Full Transcript for Preventative War

00:06:31,620 I would like to develop it a little bit here. Of course, we had ideas on some of these issues for a long, long time, for the last 25, 30 years. 47 00:06:32,100 --> 00:06:35,880 We know how in-depth the reactor his ideas are. 48 00:06:36,780 --> 00:06:43,800 I David also is a critic of preventive war, and I have so much sympathy for his views. 49 00:06:44,220 --> 00:06:50,160 So hopefully between our two views or two sides, something cohesive will emerge. 50 00:06:50,910 --> 00:06:57,270 So I may have to sit down to take a look at this computer, but hopefully I'll be loud enough. 51 00:06:57,690 --> 00:07:00,930 Loud enough that you get to understand me. 52 00:07:01,500 --> 00:07:06,030 Okay. So and I'll be stopping from time to time, too, 53 00:07:06,180 --> 00:07:15,060 to make myself more clear and discern the certainty factor, the certainty factor of an imminent danger. 54 00:07:16,020 --> 00:07:22,920 Debated considerably in the just war tradition is now put to severe test. 55 00:07:23,400 --> 00:07:28,290 In view of in view of the challenges of today's warfare. 56 00:07:29,250 --> 00:07:33,000 This this most certainty factor of an imminent danger. 57 00:07:33,390 --> 00:07:36,470 How do we measure it and when should do it? 58 00:07:36,490 --> 00:07:39,930 What should we respond to it? Okay, 59 00:07:40,380 --> 00:07:48,750 so this blurring of the blurring this blurring of the distinction between pre-emption and prevention in 60 00:07:48,750 --> 00:07:58,200 matters of peace and security seems to have contributed to a more open attitude toward preventive war. 61 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:08,339 Scholars also point out that the permissive interpretation of preventive measures can be found 62 00:08:08,340 --> 00:08:19,230 in the later just war tradition of gotchas and halts as part of reasonable self-defence, 63 00:08:20,100 --> 00:08:33,330 and also in Chapter seven of the United Nations Charter pertaining to the Security Council in matters of international peace and security. 64 00:08:33,930 --> 00:08:43,530 That's one side which seems to claim that sovereignty and non-intervention might be the accepted norms in international law, 65 00:08:44,310 --> 00:08:55,290 but stipulated measures suggestive of preventive intervention are permissible with Security Council authorisation. 66 00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:03,290 Thus. Making preventive war legal under current international law. 67 00:09:03,710 --> 00:09:09,560 That's one side. In fact, even here, we have, of course, controversy. 68 00:09:09,890 --> 00:09:13,340 For example, David Brody has very much to play. 69 00:09:13,350 --> 00:09:15,889 Not even forget about preventive war. 70 00:09:15,890 --> 00:09:24,110 Even when it comes to ending war, it's not that clear that international law allows into war even for get up and prevent war. 71 00:09:25,310 --> 00:09:27,080 So that's, of course, okay. 72 00:09:27,770 --> 00:09:40,940 But the other side that tends to question this idea of a more broader attitude, a more permissive attitude toward an not toward preventive war, 73 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:50,479 are leading to a broader type of military engagement in the name of self-defence and in rare 74 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:58,700 cases now for the so-called rescue rescue wars or the humanitarian military intervention. 75 00:09:59,690 --> 00:10:03,260 Okay. The other side goes something like this, 76 00:10:03,740 --> 00:10:15,200 that the provision of preventive war in self-defence can get unduly interventionist, making the world less secure. 77 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:26,800 The world needs a justice based approach that addresses the underlying causes of global tension and crisis. 78 00:10:27,890 --> 00:10:44,870 Deprivation and humiliation. Deprivation and humiliation in our inequitable global order are the two chief reasons for tension and resentment. 79 00:10:45,560 --> 00:11:02,330 Creating hostilities, confronting deprivation through economic development and responding to humiliation through political recognition 80 00:11:02,870 --> 00:11:15,380 would go a long way toward mitigating tension and resentment and diminishing the global democracy deficit. 81 00:11:15,770 --> 00:11:17,960 I'll comment on that a bit more, don't you? 82 00:11:19,010 --> 00:11:27,860 Studies have shown that non-military measures can be more effective in confronting terrorism than military actions, 83 00:11:28,400 --> 00:11:31,250 which may even prove to be counterproductive. 84 00:11:32,180 --> 00:11:47,419 Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has famously observed that the ingredients of enduring 85 00:11:47,420 --> 00:11:58,490 global security lie not necessarily in deploying a nation's military force for global safekeeping, 86 00:11:58,700 --> 00:12:09,860 but more importantly in promoting just development and comprehensive human rights. 87 00:12:10,980 --> 00:12:16,820 Well, look, this gets a bit off my view. I'm just coming to old ink so that I can get to the gist of it. 88 00:12:17,180 --> 00:12:34,280 My view that countries should promote prevention in non-interventionist terms by relying on the soft power of diplomacy and collaboration. 89 00:12:35,570 --> 00:12:38,780 This is the path toward just peace. 90 00:12:39,110 --> 00:12:45,590 Just peace, which I promote as the antidote to preventive war. 91 00:12:46,490 --> 00:12:54,290 If we do not place a principle premium on it, on a proactive and comprehensive, 92 00:12:54,890 --> 00:13:03,410 non-interventionist policy of just peace, then the option of preventive war. 93 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:11,840 However, a constraint could gain undue legitimacy leading to more war, not less. 94 00:13:12,830 --> 00:13:24,380 The idea of just peace relies on the global project of democratic governments collaborative global political order. 95 00:13:25,010 --> 00:13:32,540 Let me just use one recent example, an application from New York Times. 96

