Humanitarian intervention and R2P, have been plagued in practice by a pervasive lack of political will to action. To overcome this situation and supply determinacy for international responses to global manifestations of mass atrocities, a two-stage approach is required.
Firstly increasing political will via the development of a new and encompassing moral edict, where humanitarian intervention and R2P are recognised as unavoidable obligations upon the international community. And secondly increasing political will via an achievable reform agenda that lowers political/material barriers, and diminishes the size and scope of future humanitarian challenges.
An approach that fundamentally represents the creation of restructured global paradigm, whereby the ‘ethics vs. politics’ decision-making equation is tilted to the point that future emergent humanitarian emergencies will predicably and consistently meet with timely and decisive intervention. Such an approach is achievable, predominantly through an adaption and expansion of the work of cosmopolitan philosopher Thomas Pogge.
Frequently Asked Questions: A Poggean Approach to Mass Atrocities: Addressing Indeterminacy and Failures of Political Will for Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect
What is this text about?
This text presents a comprehensive analysis of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. It argues that the failures of these mechanisms stem primarily from a lack of political will, rather than legal or normative limitations. The author proposes a two-stage approach to address this issue: first, establishing a more encompassing moral framework based on Thomas Pogge's work on negative duties, and second, implementing a feasible reform agenda to reduce political and material obstacles to intervention.
What are the key themes explored in the text?
The key themes include the legal and moral complexities of humanitarian intervention, the limitations of the R2P doctrine, the role of political will in successful interventions, moral cosmopolitanism and its implications for global justice, Thomas Pogge's philosophy and its application to the problem of mass atrocities, and a feasible reform agenda for improving international responses to mass atrocities.
What is the author's main argument?
The author argues that the failure of humanitarian intervention and R2P to effectively prevent and respond to mass atrocities is primarily due to a lack of political will. To overcome this, a two-pronged approach is needed: first, a stronger moral framework emphasizing negative duties (the duty not to harm) as outlined by Thomas Pogge; and second, a pragmatic reform agenda to remove the political and material barriers hindering intervention.
What are the key components of the author's proposed reform agenda?
The proposed reform agenda includes: Intervention Agreements to pre-authorize intervention in certain cases; Democratic Panels to oversee and adjudicate on the legitimacy of government debt; a Global Resources Dividend or an Ecological Tax to redistribute wealth from resource extraction; a shift away from traditional development aid towards bond markets and FDI; a Health Impact Fund to incentivize pharmaceutical development for diseases affecting the developing world; media development to foster informed public opinion; UN reforms such as a Jurying Process or a strengthened International Court; and the establishment of a UN Standing Army or regional intervention forces (such as a strengthened African Standby Force).
How does Thomas Pogge's philosophy inform the author's argument?
The author uses Thomas Pogge's concept of institutional cosmopolitanism and his emphasis on negative duties (the duty not to harm) to build a moral framework for humanitarian intervention and R2P. Pogge's ideas provide a basis for arguing that the international community has a responsibility to address the structural factors that contribute to mass atrocities, rather than simply reacting to them after they occur. The author also adapts Pogge's methods for analyzing global injustice to propose specific reform measures.
What are the limitations of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine according to the text?
The text highlights several limitations of R2P, including its indeterminacy in practice, its susceptibility to political manipulation, and its failure to consistently generate the necessary political will for action. The author points to several instances where R2P was invoked but effective intervention failed to materialize due to political considerations and national interests.
What is the significance of the "ethics vs. politics" dilemma?
The "ethics vs. politics" dilemma highlights the conflict between moral obligations to intervene in humanitarian crises and the political realities, including national interests and power dynamics, that often hinder intervention. The author argues that the current framework emphasizes political considerations over ethical ones, leading to inaction in the face of mass atrocities.
What is the significance of the concept of "negative duties"?
The concept of "negative duties," as presented by Thomas Pogge, emphasizes the obligation not to harm others. The author argues that framing humanitarian intervention and R2P through this lens is more effective than focusing solely on positive duties (the duty to help), as negative duties are more universally compelling and less open to libertarian objections. This strengthens the moral imperative for intervention.
What is the author's conclusion?
The author concludes that a combination of moral reconceptualization based on Pogge's philosophy and a targeted reform agenda offers a viable path toward increasing political will and reducing the indeterminacy of humanitarian intervention and R2P. This two-stage approach aims to create a global paradigm shift, ensuring timely and decisive intervention in future humanitarian emergencies.
ii
`A Poggean Approach to Mass Atrocities: Addressing Indeterminacy and Failures of
Political Will for Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect'
Jed Lea-Henry
(Completed degree's: Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy)
Summited in partial fulfilment of Master of Arts (International Relations) - A726
AIX702 & AIX703 - Dissertation A & Dissertation B
Faculty of Arts
Deakin University
Burwood Campus
Submitted: May 2014
iii
By way of acknowledgments and dedications
=====
*Anthony Ware, Costas Laoutides and Steven Slaughter for
tolerating my failings
*Tom and Sonia for tolerating my presence
*Dave and Jenny for tolerating my insecurities
iv
Contents
Cover Page i
Title Page ii
Acknowledgments and Dedications iii
Contents iv
Abstract vi
Glossary vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Humanitarian Intervention, the Responsibility to Protect, and the Failure of Political Will 3
1.
Humanitarian Intervention 3
2.
Sovereignty 4
3.
The Dilemma, Empirical Failures & The 1990's 5
4.
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) 7
5.
The Failure of R2P 9
6.
Political Will 11
Chapter 2 Moral Cosmopolitanism, Thomas Pogge, and the Development of Moral Force through Negative
Duties 14
1.
Moral Cosmopolitanism 14
2.
Thomas Pogge & Negative Duties 16
3.
Profiting (interactional harm) 18
4.
State behaviour (interactional harm) 20
5.
Institutional Incentives (Institutional harm) 22
6.
Thomas Pogge's Institutional Cosmopolitanism (Institutional harm) 24
v
Chapter 3 A Feasible Reform Agenda
28
1. Intervention Agreements, the Democratic Panel & the Democratic Fund
28
2. Democratic Panel Expansion, a Global Resources Dividend & Ecological Tax
30
3. Development An Aid Alternative
32
4. Health Impact fund (Development Policy)
34
5. Media Development (Development Policy)
35
6. UN Reforms - The Jurying Process & the International Court
37
7. A UN Standing Army & Regional Annexation of Humanitarian Intervention
38
Conclusion
41
Bibliography
42
vi
Abstract
Hitherto, humanitarian intervention and R2P have been plagued in practice by a pervasive lack of political will
to action. To overcome this situation and supply determinacy for international responses to global
manifestations of mass atrocities, a two-stage approach is required. Firstly, increasing political will via the
development of a new and encompassing moral edict, where humanitarian intervention and R2P are
recognised as unavoidable obligations upon the international community. And secondly, increasing political
will via an achievable reform agenda that lowers political/material barriers, and diminishes the size and scope
of future humanitarian challenges. An approach that fundamentally represents the creation of restructured
global paradigm, whereby the `ethics vs. politics' decision-making equation is tilted to the point that future
emergent humanitarian emergencies will predicably and consistently meet with timely and decisive
intervention. Such an approach is achievable, predominantly through an adaption and expansion of the work
of cosmopolitan philosopher Thomas Pogge.
vii
Glossary
ASF African Standby Force
AU African Union
CAR The Central African Republic
CNPC Chinese National Petroleum Corporation
DRC The Democratic Republic of Congo
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
G77 The Group of 77
GDP Gross Domestic Product
ICC International Criminal Court
ICISS International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
ICJ International Court of Justice
IMF International Monetary Fund
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NGO Non-governmental Organisation
OAU Organisation of African Unity
P5 Permanent Five Members of the United Nations Security Council
R2REACT The Responsibility to React
R2REBUILD The Responsibility to Rebuild
R2P The Responsibility to Protect
R2PREVENT The Responsibility to Prevent
TRIPS The WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
UN United Nations
viii
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNSC United Nations Security Council
WTO World Trade Organisation
1
Introduction
As a coercive mechanism to alleviate human suffering and enforce a protective standard for basic human
rights, humanitarian intervention, as a principle, carries considerable legal and moral force. Contrariwise,
state sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention, as a binding standard of both international peace and
security, and international equality, similarly carries considerable legal and moral force. This theoretical
dilemma seemingly leads to disunity and indeterminacy in practice. Defined by events of the 1990's and early
2000's, when humanitarian intervention was applied or conversely not applied in response to unfolding
atrocities, it was scarred by controversy and failure. The absence of a prevailing standard for international
behaviour when confronted by instances of mass atrocities, and the corresponding disjointed responses in
conflict zones such as Rwanda, Kosovo, and Somalia, brought then Secretary General of the United Nations
(UN) Kofi Annan to press for urgency from the international community, in the need to "forge unity" (ICISS
2001: vii) in state responses to future humanitarian crises. Accordingly, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
was developed in order to bridge this divide between humanitarianism and sovereignty, in what was seen as
a necessary evolution toward producing legal and normative legitimacy for humanitarian intervention.
However, despite certain practical and institutional successes, and beyond the base understanding that
sovereignty is not an indelible principle, R2P exists as an unimplemented policy directive (Bellamy 2010). That
is, despite a principled consensus, R2P has been scarred by the same indeterminacy in practice that
humanitarian intervention had previously laboured under.
What R2P did supply, was an institutional and legalistic clarification over what had been an ever-present
dilemma between the competing values attached to humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty. In
doing so, R2P effectively expunged the relative importance of this dilemma. Rather than limited by a
`sovereign dilemma', humanitarian intervention, in practice, had always existed as a simple challenge of
`ethics verses politics'. The failures of humanitarian intervention and subsequently R2P itself, are
fundamentally reducible to a singular factor: an absence of political will. That is, the moral imperatives (in
their current form) presented by mass atrocities are proving insufficient to overcome the weight of political
and material considerations (in their current form). This manifests as a pervasive international political desire
not to accept responsibility for mass atrocities and human suffering.
To overcome this situation, and supply determinacy for humanitarian intervention and R2P, demands a two-
stage enterprise. Firstly, a more-encompassing moral edict, capable of imposing upon governments
meaningful obligations in response to emergency conditions of human suffering, will need to be developed. A
foundational position where moral responsibilities can be married to moral commitment, which would
2
thereby produce greater political will to action. Such a global ethic, is achievable via a reconceptualization of
humanitarian intervention and R2P, through moral cosmopolitanism, Thomas Pogge's institutional
cosmopolitanism, and fundamentally, through Pogge's theory of justice and methodology, whereby mass
atrocities ought to be understood as violations of our negative duties not to harm. Secondly, a political reform
agenda is necessary in order to address the political barriers implicit in the `ethics vs. politics' equation: that
is, a reform platform that increases political will to action by decreasing the weight of political and material
obstacles. Though with some diversion, such a platform is similarly achievable through an adaption of the
work of Thomas Pogge.
Such a two-stage approach offers a meaningful avenue toward increasing political will for, and subsequently
decreasing the indeterminacy of, humanitarian intervention and R2P in practice.
3
CHAPTER 1 Humanitarian Intervention, the Responsibility
to Protect, and the Failure of Political Will
Humanitarian Intervention
The legal foundation for humanitarian intervention is tenuous. Though the plain meaning and language of the
UN Charter offers some validation, humanitarian intervention is heavily reliant upon the steady evolution of
normative guidelines. That is, 1. By viewing the UN Charter as an "organic document" in accordance with
developments in human rights law (Chomsky 2012: 149), incorporating the principle of universal jurisdiction
(Heinze 2009: 85-86), 2. By viewing customary law as a legitimate legal complement (Heinze 2009: 58), as
established in the Paquete Habana Case (1900) (Hehir 2008: 23), or 3. Through the normative force of United
Nations Security Council (UNSC) authorisation. However there is no explicit "humanitarian exception" in the
UN Charter pertaining to a right of intervention (ICISS 2001: 6.13). Rather, the fundamental mandate for
humanitarian intervention, in accordance with the Just War tradition (Gordon 1997: 108-112), is Quod est
necessarium est licitum `that which is necessary is legal'. Accordingly, situations such as the intervention in
Kosovo can be widely recognised as "illegal but legitimate", that is, under conditions of compelling moral
necessity, legal restrictions become void (Bellamy 2009a: 106).
This moral necessity is fundamentally necrotic (Barnett 2011: 226), for, it is through the suffering of the dead
that it develops purpose. It is a moral position that recognises humanity's tendency toward violence and
suffering (Ignatieff 1999: 18), and conversely embodies a refusal to surrender and accept such situations, a
desire to correct the inhumane (Barnett 2011: 1). It is here, in what Adam Smith referred to as "moral
sentiments" (Fassin 2010: 271), that humanitarian morality resides, as a direct relationship to "topics of
suffering" (Boltanski 1999). And, it is from this ethic that humanitarian intervention is derived. Appreciably,
humanitarian intervention is essentially war! (Heinze 2009: 15). Yet, war with the ultimate goal of alleviating
human suffering, and justifiable only in reference to the protection of the populations, for whom the
intervention is undertaken (Heinze 2009: 4). Humanitarian intervention is an emancipative response to
oppression and suffering: a recognition that there are certain crimes and human emergencies, of such horror
and scale, that necessitate responsive action.
The challenges humanitarian intervention suffers, are from practice, rather than theory. That of `shadow
imperialism', `political hypocrisy in its implementation', and its `operational limitations'. However,
misappropriation in practice does not degrade an underlying theory, nor does inconsistent or selective
4
application of a principle lessen the moral good that is achieved on occasions when the principle is applied,
and as rationalised by National Security Advisor to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, "if you can't
intervene everywhere, you don't conclude that you interfere nowhere" (Brzezinski 2011).
