The Politics of Humanitarian Ideas

1 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace (New York: United Nations, 1992), para. 17.

2 Kofi Annan, `Secretary-General's Speech to the 54th Session of the General Assembly', 20 September 1999.

3 The theme of the possible need for intervention with especial reference to Kosovo was introduced in his speech on `Intervention', 26 June 1998, document SG/SM/6613/Rev.1.

4 Intervention was also a major theme in the annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, document A/54/1.

5 See `Statement by the President of the Security Council', 30 November 1999, document S/PRST/1999/34.

6 See, for example, Thomas J. Biersteker & Cynthia Weber, eds, State Sovereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge University Press, 1996); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); and Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

7 Jarat Chopra & Thomas G. Weiss, `Sovereignty Is No Longer Sacrosanct: Codifying Humanitarian Intervention', Ethics & International Affairs, vol. 6, 1992, pp. 95-118.

8 Kofi Annan, Srebrenica Report, para. 493, www.unorg/News/ossg/srebenica.htm

9 Adam Roberts, `The Role of Humanitarian Issues in International Politics in the 1990s', International Review of the Red Cross, vol. 81, no. 833, March 1999, p. 19.

10 Michael Ignatieff, `Human Rights: The Midlife Crisis', New York Review of Books XLVI, no. 9, 20 May 1999, p. 58.

11 William Jefferson Clinton, `Remarks to the 54th Session of the United Nations General Assembly', 21 September 1999.

12 UN Press Release SG/SM/6848, HR/CN/8998, 7 April 1999.

13 See Thomas G. Weiss, Military-Civilian Interactions: Intervening in Humanitarian Crises (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999).

14 Thomas G. Weiss, `Collective Spinelessness: U.N. Actions in the Former Yugoslavia', in Richard H. Ullman, ed., The World and Yugoslavia's Wars (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996), pp. 59-96.

15 Judith Goldstein & Robert O. Keohane, `Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework', in Judith Goldstein & Robert O. Keohane, eds, Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 26.

16 In addition to Goldstein & Keohane (note 15 above), see also Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); and M. E. Keck & Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).

17 The argument in this chapter builds on S. Neil MacFarlane & Thomas G. Weiss, `Political Interest and Humanitarian Action', Security Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, Winter 2000.

18 US Government, `Clinton Administration Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations, Presidential Decision Directive-25', The White House, May 1994.

19 J. Bryan Hehir, `Military Intervention and National Sovereignty: Recasting the Relationship', in Jonathan Moore, ed., Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), p. 30.

20 See, for example, Laura W. Reed & Carl Kaysen, eds, Emerging Norms of Justified Intervention (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1993); Stanley Hoffmann, The Ethics and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996); John Harriss, ed., The Politics of Humanitarian Intervention (London: Pinter, 1995); Oliver Ramsbotham & Tom Woodhouse, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict: A Reconceptualization (Cambridge: Polity, 1996); Anthony McDermott, ed., Humanitarian Force (Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 1997), PRIO Report 4/97; James Mayall, ed., The New Interventionism, 1991-1994: United Nations Experience in Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Jan Nederveen Pieterse, ed., World Orders in the Making: Humanitarian Intervention and Beyond (London: Macmillan, 1998); Tim Dunne & Nicholas J. Wheeler, eds, Human Rights in Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Nigel Rodley, ed., To Loose the Bands of Wickedness: International Intervention in Defence of Human Rights (London: Brassey's, 1992).

21 See Thomas G. Weiss, `Whither International Efforts for Internally Displaced Persons?', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 36, no. 3, May 1999, pp. 363-373.

22 Francis M. Deng, Protecting the Dispossessed: A Challenge for the International Community (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1993); Francis M. Deng et al., Sovereignty as Responsibility (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1995); and Francis M. Deng, `Frontiers of Sovereignty', Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 8, no. 2, 1995, pp. 249-286. For more recent analyses and case studies, see Roberta Cohen & Francis M. Deng, Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis in Displacement (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1998), and Roberta Cohen & Francis M. Deng, eds, The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1998).

23 Bernard Kouchner & Mario Bettati, Le devoir d'ingérence (Paris: Denoël, 1987); and Mario Bettati, Le droit d'ingérence: mutation de l'ordre international (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996).

24 David Malone, Decision-Taking in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti, 1990-97 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

25 The mindset in Washington remains for the moment impervious to the humanitarian values that have penetrated the foreign policy of almost all other countries. See Stephen Biddle et al., The Military Utility of Landmines Implications for Arms Control (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1994).

26 Richard Price, `Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines', International Organization, vol. LII, no. 3, Summer 1998, p. 617.

27 Charles Krauthammer, `The Short, Unhappy Life of Humanitarian War', The National Interest, no. 57, Fall 1999, pp. 5-8; Michael Mandelbaum, `A Perfect Failure', Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 5, September/October 1999, pp. 2-8; and Richard N. Haass, `What to Do with American Primacy', Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 5, September/October 1999, pp. 37-49.

28 Edward Luttwak, `Kofi's Rule: Humanitarian Intervention and Neocolonialism', The National Interest, no. 58, Winter 1999/2000, pp. 57-62.

29 This article is only one of many codifications of the principle of non-intervention in both multilateral and bilateral international legal instruments. Bruno Simma provides a useful account of the evolution of the interpretation of this article as it concerns human rights in The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 141-154.

30 Kathryn Sikkink, `The Power of Principled Ideas: Human Rights Policies in the United States and Western Europe', in Goldstein & Keohane (see note 15), p. 140. See also Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Rapp & Kathryn Sikkink, eds, The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

31 See John Williams, `The Ethical Basis of Humanitarian Intervention, the Security Council and Yugoslavia', International Peacekeeping, vol. 6, no. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 1-23.

32 Adam Roberts, `NATO's “Humanitarian War” Over Kosovo', Survival, vol. 41, no. 3, Autumn 1999, p. 120.

33 Joseph P. Nye, Jr., `Redefining the National Interest', Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 4, July/August 1999, pp. 22, 30. For an indication of the kinds of issues increasingly before the public, see Roy Gutman & David Rieff, eds, Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (New York: Norton, 1999).

34 Thomas G. Weiss, `Principles, Politics, and Humanitarian Action', Ethics & International Affairs, vol. 13, 1999, pp. 1-22.

35 François Debrix, `Deterritorialised Territories, Borderless Borders: The New Geography of International Medical Assistance', Third World Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 5, 1998, pp. 827-846.

36 David Rieff, `A New Age of Liberal Imperialism?' World Policy Journal, vol. XVI, no. 2, Summer 1999, p. 3.