Eight Principles for Humanitarian Intervention1

1. This article is adapted from Tesón 2005a.

Abstract

When is humanitarian intervention legitimate and how should such interventions be conducted? This article sets out eight liberal principles that underlie humanitarian intervention, some of them abstract principles of international ethics and others more concrete principles that apply specifically to humanitarian intervention. It argues that whilst these principles do not determine the legitimacy of particular interventions, they should ‘incline’ our judgments towards approval or disapproval. The basic principles include the liberal idea that governments are the mere agents of the people, that tyrannical governments forfeit their legal protections, that human rights entail obligations for governments, that justifiable intervention must intend the end of tyranny or anarchy, that the doctrine of double-effect should be respected, that intervention is only warranted in severe cases, that intervention be welcomed by those it is intended to save, and that ideally it is welcomed by the community of democratic states.

Keywords:

• humanitarian intervention
• moral principles
• liberalism
• legitimacy

Notes

1. This article is adapted from Tesón 2005a.

2. Supporters of humanitarian intervention have generally treated guiding principles as necessary conditions for legitimacy, so that if one of the conditions is lacking the intervention would be illegitimate (See Wheeler 2000:33 ff) and (E.g. ICISS 2001:31–37, McChrystal 2000:61–70). The more flexible approach in the text better address the complexities, similarities, and differences of various situations.

3. In my view, non-liberal yet ‘within the pale’ régimes should be treated as if they were ‘on probation’ in their way either to joining the liberal alliance or to collapsing into tyrannies. For a view of international legitimacy similar to the one I defend, see Buchanan 1999:46.

4. This idea has been forcefully challenged by Rodin 2002. See the replies by Ryan, McMahan, Tesón 2004:69–91 and the rejoinder by Rodin 2004:93–98.

5. Yoo 2004:729 has recently defended a pragmatic instrumental justification of force. For Yoo, the use of force can be justified as a provision of public goods by the hegemon. This argument can coexist with mine; however, initiating a war for reasons other than defend persons who are unjustly threatened seems morally prohibited. Yoo's argument may perhaps be seen as an additional reason to go to war in a situation where the moral threshold is satisfied. The particular public good provided by the hegemon in the international system is precisely preventing the injustice of aggression or tyranny.

6. Most proponents of humanitarian intervention endorse this claim (See Caney 200:120–121). For a more guarded version of the same argument, see Smith 1998:75–79.

7. For a defense of the war on Iraq as humanitarian intervention, see Tesón 2005b

8. Mill 1998 calls it ‘a feeling’, but the plausibility of the distinction between intention and motive does not turn on that characterization of motive.

9. I realize there are problems of measurement of intention, so my approach has a behaviouralist flavour: intention is inferred from overt acts. See Ryle (1949), The Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1949).

10. The fact that the western powers in the three recent pivotal cases (Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq) undertook the task of rebuilding the state along liberal principles while not claiming any objectionable advantage, surely helps the case for legitimacy.

11. For example, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who opposed the use of force in Iraq, spoke of his concern for civilian casualties: ‘My question was and is: Does the degree of threat stemming from the Iraqi dictator justify a war that will bring certain death to thousands of innocent men, women and children?...My answer was and is: no’. (Swanson 2003:C1).

12. But pacifism is not incoherent. It can simply claim that all wars are immoral, including otherwise justified defensive wars. For an argument along those lines, see Holmes 1989.

13. I follow here an amended version of the classic definition provided by Walzer 1977:153. See a similar definition by Quinn 1989:334 note 3. Walzer, like other just war theorists before and after him, invoke the doctrine of double effect as necessary to justify war (See also Cady 1996:38–39, Harbour 2000:50). To be sure, the doctrine has come under attack (See McIntyre 2001:219–255). But one who rejects the doctrine (at least with respect to war) is forced to counter-intuitive positions, such as that no war or revolution is ever justified. Also, I avoid the discussion of another common criterion: that the good effect should not be brought about by means of the evil effect. A warrior who did this (for example, a military officer that kidnapped and tortured civilians as a means to defeat the tyrant) would violate the requirement that the bad effect, while foreseen, should always be collateral, not central to his intent.