Furthermore, the controversies that tend to surround humanitarian intervention in practice, pale in
comparison to the moral outrage that surrounds its absence. Inaction in the face of humanitarian crises scar
our collective conscience in a way that operational short-comings palpably do not. After the Holocaust, and
after Rwanda, there are very few actors on the international stage willing to deny that humanitarian
intervention, as a principle, has a valid place; justified by its non-appearance, and the horrors that eventuated
(Weiss 2007: 99). Explained by Gareth Evans, there exists the "mistake of going to war when we should not,
but also what can sometimes be the even bigger mistake of not going to war to protect our fellow human
beings from catastrophe when we should" (Evans 2006: 722). This ethic is neatly summarised by José Ramos-
Horta, the first Prime Minister of an Independent East Timor, "Sometimes, a war saves people" (Ramos-Horta
2005).
Sovereignty
"The debate about the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention hinges on the relative value afforded to
sovereignty" (Bellamy 2006a: 199). Born in principle from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), equal sovereignty
is the cornerstone of international law (ICISS 2001: 1.32) (Schrijver 2000: 69-70). Outlined by the Montevideo
Convention on the Rights and Duties of States 1933, sovereignty is the right to `prescriptive' and
`enforcement' jurisdiction within a `defined territory', with a `permanent population', a `functional
government', and with `diplomatic capacity' (Weiss 2007: 14). With similar references found in all significant
regional constitutional documents (Gordon 1997: 94), "independent sovereign statehood" became a key
symbol of UN membership (1945) (ICISS 2001: 2.11), with Article 2(7) of the UN Charter embodying the norm
of non-intervention (ICISS 2001: 2.8), Article 2(1) recognising the institutional foundation of the world order
as "sovereign equality of all its members" (Weiss 2007: 15) and Article 2(4) denouncing "the threat or use of
force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" (Thakur 2006: 246). Sentiments
significantly reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1949 and 1986 (Weiss 2007: 15), in crucial
international Declarations (Hehir 2008: 16), and in the official document of the 2000 South Summit of G77
(representing eighty percent of the global population), stating "we reject the so-called `right' of humanitarian
intervention" (Chomsky 2012: 4).
This legal recognition embodies a moral value. By delineating "the independent and unfettered power of a
state in its jurisdiction" (Weiss 2007: 12), sovereignty conversely delineates "the stopping place of authority"
5
(Gordon 1997: 13). Accordingly, in a materially unequal international order, sovereignty imposes equality.
Economic, military, and diplomatic strength are removed as points of moral differentiation between states
(Tutuianu 2013: 44). Sovereignty legislates for the equality between peoples, equality between states, and a
protection for the weak against the capacity of the strong (Ignatieff 2011) (Adelman 2002: 4); an international
equal worth (ICISS 2001: 1.32). Inextricably linked to the norm of non-intervention (Garwood-Gowers 2013:
84), sovereignty empowers nation-states to the prejudice of international conflict and empire, an
instrumental attempt to secure international peace. Algerian President, and then President of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Abdelaziz Bouteflika, championed the importance of sovereignty as "our
final defence against the rules of an unjust world" (Weiss 2007: 16). Especially prescient due to the history of
colonisation (Adelman 2002: 3), the claim to sovereignty and non-intervention in the affairs of other states is
a deeply emotional attachment (Thakur 2006: 266). Sovereignty guarantees an undisturbed social space, and
political community for citizens to shape their future and to secure peace (Bellamy 2006a: 206) (Heinze 2009:
20).
The Dilemma, Empirical Failures & The 1990's
Individuals are guaranteed protection within states by territorial sovereignty and the norm of non-
intervention, while individuals are guaranteed protection in spite of the states, by humanitarian intervention.
As such a theoretical dilemma exists between the moral imperative that justifies a state's right to non-
interference, and the moral imperative that motivates humanitarian intervention. This impasse produces
normative uncertainty in the international community when faced with potential human emergencies; the
lack of a consistent standard to guide state behaviour. This dilemma, though not born in the 1990's, came to
be punctuated by the circumstance of that decade (Barnett 2011: 6), as " a time of heightened expectations
for effective collective action following the end of the Cold War (ICISS 2001: 1).
Despite prior warnings, and recommendations of preventative measures, and despite then UN Secretary-
General Javier Perez de Cuellar describing Somalia as "the most serious humanitarian crisis of our day" in
January 1991, it was not until December 1992 that the UNSC passed resolution 794 authorising intervention.
After which, It became obvious that the Permanent Five Security Council members (P5) had no interest in
fulfilling its mandate, with the mission "underfunded and weakly staffed" (Laitan 2004: 36-44), and
undertaken with an explicit strategy of "quick exit" (Ignatieff 1999: 91-94).
The Yugoslav conflict came to be defined by the "West's vacillation over the use of force" (Weiss & Collins
2000: 91), (Weiss & Collins 2000: 86-93). The UN and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention
brought an end to the conflict in November 1995, yet at-risk minorities had been calling for international
6
protection since 1992 (Ignatieff 1999: 100). Moreover, UN peacekeeping missions were so under-resourced
(Ignatieff 1999: 137), that they had the unintended result of assisting Serbian atrocities in places such as
Srebrenica, by keeping their targeted victims grouped in permanent locations, yet without the capacity to
protect them (Weiss 2007: 10) (Holt & Berkman 2006: 17).
The NATO intervention in Kosovo (1999) existed unauthorised by the UNSC, and as such illegal, despite
retrospective approval (Thakur 2006: 216). This intervention enforced a peace process, and motivated the UN
into administering the region (Weiss & Collins 2000: 93-100). However the humanitarian impetus is
questionable, due to an absence of pre-intervention human rights abuses (ICISS 2001: 1), and with U.S.
Secretary of Defence William Cohen and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Henry Shelton acknowledging
that the intervention was motivated by the political purpose of "ensuring NATO's credibility" (Chomsky 2012:
4).
The intervention in Rwanda (1994) was not "timely" nor "decisive" enough (Weiss & Collins 2000: 100-101),
despite credible predictive reports of a coming genocide (Kuperman 2001: 102-107), and despite only
requiring a relatively minimal military intervention after the genocide commenced (Thakur 2006: 245, 293)
(Kuperman 2001: 109). Rather, the UNSC's predominant concern became an avoidance of the label genocide,
so as to avoid subsequent obligations (Weiss & Collins 2000: 101).
The international response in East Timor (1999) was heralded as an apex of humanitarianism (Hehir 2008: 55).
Yet, the intervention was largely reducible to the political will of one country, Australia, and would not have
been undertaken without the express permission of those committing the atrocities in Indonesia (Hehir 2008:
55), and was enacted "only after the worst of the violence was over" (Bellamy 2006: 150). The intervention in
Haiti (1994) was beyond the boundaries of what can reasonably be considered humanitarian, effectively
legitimising a standard of "pro-democratic intervention" (Weiss 2007: 49) (Weiss 2005: 115). The intervention
in Iraq (1991) was initiated without prior UN approval, only approved and delegated to the coalition in
retrospect (Weiss & Collins 2000: 77-80). Whereas the initial intervention into Liberia by the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) failed to achieve UN backing before the intervention or in
retrospect (Weiss 2007: 9)
From 1998 to 2007, over four million deaths were reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from
conflict, starvation, malnutrition and disease (Weiss 2007: 62 & 73). Yet, UN Peacekeeping missions were
"torpedoed" by the international community consistently failing to supply prompt funding (Chomsky 2012:
28) and the promised troop numbers (Weiss 2007: 52). A "slow-motion genocide" (Weiss 2007: 52) in Darfur
in the early 2000's failed to elicit any meaningful action by the UNSC to realistically halt the violence or
protect civilians (Weiss 2007: 53-55). The "slaughter" in the northern regions of Uganda, has been labelled a
7
"secret genocide" by the UN Secretary-General, lamenting the absence of an international response (Weiss
2007: 52-53). Likewise, the UN dragged out debate and negotiations over an intervention in Sierra Leone
(1997), to the point that diplomats lambasted such patent obstructionism as representative of a policy of
"leaving Africa to solve its own crises" (Chomsky 2012: 28).
During the 1990's, civilians came to bear the brunt of conflict more than ever before (Holt & Berkman 2006:
16), with a full one percent of the total world's population displaced by conflict, and a further one percent
having their lives disrupted beyond function or dignity (Weiss 2005: xxvii). The subsequent selective, and
disjointed nature of international responses indicated that the majority of conflicts were slipping into the
theoretical void between best ethical practice and the norm of non-intervention (Thakur 2006: 246). Hopes
for a normative understanding to move the international community, in practice, beyond the theoretical
dimensions of the `humanitarian-sovereign dilemma' did not eventuate; rather uncertainty became the norm
of humanitarian intervention, with at-risk segments of humanity paying the price.
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was formulated in reaction to the human atrocities of the 1990's and the
failure of the international community in responding to them (Garwood-Gowers 2013: 82) (Evans 2012). The
theoretical dilemma of humanitarian intervention, and its subsequent disjointed practical application,
brought Kofi Annan to declare, "when we read the Charter today, we are more than ever conscious that its
aim is to protect individual human beings, not to protect those who abuse them" (Annan 1999: 49-50),
therefore "the UN must undergo the most sweeping overhaul in its 60 year history" (Weiss 2007: 112). As
such, R2P was formulated as a means to "bridge the sovereignty versus intervention divide" (Evans 2006:
712).
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report (2001) proposed the
doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), by which sovereignty was re-imagined as `functional
sovereignty'. This reconceptualization of state sovereignty hinged upon three "equally weighted" and "non-
sequential pillars" (Bellamy 2010: 143), (1) by making sovereignty contingent upon the protection of citizens
with defined territorial borders, (2) by placing a responsibility upon the international community to assist
states with this protection and (3) by obligating the international community to intervene in the event that a
state is unwilling or unable to fulfil its duty to protect its own citizens from crimes against humanity, grave or
systemic war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide (the Four Crimes) (Bellamy 2010: 143). By understanding
sovereignty as being contingent upon a state's ability to protect its citizens, R2P restructured `sovereignty, as
responsibility'. By signing the United Nations Charter and other international obligations, the majority of
8
states had previously accepted limits on their sovereignty. However R2P stepped beyond this, to outline a
further obligation upon the international community as a whole, in relation to third party occurrences of mass
atrocities. R2P effectively created a new international social contract between sovereign states, and a
necessary evolution toward producing legal and normative legitimacy for humanitarian intervention.
International obligations, as derived from reconceptualising sovereignty as responsibility were outlined
through the frame of the Responsibility to Prevent (R2Prevent), the Responsibility to React (R2React) and the
Responsibility to Rebuild (R2Rebuild). Framing R2P's employment are four precautionary principles, which are
modified attempts to satisfy the foundation of Just War Theory (Weiss 2005: 24) and consequentialist ethics
(Heinze 2009: 33-56). That is, intervention is only justified with the `right intention', as a `last resort', in
`proportional means', and with `reasonable prospects'; added to this is the 'right authority' and with `just
cause' as satisfied by conditions that constitute the four crimes (ICISS 2001).
After the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel to examine structural impediments to international peace
and security reported on the "emerging norm that there is a responsibility to protect" (Bellamy 2011: 21), R2P
was adopted at the UN World Summit (2005). The World Summit outcome represents the pinnacle of
international normative consensus (Weiss 2007: 1), and the doctrine's best claim to legality (Hehir 2012: 19).
Reaffirmed six months later, in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) debate on "implementing the
Responsibility to Protect" (2009), and again in 2011, the clear intent of the international acceptance of R2P
was that the presence of any of the four crimes constituted grounds for intervention to protect citizens,
insofar as the target state was proving "unwilling or unable to do so themselves" (Hehir 2012: 5) (ICISS 2001:
8.1). Co-Chairman of the ICISS, Gareth Evans explained this normative shift, by stating that sovereignty in "its
essence should now be seen not as control but as responsibility" (Orford 2010: 336).
R2P has been referenced in UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Burundi, Mali, Yemen, Cote d`Ivoire, Sudan, Central African Republic and Libya, while also being referenced in
forming declarations on small and light weapons, protection of civilians in armed conflict, protection of
children in armed conflict and the maintenance of international peace and security. On top of this, R2P has
been referenced in UNSC Presidential statements regarding international peace and security, Central Africa,
protection of civilians in armed conflict, peace and security in Africa, children in armed conflict and the
Middle-East, whilst also proving influential in the formation of institutional achievements, such as the
Peacebuilding Commission (Evans 2006: 714) (Bellamy 2011: 110). Moreover, in Sri Lanka (Bellamy 2011: 88)
and in Kenya, the mere use of R2P language "is widely credited with having helped... stave off the escalation
of violence" (Bellamy 2010: 153) (Hehir 2012: 131). To all intents and purposes R2P has evolved into a norm
of international law, and an "obligatory reference point in academic discourse on the issue of humanitarian
intervention" (Hehir 2012: 4). Furthermore, from 2004 to 2008, a period where R2P was foreshadowed and
9
subsequently implemented at the World Summit, the sort of one-sided violence that is commonly associated
with the presence of the four crimes, was punctuated by a sharp decline in recorded fatalities (Bellamy 2010:
163).
As R2P came to dominate both international discourse and action, in regard to military interventions (Weiss
2005: 192) (Orford 2010: 336), Gareth Evans summed up the optimistic atmosphere that surrounded R2P,
"Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to say `never again' in the future without having to periodically look back,
as has so often been the case in the past, asking ourselves, with a mixture of anger, incomprehension and
shame, how did it happen again" (Stark 2011). And, UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw at the World Summit,
exclaimed "if this new responsibility had been in place a decade ago, thousands in Srebrenica and Rwanda
would have been saved" (Hehir 2012: 127).