00:13:33,110 --> 00:13:44,720 As you put from New York Times, it was Yadlin, the former Amos Yadlin, the former chief of Israeli military intelligence, 97 00:13:46,040 --> 00:13:55,340 via commenting on a possible Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. 98 00:13:55,820 --> 00:14:10,350 Now it's got. Mr. Obama will have to shift the Israeli defence establishment's thinking from a focus on the zone of immunity, 99 00:14:10,950 --> 00:14:19,470 as he calls it, to a zone of trust, to a zone of trust, unquote. 100 00:14:19,860 --> 00:14:31,890 However he can choose, however he constitutes the zone of trust in terms of preventive and military intervention. 101 00:14:32,370 --> 00:14:45,930 He writes, quote, What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that that if Israel refrains from acting 102 00:14:46,290 --> 00:14:53,909 in its own window of opportunity to justice in the interest of saving for passage, 103 00:14:53,910 --> 00:14:56,040 you have to share it this way so that he can hopefully. 104 00:14:57,930 --> 00:15:05,030 However, he constrains the open quote zone of trust, close quote, in terms of preventive military intervention. 105 00:15:05,100 --> 00:15:11,489 He writes, open quote, What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from 106 00:15:11,490 --> 00:15:15,930 acting in its own window of opportunity and all other options have failed, 107 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:22,260 Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so. 108 00:15:22,350 --> 00:15:30,330 Close quote. In contrast to this expanded just war military approach, my idea of just peace would construe the, 109 00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:34,830 quote zone of trust in terms of preventive non-intervention, 110 00:15:35,820 --> 00:15:41,730 creating a zone of trust among nations through a collaborative, proactive approach with an emphasis on recognition, 111 00:15:41,970 --> 00:15:47,070 syslog and assistance makes the need for preventive military measures obsolete. 112 00:15:50,490 --> 00:15:57,240 The gradual move in this direction is the move towards just peace, which I have dubbed dubbed preventive non-intervention. 113 00:15:57,690 --> 00:16:05,130 Unlike the principled anti-interventionist arguments of the pacifist, this stance is anti-interventionist in a contingent sense. 114 00:16:05,610 --> 00:16:08,610 It is not necessarily against intervention per say. 115 00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:15,959 As, for instance, when intervention is the only option for pre-emptive reasons, it is against the way it is usually. 116 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:21,510 It usually takes place or against its feasibility in a complicated and interdependent world. 117 00:16:23,070 --> 00:16:30,090 But this limited provision for pre-emption, when construed on the premise of just peace but not just war as argued above, 118 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:37,620 would not provide the moral mandate and the slippery transition to preventive military measures in the name of peace and security. 119 00:16:38,430 --> 00:16:44,159 In other words, a just peace approach sanctifies the traditional Augustinian just will ban on 120 00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:48,850 anticipatory military measures in a way that the premise of just war cannot. 121 00:16:49,620 --> 00:16:53,700 A just peace initiative allows measured military response if needed, 122 00:16:53,970 --> 00:17:01,110 as the only option for self-defence or humanitarian reasons, either after an attack has occurred or when an attack is imminent. 123 00:17:01,380 --> 00:17:07,920 In the strictest sense of imminence require an interception when the offence is evidently erected. 124 00:17:08,190 --> 00:17:18,090 Arab irrevocable. I share Kant's critique of Grootes and Vettel's doctrine of just war, and the doctrines provide the pretext for justifying wars. 125 00:17:18,570 --> 00:17:23,219 My idea of global democracy as the Foundation for Peace is quite similar to Kant's 126 00:17:23,220 --> 00:17:28,200 vision of global of a global federation of Democratic or Republican states, 127 00:17:28,860 --> 00:17:33,120 like a universal civil society held together for peace and collective security, 128 00:17:33,120 --> 00:17:37,440 where each state retains all its sovereign rights except in the right to wage war. 129 00:17:38,340 --> 00:17:43,800 In such a justice based global democracy that strides towards inclusion, participation and empowerment. 130 00:17:44,250 --> 00:17:51,570 No member state would be considered an outlaw state. Hence, there would be no rogue states that can be targeted for preventive military strikes. 131 00:17:52,200 --> 00:18:01,649 This democratic global order would vastly increase the prospect of internal democratic reform within states in a peaceful manner a peaceful, 132 00:18:01,650 --> 00:18:05,190 sorry and peaceful manner with initiatives generated by the states themselves 133 00:18:05,490 --> 00:18:09,090 because of the privilege of recognition and membership in the global body. 134 00:18:09,330 --> 00:18:14,110 They would not like to compromise this position through failure, granting democratic rights to citizens. 135 00:18:14,610 --> 00:18:20,309 For inept states, they would be held from a common pool of funds for development assistance and building stable 136 00:18:20,310 --> 00:18:25,630 institutions without coercive conditions attached in such a collaborative global order. 137 00:18:25,650 --> 00:18:32,670 The rhetoric of military intervention for imposing democracy from without would ring hollow also. 138 00:18:32,700 --> 00:18:37,349 The idea of military strike against a group of subversive non-state actors in remote 139 00:18:37,350 --> 00:18:42,090 areas who are about to be shipping lethal virus for rape for release in populated areas. 140 00:18:42,610 --> 00:18:48,240 Alan Buchanan's hypothetical scenario for justifying preventive intervention would be an empty argument. 141

