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The Dilemma of Humanitarian Intervention: The Executive Power of the Law of Nature, After God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

John Dunn
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Extract

There are at Least Three Possible Types of View about the justifiability of the use of force by states or private individuals on behalf of other private individuals or groups who are the victims of brutal and gratuitous coercion by another state. The first type of view is that no human being, and a fortiori no state, can be justified in using force under any circumstances and for any purpose, because (and only because) force is an intrinsic evil. This unflinchingly deontological view is generous but practically absurd. The second type of view is that states (or even private individuals) can be, and often arc, justified in using force against the brutally coercive actions of another state when, but only when, the latter is acting outside its own territorial jurisdiction. At least in the case of states what grounds that justification is their entitlement to defend themselves against foreign (as against domestic) aggression, and to defend also any other states with whom they have linked themselves either by standing alliances or by solemn common undertakings to secure each other's safety and sovereignty within the bounds of international law. In the case of private individuals, the corresponding justification would lie in their several personal entitlements to defend themselves as best they can against aggression.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1994 , pp. 248 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1994

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References

1 This is a descendant of the classic early modern use of the private law argument; see Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978, Vol. 2, pp. 343–44Google Scholar, at 347.

2 Bobbio, Norberto, Una quern giusta?, Venice, Marsilio Editori, 1991;Google Scholar Freedman, Lawrence and Karsh, Efraim, The Gulf War 1990–91, London, Faber, 1993.Google Scholar

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5 Hoboes, Thomas, De Civs: the English Version, ed. Warrender, Howard, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983,Google Scholar Epistle Dedicatory, p. 23.

6 For an instance of die claim as provincial farce see Dunn, John and Robertson, A. F., Dependence and Opportunity: Political Change in Ahafe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973.Google Scholar

7 Dunn, John, Interpreting Political Responsibility, Cambridge, Polity, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars, London, Allen Lane, 1977.Google Scholar

9 ibid.

10 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, Statt and Utopia, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1975, pp. 28–33.Google Scholar

11 Cf. John, Dunn, ‘“Bright Enough for all our Purposes”: John Locke’s Conception of a Civilized Society’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 43, 1989, pp. 133–53.Google Scholar

12 Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and At Minor of Nature, Oxford, Blackwell, 1979;Google Scholar cf. Williams, Bernard, Descartes: At Project of Pure Enquiry, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Dunn, John, ‘Freedom of Conscience: Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship?’ in Grell, O. P., Israel, Jonathan and Tyacke, Nicholas(eds), From Persecution to Toleration, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 171–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar and John Dunn, Interpreting Political Responsibility, op. cit., ch. 4.

14 Williams, Bernard, Moral Luck, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981,CrossRefGoogle Scholar ch. 8.

15 Consider Bosnia, Kampuchea, Tibet, East Timor, the Sudan, Northern Ireland and cf. Thomas Hobbes, op. cit., for die domestic political case.

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20 John Dunn, ‘Freedom of Conscience: Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship?’, op. cit.

21 Cf. Tuck, Richard, National Rights Theories, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Philosophy and Cooemmenl, Cambridge, Cambridge Press, 1993; Tully, James, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contacts, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and James, Farr, ‘“So Vile and Miserable an Estate”: The Problem of Slavery in Locke’s Political Thought’, Political Theory, 14, 1986, pp. 263–89.Google Scholar

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25 John Dunn, Interpreting Political Responsibility, op. cit., ch. 3.

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27 John Dunn, Interpreting Political Responsibility, op. cit., ch. 3.

28 For a small-scale picture of this process at work over time, see John Dunn and A. F. Robertson, Dependence and Opportunity, op. cit.

29 Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988,CrossRefGoogle Scholar Second Treatise, para. 128.

30 This essay was initially prepared for a conference organized by Professor Biancamaria Fontana at the Faculté des Sciences Sociales et Politiques, Universal de Lausanne, July 1993.