The Failure of R2P
In spite of a principled consensus, and R2P changing the language of the debate over humanitarian
intervention, the doctrine has persisted as an indeterminate principle. R2P has come to dominate the
language of intervention without uniformity or weight of force being attached to that meaning, leading
Gareth Evans to label the international community as having "buyer's remorse" concerning the development
of the doctrine (Bellamy 2010). International indecision and institutional reluctance concerning human
security challenges post-R2P, indicate that a disjunction exists between the normative language of
acceptance, and the political reality behind the language (Weiss 2007: 1). Existing as an empty doctrine, R2P
has been diluted by its "clearly inherent malleability", and scarred by its empirical failures to the point of
"terminal decline" (Hehir 2008: 74-75).
Despite Kofi Annan labelling Kenya "a successful example of R2P at work", it raises serious concerns about the
thresholds of just cause for R2P, with estimates of only 700-800 deaths and no evidence of ethnic cleansing
(Bellamy 2011: 54-55). Moreover, it is questionable, or at least subjective, as to the impact that R2P had in
Kenya, with the doctrine employed more as a "diplomatic tool than catalyst for action" (Bellamy 2011: 89).
Despite the veneer of R2P euphoria that encapsulated the intervention in Libya, it was authorised by the
UNSC under the auspices of Chapter VII of the Charter, the same provision that would have been used pre-
R2P, and was employed throughout the 1990's (Hehir 2012: 13). Moreover, neither President Obama's
keynote speech justifying the Libyan intervention, the explanatory justification co-authored by Barak Obama,
Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, nor Resolution 1973, made explicit reference to R2P (Hehir 2012: 13-15).
Furthermore, significant misgivings from UN member states concerning the applicability (Garwood-Gowers
10
2013: 82-88), and the abuse of R2P (Hehir 2012: 19), were funnelled into the debate concerning possible
intervention in Syria, with the UNSC deadlocked by misgivings over the Libyan experience (Garwood-Gowers
2013: 82, 94).
R2P was explicitly mentioned in the UNSC resolution criticising Khartoum and authorising a UN peacekeeping
mission in Darfur (Hehir 2012: 133). However, deliberations in the UN Human Rights Council (2007) were
silenced by protests against R2P as an applicable reference (Bellamy 2011: 29), the international community
failed to supply the requisite number of troops (Weiss 2007: 55), and an inexplicable desire to achieve
Sudanese approval (Hehir 2008: 67) (Schulz 2009: 150), meant Darfur came to represent the "ground Zero" of
doctrine (Schulz 2009: 150). Furthermore, in Darfur, R2P had the unexpected consequence of facilitating
international inaction, by allowing states to claim that "in the spirit of `the responsibility to protect', host
states have the primary responsibility to deal with intra-state crises and should be left alone to do so" (Hehir
2008: 93, 125). Similarly, the intervention in Mali required unilateral intervention by France (Operation
Serval) in order to precipitate broader international assistance. While R2P failed to achieve protective
mandates for the Gaza strip (Bellamy 2011: 58-60), Guinea (Bellamy 2011: 58-60, 88), Sri Lanka (Bellamy
2011: 60-62), Somalia (Bellamy 2011: 89), the DRC (Bellamy 2011: 51-52, 89), and Zimbabwe (Garwood-
Gowers 2013: 85-86), with North Korea failing to attract even the attention of R2P (Bellamy 2011: 67-68).
Yet, perhaps the most damaging episodes for R2P have been its misappropriation by France trying to force
intervention in Myanmar in order to distribute humanitarian aid following cyclone Nargis (Bellamy 2010: 151-
152), by Russia in using R2P as a "Trojan Horse" to annex South Ossetia (Bellamy 2011: 55-56), and by Tony
Blair employing the doctrine as retrospective justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Weiss: 2007: 124)
(Byers 2005: 107) (Evans 2006: 717).
Beyond the empirical failures of R2P in practice, are a raft of institutional failings that marred the doctrine
from conception. There exists a normative disjunction between what states thought they were signing up to
when R2P was adopted at the UN World Summit, and what it represents in principle. Certain state actors
believed that by accepting the World Summit Outcome meant implicitly accepting the ICISS report (Chomsky
2012: 60), while several states, even after signing up to the World Summit Outcome maintained that they had
not authorised R2P in any capacity (Evans 2009: 52). Substantial disagreements persevere concerning the
appropriate meaning, capacity, function, and use of R2P, to the point that, shrouded in indeterminacy, it
exists now as an unimplemented policy (Bellamy 2010: 144); a "political catchword that gained quick
acceptance because it could be interpreted by different actors in different ways" (Stahn 2007: 99-102).
Moreover, the language of the World Summit Outcome demonstrates a linguistic and implicit "watering
down" of the ICISS report (Weiss 2007: 57). The ICISS criteria for justifying intervention were expunged, with
the category of violence for which R2P would be appropriate limited to the `four crimes' as opposed to the
11
ICISS-proposed "large scale loss of life", and the just cause threshold that indicated a state was not satisfying
its R2P duties increased from "unwilling or unable" to protect, to "manifestly failing" to protect (Garwood-
Gowers 2013: 84). The World Summit Outcome emphasises the importance of host-nation responsibility,
thereby reducing the responsibility of the international community to assist or adopt this responsibility, with
the term "obligation" removed from an early draft due to objections (Holt & Berkman 2006: 32) (Weiss 2007:
57) (Hehir 2012: 19). The ICISS-proposed alternatives to UNSC authorisation (ICISS 2001: 3.31 & 3.35) were
removed, a P5 code of conduct for use of veto powers abolished (Hehir 2008: 71), and the absolute
discretionary power of the UNSC reaffirmed (Hehir 2012: 19). In its entirety, the World Summit Outcome was
merely reiterating a range of already commonly accepted principles (Chomsky 2012: 160-161) (Hehir 2012:
52). Existing unidentified, unarticulated, and unimplemented (Bellamy 2010: 158), R2P empirically offers little
more than an elementary addition to the "juridical revolution" (Gutman 2003: vii); an important, but
nevertheless impotent legislative achievement.
Political Will
Pre-R2P, sovereignty did not exist carte blanche: be it in practice or law, sovereignty has never existed as an
inviolable concept (Weiss 2007: 12, 16). Sovereignty existed as sacrosanct, as an emotive principle, as
idealism, but in practice has always been limited (Schrijver 2000: 69-70), with its violation routine (Weiss
2007: 13). The ICISS itself acknowledged it "heard no such claim [of absolute sovereignty] at any stage during
our worldwide consultations" (ICISS 2001: 1.35). Be it through the plain language of the UN Charter (Weiss
2007: 16-17), through international covenants such as the Genocide Convention (1948) (Hehir 2012: 128-
129), through ICJ adjudications (Weiss 2007: 17), the formation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and
International Criminal Tribunals, or the overriding legal commitments of multilateral treaties and customary
law (Weiss 2007: 17), sovereignty has been substantially restricted (ICISS 2001: 1.33). Expressed by then UN
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "the time of absolute state sovereignty...has passed" (Weiss 2007:
18). By advocating R2P as a paradigm shifter for humanitarian intervention, was to effectively imagine that
the inaction in the Rwanda's, Darfur's, or Congo's of this world was caused primarily by restrictive
international norms and laws. Such an understanding is counterintuitive, with sovereignty, both legalistically
and empirically, not having had this impact in recent history. Rather, according to Alex Bellamy, "the basic
political fact [is] that no state wanted to pay the price associated with saving strangers" (Bellamy 2011: 4).
R2P offered institutional and legalistic clarification over what had been an ever-present dilemma between the
competing values attached to humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty. Conversely, the relative
failure of R2P in shifting the paradigm of intervention afforded clarity over the relevant importance that had
12
been subscribed to sovereignty as a barrier to intervention. The experiences of the 1990's and post-R2P
conflicts indicated the existence of an ever-present "chasm" between humanitarian emergencies and
humanitarian enforcement; but, rather than a `sovereign dilemma', what this chasm represented was a
psychological and motivational absence of ethical force (Weiss 2007: 51). Humanitarian intervention in
practice had always existed as a simple challenge of "ethics versus politics"; sovereignty, though an added
complication, was of trivial consequence to this prominent narrative (Barnett 2011: 6). Humanitarian
intervention, regardless of authorisation or legitimacy, has always been "limited to situations in which states
had the political will to bear substantial financial and human costs" (Weiss 2007: 51). Lee Feinstein, after the
World Summit Outcome, commented that as important as this could be, it now hinged upon "the political will
to back it up" (Feinstein 2007). Switzerland at the 2009 General Assembly Debate, recognised that R2P was
contingent upon "political will at the right time". Canada saw R2P as reliant upon "the goodwill of states". The
US urged member states to "work to summon the courage of our convictions and the will to act" (Hehir
2012: 127). The Report of the High-Level Panel, commissioned by Secretary-General, to analyse UN
operations and recommend reform, highlighted a lack of "willingness to act in defence of the common peace"
as a significant hurdle for the future of the UNSC (Thakur 2006: 302). And importantly, Gareth Evans, as Co-
Chair of the ICISS report, acknowledged that "without the exercise of political will, by the relevant policy
makers at the relevant time, almost none of the things for which this book has argued will actually happen"
(Evans 2008: 119). The failures of R2P can be reduced to the doctrine's failure to elicit greater "compliance
pull" than existed prior to its introduction (Bellamy 2010: 159). The history of humanitarian intervention has
been always contingent upon, and reducible to, the notion of `political will' (Bellamy 2009: 119) and "the
disposition of statesmen" (Hehir 2012: 119).
For Ramesh Thakur, the failure of intervention in Rwanda was reducible to a failure of "collective conscience"
and "civic courage" (Thakur 2006: 245), for the ICISS it was explained as "a failure of international will" (ICISS
2001: 1), and according to the official UN inquiry into the genocide, it was "the lack of resources and political
commitment" (Bellamy 2011: 4). For Thomas Weiss, the international response in Bosnia was so "feeble" that
it is best characterised as a "collective spinelessness" (Weiss 2005: 77-78), and the UN Report on the
international failure in Srebrenica claimed the massacre was reducible to a lack of "political will" (United
Nations 1999: para 499 & 502). ICISS recognised that intervention in Kosovo by NATO under the guise of
humanitarian concern, was rather a means to "manipulate external intervention to advance their political
purposes" (ICISS 2001: 1). In the case of East Timor, the reluctance of the international community, outside of
Australia, to intervene was explained by a senior diplomat in Jakarta, that to the international community
"Indonesia matters and East Timor doesn't" (Chomsky 2012: 76-77). In the DRC, whereas the conflict could
have been relatively easy to address (Weiss, H.F. 2009: 127), the lack of political will behind the rhetoric
meant that "humanitarian intervention melted into air" (Adelman 2002: 17). The early withdrawal from
13
Somalia was an example of political will failing to overcome "flawed planning" and "poor execution" (ICISS
2001: 1). The unwillingness to act in Darfur caused Kofi Annan to lament "we had learnt nothing from
Rwanda" (Hehir 2012: 120). And Bernard-Henri Levy, after working with the French government, claimed that
the Libyan intervention occurred where others have not, due to one factor alone, "the political will of one
man, the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy" (Hehir 2012: 16-17).
The failures of humanitarian interventions, (or R2P interventions), are reducible to a singular factor, that
"states choose not to undertake them" (Chesterman 2003: 54). In cases where operational limits are
surmountable, states once capable of significant imperial liabilities, are now proving unwilling to shoulder
such burdens for humanitarian principles (Ignatieff 1999: 107). There is a global absence of political will for
humanitarian intervention and R2P; a pervasive political desire not to accept responsibility for mass atrocities
and human suffering.
14
CHAPTER 2 - Moral Cosmopolitanism, Thomas Pogge, and
the Development of Moral Force through Negative Duties
Humanitarian intervention and R2P are existentially crippled by an absence of political will. The `ethics vs.
politics' decision-making paradigm is currently tilted to the point that the force of moral considerations, as
states currently understand them, are consistently failing to overcome the force of political considerations.
Addressing the political intransigence of this equation will be approached in Chapter 3. The current chapter
will focus on developing a more-encompassing moral edict, capable of imposing upon governments
meaningful obligations in response to emergency conditions of human suffering. A foundational position
where moral responsibilities can be married to moral commitment. That is, a global ethic capable of
permeating the minds of all human beings, so as to produce a uniformity in global responses to mass
atrocities, and supply enough moral currency to ensure that such responses are sufficient to meaningfully
correct the injustice. This global ethic, and the necessary increase in political will, can be achieved by a
reconceptualization of humanitarian intervention and R2P, through moral cosmopolitanism, Thomas Pogge's
institutional cosmopolitanism and, fundamentally, as satisfactions of our negative duties.
Moral Cosmopolitanism
Representative of a "post-nationalist consciousness" (Ignatieff 1993: 19), moral cosmopolitanism is a logically
derived ethic that sees individuals as the ultimate unit of moral concern. Claims to justice, safety, dignity,
fulfilment, rights, or values, are meaningless without individuals operating as the logical end point of such
claims: accordingly, individuals constitute the only self-originating source of ethical rights (Pierik & Werner
2013: 8) (Heinze 2009: 16). As such, moral cosmopolitanism recognises the morally relevant claims of states
and nations, only insofar as they characterise the absolute moral authority of individuals (Hoffman 1994: 29)
(Teson 1988: 15). Any claim beyond this inexplicably allows `chance of birth' to exist as a legitimate source of
moral prejudice. Moral cosmopolitanism can be outlined by three core elements, 1. `Individualism', as the
core unit of moral concern, 2. `Universality'/`all-inclusiveness' of concern, and equality of that concern; an
equal moral worth. 3. `Generality' of concern; that is, the obligations held as result of (1) and (2) apply to us
all; a global scope. A single ethic, for a single human community (Pierik & Werner 2013: 1-3) (Sangha 2012: 5).