00:18:48,900 --> 00:18:55,110 If the actors are domestic terrorists, then the question of intervention in a sovereign state does not arise. 142 00:18:55,350 --> 00:19:03,080 And if they had known foreign terrorists. Then in a collaborative global order, the idea of intervention goes against the thrust of collaboration. 143 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:08,330 There are numerous collaborative avenues for responding to such distant threats. 144 00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:12,050 A few comments. Just. Just passage. 145 00:19:13,130 --> 00:19:20,900 To not let becoming bitter about some of the ideas that we find in some of these authors. 146 00:19:21,980 --> 00:19:27,530 I did mention the idea for Rogue State. That's David Luban and David Luban. 147 00:19:28,100 --> 00:19:33,110 He has been writing important stuff on preventive war. 148 00:19:33,620 --> 00:19:38,600 He's very much against the idea in general of preventive intervention. 149 00:19:39,410 --> 00:19:45,200 But he makes a rather small. 150 00:19:45,830 --> 00:19:51,500 So he calls it small exception of intervention. 151 00:19:52,190 --> 00:20:03,710 Action in the case of a so-called rogue state, when there is imminent or obvious danger coming from that lawless state. 152 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:12,560 Okay. Now, the problem is this. The global order is so tilted and so inequitable. 153 00:20:13,550 --> 00:20:24,170 It's very easy, as we know quite often, that powerful states or coalition of powerful states can easily, for the sake of global heads. 154 00:20:24,410 --> 00:20:35,960 They can target weaker states to try to find ways to intervene there, to control them, which has been happening quite often. 155 00:20:36,500 --> 00:20:48,200 It can never happen the other way round, even though we know that it's not the case that no type of threat happens from the point of view, 156 00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:52,610 from the sight of two powerful states to the involvement of the states. 157 00:20:53,060 --> 00:21:05,930 But it's always the case that the powerful states to target development states often in the name of the rhetoric of rogue states. 158 00:21:06,290 --> 00:21:12,380 Now it is this way, even when it comes to terrorism. 159 00:21:12,410 --> 00:21:17,850 Think about it. That's also a political rhetoric and propaganda district. 160 00:21:18,290 --> 00:21:22,820 Political rhetoric. Why so? Well, think about it. 161 00:21:23,660 --> 00:21:41,719 When just a few powerful states control the rest of the world through their military power for the sake of getting global resources, 162 00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:45,530 moving in their direction, uninterrupted on their terms. 163 00:21:46,250 --> 00:21:49,190 And they would like to maintain that status and privilege. 164 00:21:51,860 --> 00:22:00,500 By even using military means if needed, and without the United Nations Security Council approval, 165 00:22:01,730 --> 00:22:12,140 if they find it necessary, then the whole idea of who the terrorist states are and who are the who the rogue states are, 166 00:22:12,650 --> 00:22:20,180 that gets to be rather vague as we know or seems like it's a form of global terrorism 167 00:22:20,540 --> 00:22:28,370 that often the vulnerable states are held hostage by the power of the powerful states. 168 00:22:28,940 --> 00:22:39,080 Given this theme, then the question is not if Luban, David Luban leaves open the provision of the rogue state, 169 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:44,750 that doesn't end up being a very small exception, as you like to put it. 170 00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:53,510 It could open up the room for all types of excuses for intervention. 171 00:22:54,230 --> 00:23:02,299 The way I want to show it here, that we have this idea of preventive non-intervention and down the road, 172 00:23:02,300 --> 00:23:13,220 I explained that a little bit more in the sense of just peace in a collaborative global order of inclusion, 173 00:23:17,060 --> 00:23:20,840 discourse, understanding and health, mutual help. 174 00:23:21,650 --> 00:23:27,770 Then, by definition, the idea of a rogue state is not that it's not just act. 175 00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:40,010 I mean, using or naturally rogue states happened when, as I mentioned at the beginning of this little essay, when there is deprivation, 176 00:23:41,390 --> 00:23:54,170 humiliation, neglect, all that once powerful and resourceful states tend to overcome some of these global inequity. 177 00:23:55,110 --> 00:24:05,630 The whole idea of rogue states where they could be viewed as possible dangerous doesn't that doesn't quite arise in that sense. 178 00:24:05,930 --> 00:24:19,550 So that's David you know I let it become is oh well this way if I get down and we can I'd like to also mention Michael Doyle and Michael Laughlin. 179 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:26,780 Michael Walzer, early on in his classic restatement of the just war doctrine, 180 00:24:27,590 --> 00:24:40,070 has rather blurred the idea of imminence in what is or what could be an imminent danger. 181 00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:51,440 So much so that often people say that that's an example, perhaps, of intervention rather than pre-emption. 182 00:24:52,190 --> 00:25:00,950 And yet, Michael Walzer is extremely reluctant to call his idea interventionist. 183 00:25:01,430 --> 00:25:05,930 You'd like to use the word pre-emption. All true. So you might do that. 184 00:25:06,350 --> 00:25:07,790 But he has opened that way. 185 00:25:08,660 --> 00:25:17,390 And he, of course, has got to and others to show that he has his total support when it comes to his understanding of the last for doctrine. 186 00:25:18,020 --> 00:25:25,490 But Michael Doyle, in his so-called jurisprudence, Jewish jurisprudence of prevention, 187 00:25:26,660 --> 00:25:45,320 a very carefully articulated doctrine of of of of those rare cases when we may really need to think of prevention because we just can't wait. 188 00:25:46,790 --> 00:26:02,300 And how could