14. I say ‘depending on the circumstances’ because, as Horacio Spector, following Phillippa Foot, shows, it is not the case that there is always a moral difference between causing an undesirable result with direct intention and causing it with oblique intention (See Spector 1992:104–105). These discussions show the difficulty of identifying with any precision when and why the ‘foreseen-intended’ distinction operates. I treat humanitarian intervention as a case where the distinction does operate, as the opposite conclusion leads to the counterintuitive result of morally banning all wars.

15. It is tempting to think of the goal of fighting evil as an additional morally compelling goal of humanitarian intervention. However, human evil is present only in a subset of the class of cases that qualify for intervention. Many humanitarian disasters are caused by natural events and by merely incompetent or impotent rulers. In cases of tyranny, however, the moral urgency to defeat evil would be, I believe, an additional reason to act. Assuming equal risk, do citizens in liberal democracies have a more stringent duty to intervene to defeat a malevolent tyrant than to intervene to save victims of, say, an earthquake? On evil, see Kant (1960):34–39). See also the discussion in Sullivan (1989):124–126). We seem to lack a theory of evil. For Kant, radical evil is the natural tendency of human beings to follow inclination instead of duty; for (Nino 1999), radical evil is simply an evil of great magnitude. A more useful distinction, it seems to me, is between opportunistic evil and principled evil. The opportunistic agent causes evil to advance his self-interest; the principled agent causes evil by following an evil maxim. Which one of these is worse is a matter for debate. Some of the most horrific acts were caused by principled evildoers, persons committed to an evil cause (think about 11 Sep. 2001), yet dictators who murder and torture just to stay in power, like Saddam Hussein, are capable of horrendous things as well. For a discussion of evil in connection with fighting terrorism (see Tesón 2005b).

16. I leave aside here the issue of economic assistance and the building of economic institutions. I happen to believe that only effective mechanisms to protect human rights and the creation of free markets will help solve societal problems, especially in the developing world (See Tesón 1999:29).

17. Of course, successful humanitarian interventions will normally benefit most persons in the state in the utilitarian sense. This need not always be so, though: think about a large majority committing atrocities against a small minority. Be that as it may, I here wish to avoid the larger issue of whether utilitarians can successfully recast deontological concerns into consequentialist language.

18. Montaldi (1985):145) writes: ‘It is. . . conceivable that in situations in which stopping persons from being grievously disrespected is of greater importance than merely ensuring that persons enjoy the freedom to pursue their interests’.

19. Supporters of pro-democratic intervention in some cases include (in addition to the author of these lines): (Reisman 1990:866, D'Amato 1990:516, Wippman 2000:293. Opponents include the ICISS 2001:34 and Chesterman 2001:88–111).

20. Chesterman (2001):89), for example, summarily dismisses this problem by accepting U.N. Security Council-authorised pro-democratic intervention when the Council simply says that lack of democracy constitutes a threat to international peace and security.

21. Of course, the requirement that the violation of rights be substantial still holds. It would not be enough that, say, some few persons welcome the intervention. That is ruled out by the principle of proportionality.

22. For a critique of Walzer's contrary view, see Tesón (2005a).

23. Requiring democratic or human-rights credentials for members of the Security Council is not among the proposals for reform. The recent UN report on the matter recommends increasing ‘the democratic and accountable nature of the body’ (United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change 2004:80). It is unclear, however, if by democratic accountability the UN report refers to states (that is, that there should be more states represented) or individuals (that is, that governments in the Council should be more democratic.) At any rate, the report does not recommend requiring democratic credentials in the concrete proposals it advances (81–83). For a summary of standard reform proposals (see Wilson 1996:115).

24. See, e.g. Byers and Chesterman (2003):181–84). Other legal scholars believe that the Kosovo precedent introduced uncertainty regarding this requirement (see, e.g., Stromseth 2003:177, Franck 2003:204).

25. Buchanan & Keohane (2004):16–22) propose a two-stage system that includes Security Council action, under the assumption that reforming the Security Council is unrealistic.