However, legitimised by our impulse toward fear and insecurity (Ignatieff 1999; 51-52), by what Freud
described as our "narcissism of minor difference" (Ignatieff 1999: 34-71), and simply by virtue of its
15
normalisation (Pogge 2008: 124-152), the territorial boundaries of statehood inexplicably persist as a bastion
of acceptable human demarcation (Ignatieff 1999: 68). A sentiment well encapsulated by British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain, dismissing moral concern over Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia, as merely a
"quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing" (Bass 2008: 19). As human beings
we have a biological tendency to diminish concern according to proximity (Greene 2013), a `moral myopia',
where our concern diminishes as it radiates outwards from ourselves (Bass 2008: 20). Ever-thinning
concentric circles of community and belonging, correspond to ever-diminishing feelings of moral obligation
(Barnett 2011: 229). Accordingly, as the furthest proximal line of moral discrimination, operating at the very
limits of our ethical reach, the boundaries of the state and/or the nation remain as the most normatively
intractable to cross. As such, there is a tendency to view the suffering of foreign citizens, and with them the
obligations of humanitarian intervention and R2P, as beyond the concern of our moral universe.
The deconstructive tool to challenge the normative validity of state/nation-based moral dissemination, and
the important conceptual foundation for moral cosmopolitan, is John Rawls' thought experiment of the
`original position'. The original position requires that we imagine what would be a just social environment
from behind a `veil of ignorance'. That is deciding what justice is, and what constitutes legitimate moral claims
or actions, without prior knowledge of our position or identity within the world (Rawls 1999). This is
elucidated by Michael Ignatieff, as the "view from nowhere", as opposed to the "view from somewhere"
(Ignatieff 2011). Our interests are shaped primarily by where we exist in the world; this is the view from
somewhere. The view from nowhere is to step behind Rawls' veil of ignorance, and from that position making
all moral decisions. This is important, for if our moral claims are valid, then they must be valid independent of
ourselves. From the view from nowhere, it becomes impossible to value those with whom we share a
common identity over those whom we consider strangers, deteriorating our arbitrary self-justifications of
morality, including citizenship and nationalism. From this position, and considering the presence of rational
actors, it would be inconceivable not to demand, as a process of justice, adequate and timely international
interventions in the Darfur's, Rwanda's, or Bosnia's of this world, knowing that after we emerge from the veil
of ignorance, there is every chance that we could be the unfortunate citizens of such regions. It would be
foolish of ourselves to accept `chance of birth' as a legitimate means of moral differentiation, not knowing
where we would land in the "global lottery" (Ignatieff 2011). As such, moral cosmopolitanism develops as a
truly impartial global ethic, and reason-based approach to justice: a total breaking down of self-regard, and
chance identities. The creation of an `impartial', `non-perspectival', `individualist' and `egalitarian' ethic,
where the only delineating barrier is humanity (Jones 2001). An "equal moral concern for individuals" (Pierik
& Werner 2013: 8).
16
This moral position is pertinently explicated via Peter Singer's intuition pump (Dennett 2013), where we are
asked us to imagine ourselves walking by a pond and noticing an infant child drowning in the knee-high water.
We can easily help, yet at a cost of damaging our clothes beyond repair in the muddy water. Would it be a
valid response not to help, due to what would constitute a minor and superficial imposition to ourselves? The
answer in all good conscience would be, no! (Singer 2009). Kwame Appiah explained the represented moral
principle as "If you can prevent something bad from happening at the cost of something less bad, you ought
to do it" (Appiah 2006: 160). Singer uses this analogy to show that this duty to help ought logically to be
extended, so as to oblige us to help people whose lives are at immediate risk abroad, and whom we could
feasibly save at a nominal cost to ourselves. If human suffering is unconscionable enough to require personal
sacrifice when we are confronted by it, then there are no reasonable or empirical grounds for denying such a
sacrifice when we are aware that such suffering is occurring overseas, or outside our immediate focus (Singer
2009) (Singer 1972). Though Singer's analogy is undoubtedly convincing, it takes on a new force, if we
approach it via the `view from nowhere'/`veil of ignorance'. Imagine you are walking by a pond and `someone'
is drowning. You are unable to know, if they are a stranger, a friend, your wife or husband, or your own child.
In such a situation, the moral force to action becomes overwhelmingly strong. By a simply re-imaging that the
`at risk-life in question' is the result of mass atrocities, rather than the allegorical pond, R2P and humanitarian
intervention become morally logical obligations upon us all (Teson 2006: 761) (Fine 2007: 79). Moral
cosmopolitanism logically demands that we assist those suffering abroad, to maintain and fulfil the moral
importance of all individuals, regardless of citizenship, and if necessary in spite of states. A recognition that
we have a logical and moral obligation to help those who were unfortunate enough to be residents of
Habyarimana's Rwanda, Idi Amin's Uganda, Milosevic's Yugoslavia, Suharto's East Timor, Saddam's Iraq, the
Kim dynasty's North Korea or al Bashir's Darfur.
Thomas Pogge & Negative Duties
The logical force of moral cosmopolitanism is unavoidable, and to conceptualise humanitarian intervention
and R2P through its prism will undoubtedly help to increase `compliance pull' and political will for action.
However, moral cosmopolitanism is potentially open to objections from libertarianism (Pogge 2005: 68), or
obfuscation from those who desire to conceptualise such positive duties as a type of `voluntary benevolence'
or `optional charity', despite the underlying logic. Though moral truth is a project of reason, moral acceptance
is a project of emotion. And an unaccepted moral principle, is meaningless in practical terms. To achieve such
emotional acceptance, and despite a primary focus on global poverty, cosmopolitan philosopher Thomas
Pogge developed a minimal standard of global justice: a universally agreeable moral standard, so as to ensure
17
universal adherence. Pogge did this by re-crafting the moral bedrock of responsibility, by claiming,
fundamentally, that justice merely requires that we don't inflict harm upon others; that we don't violate our
negative duties not to harm by causing human rights deficits (Pogge 2008: 15).
Human rights involve duties in two ways. That is, indirectly by virtue of the fact that any credible
understanding of the right would have to include a duty, or that the right directly imposes a duty, and as such
any violation of that duty corresponds to a violation of the right (Pogge 2005: 66). For Pogge, if we all have
the human right X, the claim that it comes with a corresponding duty that we all should seek to guarantee
that all other people have X might be true (positive duties), but clearly holds less universal moral force than
the claim that as we all have the human right X, we all have a duty not to act in a way that denies other
individuals access to X (negative duties). Negative duties tend to necessitate greater force upon their inherent
obligations than positive duties do (Satz 2005: 47), and as such elicit greater `compliance pull' for those
obligations (Pogge 2005: 69). This is important, for a moral standard needs to be accepted, if obligations that
follow from that standard are reasonably expected to be adhered to. As an expedient pathway to universal
acceptance, Pogge focuses not on whether we have a duty to aid people in need, but rather on ensuring that
we did not cause them to be in need of aid in the first place (Pogge 2005: 67) (Pogge 2008: 25); a duty not to
harm as opposed to a duty of assistance (Pogge 2010: 32). To revisit Peter Singer's pond, rather than simply
not helping the drowning child (violating a positive duty to help), a circumstance where we are actively
holding the child's head under the water (violating our negative duty not to harm), is undoubtedly more
morally concerning. Expressed by Pogge, "Failing to save lives is not morally on a par with killing" (Pogge
2008: 14).
Traditionally conceptualised as positive duties by the international community, R2P and humanitarian
intervention have failed to sufficiently or universally be considered as morally forceful obligations (Holt &
Berkman 2006: 32-33). As such, it is conceivable that morally strengthening and logically fortifying such duties
and obligations through moral cosmopolitanism could still prove insufficient motivation to produce the
requisite political will. However, to prove someone causally responsible for harm (in violation of a negative
duty), not only assigns liability, but also demands remedy where possible (Miller, 2007, 100). This is
important, for once a violation of a negative duty not to harm is proven, then compensatory protection for
that harm becomes morally unavoidable. If through Pogge's method for understanding justice, it is possible to
prove that occurrences of mass atrocities constitute a violation of our negative duties not to harm, then
compliance for action becomes dramatically more likely. That is, a political will and commitment attached to
the claim, `if we cause mass atrocities, then we are obliged to intervene to help', as such supplying the
compliance and determinacy for R2P, that has hitherto been lacking.
18
For Pogge, there are two key methodological categories for judging violations of negative duties not to harm.
`Interactionally', whereby social reality is contingent upon the actions of individuals within the social
environment; that is, applying moral judgment according to the harm caused by direct actions or behaviour.
And `institutionally', whereby moral judgement is applied according to the harm caused by the `culture' and
`institutions' that we create and maintain; the coercive structure of our social reality (Pogge 2010: 15).
Although Pogge primarily focussed on institutional harm, he acknowledged the moral validity of interactional
harm. As such, the ensuing subsections, will be divided into two interactional sections on `profiting' and `State
behaviour', and two institutional sections on `Incentivising' and `Institutional Cosmopolitanism', though these
categories are not exhaustive, and some theoretical overlap is unavoidable.
Profiting (Interactional harm)
Degrees of profit, correlated to harm inflicted as a violation of our negative duties, can often be
unquantifiable, and as such the tendency is to deny responsibility altogether by a claim that our profit-making
actions are insignificant in the larger scheme. However, this fundamentally misunderstands moral
responsibility. We owe a compensation not comparable to the profit, but comparable to the entire injustice it
contributed to. As an intuition pump, imagine that you and four friends organise a beach party. At the end of
the event, you have each made a personal profit of $600, yet your party has inadvertently resulted in
irreparable damage to a local community's only fishing boat. The cost to replace the boat is $1000, and since
you have all profited from the injustice it would seem reasonable that the five of you owe $200 each from
your respective profits. However, in the event that you pay your share but the other four refuse to pay theirs,
you cannot morally be considered as absolved of responsibility, for the local community are still at a $800
loss, with the significant human costs that would accompany the loss of the boat as a source of their
livelihood. Any claim that your responsibility should be directly relational to your degree of profit is to
deliberately ignore the impact of your profit. In the event that your friends abscond, it would not be just for
you to only pay your $200, nor your entire $600 profit, but rather the full $1000 deficit that the local
community suffered as a result of your actions. Our profit-making actions that result in grave human rights
deficits make us entirely responsible for those deficits, not just for our actions (Pogge 2005: 74).
There are various ways in which our profiting-making actions can be seen to violate our negative duties not to
harm in relation to mass atrocities, including `passive profit' (Pogge 2005: 72) which can include the effects of
environmental degradation and pollution (direct pollution or indirect global warming), that tend to
unnaturally impact those already living in poverty (Pogge 2005: 57-82) (Jones 2001) (Goodhand 2001: 25),
relative deprivation, and entrenched inequality (Sandler 1997: 185) (Milanovic 2007: 30) (Ping 2011: 86-88).
19
Situations that have significant causative impacts upon civil wars (Shah 2010), ethnic tension, and state
weakness (Weiss 2007: 61-62) (ICISS 2001: 3.19) (Bellamy 2011: 94-99), as understood by theories of
`structural violence' (Galtung 1969) and `frustration-aggression' (Jacoby 2008: 103-123). Thereby creating
social environments causally prone to violence and mass atrocities (Pogge 2005: 70), as explicated in practice
through the conflict zones of Rwanda (Weiss & Collins 2000: 100), Sri Lanka (Goodhand 2001: 26-27), Sierra
Leone (Bellamy 2011: 107) (Goodhand 2001: 26), Somalia (Abdi Elmi & Barise 2006), Kosovo (Renner 1999)
and Bangladesh (Bellamy 2011: 98).
However, more `active profiting' makes the causality between our actions and harm more intuitive. This can
take various forms, yet is best articulated by the global arms trade. In fragmented and conflicted societies,
increases of arms on the ground have proven to dramatically escalate the likelihood of government
oppression, civil war and mass atrocities (Pogge 2005: 64-65). As such, the developed world is deeply
implicated in a process that leads to immense human suffering (ICISS 2001: 1.20). In the period from 1996 to
2003, over $167 billion of arms were sold for profit into the developing world (Pogge 2005: 64). A significant
amount of the these weapons were sold to oppressive governments, supplying them with the means to
subjugate, repress, and perpetuate their brutality against their populations, and to do so on ever larger scales
(Pogge 2008: 29) (Pogge 2005: 64) (Keller & Nolan 1997-1998).
