The Duty to Protect Human Rights - Coursework Example

Public international law: Human Rights and the Duty to Protect Dreams of peace and prosperity ushered in the end of the Cold War; a new world order with the United States and liberal democracy were firmly entrenched as the dominant power and ideological system in international affairs. Optimistic dreams of a new world order in which markets were free and peace became the global modus operandi were shattered in the early 1990s with the explosion of ethnic conflict and humanitarian tragedies on a grand scale. Ethnic conflict threatened the territorial integrity of countries throughout the world including Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia in Africa; Bosnia and Kosovo in Eastern Europe; state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in East Timor in Asia and extreme violence on the North American island nation of Haiti. These were the “new wars” at the end of the 20th century. Although ethnic conflict and humanitarian crises have existed since the dawn of time, for the first time ever images of extreme bloodshed, violence and even genocide were broadcast into the homes of the viewing public through international television stations like the Cable News Network (CNN), Fox and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Images of children being slaughtered, women raped and people brutalized were beamed into the living rooms of people all over the world, for all to see. For the first time, the public was confronted, on a near daily basis, with images of carnage and humanitarian crisis. People pressed their congressmen, parliamentarians and state representatives to act and, in varying degrees, a groundswell calling for a decisive role for governments in ending these humanitarian crises and conflicts emerged. Although some wanted direct military action, often French, British or American, in ending a particular conflict, most governments have traditionally favored other instruments of diplomacy: political pressure, economic sanctions and imposed settlement through international bodies such as the United Nations. While support for military intervention was certainly not the operative interventionist choice for most in the cases mentioned in the introductory paragraph above – for example, how many Americans or Frenchmen before the genocide could locate Rwanda on a map? – in each case presented above, the international community did consider some type of military intervention in ending the respective crises (Boettcher, 2004). Are human rights a key determinant of foreign policy? If so, how does the protection of human rights on a global scale influence the stated policies of the governments around the world, including the United States of America? Seeking to address these questions and many more as they relate to recent humanitarian crises and the international response to them, this essay will tackle the role the protection of human rights plays in determining the foreign policy objectives of governments around the world. Is there a duty to protect or does state interest supersede non-tangible issues like human rights? International Human Rights in Practice A multilateral intervention then is one in which a group of state actors – a minimum of two – engage in direct military conflict with another. Examples of multilateral intervention by the United States include the war in Afghanistan which was supported by a multinational coalition which included Canada, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. Multilateral interventions almost universally receive the sanction and approval of the United Nations. They are also seen by people around the world as a more acceptable form of intervention because they naturally rely on coalition-building and consensus. Although many people talk about human rights and the importance of preserving them, few actually know how to define the term. The concept of human rights is best defined by the United Nations, which, in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, contains 30 articles and emphasizes universal freedom and equality and prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (United Nations 1948). Seeing human rights as a common standard and guaranteeing rights in the political, social and economic realms, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights promotes the right to life, liberty and the security of the person (3), prohibits slavery (4), torture (5) and promotes the right to legal recognition before the law (6). Although a full definition of the entire UN Declaration of Human Rights is unnecessary here, it is important to keep these concepts in mind with respect to US foreign policy and antecedents to US global intervention (United Nations, 1948). What is state interest and how is it defined? State interest is a slippery term which is often discussed without a proper definition. Realism, as an explanatory theory of international relations, provides perhaps the most concise and strongest definition of what constitutes state interest. Accordingly, the national interest is very important to realists and state interest is an inherent component of international relations. In fact, for realists it is arguably the most crucial component required in the attempt to understand political actors on a global scale. First and foremost it is important to remember that state interest or state preference operates in an anarchic environment. The international system is inherently unstable and is aptly characterized by widespread anarchy. Due to the absence of a suprastate or overarching Leviathan authority, states are placed in inevitable and perpetual competition, described as the security dilemma. Because of the anarchic nature of international affairs, states are perpetually concerned with their survival. For realists, the international system is a “dog-eat-dog world” and ensuring survival is paramount for any and all states. According to Hans Morgenthau, pioneering German political scientist and an early proponent of realist thought, due to the inherent instability of the international system, the fundamental national interest of all states is to “protect [its] physical, political, and cultural identity against encroachments by other nations” (Morgenthau, 1952). Specifically, threats to states are determined by their relative power vis-à-vis one others in the international system. The structure of the system – the distribution of power and capabilities state wide - is important because threats or challenges facing a state which affront the national interest should be “calculated according to the situation in which the state finds itself” (Waltz, 1979). Thus, power and security requirements are paramount in attempting to define state interest and what motivates states to act. Furthermore, Power and wealth supply the means for states to survive, to meet their security requirements, and thus to continue to compete in a system in which other states are necessarily either actual or potential threats. State officials ad policy analysts are therefore advised realistically to asses the distribution of power; they should overcome their ‘aversion to seeing problems of international politics as they are’ in order to objectively asses the national interest in light of the distribution of power. Every state, that is, must pursue its national interest “defined in terms of power” (Morgenthau 1952) because this is the surest road to security and survival (Weldes, 1999). If we apply the realist conception of states power and apply it to the United States, state interest is culmination of a variety of factors and is determined in terms of power politics and system-level concerns. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a bitter confrontation pitting two opposite poles in the international order against one another. In this period of bipolarity, state behavior was mediated by concerns regarding the stability of the international system as well as the state interest and behavior of the other major power. Today, the United States operates in a unipolar world and is the world’s hegemonic state. State behavior is less constrained as it was during the Cold War but US state interest today reflects power conditions and the maintenance of overall system stability which promotes the supreme status of the United States in the international system. Power is a “hard” issue and a primary concern for survival; so called “soft issues” like human rights and democracy are far less salient. In the anarchic world of international affairs, hard or core issues always supersede soft issues and are integral to defining state interest and behavior. Keeping in mind our realist conception of state interest, what motivates US foreign policy when it comes to military intervention? During the Cold War, analyses of American decision making with respect to foreign policy generally fell within three broad schools or thought or conceptual frameworks, hegemonic power, structural realism, and ideological conflict. Hegemonic power is the first conceptual framework and asserts that US intervention is dictated by concerns relating to hegemony, a term defined as a “preponderant influence or authority over others” (Webster, 2008), and in particular US hegemony in its traditional hemispheric spheres of influence, specifically in the Americas. Thus, the hegemonic power school would argue that the United States would most readily intervene when its interests where at stake in areas in which it traditionally exerted hegemonic authority. This framework would serve to provide explanatory service to US military interventions in Chile and Grenada during the latter half of the twentieth century. Structural realism is another important theory of international relations which was best articulated by Morgenthau, Waltz and Herz. Accordingly, interventions are, from a structural realist perspective, driven by pre-existing structures within the international system and exist as stabilizers. From this perspective, polarity is a key concern and interventions take place because they secure and stabilize polarity arrangements within the international system. Interventions are thus undertaken and authorized because they maintain the existing balance of power arrangements within the international geopolitical system (Waltz, 1979). The third and final concept, the ideological perspective, argues that military interventions have been driven by ideology and an unrestrained and oftentimes zealous desire to spread liberal democracy around the world. According to this set of assumptions, US interests lie in the promotion of human rights, free markets and democracy across the globe. The ideological conflict perspective gained particular credence during the Cold War when liberal democracy, spearheaded by the United States, was in a no-holds-barred ideological conflict with ‘evil’ ideology of communism, exemplified by the Soviet Union. According to this theory, a zealous desire to spread liberal democracy across the globe explains US interventions abroad and Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan are often cited as proponents of this doctrine. Accordingly, all three overarching perspectives, hegemonic power, structural realism, and ideological conflict, “operate under the assumption that some concept of the national interest drives U.S. decisions to militarily intervene in a crisis (although their interpretations of that national interest diverge)” (Butler, 2003). CONCLUDING REMARKS In seeking to define something as complex as the elaboration of global foreign policy in the face of human rights crisis, a variety of factors must be analyzed. Fundamentally though, this interpretive paper has shown that strategic interests trump concerns about human rights in foreign policy. Intangibles factors are superseded by strategic geopolitical concerns, both in the Cold War as well as in the post-War period. Accordingly, structural realism and hegemonic power theory best explains foreign policy when it comes to human rights interventions and the duty to protect. Since the United States plays a special role in the international system and is undeniably the world’s hegemonic power, we explored the particular motivations of American foreign policy with respect to human rights. Accordingly, the ideological perspective does not have the adequate explanatory power and system level concerns best explain the decisions of the global actors to intervene or not in a conflict which involves human rights abuses and other so-called intangible concerns. references Burrowes, R.A. (1988). Revolution and Rescue in Grenada: An Account of the US-Caribbean Invasion. Toronto: Greenwood Press. Butler, M.J. (2003). U.S. Military Intervention in Crisis, 1945-1994: An Empirical Inquiry of Just War. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 47:2, 226-248. Boettcher III, W.A. (2004). Military Intervention Decisions regarding Humanitarian Crises: Framing Induced Risk Behavior. The Journal of Conflict Resolution. 48:3, 331-355. Carleton, D., Stohl, M. (1985). Foreign Policy of Human Rights: Rhetoric and Reality from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. Human Rights Quarterly, 7,205-229. Forsythe, D.P (2000). Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy. New York: United Nations University Press. Hegemony. Miriam Webster Dictionary. Retrieved October 01 2009 from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hegemony. Holmes, K. R., Feulner, E.J, OGrady, M.A and Kim, A.B (2008). Index of Economic Freedom, 2008. Washington: The Heritage Foundation. Morgenthau, H. (1948). Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Morgenthau, H. (1951). In Defense of the National Interest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. The United Nations (1948). New York: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Weldes, J. (1999). Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Read More