International Political Science Review

This article examines some of the justifications that have been proffered as to why “we” should sacrifice in the name of common humanity. The first section examines the views of two leading thinkers who reject the statist paradigm, Bhikhu Parekh and Michael Walzer. Focusing on Parekh's and Walzer's conception of the state as a moral agent, and their conviction that states should engage in humanitarian intervention, the article argues that the problematic nature of the state as a moral agent is posed most starkly in relation to military humanitarian intervention. The theme of the second section is the critique of foundationalist claims to moral knowledge. Non-foundationalists emphasize the contingent nature of human solidarity, and this article focuses on the work of Richard Rorty. He is very critical of the claim that it is possible to construct a non-foundationalist universalism, and this controvery is increasingly prominent in the discipline of international relations. The final part of the article analyzes the attempt by Richard Falk and Ken Booth to construct a non-foundationalist defence of ethical universalism. By focusing on both foundationalist and non-foundationalist theories of human solidarity, the article attempts to provide insights into the question of how far different metatheoretical positions lead to different views of moral agency.

This article examines Terry Nardin's account of the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. Nardin argues that states ought to adopt a presumption against intervention in the affairs of another state but he claims that, under certain circumstances, this presumption may be overridden to further human rights. This article calls into question both his defence of the norm of nonintervention and his account of when humanitarian intervention is legitimate. It argues that his proposals do not go far enough and that a cosmopolitan theory of intervention is more plausible.

Does the recognition of human rights in international law undermine the traditional conception of international society as a society of sovereign states? The internal jurisdictional sovereignty of states is limited by those provisions and the non-intervention rule appears to be breached, but the most fundamental notion of sovereignty for international society is the absolute sense of not being subject to a superior authority. The notion of absolute sovereignty is examined with regard to the individual state on its own and it is argued that the only acceptable notion of absolute sovereignty is that of the general will of a political association, which is an ideal entity with a built-in moral structure of equal rights. Applied to international society, it is argued that the constitutional sovereign can only be the collective of states; this constitutional authority must itself be grounded in the sovereignty of the general will of international society, whose constituents are immediately the states but ultimately the general will of all the members of the different states. Since the general will is ideal with a built-in structure of equal rights of the human rights type, the recognition of human rights in international law is not a curtailment of this sovereignty but an expression of it.

Although the currently dominant concept of humanitarian intervention has a long history, it is also distinctive in several crucial respects. This article analyzes its nature, historical specificity and presuppositions. It argues that the concept of humanitarian intervention is logically unstable in the sense that it both presupposes and seeks to go beyond the statist manner of thinking which has dominated political life for the past three centuries. The article exposes the incoherence of the statist paradigm and concludes by arguing that, although humanitarian intervention is justified under certain circumstances, it is too limited, too late and too superficial to be of lasting value, and needs to be embedded in and undertaken as part of a larger project of creating a just and non-statist global order.

Among the key problems of “humanitarian intervention” in international law and international relations are the dynamics of sovereignty and the question of selectivity in intervention. The causes of conflict in the major cases of “humanitarian intervention,” former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda, are discussed under several headings: the end of the cold war; economics and scapegoating; ethnic politics?; media war; external influences; and politics of displacement. Ethnicity, although generally considered a cause of conflict, is not an explanation but rather that which is to be explained. The terminology of ethnicity is part of the conflict and cannot serve as a language of analysis. The core causes of conflict are authoritarian institutions and political cultures and the politics of hard sovereignty, while external influences play a significant role. Revisiting “humanitarian intervention” in this light, it clearly provides no solution for structural problems. The crucial problems, democratization and the fundamental restructuring of state-society relations, are not even on the agenda for they fall outside the parameters of conventional wisdom, which is trained to think in terms of state sovereignty, national interest, international security. “Humanitarian intervention” reinforces authoritarianism, hard sovereignty, militarization. For “humanitarian intervention” to contribute to conflict resolution, what is required are postconventional political options such as new types of state, partial forms of sovereignty and democratization. Meanwhile “humanitarian intervention” offers a mirror of global politics as they actually exist.

The following analysis looks at attempts to maintain peace and provide humanitarian succour in the cases of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. What is suggested is that the very vagueness of the concepts of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention creates serious ambiguities which can be exploited—as, it is argued, Russia has been doing—to cover hegemonic ambitions. The article concludes that the international community is not yet ready to face up to its humanitarian responsibilities in this region and that the adverse experience of Yugoslavia, while highlighting the inadequacies of existing agencies and their likely inability to determine a long-term outcome to the conflict, has probably diminished the chances of interventions in similar circumstances in the foreseeable future, and thus, perversely, actually undermined the chances of creating effective peacekeeping rules and instruments.