PO3501 Debates in Globalisation - Essay 2 PDF

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PO3501

Using a case study as an example, explain why globalisation challenges the concept of sovereignty The majority of attempts to define globalisation tend to portray it as an unconscious movement, almost driven by nature, which has led to a huge increase in state interconnectedness and interdependence since the end of the Second World War (Baylis, Smith & Owens, 2008, p.10). Advocates of its effects, tend to conceptualise it as a ‘phenomenon’ driving all of the world’s states toward a moralistic utopia of free trade, liberal democracy and ethnic and religious tolerance (Heywood, 2007, p.110). Such assertions however, have a tendency to place far too much emphasis upon the existence of international institutions and agreements as representing a departure from the traditional nationalist statecentric international order, as evidence would suggest that rather than reflecting a movement towards liberal consensus-based global governance, bodies such as the United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) can perhaps be better explained as vehicles of Western liberal hegemony (Chomsky, 2009 [Online]). Such a state of affairs has been no more apparent than within the globalisation of human rights, as the influence of Western liberal ideology upon UN policy has seen a significant increase in humanitarian interventions since 1990, representing a clear challenge to sovereignty for the majority of the world’s less influential states (Musiani, 2008, p.4). Thus, one could argue that for prominent Western liberal democracies globalisation in fact strengthens sovereignty as international institutions based in their image legitimise foreign policy based largely on national interest as in the interests of international security, whilst for the rest of the world, these institutions represent a direct challenge to their sovereign ability to act with autonomy in both internal and external affairs. As a consequence, within this essay I shall employ the case study of human rights as a means of exemplifying how ‘globalisation’ challenges the concept of sovereignty, but only that of less powerful nations. The ‘Westernisation’ of Human Rights The globalisation of human rights first and foremost represents a challenge to the concept of sovereignty in the sense that, what Chris Brown has termed the ‘formation of the human rights regime’ has seen human rights become an increasingly international, rather than domestic issue (Brown, 2008, p.508). In this sense, the post-Cold War realisation that heightened interdependence, and the accession of international terrorist groups originating from ‘rogue’ authoritarian states, had made the human conditions within certain countries a matter of global security, has led to the transition from a ‘laissez faire’ attitude to ‘increased interest’ in state’s internal affairs (Economist, 2008 [Online]; Legranzi, 2009 [Online]). This new ‘human rights agenda’ has manifested itself most notably within the enshrining of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) into international law, the formation of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) - specifically to monitor human rights within states, and high profile UN/NATO interventions in Kosovo, Somalia and Libya since 1990 (UNHRC, 2012 [Online]; Heywood, 2007, p.135; NATO, 2012 [Online]). However, what becomes most significant in terms of the threat to the sovereignty of non-Western developing nations is that this ‘agenda’ is entirely liberal and Western-centric in both its composition and its enforcement, and does not represent any form of international consensus (Economist, 2009 [Online]). Thus, the ‘human rights regime’ as described by Brown, can be explained simply as a liberal Western clique of states and Non-governmental institutions (NGOs) which since the end of the Cold War have made the universal adoption of human rights standards as set out in the UDHR a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of state opposition, or the impact upon sovereignty (UN [1948] 2012 [Online]; Chomsky, 2009 [Online]; Musiani, 2008, p.4). This 1

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‘regime’ has consisted of three permanent members of the UN Security Council, and founder members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO); Britain, France, and the United States (US), as well as Canada, and several international pressure groups such as Human Rights Watch and the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP) (Economist, 2009 [Online]; ICISS, 2001 [Online]). Due largely to the prominence which Britain, France and the US enjoy as members of the Security Council, this coalition of Western entities has successfully lobbied the UN into deviating from its traditional policy of upholding state sovereignty (as enshrined in Article 2(7) of the UN Charter), in order to legitimise intervention on the basis of humanitarian assistance (Economist, 2009 [Online]; Taylor & Curtis, 2008, p.320; UN, [1945] 2012 [Online]). Thus, the ‘Westernisation’ of human