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Abstract
The likelihood of success criterion makes armed humanitarian action politically and morally prohibitive. Yet, the just war tradition is designed to confront egregious moral evils. To help reconcile these tensions, this essay questions the applicability of the success principle to armed humanitarian intervention. This questioning provokes reflection on how the just war theory’s high threshold for success can rarely be achieved in the direct aftermath of humanitarian interventions. A low likelihood of success post bellum leads to the suggestion that the full demands of just war theory’s tranquilitas ordinis definition of peace ought not to be required in the aftermath of armed humanitarian intervention. Guaranteed failure may be a more useful criterion than likelihood of success for interventions aimed at ending acute state-sponsored human rights atrocities.
Notes
1 Under just war theory, the mere presence of gross injustices does not compel or justify the use of military force to alleviate severe human suffering or punish grave evil (Elshtain Citation2001, 8).
2 This assumes classical just war theory criteria have been met.
3 Augustine describes how “peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place” (690-691). For wide-ranging coverage of Western traditions of peace see James Turner Johnson’s The Quest for Peace (Citation1987).
4 Focus on jus post bellum assumes jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria for a just war were met.
5 To review briefly, just causes include self-defense (threatening the innocent), punishing grave evil, and requiting gross injustices. A just cause does not guarantee a just conflict. Intentions matter, and a thirst for revenge or pursuit of earthly glory and power must not drive responses to evil. Criteria of proportionality and discrimination are also considered. The former holds that only such force may be used as is necessary to vindicate the just cause, while the latter prohibits intentional infliction of harm upon non-combatants (LiVecche Citation2023).
6 Fixdal and Smith point out how “virtually all the issues raised in the intervention debate fit within the Just War framework” (Citation1998, 306).
7 North Korea’s moral evils against its citizens and the People’s Republic of China’s genocide against the Uighur Muslims are two modern examples of this truism. See Pape (Citation2012) for an outline of the shortcomings of international norms against genocide.
8 Typically, there is no consent provided by the targeted government for intervention.
10 Liberal conceptions of peace depart from Augustine’s tranquilitas ordinis when their focus shifts towards building an end of history version of peace “which only God can give” (Johnson Citation2011, 188).
11 Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, for example, points to Christian doctrine in statements on how humans are not just “born free and equal in dignity” but also “endowed with reason and a conscience.” “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Documents, United Nations, Article 1, http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
12 This consensus should not be interpreted to mean that contemporary definitions of human rights have completely solidified, are unattached to materialism, politics, or social and historical developments, or are immune to future permutations. See for example Clifford Bob’s (Citation2011) edited volume International Struggle for New Human Rights, and Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss’s (Citation2011) edited volume, Humanitarianism: A Brief History of the Present.
13 Consider, for example, how human rights organizations identified inflations in country rankings in the 2015 Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report, inflations the United States needed to facilitate passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
14 Fernando Tesón (Citation2003) questions some of the sources of international law, leading him to argue that stopping severe human rights abuses supersedes international law restrictions on non-consensual interventions.
15 Thomas Frank’s 1970 article, “Who Killed Article 2(4)?” American Journal of International Law 64, 1970 signified rapidly growing recognition that the tenants of Article 2(4) were incompatible with growing legitimacy of the idea of coercive actions carried out in the name of humanitarianism.
16 There is well-developed debate in the international law literature over whether the UN Charter Article 2(4) and 2(7) actually prohibit humanitarian interventions. The Geneva Convention is the clearest exception to the rule.
17 Libya is one example of an intervention that resulted in critique of R2P.
18 Brien Orend lays out some of the common ideas about when a conflict ends and challenges the popular view that postwar justice ought to be limited to war crimes trials, 574.
19 See Gary Bass (Citation2004) for a productive discussion of the rights and obligations that conquered countries retain while under reconstruction.
20 If intervenors do profit economically or make relative power gains this is permissible so long as the gains are natural consequences of seeking to restore order.
21 Orend’s six categories are rights vindication (securing the relevant human rights of right to life and liberty, and community entitlements to territory and sovereignty), proportionality and publicity, discrimination, punishment, compensation, and rehabilitation (580-1)
22 Coyne, for example, points out how both non-coercive and coercive humanitarian action will always be more complex than anticipated, due to unintended consequences, or system effects, which “are unavoidable due to limits of human knowledge” (Citation2013, 21).
23 As Harbour (Citation2011, 236) observes, “it is somewhat harder for deontological proponents of the just war tradition to answer the question of whether reasonable probability of success has independent moral weight”. She also notes how “even Shakespeare’s Henry V depended on moral superiority and piety, not strength of arms”.
24 Observations such as these complement Grotian readings of just war theory, wherein temporary overrides of certain norms are permissible if overrides permit adherence to core principles.
25 See, for example, Ian Brownlie (Citation2005) and Richard Lillich (Citation1974).
26 This view complements Paul Miller argument’s that defense of the liberal international order is a just cause (Citation2021, 9).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Rebecca Munson
Rebecca Munson is Associate Professor and Department Chair for Government and Public Policy at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her research interests include US foreign policy, human rights, norm diffusion, compliance, coercive diplomacy, economic sanctions, and Central America. Her current book project is on US foreign policy on human trafficking. Prior to Liberty, Dr. Munson taught at George Mason University and the University of Colorado.
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