you do it so that something like the fiasco of the Iraq war, in the guise of the so-called Bush doctrine would not happen. 189 00:26:02,930 --> 00:26:06,560 He lays down quite a few procedure issues. 190 00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:11,000 He calls them both substantive and procedural. 191 00:26:11,420 --> 00:26:30,950 And it lists several wonderful lawyers about the the the extent of real danger of international law, of United Nations Security Council and all that. 192 00:26:31,820 --> 00:26:38,150 But it leaves room for unilateralism if needed. 193 00:26:39,470 --> 00:26:50,360 But that also has to be, in his judgement, based on what he calls the jurisprudence of prevention, meaning the carefully construed need. 194 00:26:51,020 --> 00:26:56,130 Do you really present it to the rest of the world that was needed? 195 00:26:56,150 --> 00:27:02,870 That's why the country is going in that direction based on this imminence immediate danger 196 00:27:03,380 --> 00:27:10,400 to its national security or a massacre of some sort in a country where people are helpless. 197 00:27:10,790 --> 00:27:14,960 Now, the point is this the moment goes in that direction. 198 00:27:15,650 --> 00:27:17,090 We understand his concern, 199 00:27:17,090 --> 00:27:27,560 and that's the concern of some of these extremely well-meaning international just folks here as contemporary industrial theorists like Michael Doyle, 200 00:27:28,430 --> 00:27:36,740 David Luban. And I'm getting to other countries shortly where we see that they're caught in this conundrum, in this conflict. 201 00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:48,770 On the one hand, we know that we can not simply promote war mongering and making provision for 202 00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:54,590 preventive war has invariably the inevitable direction of going in that direction. 203 00:27:55,250 --> 00:28:08,030 At the same time, that could be those occasions when unless we act, the consequences could be so catastrophic that it would be a disaster. 204 00:28:08,630 --> 00:28:21,110 In fact, Michael was the early on talks about, in the case of a civil civilizational challenge to our community, 205 00:28:21,500 --> 00:28:30,290 if we let something of this sort, like the Nazi danger to the allied forces happen, we have to respond. 206 00:28:30,650 --> 00:28:35,990 What do we need to know? Let problem is this with Michael Doyle. 207 00:28:36,590 --> 00:28:51,580 When he talks about assessing the severity of danger or finding that it truly passes the test of necessity and all that, 208 00:28:52,370 --> 00:28:58,250 who decides those things if there is a go alone provision in it? 209 00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:14,450 Because as Michael Walzer himself famously said, when it comes to existential threat, there is no such thing as legality. 210 00:29:15,950 --> 00:29:20,560 So it's a matter of, again, subject to an individual assessment. 211 00:29:20,570 --> 00:29:30,610 So a powerful nation, just as we are found all through, especially in recent times with the Bush Doctrine, 212 00:29:30,620 --> 00:29:45,740 even before that and even after George Bush term of practice is still continuing that what is happening is that all countries can, 213 00:29:47,000 --> 00:30:03,200 in the name of the global mandate, need it for its own national security, can claim a global mandate for its policies. 214 00:30:03,530 --> 00:30:08,900 And once we move in that direction, then we get back to where we have been. 215 00:30:09,530 --> 00:30:14,230 And Michael died. And in fact, I've had a conversation back and forth with him on that. 216 00:30:14,690 --> 00:30:24,560 And he is the one who wrote a wonderful endorsement of the book, and he nonetheless mentioned that, I understand you a fair go at everything. 217 00:30:24,830 --> 00:30:35,030 But the reason I tried to construe this jurisprudence of prevention is seriously because of this conundrum that we have to do something. 218 00:30:35,030 --> 00:30:44,180 Otherwise things might get out of hand, but we have to do it in such a careful fashion that it would be extremely limited. 219 00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,630 But he says that you are not the first one. 220 00:30:47,960 --> 00:31:01,450 I've been routinely hearing that this has this lead to the potential for something much more drastic, as we have found in the Bush Doctrine, 221 00:31:01,460 --> 00:31:07,280 even though it's the Bush doctrine that he has in mind to make sure that never happens again like that, like the Iraq war. 222 00:31:07,850 --> 00:31:12,260 And that direction is going on with a little bit. It's interesting. 223 00:31:13,010 --> 00:31:21,470 He is coming from the perspective of global justice, not from the perspective of. 224 00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:35,430 Sovereign equality. Sovereign equality that you find in Michael Walzer that you find in, but that you find not all. 225 00:31:35,810 --> 00:31:43,310 Michael Doyle Sovereign equality is a statist approach, statist approach. 226 00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,400 It's not a globalist approach. It's not cosmopolitan. 227 00:31:46,910 --> 00:31:52,040 And there is a state order that dictates the global policies. 228 00:31:52,490 --> 00:31:58,190 And we know that it's a very unique, inequitable order in statist order. 229 00:31:58,580 --> 00:32:02,750 Unfortunately, that's how things are in current international law. 230 00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:11,660 But kind of gets into the deeper issues of global unrest. 231 00:32:12,230 --> 00:32:16,880 And there he brings in the ideas of human rights violations. 232 00:32:17,270 --> 00:32:23,360 He brings in the ideas of deprivation, inequity, all that. 233 00:32:23,780 --> 00:32:33,200 And he says that those things need to be addressed to come up with what he calls a theory of global justice. 234 00:32:33,740 --> 00:32:41,240 Now, what's the difference between sovereign equality and global justice? 235 00:32:41,270 --> 00:32:45,230 Basically, this, as I just