rights shows the classic misperception that the UN is an autonomous entity which formulates policy purely on the basis of international interest, when in fact, the UN like any institution is wholly susceptible to the influence of its elite members (Legranzi, 2009 [Online]). Liberalism and Sovereignty If the globalisation of human rights can then be understood as retaining a distinctly Western liberal agenda, the challenge that this presents to the concept of sovereignty is the disparity between the liberal perception of state responsibility, and the traditional Westphalian/functionalist concept of the nation-state. In this sense, functionalists define the central function of the state as ‘the maintenance of social order’, exercised by the institutions of the state such as government, military, police and the judicial system (Brown, 2008, p.510). This absolute authority is accepted by the citizens of the state as being in the ‘public interest’ and ‘for the common good’ and is respected in appreciation of the stability that the state provides (Heywood, 2007, p.90-93). This ‘social contract’ explains Andrew Heywood, functions because the sovereign state is the ‘only legitimate authority within society that holds the capacity to ensure laws are obeyed and transgressors are punished’, thus, citizens gladly give away the right of absolute freedom in return for the safety provided by the allpowerful state (Heywood, 2007, p.93). In contrast, the classic liberal view of state responsibility is that individuals should ‘enjoy the widest possible realm of freedom’, and that the state is merely a ‘protective body’ to be called upon in response to an existential threat (Brown, 2008, p.512). This view of the ‘minimal state’ accords with liberal theorist John Locke’s perception that the ‘power of the state should be restricted to the defence of a set of natural or god-given individual rights, namely ‘life, liberty and property’, and as the state may threaten these rights as easily as it may uphold them, citizens must also enjoy some form of protection against the state’ (Powell, 2012 [Online]). Thus, in rejecting the notion of absolute territorial authority, liberal theory of state responsibility is in fact directly opposed to the concept of sovereignty, and as a vehicle for the liberal ideals of the ‘human rights regime’, one could argue that the UN’s transition towards intervention in state affairs can be seen as a manifestation of the view that citizens must be afforded a level of protection from the state. Therefore, in a marked contrast to the UN’s original pledge to uphold the sovereign rights of the nation state, the unqualified adoption of a liberal ideology opposed to sovereignty presents an obvious challenge to the concept. Human Rights and Diversity In line with the ideological opposition to the idea of sovereignty, the attempt to globalise a Western-centric set of human rights principles as a universal standard, without considering the diversity of political, economic and social cultures among the world’s states, then heightens the likelihood of contraventions and thus, interventions. In this sense, what the 2

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‘human rights regime’ may perceive as contraventions of human rights are not necessarily as a result of the abuse of sovereignty, but rather an indication of cultural difference or lesser economic development. This can partly be explained by the economic theory of the ‘race to the bottom’, in which competition between developing countries to attract international business leads to governments weakening environmental and employment laws in order to maximise profits for potential investors (Dauvergne, 2010, p.467). As a result, for those states seeking to enhance the prosperity of citizens in the long term through industrialisation, it is then an unfortunate side-effect of capitalism that those who have the weakest human rights will often represent the most attractive investment (Morrison, 2011, p.43). Another example is women’s employment rights in the Middle East, as with unemployment in the region already above ten per cent, encouraging more women to enter the job market in line with the UDHR is not simply a moral issue, but would also represent an insurmountable exacerbation of already high unemployment (ILO, 2012, p.71; Ehrenfeld, 2005 [Online]). As such, if adherence to the UN’s human rights standards is likely to lessen economic prosperity, it can then quite feasibly be argued that weakening human rights for this end represents more of an example of the ‘social contract’ than state abuse of sovereignty. Such a dilemma for the eighty five per cent of the world’s population which live in developing states can then be exemplified within the number of contraventions, as during 2011 alone, the UNHRC sent one hundred and five ‘letters of allegation’ regarding human rights abuses to one hundred and thirty one separate states, representing over sixty eight per cent of the UN’s members (UNSP, 2012 [Online]; Ali & Dudash, 2012 [Online]). Furthermore, UNHRC ‘Special Procedures’ made eighty two visits to