Ethics and Foreign Intervention (review)

The UN Charter's provisions on the use of military force were designed mainly to prevent cross-border aggression by predatory states and do not explicitly provide grounds for authorizing military interventions in order to prevent mass starvation, rescue people from widespread and grave violations of human rights, stop ethnic cleansing, or halt genocide. But during the past decade humanitarian justifications have been invoked in a series of conflicts including: Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and most recently, Iraq, as one of the principal justifications for armed intervention by a state or group of states into the sovereign territories of other states. These conflicts have reflected a gathering consensus that sovereignty should not function as a shield when states grievously violate the human rights of their own citizens. They have also exposed the defects in the current system of international law regarding when it is justifiable for states to employ force against other states, and have produced an extended debate among scholars and policy-makers as to where precisely the boundaries of legitimate humanitarian armed intervention should be set. If they are set too high, then we will have more cases like Rwanda where (it is now widely believed) there was ample justification for armed humanitarian intervention, but none was forthcoming. Conversely, if they are set too low, the doctrine of humanitarian intervention may become a plausible cover for international aggression in the name of human rights.

The essays collected for this volume are impressive in the depth and subtlety with which they interrogate the ethical and legal issues associated with the topic of humanitarian intervention. While humanitarian interventions can come in several forms, the kind that are the focus of debate are those in which military force is deployed across state borders by a state (or group of states) intended to prevent or end widespread and grave violations of fundamental human rights of individuals other than their own citizens, without the permission of the state into whose territory the intervention occurs. The essays in this volume address at least four important ethical questions about such nonconsensual military humanitarian interventions that need to be answered before we can begin to reform international law: (1) When, if ever, is it morally permissible for a state (or group of states) to invade another state for humanitarian reasons?; (2) When, if ever, is it morally obligatory for a state (or a group of states) to invade another state for humanitarian reasons?; (3) When, if ever, does a sub-national unit of an existing state have a right to secede?; and (4), When states undertake nonconsensual military humanitarian interventions what are the normative constraints on the manner in which they intervene?

Many of the essays are focused specifically on the analysis of NATO's intervention in Kosovo in March 1999. Allen Buchanan's essay focuses on the third question of identifying the conditions under which sub-national groups, such as the Iraqi Kurds or the Kosovar Albanians, have a right to secede. Buchanan argues that although the Kosovar Albanians had a strong case for secession, the current system of international law provided no support for their independence from Serbia. So, "when such groups take the desperate step of seceding without international support, they are likely to feel the full wrath of the state; yet at the same time international law prohibits other states from intervening to protect them and instead allows them to aid the state in its efforts to crush the secessionists."¹ He provides an insightful critique of the two doctrines of international law that create this impasse: uti possidetis, according to which existing state boundaries are to be respected, and effectivity, according to which secessionist movements are entitled to international recognition if and only if they secure effective control over a territory. Uti possidetis protects existing state boundaries and discourages governments of highly centralized states from devolving power to...