The pragmatic case against intervention

Caroline Thomas

pp. 91-103

in: Ian Forbes, Mark Hoffman (eds), Political theory, international relations, and the ethics of intervention, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1993

Abstract

In this chapter the case against intervention to promote human causes is put forward. Fundamental to this position is the fact that the state is the common value in international politics. If an international community can be said to exist, it is through the recognition of international rights and duties inherent in statehood that this is so. International law and diplomacy, in which non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other states plays a key role, are designed to serve the state and the state system. The rights and obligations which exist in the international sphere are the rights and obligations of states and not of individuals, with the possible exception of the right to self-determination. Yet even the latter is generally recognised only within the established territorial boundaries of existing states; a movement for national self-determination which threatens the territorial integrity of existing states is outlawed by the community of states. Any attempt to establish a basis for interventionary action premised on a universal formula of human rights, even if this could be achieved in theory, cannot be translated into state practice for three simple reasons: state sovereignty, heterogeneity within the system, and the hierarchical nature of the system.