sixty states in 2011, including Lebanon, Panama, Rwanda and even Japan, but not a single visit was made to a Western state (UNSP, 2012 [Online]). In this sense, whilst every UN member state has signed up to the UDHR the sheer level of contraventions shows clearly the incompatibility between the UN’s perception of state responsibility, and the reality of statehood for much of the world’s states (UN, 2005 [Online]). Human Rights and the ‘Legitimate use of Violence’ The disparity between the ideological and the practical becomes most evident, and most significant in terms of justification for humanitarian intervention, when considering what Max Weber terms the ‘legitimate use of violence’, or in other words, the acceptable lengths a state can go to in maintaining order (Gerth & Wright-Mills, 2002, p.77). In this sense, Weber claims that as part of the ‘social contract’ the state holds a ‘monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order’, however, the fine line between maintaining order and ‘excessive force’ is a grey area which again is increasingly falling under the jurisdiction of the ‘human rights regime’ (Ron, 1997, p.278). As such, in line with the functionalist view that the primary responsibility of the state is to maintain order, it is almost impossible to determine what is acceptable ‘violence’ when the demography, history and general prosperity of states can all lead to huge variations in the strength of the ‘social contract’, which ultimately dictates the level of force required to ensure stability (Heywood, 2007, p.326; Taylor & Curtis, 2008, p.320). In this sense, it is well understood that the ‘social contract’ between the state and its citizens in long-established developed Western democracies is particularly strong, however, especially for states formed as a result of colonialism; weak national identity, and ethnic/sectarian tensions often result in a weak social contract between citizens themselves, as well as the state, which ultimately necessitates a greater use of state ‘violence’ to maintain order (Heywood, 2007, p.102). This ‘violence’ can take many forms, and as well as physical force, can involve the restriction of social mobility, limiting or denying access to resources, or simply refusing protection from other citizens (Ron, 1997, p.279). Whether rightly or wrongly, overall stability in some states which hold characteristics wholly incompatible with cohesion has been achieved through these methods 3

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of state violence, whereas a more Western-style liberal democratic ‘minimal state’ method of governance when implemented has failed. A clear example of this is post-revolution Libya, as the non-existent social contract between tribal groups has made it impossible for the new democratic government to ensure order on liberal terms, whilst through the use of ‘violence’ the former Gadhafi regime had, regardless of the moral implications, at least maintained stability for over forty years (Kaplan, 2012 [Online]; BBC News, 2012 [Online]). In this sense, what James Ron terms the ‘dense body of conventions, laws, and norms defining ‘legitimate’ state violence’, which the UN has in place, represents the most substantial constraint to the ability of the state to perform its primary function, and in providing the justification for military intervention the greatest threat to its sovereignty (Ron, 1997, p.279). Conditional Sovereignty and Humanitarian Intervention Thus, the UN’s increased alacrity for humanitarian intervention, defined by Andrew Heywood as: ‘military intervention carried out in pursuit of humanitarian rather than strategic objectives’ reflects not only globalisation as a ‘movement towards global governance and away from unconditional sovereignty’, but also the quintessence of Western liberal influence within the human rights agenda (Heywood, 2007, p.135; Taylor & Curtis, 2008, p.526; Musiani, 2008, p.4). In this sense, the UNs decree during the 2005 World Summit that it would authorise military action against states if: ‘national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’ exemplifies the classic liberal belief that state sovereignty is only conditional upon its ability to protect its citizens (UN, 2005 [Online]; ICISS, 2001 [Online]; Economist, 2009 [Online]). As a result, such a policy represents the ultimate challenge to the concept of sovereignty, as ‘the human rights regime’ has ultimately been given free-reign to decide which states throughout the world should be deemed as legitimate, and which should not. Furthermore, this is decided on the basis of a universal standard of human rights formulated predominately by these same states (Chomsky, 2009 [Online]). The concern that this causes for developing states is the evident selectivity within humanitarian intervention, as demonstrated by Alex Bellamy and Nicholas Wheeler’s assertion that for many of the world’s developing states humanitarian intervention is seen as a ‘Trojan horse rhetoric designed to legitimate the interference of the strong in the affairs of the weak’ (Bellamy & Wheeler, 2008, p.524). This