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The Perspective of the Rebel: A Gap in the Global Normative Architecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2017

Christopher J. Finlay
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Abstract

If people have a right to rebel against domestic tyranny, wrongful foreign occupation, or colonial rule, then the normative principles commonly invoked to deal with civil conflicts present a problem. While rebels in some cases might justifiably try to secure human rights by resort to violence, the three normative pillars dealing with armed force provide at best only a partial reflection of the ethics of armed revolt. This article argues that (first) the concept of “terrorism” and the ongoing attempt to define it in international law, (second) the laws of war and their application to armed conflict, and (third) the Responsibility to Protect all obscure as much as clarify the problem. Given the prevalence of political oppression and the occurrence of civil conflicts originating in attempts to confront it, there is therefore a pressing need to establish a place for the rights of rebellion in the international normative architecture.

Keywords

right to rebelrevolutionarmed resistanceterrorismlaw of warInternational Humanitarian LawResponsibility to ProtectMichael IgnatieffJohn Stuart MillSyrian civil war
Type
Special Section: Legitimate Authority, War, and the Ethics of Rebellion
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Summer 2017 , pp. 213 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2017 

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References

NOTES

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7 A recent leader in The Economist argues that while it may be right to think “that ill-considered intervention can make [the world's problems] worse, as when America invaded Iraq,” nevertheless “Syria's agony shows that the absence of America can be just as damaging.” Obama's belief “that resolutely keeping out of the Syrian quagmire is cold, rational statesmanship” is therefore doubtful (“The War in Syria: Grozny Rules in Aleppo,” Economist, October 1, 2016, pp. 14–16).

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14 Coady, C. A. J., for instance, in “Terrorism and Innocence,” Journal of Ethics 8, no. 1 (2004), pp. 37–58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is, however, some variation between regions. In Latin America, for instance, “terrorism” has wide currency as a term used to denounce the violence of some governments. Thanks to Alejandro Chehtman for pointing this out.

15 See, for instance, Coady, “Terrorism and Innocence.”

16 Yasser Arafat, “Address to the UN General Assembly (November 13, 1974),” reprinted in Laqueur, Walter and Rubin, Barry, eds., The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, 6th ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), pp. 177–80Google Scholar. Cf. Finlay, Christopher J, “How to Do Things with the Word ‘Terrorist,’” Review of International Studies 35, no. 4 (2009), pp. 751–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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18 Ibid., pp. 4–9.

19 Gillett, Matthew and Schuster, Matthias, “Fast-Track Justice: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon Defines Terrorism,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 9, no. 5 (2011), pp. 989–1020 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 990.

20 Interlocutory Decision on the Applicable Law: Terrorism, Conspiracy, Homicide, Perpetration, Cumulative Charging (STL-11-01/I), Appeals Chamber, February 16, 2011, para. 83.

21 Ibid., para. 85.

22 Ibid., para. 89.

23 Ibid., para. 105.

24 On dangers of overinclusion arising from the “bifurcated intent standards,” including repression against domestic dissent, see Gillett and Schuster, “Fast-Track Justice,” pp. 1010–11.

25 Interlocutory Decision, para. 88, quoting from UN Security Council Resolution 1566 (2004) at para. 3 (emphasis added).

26 Interlocutory Decision, para. 102.

27 As Coates, A. J. argues in The Ethics of War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 123–24Google Scholar. Cf. Steinhoff, Uwe, On the Ethics of War and Terrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), ch. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Finlay, Christopher J, “Legitimacy and Non-State Political Violence,” Journal of Political Philosophy 18, no. 3 (2010), pp. 287–312 Google Scholar; and Jonathan Parry's contribution to this Special Section.

28 For instance, McMahan, Jeff, Killing in War (New York: Clarendon Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lazar, Seth, “The Responsibility Dilemma for Killing in War: A Review Essay,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 38, no. 2 (2010), pp. 180–213 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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30 On the evil of causing fear as such, see Waldron, Jeremy, “Terrorism and the Uses of Terror,” Journal of Ethics 8, no. 1 (2004), pp. 5–35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scheffler, Samuel, “Is Terrorism Morally Distinctive?” Journal of Political Philosophy 14, no. 1 (2006), pp. 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Goodin, What's Wrong with Terrorism? For recent criticism of this approach, see C. A. J. Coady, “Does Terrorism Have ‘A Distinctive Moral Significance’?” Critique (November/December 2016).

