By John LANGAN, S.J.Professor of Christian Ethics Georgetown
University,
Washington, DC
Armed intervention on the territory of a sovereign state is a serious breach
of international order. It involves at least the threat of bloodshed and
sometimes a great deal more. It can be a means for promoting the interests
of great powers or for rescuing dissident minorities intent on revolution
or secession.
It is expensive, dangerous, and controversial. It is at the edge of
what the international community finds acceptable. It is what the United
States is currently doing to Yugoslavia or to what remains of the former
Yugoslav state, namely, Serbia,
Montenegro, and the sometimes autonomous region of Kosovo. What, if
anything, can justify the United States or the other NATO powers in using
force against a government which is conducting police and security operations
on its own territory?
The short answer to this question is: massive violations of fundamental
human rights which indicate that genocide is imminent and which create
an emergency situation in which the ordinary means for settling disputes
have broken down. In situations of this type (Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia,
Uganda, Liberia, and East Pakistan), there is a partial or complete breakdown
of order within a society. The rule of law and the protections which it
offers cease to be available for a substantial part of the population of
a state, perhaps even for all. Often enough this breakdown is engineered
or controlled by one faction or by the rulers of the state itself. What
is at stake in such a situation is the survival of large numbers of people,
and the continued existence of a culture and a community seeking political
expression and legal protection.
Sometimes the attacks on persons and communities are indirect, as in
Kosovo, where, in the process of ethnic cleansing many more people are
driven from their homes and exposed to the elements than are massacred.
But the attacks are nonetheless real.
Such an emergency situation is created by the violence of the oppressors
and evokes violence from those who are threatened. It also creates the
likelihood of uncontrolled population movements and regional instability,
which makes it a matter of international concern. One of the fundamental
reasons for acknowledging the sovereignty of a state, namely, its ability
to maintain order within its territory, ceases to hold. Sometimes the collapse
of order is the result of the activity of revolutionary or secessionist
movements, which can often act brutally and be guilty of human rights violations
themselves. But when the primary responsibility for the collapse of order
rests with a state which is attacking its own citizens, and which is unwilling
to give them the protections that one would give to prisoners of war or
to citizens of an occupied country, then it is clear that internal action
will not be enough to restore order and stability. This is also true when
the state has collapsed and has lost the ability to enforce its decisions,
as in Somalia. Other states then, especially in today's world of rapid
communications and increasing interdependence, are likely to feel strong
moral and political pressures to intervene in order to avoid or to end
a disaster.
But those who favor intervention, especially when it is a question of
preventing rather than terminating massive violations of human rights,
have to recognize that they are making a judgment about what is likely
to happen; such judgments may not always be correct, and even when they
are correct, they may not be universally persuasive. The recent actions
of the Milosevic regime in expelling large numbers of ethnic Albanians
from Kosovo have persuaded most observers that judgments that large-scale
violations of human rights were imminent were indeed correct.
Armed interventions for humanitarian purposes are justifiable in such
circumstances; they can be a matter of moral obligation as well as of moral
right. But interventions are carried out by states or coalitions of states
which are militarily powerful and which also have other interests and responsibilities.
This point has several consequences.
First, there is a continuing need to monitor and assess interventions
so that intervening states do not abuse their power. This should be done
officially within the forums provided by the United Nations and other international
organizations; but it should also be carried out informally by human rights
organizations and by the communications media.
Second, since intervention is an exercise of military force, it should
not violate the moral norms governing the use of such force as these have
been formulated in the tradition of the just war. That is, it should be
limited in its scope and its means, it should respect the immunity of civilians,
it should be undertaken only as a last resort, it must have a just cause,
it should not be driven by inappropriate or unjust motives such as the
desire for vengeance.
Third, it should be seen as a temporary response to an emergency situation
and thus as a stage in the reshaping of the local situation so that the
various parties can live together in an orderly, if not harmonious, future.
It is not an opportunity for intervening powers to advance their own interests,
but to serve the common good by promoting justice and reconciliation in
the region. This is an idealistic goal, but its attainment may require
considerable canniness and occasional threats as well as patience and self-restraint
on the part of the intervening powers.
Fourth, intervening states have the right and the duty to consider the
impact of intervention on their other concerns and on the international
system as a whole. Normally, this will mean that intervention is not justifiable
if it is to take place on the territory of a major power or one possessing
nuclear weapons, or if intervention is likely to lead to war or to increased
levels of violence in the region and the international system. In a conflict-ridden
world, it is not possible to rescue all victims.
To put the matter as concisely as possible, intervention is a grave
and risky matter, but can be justified as a necessary response to grave
evils. It should be infrequent and limited; but it can be an opportunity
to promote justice and reconciliation in the future.






