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The Pendulum Dialectic: Enacting the Paradigm of Human Security
Political Science 349
Stephen Buckley
April 2, 2004
(Reflections on Thomas Weiss' "The Politics of Humanitarian Ideas," Security Dialogue, 31.1, March 2000, p. 11-23.)
The future of human security is a Hegelian synthesis of absolute state sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. In recent centuries the world has democratized, slowly devolving authority from divinely-ordained monarchs to individual people. In examining this progression we see a pendulum swing on a dialectic between the absolute sovereignty of states on one end and the absolute right of the global community to engage in humanitarian intervention within a paradigm of a responsibility to protect. Through this interplay we not only slowly derive the operational logistics of human security, but we settle on compromises, syntheses, and equilibriums between the two extreme positions. In the end, we are left with options for the future. Canada has an opportunity engage in principled leadership to increase our military spending to provide capacity for global efforts to enshrine the human security paradigm by defining the nature of humanitarian intervention.
A history of political authority demonstrates a tendency towards empowering individuals. From a pre-Westphalian era of absolute monarchy, we established sovereignty in states that represented people (in various fashions). After nearly 300 years, we form the United Nations to seek collective security and enshrine human rights ideals. Fifty years pass before we see the end of the Cold War and UN calls for limits to state sovereignty. While 9/11 has spun the trend towards state sovereignty, the trend is towards recognizing the legitimacy of the person and the sovereignty of collective people, even over states themselves.
In the post-Cold War era, we now live in the flux of a Hegelian dialectic. The previous thesis of absolute state sovereignty has been challenged by a new paradigm, an antithesis, in part instigated by the last two UN Secretaries-General, that recognizes our global responsibility to protect and the right of the global community to intervene (even militarily) without state sanction to prevent human rights violations. The resulting synthesis or equilibrium is the flux we live in that is altered by each instance of humanitarian intervention the global community does or does not engage in. We define our exact position within this flux as each opportunity in the world presents itself.
The rise of civil society, a new contending superpower that has risen to fill a void and oppose the United States, has demonstrated its capacity to influence states' priorities. The Ottawa Process heralds a new era of accomplishment of people and NGOs leading governments to change norms of their relations: traditionally within the realm of states to define themselves. If the people lead, the leaders will follow. Success in the Ottawa Process may lead to greater success with small arms and light weapons and the scourge of depleted uranium, among other concerns in which people may have new latitude in defining their governments' policies.
As a paradigm of political philosophy, realism seems to reign as we can generally enumerate countries that support, moderately value, or oppose the human security paradigm. As states act from their own interest the world's position in the flux of the human security dialectic wiggles. States' power and interest have roots in their ideas and values. And as UN leaders challenge states to expand traditional definitions of self-interest, leaders choose to embrace or hinder their own potential to participate in establishing and defining the context of the human security paradigm. What must result is an expanded notion of sovereignty. State sovereignty and the responsibility to protect are not mutually exclusive. We must revision sovereignty to include the responsibility to protect, a kind of entrenched noblesse oblige. Francis Deng calls this "sovereignty as responsibility" in a brief post-Cold War era of less than fifteen years when a global norm of humanitarian intervention is evolving. The OSCE vision, and EU and UN rapid reaction force plans reflect a common acceptance of our responsibility to protect. Integrating restorative justice models (like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission) into global retributive justice methods (war crimes tribunals) shines a public spotlight onto not only state activities, but also healing processes after societal decay.
The result is that the traditional scope of how states define national security must expand beyond what is obvious. The United States persists in delaying their much-needed honest soul-searching into the complex causes of 9/11. This reflects how they cling to traditional solace inherent in sovereign statehood. Further, their bilateral agreements that undermine the scope of the ICC, their "Hague Invasion Act," and the black eye they planted on themselves with their Guantanamo Bay detainees all reflect the power that states still have to resist embracing human security and to retain their claim to unassailable sovereignty.
Moving past the United States as an example of the compelling tug of state sovereignty over the human security paradigm, we can examine by-passed interventions. The global community has yet to intervene in Russia (Chechnya), China (Tibet) or India/Pakistan (Kashmir) (members of the nuclear weapons club), though we will confront Indonesia's treatment of East Timor. Realpolitik defines prudent action. Also, the P5 veto affects opportunities for humanitarian intervention. And sadly, as the unsanctioned US invasion of Iraq in 2003 demonstrates, humanitarian intervention--without clearly delineated boundaries--can be a menace to global peace and a facilitator of neo-colonialism. Realism may be the ultimate paradigm at play here. Further, we can examine the possibility of systemic changes to our global collective security regime to greater enhance human security: over-riding P5 vetoes, enacting a double or triple veto, expanding P5 and non-permanent membership on the UN Security Council may help expand the power of greater numbers of people to intervene to protect others.
Ultimately, we are witnessing an expansion of our definition of sovereignty. Weiss suggests adding to territory, people and authority as parameters defining state sovereignty, the requirement of the responsibility to protect minimum human rights. Alternately, many definitions of sovereignty include the notion of external recognition of a state. What has evolved since the end of the Cold War is an expansion of the criteria with which the world judges a state before bestowing recognition: the global community can withdraw recognition if a state violates its responsibility to protect its citizens.
Since the Cold War, the world has dabbled in humanitarian intervention. We are on the flat part of a learning curve where our expertise in human security has been increasing only marginally with each situation we engage or refuse to engage in. Arguably, the learned cannot meet for a weekend conference to define the scope of legitimate humanitarian intervention. It has to happen on the ground, running. The 1990s was a time when the world stepped into the crucible of human security where we must define our terms of reference with each new opportunity. Over time we will move past the kindergarten of inexperience to develop a regime that reflects the will of the world as the sovereignty-human security equilibrium shifts. This is the act of pragmatizing idealism. And as we compile criteria for determining action with each new opportunity, the pendulum flux may simmer and reach a more stable equilibrium. Canada and other nations without a great need to oppose the invasiveness of the human security paradigm, have a critical opportunity to enhance this new vision by avoiding the lure of isolationism through expanding our military capacity in the service of multilateral humanitarian intervention. Boldly asserting the value of this new paradigm, especially in the face of increased unilateralism in the United States can bear great fruit for the billions who are horribly disenfranchised.
Additionally, it would be useful to recall Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as we embark on determining the bounds of human security. At what point does the world intervene when needs are unmet. Arguably, more than 3 billion people lack physiological and safety needs. If we were to intervene to ensure all of those needs are met, we would have to contend with the redesigning the global economic system. More likely, we may want to choose at first a cut-off point that is more palatable to those opposed to adopting this paradigm: ensuring physiological needs are met, and at the very least are not actively negated.
So, ultimately, the world has so far spent just over a decade stumbling into embracing the human security paradigm. We cannot expect to derive a clear operational context of this new way of being in a short amount of time. When considering the trend of civil authority devolving from monarchs to citizens, our successes are clearly speeding up. And since we cannot halt time to define our terms of reference for humanitarian intervention, we must work through trial and error. It is certain, though, that the world owes a debt the victims of the Rwandan genocide ten years ago. The world has a moral duty to pursue a new regime of human security so more people do not pay the ultimate price from our inactivity.
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