This week’s reports of Iranian security forces machine-gunning down scores of unarmed protestors, apparently including children and teenagers must surely strike a chill in the heart of any liberal. How can this be allowed to happen in the 21st Century? Meanwhile, the US military action in Venezuela has attracted widespread condemnation as a breach of International Law, despite Maduro’s Government being widely recognised as authoritarian and morally illegitimate.
In moral terms, the Iranian regime is little different from a bunch of criminal thugs with guns, killing whomever they please. But in International Law, they are the legitimate Government (largely by virtue of, they are the ones who managed to seize control in the country), and therefore international law sides with the thugs, not with the people being killed. Just as on the other side of the World in Venezuela, International law condemns the removal of a dictator who has driven a quarter of his own people into exile as refugees!
Why is this? Well, Article 2(4) of the UN Charter enshrines a near-absolute prohibition on the use of force, subject only to self-defence or Security Council authorisation, which is next to impossible to achieve under the veto system. It’s written that way because it’s designed to stop tanks crossing borders: to prevent wars between nations, reflecting the concerns of the 1940s, rather than to protect people from trigger-happy governments. The unfortunate upshot is that when a state massacres its own citizens, international law permits other states to do little more than investigate or condemn. And mere condemnation is impotence if the law does not permit any action that might actually be effective in protecting the people being massacred.
Worse still, the Security Council veto system is no accident. It was deliberately designed to give a handful of powerful states permanent control over when international law is enforced, thereby protecting the interests of those states.
This is the international law that we liberals usually cite as something that must be upheld. I’d argue this ‘law’ has become an abomination that, instead of protecting people, serves the interests of the strong. This system deserves no respect from any liberal.
And the final irony is – this system, designed to prevent wars between nations, doesn’t even achieve that!
Maybe it’s time we started campaigning for a complete rewrite of International Law. But what would a more ethical kind of system look like?
I would imagine something like this: The decision-making body should be composed of democratic governments. A basic requirement is that, if you as a government want a vote in the UN, then you should be able to show you were freely elected, that you have a system in place to allow your citizens to peacefully remove you if they don’t like how you are governing, and that you respect free speech and basic human rights. If you can’t satisfy those requirements, then you might be the group that has de facto control of your country, but you are not a legitimate government. The level of recognition you receive from the UN and the extent to which you can participate in UN bodies should reflect that. And there must be no veto: Political decisions should be made by majority vote, with some weighting by each country’s population. You could also make a case for things like use of force against oppressors requiring a super-majority.
As for governments that are clearly committing the kinds of crimes we have seen in places such as Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Myanmar – and yes, Venezuela: It should be seen as the duty of the international community to take whatever action is required to protect civilians in those places, to bring the perpetrators of genocide / mass killing / ethnic cleansing / etc. to justice, and to restore representative Government. Rather than preventing action, international law should <em>demand</em> that action is taken: Not by one country, but by the international community as a whole – unless there are clear grounds for believing that there is no effective action that can be realistically taken.
I realise that this kind of framework is very idealistic, and right now there is no plausible path for how to achieve it. But that shouldn’t stop us thinking about a better long term system. After all, if liberalism means anything beyond ritual condemnation, it must surely include the willingness to rethink institutions that protect power rather than people. And that applies to international institutions just as much as to the UK.
* Simon Robinson is a Liberal Democrat activist based in London. He blogs at www.libdemworld.com.
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6 Comments
So not unlike the EU, with its qualified majority voting and statements on democracy?
One caveat: would members be expected to contribute to peacekeeping?
With respect I do think we have more important and more effective things to campaign on and talk about.
I notice in the list of places you think we should invade to “restore human rights” you don’t list anyone with significant military strength or nuclear weapons.
If – hypothetically, you understand – Russia or the USA was to do something against human rights, or invade a foreign country without UN authorisation, or have state agents shoot protestors, or something of that sort, what could the “international community” meaningfully do about it that wouldn’t be the Swinsonite “well, obviously we’d start a nuclear war with them”?
And once you’ve accepted that the nuclear powers and their close allies and client states are off-limits for this sort of international enforcement, how much does this really differ in practice from the current nuclear powers on the security council being able to veto such a thing?
For that matter, we’ve tried invading Afghanistan, which is on your list, to “restore human rights”. It very clearly and expensively didn’t work. And that’s a country which in pure military terms was and would be a pushover for the big powers. Getting rid of the current regime and having a few show trials won’t be a problem if we want to try again. But then what?
I think the sentiment is correct here. The problem, clearly, is that the international community is not united in support of democracy and human rights, quite the opposite. The UN is less a champion of peace and light than a purely political body where the vote of a bloody tyrant is as good as anybody else’s.
Yes, probably some atrocities could be prevented with military force but it is never easy, and blame for what goes wrong sticks harder than any blame for inaction. Nonetheless sometimes it happens – Kosovo for example – but perhaps only when the stars align.
So maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves a little here. A better question might be how do countries supporting democracy and human rights enhance our influence in the world, to make the path towards democracy easier, and the path to tyranny harder?
Having hitch hiked to India through Iran in 1962, and having been threatened by a mob, I have studied Iran for 63 years. I am therefore saddened by the removal of my last comment, which read:
‘My play Operation Ajax was approved by the BBC Iranian correspondent. I could not find a theatre to put it on. It told the story of the CIA’s street campaign to oust the democratic Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, supported by the UK who wanted to retain ownership of Iranian oil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
I do not support the reaction of the Islamic regime to the street violence, but I am concerned by Trump’s replay of the 1953 coup. The USA are still the ‘Big Satan’ in the eyes of Iranians. I note the support for the street demonstrations of Reza Pahlavi, son of the now dead shah, who lives in Virginia. I question the wisdom of more sanctions on Iran. These, together with the collapse of Iran’s major bank have fuelled inflation which have driven the anger of the demonstrators.’
Thanks for the interesting replies, everyone.
@Peter: I wouldn’t say like the EU: The EU spends a lot of effort regulating internal stuff within member countries, whereas I’m thinking, a UN-like body with responsibilities limited to matters of genuine international concern, and which would only intervene in individual countries to prevent actual persecution.
@Joe: I agree, the decision to intervene is never easy and needs careful consideration of the likely outcome. Sometimes it works (the Balkans, Grenada) and sometimes it doesn’t. But a clear international framework for intervening with the specific aim of preventing persecution/genocide/etc. and restoring democracy seems a more sensible basis for choosing when to intervene than that present situation where UN-mandated intervention has become for all practical purposes impossible and it’s therefore largely individual countries deciding on the basis of their own interests.