mentioned a little bit already. 236 00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:49,100 Even when we have a word of sovereign equality, 237 00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:58,550 there could be inequity and human rights violations within states and a lot of resentment and all that, too, within states. 238 00:32:58,850 --> 00:33:09,679 Whereas in a world where global justice is operative along the line of peace, just peace is a highly idealised theory, of course, and presenting. 239 00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:18,230 And I would contrast that with the other side, the show where it's maybe idealised and maybe hard to really implement fully. 240 00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:28,129 But the other side is even harder to implement. And it just has it has had a track record, a proven disastrous failure, because given that, 241 00:33:28,130 --> 00:33:38,390 can't we do better, which is also a lot less costly and more effective? 242 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,770 So that's the direction I'm going. So I wouldn't be cutting it. 243 00:33:42,770 --> 00:33:49,970 Even though he goes in the direction of just peace by promoting the idea of global justice. 244 00:33:50,420 --> 00:34:02,330 He does bring in this idea of a limited portion of provision for preventive intervention. 245 00:34:03,530 --> 00:34:08,179 The problem is this, and that's where I tend to show, he says, 246 00:34:08,180 --> 00:34:16,790 that it doesn't have to be intervention necessarily to attack country, but to intervene in some other sovereign places. 247 00:34:16,790 --> 00:34:23,000 But suppose in those cases, we find those non-state actors, rogue actors, 248 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:32,090 about to ship the lethal virus into some populated area for their misguided ideas. 249 00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:33,470 What can we do? 250 00:34:34,100 --> 00:34:44,090 Well, my idea was that in a collaborative global governance, if we know there are known terrorists, and if they happen to be in our own country, 251 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:50,630 then the question of preventive intervention by definition doesn't arise because we are not going to go any other countries. 252 00:34:51,620 --> 00:34:58,850 But if it's in some other country and if they're known terrorist activity, that's this idea that we know that they're about to do that. 253 00:34:59,750 --> 00:35:02,330 That in a collaborative global order, 254 00:35:03,110 --> 00:35:17,720 there are there are numerous opportunities to respond to that in a fashion where it's just a one sided flexing of muscles is not needed. 255 00:35:18,020 --> 00:35:20,990 That's the direction I'm going. So I'll make more comment on that. 256 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:26,750 So where do you think the gradual emergence of the global human rights culture in the last 50 years is achieved? 257 00:35:26,750 --> 00:35:31,970 A certain level of international recognition for justice when there is an egregious violation of negative human rights 258 00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:38,720 with severe poverty and radical inequality in the socio economic arena are still not recognised as urgent human, 259 00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:47,209 urgent human rights concerns. This quote unquote holocaust of neglect perpetuates the issues. 260 00:35:47,210 --> 00:35:55,130 Demonstrating this holocaust of neglect perpetuates deprivation, destabilisation and violence, creating the presumed need for preventive intervention, 261 00:35:55,340 --> 00:36:01,580 whereas prevented non-intervention and practised as a systematic antidote to the inequity and neglect in the world, 262 00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:09,559 can take us beyond the need for preventive use of force effective non-military alternatives in the case of terrorism, policing, 263 00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:16,820 surveillance, diplomacy, education, international cooperation, recognising and meeting genuine grievances in the case of government. 264 00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,540 Persecution of its citizens. Diplomatic pressure. 265 00:36:20,540 --> 00:36:26,070 Non-violence. Coercive measures, including carefully developed sanctions aimed at the rulers rather than the ruled. 266 00:36:26,550 --> 00:36:31,410 Economic and financial measures aimed at dictators and legal sanctions against powerful perpetrators. 267 00:36:31,980 --> 00:36:38,760 These methods, though likely to be effective, are not guaranteed to fully succeed and are not easy to implement in practice. 268 00:36:39,330 --> 00:36:44,120 But the same is even more true with preventive war. Understanding the idea. 269 00:36:44,220 --> 00:36:50,490 This is the concluding notion. Understanding the idea of just peace can help us understand the seeming paradox of 270 00:36:50,490 --> 00:36:56,010 indifference leading to intervention and proactive engagement leading to non-intervention. 271 00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:04,470 What I'm sorry, I was I was suggesting to that we that we go on to David's comments and then we can have a discussion. 272 00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:09,480 And I know he has more things to add, but actually it's probably best to be moved on. 273 00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:16,499 Okay, David, thanks very much. And thanks so much, Dean, for coming along and for heroically persevering, 274 00:37:16,500 --> 00:37:23,460 despite the best effects of of of agents, biological agents to to intervene. 275 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:30,299 I should also just mention that this event, as well as being hosted by ELAC, 276 00:37:30,300 --> 00:37:35,940 is also hosted by the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York, 277 00:37:36,180 --> 00:37:43,310 and particularly by the Global Ethics Network, of which the three of us, Dean, Cheney, myself, are members. 278 00:37:43,410 --> 00:37:51,060 This event is also a part of the Global Ethics Network, a set of other events and initiatives. 279 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:59,880 So very, very briefly, I maybe just will make a couple of comments before handing over to Charlie and then go to discussion.