In 1994, Turkey became the single largest importer of US military hardware, a year that coincided with
dramatic increases in the internal repression and ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish provinces (Chomsky 2012:
11-12). The conflict in Bosnia would not have been possible, at least on the scale it presented, without billions
of dollars in arms imports from the Soviet Union, and a flood of light weapons and small arms from the
international community post-1989 (Goose & Smyth 1994) (Gelb 1976-1977). During the Iran-Iraq War, the
Reagan administration sold military hardware to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime in full knowledge that those
materials were being used to develop chemical weapons for uses that would constitute war crimes against
Iranian forces. Weapons that would later be employed in crimes against humanity upon population centres in
Iraqi Kurdistan (Kessler 2013). In spite of an official embargo, international arms exports to Indonesia directly
facilitated the 1975 invasion, subsequent massacres, and ethnic cleansing in East Timor; arms sales that
continued all the way up to the resumption of conflict and suffering in 1999 (Chomsky 2012: 21-63) (Sidell
1981). Chinese sales of light arms to the Sudanese government increased 137 times the period from 2001 to
2006. A period that corresponded with dramatic escalations in violence and atrocities inflicted upon civilians
(Kelly 2011). After General Mohammed Said Barre took authoritarian rule of Somalia, the country became
steadily militarised through "four waves" of arms imports (Weiss & Collins 2000: 81), correlating to power
becoming steadily decentralised, leading to warlord rule, and immense human suffering (Weiss & Collins
2000: 81) (Abdi Elmi & Barise 2006). In Rwanda in 1993, during the pre-genocide build-up, Russia, France,
20
Egypt and South Africa were engaged in a bidding war to supply arms to the Rwandan government (Goose &
Smyth 1994), with France continuing as late as 1994 to make covert weapons sales to the Rwandan army, in
violation of a UN arms embargo (McNulty 2000). And in May 1995, Human Rights Watch reported that South
Africa, China, the Seychelles, Zaire (DRC) and France were in violation of arms embargoes, by helping to
resupply the Rwandan military (Weiss & Collins 2000: 101). In instances such as these, profiting from injustice
is akin to contributing to injustice (Pogge 2005: 71). As such, the `profiting behaviour' of the international
community can be understood as violations of negative duties not to harm. Thereby representing a significant
moral obligation to intervene in order to correct the caused injustice, thus developing greater political will for
humanitarian intervention and R2P.
State Behaviour (interactional harm)
Linking manifestations of mass atrocities to third party strategic state behaviour can often be a tenuous
exercise. However, the impact of certain strategic alliances, power relations and pursuits of self-interest are
decidedly more transparent, and as such constituting of violations of our negative duty not to harm (Pogge
2008: 29). Actions best understood through three distinct phases, `colonialism', `Cold War imperialism', and
the `post-Cold War period'.
The legacy of colonialism has left an indelible stain on the fabric of modern nations, particularly in Africa
where the political and economic weakness of many countries can be traced directly back to their colonial
heritage. Colonial expansion habitually produced wide-scale conflict zones, yet their enduring legacy holds a
greater significance. Colonialism left behind diminished resource reserves, weak government institutions,
significant divisions of labour, institutionalised discrimination, power vacuums, and the presence of expanded
and advanced weaponry. Beyond this, a two-stage process of creating arbitrary and unnatural state borders,
accompanied by a designation of oppositional and unequal ethnic hierarchies, normalised a tendency toward
ethnic mobilization, despotic rule, societal suppression and the use of violence as legitimate tool for political
change. A significant study of 160 countries and their colonial heritage, supported this phenomenon, explicitly
showing that "inter-communal violence is a common legacy of colonialism" (Lange & Dawson 2009). The
Belgian colonisation of Rwanda broke up the cultural homogenisation of the three main ethnic groups, Hutu,
Tutsi and Twa. The forcible creation of a "Tutsi aristocracy" infused ethnic divides with privilege and relative
deprivation. This strained ethnic tensions to such a degree that, generations later, genocidal violence erupted
with minimal provocation (Tan 2013: 160) (Lumumba-Kasongo 2005). Similarly, the British colonisation of Sri
Lanka, positioned the Tamil's as a favoured ethnic class, resulting in significant wealth and privilege. This
ethnic hierarchy enflamed tensions between the Tamils and Sinhalese and, upon decolonisation, contributed
21
to a vicious civil war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. And in the Congo, colonisation hollowed-out
the resources and wealth of the country, creating a cycle of abject poverty, subsistence living, and subjugative
violence that persists today (Oder 2011) (Wanki 2011).
The influence of Cold War imperialism lead to widespread support and assistance for oppressive governments
or rebel forces, as a self-interested means to secure global allies and strategic power centres. The Somali
state particularly suffered from this period, with the US and Soviet Union competing for the favour and
support of General Mohamed Siad Barre's brutal dictatorship, affording him the means to sustain his rule by
force, while degrading development and social cohesion within the country to the point of `failed state' status
(Abdi Elmi & Barise 2006) (Weiss & Collins 2000: 81-85). The US provided $1.5 billion in arms to Africa during
the Cold War period, with a lasting impact on continuing cycles of violence and destitution in Liberia, Sudan,
and particularly Zaire (DRC), where the Mobutu Sese Soko dictatorship was supplied with $100 million in
military training and $300 million in arms. A country left so fragmented and economically destitute by his
regime, that acquiring control of natural resources still often presents the only viable means of escaping
poverty; as such the country exists in a permanent state of civil conflict (Hartung & Moix 2000) (Satz 2005:
49). Moreover, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of these now heavily armed regions of world
were abruptly abandoned by their powerful benefactors, with assistance and funding promptly drying up. A
symptomatic `state weakness' spread through many of these countries, with national armies unable to
maintain their size, fragmenting into armed gangs, insurgent groups and militias, and resulting in sustained
cycles of violence and mass atrocities (Renner 1999).
Post-Cold War, Chinese support for the Northern Sudanese government represents one of more egregious
examples of strategic state behaviour constituting a violation of our negative duties not to harm. In collusion
with Khartoum, China provided the infrastructure needed to exploit Southern oil reserves. This was after US
companies withdrew from the region, due to international economic sanctions being imposed upon a
government that was seen to be employing an ethnic cleansing of Darfur for material gain. With this, and
similarly unethical investment in the Central African Republic (CAR) (Shinn 2009), China filled an international
void, supporting and encouraging a continuation of mass atrocities against Southern populations, effectively
helping to "engineer genocide" in Darfur. A tacit support for mass atrocities against Southern populations,
that involved the state-owned Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) closely following the ethnic
cleansing of Southern populations and the seizure of oil fields, with immediate purchase and development of
the resources and land. On occasion, going as far as to allow CNPC oil developments to be used as bases and
launching pads for further military incursions (Kelly 2011). As such, and explicable through distinct periods,
the `state behaviour' of the international community can be understood as violations of negative duties not
22
to harm. Thereby representing a significant moral obligation to intervene in order to correct the caused
injustice, thus developing greater political will for humanitarian intervention and R2P.
Institutional Incentives (Institutional harm)
The very presence of authoritarian government makes a country predisposed to suffering from mass
atrocities (Bellamy 2011: 108), with human suffering directly correlation to absences of meaningful
governmental representation (Pogge 2010: 41). Moreover, across 47 independent studies, autocratic and
repressive regimes proved strong indicators of a tendency toward internal conflict (Bellamy 2011: 97). And, it
is within the context of such civil conflicts that the "mass slaughter of civilians" is proven as prejudiced to
manifest (Kuperman 2001: 116) (Weiss 2007: 62). As such the `resource privilege', `borrowing privilege',
`treaty privilege', `banking privilege' and `international bribery', as features of the current international order,
both incentivise and facilitate civil wars, coups, predatory takeovers, autocratic governance and repression
rule, by affording to those who acquire state control, the legitimate control of these privileges, regardless of
how that control was acquired (Pogge 2005: 65) (Pogge 2010: 47); thereby, constituting institutional
violations of the international community's negative duties not to harm.
The `resource privilege', provides legal legitimacy to de facto rulers and tyrants by treating them as holding
rightful ownership of their countries resources, so as to facilitate and legitimate international purchasing of
those resources. This acts to tilt the cost-benefit analysis of `Resource Mobilization Theory' (Jacoby 2008: 124-
143), toward civil wars and coups by affording a country's resources as the spoils of war (Collier, et.al. 2003:
58). Similarly, this incentivises the tendency toward autocratic and repressive rule, as a means to maintain
ownership of the resource privilege and the income it affords (Pogge 2005: 72). Whereas domestically, if you
were knowingly to buy merchandise from a group that had overrun a warehouse by force and then sold its
product as their own, you would have no legal ownership to that purchase, and you would potentially be in
violation of the domestic criminal code. Once this scale expands to the level of states, no such legal
limitations exist (Pogge 2010: 47). Working from empirical examples of gas in Uganda, diamonds in Sierra
Leone, timber in Liberia, rare earth minerals in the DRC, and oil in Angola, Nigeria, Guinea, Sudan, Libya, and
Algeria, the UN Secretary General's report to the General Assembly and the Security Council (1998) on
conflict and sustainable peace, highlighted the "exploitation of natural resources"; a key impediment to peace
(United Nations 2006). This is supported by a substantial negative correlation between the presence of
potential resource wealth within a country and the economic performance of that country; labelled the
"resource curse" (Pogge 2010: 48). Moreover, of the twenty International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified
resource-rich countries in Africa, the majority sit desperately low on the human development index, and
23
statistics indicate that a country is at five times an increased risk of internal conflict, if they rely on primary
resources for more than 25 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Goodhand 2001: 26-27).
Furthermore, in 2005, the UNSC recognised a causal link between the exploitation of natural resources and
the proliferation of arms from the resulting profits (United Nations 2006). The impact of the resource
privilege is so pronounced, that a one percent increase in the size of a country's natural resource sector,
statistically correlates to a half a percent decrease in the survival rates of democratic government (Pogge
2010: 48).
The `borrowing privilege', provides an incentive toward violent uprising and repressive governance by
allowing those, who gain coercive control of a country, the right to borrow internationally in the name of that
country. The `borrowing privilege' allows autocratic regimes to impose substantial debt burdens on their
country as whole, without any requirement that such borrowing be targeted for their benefit. As such, it
tends to be seen as a mechanism for personal enrichment, or as a means to perpetuate despotic rule by
funding internal security structures. In effect, populations are funding their own subjugation for, despite few
if any of these loans being deployed for their benefit, populations and future governments are invariably held
to account for delivering the repayments, with an international legal order weighted in favour of creditor
nations and offering little recourse for citizens unjustly saddled by debt (Pogge 1989: 266267). Moreover,
these debt burdens impose long-term structural challenges upon developing countries, jeopardising future
growth rates (Oatley 2010: 191-192), reducing domestic spending (Stiglitz 2007: 212), producing long-term
social fragmentation, and entrenching cycles of extreme poverty and deprivation, in turn precipitating cycles
of violence (Pogge 2010: 49-65). The World Bank and the IMF provided nine separate loans to President
Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (DRC), despite knowledge that he was appropriating large portions of the funds for
his personal wealth, to the point that the loans had a zero impact on domestic poverty (Satz 2005: 49).
Meanwhile Western governments still hold Rwanda responsible for repaying loans taken out by the
Habyarimana government in order to organise and arm its supporters for the impending genocide (Pogge
2010: 173).
Similarly, the `treaty privilege' allows de facto governments to sign long-term binding treaties, the obligations
of which are left to future governments and generations (Pogge 2010: 49). The `banking privilege' incentivises
repressive rule and violent uprisings, by allowing for the international embezzlement of public funds by
regime elites. The annual total of these misappropriated and illicit funds, flowing from poor to affluent
counties, is estimated to be $1 trillion (Pogge 2010: 36). And the relative legitimacy of `international bribery'
continues to reward the coercive hold of state power, regardless of the means taken to achieve it, by
rewarding those individuals with material benefit for international favour. This facilitates and encourages
24
autocratic rule and cultures of corruption that permeate through society (Pogge 2008: 29) (Pogge 2010: 45-
46).
As such, the `institutional incentives' supplied by the international order constitute institutional violations of
the international community's negative duties not to harm. Thereby representing a significant moral
obligation to intervene in order to correct the caused injustice, thus developing greater political will for
humanitarian intervention and R2P.
Thomas Pogge's Institutional Cosmopolitanism (Institutional harm)
The primary focus for much of Thomas Pogge's work, labelled as institutional cosmopolitanism, is an
understanding of the institutional means by which an individual can be seen to be in violation of their
negative duties not to harm. Pogge pursued such an account of justice, not to privilege its moral authority,
but for its expedient importance. For unlike interactional harm, it incorporates the vast majority of humanity
in the injustice, not just specific actors. Moreover, a comprehensive understanding of negative duties and
global justice is vital, for there exists a vast traffic of actions and influences contributing to any given mass
atrocity. With the opacity of such causative processes affording self-denial and obfuscation of moral
responsibility, thus affording an absence of political will for action. Furthermore, Pogge's account of
institutional cosmopolitanism incorporates the previously explicated `incentivising' criteria, and overlaps with
interactional harm through much of the mechanisms, structures, and culture that facilitates such direct
relational harm (Pogge 2009: 17).
The global institutional order, as the focus of institutional cosmopolitanism, is a mosaic of extremely detailed
design decisions (Pogge 2008: 18). A construction of "laws and conventions, practices and social institutions"
that regulate interaction and facilitate desired outcomes (Pogge 2010: 15); a composition of structural
features for, and organising principles of, the global social reality; that which shapes the world around us
(Pogge 1989: 22).
From this platform, Pogge approaches institutional harm via a minimal condition of human rights as set out in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically the guarantee that "everyone is entitled to a social
and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized"
(Pogge 2010: 30). A baseline standard, chosen for its utility in appeasing libertarian concerns, and for its
prudence as a minimally impositional claim, yet still conducive to notions of justice (Pogge 2005) (Pogge 2008:
16). Based on this standard, and the pivotal claim of Pogge's analysis, the global institutional order can be
considered unjust insofar as it `foreseeably' and `avoidably' inflicts human rights deficits on sections of the
25
world's population (Pogge 2005: 61). These two categories are important, for a system that produces
`unforeseeable' or `unavoidable' human rights deficits cannot reasonably be considered as `harming' in the
sense that moral liability can be assigned.
The present global order is unjust if it foreseeably and avoidably causes human rights deficits, yet as
intimated, this judgement can only be made `counterfactually'. What John Stuart Mill referred to as "the
method of difference" (Lewy 2012: 1), hypothetical counterfactual possibilities supply weight to the
categories of `foreseeable' and `avoidable'. Explained by Pogge, "an institutional order harms people when its
design can be shown to be unjust by reference to a feasible alternative design" (Pogge 2008: 25).