31 Ignatieff, “Human Rights, the Laws of War, and Terrorism,” pp. 1152–153.

32 As Article 43.2 of Additional Protocol 1 states, “Members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict … are combatants, that is to say, they have the right to participate directly in hostilities.”

33 Ohlin, Jens David, “The Combatant's Privilege in Asymmetric and Covert Conflicts,” Yale Journal of International Law 40 (2015), pp. 337–93Google Scholar, 338, 343.

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37 As Pål Wrange emphasizes in his contribution, Additional Protocol II [Article 6(5)] encourages post-bellum amnesties by states toward domestic rebels. This would treat rebels after defeat as if they had enjoyed belligerent privileges during the conflict.

38 See Finlay, Christopher J, “Fairness and Liability in the Just War: Combatants, Non-Combatants, and Lawful Irregulars,” Political Studies 61, no. 1 (2013), pp. 142–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Fabre, Cécile, Cosmopolitan War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gross, Michael, Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

39 Finlay, Terrorism and the Right to Resist, chs. 4 and 8.

40 Mill, John Stuart, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” in Robson, John M., ed., The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXI (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Doyle, The Question of Intervention.

41 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001)Google ScholarPubMed. On the “Threshold Criteria: Just Cause,” see 4.19, and for clarification of what that article includes and excludes, see articles 4.20 to 4.27. On “Proportional Means,” see 4.39 and 4.40.

42 On the assumption about armed rebellion and repressive violence, see Finlay, Terrorism and the Right to Resist, ch. 3.

43 Doyle, The Question of Intervention, pp. 123–24; and the United Nations 2005 World Summit Outcome document, October 24, 2005, A/RES/60/1, para. 139.

44 Doyle, The Question of Intervention.

45 Mill's remarks about “a people in arms” quoted at the head of this essay occur in “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” p. 121. For a contrasting view that nevertheless anticipates the terms in which Mill argues, see Godwin, William, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, ed. Philp, Mark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 276–77Google Scholar.

46 Godwin makes the same claim in his Enquiry.

47 Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” pp. 122–23.

48 Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 89–108 Google Scholar; also “The Moral Standing of States: A Reply to Four Critics,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 9, no. 3 (1980), pp. 209–29, at 216–18.

49 Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” pp. 123–24.

50 See Wasserstrom, Richard, “Review of Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars ,” Harvard Law Review 92, no. 2 (1978), pp. 536–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 542; Doppelt, Gerald, “Walzer's Theory of Morality in International Relations,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 8, no. 1 (1978), pp. 3–26 Google Scholar, p. 12; Beitz, Charles, “Bounded Morality: Justice and the State in World Politics,” International Organization 33, no. 3 (1979), pp. 405–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 415; and Luban, David, “Just War and Human Rights,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 9, no. 2 (1980), pp. 160–81Google Scholar, at 169–71.

51 Thanks to Jonathan Parry for pointing out the importance of mercenaries in many cases.

52 In “The Ethics of Revolution,” at pp. 318–22 Allen Buchanan argues that a proper understanding of the dynamics of coercion in legitimate revolution points toward intervening early to halt escalation and reduce casualties.

53 Nigel Biggar thinks a justifiable armed rebellion to arise once a regime uses armed force against peaceful protests; see his “Christian Just War Reasoning,” pp. 397–98. For an argument along similar lines, see Finlay, Terrorism and the Right to Resist, chs. 3 and 4.

54 As I argue in Terrorism and the Right to Resist, ch. 5. See also McMahan, Jeff and McKim, Robert, “The Just War and the Gulf War,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 4 (1993), pp. 501–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 On the latter, see Finlay, Terrorism and the Right to Resist, ch. 8.

56 Clark, Ian, The Vulnerable in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Finlay, Terrorism and the Right to Resist, ch. 8.

58 On the ethical problems arising from arming rebels specifically, see Pattison, James, “The Ethics of Arming Rebels,” Ethics & International Affairs 29, no. 4 (2015), pp. 455–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Kuperman, Alan, “The Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the Balkans,” International Studies Quarterly 52, no. 1 (2008), pp. 49–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 On the problems of establishing a unified leadership in revolution, see Buchanan, “The Ethics of Revolution.”

61 Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” p. 121.

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