280 00:38:00,270 --> 00:38:08,009 And I wanted to, rather than commenting specifically on, on Dean's proposals, because I'm very, 281 00:38:08,010 --> 00:38:12,959 very much in in support of the idea of moving towards some conception of just war. 282 00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:18,300 And I think it's very interesting what this is. Sorry, I've just piece I think it's very interesting that this is one of a number of context 283 00:38:18,300 --> 00:38:21,750 in which scholars are in many different ways trying to move beyond just war paradigms. 284 00:38:22,170 --> 00:38:23,819 So rather than responding specifically to that, 285 00:38:23,820 --> 00:38:31,379 I thought I would just try and situate very briefly the debate about pre-emption in the context of a broader 286 00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:39,180 debate about how we understand human rights and particularly the conditions for forfeiture of human rights. 287 00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:46,560 So the assumption that I'm going to make is that any kind of war, pre-emptive or not unilateral, 288 00:38:47,580 --> 00:38:55,590 multilateral or U.N. authorised that a basic precondition for any justified war is going to be that the persons, 289 00:38:55,590 --> 00:39:03,120 the enemy combatants that you use force against do not, in the relevant sense, have the right not to have force used against them. 290 00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,350 So in the techniques that we say that they are liable to the use of force. 291 00:39:08,910 --> 00:39:16,170 So one of the one of the ways of phrasing the question about pre-emption then, is to situate it in the context of a broader set of questions, 292 00:39:16,170 --> 00:39:24,450 which is about how ideas of proximity effect our conception of the rights that 293 00:39:24,450 --> 00:39:30,000 persons have and the conditions under which they lose or forfeit rights. 294 00:39:30,450 --> 00:39:38,759 So we might think about the questions about pre-emption as being questions about temporal proximity, right? 295 00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:47,700 So the distance in time that an agent is from an attack and we might want to look at this in the context of other 296 00:39:47,700 --> 00:39:53,520 proximity relationships and the effect that they have on the response of rights and responsibilities of agents. 297 00:39:54,030 --> 00:39:58,140 So we might want to think about three different contexts where these proximity questions arise. 298 00:39:58,890 --> 00:40:04,200 So one of these would be in the context of what we might call social relational proximity. 299 00:40:04,410 --> 00:40:11,790 So the idea here is that certain kinds of rights and responsibilities increase or have a greater stringency, 300 00:40:12,090 --> 00:40:15,780 the closer social relationship to that agent, or as we're familiar with, 301 00:40:15,780 --> 00:40:22,259 the idea that you can have greater responsibilities of care to our children than we do to strangers, 302 00:40:22,260 --> 00:40:25,020 greater responsibilities of care to perhaps our friends, 303 00:40:25,020 --> 00:40:30,360 colleagues occur nationals potentially than we do to strangers who do not share those relationships. 304 00:40:31,380 --> 00:40:39,570 Another set of issues may have to do with the effect that spatial proximity has to our rights and responsibilities. 305 00:40:40,140 --> 00:40:45,959 And again, there is some intuitive force to the idea that spatial proximity can indeed have 306 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:49,860 an effect on the rights and responsibilities that we bear towards other agencies. 307 00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:50,639 This, of course, 308 00:40:50,640 --> 00:41:00,180 was famously denied by Peter Singer and his and his paper on famine and affluence with the example of the child and the and the fountain. 309 00:41:00,690 --> 00:41:08,160 And so the debate about pre-emption can be seen in the context of this as it as a debate, as also debate about the effects of proximity. 310 00:41:08,340 --> 00:41:12,090 But here, what we're worried about is not social relational, relational proximity. 311 00:41:12,330 --> 00:41:19,080 So spatial proximity, it's temporal proximity. But what's different about this context compared with the other two are a couple of different things. 312 00:41:19,590 --> 00:41:29,450 The first one is that. It seems to relate to negative duties, duties not to harm in the way that relational proximity and spatial proximity, 313 00:41:29,630 --> 00:41:35,250 to the extent that they are persuasive, seem to only relate to duties to assist. 314 00:41:35,270 --> 00:41:44,540 Right. So we don't believe that we have any less of an obligation not to actively harm somebody a very, very long way away from us in another country, 315 00:41:44,750 --> 00:41:51,260 someone who is not socially related to us, but arguably we do in terms of duties to assist the temporal. 316 00:41:51,260 --> 00:41:57,110 The temporal proximity questions are interesting because they precisely relate to questions of duties not to harm. 317 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:03,170 They're also different in the sense that there are two dimensions to the temporal proximity question. 318 00:42:03,620 --> 00:42:14,210 So we ask the question both about the temporal distance after a wrongful attack, and we ask questions about which is the. 319 00:42:14,690 --> 00:42:20,070 And we ask questions, which is the pre-emptive question about the proximity prior to the attack. 320 00:42:20,110 --> 00:42:29,150 Right. So so pre-emption, we ask, are we permitted to use defensive force a considerable period of time before the attack actually occurs? 321 00:42:29,420 --> 00:42:35,629 But is a symmetrical set of questions, which is what are our permissions to use, as it were, 322 00:42:35,630 --> 00:42:40,910 a defensive force against a person who is responsible for a past wrongful attack. 323 00:42:41,450 --> 00:42:46,370 So you might think, for example, about the case of a person who