There are two challenges to Pogge's claim that such an order can be considered as `harming'. First, that it
ignores the role played in injustice by domestic actors (Slaughter 2009). However, this is a misunderstanding
based on Pogge's quarantined focus on the global institutional order (Pogge 2008: 17). Domestic actors are
causally important, yet as part of a "symmetrical responsibility"; for it does not stand to logic, that to be
further causally removed from injustice, affords absolute responsibility to those causally closer (Pogge 2005:
63-64). Second, is the claim that rates of violence and related human suffering are declining (Pinker 2011),
and as such the global institutional order cannot be considered as `harming', insofar as it is patently helping to
improve global society and to protect global citizens from mass atrocities. However, `harm' and `benefit' are
comparative concepts, entirely justified by finding the appropriate baseline (Pogge 2010: 380) (Pogge 2008:
19). This claim uses a historical standard of human suffering as its baseline, whereas the relevant baseline
ought to be a minimal human rights standard (Pogge 2005: 57-58). Summarised by Pogge, "a man is not
benefiting the members of his family if he beats them up less often than he used to" (Pogge 2008: 23). A
global institutional order, in which manifestations of mass atrocities are declining, in no way delivers justice
to those upon whom it still foreseeably and avoidably imposes related human rights deficits.
Accordingly, due to the patent nature of human rights deficits as witnessed under mass atrocities, it can be
said that the global institutional order is unjust if it foreseeably and avoidably, by reference to counterfactual
alternatives, produces such violence. Based purely on empirical evidence, the `foreseeable' aspect of this
criteria is easily satisfied by a reference point to recent history. Mass atrocities persist today, as they have
persisted throughout recent history. The continued reproduction of such atrocities, on vast scales, in
significant quantities and with perceived regularity, logically constitutes their foreseeability as a permanent
feature of the current global order (Pogge 2008: 6-16) (Pogge 2005: 55). Similarly, and by reference to
counterfactual possibilities, the `avoidability' of these atrocities seems irrefutable; only impeded by a two
stage psychological barrier, in the form of the history, and the scope of the problem. The fact that this
institutional injustice has a history, affords ourselves the ability to falsely self-convince, without evidence,
that the problem is intractable. A causally incorrect assumption, that by simple virtue of repetition through
26
time, the presence of mass atrocities must be feature of social interaction, indelible by institutional change
(Pogge 2005: 56). Similarly, the scope of the problem makes its correction seem beyond our control; that it is
simply too overwhelming for us to change, too gigantic a problem to be eradicated. This constitutes a failure
to focus on the nature of mass atrocities, on what makes them so intolerable; the human impact. As such it
would still be important to seek counterfactual avoidability, if even to only guarantee that only a small
fraction of the total lives affected by mass atrocities each year are otherwise protected, for the difference
would be quite significant to those people (Pogge 2008: 7-9). As such, it is implausible that the extent to
which mass atrocities and the four crimes manifest today, cannot be counterfactually understood as
`avoidable'. It is implausible that a global institutional order which has dramatically increased in its economic,
technological and physical capacity, is incapable of in some measure, addressing this reproductive harm. It is
inconceivable that if certain facets of international law, human rights instruments, institutional architecture,
structural barriers, enforcement mechanisms or collective security parameters were altered with purpose,
then a positive impact would not be achievable in relation to future occurrences of mass atrocities. A number
of such proposals and feasible alternatives will be presented in Chapter 3.
Recognition that the present institutional order foreseeably and avoidably reproduces human rights deficits in
the form of mass atrocities, is a recognition of its injustice. The presence of this order constitutes a violation
of our negative duties not to harm, by our contribution to the design, imposition or maintenance of this
order. The customary lack of transparency and obscurity of institutional decision-making processes cannot be
held as a means to disassociate ourselves from responsibility for its outcomes. The negotiators,
representatives and politicians of countries that have hands-on access to the design of the global institutional
order, and can only operate with that capacity insofar as they are empowered by their citizenry (Pogge 2005:
79; it is impossible to separate ourselves from their actions. The global institutional order, is at least tacitly of
our making (Pogge 1989: 222), for only an extremely narrow sub-section of humanity is removed from all
interaction with global institutional structures (Pogge 2009: 17). As such `we' (vast majority of global citizens)
are responsible for cooperating with, participating in, and as such sustaining an institutional order, of our
design, that predictably generates substantial human rights deficits in the form of mass atrocities (Pogge
2009: 17). This constitutes a violation of our negative duties not to harm (Pogge 1989: 276). Pogge aptly
describes our complicit responsibility in this ongoing human catastrophe much like that of passive Americans
during southern slavery, or average Germans during Nazi rule. In each instance, the individuals in question no
doubt thought of themselves as moral human beings, and deplored the harm their institutional order was
causing, and did not actively participate in the Holocaust or the owning of slaves. Yet by paying taxes,
contributing labour, purchasing discounted goods etc. they were responsible for participating in the
upholding of the institutional order (Pogge, 2002: 66). Similarly, our present day passive complicity in the
design, imposition and maintenance of an institutional order, that foreseeably and avoidably reproduces
27
grave human rights deficits in the form of mass atrocities, makes us "accomplices in a monumental crime
against humanity" (Pogge 2008: 31).
However, as intimated, this institutional violation of our negative duties not to harm, exists only insofar as our
contributing harm is `uncompensated' (Pogge 2005: 61). Our interaction within an unjust institutional order
requires that we compensate where possible for the harm caused. As such, R2P interventions ought to be
understood as unavoidable compensatory obligations, in response to institutional violations of our negative
duties, as one of the few available avenues of compensation available in order to alleviate harm once mass
atrocities are underway.
Beyond immediate alleviating compensation, Pogge recognises that we owe, where possible, institutional
reform, so as to reasonably avoid similar human rights deficits in the future (Pogge 2008: 26). The obligation
to enact institutional reform is important, both due to the limited capacity to completely remove
institutionally caused human rights deficits via responsive compensation such as intervention, and because
the visceral personal impact of reform is dramatically less than responsive compensation (Pogge 2010: 55); a
project that will be approached in Chapter 3.
Situations whereby we actively inflict harm upon others constitute situations that make us morally
responsible for remedying such harm where possible. As such, by conceptualising mass atrocities through
moral cosmopolitanism, yet primarily as multifaceted violations of our negative duties not to harm, via the
outlined methodology of Thomas Pogge, and the categories of `profiting', `state-behaviour', `incentivising',
and importantly `Pogge's institutional cosmopolitanism', the moral impetus behind humanitarian intervention
and R2P significantly increases. Such moral stimulus offers a meaningful avenue to positively affect the `ethics
vs. politics' decision-making paradigm explicated in Chapter 1, thereby likely increasing the political will of
states to support humanitarian intervention and R2P, by increasing the force of the ethical considerations in
relation to political barriers.
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CHAPTER 3 A Feasible Reform Agenda
The moral force supplied by Chapter 2 will undoubtedly increase political will for, and thereby decrease the
indeterminacy of, humanitarian intervention and R2P in practice. However, political reform is not merely a
moral requirement of Thomas Pogge's institutional cosmopolitanism, but the moral reconceptualization
supplied is fundamentally incomplete without a complementary political reform agenda. That is, a reform
platform targeting the political barriers in the `ethics vs. politics' decision-making equation, a platform that
increases political will to action by decreasing the weight of political obstacles.
There are two key political avenues to increasing political will. That is, by reducing the scope and prevalence
of mass atrocities, thus reducing the commonality of such crimes, the size of challenge, and the requirements
upon intervening states. Or, by addressing direct institutional barriers that currently impede the otherwise
extant will of states.
Explained by Thomas Pogge, the international order is so manifestly unjust that there are literally countless
reform possibilities available. However, the unjust nature of the international order was not an organic
construction; it was designed by, and with the self-interest of certain global actors in mind. As such, broad-
based institutional reconstruction is likely to be politically unachievable. The challenge rather is to produce a
feasibly achievable reform agenda, with a minimal upfront imposition, yet which manages, through intelligent
targeting, to disproportionately impact the international environment; a series of strategically important
modifications (Pogge 2005: 59) (Pogge 2012) (Pogge 2012a). Such a reform agenda, pivoting where
appropriate from the work of Thomas Pogge, and operating from many of the causal links mentioned in
Chapter 2, will incorporate a synthesis of structural (upstream measures), and individually targeted reforms,
though there will be some categorical overlap and considerable ideological cross-pollination.
Intervention Agreements, the Democratic Panel & the Democratic Fund
As previously explained, the `borrowing privilege' has a significant incentivising impact upon manifestations of
mass atrocities. The associated reform challenge is to strengthen new or weak democratic governments in a
manner that neutralises the borrowing privilege, so as to mitigate against future predatory takeovers, or
autocratic regression (Pogge 2002: 114) (Pogge 1989: 266267) (Pogge 2008: 153).
This is achievable by encouraging new and/or weak democratic states to sign `intervention agreements' with
powerful countries and organisations. Effectively, pre-authorizing intervention in the event that the
29
government in question violates democratic traditions, or is removed by coup (Pogge 2008: 159). As a
deterrent mechanism, this would hold significant value, and in practice would hold more chance of garnering
the requisite political will for action, due to its reliance on selective, and theoretically already willing and
strategically linked actors, rather than the collective political will of the UNSC. The legality of such
arrangements would be potentially challengeable, however, as binding bilateral agreements, and as clear
statements of desire, the legal, and certainly normative strength of intervention agreements would be
substantial. Nevertheless, challenges do present, for though coups and democratic deviations may appear
unambiguous in theory, they can often prove opaque and contestable in practice. Furthermore, states are
likely to be reticent about signing away their sovereignty to the political judgement of third parties. As such,
predatory actors, and autocratic adventures would certainly be deterred by such agreements, yet the
adoption of intervention agreements will likely only prove sporadic (Pogge 2008: 159).
A more targeted reform project, adaptable from Thomas Pogge's poverty-targeting research, is the
development of `Democratic Panels'. This involves new or weak democratic governments passing
constitutional amendments, stating that future debts incurred by the country will not be serviced, if such
debts are incurred by an undemocratic government; such loans would be considered unconstitutional (Pogge
2008: 160). Such amendments would deter potential creditors by making lending overly risky, and conversely
impose a significant `embarrassment factor' and `political pressure' upon actors who supplied credit
regardless, not to pursue loan repayments. To mitigate against the same ambiguity of judgement that
intervention agreements suffer from, and to address any permanent business liability that might form (Pogge
2008 160-161), a credible external authority, with relevant expertise, constitutional understanding, and a
transparent set of guidelines, will need to be created to adjudicate on the nature of government; a
`Democratic Panel'. A Democratic Panel would simply comprise a small procurement of international lawyers
with a designated capacity to deliver discretionary judgements; thereby proving inexpensive to both initiate
and operate (Pogge 2008: 162-164). Moreover, the initial success of individual Panels would likely precipitate
their broader incorporation into a single UN body, thus offering greater stability, legitimacy, investigatory
reach, and mitigation against operational failures by individual Panels (Pogge 2008: 163).
Furthermore, the creation of an `International Democratic Loan Guarantee Fund' would protect against any
credit liability resulting from fears that future autocratic governments, as a retaliatory response, might refuse
to honour loans enacted by previous democratic regimes. In such an event, the Fund would to provide
temporary capital to creditors, effectively creating a loan guarantee. Capital that would be later reimbursed
to the Fund by future democratic governments. Importantly, in the event that the Fund were forced to step
in, the autocratic government would still be held in violation of its international obligations, and subject to
30
the economic exclusionary consequences. Thus, theoretically, autocratic governments would be no more
likely to take such measures than they presently are (Pogge 2008: 165-168).
Beyond disincentivising coups and autocratic governance by neutralising the borrowing privilege, the
democratic impact of such proposals provides a further means of influence over future manifestations of
mass atrocities, and political will to action. Democratic institutions are the most prominent determinant
towards achieving significant economic growth within any given country (Moyo 2010) (Gasiorowski & Power
1998) (Huntington 1984: 198-199) (Pinkney 2004: 6); this is vitally important due to the previously explained
causal link between underdevelopment, inequality, and impoverishment, with manifestations of mass
atrocities. Furthermore, statistically democratic countries are dramatically more likely to support and
participate in humanitarian interventions and peacekeeping missions (Perkins & Neumayer 2008), Democratic
Peace Theory dictates that conflict is less likely between democratic countries, thus reducing the occurrences
of global conflict zones as situations empirically predisposed to mass atrocities (Russett & Layne & Spiro &
Doyle 1995), and importantly, democratic systems have a proven contagion effect upon neighbouring
countries, both in their acceptance of democratic rule and their long-term survival (Pogge 2008: 156)
(Gasiorowski & Power 1998). An important development due to the previously explained casual links between
regime-type and occurrences of mass atrocities. Thus, the maintenance and strengthening of democratic
systems, through Intervention Agreements and Democratic Panels (supported by Democratic Funds), would
not only significantly disincentivise future coups, civil wars and autocratic transitions, thereby reducing
manifestations of mass atrocities, but would also create a complimentary global structural reduction (Pogge
2008: 168).
Democratic Panel Expansion, a Global Resources Dividend & Ecological Tax
As previously explained, the `resource privilege' incentivises predatory takeovers, coups, civil wars and
oppressive autocratic governance. Situations that have a significant precipitous and casual impact on
manifestations of mass atrocities. Similarly to the borrowing privilege, in order to neutralise this privilege, the
poverty-targeting research of Thomas Pogge can be adapted, through an expansion of Democratic Panels. As
such, new or weak democratic states would pass constitutional amendments declaring that only democratic,
thus constitutionally valid governments have the legal rights to sell the country's public property. Though
authoritarian rulers will no doubt still seek to divest public property, third party willingness to purchase or
accept such property will likely dissipate due to the lack of legal legitimacy, and by an understanding that
returning democratic governments will likely invalidate such exchanges, and subsequently seek
reappropriation or compensation. This process will be overseen, and adjudicated upon, by the creation of
31
differently augmented, or by the expansion of existing (borrowing privilege orientated), Democratic Panels.