view arguably, can be illustrated by the decision to intervene in Libya during the Arab Spring, but not in Bahrain, as although both autocratic regimes had brutally cracked down on protestors, the ruling Khalifa family in Bahrain are long-term strategic allies of Britain and the US (Al Jazeera, 2012 [Online]). Thus, this has led to inevitable criticism that humanitarian intervention has become a tool of foreign policy for Western states, as the recognition that sovereignty should be conditional, legitimises militarily intervention in any state which it can be proven has failed in its duty to its citizens (Chomsky, 2009 [Online]; Musiani, 2008, p.4). As such, this policy shows clearly that the UN considers itself a higher authority than the state, and as a product of its most influential members, the international bourgeoisie of Western states has, as a result of globalisation, acquired the ability to directly invade sovereignty as and when it sees fit. Hollowing out from Below Whilst the majority of debate on the subject of humanitarian intervention explores how globalisation has shaped an environment that allows sovereignty to be challenged from above, it has become increasingly evident within recent humanitarian crises that globalisation has also created circumstances that facilitate the ‘hollowing out’ of sovereignty from below (Heywood, 2007, p.324). In this sense, the globalisation of communications as evidenced and 4

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enabled by the worldwide use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, has provided citizens with the ability to communicate concerns directly to the media, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and entities of the ‘human rights regime (O’Donnell, 2011 [Online]). In line with the functionalist perspective on sovereignty, this alone undermines the state’s position as the only recognised legitimate authority of its citizens, as the UN becomes a higher authority to which those in opposition to the state can appeal directly for assistance. Furthermore, in publicly breaking the ‘social contract’ with the state, any violence which the state then undertakes to maintain order then becomes illegitimate and excessive, invoking the UN’s responsibility to protect (UN, 2005 [Online]). In this sense during the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the use of social media in allowing protestors to communicate and mobilise within the state as well as gain outside support, proved enough to convince their autocratic leaders to step down (O’Donnell, 2011 [Online]). In Libya also, although humanitarian assistance was received, the same principles apply, as in using communications media to convey the abuse of the regime and the extent of the opposition, once it was clear that the ‘social contract’ had been broken, the UN and a host of Western states were able to recognise the opposition as the legitimate state authority, ending the Gaddafi regimes ‘conditional sovereignty’ and legitimising air strikes as a means of intervention (Daalder & Stavridis, 2012 [online]). As a result, the UN and NATO have drawn praise for: ‘enabling the Libyan opposition to overthrow one of the world's longest-ruling dictators, accomplished without a single allied casualty’ (Daalder & Stavridis, 2012 [Online]). However, whilst noteworthy achievements, the ability to engineer the overthrow of a regime with minimal cost and at no expense to human life, represents a worryingly attractive potential tool of foreign policy, that one could argue presents a risk that citizens could be manipulated into fighting proxy wars for Western powers in their own state. Furthermore, the relative ease of the Arab revolutions sets a dangerous precedent for state sovereignty, as for many states throughout the world in which there exists a weak social contract, or human rights aren’t quite aligned with the UDHR, there is the danger that the first sign of social unrest may result in the removal of the regime, without necessarily improving prosperity. Conclusion Ultimately, the challenge to sovereignty which globalisation represents can be examined from two differing perspectives; one purely concerns the circumstances which globalisation creates, and the other concerns the manner in which these circumstances have been managed, endured and exploited. In this sense, although globalisation through the formation of international institutions creates conditions which represent a challenge to the concept of sovereignty, it is not inevitable that this will impact adversely upon the state. As such, occurrences within human rights proliferation which have proven to be to the detriment of sovereignty, result largely from the failing of the UN to act in the interests of all of its members, and are not necessarily the product of globalisation itself. Thus rather than a universal movement designed to enhance the rights and prosperity of all citizens, the pervasiveness of Western liberalism within human rights has led to the imposition of standards that for the most part are wholly incompatible with maintaining order, and ensu...