wrongfully attacks me. 324 00:42:46,430 --> 00:42:51,620 He tries to kill me, but he fails to kill me. That leaves me with a dangerous weather, with a wound. 325 00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:58,400 And a year later, that wound becomes infected, flares up, and it threatens to kill me. 326 00:42:58,610 --> 00:43:05,060 And the only way that I could save myself would be by killing the original aggressor, taking out his organ, and transplanting it into me. 327 00:43:05,450 --> 00:43:13,549 So the question is, does the fact that this the temporal proximity is now a year later, does that make a difference to the defence of rights? 328 00:43:13,550 --> 00:43:19,690 And intuitively, I think a lot of people think, yeah, it does make a difference if you if you can use force in that context. 329 00:43:19,730 --> 00:43:24,170 At the very least, perhaps the force is less that you can use and maybe it's for different reasons as well. 330 00:43:25,730 --> 00:43:34,430 So that's proximity after the effect. Pre-emption is different again, because we're asking about the the temporal proximity prior to the attack. 331 00:43:35,690 --> 00:43:42,920 And one of the things that a number of people have said is that the proximity itself isn't doing any of the work. 332 00:43:44,060 --> 00:43:50,040 What's really doing the work is conceptions of necessity or, as Dean put it, conceptions of certainty. 333 00:43:50,060 --> 00:43:54,020 So it's something that Jeff McMahon has argued in a number of places. It's like that. 334 00:43:54,190 --> 00:44:04,339 The length of time itself is irrelevant. The temporal proximity is just a proxy for whether it's necessary to engage in the defence of 335 00:44:04,340 --> 00:44:09,980 force against the person who at some later point in time will in fact harm you ingesting. 336 00:44:10,610 --> 00:44:14,780 No, I think that can't be right. And one way to see that is to think about examples like this one. 337 00:44:14,930 --> 00:44:23,959 All right. So imagine that I'm looking at my nemesis through a high powered telescope, 338 00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:28,310 and I can see that he's in my study and he's reading through a series of my papers. 339 00:44:28,550 --> 00:44:36,500 And one of those papers is a letter written by May to his wife, proving that I've been unfaithful with his wife. 340 00:44:36,620 --> 00:44:42,529 And I know based on his character, that as soon as he sees that letter, he is almost 100% certain, 341 00:44:42,530 --> 00:44:47,180 as soon as we can be to fly into a homicidal rage, in effect, to act upon that. 342 00:44:47,210 --> 00:44:53,030 So I know that in a very short period of time, he will, in fact, form and act upon a murderous intention. 343 00:44:53,300 --> 00:44:56,810 And I'm sitting there with my high powered rifle and I can shoot that person. 344 00:44:57,260 --> 00:45:00,290 So the question is, is necessity in that case sufficient? 345 00:45:00,470 --> 00:45:04,820 And most people would say, no, it's not necessity itself. 346 00:45:04,820 --> 00:45:10,370 It's not all that's doing the work. There's something deeper there, which is about agency and responsibility. 347 00:45:11,030 --> 00:45:25,280 So one of the thoughts that you might have is, well, the temporal condition is in part a requirement that there is a genuine act which is sufficient 348 00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:32,360 to ground responsibility for the unjust harm in the agent against whom one uses defensive force. 349 00:45:33,650 --> 00:45:39,860 Now, that's, again, in a way, a form of scepticism against the idea that it's proximity itself alone that's doing the work. 350 00:45:39,860 --> 00:45:44,870 But I think it still gives a closer reading to that than the one that ties it, particularly to necessity. 351 00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:51,230 And one of the worries that you might have, particularly about notions of pre-emptive preventive war in this case, 352 00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:58,129 is that the agency and responsibility requirements, if that's what we think they are, seem very, 353 00:45:58,130 --> 00:46:04,850 very marginally and problematically to be met in cases of pre-emptive, certainly preventive, 354 00:46:04,860 --> 00:46:12,380 and I think even in many cases a pre-emptive war, because one might worry here about whether what you have is pre-emption against. 