However, the disincentive this supplies, will have dramatically more force domestically than it will
internationally, due to the physical act of property re-seizure still lying within the country's jurisdiction.
International re-seizure or compensation would require significant international pressure and legal debate, at
which point purchasing countries, due to national interest considerations, might still be refuse court orders,
or be undeterred in their purchasing behaviour (Pogge 2008: 170). Accordingly, though their influence would
be significant, `Resource Panels' hold less reforming capacity than `Borrowing Panels'
(Pogge 2008: 168-172).
As such, a complementary measure developed by Pogge, in order to neutralise the resource privilege would
be the creation of a Global Resources Dividend. The Dividend is built upon the idea that all citizens ought to
own a share in the natural resources of their country. As such, a percentage of profits from the sale of a
country's resources, must be redistributed to all citizens; thus a globally administered dividend ought to be
applied to all resource transactions. This would not interfere with areas of national control, eminent domain,
or how resources are used; it simply creates all citizens as shareholders in their country's resources, and any
economic value that may be derived from it. The capital created by the Dividend would be reapplied via
supranational structures, to meet the basic needs of global citizens, or to fund humanitarian operations
(Pogge 2008: 202-222).
Criticisms of the Dividend tend to focus on its distributive effects, in comparison to the value of resources
themselves, and by what is seen as an unduly heavy burden being placed on the points of resource extraction.
As an economic policy, ideally the Dividend cost should be re-augmented so that they are primarily imposed
upon purchasing countries, so as to avoid diminishing the export and manufacturing sectors of developing
economies, whilst still placing an impost upon appropriable resource profits through the passed-on costs
from purchasing countries. Furthermore, this singular point-of-extraction does little to deter environmental
degradation, which has a disproportionate impact on poorer societies unable to mitigate for environmental
change. This entrenches poverty, thus entrenching a social reality conducive to manifestations of mass
atrocities (Hayward 2005 317- 322). Therefore, an alternative approach is to focus on the "command of
resources" and "ecological space"; that is, a focus on the amount of land and water, in terms of area (global
hectares), that is required to produce, consume, and to assimilate the generated waste, of resources. A
measurement produced by adding imports to domestic consumption, and subtracting exports (Hayward
2005: 323-324). This constitutes an "ecological debt" (Hayward 2005: 329). A debt that will attract a
correlative tax to be applied in the same manner as the Global Resource Dividend. This places the burden of
redistribution firmly upon those countries that benefit most from resource extraction, not simply upon the
countries of origin. Thereby offering a more accurate moral statement, a better means to tackle global
32
inequality, while still offering diminished incentives towards coups and autocratic governance by reducing the
unattached profit margins available from resource sales (Hayward 2005: 317-331).
Regardless of which option is pursued, the Dividend or the Ecological Tax, a decentralised and minimal
sanction scheme will need to be created, whereby individual countries are obliged to impose sanctions upon
countries that violate their related obligations. Such sanctions would exist so as to inflict the same minimal
economic imposition upon the country, that would otherwise have been imposed by the Dividend or Tax;
merely incentivising compliance (Pogge 2008: 212-218). The Dividend or Ecological Tax, in conjunction with
resource focussed Democratic Panels, will undoubtedly have an impact upon the incentivising nature of the
resource privilege by reducing the ability of leaders to misappropriate resource profits, the total quantity of
resource profits available for misappropriation, and indirectly, by imposing a clear political statement
concerning rightful ownership of resources and the harm caused by the resource privilege (Pogge 2008: 202-
218).
Development An Aid Alternative
The causal link between underdevelopment, economic stagnation and poverty, with increases in communal
violence and mass atrocities is both profound and multifaceted. There are countless empirical examples from
Ethiopia (Ignatieff 1999: 16), Bangladesh (Bellamy 2011: 98), Sierra Leone (Bellamy 2011: 107), Rwanda
(Weiss & Collins 2000: 100), Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador (Weiss & Collins 2000: 72), amongst
others, and numerous inductive and deductive statistical studies producing accurately predictive links
between the level of a country's economic development and the likelihood that it will suffer from internal
conflict and mass atrocities (Adelman 2002: 9) (Collier, et.al. 2003: 58) (Bellamy 2011: 94-99).
Expressed by
then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, "Every step taken towards reducing poverty and achieving broad-
based economic growth is a step toward conflict prevention" (ICISS 2001: 3.19). The "financial cushion" of
economic development is the most statistically certain means to immunise a society against mass atrocities
(Collier, et.al. 2003: 122).
Beyond this structural link, there are a number of less direct means by which economic development
functions towards reducing instances of mass atrocities. Firstly, increased economic development within a
country increases the average lasting power of democratic governance (Moyo 2010). Secondly, increases in
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and GDP, as associated with economic growth of any given country,
statistically correlates to decreasing rates of corruption, cronyism and unrepresentative governance (Moyo
2010). Thirdly, economic development and greater rates of societal employment, accompanied by increases
33
in wages and opportunities, help to mitigate against the significant impact that external financing currently
has on civil wars and coups (Collier, et.al. 2003: 127-128).
Accordingly, the very fact that globally 750 million people currently live in extreme poverty (Jones 2001)
represents a global environment prone to violence and mass atrocities, and lends an `intractable perception'
to the problem, thus reducing political will to action (Azariadis & Stachurski 2004) (Sachs 2007) (Sachs et.al.
2004). This situation has driven global policy commitments to `development aid' as a means to break this
cycle. However, development aid not only has proven a continued failure in practice (Cotter 1979) (Ovaska
2003) (Bovard 1986) (Moyo 2010), it has further harmed those whom it is designed to help, and exacerbated
the development challenge by suffocating local industry, fostering corruption, encouraging unrepresentative
government, distorting local markets, eroding domestic savings, driving inflation, discouraging investment,
decreasing employment opportunities, decreasing productivity, undermining export markets, misdirecting
human talent, disenfranchising populations, damaging social capital and encouraging dependency (Anderson
1998: 138-153) (Appiah 2006: 170) (Moyo 2010). Furthermore, the aid-flows themselves are proven to
encourage and sustain autocratic rule (Collier, et.al. 2003: 72-73) (Bellamy 2011: 109), to sustain civil war and
mass atrocities (Anderson 1998: 137) (Weiss 2007: 74-75) (Weiss & Collins 2000: 106), and to incentivise
coups, communal conflict, and societal oppression (Collier, et.al. 2003: 63) (Moyo 2010).
Therefore it is important to produce an alternative development process that is divorced from the current aid
model. A process will be primarily focussed on development financing, for despite it seeming counterintuitive,
finance is the pivotal aspect of development programs. Such an alternative model is available through the
work of economist Dambisa Moyo (Moyo 2010). Firstly, governments of developing countries must be
encouraged and assisted to access bond markets as their primary source of international finance. Bonds are
essentially loans, the fundamental difference being that the bond market is an open, commercial
marketplace, where countries compete in order to sell themselves to potential investors, and where interest
rates are defined by the market. By requiring emerging economies to seek such finance, they are forced
through market dynamics to internally self-reform in order to attract investors, thereby imposing cultural and
economically conducive structural change within developing economies. Secondly, developing countries must
be encouraged to access FDI in to fund large-scale infrastructure projects. FDI drives economic growth where
otherwise the capacity, the initiative or the will is lacking, thereby increasing levels of employment,
technological advancement, domestic enterprise, and domestic capital. As with the bond market, by forcing
developing countries to seek development through FDI, a self-administered structural reform is implicit, for in
order to attract significant FDI, countries must make themselves economically attractive propositions. Thirdly,
internationally, governments must be held to account for failing to abide by their self-championed free trade
obligations, particularly so in relation to agricultural products. The continued imposition of tariffs and
34
domestic subsidies by developed economies, in violation of their openly stated economic ideals, significantly
impedes the ability of developing economies to export their way to growth, in what has become a proven
pathway to development (Pogge 2005: 78) (Jordaan 2010: 246) (Collier, et.al. 2003: 138-139). Fourthly,
developing countries need to be facilitated in adopting the successful domestic micro-financing model,
devised and applied by Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh (Yunus 2007). Where otherwise a lack of material
assets would have excluded poor communities from accessing finance, Yunus' s model provides finance to
poor communities by using their sense of community and mutual belonging as collateral. A system where the
repayment behaviour of individuals affects the ability of other members of same community to access future
loans. This collective responsibility has proven immensely successful in practice, and importantly has afforded
severely impoverished communities access the benefits of economic development. Supplementary to these
four measures, though potentially forming organically within the newly created economic environment,
developing economies will need to be assisted to create a viable banking system in order to facilitate
domestic saving, to develop well regulated, and regionally integrated, stock markets to supply business
liquidity, and to form truly independent reserve banking systems to regulate fiscal policy (Manji 2010),
develop capacity-capable institutions (Kapur & Webb 2000), create mechanisms for `commodity risk pooling'
(Collier, et.al. 2003: 133) (Collier, et.al. 2003: 180), and where feasible build toward monetary unions (UNECA
& SADC 2009).
The impetus for such a development shift, will need to be a commitment by donor nations to gradually wind
back their foreign aid programs (excluding relief-based, emergency aid) to zero, over a period of ten years.
This implies a chance of short-term suffering; yet, such a push factor is likely necessary, and morally
defensible considering the long-term benefit. Importantly, such a development strategy would be highly
amenable to donor countries, both due to the likely outcomes, and the immediate savings achieved through
cuts in foreign aid budgets (Moyo 2010).
Health Impact Fund (Development Policy)
What development assistance would still be present, such as that which would be available from the
previously mentioned Global Resource Dividend or Ecological Tax, must be carefully and selectively applied at
the supranational level in a manner that produces a significant global economic impact, without detrimentally
affecting this newly forming economic environment, in the manner that development aid has proven to. One
such targeted application is Thomas Pogge's `Health Impact Fund'. The developing world suffers from a
disproportionate disease burden, which in turn deepens cycles of poverty (Sachs 2007) (Sachs et.al. 2004)
35
(Acemoglu & Johnson & Robinson 2003: 399), thereby significantly impacting upon manifestations of mass
atrocities.
Treatable or curable diseases kill eighteen million people annually, equating to immense social fragmentation,
loss of human capital, and populations that are reliant upon internal or external welfare (Pogge 2008: 222).
Beyond this, hundreds of millions more suffer horribly from the symptoms of avoidable diseases (Pogge 2008:
222), thereby reducing productivity, limiting business opportunities, precipitating diasporas, damaging
educational outcomes (Acemoglu & Johnson & Robinson 2003: 398-401) (Acemoglu & Johnson 2007), eroding
domestic savings, and limiting government capacity (DSAED 2010) (WHO 2014). This situation is significantly
contributed to by the over burdensome cost of medicines for poor populations, and/or a research and
development neglect of those diseases that primarily affect less-developed societies (Chris & Singh & Sudarshi
2011) (Pogge 2008: 222-261).
The research and development of new medicines is an extremely expensive and economically uncertain
process. Recognising this, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement on Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) protects the profitability of this process by enforcing medical patents,
amounting to a long-term global market monopoly. This produces both high pricing of available medicines
and a research focus on new medicines that target affluent customers capable of paying such high prices. The
Health Impact fund offers an alternative and supplementary funding mechanism for medical research and
development, in order to both target medicines for the developing world, and to supply those medicines at a
marginal cost. The Fund, financially backed by governments, pays companies according to the calculable
health impact of the medicines they develop, in the event that they choose to forgo the patent option and
opt into the Fund. The new medicines would be sold at a marginal cost, thereby achieving as broad a global
access as possible, and thus increasing the companies' chances of increasing profits, based on an increased
health impact. This provides socially-conscious companies with an avenue for both addressing the disease
burden upon the developing world, whilst still operating a profitable enterprise. The Health Impact Fund
would potentially have a significant impact on the global disease burden, thereby increasing the economic
potential of developing countries, and offering a structural reduction in likely future manifestations of mass
atrocities (Pogge 2008: 222-261) (Pogge 2005a).
Media Development (Development Policy)
An often neglected, specific development policy that requires facilitation in at-risk countries, is the capital-
intensive infrastructure projects and training that constitute media development. The majority of the world's
population are currently excluded from a basic democratic access to communication (Winseck 1997: 345)
36
(Vincent 1997), and globally there has been a precipitous decline in levels of media freedom (GAO 2005). This
is significant for, free, diverse, widespread, and independent media sectors, disproportionately impacts a
society's ability to inoculate itself against future manifestations of mass atrocities. Such media environments
are proven to build social capital (First 1997: 41-50) (Fukuyama 2001), reduce inequality (Chakravaritty &
Sarikakis 2006: 115), improve human rights standards (Shaw 2011: 96-121), increase the likelihood of
democratic mobilisation (Lindsey 2013) (Rosen 2011), improve economic performance (Burton 2010: 5-43),
advance post-conflict prosecutions (Caudill 1997), strengthen civil society (Lasorsa 1997), erode authoritarian
control (Kahn & Kellner 2004), improve health outcomes, improve social conditions, decrease levels of
corruption (Leeson 2008) and increase educational outcomes (Becker & Vlad & Nusser 2007: 7).
Beyond this structural impact upon occurrences of mass atrocities, enhancements in media and reporting,
directly improves the ability of the international community to achieve the requisite, responsive political will
to action. A functional media environment, has the ability to both accurately and immediately inform the
global populous of, thereby forcing international attention upon, unconscionable crimes and suffering.
