Reader, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1999, pp.271–95; Ramsbotham and Woodhouse (see n.8 above), pp.57–67. See also, Jack Donnelly, ‘Human Rights, Humanitarian Crisis, and Humanitarian Intervention’, International Journal 48, autumn, 1993, pp.607–40. 12. B. Parekh, ‘Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention’, International Political Science Review, Vol.8, No.1, 1997, pp.39–49. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Wheeler, ‘Pluralist or Solidarist Conceptions of Humanitarian Intervention: Bull and Vincent on Humanitarian Intervention’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol.21, No.2, 1992, p.285. 16. Robert Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’ and ‘Postscript’, in Robert O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986 [originally published in Millennium, Vol.10, No.2, Summer 1981.] 17. Ken Booth, ‘Ten Flaws of Just War’, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol.4, Nos.3–4, Autumn/Winter 2000, p.322. 18. Roger Tooze, ‘Conceptualizing the Global Economy’, in Anthony G. McGraw and Paul G. Lewis (eds.) Global Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992, p.236. 19. Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy. Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War, Washington D.C: The Brookings Institution, 1995. 20. For more on statism see Chris Brown, International Relations Theory. New Normative Approaches, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992; and Terry Nardin, Law, Morality and the Relations of States, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. 21. Tooze (see n.18 above), p.236. 22. Ibid. 23. Tooze gives the example of the ever-increasing gap between the world's rich and poor, increasing unemployment and increasing environmental destruction. To the characteristics of the ill-treated practices of the international order I would add the need for the administration of humanitarian interventions. See Roger Tooze, ‘The Missing Link: Security, Critical International Political Economy and Community’, in Ken Booth (ed.), Critical Security Studies in World Politics, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005, pp.293–4. 24. Ibid. 25. Harold Perkin, The Third Revolution: Professional Elites in the Modern World, London: Routledge, 1996, cited in Tooze (see n.23 above), p.302. 26. Richard Ashley ‘The Poverty of Neorealism’, International Organization, Vol.38, No.2, 1984, pp.463–96, 27. Tooze (see n.23 above), p.304. 28. Woodward (see n.19 above), p.47. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. p.50. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., emphasis added. 35. Ibid. 36. Clearly there were other aspects that contributed to the Kosovo crisis, but this article concentrates on factors that have been excluded in the HI discourse. 37. Parekh (see n.12 above), p.56. 38. Fernando R. Teson, ‘The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention’, in Holzgrefe and Keohane (eds.) (n.1 above), pp.15–52; Wheeler (n.1 above), p.51. 39. Nicholas Wheeler and Alex J. Bellamy, ‘Humanitarian Intervention and World Politics’, in John Baylis and Steve Smith (eds.) The Globalisation of World Politics, 2001, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.477. Human rights are repeatedly associated with the principles of common humanity, ibid., p.471. 40. Secretary-General's Annual Report to the General Assembly, press release SG/SM7136, 20 Sept. 1999. 41. Christine Chinkin, ‘International Law and Human Rights’, in Tony Evans (ed.) Human Rights Fifty Years On, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998, p.105 42. Richard B. Lillich, ‘The Growing Importance of Customary International Human Rights Law’, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol.25, 1995/1996, pp.31–98. 43. Chinkin (see n.41 above), p.113. 44. Ibid. 45. UN Human Right Committee, 52nd Meeting, Nov. 1994, UN doc. CCPR/C/21/rev.1/add.6. 46. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, UN doc. A/50/60 - S/1995/1, 3 Jan. 1995, New York: UN Department of Public Information, 1995. 47. International Crisis Group, ‘Collapse in Kosovo’, Europe Report No.155, 22 April 2004 Pristina, Belgrade, Brussels, p.36. The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) based its work around pillars: (1) police and justice; (5) civil administration; (3) democratization and institution building; and (4) reconstruction and economic development. Pillars I and II were led directly by the UN, pillar III by the OSCE and pillar IV by the EU. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., pp.3, 37. 50. Ibid., p.36. 51. Ibid., p.3. 52. Parekh (see n.12 above), pp.39–49. 53. Ken Booth, ‘Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen Realist’, in Keith Krause and C.M. Williams (eds.), Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases. London: UCL Press, 1997, p.83. 54. Cox (see n.16 above), p.209. 55. M. Neufeld, The Restructuring of International Relations Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, ch.3. 56. Richard Devetak, ‘Critical Theory’, in Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater, et al., Theories of International Relations. New York: St. Martin's, 1996, p.161. 57. Jan Nederveen Pieterse, ‘Sociology of Humanitarian Intervention’, International Political Science Review, Vol.18, No.1, 1997, pp.71–93. 58. Ibid. 59. Devetak (see n.57 above) 60. R.K. Ashley, ‘Political Realism and Human Interests’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol.25, No.2, June 1981, p.207. 61. Devetak (n.57 above), pp.161–62. 62. Neufeld (n.56 above), p.42. 63. David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory. Horkheimer to Habermas, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980, pp.175–200. 64. Neufeld, (n.56 above), p.42. 65. Ibid., p.43. 66. Devetak (see n.57 above). 67. For examples of such criteria see: International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.32–37; Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers, Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.33–45.

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