355 00:46:12,890 --> 00:46:20,660 To put it crudely, the wrong moral agents. Right. So you have a state that is engaged in some forms of. 356 00:46:21,820 --> 00:46:27,340 Active preparation for a wrongful aggression, let's say, against another body. 357 00:46:28,630 --> 00:46:35,800 Now we ask the question, then, Will who amongst the agents within that state have taken the steps sufficient to assume 358 00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:41,890 responsibility for a wrongful attack such that they might be appropriate objects of defensive force? 359 00:46:42,460 --> 00:46:46,330 Well, it seems pretty clear that the agents that we're going to identify by asking that question 360 00:46:46,330 --> 00:46:51,190 will be at the very most members of the government and members of the senior leadership. 361 00:46:51,750 --> 00:46:54,969 The ordinary members of the the armed forces are doing what they always do. 362 00:46:54,970 --> 00:46:57,880 They are training, preparing in a state of readiness. 363 00:46:58,300 --> 00:47:06,670 But those if we think about it in the model of a criminal conspiracy, they don't seem to have taken that active step where they look like, in a sense, 364 00:47:07,150 --> 00:47:08,890 the person reading through the letter, 365 00:47:09,610 --> 00:47:17,439 we may have reasonable certainty that they will at some point in the future be actively involved in a wrongful attack. 366 00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:21,759 But until they themselves have taken that step of agency, it seems very, 367 00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:27,040 very hard to understand how they themselves could have that liability to

defensive force. 368 00:47:28,270 --> 00:47:32,680 Let me leave it there and maybe pick up on some of those things. 369 00:47:32,950 --> 00:47:37,990 Well, we want to invite comments. 370 00:47:38,380 --> 00:47:46,660 I'll begin with one or two of my own. I think that they're very interesting philosophical issues about pre-emption and prevention. 371 00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:59,110 You run into almost all of them in domestic law in the United States, in the law of self-defence involving what's called the battered spouse issue. 372 00:48:00,010 --> 00:48:05,890 And these are cases where women have good reason to believe that their life is in danger. 373 00:48:06,430 --> 00:48:07,870 And how much can they act? 374 00:48:07,870 --> 00:48:16,270 In particular, can they use lethal force against someone without an imminent threat, etcetera, etcetera, as preventive pre-emption? 375 00:48:16,330 --> 00:48:25,510 So I think the issues that David is raising and those raised in the literature about the rights and liability to attack are fascinating issues. 376 00:48:26,410 --> 00:48:32,170 I have to say, quite frankly, they have nothing to do with international affairs as far as I can see. 377 00:48:34,330 --> 00:48:43,410 The problem that people who believe in preventive war or pre-emptive war is giving us many examples of where we can, 378 00:48:43,660 --> 00:48:49,780 but in the most minimal sense agree that it was justified. Interestingly, when you study the battered spouse problem, 379 00:48:49,780 --> 00:48:57,400 almost every case you read about that there's one where you're sympathetic to the spouse on some level that she had good reason after she did. 380 00:48:58,150 --> 00:49:05,590 The problem is, is that the discussion of pre-emptive war and preventive war is now under the shadow of the invasion of Iraq. 381 00:49:07,570 --> 00:49:16,900 And someone, it seems to me, to make a case for is going to have to show why this is not just something that we can imagine justified, 382 00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:25,600 but can be justified in the real world, because the way the discussion often goes, as well as so that the President is not George W Bush, 383 00:49:26,110 --> 00:49:28,990 but an enlightened, nice guy with only good intentions. 384 00:49:29,410 --> 00:49:36,730 Assume that the U.S. military is not the institution that it is, but something that has only justice on its side. 385 00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:43,160 Assume that we have perfect knowledge of the threat and assume that the sea has turned to lemonade, gas and Somalia stuck. 386 00:49:43,250 --> 00:49:48,790 Okay, we have rules like this, like no prevention because we live in the real world. 387 00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:53,560 We have rules about police not doing things because we live in the real world. 388 00:49:53,860 --> 00:50:02,950 And I think that that's part of the debate here, is how much some of these domestic arguments map onto the international case. 389 00:50:03,910 --> 00:50:07,800 I think Dean's suggestion is is just peace is great. 390 00:50:07,810 --> 00:50:14,140 It seems to me that what he's basically suggesting is disconnecting sovereignty from armed violence. 391 00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:21,920 The modern state system arose with the notion of what it meant to be a sovereign state, just was to be able to employ armed violence. 392 00:50:22,270 --> 00:50:25,510 And it seems to me that we're moving actually not towards a world. 393 00:50:25,810 --> 00:50:33,219 I think we still need sovereignty, along with moving towards as a world in which sovereignty is disconnected from our own violence. 394 00:50:33,220 --> 00:50:39,070 And that's part of what I hear in the kind of federalist model that they suggest, and that seems to be very attractive. 395 00:50:40,090 --> 00:50:43,630 So with that, I'll invite comments.