Consequentially, abolishing the real-time distance between victims and the international audience, allowing
an international collective conscious to form, and compassion to globalise. Such a focussing of public opinion
increases the capacity to morally shame and to pressure political actors, by virtue of the increased public
relation costs attached to political inaction. As such, increases in media reach and reporting, operate as a vital
catalyst toward achieving international political will for humanitarian intervention and R2P (Igantieff 1998:
291-300) (Ignatieff 1999: 21-32) (Adelman 2002: 17) (Cohen 2002: 75-76) (Takeshita 1997) (Bass 2008: 26-28)
(Tivona 2011: 317-344) (Errington & Miragliotta 2008: 204-207).
Despite media development still existing as an uncertain field, a multifaceted approach, and broad-based
agenda is both necessary and achievable by; 1. Developing foundational infrastructure and technological
capacity. 2. The development of targeted journalism schools and training programs. 3. Creating an
encompassing regulatory and legal framework to ensure both press freedom and right to information, while
protecting against invasions of privacy and defamation. 4. Forming journalistic, publishing, and broadcasting
unions/associations. 5. Creating public-access media, independent media avenues, and local press centres. 6.
Societally promoting the role of free media. 7. Promoting diplomatic avenues between government and
media enterprise. 8. Developing Institutional strength. 9. Encouraging media pluralism and diversity. And, 10.
Creating robust ownership regulations and standards of transparency (GAO 2005) (Becker & Vlad & Nusser
2004) (AMIC compilation 2000: 249-259).
Importantly, although such an approach is made markedly easier by the growth of `new media' and `citizen
journalism' (Manovich 2006: 5-10) (Silverstone 1999) (Pavlik 2013) (Siapera 2012: 1-22) (Cohen 2002: 78)
(Kahn & Kellner 2004), an international coordinating body, ideally incorporated into the UN architecture, is
37
necessary to develop a uniformity and sense of purpose, that extant ad hoc initiatives and collaborations have
hitherto been lacking (Myers 2009) (Becker & Vlad & Nusser 2007) (Raboy & Padovani 2010: 155) (Calabrese
& Redal 1997).
UN Reforms - The Jurying Process & the International Court
In respect to humanitarian intervention and R2P, the United Nations currently operates as the international
"dispenser of legitimacy" (Tsagourias 2013: 138) (Thakur 2006: 245), it is still "unquestionably the principal
institution for building, consolidating and using the authority of the international community" (ICISS 2001:
6:8). However, the UNSC has become a significant impediment to humanitarian action: an inherently
intractable institution (Pogge 2010: 167), designed with an inclination toward paralysis by supplying
unrepresentative veto powers to P5 members, and functioning from an outdated principal document in the
UN Charter (Tsagourias 2013: 143) (ICISS 2001: 6:13).
Foundational reconstruction of the UN is unlikely to be achievable, as such Thomas Franck has proposed a
`Jurying Process'. Comprising state representatives, the Jurying Process reconciles international law, with
normative and common values, by offering an open forum for debate concerning contentious international
developments, a forum where equal consideration is supplied to both legal and moral claims. Under such a
consultative process, legal principles could be fairly derogated in order to produce a considered outcome,
rather than a dogmatic legal restatement. However, such a process would likely suffer from a lack of
independence and impartiality in the jury's composition, therefore likely to be afflicted by the same
intransigence that currently plagues the UNSC (Pogge 2010: 165-177).
As such, an alternative reform advocated by Thomas Pogge, is the creation of an International Court. The
international stage is void of an "effective judicial organ for the authoritative interpretation and adjudication
of international law in real time" (Pogge 2010: 180). That is, an independent court of judges, with a proven
commitment to the UN and international law, in order to provide clarity, and deliver verdicts for issues that
are encumbered by the current mechanisms and distribution of power (Pogge 2010: 180). The initial
introduction of such a body would be non-intrusive, yet would hold the capacity to disproportionately
influence further reforms and the actions of powerful nations. The judicial process of international law would
be removed from the influence of powerful countries, with the court deliberating and offering definitive
decisions over whether certain conventions have been breached, obligations violated or crimes committed,
thereby developing a more robust international legal structure. This would produce the spill-over effect of
offering both clearer pathways to military interventions, and clearer operational parameters for such
interventions (Pogge 2010: 180). The independent clarity provided by the Court would diminish instances of
38
legal misappropriation, thus likely precipitating long-overdue institutional reforms from countries, recognising
their claim to international law can only be validated by the Court. Furthermore, the Court, due to its
authoritative standing, would effectively hold the normative capacity to legally authorise intervention, in the
event that the intervention in question had not been previously and expressly forbidden by a UNGA
supermajority or by the UNSC. This is important, for by shifting the emphasis to a "forbidding resolution"
rather than an "authorising resolution", the imposition of the P5 veto is largely nullified (Pogge 2010: 180-
181). Implementation and compliance with the Court will be facilitated by a proven commitment to
independence and impartiality, coupled with a rigorous legal architecture. Furthermore, as the current global
epoch becomes ever-more influenced by emerging powers, the existing dominant actors are increasingly
likely to prove increasingly willing to allow international law a more prominent global position, as a means of
mitigation (Pogge 2010: 182).
The `jurying process', yet particularly so, the `International Court', represent UN reform agendas that could
feasibly be achieved with a minimal prima facie imposition, yet contain the potential to effect
disproportionately significant long-term structural and normative change. Resulting in a distinct easing of
political obstructionism for humanitarian intervention and R2P, thus producing greater determinacy and will
to action, in response to manifestations of mass atrocities.
A UN Standing Army & Regional Annexation of Humanitarian Intervention
As previously illustrated, authorised humanitarian interventions and related peacekeeping missions have
tended to falter in practice due to member states failing to promptly or adequately fund UNSC resolutions,
failing to supply requisite troop numbers and equipment (Tsagourias 2013: 137-145), or by the troops that are
supplied, lacking in adequate training and preparations for what are unique military situations (ICISS 2001:
7:1-7:51); an after-the-fact absence of political will.
A solution to this persistent failing is the creation of a UN Standing Army. This would comprise relatively small
allocations of troops from all capable member states, trained together, functioning on two-year rotations,
and deployable in a matter of days in direct response to UNSC resolutions. The cost of which, on best
estimates, would not be overly impositional, and dispersed through all financially capable members states
(Pattison 2008: 129). Importantly, such a force, though still limited by UNSC authorisation, would help
degrade present failures of political will by removing the ability of member states to agree to resolutions in
principle in order to appease public opinion, without any real intention of supplying the requisite troops and
funding (Tsagourias 2013: 137). Moreover, the presence of a Standing Army would likely increase political will
within the UNSC by reducing reliance upon the P5 countries to materially support resolutions. Furthermore,
39
the Standing Army would supply ideological strength to humanitarian intervention and R2P, by reducing the
ability of powerful countries to abuse and misappropriate UNSC mandates via their material control over
operations (Tsagourias 2013: 145) (Pattison 2008: 126-132). However, differing proposals for the creation of a
UN Standing Army have consistently failed to attract international support, particularly so from the P5 and
other powerful countries (Pattison 2008: 126-130).
As such, a `regional annexation' of humanitarian processes, both in terms of orchestrating and initiating
intervention, is necessary. Not only would such a development likely force the UN's to initiate much-needed
reforms in order to sustain its global influence, but importantly such a move would be judicious due to
regional organisations currently presenting a viable alternative mechanism for addressing the challenge of
achieving political will. Due to increases in economic interconnectivity (Kernic & Karlborg 2010), proximity
(Perkins & Neumayer 2008), cross-border ramifications (ICISS 2001: 6:31-6:35), and strategic interests
(Bellamy 2009b), countries are statistically more likely to participate in interventions if there is an existing
joint regional membership linking them to the conflicted country. Operationally, regional organisations are
better positioned to produce appropriately targeted sanctions (Vines 2013), better situated for rapid
responses, tend to have a more nuanced cultural understanding and sensitivity for the target country, have
reduced running and implementation costs associated with interventions, and importantly tend to hold
greater legitimacy in the eyes of local populations; all these factors can be expected to contribute to a greater
political will to action (Bellamy 2009b) (ICISS 2001: 6:31-6:35).
Furthermore, regional control over humanitarian intervention offers significant benefits in relationship to
early warning mechanisms. Such mechanisms are reliant upon access to, and expert analysis of, data relating
to often subtle changes on the ground (ICISS 2001: 3.10), such as population displacement, ethnic
mobilisation or political fragmentation (Bellamy 2011: 138) (Weiss 2007: 89-90). Acquiring such information
necessitates deep local understandings, integrated access to non-governmental organizations (NGO)'s and
sub-state groups (Kuperman 2001: 101), and importantly the ability to deliver quick responses-times (ICISS
2001: 3.6-3.12) (Kuperman 2001: 15-16). A role that regional organisations are better positioned fulfil
(Bellamy 2009b) (ICISS 2001: 3.17) (Vines 2013). Furthermore, early warning mechanisms offer meaningful
improvements toward achieving political will for humanitarian intervention, by reducing the contingent
material costs, the scale of necessary operations, and the risk to life, as opposed to traditional after-the-fact
responses to extant mass atrocities (Stamnes 2009) (ICISS 2001: 3.7) (Kuperman 2001: 100).
To draw particular focus on the African region, due to its disproportionately high rates of conflicts, coups and
mass atrocities (Enuka 2012: 52) (Vines 2013), the constitutional statements of the African Union (AU) and
other significant sub-regional organisations explicitly authorise the right of intervention in order to impose
regional `peace' and `security'
(Paliwal 2010). Although, selectively already becoming a reality, a broad
40
normative shift toward the fulfilment of this constitutional intent, to the detriment of the UN Charter, would
encourage the UN toward overdue reform, and supply a greater avenue for what is currently developing as
the most effective means of executing humanitarian missions; an avenue that will likely improve in capacity,
legitimacy and operational outcomes as it further develops in practice (Arthur 2010). A development,
obligatorily important toward achieving political will to action, due to recent precipitous statistical declines in
the willingness of Western powers to engage in humanitarian interventions (Cottey 2008).
To facilitate such a shift, and develop the requisite capacity to do so, a version of the African Standby Force
(ASF) must be realised. A regional permeation of the UN Standing Army, the ASF would be the creation of
quickly deployable military units, comprising troops from all capable member states, and though under the
operational guise of the AU, would be segmented within capacity ready sub-regional organisations. A force
trained and held accountable to uniform understandings of operational standards and integrity, whilst being
afforded the sort of sub-regional autonomy that will provide greater nuance in operational delivery, greater
local legitimacy, and greater political will by member states due to relationally high degrees of operational
control. Furthermore, a regional commitment to an ASF, would likely attract and funnel, what is currently
divergent international funding for African security initiatives, as a means to focus resources, increase
capacity, and importantly supply uniformity in basic operational standards (Bellamy 2009b) (Vines 2013: 97-
98) (Coleman 2011).
Such regional initiatives, especially in Africa due to the significant concentrations of violence on the continent,
will have significant derivative effects on the collective political will of the UNSC: provoking moral decision-
making over political obfuscation, in response to both a reduced reliance on P5 material support, and a
realisation that without meaningful changes to either UNSC processes or UNSC outcomes, the current
institutional control and agenda-setting capacity of the P5 is likely be usurped to by regional organisation
41
Conclusion
Hitherto, humanitarian intervention and R2P have been plagued, in practice, by a pervasive lack of political
will to action. As such, a `culture of impunity' dominates the international social environment, where
perpetrators of grievous international crimes operate under the knowledge that statistically they are unlikely
to be stopped, and even less likely to be held to account after-the-fact, for their crimes (Bellamy 2011: 1).
This failure of will can be overcome firstly, by a reconceptualization of international moral responsibility in
relation to mass atrocities so as to strengthen the ethical force behind humanitarian intervention and R2P. A
reconceptualization appropriately achieved through the prism of moral cosmopolitanism, yet primarily as
multifaceted violations of our negative duties not to harm, via the outlined methodology of Thomas Pogge,
and the categories of `profiting', `state-behaviour', `incentivising', and importantly `Pogge's institutional
cosmopolitanism'. And secondly, by a targeted reform agenda that produces a meaningful reduction in
political and material barriers to action, by reducing the scope and prevalence of mass atrocities, thus
reducing the commonality of such crimes, the size of the intervention challenge, and the requirements upon
intervening states, and conversely, by addressing direct institutional barriers that currently impede the
otherwise extant will of states. A reform agenda, intelligently targeted so as to be minimally impositional, and
as such feasibly achievable, yet still capable of producing a disproportionately significant impact upon the
international environment.
As demonstrated, such a reform platform is appropriately achievable through an adaption and expansion of
the work of Thomas Pogge. Accordingly, political and material barriers to humanitarian intervention and R2P
would be dramatically decreased if the international environment bore witness to an uptake, even in part, of
`Intervention Agreements', `Democratic Borrowing Panels' (supported if necessary by `Democratic Funds'),
`Democratic Resource Panels', a `Global Resource Dividend' or `Ecological Tax', a `development aid
alternative', the `Health Impact Fund', `media development', a `UN Jurying Process' or `International Court',
and `regional annexations of humanitarian intervention'.
The moral force supplied by Chapter 2's reconceptualization, in conjunction with the reform agenda outlined
in Chapter 3, offers a meaningful avenue to positively affect the `ethics vs. politics' decision-making paradigm.
Thereby increasing political will for, and subsequently decreasing the indeterminacy of, humanitarian
intervention and R2P in practice. That is, the creation of a new global epoch, where future emergent
humanitarian emergencies will predicably and consistently be met with timely and decisive intervention.
42
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