August 2002 | Peceworks No. 45
C. A. J. Coady
The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention
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Summary
At the very beginning of the twenty-first century, two concerns ranked high
on the military-political agenda of the Western world: humanitarian
intervention and terrorism. This is an essay on the ethical issues surrounding the
former. The events of September 11, 2001, have understandably increased the concern
with terrorism and pushed the problems of humanitarian intervention into the
background. But the issue is unlikely to remain offstage for long, if only because the shadows
cast by humanitarian disasters such as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 will continue to
darken the conscience of the international community--and there is every prospect
that further such shadows will be cast in the future.
Moreover, if military interventions in the Middle East against terrorism prove successful,
they may bolster the case for the
use of military intervention in the cause of humanitarian relief by suggesting that
military power can be effective in solving political problems at a distance and in aiding
positive social transformation of other societies. But the dialectic here is complex, since any
such antiterrorist interventions may be successful (if they are) precisely because their
objectives are restricted to the retaliatory or defensive. In any event, as this essay shows,
the moral issues raised by the question whether to wage humanitarian war go to the heart
of the ethical justifications available for any form of military intervention.
This essay begins with definitional discussions of the key terms of any such debate:
"humanitarian," "intervention," and "ethics." "Humanitarian" refers principally to the
motives for the intervention, namely, to save foreigners from the ills inflicted upon
them by their rulers or by powerful, protected groups in their own country. But since
motives are always complex, this motive need only be dominant, not exclusive.
"Intervention" is then defined in terms that involve the action being against the consent of
the target state. This requirement is controversial, so it is defended against the objections
to it. The meaning of "ethics" is then elaborated in terms that distinguish its rationale
from that of religion, culture, or law and locate its significance as providing one answer to
the question "How should we live?" Viewed in this light, the ethical dimensions of public
policy have an obvious claim to be taken seriously. "Realist" objections to doing so in the
realm of international relations are then assessed. Although realism fails as a rejection of
the relevance of morality to foreign affairs, it provides some salutary warnings about the
distortions that moral perspectives can produce. These warnings guide some of the ethical
analysis that follows.
The basic framework of just war theory is then introduced and its central motivation
analyzed. It is argued that the just war tradition provides the best framework for
discussing the moral arguments for and against humanitarian intervention. This framework
has two key structural supports, sometimes referred to by Latin tags: the jus ad bellum
(abbreviated here to JAB) and the jus in bello (the JIB). The JAB is concerned with the
moral justification for waging war, as contrasted with the provisions of the JIB, which
address the morality of the methods employed in the war. Within the humanitarian
context, the JAB is of primary interest (although the JIB, too, can also be of interest,
because immoral ways of waging war or intervention will often cast doubt on its over-
all legitimacy).
The conditions of the JAB, especially that of just cause, are these days treated more
restrictively than in past so that a just war has tended to be seen primarily as a defensive
war. Military interventions in the affairs of other states without the warrant of self-
defense or defense of allies were largely ruled out, both morally and legally. The older
tradition of allowing certain aggressive wars to be morally licit fell into disrepute during
the latter half of the twentieth century, and the reasons for this are explored. The call
for humanitarian war harks back to the older tradition and challenges the paradigm of
outlawing all aggression of states against other states. This challenge raises issues of the
value of sovereignty, since the sovereign right of states to manage their own affairs has
been a mainstay of international relations theory and has a direct connection with the
prohibition on aggressive war. There are undoubtedly good reasons for being suspicious
of any absolute right for states to remain immune to outside criticism, pressure, or
sanction by the international community or even by other states. Malevolent action
of states against their own populations certainly constitutes one of those reasons.
Nonetheless, the case against violent intervention cannot be dismissed merely by noting
that sovereignty is not absolute. Warfare destroys lives, property, infrastructure, and
environment in ways--and to an extent--that economic and diplomatic pressures do
not. The case against military intervention has to be seen in this light and against the
background of just war thinking.
The relevant conditions of the JAB are those of legitimate authority, just cause,
prospects for success, last resort, and proportionality. Assuming, for the sake of
discussion, that the condition of right intention has been met, the other conditions are
scrutinized for their pertinence to the issue of humanitarian intervention. Under these
headings, a cautious, even skeptical, note is struck about many of the hopes entertained
by advocates of armed humanitarian intervention. In particular, the requirement of
legitimate authority creates concerns about the appropriate authorizations for
humanitarian intervention and about the role of a dominant superpower; the requirement of
last resort raises issues about the need to explore alternatives to violent intervention; the
requirement to have reasonable prospects of success challenges short-term thinking
about "rescue"; and the demands of proportionality require a sober assessment of the
complex costs of intervention.
Suggestions are then made about the circumstances in which intervention might be
morally licit. These concern legitimacy in the international order and the role of the
United Nations; the need for holistic measures in the management of intervention; the
significance of multilateral versus unilateral forms of intervention; the need for a
specialist UN intervention force; and the problems posed by demonization. In conclusion,
it is emphasized that humanitarian concerns must be located within a context of the
striving for a peaceful world.
About the Author
C. A. J. (Tony) Coady is an Australian Research Council senior research fellow. He is
deputy director and head of the University of Melbourne division of the Centre for Applied
Philosophy and Public Ethics. He was Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Melbourne from 1990 to 1998. Coady has held visiting fellowships at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, and at St. John's College and Churchill College, Cambridge, as well as visiting positions
at several American universities, most recently as Laurance Rockefeller Visiting Fellow in Ethics
and Public Affairs at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. He was a senior fellow at
the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., in 1999-2000.
His books include Testimony: A Philosophical Inquiry (Oxford University Press, 1992) and
Morality and Political Violence. His coedited
collection Terrorism and Justice: Moral Argument in a Threatened World will be published soon by
Melbourne University Press.
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