Comments on: Brown’s crusade

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:37:23 +0000

Brian: Call me an optimist, but I don’t really think it would be possible any more for a country to go to war purely for national aggrandisement, without any kind of sanction following on. I think that’s a consequence of liberal democracy, rather than international law. So I guess we can politely agree to disagree on this one.

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 09:10:26 +0000

I don't think it's safe or ethically defensible to leave it to individual governments to use a simple 'how many human lives saved/lost' calculus in deciding whether to attack another country and kill an indeterminate number of its citizens: (a) because there's no way of knowing either how many lives will be lost if no such attack takes place or how many people you are going to end up killing if it does -- no prizes for thinking of a current example; and (b) because by giving an appearance of legitimacy to the unilateral use of violence in international affairs without any form of international sanction or authority, and by lowering the legal, diplomatic and political cost of one country attacking another and killing its people without genuine justification, you make it much likelier that the precedent you have set will be exploited in future for reasons of nationalistic aggrandisement, and even more innocent lives will be destroyed as a result. This is surely a sound basis for the assertion that behaving in this way is not only illegal, but also morally wrong precisely because it's illegal and subversive of the rule of law. There's a moral duty to uphold international rules that seek to govern the use of violence in the world, and it's immoral as well as illegal to act in a way that undermines them. You really can't separate the two. Brian http://www.barder.com/brian/ http://ephems.blogspot.com

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 12:08:20 +0000

I don’t see illegality and immorality as being related in anything but the most tenuous of senses though in international law. While domestic law attempts in some sense to relate to a shared moral code, international law is pretty far removed from that. It’s a pragmatic set of rules to make the world function without undue chaos, rather than a moral judgement on the rights and wrongs of particular actions.

I also think that if you save more people than you kill under one set of actions, where avoiding action would involve a greater loss of life, is one of the easier moral judgements to make. I recognise that many people disagree with that. I think that doesn’t recognise that human life has a value, whether we like that or not, and it is finite. Trivially, if the value were higher, we’d do a hell of a lot more to save it, which relates nicely back to Africa.

Again, whether our actions in Iraq will end up saving more people than would have died under Saddam (and we must include future generations here) in the long run, only time will tell. Which brings us neatly back to Blair’s infuriating ‘History will judge me…’ comment.

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:55:34 +0000

For some reason most of my preceding comment has been cut. I wrote:
But I can’t accept the sharp distinction you make between (1) the legality and (2) the morality of the attack on and occupation of Iraq, virtually dismissing the former as irrelevant to the latter. The UN Charter, binding in international law on all UN member states and explicitly overriding all their other legal rights and obligations, incorporates the rules governing the use of force in the conduct of countries’ international relations, and assigns to the UN Security Council the function of deciding when there exists a broad international consensus that it is appropriate for force to be used (only when it is clear that other, peaceful means of dealing with the problem have failed, as required by the Charter). We are talking here about decisions that may involve the killing of many thousands of innocent people. It seems to me manifestly immoral, as well as illegal, for any government to act in a way that undermines those basic rules and subverts the authority of the sole international body to whom these life-and-death decisions are entrusted. It is manifestly immoral to act in a way that provides what will one day be quoted as a precedent and justification in the future for a strong aggressive state to attack a weaker state, without the prior approval of the Security Council, on the pretext of intervening to prevent or stop ‘a humanitarian disaster’. It is immoral to kill people when there has been no international acceptance of the assertion that such killing will do less harm than any alternative course of action available. Murder and aggression are immoral as well as illegal: the concepts can’t meaningfully be disentangled.

I recognise that you were not asserting that the attack on Iraq was moral. But an essential ingredient of its immorality was that it was illegal under international law, and that its illegality opened the door to more unnecessary and unwarranted violence in international affairs in the future. That, at any rate, is my two-penn’orth (two cents’-worth, for readers beyond the seas).

Brian

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:52:34 +0000

Andrew, You wrote: >>Talking about supranational authorities and international law is like waving a red rag to a bull with me. Just because something is illegal, it does not follow that it is morally wrong. I tend to favour the moral action over pragmatic considerations like the law. Whether Iraq was morally right or not is, of course, another argument.Brian http://www.barder.com/brian/

By: Jarndyce

Jarndyce — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 10:46:20 +0000

Fair point, B. Though it has worked in the past (Korea), and there is evidence extreme openness has been damaging (Ghana). As I said, it's complex and certainly debatable. US and EU subsidies aren't, though. Brian: I understand your position, but I don't agree with it. I would take my (and our collective) responsibility as applying to people not states, and hence while the (reformed) UN and legalistic system may in general and at most times be the best way to run things, my (liberal) system always allows for exceptions.

By: Blimpish

Blimpish — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 09:09:27 +0000

J & A: on the free trade question, the most I’ve ever seen is some evidence that suggests there can be gains to pursuing a strategic trade policy (i.e., infant industries protection).

Given that this is at best a grey area, we might simplify the question by resolving it on other grounds. We all agree that institutionalised corruption is the biggest detriment to development – well, giving the government the power to restrict foreign imports gives it a great tool for corruption. For that reason, we can (a) be sceptical that protection will be used wisely, rather than to finance corruption; and (b) say that free trade will likely be the best policy recommendation in general, even if only as a rule-of-thumb.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 08:15:10 +0000

Jarndyce: Yes, I’ve seen the arguments. I favour the theory, but I’m an idealist like that. I think we all agree that the main focus should be on dropping trade barriers from our side. What African countries choose to do with that is their own (sovereign) problem.

Brian: Talking about supranational authorities and international law is like waving a red rag to a bull with me. Just because something is illegal, it does not follow that it is morally wrong. I tend to favour the moral action over pragmatic considerations like the law. Whether Iraq was morally right or not is, of course, another argument.

Garry: Couldn’t agree more, and I share your dislike of pdf’s – the one way to guarantee that I will put off reading a document is to put it in that evil format.

By: Garry

Garry — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 03:59:33 +0000

If you track down the MPH manifesto (itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s on the site – a pdf), trade is the first priority.
I’ll look up the manifesto (I have the pdf aversion virus which seems so common these days).

Western agricultural subsidies (and tariffs designed to stop value added processing in situ) ought to be the first and main target.
It’s the one area where pretty much everyone agrees (except those who actually take the decisions). MPH might be well advised to focus every possible effort towards this as their main goal.

By: Brian Barder

Brian Barder — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:55:21 +0000

Just a quickie about 'liberal intervention' (oxymoronic phrase): it's illegal, unless expressly approved by the Security Council. Read the UN Charter, which overrides all other obligations and rights in international law. Once you posit a right of strong countries to intervene in the affairs of weak ones (you can bet your top dollar that the weak aren't going to intervene in the countries of the strong), for whatever motive -- to prevent genocide or other 'humanitarian disaster', or for any other nominally high-minded reason -- without a broad international consensus of acceptance as expressed by the Security Council, you open the door to every kind of aggression by the stronger against the weaker on the pretext of intervention to prevent or stop some imaginary disaster. The US and UK have already committed this international crime by attacking Iraq contrary to the wishes of the Security Council, and NATO did it earlier by attacking Serbia, also without UN authority. The least we can do to try to limit the damage done by those two potentially disastrous precedents is to refrain from inventing a doctrine that would license every aggressive international thug to do it again. And again. And again. Brian http://www.barder.com/brian/